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The Other
“R” or “Rs…”
What Happens in the Classroom Is More
Than Readin’, Writin’, and ‘Rithmetic
by Katy Allen
copyright © 2005 Impact Training, Inc.
Most teachers have become educators because they love a certain
subject area and wish to share that knowledge and enthusiasm with children. That
was certainly the primary motivation for me when I chose English Education as my undergraduate
major. Aside from studying literature and grammar, I also studied adolescent
psychology and educational philosophy. But what I had very little exposure to was
how to manage a classroom and intervene when students behaved in less than model
ways. And I found that my difficulties as a teacher came, not in dealing with student
to student conflict, but in situations where the conflict was between the student and me.
Looking back, I can see that I would occasionally end up in power
struggles with students whom I could not “control.” I was also deficient
in knowing what to do with students who displayed anger and frustration with me or fellow classmates.
In hindsight, I probably contributed to an increase in hostile behavior because
it’s likely that my responses to students increased their agitation and frustration.
As I have worked in the field of bullying and violence prevention, I have come to ask myself
a number of questions that relate to discipline, classroom management and general
student behavior in the school environment (bus, cafeteria, etc.): What do some school
staff do that allows them to successfully deal with challenging students, while others
seem only to inflame difficult situations which causes them to have to rely heavily on
an administrator(s) to manage struggling students? How can we reduce student and school
violence by addressing the ways that adults interact with students?
One of the things that I noticed about my own teaching style and
student interaction patterns, is that I modeled what I had experienced.
I behaved much like my favorite teachers which worked fine when things were going well,
but when situations involving student behavior deteriorated, and I continued to behave
as my teachers had, it no longer worked. My “mental” mentors had ways to get
students to behave and comply that I lacked. It was confusing and frustrating.
Years later, I have found answers. Interestingly, the light started
to dawn when I studied the information about parenting styles and children who
are bullies.
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Are bullies born or made?
This question has been around for a long time and numerous researchers
and clinicians have dealt with it. The answer seems to be both.
Certain innate personality traits combined with certain environmental conditions contribute
to the development of a child who behaves aggressively. Children who are hot-tempered and
impatient may lean towards using aggression to get their needs met. That alone, however,
does not doom a person to “bully-hood.”
What researchers have found is that bullies can be bred in homes
that are either too lenient or too authoritarian. Lenient homes are ones where there
is little adult influence. This could be because the parents don’t think that
they should guide children in their choices, or it could be because they are disinterested
in their children. It’s a case of either benign neglect or indifference. Either way, children are
pretty much on their own, and without rules, they make their own.
Authoritarian homes are the ones that subscribe to the philosophy
that children should be “seen and not heard.” These families often display
little warmth towards children. There are rigid rules and harsh punishments. Children
have little say and decisions are made for them. The general value that operates is
“do it because I said so.”
Probably the worst situation for any child is when parental authority
vacillates between leniency and authoritarianism. One day there are no rules
and no responsibilities, and the next day there are rigid rules with harsh
penalties. Family environments that are this unstable can be terribly damaging to
a child because of unpredictability and abusive punishments.
Child development experts advocate an “authoritative”
approach to parenting. In these types of families children are shown love, and are treated
with warmth and affection. There are rules and boundaries, along with high, but
reasonable expectations for good behavior and school performance. There is communication
between parents and children that is characterized by sharing, listening and collective
decision making. Consequences for unacceptable behavior are seen as opportunities
for learning to be remorseful, making restitution and acquiring better behaviors.
Bullying experts, Keith Sullivan, Mark Cleary and Ginny Sullivan,
extend this framework to schools and classrooms. They have observed that educational
environments that produce bullies tend to be either permissive or
authoritarian:
“Unsafe schools tend not to deal well with problems, diversity,
or nonconformist behavior. They are likely to be permissive and out of control, or
hierarchical and authoritarian. In the first, bullying is not seen for what it is
and is ignored or dealt with haphazardly or not at all. In the second, a lot of time is spent
running around “putting out fires,” and bullying is not dealt with well. In authoritarian
schools, there is a hierarchy with the principal at the top and the teachers with all their various
seniorities vying for position below in a top-down structure that ultimately rests on
the “Do as I say” approach to discipline and rule enforcement. Teachers generally wield unreasonable
power, and rule by fear and intimidation. Students in such settings are not
encouraged to challenge ideas or to think for themselves. Their passivity is institutional
and behavioral, and affects all aspects of how they act, in the classroom and outside
it.”1
It makes a lot of sense to conclude that if permissive or authoritarian
families are likely to produce bullies, then permissive or authoritarian classrooms
and schools are also likely to produce bullies, and by extension create a culture that
is unsafe, hostile and aggressive. Just as in families, these schools create discipline
structures that are either excessively lax, or excessively rigid and punitive. In neither case,
do children feel safe, cared for, or positively engaged in learning. More than likely,
many of the adults in these types of schools feel the same way as the children.
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Hindsight is 20-20
Returning to the problems I experienced as a young teacher, I can
now look back with new insights. Not only did I grow up in a family where one
parent was authoritarian, but I also went to schools that were authoritarian.
For the most part, the authoritarian school environment worked well for me because I was
a smart student who liked learning. I also was well behaved and motivated to please
adults.
I do have several memories, however, which reflect the rigid and
punitive nature of my school experiences. These memories are painful and embarrassing.
They are also startling clear even though they happened over forty years ago.
In each scenario, I believed that the adults were very unfair, unyielding, and abusive
to children. To this day, I still believe that their actions were damaging to the children
involved because they were so disrespectful. In an authoritarian environment, adults can
get away with being mean to children because the ethos supports a set of beliefs that
gives adults the right to misuse the power that they have over children. In essence, adults
can get away with bullying children.
