If they DID work:
· Teachers wouldn’t be striking
· Teachers wouldn’t be leaving the profession in droves
· Teachers wouldn’t be complaining about student behaviours
· Teachers wouldn't be complaining about parents
· Teachers wouldn’t need to use restraint techniques that kill students
· Teachers would be happy
· Teachers would be able to teach
· Teachers would have more time in the day
· Teachers wouldn’t constantly be calling parents
· Students would be happy
· Students wouldn’t be leaving to homeschool in droves
· Students wouldn’t have intense and severe anxiety and mental health issues
· Students wouldn’t have suicide ideation
· Students wouldn’t be dying
· Students wouldn’t grow up to be manipulated abused or taken advantage of
· Students wouldn’t end up unemployed
· Parents wouldn’t be giving up paid work to look after their children
· Parents wouldn’t be homeschooling
· Parents wouldn’t have mental health issues
· Parents wouldn’t be fighting with schools
NOTE: these are all an exaggeration to prove a point. There are always other things at play that cause the above things – but you get my point (I hope).
Behaviour plans don’t work because they don’t address the route cause of the behaviour.
Behaviour systems only look at what to do to punish or reward the child after the behaviour has occurred – they don’t fix the problem, in fact – they perpetuate and inflame the problem.
Behaviour systems use behaviourism, which even the profession that invented it (psychiatry) has abandoned it because it doesn’t work… but schools are sticking with something that has been disproven. It’s been proven to not work, and in fact – proven to cause harm.
Behaviour systems never include the bully and what to actually DO about them.
Behaviour plans put the onus on the child, never on the system or the adult. Children are children – they are not cognitively advanced to take that on- that’s one of the reasons they don’t work. The other being that they don’t work on adults either – when has a partner given you the silent treatment or shut you out, and you’ve thought – ooh that worked perfectly, I’ve learnt my lesson (sarcasm inferred). Of course, they bloody don’t work.
Behaviour systems don’t teach teachers empathy or understanding – which is what truly changes behaviour. Punishments only ever incite retaliation from the punishee to the punisher.
The current system is broken, and one of the main reasons is because schools are desperately hanging onto broken tools that other industries have abandoned decades ago.
Schools have behaviour systems that they expect teachers to follow – but that doesn’t mean that you (as the teacher) need to be as dense / outdated and clueless as the system…. Try thinking about, try listening to others who have realised the BS for what it is.
Yes, to save your job – do what your employer says you have to do, follow the plan… but at least use some common sense and humanity (some empathy and a little curiosity).
After all, if you were raging around the school -would a colleague ask what’s wrong and how they could help? Or would they send you to the principal so your boss could call your parent or partner to pick you up? Only for you to return tomorrow or next week to the same shit where you are triggered yet again by the same shit – to have the same behaviour over and over.
Really? Is this real life? Or the ridiculousness of a school ‘behaviour system’ that doesn’t work. Of course, it doesn’t bloody work – no one does that in the real world, you aren’t preparing them for the real world – you are preparing them for some sadistic fiction novel that never existed and never will, because that’s not how humans treat each other – but they do in schools for some ungodly reason.
You’re setting these children up to NOT understand empathy or how to listen to others, or about how to ask others if they are ok…. You are setting them up to be abusive adults who don’t care about others and actively turn people away if they are struggling. That’s sick and demented!
Do you see the ridiculousness in that, or are you going to argue that being sent home or punished actually works? How many of those students that are sent to the office, or sent home actually stop repeating that behaviour? How many of them are you still struggling with – or did they leave school to homeschool? That’s your indication of something working – if it worked you wouldn’t still be seeing that behaviour, and children would be staying in schools without displaying those behaviours.
What to do instead: Ask why? Ask the student why they are behaving a certain way? Why they are triggered by the class, or their peers, or by you, or by the environment, or by the lesson or curriculum – ask WHY?????? Show basic kindness and sense - and try to help them… it’s actually pretty simple and logical if you have any lucidity of decency and human kindness. AGAIN – I’m not attacking teachers; I’m attacking the system that literally is written into their school contracts for students and teachers alike. It’s written in there to not care – to not show anyone an ounce of human decency and respect. You’re all told – punish! – call the parent! – do not show compassion, do not interact, do not help – do not find out why, do not fix the problem – just shove it in a different direction.
Please believe me. Once you ask why – the child begins to stop and maybe listen (because you are listening to them). Once you know the ‘why’ and say you are willing to help and mean it, the child starts to hope and to calm. Once you attempt to fix the why – they actually start to trust, collaborate, respect and learn.
Without this – you are stuck in a mutual hate/distrust spiral. You must learn to trust this new method, before they will trust you to follow it, and before they'll trust you to learn from you. No one can learn effectively from someone they don't trust.