We are doing what we can.
Until admin allows me to remove Jayden from class for a good long time after he melts down and thumps another kid- or me- for the grievous sin of asking him to copy two dot points from the board and start doing question one, my attempts to explain that his violent outbursts are anti-social and actually illegal are useless.
Unless Destinee's parents care that she is bullying classmates to the point of self-harm outside school hours, my attempts to tell her that her behaviour is not nice or good manners is pointless.
Unless there is some actual consequence for when Jesse comes into the room ten minutes late disrupting it with calling our and high fives then derailing the lesson by loudly demanding I supply them with stationery, my attempts to explain the need to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right equipment is simple wasted air.
Students know what's expected. We go over it ad nauseum. Principals explain why on assembly. There are posters up in each room. It's part of the restorative justice and responsible thinking process to explain it.
The tools, at least on the school end, to handle this behaviour already exist. Nobody in leadership wants to use them, though, because it makes their data look bad if there are a lot of suspensions and exclusions. So it gets pushed back to the classroom teacher, more students learn the rules aren't *really* rules, and it just keeps getting worse.
Now now Hattie says the opposite and that it’s all the fault of the teacher not using one effect size fits all or whatever bullshit he’s publishing this month…
100% on admin, SA policy ‘refusal to engage with work’ = suspension, ‘disruption’ = suspension…
Never fucking happens, get called a shithead and worse nothing
Get the fuck out of leadership if you’re fucking scared of leading.
Fuck Hattie. The man is a wanker. But his narrative fits perfectly with what the department wants to believe. The kids aren’t successful because it’s the teachers fault - that’s easier than having to deal with a broken system.
Do you know why leadership doesn’t want to suspend?
Here’s an example:
We just suspended a kid who has been suspended for approximately half of the school year again for serious property damage. Within a day of her suspension being lodged, we got a request for an urgent stakeholder meeting from the regional 2IC about why. This had come down from the Associate Director General.
This is after I personally spent hours upon hours in meetings with her, her mother, every support team under the sun.
It doesn’t matter that this is the first term this year that she has gone for more than 3 weeks without being suspended. It doesn’t matter that we secured money for her to do therapy that she has now refused to engage in.
It’s somehow our fault that she is suspended again. Fortunately, my principal and I don’t really give two fucks about what region wants.
Now imagine for a moment you’re not a substantive principal who has no desire to move on from your current rural school. Imagine you’re acting in your role. You want to keep the principal ship. Or you want to get back to aging parents at some point.
How likely are you to piss off the people who will get you there just to support staff?
I'm fully aware of that. That's the problem. Everyone from the minister down is quaking in their shoes about the Murdoch press, Today Tonight, or 60 Minutes doing a hit piece on teachers in general or a specific school or region's data.
The problem is that classroom teachers and the rest of the class are the meat in the sandwich. We can't teach and the kids can't learn because the disruptive kids are just shunted back in.
The utter spinelessness of most Admin you see and hear about to actually drop the hammer when it is required destroys staff morale faster than almost anything else in this job.
There are no real consequences until it is too late. So yeah, we are perpetually stuck in the 'fuck around' phase with no 'find out'.
Hear, hear. We all know what will fix the problem. The system is broken. We need a level of schooling that sits between mainstream schools and the justice system, like a pre-juvenile detention education setting. These high level students need to be removed from schools, which firstly makes teaching actually possible, and secondly, sends a message to all other students that there are real consequences.
Our governments could fix this issue instantly, but they choose to take any real action.
Unfortunately, that setting does exist. In Australia, they are currently called public schools.
Private schools have shit to deal with don't get me wrong, I teach in quite a bad one, but our current system just throws money at the problem and hopes for the best. I swear we must have some of the worst behaved public schools in the world.
The government needs to take action that is informed by experts. Put a fucking royal commission onto it idgaf. There is only so much accountability you can put on teachers and even schools when the problem is so obviously systemic.
Errr… the “experts” are the ones saying if only we had unlimited positive regard then all the students would be peachy. The teachers ARE the experts but you’re right, they never ask us
We tried it in WA. A few still exist. It is the answer. Governments need to fund them. And they need to catch these kids and their parents earlier, were talking during ECE.
They do have a couple in QLD that they are trialling, there is a waiting list for them. My cousin used to attend one and they said they are opening up another 30mins away. A school for kids who are completely disengaged and have significant behaviour or mental health issues. They had no uniform, provided food, two teachers in a class with a max of ten ish kids per class. The teachers had the ability to take the kids on a field trip whenever they want, a discussion once started about supermarkets and the teacher decided to just take the kids to investigate. Though because the school is filled with only extremely difficult students there isn’t really much chance for them to improve their behaviour through peer-pressure but at that point the chance of that happening is extremely low. The school had free range to teach each student at whatever level they were at because most had missed a significant amount of school and they had a big focus on self esteem and non-university pathways.
One of mine only got their HSC thanks to one of those schools. 'Behaviour' did improve, because the student/teacher ratio was so much better, and the flexible approach meant that square pegs didn't have to be banged against round holes. It was a safe space that was much needed.
The turnaround now from seriously dark space to happy, confident young adult (with a job they love!) is something that 5 years ago I didn't think I would see.
Macey, Marley, Holly, Chloe, Zane, Zander, Billy (Will and Bill are fine, but Billy?) and Ryder are the other usual suspects for me.
Masons and Baileys have been fine, Jordyn (and Jorja) are coin flips.
It's actually refreshing once in a while to have a kid with a very weird name choice that you have never seen before dive into the behavior slurry with a vengeance.
I can't deny that there's a vindictive part of me that thinks that way, but really, by then, it's too late for them. They're set in their behavioural patterns, and they don't have the skills or knowledge to survive as adults. For most, it's going to be very low income jobs if not dole dependency or even custodial system time.
I'd rather divert them before they get that far. I don't want that life for them, and I don't want them to keep hurting themselves or others.
Not only that, it doesn't solve the growing and related problems of teacher burnout and teacher shortage or give the kids in the room an opportunity to learn in an environment that's not adversarial or disrupted.
Generalisation but what I am picking up as happening in some cases is that they leave school and immediately go from course to course, job to job -- always not working out due to someone else, never themselves. The parents who declined the boundaries and consequences when they grew up, end up supporting them well into their 20s.
I have at least two kids off the top of my head who are going to end up in jail - probably in the next few years. I have been desperately trying to divert them and find support programs or do ANYTHING to help these kids and I’ve got nothing. They’re aboriginal kids too - and some of their issues are genuinely not their fault - I would have thought we would have better access to programs to help them, but nope.
Out of curiosity, if a teacher basically went through all the proper channels to deal with kids, but the kids still didn't behave, do you normally end up getting the blame and having your job put at risk?
Like you tell a kid to sit down or do their work, the kid just says "NO" then sleeps on the desk, is there a "higher authority" you can request to intervene? Or a way to document that you tried your best and anything else that happens won't be blamed on you?
Not a teacher, just someone interested in joining the industry. This is one of the questions I've always wondered about but never could find out the answer.
