WARNING: This episode has a lot of swearing in it!!
Dealing with the challenging behaviours are never easy, especially when they feel personal.
That's why in today's episode, I wanted to talk through one of my own experiences, how I dealt with it, and the lessons we can take away.
SOME KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Connection First: Even when behaviour feels personal or triggering, prioritise connection as it de-escalates and opens the door to change.
- Context Matters: There is no one-size-fits-all response. Tailor your approach to the student and situation.
- Do Not Make It About You: Refuse to internalize disrespect. Staying focused on the bigger picture helps you avoid power struggles.
If ever in doubt, you can ask yourself, "Will my response bring us closer together or drive us further apart?"
And my personal favourite: Connection is NEVER the wrong answer.
Please don't forget to take care of yourselves as a priority, wonderful Unteachables community!
Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!
Enrolments for The Classroom Management Lab are now OPEN... but not for long! Join the 2025 cohort before doors close on May 11th.
JOIN MY FREE LIVE TRAINING: TURN YOUR TEACHING INTO A CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT MACHINE
RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:
- Shop all resources
- Join The Behaviour Club
- My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management
- The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
- Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'
Connect with me:
- Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
- Check out my website
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Oh, hi there, teachers, welcome to the
Unteachables podcast.
I'm your host, claire English,and I am just a fellow teacher,
a toddler mama and a big oldbehavior nerd on a mission to
demystify and simplify thatlittle thing called classroom
management.
The way we've all been taughtto manage behavior and classroom
manage has left us playingcrowd control, which is not
(00:22):
something I subscribe to,because we're not bouncers,
we're teachers.
So listen in as I walk youthrough the game, changing
strategies and I mean the thingsthat we can actually do in
action in our classrooms thatwill allow you to lean into your
beautiful values as acompassionate educator and feel
empowered to run your room witha little more calm and, dare I
(00:43):
say it, a lot less chaos.
I will see you in the episode.
Hello, brilliant teachers,welcome back to my little patch
of the podcasting universe, theUnteachables podcast.
Is so nice to have you here,especially this episode, because
I feel like I speak a lot aboutstrategies and you know what to
(01:04):
do in the classroom and all therest of it, but you're not
alongside me in the classroom tosee how I deal with like the
real nitty-gritty stuff, and I'mnot there in the classroom to
see how you're responding to thereal nitty-gritty stuff and to
kind of coach you through that.
And that's what makes it alittle bit hard for me to
support you in the best way thatI can on this podcast, and I
think that this is why thisparticular topic that I'm going
(01:28):
to speak about got so muchtraction.
When I posted about it a coupleof months ago on Instagram, it
got a huge amount of feedback.
I posted about this specificstudent Of course, I didn't say
names or anything like that, butI posted about like kind of
think about it as like a casestudy really, but I posted about
this particular student andtheir behaviors and when I
posted about this, yeah, a lot,a lot, a lot of people were
(01:51):
responding with their opinions,their views, their like
gratitude for me sharing thisparticular part of my practice.
So I really wanted to bring ithere on the podcast and go
through it in more detail,because this story right here
communicates so much of thereality of what we do and you
(02:11):
know, it really just brings homewhat people mean when they say
behavior is communication.
It highlights the challengingreality for us as teachers
working with vulnerable studentswho exhibit really challenging
behaviours, and it highlights somany things like the power of
the smallest moments ofconnection and how important it
is to recognise what successlooks like for some students
(02:33):
when it comes to their behaviour.
You know to have highexpectations that are
appropriate for the context ofthat student.
And it really highlights howempowering controlling what we
can control is in the classroom,because we can't control
everything or we can't controlanother human being.
All we can control is cancontrol is ourselves, and it's
(02:54):
just a window into how I respondin the moment.
These really tough behaviors,you know I have called my
business the unteachables, notthe sometimes all right but a
little bit challenging-ables,you know, and I pride myself on
my ability to support teachersto not only transform their
practice generally speaking, youknow so the low-level
(03:15):
behaviours and all of thosethings that can help them kind
of get back to teaching, but Ialso pride myself on doing so
while still controlling what isin the teacher's control to
reach and teach the toughest, toreach and teach students.
So it's a balance rightclassroom practice and most
(03:41):
teachers won't have tonecessarily deal with the
behaviors that I've dealt within my career because I was at a
specific behavior school likeschool, a school that was
specific for students withsocial, emotional and mental
health needs and like reallycomplex ones at that.
So not all teachers are goingto experience these particular
behaviors and the quantity andfrequency that I did, but I
(04:03):
wanted to make sure that I stilltouched on these things for
those of you who really need tosupport with these really big
extreme behaviors.
By the way, my podcast is clean,but this episode I have marked
as explicit because I didn'twant to censor the language in
any way, shape or form.
I just wanted to come on hereand tell my story in the way
that I needed to.
I also think that's very trueof like communicating stories
(04:25):
back to parents and carers andall the rest of it.
Like we can't sugarcoat it,like it is what it is and it is
challenging and it is.
Let me just drop my first swearof the, my first swear, my
first swear words.
I don't even know what I wassaying now because I've just
lost my own train of thought.
