7.1 Setting the stage for positive behaviour

I spend so much classroom time getting angry and telling students off. There must be a better way.

Aim

To create the conditions in which good behaviour is likely to be encouraged.

Introduction

This chapter mainly addresses problems faced by teachers who work with school children at secondary and upper primary ages. However, there are also techniques and ideas that could be used for similar problems with young adults and older learners.

A common traditional approach to getting good behaviour in class was to instil fear in pupils, using threats of punishments that were tedious (write 100 ‘lines’), humiliating (stand in the corner) or possibly involving violence (corporal punishment). This resulted in a specific kind of motivation: motivation to avoid punishment, rather than motivation to learn for its own sake. The focus was on discouraging and stopping bad behaviour.

Nowadays, most teachers would turn that approach on its head and mainly seek ways of encouraging and maintaining the desired good behaviour. Looking for the positive, rather than policing and punishing the negative, is also a more enjoyable approach for a teacher.

Children (and adults) do play around; it's absolutely normal and is part of a human's natural energy and creativity. While there is behaviour that is rude, unhelpful, unacceptable or dangerous, some of what teachers interpret as ill discipline may not even seem like that from the student's perspective, but as high spirits or a search for the humorous or the interesting. Sometimes, the fault may lie with the teacher more than with the student; bad behaviour can be a kind of feedback, the students defending themselves against boredom or perceived attack.