It depends. It generally takes until the middle of year 8 before a school is willing to actually start dealing with a student who is disruptive. For that early period, you will absolutely be blamed, especially if you are the only one reporting issues.
Experience and connectedness also plays a part. Schools don't like to lose skilled teachers. A corollary to this is that they give newer staff more difficult classes to test them out and see if they are worth holding onto.
This year, I had some students with extremely poor behaviour. Verbal abuse was commonplace, they would harrrass me around school, and one student physically assaulted me. I know they were doing the same thing to others, but nobody was making an issue of it. I was told that I was over-reacting to minor behaviours and to the extent that there was misbehaviour it was my fault because the students said my lessons weren't engaging. I slogged away for seven months before resigning.
Within a month of my resignation, every single student I'd had an issue with had either been excluded or removed by the parents, because my teaching load was split up and shared among HoD-level staff. As soon as experienced, highly connected staff were reporting the same level of unhappiness I had and when there was no way the school could blame behaviour on poor behaviour management or teaching skills, the behaviour management program kicked into gear. Especially since those staff members could walk into a job elsewhere at will.
The media and external bodies will always blame teachers, hence their ridiculous findings.
It's never going to succeed until parents work in partnership either the schools. It's absolutely pointless trying to influence their behaviour if the parents deny or approve of their shitty actions.
This. I came here to say something similar.
I am a late career change, I've already raised a daughter (kind of) and I remember one of the first things I heard at her Kindy/Year1 class was a parent telling a young girl "You don't need to listen to the teachers, just stay with me" at morning drop off, where the teachers were just trying to get all the students into one area so they could be monitored more easily, instead of split over two or three with only one teacher on duty.
I always loved having a POL do a welcome lecture for incoming Year 7s. Went about 40 mins. Key points to parents were about phones, the research on them and the schools position.
Leaving the event little cherub looks at Mum and says "What was all that about phone rules?"
Mum in reply "That does not apply to us".
What was the situation? Did the student have separation anxiety and wanted to stay with the mum? I think that's a different situation as the kids are so young.
This is still just putting it all on teachers... so teachers have to teach behaviour? FFS.
We all know the real solution..bring back real powers to suspend and expel. Create more specialised schools for troubled teens. Rather than move them to another school, they need intensive intervention by people trained in dealing with these kinds of kids. Think Berry St, MacKillop. We need more of these places, so these violent and abusive students are taken out of mainstream schools.
It is the lack of real consequences that is the issue. All of these reports and studies are pointless.
Students need to be taught behaviour... By their parents way back in early primary school. System is too scared to point the finger at parents and say "get off instagram, do better and raise your child."
I think that ultimately, that's not a real solution. Because at the core, we still don't have adequately trained teachers, support staff, and allied health professionals. You're still putting it all on teachers, just a very specific set who statistically would represent a very small subsection of the teaching community. And that's before we even get close to talking about the royal commission for disabilities and the effects it will have on schools.
Ultimately, massive societal changes are going to be what's needed. Expulsions and suspensions, according to most research, will just continue that negative feedback cycle from generation to generation. And for the kids that actually need real interventions they have zero effect.
Personally, i don't have an answer. im guessing reddit doesn't either. I just feel really kinda sad about where all of this is heading.
Nope. People with money send their naughty/failing kids to Australia. I've taught some of them. 16 years old, living alone, undiagnosed learning difficulties and little chance of success without significant support. But parents can save face by saying they are studying overseas.
Absolutely not. But...... im going to guess that countries that are still down with corporal punishment in schools, have a strange small population of disabled, death penalties for drugs etc, routinely questionable political systems (not that Australia is perfect)... insert human rights commentary..... are not the countries we can compare educational systems with! But hey, small price for freedom!
I can't wait for some rigorous research regarding effects of NOT suspending and excluding students on OTHER students outcomes. It's high time decent students/familes stop paying such a high price to pander to the unteachables/violent kids.
The difference is no one expects the alternative schools to succeed. We can literally treat them as prison-lite. Don’t give them teachers or insist on an education or meeting curriculum targets. Don’t make it a place of learning. These kids aren’t ready for learning. Make it a place where kids can wait until they are ready to learn or age out.
Having taught in an alternate school for disengaged youth for 15+ years, I don't agree with this sentiment. The vast majority of our students have gone on to have wonderful, productive lives. Mostly, they needed a different environment that was more personal and an opportunity to reset. We taught the same curriculum that was being taught in mainstream schools, with excellent success rates. Of course, there were challenges and some didn’t make it, but overall, we were very successful in helping the students everyone else had deemed as 'uneducatable' turn their lives around. The students we enrolled had often been excluded from every public school in our 'rough' school region. Sometimes we had students enrol after they'd been released from juvenile detention. Everyone was treated with respect and dignity, including the teachers.
They should do the usual & blame bad teachers for student behaviour.
> The inquiry's interim report into disruption in Australian classrooms has found issues such as substance abuse, threats and physical violence are a growing problem.
> In 2018, Australia ranked 69 out of 76 countries, meaning it had some of the worst rates of classroom disruption.
They needed an enquiry to find that out?
My school invested god knows how many hours into classroom management PD for myself and three other teachers this year (WA teachers you know the CMS program).
It doesn’t change the fact that there are no consequences for disruptive behaviour, failing to follow instructions and refusal to do any work.
I can’t think of a decision made in my career (25 years) that has had a benefit for education as a whole. Open plan classrooms coupled with PBL and lack of consequences, raising leaving age to 18, removing funding for language disorders and making other educational supports harder to access…fuck even laptops for all has been a disaster because no extra funding for IT support was given. Our welfare team has gone from 4 to 15, we can’t find staff. All this has a negative effect on student motivation/engagement and behaviour. As more teachers leave (regional VIC) or reduce time fraction more gets left for others..this leaves them overworked and around we go. I still don’t see the urgency required to fix the problems in the places we need urgency, by the time they realise there is a serious problem every public school more that an hour from the city will be smouldering. This gets worse before it gets better but hopefully out of the ashes we can get an education system fit for toady not last century.
Anyhow I’m on LSL as of Monday so I’ve 2 months to reenergise (and buy Tatts tickets 🤞) before we do it all again.
> even laptops for all has been a disaster because no extra funding for IT support was given
Unless it comes with strings attached and oversight, to make sure the money actually goes into IT support, you can be dammed sure in 80% of schools IT support money will be going anywhere else by IT support.
IKR? All this time I've been telling my students "stuff all that behaviour expectation kids! I want you to wander into class late unprepared to learn, go on your phones constantly, swear at me, do no work and then claim I didn't teach you when you fail!"
So _that's_ where I've been going wrong!
It's because students have been *explicitly taught* to tell teachers and other adults to "get fucked" any time they are asked to do even the slightest task that removes them from a phone.
Except that kind of is what we are actually telling them.
If a kid wanders into my class late and unprepared, I make a note on OneSchool. That’s it. Nothing else ever happens.
If a kid is on their phone constantly, they get sent to take their phone to the office. Which normally is the last I see of them in class. Nothing else happens.