Anyway, let me just get intothe story.
I am a secondary English teacher, so if you don't know my
(04:47):
background, that is my specialtyarea and at the time of this
story I worked in thatspecialist setting that I was
talking about.
So a specialist setting forstudents who had very complex
social, emotional and mentalhealth needs, and all of those
were the kind of needs thatmanifested in very challenging
behaviors.
So these behaviors weren'tparticularly unique to that
(05:08):
particular student I'm talkingabout.
But there was a student whoevery single time he came into
my English lesson he'd saysomething like I fucking hate
English, I hate you, you'reboring, you can't teach, you're
the shittest teacher in theworld.
And that was like every singlelesson.
He might chuck his book at thewall and walk out, he might just
sit there and berate me, but itwas really extreme the way that
(05:31):
he acted in my lesson.
However, I knew, with mythinking hat on that what he
hated was not English.
You know he didn't hate me.
He didn't know me, he didn'tknow my lessons.
Like he might hate you knowEnglish lessons on the surface,
but you know, I knew that that'snot what the problem was.
(05:51):
I knew he didn't fucking hateme or hate English.
He didn't think I was boring,he didn't think I couldn't teach
.
He didn't think I was a shit asteacher because he'd never had
really any authentic experiencesin my class that would make him
have evidence to support thosethings.
I knew what the problem was.
I've taught enough of theseparticular students with these
(06:14):
needs to know what the problemwas.
And the problem was that hehated what I represented.
He hated what my subjectrepresented because to him my
subject represented failure.
He hated how he felt.
He hated feeling embarrassed,he hated feeling incapable, he
hated feeling ashamed.
And he came in and the easiestway for him to respond to those
(06:34):
feelings was to project it outinto me.
So I wanted to talk about thisspecific student and how I
responded to these behaviors,because there are two paths that
we can take with theseparticular behaviors.
The first path is one that I'vetaken many times in my own
career.
So please don't think that I'msitting on a pedestal telling
(06:54):
you how to do something right,saying what you know how to do
it wrong.
That's not the case at all.
If you have reacted in the sameway that I'm about to talk
about, you are not alone.
This is definitely a path thatI have taken myself many times
in my own career and still dowhen I'm having a really shitty
day.
So the first path is take thosebehaviors on face value and
(07:16):
react to them with emotion.
So I could say and I have saidhow dare you swear at me?
You know.
I could say go see the headteacher, go see Mr or Mrs blah,
blah, blah.
I could say you can't be inhere right now, you need to
leave.
I could say I don't deserve tobe spoken to like this, I am not
teaching you, I refuse to teachyou until you get your attitude
checked.
(07:36):
You know like.
I'm not going to do this, I'mnot going to be spoken to like
that.
This approach here.
If you do take this first door,it might help you in the short
term because you're getting thatstudent out of the room and it
feels really good when you arebeing spoken to like crap, that
student speaking to me like crap.
I know that I'm not, you know,I'm not sugarcoating that.
It might help us in the shortterm because we're getting our
feelings out, we're getting themout of the room.
(07:57):
Maybe, however, it does nothingto change how that student
would feel in that situation.
Nothing to change how thatstudent would feel in that
situation.
So, in this particular context,it was not going to change
anything about how this studentfelt about my subject or or
himself or me for the rest ofhis education.
All it would do is onlyperpetuate and deepen these
(08:19):
feelings of failure andresentment.
It would disconnect me from him.
It would escalate his behaviorsfor the rest of the time he
spent with me in that lesson,which is not what I wanted.
Yes, I wanted in the moment toshout and scream because I'm a
human being and when you'recopying that kind of stuff, like
when you're on the receivingend of language like that, it
(08:40):
can be very triggering and very,very, very tough.
And I'm not saying anyonedeserves to be spoken to like
that, but it would only makethings far worse for the rest of
the year if I was to respond inthat way, and it has made my
life much more difficult in thepast because I have responded in
that way.
So let's talk about what Iactually did do.
Let's talk about opening thatsecond door and what something
(09:00):
different could look like.
We talk so much abouttrauma-informed responses and
restorative approaches and Ifeel like everyone's shouting
into a void, saying, but whatdoes that look like?
What can I do?
What does that mean?
This is what my version of thatwould look like for this
situation and remember, this isjust a starting point.
(09:20):
There is a lot of rigorous workthat needed to be done with
this student.
So, opening up door two, I didwhat I could to continue to
connect with that student andshift these beliefs.
So I asked him if we could havea chat.
So I said hey, you keen to havea bit of a game of true and
false?
Are you keen for that?
And he told me to fuck off.
But then he nodded.
(09:41):
So it was after the lesson,obviously not in front of
everybody.
I said, hey, you keen to play agame of true and false?
And he was like, obviously hehad his kind of backup about it,
he had his mask on, he didn'twant to engage with me
positively.
But then he did accept that andwe sat side by side and I said,
hey, english is stupid.
(10:01):
And he nodded so yep, that wastrue.
I said you don't want to behaving this chat with me?
And he nodded again that wasalso true.
Then I added in some otherquestions, english feels hard.