As a young teacher, when I tried the “do it or else” method
of coercion, I had nothing to fall back on but bullying behaviors to try to get kids
to comply. As I became more disrespectful of a student, and hence pushed more of his/her
buttons, the child had no option but to save face by attacking me. That always led to a
rule violation that was egregious enough for me to have to throw the student out of class.
I always felt embarrassed, humiliated and defeated when this occurred and I’m
sure the student felt even worse. I was using a loose-loose pattern of interactions in
these cases.
It’s different today
A great deal has changed in thirty years. Most parents do not hand
educators the kind of authority that my parents gave to my teachers. Parents expect
their children to be treated in a respectful way, even when they are misbehaving. They
want schools where teachers are in control of the situation, but not by having unquestioned
and omnipotent powers over children. For administrators and teachers who still
rely on the authoritarian and hierarchical model for governing the school and the classroom,
there can be some very trying moments and difficult days.
Just as the “authoritative” family produces children who
are generally responsible and caring, so too, the authoritative school and classroom has a
greater chance of being safe, caring and intellectually stimulating to all students. For
educators, it means sharing the decision-making process with constituents. It means being a
good listener. It means really caring about not just academic scores, but about children,
their lives, and their social development. It means being flexible if enforcing the letter
of the law (instead of the spirit of the law) will damage a child. It means being a good
communicator. It means having courage, and for some of us who know nothing but the old
hierarchical model, it means change.
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So what’s the other R?
For me, there has to be more than just the academic content (readin’,
‘riting, ‘rithmetic). Here’s how I see it:
Relationships
Without a relationship with the child, and hopefully a parent, teachers
are swimming upstream with lead boots on, when it comes to engaging
children, especially the difficult ones. Building a relationship with challenging kids
needs to begin before school starts and before they do anything “challenging.”
Parents and children respond to people who are genuinely caring and supportive. They are more apt
to work hard for someone they like. They are more likely to listen and try to improve
when things are going badly, if we have genuinely listened to them.
Respect
This is one of the most overused and limp words floating around
schools at the moment, so it’s difficult to have a meaningful discourse on
the topic. I’m loathe to fall back on the Golden Rule when discussing respect, because “doing
unto others as you would have them do unto you” can be terribly disrespectful,
when we come from different kinds of families, backgrounds, and cultures. I might
find your “respectful” action towards me highly insulting. Also, because of its lack of
specificity, the word “respect” does not communicate anything of clarity to
students. One thing that experts know is that good rules are clear. A rule that says, “treat
everyone with respect” is highly inadequate, all by itself, because it can mean lots of different
things.
Respect, for me, means treating people with care and concern. It
means saying “hello” in the morning. It means looking at a person when
talking to him or her. It means waiting your turn. It means giving everyone a chance to speak.
It means listening thoughtfully. It means not bothering someone when they are working
hard on a task. It means sharing resources. It means giving kids consequences that
are dignified. It means that no one can shout at a person, unless it is to stop immediate
danger from occurring. It means giving children and their parents a voice. It means treating
children with dignity. It means giving second chances.
We, as educators, are no longer entitled to respect on demand. We
have to earn it, and sometimes that means treating someone respectfully when he or
she is being disrespectful to us. When we can model respectful behavior to someone
who is disrespectful we are at our most professional and at our very best.
And the chances of us earning respect grow significantly when we are observed behaving
respectfully in the face of disrespect.
The real objective here is mutual respect… caring behaviors
that go both ways between teacher and child, and teacher and parent. When there is
mutual respect, there is usually a highly effective relationship in place, and there is usually
trust and openness, as well.
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Responsibility
One of the most damaging traits of the permissive or authoritarian
home or classroom is the lack of personal responsibility. In permissive
environments, parents and educators don’t model responsible behavior and children are
not expected to act responsibly. In authoritarian environments, adults use external
rewards and punishments to get children to behave responsibly. Experts believe that when
the rewards or punishments are removed, children are likely to fall back to less
responsible ways of behaving. Without an internal motivation, some children really can’t
be counted on to be responsible.
People who are not responsible struggle throughout their lives.
I remember saying repeatedly to my daughters as they were growing up, “If
I fall off the face of the earth and you are on your own, I want you to be able to make good
decisions.” I wanted them to have a voice of responsibility inside of them and I wanted
them to be listening to that voice, not the voice that could reward them with a sticker
or make them sit in a corner. Excessively permissive or authoritarian environments are
not conducive to learning how to make good decisions that are responsible. In one
case, no one cares what choices are made and in the other, no one lets the child make a
choice. Both are disrespectful of children.
Our interactions with children
How we treat children says a lot about what we value, especially
when the child is behaving badly. If we can learn ways to interact with children that
always respects their dignity, as well as ours, we are likely to be very successful educators.
If we can help children learn to make responsible choices and decisions even when
we, they, or all of us are upset, then we are likely to be very successful educators. If
we are willing to build connections with children that genuinely say we care about them,
we are likely to be very successful educators.
None of this means being a doormat. It means caring equally about
the success of all children and helping each one achieve that success. It means
being part of a team, one made up of the teacher, the child and the parent. Stools with fewer
than three legs don’t stand up.
I wish I knew as a young teacher, what I know now. I would have
done a lot of things differently. I would have been more respectful of struggling
students, I would have reached out and created relationships with parents early on,
and I would have helped children learn to be responsible without routinely relying on authoritarian
threats and punishments.
Being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs in the world. Many of
us didn’t get much training in teaching the non-academic Rs, and if our “default”
setting is one that excludes these Rs, we have probably had our share of struggles.
But the best news is that it is never too late to learn, and every teacher I have ever met
subscribes to that belief.
See footnote at
bottom.
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