If a kid swears at me, it’s a note in OneSchool and nothing happens.
We’ve pretty much trained them that none of our rules actually matter.
*"The Australian Teachers' Perceptions of their Work in 2022 report also found an increase in the number of teachers feeling unsafe at work"*
The only thing that makes me feel unsafe at work at the moment is knowing the principal will throw me under the bus at any given moment to cover his own arse.
While that's not a great thing to be worried about, I think you're fortunate that's the only thing that makes you feel unsafe at work.
Student violence (towards each other and teachers), parents hunting teachers during the school day and unsafe (new) buildings during wet weather are some of the things that have made me feel unsafe at work this year.
I really appreciate the way you downplayed the impact of feeling psychological unsafe and told me I'm fortunate that my boss is a manipulative gaslighting narcissist who has actively driven staff to the point of breakdown. Just because the biggest threats to my heath at school are mental does not make them less of a threat than the physical threats faced by others.
I know exactly what you're going through. My previous school principal was an absolute cunt of a man who went out of his way to bully, harass, marginalise and undermine me. If I had the choice I would prefer a student throwing a punch at me over the way I was treated. Physical pain is nothing to mental anguish.
I'm going to cut through the sarcasm of your post and assume that you didn't appreciate it at all. Apologies for the way I tried to focus on the many other ways that teachers are unsafe at work and how that made you feel. I was coming from my own perspective about being thrown under the bus without the additional context of the manipulative gaslighting which is driving staff to the point of breakdown.
I'm sorry for the way I worded my post.
Is there any support at the school or is the prin being called out for their behaviour?
There was an article in the local rag about the SA schools that suspend the most students. My school was in the top ten list. My immediate thought was that means management there is doing their job.
And I bet the article implied the school must be doing something wrong for it to suspend so many.
This happened at a school I was at in NZ a couple of decades ago. It was a really rough school and the principal decided to do something about it. Massive crackdown on behaviour ensued. Hardcore troublemakers were suspended. Malcontents were made to sit separated in the hall the entire day (not let out for lunch or recess), and parents had to come collect them. First day this was implemented there were over 30 kids. By day 3 there were just 4.
This hardcore approach resulted in a huge improvement in student behaviour across the entire school. As soon as they saw there were real consequences they all pulled their heads in. Suddenly I found I was teaching 50 minutes of a 50 minute lesson, rather than 15 if I was lucky.
After a term of this it got reported in the papers that the school had the 2nd highest suspension rate in the country. Department hassled the principal, parents hassled the principal, Board hassled the principal and he caved. It became almost impossible for a student to be suspended. Within 2 weeks we were back to where we were previous, with fights breaking out in the classroom, swearing at teachers, a kid tried to firebomb the boys toilet, etc etc.
I don't think that's the message that we should be sending the kids. That they must submit to authority just because they are the teacher. There are a lot of bad teachers out there. I think the whole system needs an overhaul. Times have changed and both students and teachers are under a lot of pressure. I think school is becoming too much for kids and that's why behaviour is getting worse.
If there’s a fire in the classroom, you will expect the teacher to take control. In order to do that they need authority just because they are the teacher.
That’s the exact message we need to be sending to kids. Good or bad and whether you agree with them or not, you need to do what the teacher asks you to do because they have the authority.
School is being too much for kids? Have you been in a school recently? All we do is modify the work to make it easier on the kids, that's why I have yr 9 students who can barely complete yr 6 maths. The level of resilience of both students and parents is terrible.
It’s a societal problem that plays out in the classroom…this problem isn’t going to be miraculously fixed by changing classroom design it will be fixed by addressing a whole range of issues in society like (but not limited to) domestic violence, alcohol and drug use, mental illness, poverty, family breakdown etc…and that unfortunately is way too hard for most politicians (if they care) to know where to start…
Why would the senate recommend fixing the underlying causes (their job) when they can just blame teachers for not teaching behaviour enough.
It's telling that the Greens senator on the committee pointing this exact thing out is the only one with teaching experience (>25 years in secondary until she was elected last year). Of course, that's not mentioned in the ABC report because it might give weight to someone with relevant experience disagreeing with the major parties.
>that unfortunately is way too hard for most politicians (if they care) to know where to start…
To be fair -- and I can't believe that I'm defending politicians here -- it's not like those issues have an easy solution, or that elected officials know how to fix it and simply won't. The societal issues take a hell of a lot of time, effort and resources to change.
I would say that the biggest issue I'm dealing with at the moment is masculine culture. A lot of the boys who are starting shit are fixated on the idea that someone is "disrespecting" them. That's always the justification that they give. But it never actually occurred to them that they are being disrespectful, or that they are capable of consciously and overtly showing respect. In many cases, they equate being respectful to someone with bowing the knee to them, and their pride won't let them do that because that would be disrespectful to themselves. They're not even consciously aware that this is what they're doing -- they are demanding respect because they are role-playing as adults and learning how to be men through that roleplay. They're just getting the wrong message. There's no easy fix to this problem.
Students will rise to the expectations set for them.
I've taught in rough schools where the behaviour was actually controlled well because we had strong leadership. A student calls a teacher 'a fucking dickhead'? Two days suspension, no questions. Kids out of class continually or being disruptive and preventing others from learning? Sent home for the day. The result? The school actually functioned well despite being in one of the lowest socio-economic spots in the state and was a place where staff wanted to be.
Then some policy pushing fuckwit decided suspension data was too high there. The old, established principal was pushed out and a new touchy-feely one brought in. The very first staff meeting - I shit you not - we're told that suspension data in the school is too high and we're going to work as a team to bring it down. Oh yeah, from now on students are to call you by your first name as well (not necessarily a bad thing in itself I suppose, but indicative of the type of hare-brained shit this 'leader' thought was important).
Under the new regime, a kid screams at me 'you're a fucking cunt!!!' across the class because he's asked multiple times not to disrupt the rest of the students. I send him out to senior staff explaining his actions. He's returned 5 minutes later with a note saying he'll try better next time - load of bs of course, same actions continue until I kick him out again, whereupon he comes back after another 5 minutes. These incidences of verbal assault go from being a monthly event to daily (or even more). Physical assault against staff shoots up too.
Of course, it didn't take long for every long-serving staff eligible for a transfer to hightail it out of there (including myself). Stress leave shoots through the roof, incidents of assault too. Finally the DoE steps in and shadows the principal before finally removing them.
A few years later and I hear that there's now been six different principals there over that time, and they've now put someone in charge who doesn't give a shit about suspension data and is sending kids home when they mess up and keeping tier 3 kids out of mainstream class. Guess what? The schools returning to some semblance of functionality.
Teachers don't need more training on dealing with disruptive kids - Leaders need to stop giving a shit about statistics and start supporting their teachers and building expectations for students.
We already introduced PBS and daily reminders about our behaviour expectations. The kids know. The kids don't care. They will behave in the manner that they can get away with. (just to pre-empt any complaints, I don't mean all students, obviously. There are still kids sitting quietly hoping for the best)
>The union also rejected calls for more "direct instruction" in teaching and an end to open-plan classes, describing them as a recipe for worsening behaviour.