And he nodded and I said youdon't see the point in trying in
English, there's no point.
And he nodded again.
Honestly, this in itself was amiraculous breakthrough.
(10:23):
That student had shownvulnerability, he'd shown trust,
he'd shown a willingness toconnect with me, the fact that
he was able to nod in responseto English, feeling hard, and
that he doesn't see the point intrying that is something that
he likely has never done with anEnglish teacher before.
None of the English teachersthat I've spoken to had been
able to break through with himat all, to even sit in a chair
(10:44):
next to them, and it was just amoment of connection.
That never, ever ever, wouldhave happened if I opened door
one and allowed myself to reactrather than respond.
So the you know flow and effectfrom this.
The next lesson he came in.
What was I expecting?
I wasn't expecting anything.
I didn't place any expectationson the situation.
I didn't put pressure on thisto change anything, because what
(11:05):
we know about behavior is thatit cannot be shifted overnight.
It is more complex than that,it is more nuanced than that and
likely this student, the roadthat he had to go down to get to
the point where he's sitting ina secondary classroom telling
me to fuck off every lesson thatroad is not one that I can
backtrack and fix in one singlediscussion.
That is not going to happen.
(11:27):
But he did come in the nextlesson and he said English sucks
.
He said this is boring.
He didn't say fuck off.
He didn't say your shit,english sucks, this is boring.
And I'm like, okay, this isinteresting.
And then he sat down and Iresponded by giving him not by
saying how dare you say Englishsucks?
I didn't respond by saying youhaven't even tried the lesson.
How do you know that it'sboring?
(11:48):
You can't say that unlessyou've tried it.
You don't even know what thework is.
And no, I just gave him a freshEnglish book and I asked him to
write his name on the front ofit.
That was it.
That was my only request of him.
Here's your book write yourname on the front.
A fresh English book.
His old English book lookedlike a piece of crap.
It was scribbled all in, it wasripped.
(12:09):
It had no work in it other thanlike, maybe a couple of like
you know titles or dates orsomething that he'd started and
never, ever did anything with.
So I gave him a fresh Englishbook and I asked him to write
his name on the front and he did.
And then he did all the work,that lesson, and everything was
all good.
No, he didn't.
He didn't do any lesson.
No, I'm sorry, any work in thelesson.
(12:30):
He did nothing.
However, he picked up a pen andhe wrote his name on the front,
and he wrote his name on thefront in a way that was very
neat and legible, and I couldsee that he really tried to
write his name nicely on thefront, because we are not
miracle workers and I am notusing this story as a way to say
look at me, I am brilliant.
(12:51):
That is not the case at all.
I am a very imperfect humanbeing that is just working
through the mess of thistogether with you, but what we
need to realize is, when wechoose micro moments of
connection and understanding,things do begin to change.
That was a massive change forthis person, and these decisions
(13:12):
that we make have the potentialto create incredible change,
and even if that change seems assmall to begin with, as a
student picking up a pen, if youare ever in doubt when you're
facing some really, reallychallenging behaviors like the
ones that I just explained,always just ask yourself if I
respond right now in the waythat I want to respond, is it
(13:32):
going to bring us closertogether or drive us further
apart?
Is it something that is going tomake things more difficult for
us in the long run or is itgoing to make things easier?
Is it going to connect ordisconnect us?
That one simple question.
Connection is never the wronganswer.
If you lead with connection,it's always going to lead
somewhere better.
Even if it leads nowhere, it'sbetter than taking 10 steps back
(13:53):
, which is what happens when weopen door one and say how dare
you speak to me like that If youhave a good relationship with
the student and they come in oneday and they're like, fuck, you
miss.
I'd be like, excuse me, youcome here, you speak to me about
that.
Like I will respond differently.
But in this particularsituation, in this context with
that student, that was not theappropriate response to that.
So just a few more things that Iwant to say on this subject.
(14:15):
The first is that I know it canfeel very, very hard to know
what to say in the moment,especially when the behavior is
very triggering and feels verypersonal, and that's because it
can be very hard for us, whenwe're faced with that stuff, to
stay in our thinking brain,because very often it's a threat
If someone is saying somethingthat's nasty to us, if someone's
saying something that isabusive or, you know, whatever
(14:37):
else it might be in theclassroom, our brain, the very
normal biological response tothat for our brains is to go
into fight, flight or freeze, isto go into that stress mode
because we are going intoself-protection mode,
self-preservation mode, becausewe're human beings and we don't,
you know, being spoken to likethat is a threat.
So it can be very hard to stayin our thinking brains and know
(15:04):
what to say in the moment.
Remember, when you hear thisstory, that I have had thousands
, of thousands of hours ofclassroom experience in very
challenging settings withstudents who specifically have
these needs that manifest invery big, dysregulated,
challenging behaviors.
So the way that I respond nowcomes pretty naturally and the
my ability to kind of remainregulated has gotten better over
time, mainly because thingshave been a little bit
(15:24):
normalized in my brain.
But I just wanted you to knowthat it is a massive road to go
down as a teacher as well, to beable to respond in this way and
to kind of get our ownregulation sorted.
