The Unteachables Podcast

#56: TEACHER PEP TALK! Feeling powerless in the classroom? Disempowered? Disrespected? Like you have no control? This is for you.

• Claire English • Season 4 • Episode 57

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Classroom management can, oftentimes, leave teachers grappling with feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, failure, and powerlessness. 

You might feel walked all over, that you can't do anything about behaviour, that your students simply don't care about what you're teaching. This can be an incredibly disempowering place to be in as a human being, and if this is you at all, if you have ever ever felt like this, any of these things, this teacher pep talk is definitely for you. 

Never forget:
You can not control anybody elses behaviour.
Nobody is a puppet on a string.
You can not make a human being do anything that they don’t want to. No matter how old they are.

What you CAN do, is control your practice, your responses, yourself. Once you know exactly what you CAN control, the teaching, learning, and behaviour game changes.



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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Unteachables podcast. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher and leader, turned teacher, mentor and author, and I'm on a mission to transform classroom management and teacher support in schools. It doesn't feel that long ago that I was completely overwhelmed and out of my depth with behavior, trying to swim rather than sink. It took me spending thousands of hours in the classroom, with all of the inevitable ups and downs, to make me the teacher that I am today Confident, capable and empowered in my ability to teach all students yes, even the ones who are the toughest to reach and now I'm dedicated to supporting teachers like yourself to do the same. I created the Unteachables podcast to give you the simple and actionable classroom management strategies and support that you need to run your room with confidence and calm. So if you're a teacher or one in the making, and you're wanting to feel happy and empowered and actually enjoy being in the classroom, whilst also making a massive impact with every single one of your students, then you're definitely in the right place. Let's get started. Hello you, brilliant, brilliant teachers.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Unteachables podcast for another week. It is such a pleasure for you to be here, and sometimes I really forget what that actually means, and it's easy to think as a one-sided conversation when you're speaking on one side of the podcast microphone. But there are. I looked it up just before this episode and can I remember 3.2 million podcasts worldwide. That is mind boggling, and there's like billions of episodes. What that really means is that you could choose to listen to anything you have at your fingertips. This is not me advocating for you going somewhere else. By the way, please stay here with me. I'm very happy you're here. Don't go searching for something better. You've chosen to be here with me. You've chosen to listen to my voice. You've chosen to listen to the expertise that I'm bringing for you, and that is something that I will never take lightly. That's freaking special and in fact, I looked up the stats the other day.

Speaker 1:

I'm not one to kind of go oh, I looked up the stats the other day. I'm not one to kind of go, oh, I'm going to look up my podcast statistics. I don't really care where I am on the charts on podcasts, but out of curiosity, I literally haven't done that for the last year. I put my podcast out there weekly. If you listen, great. If you don't listen, you know I can't force you to do that, which is going to tie nicely with this podcast episode. But I found out the other day I'm in the top 5% of all podcasts in the world, not just teaching podcasts, not just education podcasts, but in all podcasts in every single category, which, again, my mind is blown. I'm so grateful that you've chosen to listen to this podcast, because what I do here I believe in so fiercely and maybe that's why you choose to listen, because you know that I'm really authentic in the why I do this Classroom management right, like if I'm talking about why I do this work, this podcast, like my Unteachables Academy, everything.

Speaker 1:

Classroom management is not the reason per se. It's kind of the vehicle that I use to get down to the why, and my why really is about, you know, having teachers feel empowered in their classrooms, teachers walking into their classrooms, feeling confident that they can do their jobs and not have to hit all of these roadblocks all the time. I mean education is the biggest key some of our young people have for being successful in their lives and breaking, you know, cyclical poverty and all of the things that they're facing, and we need quality teachers in the profession. So by me being able to support you to support all teachers that come into my sphere. I'm able to have such a positive impact on things at a larger scale, and that is exactly what I do, why I do what I do, and unfortunately, teachers aren't supported to do this the way they should in their teacher training, in their classrooms, in their schools Not everybody. It's like a stroke of luck, really. So that is why I do this, and classroom management is just kind of the vehicle to do that, because one of the biggest barriers that teachers are facing are these challenging classroom behaviors and not actually being able to get to teaching because they're spending so long dealing with the low-level behaviors, the behaviors that are disruptive, all the rest of it and just feeling really disempowered with that. So today this is a pep talk and I think it's a really important one for me to post about, because I don't have to tell you that going into a classroom when you're managing class like challenging behaviors every single day, day after day, minute to minute. It isn't a walk in the park and because of that I hear so much negative talk from teachers about themselves in that space and I really want to address it and I really want to give you a bit of a pep talk. So if any of these following things resonate with you, I need you to know you're not alone.

Speaker 1:

So some of the really common things I hear from teachers are things like I feel out of control of my class. I have no control over my class. My class is out of control. I feel like I can't do anything about the behavior. They walk all over me. I could wait and wait for silence. It's like I'm invisible. Nobody listens. Teachers say things like nobody cares about what I'm teaching. I feel disrespected. I feel like my students just don't give a crap about what I'm doing. Up the front of the room A lot around like there's no follow-up from leadership around behavior. I get no support from leadership about behavior. I've heard a lot about teachers feeling like a failure, feeling like they're letting themselves down, feeling like they shouldn't be in the profession, feeling like they can't last in the profession. A lot of feelings of overwhelm, of anxiety, of just really low moods. There's so much that I hear from teachers. So if've felt like that at all about being in your classroom space, especially around challenging behaviors that you feel like you've got no control over and you can't control your class, you are not alone, and I am recording this episode for you in particular. Can I just say it's not your fault either.

