Teachers need to be equipped not only to teach, but also to help build mental security and wellbeing into the lives of young people and children. Supporting Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties in School provides practical, relevant and proven strategies and constructive advice in order to guide teachers in this endeavour, helping them to both understand and overcome the difficulties and generational changes faced by young people and children.
Containing information on topics such as classroom strategies for common issues; first impressions; and how to deal with adults, leadership and tasks such as school trips, this volume presents tried and tested strategies and shares the author's knowledge when it comes to working in all types of schools, including primary, secondary, and pupil referral units. Not only exploring the strategies, this book also examines the reasons why a situation has arisen, and, for each piece of advice, offers an explanation for why it will work and how it affects our sense of coherence. The book also includes a short introduction to brain development at various ages, exploring the implications for children as they grow and mature, as well as examining how teachers can work with and help children through these developmental stages, assisting teachers in understanding the factors to be aware of when helping students and children develop mental security.
Consolidating an understanding of mental and emotional health issues within children and young people, knowledge about cognitive brain development, and advice on what teachers can do in their classroom to make a difference, this book is essential reading for all teachers.
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Yes, you can access Supporting Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties in School by Victor Allen in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Éducation & Gestion du comportement. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Why are some teachers able to cope with all the stress and pressure of their job, while others fold under the same pressure and stress? What are the triggers for the stress? What might be the solution to coping effectively? In addressing these questions, throughout this book you will read about my views on the sense of coherence to help maintain a calm approach to life (the 3Ms) and also the BASE, creating the right environment to flourish. Here is a brief outline as to what I mean by those terms.
The 3Ms, also known as sense of coherence
The sense of coherence (SOC) concept was originated by Aaron Antonovsky in 1979 to explain why some people become ill under stress and others stay healthy. I was first introduced to this by my good friend Dietmar Seehuber, a psychiatrist and therapist working in Germany. When he explained Antonovsky’s salutogenic approach to me, i.e. the search for the origins of health rather than the cause of disease, it made perfect sense to what I see and experience on a daily basis with adults and young people.
SOC is defined as ‘The extent to which one has a pervasive, enduring though dynamic, feeling of confidence that one’s environment is predictable and that things will work out as well as can reasonably be expected’ in other words, it’s a mixture of optimism and control – a great combination for any workplace and classroom (Collingwood, 2018).
Antonovsky named the three components of the SOC as comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness.
To make it easier to remember I changed comprehensibility into Model, so you now have 3Ms.
Comprehensibility (Model) is the extent to which events are perceived as making logical sense, that they are ordered, consistent and structured. So, in fact our mind has an order or Model into which everything fits and makes sense.
You can now understand why it is that children and students ask ‘What are we going to do today?’, and also why it is that when you are new to a school and you meet them for the first time you may be faced with some silly behaviour as they have become unsettled within their expected model. This sense of unsettlement can be caused by changes in the order of the day, holidays, weekends, sometimes when having to go to different parents or carers, the arrival of new students within the class, changes to the classroom, or anything that brings changes and with them uncertainty. The changes don’t need to be negative to cause this uncertainty; they just need to be changes. Be aware of this and be prepared, as your emotional stability and calmness will help bring calmness back to them. The more you can prepare for any changes that you know are coming, the better for their immature brains to prepare.
Manageability is the extent to which a person feels they can cope or has the resources to enable them to cope.
Therefore, the very nature of your role as a teacher will impact on the manageability part of the 3Ms as you seek to challenge the students to try and learn new things which will bring with it the uncertainty of their ability to cope. If this feels debilitating for them, then they will find it hard to even try to attempt it. The answer is in how the brain tries to manage by looking for past skills or available resources for them to manage, and you will become the valuable resource within their lives as you extend their learning. Remember it is you as a resource which will make the task manageable, so when the person says ‘I can’t do this’ instead of saying, ‘Well, give it a go’, or encouraging them just to have a try, you could say, ‘That’s fine – at the moment you on your own may not be able to do it, but I am here to help. Remember what my title is: Teacher! And I happen to be able not only to do it but I can help you to do it as well. Together we will learn.’ You don’t need to say the whole speech, but you get my drift. Let them know you are here to help and make it manageable for them.
Meaningfulness is how much a person feels that life makes sense and challenges are worthy of commitment; that is, that their life, their work, is meaningful for them. This is the most important of the three as it has to be meaningful for them to even bother to attempt to learn to do something or try something. The meaningfulness has to be for the here and now, as well as also having to have some purpose in the future. For most children and young people the here and now are crucial for them to do something. Ask yourself, how you are you making the lessons meaningful? You can only truly know how to do that by knowing the children and students you wish to teach. If they ask the question, ‘Why are we doing this?’, your answer must meet their meaningfulness test as your idea of what is meaningful may not be the same as theirs. When children and students struggle in lessons, or socially or emotionally, we often find ways to make the issue more manageable and miss the most important part. Is it in fact meaningful to them to try or change their behaviour in the first place? No matter how much help you give someone, if it’s not meaningful for them to try or conform to your expectations then they won’t.
