Over the last couple of Home Truths, I’ve examined the current student behaviour challenge in schools through several lenses. Firstly, we looked at the mistakes we’ve made in our efforts so far and then examined the composition of today’s students.
But now, what do we do?
Today, let’s make some progress. Let’s discuss how we can design a better, more effective, and more realistic response.
The model we’ll require to meet the challenge will need to have three different foci than the traditional and programmatic responses we’ve tried before. That model will need to:
- Attend to culture as the primary driver of conduct. We all behave according to the environment and people we find ourselves in.
- Attend to the primary drivers of culture. The literature on culture points to language (what we say and how we say it), conduct (how we resolve conflict/wrongdoing and also how we operate/teach) and mindset (the collective beliefs that the cultural chiefs – that’s us – hold to be true).
- Reflect the brain science about how we learn to socialise and develop emotional intelligence so that the potential for student self-regulation is optimised.
Summarised, the key to better student behaviour is a cultural one. Your school needs a plan for its culture.
Do you have one? You do if you’ve agreed on an explicit practice framework that speaks to the language, conduct and mindset pieces and actively supports each other to master that framework.
If you don’t, just know that it’s never too late.
Keep fighting that good fight,
PS. Are you seeking effective strategies to tackle school culture challenges in your school? I’m hosting two workshops, “Restorative Classrooms, Strong Classrooms” and “The Art of School Culture Leadership”, across Australia. With limited places available, click here to register. I’m in Brisbane next week and hope to see some of you there!
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