So if you're ever stumped, as Isaid before, just remind
yourself that connection's neverthe wrong answer because it is
going to disarm and deescalate.
So even if you don't know howto sit down in the moment and
(15:44):
have this kind of chat with astudent, or even if in the
moment you feel reallydysregulated and it's really
tough and you just want to runout of the room, just remember
connection's never the wronganswer and disarm and deescalate
the situation because it'sgoing to give you a much better
chance later down the line toconnect with that student.
And remember that success looksdifferent for every student.
So if I were to expect thisstudent the next lesson to sit
(16:07):
down and write an essay that day, it would be an unrealistic
leap.
Can he get there one day, heck?
Yes, I believe that everysingle student has the
capabilities of doing brilliantthings with the right support
and the right belief inthemselves and the right people
who believe in them.
But today, no, he's not goingto write an essay for me, he's
(16:29):
not going to do all the work,and that's a really unrealistic
expectation for me to have whenthat student has gone from
telling me to fuck off andsaying English is shit to coming
in the room and writing hisname on the book.
Him showing a willingness topick up a pen and write his name
is a victory that I was notgoing to let slide.
So please don't forget tocelebrate the successes when
(16:49):
they pop up.
And this really helps us tocatch the positive with students
as well, because it allows usto see things in a bit of a
different way and get ourmindset straight around it.
I have very high expectations ofmy students.
If other students were to do nowork that day, I would be on
their case, but this student,again, it's all contextual, it's
all nuanced, it's all dependentupon the circumstances around
(17:13):
it.
That leads me to the next thing, which is there is no one thing
to say, no one right thing todo, because us we're just
meatbags.
We're all different and therelationships we have are
different and our personalitiesare different.
So what you say and how yourespond, personalities are
different.
So what you say and how yourespond, it's always going to be
(17:34):
different.
You know it's not going to be aone size fits all ever.
And the final thing that I wantto talk about before I finish up
this episode is there are acouple of people that were
concerned that this story meantthat I was allowing myself to be
treated like crap or spoken tolike shit.
This is not about me lettingthat behavior slide or the
swearing slide.
It's not me accepting to bespoken to like shit or treated
(17:55):
like crap.
It was not me beingdisrespected.
I gave no power to that.
If I was to make it about me, Iwould have stayed stuck on the
well you swore at me and I feeldisrespected.
And if I did that, I amthrowing any opportunity I have
had in the bin to makingprogress with that student,
(18:15):
because that student would nothave the buy-in to listen to me
talking to them about swearing.
Look, it doesn't feel nice.
It doesn't feel nice beingconfronted with these behaviors
from our students, and in no way, shape or form am I advocating
for that or saying that that isokay, but it's about looking
deeper and thinking about waysthat we can actually start to
(18:35):
shift the behavior.
This particular student that I'mtalking about guess what
happened weeks down the line.
I was able to sit with him andI was able to say do you
remember when you came in everylesson and said you know you're
shit and you fucking hate me andI'm the worst teacher ever and
all the rest of it?
Do you remember saying thosethings?
And he went oh yeah, that'sright.
Oh, sorry about that and likeI'm not expecting an apology I
(18:58):
would never enforce an apologybut the fact that weeks down the
line he was able to reflect onthose things and I was able to
discuss those things with him ina way that actually would make
him take accountability in areally self-directed and
authentic way.
Like there was no apologize toher.
Don't say that blah, blah, blah, it was him going, oh crap.
(19:21):
Like yeah, that wasn't okay.
And I want you to also rememberthat door too, that door that
I'm speaking about.
It takes no extra time.
I think the argument as wellwith this approach is that it it
takes no extra time.
I think the argument as wellwith this approach is that it
takes a bunch of time.
I saved so much time with thisstudent down the line and I
saved myself a lot of, a lot ofheadaches because things in
class got better.
I was spending the same amountof time talking to him after
(19:44):
class rather than just keepinghim for attention, and it just
made my life so much easier in acouple of months when we had a
better relationship and thingsstarted to shift a little bit
and I didn't have to constantlyredirect him in class and you
know, he was actually getting alittle bit engaged and you know
we built a rapport there so hewasn't displaying as extreme
(20:06):
disruptive behaviors, which wassuch a massive, massive change
for him after you know, a verylong road in his education of
doing nothing but thosebehaviors you know of pushing
everybody away, of putting thatmask on, of not engaging in
lessons and being completelydisengaged in school in general.
Okay, I'm going to stop ramblingon about that now.
I would like to, you know, keepthese as short, sharp and sweet
(20:29):
as possible.
I know you're really busy, butI'm sure that if we were sitting
over a coffee we would benattering on about this for a
very long time.
So just remember that doornumber one gets us stuck and in
a vicious cycle, and door numbertwo actually does have the
power to create change.
That's all you really need totake away.
So I hope you got something fromthis story.
I know I say this all the time,but please feel free to reach
(20:51):
out, send me a message, say hi,let me know if anything
resonated.
But it was really wonderful tokind of bring you along into my
classroom and be able to talkabout some of the rationale I
have behind things and some ofthe ways that I would approach
different things.
