Accountability Without Hostility

Accountability Without Hostility: Holding Students to High Standards

Accountability is leadership.

Expectations (rules) and consequences, combined with strong positive relationships with students, are the three critical ingredients to a healthy, rewarding and peaceful classroom.

The classroom you’ve always wanted.

You absolutely should hold students to high standards.

However, how you go about it matters a great deal.

We’ve established the importance of respect, calm authority, and reciprocal relationships with students. You treat every student like a human being, no different to how you’d treat a family member, colleague or someone on the executive leadership team.

If this always hold true for you, you’ll rarely have relationship problems at work again.

But hold on, we won’t stop here.

Kids need boundaries in any context. Enforce them.

Yet, to preserve your awesome relationship with them, to build ongoing trust, nurturing rapport, and an unbreakable connection, you first need to make a conscious decision.

Misbehaviour Doesn’t Affect You

That decision is this:

You’re not going to let student misbehaviour affect you.

Not one iota.

Not even a little bit.

Misbehaviour happens. It’s a normal part of the school day. No, it’s not personal. It almost always isn’t.

But at school, kids get….

·       Bored

·       Restless

·       Distracted

·       Pre-occupied with life (like us)

·       Hormonal

·       Emotional

As much as we’d like to pretend sometimes that kids are good little worker bees, they’re not adults yet, and you know full well that we as teachers aren’t perfect either.

So give them some slack.

Expect Some Misbehaviour

No, this doesn’t mean let hell let loose in your classroom. It doesn’t mean turn a blind eye to misbehaviour, pray that it goes away, or even worse – wish for a ‘good class’ and curse yourself if you have a ‘bad one.’

Baloney.

What it means is that you should never be surprised or shocked at misbehaviour, if someone does something silly or completely out of left-field.

This is also part of the joy that comes with working with young people.

So embrace it, lean into it, and manage it without emotional baggage.

Many teachers right now are trudging through their day, forgetting the reason why they signed up for the job in the first place.

You’re here right now because I know you love working with young people.

Of course you do.

It’s awesome – probably the most rewarding field anyone could choose. (I believe this more and more as I get older)

Mistakes Teachers Make

So where are they going wrong?

They let misbehaviour get to them. They take it personally. They deal with it with emotion, resentment, and a lack of efficiency.

I’m not judging anyone here – this is an easy trap to fall into and no one is immune to it. Absolutely not.

As you get more experienced though, you’ll notice a pattern amongst the most effective, stress-free and successful teachers in your workplace:

·       Their classes are built on routine

·       Their students feel connected, and know they matter

·       Relationships are positively consistent

·       Misbehaviour is managed without animosity, anger, resentment, judgement, or friction

Do your students know they matter? What about your worst-behaving ones?

How you deal with misbehaviour is the missing piece of the puzzle that’s stopping you from having great relationships with everyone.

It is the single-biggest cause of your classroom frustrations and the reason why you come home some nights having had the hardest of days and being clueless about what to do.

There’s something you need to decide every single working day of your life as a teacher.

You need to say to yourself:

‘I won’t be affected by misbehaviour.’

You need to let it blow over your head. Water off a duck’s back.

What does this look like in practice?

·       Not reacting with ‘a look’ or any angry facial expression

·       Not raising your voice

·       Not holding grudges against any student, or thinking about them negatively – this will show and be evident

·       Not being disrespectful

The Importance of Respectful Relationships

Oh, what’s that you say, you are respectful? I want you to think about every negative interaction you’ve had with students recently. How did you perceive yourself? How did students perceive you?

We don’t always get it right, and that’s okay. Sometimes students don’t.

What needs to run through your head every day is this:

How can I address the misbehaviour in a way that doesn’t escalate to conflict or friction?

Part of building and maintaining such strong relationships with students is being able to do this on the regular. So, some words of advice….

• Have clear boundaries at every moment of the day. Enforce them clearly, respectfully and consistently.

• Hold students accountable through clear, rational, logical, common-sense consequential approaches. This could be moving their seat, a quick chat after class, or even a quiet word between the two of you.

• Stay calm – always. Focus on your breath, slow down your movements, your speech, and your pace. Address the misbehaviour without animosity, judgement, or temperance. Be kind but firm.

• Don’t argue. Misbehaviour is misbehaviour. Call it like you see it. Address it and move on – don’t linger, don’t lecture. If a student can’t let it go, tell them you’ll address it at a convenient time - not with a student audience.

• Listen. Your students will have something to say, there’s probably some truth to it. Don’t deny them their experience and their reality. It’s your job to acknowledge it, making them feel seen and heard.

You can’t control others and how they react, you can only control yourself.

The interesting thing about this is that students mimic you and take their cue from you.

Your calmness, ability to listen openly, and respectful conduct and attitude towards all your students, especially your misbehaving ones, will be the game-changer that makes this job so much more rewarding for you.

You’ll realise they’re not different from any other student. Young people are unpredictable in the weirdest of ways. Expect anything, be humble and be attentive.

The Message: Be Consistently Fair and Firm

Most of all, be fair and kind, especially in those tough situations.

You might not pick up on this instantly.

There might be a lot of emotions you need to process and students and classes you need time with to truly understand before you’re more like a confident, calm mediator than someone who is tense, reactive and highly strung.

Practice it, master it and watch the tension lift from your classroom, freeing you to focus on what matters – creating an awesome classroom your students love coming to.

It starts and ends with you, and you have the tools and skills you need to be successful.

Start today and watch your relationships skyrocket into the stratosphere.

Your students will thank you.

More importantly, you will thank yourself for the great day, week, term, year and career you’ve had.