March 11, 2025 • 13 mins
One of the most powerful shifts we can make when addressing student behaviour is to stop lecturing and start leading. Instead of telling students what they did wrong, we need to ask the right questions to guide them toward reflection, accountability, and change.
Lecturing rarely leads to buy-in. It is one of William Glasser’s seven disconnecting habits, and without realising it, we often fall into this trap—especially in the heat of the moment. The result? Students tune out, nod along without truly listening, or push back entirely.
In this episode, I explore how shifting from lecture mode to guide mode creates a more productive and effective approach to behaviour chats. I provide real-world examples of common classroom scenarios and show you exactly how to replace lecturing with guiding questions that encourage self-reflection and responsibility.
Listen in as I discuss:
- Why lecturing does not create real behaviour change. The importance of student buy-in.
- How to shift from telling to questioning. Using questions to encourage reflection and accountability.
- Practical examples of guiding language. What to say instead of lecturing in common behaviour situations.
Mentioned resources:
MASTERCLASS: REAL CONSEQUENCES, REAL CHANGE
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 dancers, we're
teachers.
So listen in as I walk youthrough the game, changing
strategies and I mean the thingsthat we can actually do and
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, hello, welcome back tothe Unteachables podcast.
If you're new here, welcome.
It is so nice to have youlistening in.
I hope you find immense valuefrom these episodes, because,
for lip and heck, we just don'tget taught how to classroom
(01:05):
manage, do we?
And you really do deserve asmuch support as humanly possible
, because it is tough.
This stuff is tough and in thisepisode I'm going to be talking
through one really powerfulshift that you can make in the
discussions you are having withstudents around their behavior,
that will create more change andultimately just make you feel
(01:27):
much more confident in goingthrough this process, because it
can be quite a daunting processto sit in front of a student
and need to have a talk abouttheir behavior in a way that
gets buy-in, that has them onboard, that gets accountability
and with those students who arethe hardest to teach and reach,
not have them going F you andwalking out of the room, which
has happened to multiple timesin my career because I wasn't
(01:49):
always good at having thesediscussions.
If I'm going to be fullytransparent with all of you,
which I always try to be Now,one of the most powerful shifts
that we can make in our chatsabout behavior is to stop
lecturing and to start leading.
What this means is gettingreally good at asking the right
questions that guide students toreflect on their behaviors,
(02:11):
take accountability and just beopen and willing to make some
changes, which is what we want.
So many times when we enterthese behavior conversations,
we're sitting across from astudent who's sitting there
fiddling with something on thechair on the table sorry and
looking out the window and justnodding and going yep, yep, yep.
And if you are in a situationwhere a student is sitting there
(02:31):
across from you and they'rejust going yep, yep, yep, you
know that you're probablytalking at them and not guiding
the discussion.
So this is going to be such apowerful shift to make.
But why not lecture?
Why not just talk and tell themwhat's gone wrong and try to
tell them what to do, likedifferently?
(02:52):
It just doesn't get buy-in.
It is actually one of WilliamGlass's seven disconnecting
habits to lecture and we do thiswithout realizing it.
I always slip into lecture modeand have to stop myself,
especially at home, when I'm notbeing as intentional with the
talks that I'm having.
And you know, when we lecture,there's more of a chance of
(03:12):
students just glazing over andnot listening and, as I said,
nodding along and going yep, yep, no worries.
And when students disconnectfrom the discussion in that way,
we're not getting change, nochange is occurring.
Or for the hardest to reach andteach kids, you know, as I said
, they might just go F off andwalk out of the room.
(03:32):
To explain what I mean byshifting away from lecturing and
being more of a guide, I'mgoing to take you through a bit
of an example that I'm sure mostof us can relate to.
So let's just say you'restanding at the front and trying
to get through content andthere's one student who is
derailing the lesson.
They're getting the rest of theclass unsettled and whipped up.
So you approach them to talk tothem about their behavior and
(03:54):
they hit you with a big why areyou talking to me All of them
are talking to?
It is tough, it is triggering,and you can feel yourself
getting increasingly frustratedbecause you know for a fact that
that is the student who isgetting the rest of the class
unsettled.
You're at the front, you cansee you.
