Investigating Troublesome Classroom Behaviours

Practical Tools for Teachers

Dr Loraine Corrie, Loraine Corrie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134560240
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

'Get on with your work!', 'Stop talking!', 'Pay attention!'
Does it sound familiar?
Research evidence worldwide shows that managing classroom behaviour continues to cause difficulties for teachers. It is not the acts of violence or defiance that grind down teachers' energy and enthusiasm for their work, but dealing with constant repetitions of minor misbehaviours.
The prevalent explanation for disruptive behaviour is 'individual deficit' - blaming and shaming the children for their inappropriate behaviour and teachers for their lack of management skills. This book shows that this attitude ignores recent research and is prohibiting the future.
This book helps teachers investigate children's troublesome classroom behaviour through action research, providing them with strategies that will lead to lasting change. A vast range of topics are dicussed from practical examples of good teaching and the role of the classroom, to carrying out your own research and identifying and building on a teacher's strengths.

Chapter 1

What is troublesome behaviour?

This book is for teachers who want to spend more time helping children learn and less time dealing with troublesome behaviours. Most teachers want to create supportive classrooms where children achieve their potentials but this may be difficult to achieve. At times, children's behaviours disrupt teaching and learning and fill classrooms with tension.

Teachers find it hard to stay enthusiastic when they spend precious time managing children's behaviour. They feel frustrated when, despite their best efforts, nothing seems to change. This book takes the stance that teachers can achieve their goal of creating high quality learning communities but there are no easy answers.

No fairy godmother can wave a magic wand for you, and no behaviour management guru can give you a charismatic personality to make children putty in your hands forever. This book doesn't promise ‘ten top tips’ or lists of quick fixes. I hope it will help you to see some choices and some ways forward but you will have to work hard to create the classrooms of your dreams.

I aim to help you create ethical approaches that:

• are right for the sort of teacher you are;

• help the children you teach;

• fit with the school's ethos and its leadership;

• match the values of the children's families;

• suit the education system that employs you.

You will make the best sense of this book if you talk about the issues raised with a teaching colleague, or alternatively, have a conversation through note making. Many teachers find that keeping professional journals and recording their thoughts and responses helps them clarify their understandings and the issues they need to think through. Try to relate the material you are reading to your own experience, context, and what you know and value.

Teachers have made lasting change in their classrooms by thinking seriously about what they know about teaching, why they do what they do in classrooms, and by talking with teaching colleagues. I aim to help you to identify the ways that you think about children's behaviour, and the ways in which the school thinks about it. In addition, I will suggest strategies to investigate your classrooms in order to help children learn new ways of behaving.

Investigating behaviour in your classroom

Children's troublesome behaviours show no sign of decreasing. Why? Some people claim that teachers don't have the skills that they need to manage classrooms effectively. However, many educators don't agree that helping children to behave appropriately is just about using certain skills or strategies. It seems that teaching has become more complex than ever before with layers of difficulty being added to the job. Teachers bring enormous expertise to the classroom, but changes to society and education require them to add new understandings about children's troublesome behaviour.

Complex situations mean that simple solutions will not result in lasting change and will not help teachers and children to enjoy their lives at school. As you read this book I hope you will understand how you can become a researcher in your own classroom so that you can investigate the behaviours that you find troublesome. Try not to be put off by the word ‘researcher’ and the mystic that tends to surround it, as many of the skills are second nature to teachers. I think you'd agree that many teachers use research skills as they:

• gather accurate information about children's academic progress;

• use the information to plan and implement change.

Being a researcher means inquiring into a problem in a systematic way so that staff can take different perspectives of the situation. Investigating classrooms and schools helps teachers design interventions that are based on evidence rather than an individual's hunch or gut feelings.

Evidence-based practice

Investigating troublesome behaviours can help teachers to plan and implement evidence-based practice that makes a positive difference to classroom life. Schools can foster good learning relationships when they gather objective evidence upon which to plan and implement change.

The term ‘evidence-based practice’ has been used mainly in the medical field. Medical experts have assumed that procedures used in medicine, such as the lengthy ‘scrub-up’ before operations, were derived from scientific research. However, recently doctors have found that there was little research to support many procedures and they are now calling for evidence-based medicine.

Similar issues apply in education when practices may become established without good research support. At times, research findings conducted in one context are applied to a different context, but they may not be appropriate. At times, new research shows that old ways of doing things did not work but schools continue on with the familiar practice. When teachers and schools investigate troublesome behaviour they can ensure that the findings are relevant to the children, classrooms and schools where they teach, this will help them design effective change.

Evidence-based practice enables practitioners to develop greater professionalism that comes from being informed, which helps to build confidence.

Teachers who are researchers:

• identify issues;

• investigate questions;

• try out new strategies;

• monitor their effectiveness in ways that are relevant to their schools;

• change the interventions if necessary;

• monitor the changes;

• share their experiences with others.

Many teachers find it better to get together with other people to research an issue. Teachers who collaborate with their colleagues understand how much two or more people can achieve by sharing their knowledge and skills.

