Thinking Out Loud: Pre-service Teacher Skills

27th January, 2016
  
Alex talks about the lack of focus in current teacher training courses on behaviour management, a skill he believes is crucial to starting out as an effective teacher

As I enter the fourth and final year of my teacher training course, I have begun to reflect on what I have learned and whether or not it has prepared me for my first year of teaching. While I will happily acknowledge that my time at university has developed my skills and understanding of pedagogy, especially in relation to the teaching of mathematics, I must admit that I feel there have been, in my view, several key elements left out. The one I wish to discuss here, and in my view the most important, is behaviour management.

One of the issues that seems to consistently arise when talking with recent graduates is the challenge with behaviour management. It is, in my mind, the most important skill for new teachers to have when they enter the classroom and I've heard various horror stories (directly and indirectly) of stressed teachers struggling to achieve order and function due to a lack of management skills. Thus it seems curious to me that I had to pursue an elective, under my own motivation, to develop an understanding of behaviour. None of the core (compulsory) units at my university covered the topic in any particular detail, nor provided strategies or research on how to master the classroom. I consider myself extremely lucky to have chosen the elective which looked in-depth at behaviour, classroom management, community creation, and crisis control. I learned a vast amount of practical and theoretical information which has shaped and improved my behaviour management skills. However, many of my fellow peers have not had the chance to engage with this unit and may not be able to before the end of their final year. I fear for my friends as they enter the workforce with skills that may be inadequate to deal with the challenges they face. I can't imagine a stressful and frustrating first year of teaching will inspire any loyalty to the profession. Thus I can't fathom why a topic as fundamental as behaviour management is not covered rigorously over the first few years of our teacher training - when it is, perhaps, at its most crucial.

I believe this lack of a core behvaiour unit results in two serious issues; firstly the lack of development of an essential skill. As I mentioned before, various teachers have told me how important having strong behaviour management skills are, and I think there are many pre-service teachers graduating under-prepared into the work force. This sees them struggling in their first years of teaching to deal with issues that they simply do not have the skills to successfully resolve. This in turn results in the second serious issue; a reliance on ineffective and negative management techniques.

As I progressed through my placements I took on the behaviour management strategies of the associate teachers I worked with - simply because I had none of my own! I was a blank slate with no comparative concepts of management and classroom set up. Now I have engaged with the behaviour management elective I can see that some of the tactics and strategies used by teachers I have viewed are extremely negative. They are short-term, authoritarian and destructive. I have also seen some extremely positive and long term behaviour strategies. However, I think many pre-service teachers are leaving university with little or no behaviour management skills, and the ones they have are not best practice. If you know no alternative to yelling, then that will be your behaviour strategy. And the tragedy is that after a few years whatever behaviour practices you use will become habit. I believe that many pre-service teachers are graduating with knowledge only of negative, authoritarian behaviour practices.These will destroy any chance of positive relationships with your students and ultimately cause them to dislike you, and dislike school. Children and teachers deserve better than this.

Every pre-service teacher needs the chance to develop their behaviour management skills. They need a compulsory unit where they can learn about behaviour, its functions and causes, as well as how to manage behaviour in a positive way. I believe as teachers we model the different ways that our society and culture functions. It seems paramount to me that every student is engaged in a pro-social, democratic classroom environment with a teacher who can help children learn how to self-regulate their behaviour. At the moment I believe too many teachers are graduating with insufficient skills to make this happen. There needs to be a change. Best practice of behaviour management is essential to being an effective teacher, our teacher training institutions should reflect this and modify their curriculum accordingly.

- Alex
   

Thinking Out Loud.

5th January, 2016

 

Alex considers the nature of empathy and professionalism in teaching, where people are expected to ride the fine line between warmth, compassion and appropriateness. 

Throughout the working world there seem to be a number of jobs that require a balance between providing a professional service, as well as a sense of emotional connection and empathy. Perhaps the profession of teaching is an extreme case of this, as we work with children rather than adults, and there are a number of cultural expectations when working with children. Ultimately, while there might not be a specific job criteria that explicitly states you must be a warm and caring person, it seems this is an expected part of being a teacher.

While there is always a wonderful atmosphere and sense of excitement when working with children, there is a constant underlying tension to act and respond appropriately. The word appropriate is vague, as everyone’s concept of appropriate is subjective to their personal views and beliefs, and this doesn’t help when you are new to the teaching profession. Working in schools and afterschool care environments, I am aware of the requirement that you should not initiate physical contact with children. However, anyone that has worked with Foundation, year one, and even year twos, will tell you that fulfilling this aim can be extremely hard, simply due to the nature of young children.

Children beginning school are often coming from an extremely caring, warm and physically affectionate home environment. So it’s not surprising that they may experience some emotional confusion when they are promptly denied the physical contact they have come to expect at home. We all know that young children are extremely injury prone, and a comforting hug is something they have always had access to at home – yet at school students must learn that it isn’t appropriate to hug a staff member in that way. Or is it?

It seems almost a little cruel to completely eliminate all physical contact from students as they start to learn the ropes of attending school. Maybe this is why many teachers do still initiate physical contact with students in times of need – not in any extremely overt forms, but a small hug here or there when the moment seems right. Is this inappropriate? What are we truly trying to achieve when we strive for appropriate relationships between staff and students?

Given that relationships are, rightly, held up as a critical element to effective teaching (and a happy life!), I wonder how confusing it must be for a foundation student to make a connection with their teacher without any physical contact. Young children spend the first few years of their life being mostly unable to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but always being able to resort to the base connection of physical contact and affection.  To come to environment where their main avenue for connection is denied seems like a drastic and perhaps damaging change.

Yet, as teachers we are most likely the first long-term, professional, adult relationship our students will experience. We are their first opportunity to understand what it means to maintain an appropriate relationship. I believe that the regulations that restrict teachers from physical contact with students are purposeful and necessary. However, I think we need to acknowledge as a society our dual expectations for teachers; as empathetic carers of our children, and professional staff who can maintain appropriate relationships with them too. I think we need to engage pre-service teachers in the discussion of what defines an appropriate relationship and provide them with some practical training in how to establish and maintain one. We need to acknowledge the discomfort that comes with telling a crying six year that no, they cannot have a hug, and question what it means to be appropriate, and why.

- Alex