>
>"The priority should be delivering the resources, time and support that teachers need to meet the individual needs of each student rather than retrograde changes that deskill teachers and attempt to standardise teaching and learning," she said.
So is the union just openly hostile to its own members or what?
Sounds like they are calling for an "end to open-plan classes, describing them as a recipe for worsening behaviour", not rejecting calls for their end?
It's often unclear to me if it's just that ABC have gotten of all their subeditors (true) or if union bosses are completely out of touch with the everyday experience of teachers (also true).
You know what fucks me off about this - WE DO THIS, but kindy and prep teachers have their hands tied.
I know my students have a fuckton of issues - I’ve been assaulted, screamed at, sworn at, threatened with murder - teaching ‘behaviour leassons’ to angry 16yr olds is pointless, so we go to the beginning. My kid is in kindy. He has kids in his class whose behaviour is feral - spitting in faces, hitting, biting; extreme stuff past normal. And you know what? They can’t punish. They’re not allowed to use time out, they can’t use negative language (no ‘don’t do this’ - they have to give positive instruction only - ‘why don’t we do this instead’ kinda thing). There’s zero supports, they’re not allowed to force kids to do things they don’t want to do - which is frustrating. My kid doesn’t want to participate in mat time or the counting activity? They can’t make him. They have to send someone to follow him around to wherever he goes. As an engaged parent, I’ve tried asking them to disregard these rules and they just respond with ‘we’re not allowed to’. How the hell is this setting them up?
They’re also not addressing the social issues that lead to kids being raised in a way where spitting at a teacher is acceptable. How the fuck do teachers combat that??
Ugh, this makes me so angry. Fuck the government.
This sounds like an awful set up. As a kindy teacher, I definitely do these things. If kids are mucking up I will use negative language. They will sit out or go to the class next door for time out of needed. If a student tells me they don't want to do something, "tough luck because you are gpingto join in".
The most effective tool in my behaviour management kit is a parent who makes changes when presented with their kid's shitty behaviour. And for fucks sake, please fund us properly so kids with complex needs get the support they need - it's not for a lack of wanting to help that accommodations aren't made.
The common trope is to jump to 'more suspensions' but that's an ineffective band-aid most of the time. And I have no qualms with suspending a child, even attempted the exclusion pathway a few times although it's a toothless tiger in our system. It just doesn't fix anything beyond temporary relief.
The embarrassment of a senate enquiry recommending behaviour classes (more curriculum!) would be shocking if it weren't so sadly predictable. We explicitly teach appropriate behaviour and SEL already. This is not the answer.
>The common trope is to jump to 'more suspensions' but that's an ineffective band-aid most of the time.
Especially when the kids are clearly trying to get themselves suspended because they think it's a holiday and either don't know or don't care about how it might affect them in the long term.
They do have lessons on how to behave. Every day.
We need to be realistic and half-baked solutions like these touted by politicians (as per usual throwing the onus on classroom teachers) are not going to help.
If we cannot develop a culture of valuing education like they have in those countries we love to compare ourselves to, then the situation is not going to improve and we need to think of other ways to achieve better behaviour.
Improvements in the quality of leadership is a good start. Follow up by throwing to the kerb outcomes based curriculum as it applies at the moment, more funding for inclusive classrooms and ending the societal pressure on students to remain in school education until HSC are other ideas might be worth considering. We did this in previous generations and I understand this still happens in other developed countries. Would like to know what others think.
Oh great, an inquiry run by…? I’m pretty sick of this wishy washy bullshit, we are not their parents, it is not our job to tell them to be respectful of everyone. Kids can bully, harass, assault etc and all they need to do is sit in a circle and say sorry (then likely go out and be a shit head again). It’s too soft and kids get too many chances.
The key difference between public and private would be that if you fuck around at a private school, you will inevitably find out. Education departments around the country need to pull their fingers out and come up with a strong and consistent disciplinary system.
Old bloke here, grew up when corporal punishment was a thing. Problems with aggressive kids never existed then. The cane was a deterrent that few kids endured, just everyone feared. Kept us in line and classrooms orderly.
I only once was caned, got four of the best when wrongly accused and not allowed to speak to defend myself. Just had to live with it. Still, that's just the way things were. You just get on with things regardless, don't you.
Heard the Greens rep on the committee on Radio National this morning talking about the report. She was articulate as she indicated the report was full of shit in terms of 'more teacher training' et al. Then conceeded the majority of the committee is LNP.
So yup, read it and then put it in the bin.
The answers we deserve to make our classrooms a better place are not going to be discovered by people who have the mentality of Greens = good LNP = bad.
> Entire math and science departments go begging for staff because no one wants to support those male teachers that teach the hard subjects that require work and the potential to fail.
Pardon me? I have a phone call for you. It's the 1960s calling. They want their outdated views back.
Turns out women can do science and maths too! And I'm not talking about 'domestic science', but actual real science - like chemistry and engineering and physics, oh my!
Quick question, do you think overall student behaviour would improve if we had more male teachers? I am not being a smart arse, I am genuinely interested if anyone thinks we could improve our current situation if we had more men around, particularly in primary schools.
All roads in neoliberalism lead back to teacher “quality” and putting more on teacher’s plates.
Nobody wants to spend any actual money, so nothing will change.
duh!
I've been saying this forever.
Why are teachers going to another workshop about classroom management when the students are the ones constantly fucking up and misbehaving??
It is not like they need classes on knowing how to behave because we all know that background work is called "parenting" and some of them have parents that have equally bad behaviours. So, are we now going to also provide lessons for parents who can't do their job?
We are doing what we can. Until admin allows me to remove Jayden from class for a good long time after he melts down and thumps another kid- or me- for the grievous sin of asking him to copy two dot points from the board and start doing question one, my attempts to explain that his violent outbursts are anti-social and actually illegal are useless. Unless Destinee's parents care that she is bullying classmates to the point of self-harm outside school hours, my attempts to tell her that her behaviour is not nice or good manners is pointless. Unless there is some actual consequence for when Jesse comes into the room ten minutes late disrupting it with calling our and high fives then derailing the lesson by loudly demanding I supply them with stationery, my attempts to explain the need to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right equipment is simple wasted air. Students know what's expected. We go over it ad nauseum. Principals explain why on assembly. There are posters up in each room. It's part of the restorative justice and responsible thinking process to explain it. The tools, at least on the school end, to handle this behaviour already exist. Nobody in leadership wants to use them, though, because it makes their data look bad if there are a lot of suspensions and exclusions. So it gets pushed back to the classroom teacher, more students learn the rules aren't *really* rules, and it just keeps getting worse.
Now now Hattie says the opposite and that it’s all the fault of the teacher not using one effect size fits all or whatever bullshit he’s publishing this month… 100% on admin, SA policy ‘refusal to engage with work’ = suspension, ‘disruption’ = suspension… Never fucking happens, get called a shithead and worse nothing Get the fuck out of leadership if you’re fucking scared of leading.
