Teaching with Heart Part II
This post is Part II of the Teaching With Heart series which examines good old fashioned pedagogy and classroom mamangent, view Part I here.
Summary
Increase patience and reduce frustration by taking a Functional Behavior Approach
Reflect upon your practices to see if you are reinforcing the behavior you’re trying to change
Adopt the mindset of unconditional positive regard
the goal is to always be working towards helping students, even if they don’t appreciate it
Don’t view your relationship with students as transactional, them as opportunities for mutual growth and connection
Relationships are Relational, not Transactional
While the heading for this section might seem obvious, in my experience viewing our relationships with students as transactional is a common point of friction in the classroom. Take a minute to think about a student for whom you went above and beyond in order to help. You probably gave this student more than their fair share of second and third chances, maybe you let a missing assignment slide, or you called home to say something nice about their progress. Things are great for a while, but eventually, that student slid back into their old habits and you’re left thinking “Well, why did I try so hard to help them if this is the thanks I get?”
It might not have played out exactly as I described, but most teachers can relate to the situation to some degree. The return to bad habits is an understandably frustrating outcome, especially if you thought you were finally making process. But students aren’t going to student. At the end of the day, we can’t control their behavior and we really shouldn’t seek to do so either. You should only go the extra mile for students if you are willing to do so independently of the outcome. Treat them kindly because you want to, not because you expect something in exchange.
This shift in mindset lowers your frustration at students but it also has the potential to change how they see you. Kids are smart, and they understand the concept of being nice to someone to try and get on their good side. Imagine if a formerly difficult student complimented you every day, they talked you up to their classmates, and they even told their parents what an awesome teacher you are. Until one day, they score poorly on an assignment at which point they go back to being disruptive and disrespectful. They weren’t treating you nicely because they wanted to, they were doing it to get something for themselves.
Unconditional Positive Regard
"Unconditional positive regard, in essence, means consistently maintaining a positive view of our students as individuals, regardless of their actions or words. This doesn't imply that we ignore or overlook negative behaviors. Rather, it means that when addressing such behaviors, we separate the action from the person. We deal with the behavior itself without letting it alter our fundamentally positive perception of the student as a human being. It would be reductive to say that every student who acts out in class has self-esteem issues but for those that do, separating behavior from the individual can be a transformative approach. Cheesy as it is, when I deal with difficult students I will preface any critique of behavior with something along the lines of “Bad choices don’t mean you’re a bad person,” or “If I didn’t care about you as a person, I wouldn’t be trying to help you do better in class.” A simple affirmation that you truly view the student as valuable regardless of their choices can help prevent the student from feeling attacked and going on the defensive. I’ll end this section with a quote from the character Waymond in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
“You think because I’m kind that it means I’m naive, and maybe I am. It’s strategic and necessary. This is how I fight... Be kind especially when we don’t know what’s going on. ”
Why take a Functional Behavior Approach and what does it mean?
One of the best ways to implement the above ideas into your classroom is to think functionally. Funtional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) seek to identify the specific purpose or function that a behavior serves for a student - essentially, what the student gets or avoids through their behavior. FBAs are fairly time-consuming so I’m not suggesting the average teacher actually conduct an FBA, but rather we should adopt the mindset of trying to determine function. It’s easier to be kind if you can figure out why a student is doing what they’re doing. Most of the time it’s not because they simply want to make our lives harder.
One of the schools I taught had some fairly… questionable interventions in place. One of the first steps to address disruptive students was to send them out of the room to “refocus”. Refocusing meant students took a piece of paper to fill out in another teacher’s classroom. Take a minute to think about why that’s a stupid idea.
Sending kids out of the room is ineffective because it reinforces escape-maintained students. Whether or not you’ve heard the term, you’ve come across students who want to be anywhere other than the classroom. Maybe you send them from the room and they feel some remorse, or they get detention or something. But if you keep sending them out, then soon enough the students will learn that they can get out of class whenever they like. And the craftier students learn than they can misbehave just enough that they’re sent out of the room, but not so much that there’s any real consequence. Getting sent out is what a lot of kids want. So what’s the solution? As simple as it sounds, be likable. Be the kind of teacher that your students want to be around. Create the kind of classroom environment that makes kids regret being sent out. Be the adult that your kids don’t want to disappoint.
Conclusion
Relationships with students should not be transactional. A teacher's efforts should stem from a genuine desire to support and nurture students independent of outcome.
Unconditional Positive Regard encourages viewing students positively as individuals, regardless of their actions. This involves addressing the behavior separately from the student.
Reaffirming that you care for students as human beings helps frame conversations about behavior in a positive way
Try to understand the function behind a student’s behavior to see if it can be met positively
What approaches have you found success (or failure) with?