Students need to be taught how to behave
Blog post by an educator
Last week, I wrote about how behaviour is being tackled in our state colleges. Here, I would like to share some thoughts after having read the newly published book, ‘The Behaviour Manual: An Educator’s Guidebook’. This book is written by Sam Strickland, himself a head of school and thus, a practitioner. This book is relevant to all those who work in a school setting. Strickland gives more than 100 strategies and these are found over a one or two-page spread. Each strategy is written to assist and support practitioners who work in schools and who come in daily contact with pupils.
Strickland in this book is focusing on one value: behaviour systems have to be taught to students. This is not about exercising power and coercion on students. In a society where now everything and anything is accepted, students have to be taught self-discipline, and what the school expects of them. This is the way forward to ensure having more valid, empathic citizens of the future. In a school setting, having order equates to students being safe and happy. This leads to excellent environment for both teaching and learning.
While the head of school is expected to keep order, he or she cannot be left alone to achieve it. This must be a school collective effort, embedded into the school culture. Thus it is important that each school goes back to the drawing board and drafts a behaviour policy which is shared by all and which is unique to each school. One size fits all does not work in this case. Behaviour expectations should be consistent and rigorously maintained by all staff.
I have had the opportunity to listen to Sam Strickland in various webinars. One thing which struck me is his phrase ‘you preach what you promote, and you promote what you preach’. In Malta, this can only happen when first and foremost teachers are respected both by the authorities and by the parents of the children. Children cannot be expected to look up to teachers or their elders when neither at home nor on social media, is there any respect towards teachers. Respect can be gained if the teachers are allowed to have a say about the aches and pains of their school. When respect starts to be shown, then teachers will cease to be demoralised. Having ownership of the school and its policies and having full backing from SMT in dealing with student behaviour issues is indispensable to teachers and LSEs. This means that for once, politics must be kept out altogether from school policies. On their part, all teachers and SMTs need to show respect to all concerned.
So how about it, if next year schools’ development plans are geared towards having an updated school behaviour policy after proper consultation with all the educators involved?