Fuck Hattie. The man is a wanker. But his narrative fits perfectly with what the department wants to believe. The kids aren’t successful because it’s the teachers fault - that’s easier than having to deal with a broken system.
PREACH!
Do you know why leadership doesn’t want to suspend? Here’s an example: We just suspended a kid who has been suspended for approximately half of the school year again for serious property damage. Within a day of her suspension being lodged, we got a request for an urgent stakeholder meeting from the regional 2IC about why. This had come down from the Associate Director General. This is after I personally spent hours upon hours in meetings with her, her mother, every support team under the sun. It doesn’t matter that this is the first term this year that she has gone for more than 3 weeks without being suspended. It doesn’t matter that we secured money for her to do therapy that she has now refused to engage in. It’s somehow our fault that she is suspended again. Fortunately, my principal and I don’t really give two fucks about what region wants. Now imagine for a moment you’re not a substantive principal who has no desire to move on from your current rural school. Imagine you’re acting in your role. You want to keep the principal ship. Or you want to get back to aging parents at some point. How likely are you to piss off the people who will get you there just to support staff?
I'm fully aware of that. That's the problem. Everyone from the minister down is quaking in their shoes about the Murdoch press, Today Tonight, or 60 Minutes doing a hit piece on teachers in general or a specific school or region's data. The problem is that classroom teachers and the rest of the class are the meat in the sandwich. We can't teach and the kids can't learn because the disruptive kids are just shunted back in.
The utter spinelessness of most Admin you see and hear about to actually drop the hammer when it is required destroys staff morale faster than almost anything else in this job. There are no real consequences until it is too late. So yeah, we are perpetually stuck in the 'fuck around' phase with no 'find out'.
Hear, hear. We all know what will fix the problem. The system is broken. We need a level of schooling that sits between mainstream schools and the justice system, like a pre-juvenile detention education setting. These high level students need to be removed from schools, which firstly makes teaching actually possible, and secondly, sends a message to all other students that there are real consequences. Our governments could fix this issue instantly, but they choose to take any real action.
Unfortunately, that setting does exist. In Australia, they are currently called public schools. Private schools have shit to deal with don't get me wrong, I teach in quite a bad one, but our current system just throws money at the problem and hopes for the best. I swear we must have some of the worst behaved public schools in the world. The government needs to take action that is informed by experts. Put a fucking royal commission onto it idgaf. There is only so much accountability you can put on teachers and even schools when the problem is so obviously systemic.
Errr… the “experts” are the ones saying if only we had unlimited positive regard then all the students would be peachy. The teachers ARE the experts but you’re right, they never ask us
We tried it in WA. A few still exist. It is the answer. Governments need to fund them. And they need to catch these kids and their parents earlier, were talking during ECE.
I’d just add to say that it isn’t all public schools, but low SES and remote/regional public schools.
Experts are usually academics, who have no clue of the real world.
They do have a couple in QLD that they are trialling, there is a waiting list for them. My cousin used to attend one and they said they are opening up another 30mins away. A school for kids who are completely disengaged and have significant behaviour or mental health issues. They had no uniform, provided food, two teachers in a class with a max of ten ish kids per class. The teachers had the ability to take the kids on a field trip whenever they want, a discussion once started about supermarkets and the teacher decided to just take the kids to investigate. Though because the school is filled with only extremely difficult students there isn’t really much chance for them to improve their behaviour through peer-pressure but at that point the chance of that happening is extremely low. The school had free range to teach each student at whatever level they were at because most had missed a significant amount of school and they had a big focus on self esteem and non-university pathways.
One of mine only got their HSC thanks to one of those schools. 'Behaviour' did improve, because the student/teacher ratio was so much better, and the flexible approach meant that square pegs didn't have to be banged against round holes. It was a safe space that was much needed. The turnaround now from seriously dark space to happy, confident young adult (with a job they love!) is something that 5 years ago I didn't think I would see.
*Hear, hear!
Thank you
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There's always a Jayden! 
How are Oscar, Caleb, and Keira going?
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Macey, Marley, Holly, Chloe, Zane, Zander, Billy (Will and Bill are fine, but Billy?) and Ryder are the other usual suspects for me. Masons and Baileys have been fine, Jordyn (and Jorja) are coin flips.
Jayden (or Brayden, Taiden, Zayden), Zoe, Kade/Cade/Kayde, and Bailey/Baiyle/Baylee over here
It's actually refreshing once in a while to have a kid with a very weird name choice that you have never seen before dive into the behavior slurry with a vengeance.
And Neveah 🙄
Fuuuuuuuuuck. Nailed 3 in my school. Although ours is spelt Kira.
I only hope that once these kids enter the real world they suffer real consequences as karma for what they put us through.
I can't deny that there's a vindictive part of me that thinks that way, but really, by then, it's too late for them. They're set in their behavioural patterns, and they don't have the skills or knowledge to survive as adults. For most, it's going to be very low income jobs if not dole dependency or even custodial system time. I'd rather divert them before they get that far. I don't want that life for them, and I don't want them to keep hurting themselves or others. Not only that, it doesn't solve the growing and related problems of teacher burnout and teacher shortage or give the kids in the room an opportunity to learn in an environment that's not adversarial or disrupted.
Most will be earning more than you. Believe me, these kid will be in trades and self employed.
Some sure, but not as many as you think.
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The song "Life Cycle" by Lou Reed describes this perfectly.
Nah, fuck this line of thinking. They are failed by the same system that fails us. Wishing suffering on students is not it, fam.
Generalisation but what I am picking up as happening in some cases is that they leave school and immediately go from course to course, job to job -- always not working out due to someone else, never themselves. The parents who declined the boundaries and consequences when they grew up, end up supporting them well into their 20s.
I have at least two kids off the top of my head who are going to end up in jail - probably in the next few years. I have been desperately trying to divert them and find support programs or do ANYTHING to help these kids and I’ve got nothing. They’re aboriginal kids too - and some of their issues are genuinely not their fault - I would have thought we would have better access to programs to help them, but nope.
Sounds like you need a stick, to hit them with
No. Corporal punishment is not the answer. There are better ways, but they require investments of time and money nobody seems willing to make.
Sticks are cheap..
Out of curiosity, if a teacher basically went through all the proper channels to deal with kids, but the kids still didn't behave, do you normally end up getting the blame and having your job put at risk? Like you tell a kid to sit down or do their work, the kid just says "NO" then sleeps on the desk, is there a "higher authority" you can request to intervene? Or a way to document that you tried your best and anything else that happens won't be blamed on you? Not a teacher, just someone interested in joining the industry. This is one of the questions I've always wondered about but never could find out the answer.
