learning element of systems thinking, highlighting the need for a collective approach to behavior management initiatives. Chapters 2–5 guide you through the process of building a positive learning environment as the best approach to managing learning and responding to negative behaviors. Chapter 2 focuses on building teacher-student relationships. Chapter 3 then examines ways to productively support group and peer interactions. Chapter 4 focuses on building positivity and offers suggestions for behavior management tools and strategies that will help teachers create a positive learning environment. Chapter 5 centers on how to specifically assess and address problem behaviors in the classroom, in the event that the concepts offered in the preceding chapters have not eliminated undesirable behaviors. Each chapter ends with a list of takeaways that summarize key points and prompts that ask you to reflect on your next steps as you plan the days and weeks ahead.
The appendix offers a unique glimpse into a school implementing a pilot program to address behavioral gaps. This case study provides an example of what is possible for all schools to achieve when they have a collective commitment to create a positive culture for addressing student behavior. I intend for the sample model to support school teams in their understanding, developing, and implementing the notion of managing learning.
The following chapters may produce a variety of personal reflections and reactions. You will no doubt find some affirmations of current practices you and your team have in place. Readers may also occasionally identify connections in the text to their personal experiences, resulting in the need to tweak a practice to further enhance what they do for students. Engaging with the text may also raise additional questions for teams to discuss. My hope is that this book will feed your desire to take the next step in improving student outcomes through classroom management practices.
In chapter 6, “Managing Learning,” of Unstoppable Learning: Seven Essential Elements to Unleash Student Potential, Fisher and Frey (2015) offer three questions that speak to how the structure of a system generates the behavior for that system. Before moving on to chapter 1, consider these questions:
• What is the relationship between the structures of my classroom and the learning and social behaviors I see?
• What are the short- and long-term consequences of the actions I take or do not take in regard to student behavior and the learning environment?
• Are there unintended consequences to the actions I take or do not take? (p. 150)
Have these three questions on a note card or in another readily handy place as you dive deeper into the content throughout this book, and think about how you will create the necessary elements that will minimize the impact of negative behaviors on your engaging instruction.
CHAPTER 1
IMPROVING BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT THROUGH CULTURAL CHANGE
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
—Simon Sinek
Many of this book’s readers will have had a similar experience to mine—you’ve been in school for the bulk of your life! If I count my years at university as time being in school, I have more than five decades of familiarity with a place called school. This means that many aspects of school feel comfortable, even those that are not effective. Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey (2015) explain how this familiarity affects our classroom management decisions:
While our collective hearts as educators are in the right place, we tend to make decisions based on past experience. After all, we began our on-the-job training as teachers when we were five years old. Our beliefs about school, classroom management, and discipline have been shaped by decades of experience, starting in kindergarten. (p. 2)
If you were to list ineffective practices that you have seen during your time connected to schools, what would you put on that list? Would your list include management strategies that involve overt disciplinary routines, humiliation, or sarcasm; structural components such as a specific number or length of courses, start and stop times, or the structure of the school calendar; or grading practices that include zeros, consequential grading, or penalty points? Here is what I am certain about—anything you could identify as ineffective practice in our profession could be filed under a one-word heading: Easy. Educators don’t keep doing these things because they are effective; they do these things because they are easy, and oftentimes despite research that indicates otherwise and may even reveal the ineffectiveness of the practice. Consider education researcher and professor John Hattie’s (2009) research on effect sizes, and in particular those practices that have a low, or negative, effect size, for example.
Among many ineffective practices identified, Hattie’s (2009) research indicates that the practice of having students repeat a grade is one of a few common practices in education that has a negative impact, a loss of learning, on student outcomes. We don’t use this practice because it works; we use it because it’s an easier accounting practice. We really don’t know what to do with a student who was not successful in all the components of grade 4. It’s not wise to send him or her to grade 5, and we don’t have a grade 4½ program (but we could if we wanted to and were prepared to move beyond what is easy). As another example, consider the school calendar that is still in vogue in most jurisdictions, which was designed for the agrarian cycle. We still subject students to an extended break despite the decreasing percentage of students involved in the agriculture industry (“Shortage of Farmers,” 2014).
We have 21st century students being taught by 20th century adults using 19th century content on an 18th century calendar. This disconnect needs to be addressed well before we hit the midpoint of the 21st century. We need to push through the easy and get to the hard work in front of us. That’s where our collective success truly lies. We can start by examining how we approach managing learning in our organization.
Contrary to what some may think of when they hear the phrase managing learning, the idea of managing learning does not imply imposing a restrictive environment, nor does it mean focusing on a power imbalance. Rather, it suggests creating the optimal learning environment that allows every student to experience success regardless of his or her current status, approach, baggage, or disposition. It implies that educators are responsible for organizing a physical space that helps cultivate a supportive and positive emotional space. However, because the traditional model of classroom management is predicated on control, we should not blame teachers when an environment is not conducive to all students’ learning. Most veteran educators can recall a time when many believed that the most learning occurred in the quietest classrooms. Fisher and Frey (2015) recall this, suggesting, “Well-meaning teachers have been told to get their classrooms ‘under control’ by equally well-meaning principals” (p. 13) who believe that controlled classrooms where the adult is “in charge” will result in little misbehavior or disruptions due to students’ fear of consequences or punishment. In reality, if a student wants to be a distruptor or class clown, he or she may challenge this control. This often leads to escalations educators have come to know as power struggles. Let’s be clear; the educator holds the power in all these classroom situations. The only
