Disruptive student behaviour is a major source of stress for Australian teachers and one of the most common reasons teachers cite for leaving the profession. Less discussed, however, is the role that schools play in driving misbehaviour. Whilst there are undoubtedly differences between children in terms of their temperament, ability and willingness to learn, the ways in which teachers choose to respond to those differences has a big impact. That impact can be positive or negative, affecting the child, their teacher and their future teachers.
Negative relationships and the ‘snowball effect’
Research has shown severely disruptive behaviour is affected by a process of “cumulative continuity”, where children’s early characteristics (self-regulation, temperament, academic and verbal ability) interact with their school/classroom environment, resulting in a “snowball effect”. Difficulties adjusting to the demands of school can result in poorer quality teacher-child interactions and mutually reinforcing negative relationships, which in turn compound learning and behavioural difficulties.
Over time, these interactions frame children’s perceptions, expectations and behaviours. Their subsequent teachers however often don’t know what that child’s school experience has been and/or what might be driving their classroom behaviour.
In the pressure cooker that is modern education, that teacher’s guide to action is often the behaviour that has drawn their attention in the first place. With large classes, heavy workloads and diverse classrooms, there is often little time to identify and reflect on deeper causes (called antecedents) in a more holistic way. In many cases, lack of time forces teachers to rely on their perceptions, which may or may not be accurate.
Perceptions about behaviour may be misleading
A common perception is that children’s behaviour affects their learning. This may well be true for some children, but it is equally possible that underlying learning difficulties are manifesting behaviourally. A belief that a child’s behaviour is affecting their learning will lead to an increased focus on behaviour management or perhaps a referral for behaviour support. But if the antecedent is the other way around, or if it is bidirectional (that is, going both ways), then behaviour management won’t address the underlying problem.
Common perceptions about misbehaviour affect how it is addressed in schools. Poor parenting is often blamed for a student’s disruption and non-compliance, a view which obscures factors that are outside parent control. These include (but are not limited to) the appropriateness of curriculum, the pace and level of instruction, peer relationships, teacher-student interactions, classroom climates, learning environments, school culture, and the provision of appropriate and timely supports.
A common consequence of these beliefs is an attempt to manage children’s behaviour by removing them from the classroom. Increasingly, this involves the child being moved into a separate support class or special “behaviour” school, rather than addressing the underlying issues within the setting.
What the kids have to say
According to students enrolled in NSW behaviour schools, their misbehaviour is a reaction to school work that they perceive as too hard, boring and/or irrelevant to their lives. These students – typically boys – are described in the media as ‘dangerous menaces ‘ who need to be locked up for the safety of themselves and others.
But, when asked what they got in trouble for most at school, the teenage boys in our research named behaviours often classified as ‘persistent disobedience’ rather than physical aggression, such as talking out of turn, backchatting, not doing their work, not raising their hands, and swearing.
These findings resonate with the Behaviour at School Study (BASS) which has found that low-level disruptive and disengaged student behaviours occur frequently, and that aggressive behaviours occur infrequently.
The problem is that teachers find these low-level behaviours extremely draining. While most school students engage in such behaviours at some point, some students – like those in our research – do so more frequently. This tends not to be deliberate, not in the early years at least.
But, if these children are left unsupported and then punished when they fail, these behaviours can become very deliberate indeed. The trick is to correctly identify the source of the behaviour and to respond in a way that neutralises the antecedent, rather than seeking only to neutralise the behaviour. So, what is one of the most common causes of disruptive behaviour?
Misbehaviour as compensation for academic success
The boys in our research reported much greater academic difficulties than their age peers and would resort to misbehaviour to compensate or conceal these difficulties. For example, many said they would “walk out of class” or not turn up in the first place because they found the work too boring or too hard. In some cases, frustration with schoolwork would precipitate swearing, followed by an altercation with the teacher and the student leaving the room or refusing to do their work. Twelve-year-old Owen, for example, explained that he mainly got in trouble for swearing but then went on to explain when and why he swore:
I just didn’t want to do my work, so I swore: “F–K this! I’m leaving the classroom.”
Stories such as these seldom receive an empathetic response in the public comments that are made about school behaviour. This is because the challenges facing these students are typically oversimplified and often misunderstood.
It is important to note here that the students in this study had a history of severe language and learning difficulties that had remained unaddressed for much of their school lives. For example, there were three brothers in our study; one 14 year old and 11 year old twins. Their receptive vocabulary was equivalent to that of children aged 10, 8 and 7 years respectively. They scored even lower in expressive vocabulary with age equivalent scores of 8, 7 and 7 years. Imagine trying to engage with the Year 9 or Year 6 academic school curriculum under those circumstances?