This is just one of many, many,many, many things that I could
share that might help when itcomes to responding to
challenging behaviors in theclassroom.
(21:13):
So if you've got a particularbehavior challenge that you want
me to talk through on thepodcast, you can also drop that
in a message on Instagram and Ican see what I can do there and
and you know explain what Iwould do in that situation.
But, yeah, like, I just wantthis to be a resource that helps
you as much as possible feelmore confident and capable
dealing with these things,because my gosh, it can be tough
(21:35):
, it can be disempowering, itcan be all of the things.
Okay, wonderful teachers, untilnext time, have a lovely week
and I will see you there.
Bye, for now.
Oh, hi there, teachers, welcome to the
Unteachables podcast.
I'm your host, claire English,and I am just a fellow teacher,
a toddler mama and a big oldbehavior nerd on a mission to
demystify and simplify thatlittle thing called classroom
management.
The way we've all been taughtto manage behavior and classroom
manage has left us playingcrowd control, which is not
(00:22):
something I subscribe to,because we're not bouncers,
we're teachers.
So listen in as I walk youthrough the game, changing
strategies and I mean the thingsthat we can actually do in
action in our classrooms thatwill allow you to lean into your
beautiful values as acompassionate educator and feel
empowered to run your room witha little more calm and, dare I
(00:43):
say it, a lot less chaos.
I will see you in the episode.
Hello, brilliant teachers,welcome back to my little patch
of the podcasting universe, theUnteachables podcast.
Is so nice to have you here,especially this episode, because
I feel like I speak a lot aboutstrategies and you know what to
(01:04):
do in the classroom and all therest of it, but you're not
alongside me in the classroom tosee how I deal with like the
real nitty-gritty stuff, and I'mnot there in the classroom to
see how you're responding to thereal nitty-gritty stuff and to
kind of coach you through that.
And that's what makes it alittle bit hard for me to
support you in the best way thatI can on this podcast, and I
think that this is why thisparticular topic that I'm going
(01:28):
to speak about got so muchtraction.
When I posted about it a coupleof months ago on Instagram, it
got a huge amount of feedback.
I posted about this specificstudent Of course, I didn't say
names or anything like that, butI posted about like kind of
think about it as like a casestudy really, but I posted about
this particular student andtheir behaviors and when I
posted about this, yeah, a lot,a lot, a lot of people were
(01:51):
responding with their opinions,their views, their like
gratitude for me sharing thisparticular part of my practice.
So I really wanted to bring ithere on the podcast and go
through it in more detail,because this story right here
communicates so much of thereality of what we do and you
(02:11):
know, it really just brings homewhat people mean when they say
behavior is communication.
It highlights the challengingreality for us as teachers
working with vulnerable studentswho exhibit really challenging
behaviours, and it highlights somany things like the power of
the smallest moments ofconnection and how important it
is to recognise what successlooks like for some students
(02:33):
when it comes to their behaviour.
You know to have highexpectations that are
appropriate for the context ofthat student.
And it really highlights howempowering controlling what we
can control is in the classroom,because we can't control
everything or we can't controlanother human being.
All we can control is cancontrol is ourselves, and it's
(02:54):
just a window into how I respondin the moment.
These really tough behaviors,you know I have called my
business the unteachables, notthe sometimes all right but a
little bit challenging-ables,you know, and I pride myself on
my ability to support teachersto not only transform their
practice generally speaking, youknow so the low-level
(03:15):
behaviours and all of thosethings that can help them kind
of get back to teaching, but Ialso pride myself on doing so
while still controlling what isin the teacher's control to
reach and teach the toughest, toreach and teach students.
So it's a balance rightclassroom practice and most
(03:41):
teachers won't have tonecessarily deal with the
behaviors that I've dealt within my career because I was at a
specific behavior school likeschool, a school that was
specific for students withsocial, emotional and mental
health needs and like reallycomplex ones at that.
So not all teachers are goingto experience these particular
behaviors and the quantity andfrequency that I did, but I
(04:03):
wanted to make sure that I stilltouched on these things for
those of you who really need tosupport with these really big
extreme behaviors.
By the way, my podcast is clean,but this episode I have marked
as explicit because I didn'twant to censor the language in
any way, shape or form.
I just wanted to come on hereand tell my story in the way
that I needed to.
I also think that's very trueof like communicating stories
(04:25):
back to parents and carers andall the rest of it.
Like we can't sugarcoat it,like it is what it is and it is
challenging and it is.
Let me just drop my first swearof the, my first swear, my
first swear words.
I don't even know what I wassaying now because I've just
lost my own train of thought.
Anyway, let me just get intothe story.
I am a secondary English teacher, so if you don't know my
(04:47):
background, that is my specialtyarea and at the time of this
story I worked in thatspecialist setting that I was
talking about.
So a specialist setting forstudents who had very complex
social, emotional and mentalhealth needs, and all of those
were the kind of needs thatmanifested in very challenging
behaviors.
So these behaviors weren'tparticularly unique to that
(05:08):
particular student I'm talkingabout.
But there was a student whoevery single time he came into
my English lesson he'd saysomething like I fucking hate
English, I hate you, you'reboring, you can't teach, you're
the shittest teacher in theworld.