You're standing up there,you're looking around, but
(04:17):
rather than takingaccountability and listening to
you, this student is pushing theblame back on the rest of the
class, back onto you, sayingthat you're targeting them in
some way unfairly and things arejust escalating and escalating,
and escalating.
It is so freaking easy in thismoment, in this kind of
situation, to slip into thatlecture mode.
(04:39):
No, you are talking.
I'm standing up the front, Ican see the whole class and it
is you who is talking.
You've been calling out, you'vebeen getting the rest of the
class off track your behaviorsare inappropriate.
And although this feels good inthe moment because we are
trying to rectify the situation,remember that our brains, when
we are in front of a class andwe see behaviors happening that
(05:02):
are getting the class off trackwith what we're doing, we slip
into survival mode because we'reno longer in control of the
situation and we've got a wholeclass in front of us that can
very easily descend into chaos.
So this does feel good in themoment for our brains.
We're trying to get thatstudent back on board.
We're trying to regain controlof the space.
(05:23):
However, it's not doing us afavor when it comes to getting
buy-in for that student toactually follow the instructions
that we're asking them tofollow.
So instead we need to shift ourlanguage to asking questions.
The more we can question ourstudents, the more
accountability, the morereflection and the more buy-in
we can get.
So, in the moment, try sayingthings that encourage students
(05:43):
to acknowledge the behaviorsthey are exhibiting.
For example, I will be speakingto them or addressing them in a
moment, but what might I needfrom you right now before I move
on to do that?
Or you might say can youcontrol what they do?
Whose behavior can you control?
Yes, your own behaviors.
You might say whose behaviorare you responsible for?
(06:06):
Whose behaviors aren't youresponsible for?
What are you responsible forright here in your class?
What's your job right here inthis lesson right now?
What might I need from youright now?
So all of these are questionsthat get students to reflect and
think about the behaviors thatthey are exhibiting.
It takes away that back andforth discussion or argument of
(06:28):
but they're doing this, butthey're doing that.
It just focuses back theirattention on their behaviors and
what they are doing.
And when we shift from beingthe lecturer to being the guide,
we have a far better chance ofquickly shifting their behaviors
back to where they need to beand have a productive and
positive lesson without thingsfurther escalating.
(06:48):
Because when we start to getinto these head-to-head with
students about no, you are doingthis, no, you are doing this,
no, they're doing this.
You know, when we get into thishead-to-head, things can very,
very quickly escalate.
Here are some more tangibleexamples of behavior chats where
we might need to flip it fromlecturing and guiding so when
you might say something likeyour behavior was really
(07:10):
challenging this lesson, yourbehavior was atrocious or
inappropriate or any of thatkind of stuff, telling them that
their behavior was bad, thatlesson guiding and flipping it
to guiding might sound like whymight I need to talk to you
after that lesson?
That gets them to then reflecton their behavior and identify
for you what the behaviors were,rather than you having to
identify it for them.
(07:31):
Lecturing might sound like whatyou said was inappropriate and
I'm just not going to stand forit.
We need to obviously, uh, holdboundaries and talk to students
about their language, butinstead of lecturing in that way
, we can say do you understandwhy the things that you just
said are serious?
Can you explain that to me inyour own words?
Again, putting the onus on themto take accountability and
(07:53):
responsibility for the languagethey're using?
You might say when you'relecturing, you are stopping the
learning from happening in theroom and that's not fair for the
other students.
You might say instead, whenyou're guiding, when I have you
and other students calling out,why might that be challenging
during the lesson?
(08:13):
Instead of saying to studentsyou're going to go and pick up
all that rubbish now, you mightsay what might I need you to do
now before we head out for abreak?
All of those examples are usflipping the lecturing to the
guiding.
However, there are going to betimes where students sit there
and they won't know the answers,or they still won't be able to
reflect, or they won't be in theright headspace to do that.
They won't have the skills todo that.
For whatever reason, they mightnot be able to reflect on the
(08:34):
behaviors.
Maybe they don't evenunderstand why what they said
was inappropriate.
If this happened, you can trysaying something like can I give
you a clue, can I make asuggestion?
Can I explain what I was seeingfrom where I was standing?