The boys’ mother – who was actively engaged in trying to help her sons and who had a good relationship with their school – reported that they had not received any speech/language therapy or other targeted academic support since Reading Recovery in Grade 1. The resourcing simply isn’t available.
Many of the boys in our study faced similar challenges and reported feeling immense frustration because they felt they were being forced to do work that they couldn’t do. One boy reported that he was sent to the behaviour school in Year 6 when his primary school finally figured out that he couldn’t read and that he wasn’t just going to “get used to it”. Another stated that he was hoping that he could be a truck driver when he left the behaviour school because he could now read street signs. He was 15.
Many of these boys felt misunderstood by their teachers. Rightly or wrongly, these students felt that their teachers just didn’t like them. Most could recall at least one teacher who was kind, who they felt understood them and who could help them learn, but for these boys those teachers were an exception.
The good news is that the cracks in the system through which these students have fallen can be addressed. But, to achieve this, teachers need time and support to trial new strategies, modify curriculum and adjust their practice. And it’s not all about behaviour management.
Relationships & quality teaching
In another study that has been designed to longitudinally observe factors contributing to “cumulative continuity” in a sample of 250 Queensland prep year children, we found that teachers are generally well organised and have strong behaviour management skills. We also found that they are generally emotionally supportive. However, not all were equipped in the area of instructional support.
This is important, because classrooms that were lower in instructional support were also associated with higher teacher-ratings of child behaviour problems and with higher child-ratings of school avoidance. Alternatively, classrooms with high emotional support were associated with closer teacher-child relationships (as rated by both teachers and children) and lower teacher-student conflict. Interestingly, behaviour management did not predict student outcomes in any of our models.
These findings suggest that the common “go-to” response of more and better behaviour management may not be what is needed: perhaps because the majority of teachers are already quite competent in this area. Rather than more professional development on proximity techniques, seating plans, or gimmicks like Class Dojo (an electronic equivalent of reward charts), we need to start looking at ways to address the emotional and learning needs of students who are acting out.
Only techniques which address the underlying issues that are causing behaviour problems will be successful.
Band-aid solutions which attempt to remove children or “fix” only the symptoms will simply create a generation of disengaged students who will leave school early with few of the skills they need in a modern economy.
These children aren’t hard to spot, even when they are very young. But, for some reason, they seem very easy to miss.
Linda Graham is Principal Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She is the Lead Chief Investigator of two longitudinal research projects focusing on disruptive behaviour. One examines the experiences of students enrolled in NSW government “behaviour” schools (Australian Research Council DP110103093), and another is tracking the language, learning, experiences, relationships, attitudes and behaviour of 250 QLD prep children through the early years of school (Financial Markets Foundation for Children FMF4C-2013). In 2014, she was elected Editor of the Australian Educational Researcher (AER) and serves as a member of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Executive Committee.
Kathy Cologon is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University. Her research focuses on the development of effective approaches to supporting inclusive education and social inclusion with a view towards greater recognition of the rights of all children. Kathy’s book “Inclusive education in the early years: Right from the start” was published by Oxford University Press in 2014.
Naomi Sweller is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Macquarie University. Her research interests focus on cognitive development, primarily with children in the prior to school and early primary school years. Her main areas of research involve the use of gesture as an instructional and communicative tool, as well as concept learning by preschool-aged children.
Penny Van Bergen is a Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology in the School of Education, Macquarie University. Her research focuses on the development of children’s autobiographical memories and on the implications of these memories for emotion and self development. Her projects include examinations of: (i) school children’s recall of salient emotional events, such as schoolyard conflicts; (ii) the ways in which children’s socio-emotional skills, such as emotion understanding and perspective-taking ability, interact with memory systems; and (iii) the ways in which parent- and teacher-talk foster specific styles of remembering the past.
Sue Walker is a Professor in the School of Early Childhood, Faculty of Education, QUT and a Researcher within the Children and Youth Research Centre at the Queensland University of Technology. Dr Walker is also a senior researcher with the Excellence in Research in Early Years Education Collaborative Research Network (EREYE CRN) with Charles Sturt University and Monash University and a key researcher in the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Living with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Her teaching and research interests include epistemic beliefs and teachers’ practice; early childhood social development; child outcomes in relation to inclusive early childhood education programs; early intervention and the transition to school.
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