And that was like every singlelesson.
He might chuck his book at thewall and walk out, he might just
sit there and berate me, but itwas really extreme the way that
(05:31):
he acted in my lesson.
However, I knew, with mythinking hat on that what he
hated was not English.
You know he didn't hate me.
He didn't know me, he didn'tknow my lessons.
Like he might hate you knowEnglish lessons on the surface,
but you know, I knew that that'snot what the problem was.
(05:51):
I knew he didn't fucking hateme or hate English.
He didn't think I was boring,he didn't think I couldn't teach
.
He didn't think I was a shit asteacher because he'd never had
really any authentic experiencesin my class that would make him
have evidence to support thosethings.
I knew what the problem was.
I've taught enough of theseparticular students with these
(06:14):
needs to know what the problemwas.
And the problem was that hehated what I represented.
He hated what my subjectrepresented because to him my
subject represented failure.
He hated how he felt.
He hated feeling embarrassed,he hated feeling incapable, he
hated feeling ashamed.
And he came in and the easiestway for him to respond to those
(06:34):
feelings was to project it outinto me.
So I wanted to talk about thisspecific student and how I
responded to these behaviors,because there are two paths that
we can take with theseparticular behaviors.
The first path is one that I'vetaken many times in my own
career.
So please don't think that I'msitting on a pedestal telling
(06:54):
you how to do something right,saying what you know how to do
it wrong.
That's not the case at all.
If you have reacted in the sameway that I'm about to talk
about, you are not alone.
This is definitely a path thatI have taken myself many times
in my own career and still dowhen I'm having a really shitty
day.
So the first path is take thosebehaviors on face value and
(07:16):
react to them with emotion.
So I could say and I have saidhow dare you swear at me?
You know.
I could say go see the headteacher, go see Mr or Mrs blah,
blah, blah.
I could say you can't be inhere right now, you need to
leave.
I could say I don't deserve tobe spoken to like this, I am not
teaching you, I refuse to teachyou until you get your attitude
checked.
(07:36):
You know like.
I'm not going to do this, I'mnot going to be spoken to like
that.
This approach here.
If you do take this first door,it might help you in the short
term because you're getting thatstudent out of the room and it
feels really good when you arebeing spoken to like crap, that
student speaking to me like crap.
I know that I'm not, you know,I'm not sugarcoating that.
It might help us in the shortterm because we're getting our
feelings out, we're getting themout of the room.
(07:57):
Maybe, however, it does nothingto change how that student
would feel in that situation.
Nothing to change how thatstudent would feel in that
situation.
So, in this particular context,it was not going to change
anything about how this studentfelt about my subject or or
himself or me for the rest ofhis education.
All it would do is onlyperpetuate and deepen these
(08:19):
feelings of failure andresentment.
It would disconnect me from him.
It would escalate his behaviorsfor the rest of the time he
spent with me in that lesson,which is not what I wanted.
Yes, I wanted in the moment toshout and scream because I'm a
human being and when you'recopying that kind of stuff, like
when you're on the receivingend of language like that, it
(08:40):
can be very triggering and very,very, very tough.
And I'm not saying anyonedeserves to be spoken to like
that, but it would only makethings far worse for the rest of
the year if I was to respond inthat way, and it has made my
life much more difficult in thepast because I have responded in
that way.
So let's talk about what Iactually did do.
Let's talk about opening thatsecond door and what something
(09:00):
different could look like.
We talk so much abouttrauma-informed responses and
restorative approaches and Ifeel like everyone's shouting
into a void, saying, but whatdoes that look like?
What can I do?
What does that mean?
This is what my version of thatwould look like for this
situation and remember, this isjust a starting point.
(09:20):
There is a lot of rigorous workthat needed to be done with
this student.
So, opening up door two, I didwhat I could to continue to
connect with that student andshift these beliefs.
So I asked him if we could havea chat.
So I said hey, you keen to havea bit of a game of true and
false?
Are you keen for that?
And he told me to fuck off.
But then he nodded.
(09:41):
So it was after the lesson,obviously not in front of
everybody.
I said, hey, you keen to play agame of true and false?
And he was like, obviously hehad his kind of backup about it,
he had his mask on, he didn'twant to engage with me
positively.
But then he did accept that andwe sat side by side and I said,
hey, english is stupid.
(10:01):
And he nodded so yep, that wastrue.
I said you don't want to behaving this chat with me?
And he nodded again that wasalso true.
Then I added in some otherquestions, english feels hard.
And he nodded and I said youdon't see the point in trying in
English, there's no point.
And he nodded again.
Honestly, this in itself was amiraculous breakthrough.
(10:23):
That student had shownvulnerability, he'd shown trust,
he'd shown a willingness toconnect with me, the fact that
he was able to nod in responseto English, feeling hard, and
that he doesn't see the point intrying that is something that
he likely has never done with anEnglish teacher before.
None of the English teachersthat I've spoken to had been
able to break through with himat all, to even sit in a chair
(10:44):
next to them, and it was just amoment of connection.
That never, ever ever, wouldhave happened if I opened door
one and allowed myself to reactrather than respond.