Because then you're stillcoming at it from a place of
guiding.
You're just guiding them in away that's going to get so much
more buy-in.
(08:55):
You've already posed thequestion and if they're sitting
there, they're scratching theirheads, they're not sure, then
you can go in and give a littlebit more information, then you
can guide, then you can make asuggestion, you can give them
some clues, you can explain whatyou were seeing from where you
were standing.
So I really hope that wasreally actionable and really
tangible and something you cantake away straight away into
(09:16):
your classroom.
Just ask yourself every singletime you go into a discussion
about a student's behavior.
Right now, in this moment, am Ilecturing or am I guiding?
You can just have a discussionwith a student and then
afterwards just reflect back andthink In that discussion that I
just had with that student, doI think the balance of me
talking or me asking questionswas, you know, in balance, or do
(09:37):
I think that I was slippinginto lecture mode Does not make
you a bad person if you'relecturing.
We slip into lecture mode allday, every day.
It is so normal and again, ourbrains are trying to gain
control of the situation.
Control is safety, so we'retrying our best to make sure
that we are all over it andthat's not your fault, but being
(09:57):
aware of it is really, reallyimportant.
So wonderful, teacher, if youlistened to this episode and you
were like heck, yes, these arethe kinds of chats that I need
to get bloody good at in orderto move forward with my students
.
You should definitely come andcheck out my masterclass Real
Consequences, real Change.
I take you through an entireroadmap for deescalating and
resolving challenging behaviorsand using consequences that get
(10:20):
buy-in and actually work.
Restorative work gets such abad rap because there's not a
lot of actionable support outthere for teachers on how to
actually have discussions thatcreate change and do so in a way
that doesn't take up aridiculous amount of time and is
unrealistic for us to do.
Hence why I created this.
(10:40):
I only run this live once ayear to do Hence why I created
this.
I only run this live once ayear.
So, if you are keen, make sureyou head to the-unteachablescom
forward slash change to grabyour ticket.
It would be wonderful to seeyou there, but please, whether
or not you're listening to thisin real time or not, still head
to the show notes and go to thelink that I post, because you
still will be able to join themasterclass.
(11:02):
You just won't be able to comelive, obviously, but whether you
join me or not, just always gointo conversations, as I said
before, with students remindingyourself to question and guide,
not lecture, and that is alwaysgoing to get you so much further
, especially with those studentswho are the hardest to teach
and reach and are the morevulnerable students and the
(11:24):
students who you're having theseconversations with on the
regular.
Okay, wonderful teachers.
I hope that was helpful and Ilook forward to seeing you in
the next episode.
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 dancers, we're
teachers.
So listen in as I walk youthrough the game, changing
strategies and I mean the thingsthat we can actually do and
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, hello, welcome back tothe Unteachables podcast.
If you're new here, welcome.
It is so nice to have youlistening in.
I hope you find immense valuefrom these episodes, because,
for lip and heck, we just don'tget taught how to classroom
(01:05):
manage, do we?
And you really do deserve asmuch support as humanly possible
, because it is tough.
This stuff is tough and in thisepisode I'm going to be talking
through one really powerfulshift that you can make in the
discussions you are having withstudents around their behavior,
that will create more change andultimately just make you feel
(01:27):
much more confident in goingthrough this process, because it
can be quite a daunting processto sit in front of a student
and need to have a talk abouttheir behavior in a way that
gets buy-in, that has them onboard, that gets accountability
and with those students who arethe hardest to teach and reach,
not have them going F you andwalking out of the room, which
has happened to multiple timesin my career because I wasn't
(01:49):
always good at having thesediscussions.
If I'm going to be fullytransparent with all of you,
which I always try to be Now,one of the most powerful shifts
that we can make in our chatsabout behavior is to stop
lecturing and to start leading.
What this means is gettingreally good at asking the right
questions that guide students toreflect on their behaviors,
(02:11):
take accountability and just beopen and willing to make some
changes, which is what we want.
So many times when we enterthese behavior conversations,
we're sitting across from astudent who's sitting there
fiddling with something on thechair on the table sorry and
looking out the window and justnodding and going yep, yep, yep.
