First published in Teach Primary Magazine in June 2011.
Some behaviours appear to be utterly irrational, some just bloody-minded. Can the search for a cause lead us into amateur social work and faux psychology or to a better understanding of the child?
Behaviour comes from a desire, a need, an urge. You may not like the symptoms but it helps to understand the cause. The most frequent causes of the worst behaviour lie in broken trust and underachievement.
The need to hide drives the behaviour of some children. To hide underachievement and the shame of it. Once the child realises the colours of the table groups are linked to their corresponding ability levels the game is up. The realisation of being left behind leaves the child gasping to catch up. Without intensive early intervention the gap becomes larger with age. It is disguised by behaviour that diverts, disrupts and disguises. If you can't read and everyone else can it is in your interests to pretend to work/throw chairs/refuse to participate. Behaviours that appear extreme to others are utterly rational to children who are trying to hide their embarrassment. Some behaviours are obvious and troubling: the child cries for help (in the wrong way) and it is misdiagnosed as a ‘behaviour problem'. Others lie undiscovered, undiagnosed until secondary transfer. Cruising under the radar, failing without protest. The system punishes the chair-throwing children most severely yet we should act with equal urgency for the children who withdraw, who silently destroy their education.
Mistrust of the adult world is accelerated by parents who split. As the foundations of family life crumble, the child knows that adults lie, often badly. The emotional trauma that warring parents can inflict on children unravels in classrooms. Anger replaces pain in short bursts of satisfaction followed by long hours of regret. The echoes of divorce ripple through lives for years and every adult who approaches you is now treated with suspicion. Some Parents damage their children and then send them in for the school to heal them. I have worked in schools where children were regularly told that they were not to come home and that the parent wanted to place them in care. Some parents would come at the end of the day and have this discussion with their child in front of me. You can see the damage etching itself on the child's face. If your mother was trying to dispose of you, in public, with venom, just how important would achievement really be? You don't need to be a psychologist to work that one out! Unfortunately in schools, as in Gangsta land, GABOS (game ‘aint based on sympathy). When children need love the system gives them a label. When they are hurting and struggle to express it calmly the system cannot bend. The cliff edge for exclusion and rigidity of sanctions apply for all children regardless of individual need. We see emotional trauma playing out in schools where control, authority and sameness are central to policy and process. In curriculum we scream ‘personalise', in behaviour we yell ‘conform!'
For many teachers the line between teaching and social work is at the school gates. Home visits are discouraged for the many and remain the preserve of the few. I am not sure I understand why. I don't recall a spate of teacher kidnapping, doorstep dust ups or carrot cake poisoning. Waiting for the community to come to the school doesn't always work. You have to make the first move. I can learn so much from a cup of tea and a chat. It may not provide the solutions or satisfy urgent demands for cessation of classroom hostilities but I can begin to understand. I can differentiate my behaviour strategies and attitude accordingly. I have visited homes where everything has been sold to feed an addiction and others where the highest standards of home care are discovered behind unassuming grey doors. Every time you cross the threshold, mutual understanding and trust are increased. ‘Engaging parents' is a strange euphemism for talking to people. So many schools sit and plan ‘engagement strategies' that rely on the parent coming to the school. Perhaps arming the willing with a packet of biscuits is the simplest and most human, most effective way to make lasting bridges. Are we limited by traditional boundaries or do we see ourselves as mentors and role models without limits forever acting in the best interests of the child.
The frustration that often exists for teachers is that they are not fully briefed when there are serious issues at home that impact on the child. They are given thin slices of information, rarely the full story. Often the people who are working with the child most intensively have limited access to critical information. With the best safeguarding intentions teachers are often starved of critical information. So it is with limited knowledge and improvised expertise we try to manage emotional damage and trauma, depression, anger, grief, mental health issues, abuse etc. The sword is double edged, trust teachers with all of the information and a few will misuse it, provide less detail and risk unsympathetic interventions.
The shortening of teacher training and focus on teaching as a ‘craft' will give teachers less time to really understand the psychology of behaviour. Their skills in managing behaviour may improve but at what cost? Just as we are recognising the true number of children who have pre-existing conditions that will affect their behaviour You can't patch emotional trauma with great lessons and quick fix behaviour techniques. Just as you can't learn to manage extreme behaviour simply by observing others. It is not easy to dissect, reinterpret and replicate the skills/attitude/delivery of another teacher by watching them. What results from copycat teaching is practice that is diluted, moving further away from evidence/research and into ‘craft'. The toolbox may be full if nobody understands how to use them properly it is a useless.
We are not social workers but we have heart. We are not trained psychologists but we can understand. With a better understanding of the causes of poor behaviour we can deal with the symptoms with empathy, care and with the individual in mind.