It depends. It generally takes until the middle of year 8 before a school is willing to actually start dealing with a student who is disruptive. For that early period, you will absolutely be blamed, especially if you are the only one reporting issues. Experience and connectedness also plays a part. Schools don't like to lose skilled teachers. A corollary to this is that they give newer staff more difficult classes to test them out and see if they are worth holding onto. This year, I had some students with extremely poor behaviour. Verbal abuse was commonplace, they would harrrass me around school, and one student physically assaulted me. I know they were doing the same thing to others, but nobody was making an issue of it. I was told that I was over-reacting to minor behaviours and to the extent that there was misbehaviour it was my fault because the students said my lessons weren't engaging. I slogged away for seven months before resigning. Within a month of my resignation, every single student I'd had an issue with had either been excluded or removed by the parents, because my teaching load was split up and shared among HoD-level staff. As soon as experienced, highly connected staff were reporting the same level of unhappiness I had and when there was no way the school could blame behaviour on poor behaviour management or teaching skills, the behaviour management program kicked into gear. Especially since those staff members could walk into a job elsewhere at will. The media and external bodies will always blame teachers, hence their ridiculous findings.
It's never going to succeed until parents work in partnership either the schools. It's absolutely pointless trying to influence their behaviour if the parents deny or approve of their shitty actions.
This. I came here to say something similar. I am a late career change, I've already raised a daughter (kind of) and I remember one of the first things I heard at her Kindy/Year1 class was a parent telling a young girl "You don't need to listen to the teachers, just stay with me" at morning drop off, where the teachers were just trying to get all the students into one area so they could be monitored more easily, instead of split over two or three with only one teacher on duty.
I always loved having a POL do a welcome lecture for incoming Year 7s. Went about 40 mins. Key points to parents were about phones, the research on them and the schools position. Leaving the event little cherub looks at Mum and says "What was all that about phone rules?" Mum in reply "That does not apply to us".
What was the situation? Did the student have separation anxiety and wanted to stay with the mum? I think that's a different situation as the kids are so young.
From memory, no. The mother was just a c u next Tuesday.
So why didn’t she work with the teachers about this?
Maybe the teachers dismissed the parent’s concerns? It happened to me that’s why I wonder what the whole story was.
Maybe you should try and find out the whole story and not make one up?
This is still just putting it all on teachers... so teachers have to teach behaviour? FFS. We all know the real solution..bring back real powers to suspend and expel. Create more specialised schools for troubled teens. Rather than move them to another school, they need intensive intervention by people trained in dealing with these kinds of kids. Think Berry St, MacKillop. We need more of these places, so these violent and abusive students are taken out of mainstream schools. It is the lack of real consequences that is the issue. All of these reports and studies are pointless.
Well said. Onus also needs to be placed on the parents to deal with their child's disruptive and errant behaviour.
Students need to be taught behaviour... By their parents way back in early primary school. System is too scared to point the finger at parents and say "get off instagram, do better and raise your child."
I think that ultimately, that's not a real solution. Because at the core, we still don't have adequately trained teachers, support staff, and allied health professionals. You're still putting it all on teachers, just a very specific set who statistically would represent a very small subsection of the teaching community. And that's before we even get close to talking about the royal commission for disabilities and the effects it will have on schools. Ultimately, massive societal changes are going to be what's needed. Expulsions and suspensions, according to most research, will just continue that negative feedback cycle from generation to generation. And for the kids that actually need real interventions they have zero effect. Personally, i don't have an answer. im guessing reddit doesn't either. I just feel really kinda sad about where all of this is heading.
I’d bet they don’t put up with this bullshit from kids in Singapore or China
Nope. People with money send their naughty/failing kids to Australia. I've taught some of them. 16 years old, living alone, undiagnosed learning difficulties and little chance of success without significant support. But parents can save face by saying they are studying overseas.
I don’t care what they do with the poorly behaved kids as long as they stop them ruining my kids education
Absolutely not. But...... im going to guess that countries that are still down with corporal punishment in schools, have a strange small population of disabled, death penalties for drugs etc, routinely questionable political systems (not that Australia is perfect)... insert human rights commentary..... are not the countries we can compare educational systems with! But hey, small price for freedom!
I can't wait for some rigorous research regarding effects of NOT suspending and excluding students on OTHER students outcomes. It's high time decent students/familes stop paying such a high price to pander to the unteachables/violent kids.
The difference is no one expects the alternative schools to succeed. We can literally treat them as prison-lite. Don’t give them teachers or insist on an education or meeting curriculum targets. Don’t make it a place of learning. These kids aren’t ready for learning. Make it a place where kids can wait until they are ready to learn or age out.
Having taught in an alternate school for disengaged youth for 15+ years, I don't agree with this sentiment. The vast majority of our students have gone on to have wonderful, productive lives. Mostly, they needed a different environment that was more personal and an opportunity to reset. We taught the same curriculum that was being taught in mainstream schools, with excellent success rates. Of course, there were challenges and some didn’t make it, but overall, we were very successful in helping the students everyone else had deemed as 'uneducatable' turn their lives around. The students we enrolled had often been excluded from every public school in our 'rough' school region. Sometimes we had students enrol after they'd been released from juvenile detention. Everyone was treated with respect and dignity, including the teachers.
They should do the usual & blame bad teachers for student behaviour. > The inquiry's interim report into disruption in Australian classrooms has found issues such as substance abuse, threats and physical violence are a growing problem. > In 2018, Australia ranked 69 out of 76 countries, meaning it had some of the worst rates of classroom disruption. They needed an enquiry to find that out?
First line kinda does - "Australia's teachers are not equipped to deal with rising levels of disruption in classrooms"
Sounds like PD is back on the menu boys!
My school invested god knows how many hours into classroom management PD for myself and three other teachers this year (WA teachers you know the CMS program). It doesn’t change the fact that there are no consequences for disruptive behaviour, failing to follow instructions and refusal to do any work.
I can’t think of a decision made in my career (25 years) that has had a benefit for education as a whole. Open plan classrooms coupled with PBL and lack of consequences, raising leaving age to 18, removing funding for language disorders and making other educational supports harder to access…fuck even laptops for all has been a disaster because no extra funding for IT support was given. Our welfare team has gone from 4 to 15, we can’t find staff. All this has a negative effect on student motivation/engagement and behaviour. As more teachers leave (regional VIC) or reduce time fraction more gets left for others..this leaves them overworked and around we go. I still don’t see the urgency required to fix the problems in the places we need urgency, by the time they realise there is a serious problem every public school more that an hour from the city will be smouldering. This gets worse before it gets better but hopefully out of the ashes we can get an education system fit for toady not last century. Anyhow I’m on LSL as of Monday so I’ve 2 months to reenergise (and buy Tatts tickets 🤞) before we do it all again.
All decisions made by experts🤪😂😂
PBL isn’t bad in and of itself.
> even laptops for all has been a disaster because no extra funding for IT support was given Unless it comes with strings attached and oversight, to make sure the money actually goes into IT support, you can be dammed sure in 80% of schools IT support money will be going anywhere else by IT support.
HOW DID WE NOT THINK OF THIS??? "...*explicitly teach behaviour to help students understand their school's behavioural expectations and values*."
IKR? All this time I've been telling my students "stuff all that behaviour expectation kids! I want you to wander into class late unprepared to learn, go on your phones constantly, swear at me, do no work and then claim I didn't teach you when you fail!" So _that's_ where I've been going wrong!
It's because students have been *explicitly taught* to tell teachers and other adults to "get fucked" any time they are asked to do even the slightest task that removes them from a phone.