So the you know flow and effectfrom this.
The next lesson he came in.
What was I expecting?
I wasn't expecting anything.
I didn't place any expectationson the situation.
I didn't put pressure on thisto change anything, because what
(11:05):
we know about behavior is thatit cannot be shifted overnight.
It is more complex than that,it is more nuanced than that and
likely this student, the roadthat he had to go down to get to
the point where he's sitting ina secondary classroom telling
me to fuck off every lesson thatroad is not one that I can
backtrack and fix in one singlediscussion.
That is not going to happen.
(11:27):
But he did come in the nextlesson and he said English sucks
.
He said this is boring.
He didn't say fuck off.
He didn't say your shit,english sucks, this is boring.
And I'm like, okay, this isinteresting.
And then he sat down and Iresponded by giving him not by
saying how dare you say Englishsucks?
I didn't respond by saying youhaven't even tried the lesson.
How do you know that it'sboring?
(11:48):
You can't say that unlessyou've tried it.
You don't even know what thework is.
And no, I just gave him a freshEnglish book and I asked him to
write his name on the front ofit.
That was it.
That was my only request of him.
Here's your book write yourname on the front.
A fresh English book.
His old English book lookedlike a piece of crap.
It was scribbled all in, it wasripped.
(12:09):
It had no work in it other thanlike, maybe a couple of like
you know titles or dates orsomething that he'd started and
never, ever did anything with.
So I gave him a fresh Englishbook and I asked him to write
his name on the front and he did.
And then he did all the work,that lesson, and everything was
all good.
No, he didn't.
He didn't do any lesson.
No, I'm sorry, any work in thelesson.
(12:30):
He did nothing.
However, he picked up a pen andhe wrote his name on the front,
and he wrote his name on thefront in a way that was very
neat and legible, and I couldsee that he really tried to
write his name nicely on thefront, because we are not
miracle workers and I am notusing this story as a way to say
look at me, I am brilliant.
(12:51):
That is not the case at all.
I am a very imperfect humanbeing that is just working
through the mess of thistogether with you, but what we
need to realize is, when wechoose micro moments of
connection and understanding,things do begin to change.
That was a massive change forthis person, and these decisions
(13:12):
that we make have the potentialto create incredible change,
and even if that change seems assmall to begin with, as a
student picking up a pen, if youare ever in doubt when you're
facing some really, reallychallenging behaviors like the
ones that I just explained,always just ask yourself if I
respond right now in the waythat I want to respond, is it
(13:32):
going to bring us closertogether or drive us further
apart?
Is it something that is going tomake things more difficult for
us in the long run or is itgoing to make things easier?
Is it going to connect ordisconnect us?
That one simple question.
Connection is never the wronganswer.
If you lead with connection,it's always going to lead
somewhere better.
Even if it leads nowhere, it'sbetter than taking 10 steps back
(13:53):
, which is what happens when weopen door one and say how dare
you speak to me like that If youhave a good relationship with
the student and they come in oneday and they're like, fuck, you
miss.
I'd be like, excuse me, youcome here, you speak to me about
that.
Like I will respond differently.
But in this particularsituation, in this context with
that student, that was not theappropriate response to that.
So just a few more things that Iwant to say on this subject.
(14:15):
The first is that I know it canfeel very, very hard to know
what to say in the moment,especially when the behavior is
very triggering and feels verypersonal, and that's because it
can be very hard for us, whenwe're faced with that stuff, to
stay in our thinking brain,because very often it's a threat
If someone is saying somethingthat's nasty to us, if someone's
saying something that isabusive or, you know, whatever
(14:37):
else it might be in theclassroom, our brain, the very
normal biological response tothat for our brains is to go
into fight, flight or freeze, isto go into that stress mode
because we are going intoself-protection mode,
self-preservation mode, becausewe're human beings and we don't,
you know, being spoken to likethat is a threat.
So it can be very hard to stayin our thinking brains and know
(15:04):
what to say in the moment.
Remember, when you hear thisstory, that I have had thousands
, of thousands of hours ofclassroom experience in very
challenging settings withstudents who specifically have
these needs that manifest invery big, dysregulated,
challenging behaviors.
So the way that I respond nowcomes pretty naturally and the
my ability to kind of remainregulated has gotten better over
time, mainly because thingshave been a little bit
(15:24):
normalized in my brain.
But I just wanted you to knowthat it is a massive road to go
down as a teacher as well, to beable to respond in this way and
to kind of get our ownregulation sorted.
So if you're ever stumped, as Isaid before, just remind
yourself that connection's neverthe wrong answer because it is
going to disarm and deescalate.
So even if you don't know howto sit down in the moment and
(15:44):
have this kind of chat with astudent, or even if in the
moment you feel reallydysregulated and it's really
tough and you just want to runout of the room, just remember
connection's never the wronganswer and disarm and deescalate
the situation because it'sgoing to give you a much better
chance later down the line toconnect with that student.
And remember that success looksdifferent for every student.
So if I were to expect thisstudent the next lesson to sit
(16:07):
down and write an essay that day, it would be an unrealistic
leap.