This book invites you to think deeply about issues that concern you, reflect on what you know, do, value and believe in, and then to construct some new ways of thinking and doing that are right for you and the classrooms where you spend your days.

Teachers’ work

Working with children brings teachers a great deal of joy. Teachers know they are important people in children's lives, and stories shared in staff rooms reveal how much teachers value the fact that their work makes a real contribution to children's learning and growth.

Yet the downside of teaching is managing the relentless grind of nitty-gritty behaviour that disrupts teaching and learning (Elton, 1989). It is the sheer number of times that teachers have to repeat themselves that wears them out: ‘Get on with your work!’ ‘Stop talking!’ and ‘Please pay attention’. The majority of troublesome classroom behaviours are the low-level kind rather than major acts of defiance, aggression or delinquency (Fields, 1986; Tulley and Chiu, 1998; Wheldall and Merrett, 1988).

Teachers say the following types of behaviours cause them concern:

• needing constant supervision;

• not listening to directions;

• often playing with pens, pencils, and other items;

• slow getting started – needing to be ‘pushed’ to begin work;

• talking out of turn, whispering, giggling, laughing;

• being unmotivated;

• getting distracted from work easily;

• often seeking attention

(Fields, 1986, p. 51)

The media would have us believe that teachers worry more about serious acts of violence than other sorts of challenging behaviour. Aggression appears to be on the rise (Malone, Bonitz and Rickett, 1998), but most teachers report that major acts of violence happen rarely in their primary school classrooms or early childhood settings.

Do you find some types of behaviour cause you concern in the classroom? If so, try and specify the behaviour.

Does this behaviour disrupt your teaching?

Does this behaviour disrupt children's learning?

Do you find this behaviour annoying? If you do, then explain how.

You may find it interesting to ask some of your teaching colleagues about the behaviours that concern them, as their answers may help you identify common causes of concern.

Teachers find that managing frequent disruptive behaviours every day erodes teaching and learning time in their classrooms, which leaves them feeling frustrated. Dealing with annoying behaviours over and over again increases teachers’ dissatisfaction with their work.

It is the nitty-gritty behaviours that are the focus of this book rather than the behaviours exhibited by children with clinical conditions or diagnosed special needs. Although Chapter 4 reports three cases of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, you will see that their behaviours tend not to be major acts of rebellion, aggression or defiance.

Some teachers worry about their capacity to deal with the range of psychological and sociological problems that children bring to school, and feel they are being pushed into the roles of counsellors or social workers without proper training. Teachers find that their additional pastoral roles erode time for teaching and many feel that this is not part of their work, but is it time to redefine teachers’ work? Many teachers are surprised when they analyse their working week to find that their traditional ideas of teaching have to be broadened to include other elements that are central to their role as teacher. The following questions ask you to think about the work that makes up your week.

Take some time to think about a typical teaching week. List all your activities and responsibilities.

Look at your list.

How many of the duties involve working directly with children, either whole class, small group or 1:1? What percentage of your teaching duties involves a wide range of organising, managing and care responsibilities that do not include direct teaching?

I am sure your list shows that your professional life is filled with many duties other than helping children learn knowledge, skills and positive attitudes. No doubt your list of duties includes a whole raft of managing and organising responsibilities such as:

• creating a practical and attractive physical environment;

• gathering and organising materials, equipment and tools for learning;

• creating a supportive and encouraging psychological environment for learning;

• assessing children's learning outcomes in order to plan appropriate curriculum;

• planning for children's personal and social development, together with academic skills;

• organising school events, such as assemblies or sports’ day;

• organising excursions and incursions;

• collecting money for special events;

• meeting with parents, other professionals, staff and the principal;

• documenting children's progress and reporting to parents, principals and other professionals.

Ideas of traditional teaching work have to be expanded to fit the diverse roles that teachers enact each week. In addition to the duties listed above, teachers have to keep up-to-date with innovations and educational change mandated by the system that employs them. Many teachers have had to grapple with changes associated with outcomes-based education that include system-level curriculum reform, assessment and evaluation of children's progress to learning outcomes and performance indicators for teachers. In addition, changes to society and family life mean that teachers may have to deal with children in crises and this means being equipped and confident to manage a range of difficult situations (Hardin and Harris, 2000).

Managing change

The broad scope of system-level innovations and the fast pace of change may leave teachers feeling stretched to their limit, and dealing with troublesome behaviours on top of everything else may be a breaking point. A wide range of duties, together with responding to children going through hard times, place a great deal of strain on teachers as they juggle tasks throughout the day. Time is a commodity that teachers value highly and knowing how to use time properly is impor...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Investigating Troublesome Classroom Behaviour
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introductions
• 1 What is troublesome behaviour?
• 2 Focus on learning relationships
• 3 Teachers and troublesome behaviour
• 4 Children and troublesome behaviour
• 5 Schools and troublesome behaviour
• 6 The teacher-researcher: investigating troublesome behaviour
• 7 Investigating talking out of turn
• 8 Conclusion: towards evidence-based practice
• References
• Index