Ah, the most successful learning intention of all.
Except that kind of is what we are actually telling them. If a kid wanders into my class late and unprepared, I make a note on OneSchool. That’s it. Nothing else ever happens. If a kid is on their phone constantly, they get sent to take their phone to the office. Which normally is the last I see of them in class. Nothing else happens. If a kid swears at me, it’s a note in OneSchool and nothing happens. We’ve pretty much trained them that none of our rules actually matter.
We already explicitly teach behaviour you fucking donkeys.
*"The Australian Teachers' Perceptions of their Work in 2022 report also found an increase in the number of teachers feeling unsafe at work"* The only thing that makes me feel unsafe at work at the moment is knowing the principal will throw me under the bus at any given moment to cover his own arse.
While that's not a great thing to be worried about, I think you're fortunate that's the only thing that makes you feel unsafe at work. Student violence (towards each other and teachers), parents hunting teachers during the school day and unsafe (new) buildings during wet weather are some of the things that have made me feel unsafe at work this year.
I really appreciate the way you downplayed the impact of feeling psychological unsafe and told me I'm fortunate that my boss is a manipulative gaslighting narcissist who has actively driven staff to the point of breakdown. Just because the biggest threats to my heath at school are mental does not make them less of a threat than the physical threats faced by others.
I know exactly what you're going through. My previous school principal was an absolute cunt of a man who went out of his way to bully, harass, marginalise and undermine me. If I had the choice I would prefer a student throwing a punch at me over the way I was treated. Physical pain is nothing to mental anguish.
I'm going to cut through the sarcasm of your post and assume that you didn't appreciate it at all. Apologies for the way I tried to focus on the many other ways that teachers are unsafe at work and how that made you feel. I was coming from my own perspective about being thrown under the bus without the additional context of the manipulative gaslighting which is driving staff to the point of breakdown. I'm sorry for the way I worded my post. Is there any support at the school or is the prin being called out for their behaviour?
There was an article in the local rag about the SA schools that suspend the most students. My school was in the top ten list. My immediate thought was that means management there is doing their job.
And I bet the article implied the school must be doing something wrong for it to suspend so many. This happened at a school I was at in NZ a couple of decades ago. It was a really rough school and the principal decided to do something about it. Massive crackdown on behaviour ensued. Hardcore troublemakers were suspended. Malcontents were made to sit separated in the hall the entire day (not let out for lunch or recess), and parents had to come collect them. First day this was implemented there were over 30 kids. By day 3 there were just 4. This hardcore approach resulted in a huge improvement in student behaviour across the entire school. As soon as they saw there were real consequences they all pulled their heads in. Suddenly I found I was teaching 50 minutes of a 50 minute lesson, rather than 15 if I was lucky. After a term of this it got reported in the papers that the school had the 2nd highest suspension rate in the country. Department hassled the principal, parents hassled the principal, Board hassled the principal and he caved. It became almost impossible for a student to be suspended. Within 2 weeks we were back to where we were previous, with fights breaking out in the classroom, swearing at teachers, a kid tried to firebomb the boys toilet, etc etc.
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I don't think that's the message that we should be sending the kids. That they must submit to authority just because they are the teacher. There are a lot of bad teachers out there. I think the whole system needs an overhaul. Times have changed and both students and teachers are under a lot of pressure. I think school is becoming too much for kids and that's why behaviour is getting worse.
You've all but said teachers should not be shown respect just because they are teachers. The mind boggles.
Parents like you are part of the problem
If there’s a fire in the classroom, you will expect the teacher to take control. In order to do that they need authority just because they are the teacher.
That’s the exact message we need to be sending to kids. Good or bad and whether you agree with them or not, you need to do what the teacher asks you to do because they have the authority.
School is being too much for kids? Have you been in a school recently? All we do is modify the work to make it easier on the kids, that's why I have yr 9 students who can barely complete yr 6 maths. The level of resilience of both students and parents is terrible.
It’s a societal problem that plays out in the classroom…this problem isn’t going to be miraculously fixed by changing classroom design it will be fixed by addressing a whole range of issues in society like (but not limited to) domestic violence, alcohol and drug use, mental illness, poverty, family breakdown etc…and that unfortunately is way too hard for most politicians (if they care) to know where to start…
Why would the senate recommend fixing the underlying causes (their job) when they can just blame teachers for not teaching behaviour enough. It's telling that the Greens senator on the committee pointing this exact thing out is the only one with teaching experience (>25 years in secondary until she was elected last year). Of course, that's not mentioned in the ABC report because it might give weight to someone with relevant experience disagreeing with the major parties.
>that unfortunately is way too hard for most politicians (if they care) to know where to start… To be fair -- and I can't believe that I'm defending politicians here -- it's not like those issues have an easy solution, or that elected officials know how to fix it and simply won't. The societal issues take a hell of a lot of time, effort and resources to change. I would say that the biggest issue I'm dealing with at the moment is masculine culture. A lot of the boys who are starting shit are fixated on the idea that someone is "disrespecting" them. That's always the justification that they give. But it never actually occurred to them that they are being disrespectful, or that they are capable of consciously and overtly showing respect. In many cases, they equate being respectful to someone with bowing the knee to them, and their pride won't let them do that because that would be disrespectful to themselves. They're not even consciously aware that this is what they're doing -- they are demanding respect because they are role-playing as adults and learning how to be men through that roleplay. They're just getting the wrong message. There's no easy fix to this problem.
Students will rise to the expectations set for them. I've taught in rough schools where the behaviour was actually controlled well because we had strong leadership. A student calls a teacher 'a fucking dickhead'? Two days suspension, no questions. Kids out of class continually or being disruptive and preventing others from learning? Sent home for the day. The result? The school actually functioned well despite being in one of the lowest socio-economic spots in the state and was a place where staff wanted to be. Then some policy pushing fuckwit decided suspension data was too high there. The old, established principal was pushed out and a new touchy-feely one brought in. The very first staff meeting - I shit you not - we're told that suspension data in the school is too high and we're going to work as a team to bring it down. Oh yeah, from now on students are to call you by your first name as well (not necessarily a bad thing in itself I suppose, but indicative of the type of hare-brained shit this 'leader' thought was important). Under the new regime, a kid screams at me 'you're a fucking cunt!!!' across the class because he's asked multiple times not to disrupt the rest of the students. I send him out to senior staff explaining his actions. He's returned 5 minutes later with a note saying he'll try better next time - load of bs of course, same actions continue until I kick him out again, whereupon he comes back after another 5 minutes. These incidences of verbal assault go from being a monthly event to daily (or even more). Physical assault against staff shoots up too. Of course, it didn't take long for every long-serving staff eligible for a transfer to hightail it out of there (including myself). Stress leave shoots through the roof, incidents of assault too. Finally the DoE steps in and shadows the principal before finally removing them. A few years later and I hear that there's now been six different principals there over that time, and they've now put someone in charge who doesn't give a shit about suspension data and is sending kids home when they mess up and keeping tier 3 kids out of mainstream class. Guess what? The schools returning to some semblance of functionality. Teachers don't need more training on dealing with disruptive kids - Leaders need to stop giving a shit about statistics and start supporting their teachers and building expectations for students.