Can he get there one day, heck?
Yes, I believe that everysingle student has the
capabilities of doing brilliantthings with the right support
and the right belief inthemselves and the right people
who believe in them.
But today, no, he's not goingto write an essay for me, he's
(16:29):
not going to do all the work,and that's a really unrealistic
expectation for me to have whenthat student has gone from
telling me to fuck off andsaying English is shit to coming
in the room and writing hisname on the book.
Him showing a willingness topick up a pen and write his name
is a victory that I was notgoing to let slide.
So please don't forget tocelebrate the successes when
(16:49):
they pop up.
And this really helps us tocatch the positive with students
as well, because it allows usto see things in a bit of a
different way and get ourmindset straight around it.
I have very high expectations ofmy students.
If other students were to do nowork that day, I would be on
their case, but this student,again, it's all contextual, it's
all nuanced, it's all dependentupon the circumstances around
(17:13):
it.
That leads me to the next thing, which is there is no one thing
to say, no one right thing todo, because us we're just
meatbags.
We're all different and therelationships we have are
different and our personalitiesare different.
So what you say and how yourespond, personalities are
different.
So what you say and how yourespond, it's always going to be
(17:34):
different.
You know it's not going to be aone size fits all ever.
And the final thing that I wantto talk about before I finish up
this episode is there are acouple of people that were
concerned that this story meantthat I was allowing myself to be
treated like crap or spoken tolike shit.
This is not about me lettingthat behavior slide or the
swearing slide.
It's not me accepting to bespoken to like shit or treated
(17:55):
like crap.
It was not me beingdisrespected.
I gave no power to that.
If I was to make it about me, Iwould have stayed stuck on the
well you swore at me and I feeldisrespected.
And if I did that, I amthrowing any opportunity I have
had in the bin to makingprogress with that student,
(18:15):
because that student would nothave the buy-in to listen to me
talking to them about swearing.
Look, it doesn't feel nice.
It doesn't feel nice beingconfronted with these behaviors
from our students, and in no way, shape or form am I advocating
for that or saying that that isokay, but it's about looking
deeper and thinking about waysthat we can actually start to
(18:35):
shift the behavior.
This particular student that I'mtalking about guess what
happened weeks down the line.
I was able to sit with him andI was able to say do you
remember when you came in everylesson and said you know you're
shit and you fucking hate me andI'm the worst teacher ever and
all the rest of it?
Do you remember saying thosethings?
And he went oh yeah, that'sright.
Oh, sorry about that and likeI'm not expecting an apology I
(18:58):
would never enforce an apologybut the fact that weeks down the
line he was able to reflect onthose things and I was able to
discuss those things with him ina way that actually would make
him take accountability in areally self-directed and
authentic way.
Like there was no apologize toher.
Don't say that blah, blah, blah, it was him going, oh crap.
(19:21):
Like yeah, that wasn't okay.
And I want you to also rememberthat door too, that door that
I'm speaking about.
It takes no extra time.
I think the argument as wellwith this approach is that it it
takes no extra time.
I think the argument as wellwith this approach is that it
takes a bunch of time.
I saved so much time with thisstudent down the line and I
saved myself a lot of, a lot ofheadaches because things in
class got better.
I was spending the same amountof time talking to him after
(19:44):
class rather than just keepinghim for attention, and it just
made my life so much easier in acouple of months when we had a
better relationship and thingsstarted to shift a little bit
and I didn't have to constantlyredirect him in class and you
know, he was actually getting alittle bit engaged and you know
we built a rapport there so hewasn't displaying as extreme
(20:06):
disruptive behaviors, which wassuch a massive, massive change
for him after you know, a verylong road in his education of
doing nothing but thosebehaviors you know of pushing
everybody away, of putting thatmask on, of not engaging in
lessons and being completelydisengaged in school in general.
Okay, I'm going to stop ramblingon about that now.
I would like to, you know, keepthese as short, sharp and sweet
(20:29):
as possible.
I know you're really busy, butI'm sure that if we were sitting
over a coffee we would benattering on about this for a
very long time.
So just remember that doornumber one gets us stuck and in
a vicious cycle, and door numbertwo actually does have the
power to create change.
That's all you really need totake away.
So I hope you got something fromthis story.
I know I say this all the time,but please feel free to reach
(20:51):
out, send me a message, say hi,let me know if anything
resonated.
But it was really wonderful tokind of bring you along into my
classroom and be able to talkabout some of the rationale I
have behind things and some ofthe ways that I would approach
different things.
This is just one of many, many,many, many things that I could
share that might help when itcomes to responding to
challenging behaviors in theclassroom.
(21:13):
So if you've got a particularbehavior challenge that you want
me to talk through on thepodcast, you can also drop that
in a message on Instagram and Ican see what I can do there and
and you know explain what Iwould do in that situation.
But, yeah, like, I just wantthis to be a resource that helps
you as much as possible feelmore confident and capable
dealing with these things,because my gosh, it can be tough
(21:35):
, it can be disempowering, itcan be all of the things.
Okay, wonderful teachers, untilnext time, have a lovely week
and I will see you there.
Bye, for now.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!