Challenging Behaviour: The question should always be... Why?
I challenge you: Ask around your department, staff room or school about challenging behaviour and I bet you'll hear the following responses in various forms (some with more choice words) - "he/she's a nightmare, just will not behaviour" or "that group are a headache waiting to happen, how did they manage to put all the worst behaved young people in one class??".
But ask that same colleague 'why?' and they clam up, afraid to continue the conversation or commit to any meaningful analysis... essentially, they don't know.
But that's the key... that's the crux of the behaviour. What you're seeing when a young person 'kicks off', flips a table, calls you a '#@?*ing so and so' or points out your bald patch over and over again is NOT the problem... it is only the presenting behaviour.
I completely get that it is problematic, but that's very different to identifying their presenting behaviour as 'the problem'. That doesn't mean we ignore these behaviours, quite the opposite - recognising and acknowledging problematic behaviour is a key skill of the confident teacher.
But understanding behaviour goes a lot deeper than playing spot the angry kid. It's where that key question comes in - Why? Why is that child angry, why are they misbehaving or why are they disengaged? Address this need and the problematic behaviours start to seep away... trust me.
Now I know that the vast majority of you reading this will be shouting at your computers "We know this Ben!" but for those of you that don't, for those of you who haven't linked this all together yet, here is a quick run down:
Education is all about the student reaching self-actualisation -
self-actualisation
noun
1.
(psychol) the process of establishing oneself as a whole person, able to develop one's abilities and to understand oneself
Collins English Dictionary
But achieving this is impossible without having some fundamental building blocks already solidly in place (Some may see where I am going with this already).
Below is a diagram of 'Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs'. This model forms the very foundation of working with young people - especially those that have a lot going on for them outside of our educational establishment.
When we teach our young people we are aiming straight for the top of the pyramid... asking them to be creative, solve problems, work with others with equality and accept and explore facts. But Abraham Maslow argued that reaching this peak is not possible when certain needs were not met first such as feeling safe and secure or having friendships and feeling respected let alone eating a decent meal or sleeping well enough.
Looking at that list and imagining your class of young people how many of them - honestly - do you think have all of those needs met routinely; allowing them to enter your classroom and do nothing but learn. Indeed if we analyse ourselves are we really ready to thrive?
So it brings us back to that question: Why?
Let's look at three simple scenarios
James has just screwed up and thrown the learning pack you've given him saying its a load of s*#t before singing "Why are we waiting" whilst others try to learn.
You have asked Shannon to leave the classroom three times already but she is refusing. Shannon is now crying at her desk saying it wasn't her fault and asking not to be sent out.
Callum arrived 15 minutes late to class and didn't appear particularly apologetic. Callum is slouched looking at his phone at the back of the classroom and it takes numerous requests for him to respond to you asking him to put it away.
All these problematic behaviours are found in every classroom across the country. I have no doubt you will be able to empathise with them too. But let's look at some possible reasons for the presenting behaviour by applying the rule of 'Why?'
What is the likelihood that James actually thinks your beautifully formatted and stapled learning pack is rubbish... how could he - you used Helvetica. What is far more likely is that James is missing some of the 'Esteem' elements such as self-belief and confidence that he has the ability to do the task you've given him, perhaps even respect for himself. If a young person thinks they're rubbish they may present as telling you the task is rubbish. This is a coping strategy to avoid confirming their own internal belief that they can't do it. The singing and distracting others may simply be a ploy to get thrown out of the classroom - thus allowing him to avoid the work he thinks is beyond him completely.
Try negotiating with James on how he should start the piece of work, think about differentiation in learning ability when compiling your resource and consider supporting James with a Learning Support Assistant at the start of tasks to help him get to grips with new challenges. Slowly James will learn he is able to do the task and this will, in turn, build his self-esteem and confidence allowing him to tackle new challenges with a greater degree of autonomy.
As for Shannon, refusing to leave the classroom is certainly a challenging behaviour but again is not the route cause of her behaviour. Shannon may be missing some of the 'Safety' elements such as safety of property, person or family. Potentially, whenever Shannon is naughty at home, she is kicked out of the house or told to go to her room before being smacked. Being asked to leave the classroom may also make her feel vulnerable and neglected in the same way.
Avoid kicking young people out of class unless it's an absolute last resort. If it is still necessary ensure that Shannon knows where she is going, for how long, what the next steps will be and, critically, why she is being asked to leave.
Finally, Callum typifies a lot of young people we know and teach. Slightly innocuous behaviours that cause us a headache in the long run. But, on a basic needs level, whats to say that Callum or his parents have enough money to get the bus to college to arrive on time. Callum's lethargy may be because he is sofa-surfing on a friends couch and he barely got a few hours sleep and didn't eat a proper meal. Callum constantly checking his phone may be because he's expecting a call from his Social Worker about temporary housing. In light of these needs it's a miracle Callum is at College today at all!
Callum needs someone to talk to, he doesn't need another detention to add to his problems. In this case, Pastoral Support and Student Services may be able to resolve a lot of the issues he's facing allowing him to refocus on learning when he is ready.
James, Shannon and Callum may just be having a bad day but without acknowledging the problem - rather than the problematic behaviours - our young people will never reach the peak of what they could be. If we don't dig deeper and look at the 'whys' we will never know.