Speaker 1:

Something that's really important for us to realize and to constantly remember is that you cannot control anybody else's behavior but your own. Nobody is a puppet on a string. You're not pulling the strings. They're their own person, no matter how old they are, no matter how young they are, whether they're a student, whether they're your partner, whether they're a parent, no matter who they are. You cannot control anybody else's behavior. You can't make a human being do anything that they don't want to do.

Speaker 1:

You can't hold a student's hand and force them to write. You can't strap a student down in the chair, pry their eyes open, force them to learn. You can't hold your hand over their mouth and stop them from talking Metaphorically speaking, by the way, and physically. Obviously, I'm not ever going to say you can do that, but you can never actually stop them from talking. You can never actually stop them from doing what they want to do. If they're going to behave in that way, they're going to behave in that way, no matter what. You cannot control that. And can I also just say that if it does appear like you're able to control the behavior in your classroom because of things like punitive punishments, because punitive punishments the main aim for them, by the way, is to coerce and control. So you might have James sitting there quietly because you've threatened to punish him in a certain way, but that does not mean that he is learning.

Speaker 1:

And that is the goal for us as teachers to get our students to learn, to get our students to progress, to get that buy-in, to get them to, you know, have success in schooling and in their lives and outside into the real world. So, yeah, how the hell can we move on as teachers and do this? How do we get our power back in a space that is so disempowering and that we can't actually we can't control those people in our space who are behaving in ways that work directly against our goal, which is to teach them? How can we do our jobs and do them well? We have 30 students in a room, we have 30 human beings in a room with us who we feel like don't care, don't respect what we're doing, what we're trying so hard to do. We put so much of ourselves, our heart, our soul into what we do, and if they're not respecting what we're doing if they're not coming on board with it. What do we do?

Speaker 1:

Not to mention the pressure of needing to get on top of this because, guess what, at the end of the year, when you are sitting there as a teacher and you are sat in front of the results that you've gotten from your classes and your head teacher is sitting there in front of you, that data is going to be the thing that your leaders are judging you on. And if your class hasn't learned, whose fault is that? Who has control over that? You're the one who is going to be. The blame is put upon for it by your leaders. So it is so much pressure, it is so difficult, and the data can never accurately represent the work that goes into managing a class to then get to the point where they can learn, to then get to the point where they can learn, to then get to the point where they're progressing. You know, plus one year, every single school year, which is so hard. So it feels like our job is a huge stitch up. We can't control our students, we can't control their behaviors, but our job is to make them learn, to get them to progress, to get them to engage. But everything really changes when we sit back and think and I want you to do this now, really sit back and think what can I really control? When you really think about that question and you get to the answer that you need to get to, the whole pressure off your shoulders starts to lift.

Speaker 1:

And I remember many times in my early career standing in my classroom feeling ashamed, feeling embarrassed. I was watching that clock. I remember so vividly standing in front of my classroom watching that clock and my clock. I worked at a really challenging school to begin. I've always worked at schools that have a lot of challenging behaviors, but when I was at the start of my career dealing with this it was so much more difficult. I remember just watching my class and it was freaking chaos. I had no strategies in my in my backpack to really deal with this, so I would clock watch. I would do the best that I could.

Speaker 1:

I would appear to try to be controlling my class with power over strategies. I'd be trying to raise my voice, writing names on the board, doing crosses, anything I could to get my class to be quiet, to sit down, to do the work, because my biggest anxiety and my biggest fear was somebody walking past that door that was in a higher position than me and realizing that I sucked and realizing that I had no control. Realizing that I sucked and realizing that I had no control, realizing and seeing me for the I was a fraud and I wasn't able to control my class. I wasn't able to classroom manage, I wasn't able to control the space, and that was my biggest fear as a new teacher and as a teacher who wasn't even that new but really couldn't yet classroom manage in the way that I can now. So I kept telling myself I have no control, I'm a failure, I'm not a strong enough teacher to command respect, to command control over this space.

Speaker 1:

So one thing I need you to know and one thing I wish I could go back and tell Claire from the past is your students' behavior is not on you. You are not responsible for how they are acting. You are not responsible for their behaviors. Only they can be. Our jobs are not that, and the faster we realize that, the sooner we can gain some perspective and finally focus on the things that we can control, the things that actually move the needle to not control the class and their behavior, but influence the behavior positively, to create an environment that is empowering, not just for us as educators, but for every single human in that room.