And if you are in a situationwhere a student is sitting there
(02:31):
across from you and they'rejust going yep, yep, yep, you
know that you're probablytalking at them and not guiding
the discussion.
So this is going to be such apowerful shift to make.
But why not lecture?
Why not just talk and tell themwhat's gone wrong and try to
tell them what to do, likedifferently?
(02:52):
It just doesn't get buy-in.
It is actually one of WilliamGlass's seven disconnecting
habits to lecture and we do thiswithout realizing it.
I always slip into lecture modeand have to stop myself,
especially at home, when I'm notbeing as intentional with the
talks that I'm having.
And you know, when we lecture,there's more of a chance of
(03:12):
students just glazing over andnot listening and, as I said,
nodding along and going yep, yep, no worries.
And when students disconnectfrom the discussion in that way,
we're not getting change, nochange is occurring.
Or for the hardest to reach andteach kids, you know, as I said
, they might just go F off andwalk out of the room.
(03:32):
To explain what I mean byshifting away from lecturing and
being more of a guide, I'mgoing to take you through a bit
of an example that I'm sure mostof us can relate to.
So let's just say you'restanding at the front and trying
to get through content andthere's one student who is
derailing the lesson.
They're getting the rest of theclass unsettled and whipped up.
So you approach them to talk tothem about their behavior and
(03:54):
they hit you with a big why areyou talking to me All of them
are talking to?
It is tough, it is triggering,and you can feel yourself
getting increasingly frustratedbecause you know for a fact that
that is the student who isgetting the rest of the class
unsettled.
You're at the front, you cansee you.
You're standing up there,you're looking around, but
(04:17):
rather than takingaccountability and listening to
you, this student is pushing theblame back on the rest of the
class, back onto you, sayingthat you're targeting them in
some way unfairly and things arejust escalating and escalating,
and escalating.
It is so freaking easy in thismoment, in this kind of
situation, to slip into thatlecture mode.
(04:39):
No, you are talking.
I'm standing up the front, Ican see the whole class and it
is you who is talking.
You've been calling out, you'vebeen getting the rest of the
class off track your behaviorsare inappropriate.
And although this feels good inthe moment because we are
trying to rectify the situation,remember that our brains, when
we are in front of a class andwe see behaviors happening that
(05:02):
are getting the class off trackwith what we're doing, we slip
into survival mode because we'reno longer in control of the
situation and we've got a wholeclass in front of us that can
very easily descend into chaos.
So this does feel good in themoment for our brains.
We're trying to get thatstudent back on board.
We're trying to regain controlof the space.
(05:23):
However, it's not doing us afavor when it comes to getting
buy-in for that student toactually follow the instructions
that we're asking them tofollow.
So instead we need to shift ourlanguage to asking questions.
The more we can question ourstudents, the more
accountability, the morereflection and the more buy-in
we can get.
So, in the moment, try sayingthings that encourage students
(05:43):
to acknowledge the behaviorsthey are exhibiting.
For example, I will be speakingto them or addressing them in a
moment, but what might I needfrom you right now before I move
on to do that?
Or you might say can youcontrol what they do?
Whose behavior can you control?
Yes, your own behaviors.
You might say whose behaviorare you responsible for?
(06:06):
Whose behaviors aren't youresponsible for?
What are you responsible forright here in your class?
What's your job right here inthis lesson right now?
What might I need from youright now?
So all of these are questionsthat get students to reflect and
think about the behaviors thatthey are exhibiting.
It takes away that back andforth discussion or argument of
(06:28):
but they're doing this, butthey're doing that.
It just focuses back theirattention on their behaviors and
what they are doing.
And when we shift from beingthe lecturer to being the guide,
we have a far better chance ofquickly shifting their behaviors
back to where they need to beand have a productive and
positive lesson without thingsfurther escalating.
(06:48):
Because when we start to getinto these head-to-head with
students about no, you are doingthis, no, you are doing this,
no, they're doing this.
You know, when we get into thishead-to-head, things can very,
very quickly escalate.