The question I believe our minds continually and constantly asks us is: are all of the 3Ms in line at this moment in time? For example:
Model I understand what is happening now. I know what is happening next.
Manageable I can manage, or I have the help necessary to manage the situation I am facing at this moment.
Meaningful The time I am spending doing the thing I am engaged in is meaningful and I see the purpose for it.
(You can see how this fits neatly into the requirements of every child and student within your classroom as well as into everyday life as a whole.)
If the answer is yes, then you will be mentally OK and be able to relax and do your best. But if the answer to one or a combination of them is no then you will be starting the process of becoming stressed. Your emotional brain, along with other areas of the brain, will become triggered as it seeks to recall similar past experiences to find a suitable course of action to take, so you regain control or at least obtain some measure of understanding. During this process you will lose the ability to be working at your optimum.
If you start to feel anxiety within yourself, it will be because one or a combination of the three are not in line. The more you recognise this pattern within yourself and help to establish the pattern as best you can in others, then the less the stress will occur.
BASE: creating the right environment
The BASE describes the foundational aspects that every human needs to grow and develop emotionally and socially. It’s an acronym, which stands for: Belonging, Autonomy, Social and Emotional competence. (See Deci and Ryan, 2000.)
Teachers should be able to meet their students’ core psychological needs of belonging, autonomy, and social/emotional competence (also known as relatedness) and create interesting and challenging lessons that are relevant to their lives. Students should be given appropriate levels of challenges and they should be able to make decisions about their own learning. When they are faced with difficulties, the support system should be in place to help them. Through this process, students become more interested in learning. When teachers see motivated students, they too become more interested to teach (Wang, 2017).
I have been in thousands of classes across the country and every time I have seen disruptive students, I can guarantee that they don’t feel a sense of belonging within the class they are being disruptive in. I have encouraged every teacher to first and foremost provide an environment where every student has a sense of belonging. Once that has been created then you encourage autonomy within that class, for both the learning as well as the behaviour. Both of those aspects require training, coaching and mentoring from a teacher or support worker. The end result is if a person feels they have autonomy then they will develop competent skills to manage themselves appropriately. The competence that they develop will be in their interaction with others socially and emotionally – thereby becoming more emotionally intelligent as well as more competent at managing tasks assigned to them by the teacher.
This BASE is the foundation that should weave itself throughout the school, department, classroom and environment. It should be the model for all work for both staff and students so that all can develop and grow.
In order for you to ascertain as quickly as possible which of the 3Ms is out of kilter, there are some very basic questions you can ask when having to talk with a child or students about their behaviour, or if you think something else is going on affecting their attention and you want to check how they are.
It also helps you keep a good relationship with them as you work on building and maintaining a good BASE for them. I encourage teachers to use the crib sheets on the following pages in every classroom with their students so, if extra support is needed, they are able to pass on some accurate information that can help with their work with the child or student.
References
Collingwood, J. (2018) ‘Your Sense of Coherence’, available at: https://psychcentral.com/lib/your-sense-of-coherence/ (accessed 18 December 2019).
Deci, E. L. and Ryan, R. M. (2000) ‘The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-determination of Behaviour’, Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.
Wang, C. K. J. (2017) The Joy of Learning: What It is and How to Achieve It. Available at: http://merl.nie.edu.sg/documents/JoyofLearning.pdf (accessed 18 December 2019).
Talking with others
THE 3 MS
Model – Believing that things happen in an orderly and predictable fashion
FIRST – Check that everything in school is happening in the way the person expects.
Once you have clarified this – ask how things are outside of school and their life in general.
Is something happening to cause this person anxiety, which affects them managing their emotions within school?
This provides you with an opportunity to get to know the person and their situation.
REMEMBER – you might need to pass on some information they say, especially if it seems to be a child protection issue.
Manageable – A belief in one’s own ability to do what is being asked of them and that they have the support to accomplish it
Is what they are being asked to do within school/lesson, too hard or easy for them?
Do they understand what they are being asked to do? Get them to explain to you.
Do they have enough knowledge to help them complete the work which has been set for them?
Is there anything else they would like to help them? REMEMBER you want them to build up their own ways to cope, so encourage them to find answers or understanding themselves.
Find out if there is a situation they are facing outside of school with friends or family they are struggling with?
Meaningful – Is it relevant, interesting and a source of satisfaction? Do they understand that there is a good reaso...
Table of contents
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Dedication and acknowledgements
Introduction
PART 1: The brain
PART 2: General strategies for working in primary and secondary schools