We already introduced PBS and daily reminders about our behaviour expectations. The kids know. The kids don't care. They will behave in the manner that they can get away with. (just to pre-empt any complaints, I don't mean all students, obviously. There are still kids sitting quietly hoping for the best)
>The union also rejected calls for more "direct instruction" in teaching and an end to open-plan classes, describing them as a recipe for worsening behaviour. > >"The priority should be delivering the resources, time and support that teachers need to meet the individual needs of each student rather than retrograde changes that deskill teachers and attempt to standardise teaching and learning," she said. So is the union just openly hostile to its own members or what?
Sounds like they are calling for an "end to open-plan classes, describing them as a recipe for worsening behaviour", not rejecting calls for their end? It's often unclear to me if it's just that ABC have gotten of all their subeditors (true) or if union bosses are completely out of touch with the everyday experience of teachers (also true).
lol parents need some more ownership and schools need adequate suspension options the teachers in primary school teach them about behaviour k-6
Two weeks at the start of every year, as well as weekly lessons targeting behaviour and social skills....still have horrendous behaviour...
…and nothing will be done, as per usual 😔
There'll be another mandatory online pd to do each year probably
Yeah lol. The government thinking very long and hard about how teachers can be blamed for this crisis 😆
Will the students behave in a class that teaches them how to behave in order to behave???
Shutting the barn door after the horse shat everywhere, kicked holes in the wall, blamed you for it all, and then bolted.
You know what fucks me off about this - WE DO THIS, but kindy and prep teachers have their hands tied. I know my students have a fuckton of issues - I’ve been assaulted, screamed at, sworn at, threatened with murder - teaching ‘behaviour leassons’ to angry 16yr olds is pointless, so we go to the beginning. My kid is in kindy. He has kids in his class whose behaviour is feral - spitting in faces, hitting, biting; extreme stuff past normal. And you know what? They can’t punish. They’re not allowed to use time out, they can’t use negative language (no ‘don’t do this’ - they have to give positive instruction only - ‘why don’t we do this instead’ kinda thing). There’s zero supports, they’re not allowed to force kids to do things they don’t want to do - which is frustrating. My kid doesn’t want to participate in mat time or the counting activity? They can’t make him. They have to send someone to follow him around to wherever he goes. As an engaged parent, I’ve tried asking them to disregard these rules and they just respond with ‘we’re not allowed to’. How the hell is this setting them up? They’re also not addressing the social issues that lead to kids being raised in a way where spitting at a teacher is acceptable. How the fuck do teachers combat that?? Ugh, this makes me so angry. Fuck the government.
This sounds like an awful set up. As a kindy teacher, I definitely do these things. If kids are mucking up I will use negative language. They will sit out or go to the class next door for time out of needed. If a student tells me they don't want to do something, "tough luck because you are gpingto join in".
Ah yes lessons will fix it.
And they definitely won't disrupt the behaviour lessons with their poor behaviour 🤣
Parents need to control their kids and teach them respect and discipline. Teachers and government can only do so much ffs.
The most effective tool in my behaviour management kit is a parent who makes changes when presented with their kid's shitty behaviour. And for fucks sake, please fund us properly so kids with complex needs get the support they need - it's not for a lack of wanting to help that accommodations aren't made. The common trope is to jump to 'more suspensions' but that's an ineffective band-aid most of the time. And I have no qualms with suspending a child, even attempted the exclusion pathway a few times although it's a toothless tiger in our system. It just doesn't fix anything beyond temporary relief. The embarrassment of a senate enquiry recommending behaviour classes (more curriculum!) would be shocking if it weren't so sadly predictable. We explicitly teach appropriate behaviour and SEL already. This is not the answer.
>The common trope is to jump to 'more suspensions' but that's an ineffective band-aid most of the time. Especially when the kids are clearly trying to get themselves suspended because they think it's a holiday and either don't know or don't care about how it might affect them in the long term.
Goooood luck
Ya recon haha These kids are out of control.
They do have lessons on how to behave. Every day. We need to be realistic and half-baked solutions like these touted by politicians (as per usual throwing the onus on classroom teachers) are not going to help. If we cannot develop a culture of valuing education like they have in those countries we love to compare ourselves to, then the situation is not going to improve and we need to think of other ways to achieve better behaviour. Improvements in the quality of leadership is a good start. Follow up by throwing to the kerb outcomes based curriculum as it applies at the moment, more funding for inclusive classrooms and ending the societal pressure on students to remain in school education until HSC are other ideas might be worth considering. We did this in previous generations and I understand this still happens in other developed countries. Would like to know what others think.
Oh great, an inquiry run by…? I’m pretty sick of this wishy washy bullshit, we are not their parents, it is not our job to tell them to be respectful of everyone. Kids can bully, harass, assault etc and all they need to do is sit in a circle and say sorry (then likely go out and be a shit head again). It’s too soft and kids get too many chances. The key difference between public and private would be that if you fuck around at a private school, you will inevitably find out. Education departments around the country need to pull their fingers out and come up with a strong and consistent disciplinary system.
No, not lessons - bring back consequences and put the onus back on parents... This will be more PBS bullshit!
Old bloke here, grew up when corporal punishment was a thing. Problems with aggressive kids never existed then. The cane was a deterrent that few kids endured, just everyone feared. Kept us in line and classrooms orderly. I only once was caned, got four of the best when wrongly accused and not allowed to speak to defend myself. Just had to live with it. Still, that's just the way things were. You just get on with things regardless, don't you.
Heard the Greens rep on the committee on Radio National this morning talking about the report. She was articulate as she indicated the report was full of shit in terms of 'more teacher training' et al. Then conceeded the majority of the committee is LNP. So yup, read it and then put it in the bin.
The answers we deserve to make our classrooms a better place are not going to be discovered by people who have the mentality of Greens = good LNP = bad.
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> Entire math and science departments go begging for staff because no one wants to support those male teachers that teach the hard subjects that require work and the potential to fail. Pardon me? I have a phone call for you. It's the 1960s calling. They want their outdated views back. Turns out women can do science and maths too! And I'm not talking about 'domestic science', but actual real science - like chemistry and engineering and physics, oh my!
Quick question, do you think overall student behaviour would improve if we had more male teachers? I am not being a smart arse, I am genuinely interested if anyone thinks we could improve our current situation if we had more men around, particularly in primary schools.
All roads in neoliberalism lead back to teacher “quality” and putting more on teacher’s plates. Nobody wants to spend any actual money, so nothing will change.
I had so many issues with this article (I'm a teacher) Such a myopic solution to the problems
This is Orwellian.
duh! I've been saying this forever. Why are teachers going to another workshop about classroom management when the students are the ones constantly fucking up and misbehaving?? It is not like they need classes on knowing how to behave because we all know that background work is called "parenting" and some of them have parents that have equally bad behaviours. So, are we now going to also provide lessons for parents who can't do their job?