Here are some more tangibleexamples of behavior chats where
we might need to flip it fromlecturing and guiding so when
you might say something likeyour behavior was really
(07:10):
challenging this lesson, yourbehavior was atrocious or
inappropriate or any of thatkind of stuff, telling them that
their behavior was bad, thatlesson guiding and flipping it
to guiding might sound like whymight I need to talk to you
after that lesson?
That gets them to then reflecton their behavior and identify
for you what the behaviors were,rather than you having to
identify it for them.
(07:31):
Lecturing might sound like whatyou said was inappropriate and
I'm just not going to stand forit.
We need to obviously, uh, holdboundaries and talk to students
about their language, butinstead of lecturing in that way
, we can say do you understandwhy the things that you just
said are serious?
Can you explain that to me inyour own words?
Again, putting the onus on themto take accountability and
(07:53):
responsibility for the languagethey're using?
You might say when you'relecturing, you are stopping the
learning from happening in theroom and that's not fair for the
other students.
You might say instead, whenyou're guiding, when I have you
and other students calling out,why might that be challenging
during the lesson?
(08:13):
Instead of saying to studentsyou're going to go and pick up
all that rubbish now, you mightsay what might I need you to do
now before we head out for abreak?
All of those examples are usflipping the lecturing to the
guiding.
However, there are going to betimes where students sit there
and they won't know the answers,or they still won't be able to
reflect, or they won't be in theright headspace to do that.
They won't have the skills todo that.
For whatever reason, they mightnot be able to reflect on the
(08:34):
behaviors.
Maybe they don't evenunderstand why what they said
was inappropriate.
If this happened, you can trysaying something like can I give
you a clue, can I make asuggestion?
Can I explain what I was seeingfrom where I was standing?
Because then you're stillcoming at it from a place of
guiding.
You're just guiding them in away that's going to get so much
more buy-in.
(08:55):
You've already posed thequestion and if they're sitting
there, they're scratching theirheads, they're not sure, then
you can go in and give a littlebit more information, then you
can guide, then you can make asuggestion, you can give them
some clues, you can explain whatyou were seeing from where you
were standing.
So I really hope that wasreally actionable and really
tangible and something you cantake away straight away into
(09:16):
your classroom.
Just ask yourself every singletime you go into a discussion
about a student's behavior.
Right now, in this moment, am Ilecturing or am I guiding?
You can just have a discussionwith a student and then
afterwards just reflect back andthink In that discussion that I
just had with that student, doI think the balance of me
talking or me asking questionswas, you know, in balance, or do
(09:37):
I think that I was slippinginto lecture mode Does not make
you a bad person if you'relecturing.
We slip into lecture mode allday, every day.
It is so normal and again, ourbrains are trying to gain
control of the situation.
Control is safety, so we'retrying our best to make sure
that we are all over it andthat's not your fault, but being
(09:57):
aware of it is really, reallyimportant.
So wonderful, teacher, if youlistened to this episode and you
were like heck, yes, these arethe kinds of chats that I need
to get bloody good at in orderto move forward with my students
.
You should definitely come andcheck out my masterclass Real
Consequences, real Change.
I take you through an entireroadmap for deescalating and
resolving challenging behaviorsand using consequences that get
(10:20):
buy-in and actually work.
Restorative work gets such abad rap because there's not a
lot of actionable support outthere for teachers on how to
actually have discussions thatcreate change and do so in a way
that doesn't take up aridiculous amount of time and is
unrealistic for us to do.
Hence why I created this.
(10:40):
I only run this live once ayear to do Hence why I created
this.
I only run this live once ayear.
So, if you are keen, make sureyou head to the-unteachablescom
forward slash change to grabyour ticket.
It would be wonderful to seeyou there, but please, whether
or not you're listening to thisin real time or not, still head
to the show notes and go to thelink that I post, because you
still will be able to join themasterclass.
(11:02):
You just won't be able to comelive, obviously, but whether you
join me or not, just always gointo conversations, as I said
before, with students remindingyourself to question and guide,
not lecture, and that is alwaysgoing to get you so much further
, especially with those studentswho are the hardest to teach
and reach and are the morevulnerable students and the
(11:24):
students who you're having theseconversations with on the
regular.
Okay, wonderful teachers.
I hope that was helpful and Ilook forward to seeing you in
the next episode.
Bye for now.
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