Speaker 1:

The hard truth of the matter is, though, that nothing will change in our classrooms without us changing first, and one big example of this is something that I'm sure everybody can connect with on some level, but it's low-level behaviors. Low-level behaviors can only be addressed with you, can only be mitigated by you, and what you do is through your teaching presence that you craft, through your non-verbals, through your consistency, through all of the other mitigating factors that only you can put in place your routines, the way you set up your expectations and reinforce these through every single thing you do moment to moment in that room, the way you plan and deliver your lesson, the way you set up your class culture, and the reason I'm using low-level behaviors in particular as an example is because, if you had a leader whether it's your teacher, your principal, whoever it might be come into your class, even daily, when you were trying to wait for silence, if they were successful at getting your class back on track and you're like okay, they've reinforced the expectations for my class, I've had that support, I'm going to go well. Now those visits from your leaders are not going to stop the low level behaviors from continuing the next lesson. Those it's just such a perfect example low level behaviors of how they are something we need to mitigate through the things that we can control, through the factors that we can control. I'm not saying that you shouldn't get support from leadership, by the way, but you really need to know that it's actually not a magic bullet when it comes to them rescuing you from the behaviours in your classroom. Only you can do that. It really is so important and this is something that is empowering for us.

Speaker 1:

Teacher friends, you are not stuck. You can take all the things you can control by the horns. You are not stuck. You can take all the things you can control by the horns. You can change your practice, you can change your experience. You can change how your students experience you and how you experience your students. And the beauty on focusing on the things we can change is that all of those frustrations we feel walking into a lesson thinking how is this going to be, or all of those frustrations we feel walking into a lesson thinking how is this going to be, or all of those frustrations you feel when you're up the front giving instructions and there's little pockets of students who are still talking away, all of those frustrations start to melt away, and it melts away more and more every single time we take a breath and say to ourselves I cannot control what that student does, but I can sure as hell control my responses. I can sure as hell control my practice. I can control my own behaviors. I can control going away right now and reflecting and coming back the next lesson with something in my arsenal to give a go to the next lesson. Whether it's a new routine we're going to be pressing the reset button on expectations. Whether it's the non-verbals I'm crafting and reflecting on and thinking actually I'm not modeling what I want from my class Everything that we do we can reflect on, refine and then think about how we can control for the next lesson.

Speaker 1:

The longer we start to do this and the more we start to do this, the more effortless classroom management becomes. It's so important for us to do this reflective work, this deep reflective work, and take control of what we can, because if we're not doing that, we will be forever stuck in the most disempowering place that we could possibly be stuck in, which is us continuing to think that us in front of that room of 30, we can control their behaviors. And, as I've said this, I was going to say this lesson, as I've said in this podcast episode, my goodness, that is so challenging for us to be in, because we're standing there, we're expecting to control our students and guess what? We are going to fail 10 times out of 10 because we simply can't do that. That is not in our human condition to be able to control anybody else without that coercion, without that fear. And, again, if you are controlling through fear and coercion, you're not actually getting them to learn, which is the job, the one job we have in that room. Really, that we were, we were. We have a multitude of jobs, by the way, in that space. We wear many hats, but in terms of like the essence of being a teacher, our job is to teach and we can't teach students who are scared of us or feel shame or feel fear. Okay, have I taken a breath this whole episode? Probably not.

Speaker 1:

If this episode did resonate with you and you're ready to like, really truly invest in your teaching practice, you want it to become something that is a classroom management machine, because you're focusing on every little thing that you can control to reduce, respond to and then resolve challenging behaviors and really break that behavior cycle. Then enrollments are open to my comprehensive classroom management course that'll teach them. Currently, if you're listening in real time, enrollments do close in a few days. If you're listening in the future, just check the show notes because there are going to be details for either how to enroll or where to join a wait list. It really would be so brilliant for you to join us.

Speaker 1:

I just want people who are ready and willing to come on this journey with me. I also want the best fit people. So if you're like umming and ahhing, not too sure, my goal isn't just to get as many people in as possible, it's to get the right teachers in. So always feel free to reach out, to send me an email, to send me a voice on Instagram, always happy to respond to any questions, to make sure that if you want to be in that or teach them, it's a decision that you're really happy with. It'd be really wonderful for you to join us.

Speaker 1:

I honestly just have to pinch myself that I get to work with the most incredible teachers every day who are just sponges for every little thing possible, and I've had teachers in That'll Teach them become leaders in their school, and every single one of them is a leader in their classroom.

Speaker 1:

So I am so happy, so excited and so inspired by all of you.

Speaker 1:

Even if you're just listening to the podcast right now and you, as I said before, like you could be listening to anything right now 3.2 million podcasts, and you are listening to my voice right until the end of this episode, and I am like proud of you for that, because it means you're really dedicated to not just your students but your own practice and your own career and your staff and everybody in your sphere in education.

Speaker 1:

So it's a really wonderful and exciting and inspiring place to be in. And just one more thing, before I risk dragging it out for way too long because I like to babble on at the end if you're a school leader and you're looking for really great professional development for your staff, please do reach out and we can talk about the needs of your school and what I could potentially offer, whether it's virtual or in person. Okay, I'll leave it there. Enough of that, but yeah, you can email me on claire at the-on-teachablescom and we can have a discussion. Anyway, that is it for now. Wonderful teachers, have a great week and remember you cannot control your students. You can only control yourself.

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Claire English

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