Week 7 - Behaviour Hurdles and Being Human

(As a quick preamble, it seems as though previous posts have been a bit too lengthy, so I'll do my best to keep this one short(er)!)

This weeks' topic of study and placement fell hand-in-hand this week; not entirely sure if that was planned or if I was just lucky! Either way, we were looking further at behaviour as a concept and how to manage it.

Without a doubt, behaviour - specifically bad behaviour portrayed by pupils - was one of my biggest fears before going into teaching. I'm not a confrontational person by nature, and before I came to University I was an introvert of epic proportions. For most, including my parents, they thought that I wouldn't consider becoming a teacher because of this fact. I mean, how would 5'7", not-particularly-big-neither-particularly-svelte me be able to manage a class of 30+ pupils who just don't want to learn about passive phrase structures in French?!

This week helped me enormously, and built upon some pre-reading that I have done and some conversations that I've already had. The focus in education has shifted from traditional, punitive measures to a more positive ethos; one in which, ideally, behaviour issues don't even have a chance to start.

While there are countless theories, ideas and scholars observing behaviour management with a fine-toothed comb (our cohort group even started trying to make a "behavioural issues triangle" based upon the traditional fire triangle... you can never have to many schemas!), it was extremely refreshing to see these theories being put into practice. Nowhere is this more true than in the classes I observed on Thursday at "The Studio," an off-site unit where students with the biggest behavioural issues come to study and then eventually reintegrate back into mainstream teaching.

I won't lie; the aspect of going there for a day scared me. I know that kids can be brutal, and my head was filled with images of chairs being thrown and violence kicking off*... but I had forgotten one vital component - the teachers. In the case of 'The Studio,' the teachers are remarkable. To say that they have the patience of saints is a gross understatement, and their determination, level-headedness and, overall, calm human approach diffused some really difficult situations but they ever had a chance to start. You could really tell that they had the pupils' interests at the heart of all that they did, and their explanations of why - why the teachers were there, why the pupils were there, why new targets were set every morning, etc. - created an ethos of trust, inquisition and stability in a situation that, historically, could have turned out just as I had envisaged.**

I can't wait to try out some of the things I've learned this week and so far over the course, and the time to do so is coming up very, very rapidly! To quote a lecturer from earlier in the week, I intend on acting like "the swan." That's to say, above water (what the students can see) I'll be gliding along confidently, but underwater (what I'm feeling) my feet will be going like crazy.

Hopefully it will get me somewhere, and get this 5'7" MFL teacher on the road to being an outstanding teacher!

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My targets last week were:

• Get stuck into first assignment - in progress (and enjoying it, oddly!)
• Improving punctuality in the morning - still need to work at this...
• Survive 'The Studio' - done, and thankful for the experience!

My three big achievements this week were:

• Planning my time effectively to do all of the required reading, get my assignment started and still have time for a social life
• Feeling more able in my interactions in Spanish
• Making it to the end of the week and not feeling shattered!

Next week I hope to:

• Continue improving on being a "morning person"
• Get all of my questions answered before immersion week starts
• Consolidate as much information/"little tips" from the past month into a guide for when I start teaching

* On the subject of negativity surrounding pupils' behaviour, isn't it funny how the public, and the media, seem obsessed with the 'bad school?' Take a look at a TV guide for a week and count up programmes that fall into this category, or news mentioning things such as "the most likely names for badly behaved students" (then again, it is the Daily Mail, so take it with an ENORMOUS pinch of salt...)

** The students were no-where near as bad as I envisaged, by the way. They were tough, and there was definitely some work to be done in order to get them back on the right track again, but they were in very good hands!