#57: “You'll NOT act a fool in my classroom and go unchecked!” What it really looks like to have solid classroom expectations and boundaries (HINT: It's not that)

What comes to mind when I say that as teachers we need...

STRONG expectations and FIRM, CONSISTENT boundaries.

Does it sound like:

"You as a student are not going to act a fool in my classroom and go UNCHECKED. You are not going to be rude and disrespectful UNCHECKED. And yes go tell your parent I said it! Standards and boundaries from DAY 1!"

OR does it sound like:

"Welcome, Year 8, Come on in!"

Spoiler alert: It's the latter. 

Because behind the scenes of that sentence, are all of the things that are done to non-verbally reinforce your expectations and boundaries. 

• Your responses
• Your routines
• Your planning
• Your practices
• How you foster connection
• Your modelling
• Your mindset
• Your classroom environment.

Every 👏 single 👏 thing we do is sending messages to our students about what we expect from them.

What do I mean? In this episode of The Unteachables podcast I give you ONE as an example. Your classroom environment.

Listen in as I dig into how our classroom environment could be make or break for our classroom management, how before our students even walk in, we could be mitigating (or fuelling the fire of) challenging behaviours.

Want a free resourced and ready expectations lesson? Leave me a written review, take a screenshot, send it over to me on Instagram @the.unteachables or send it to my email claire@the-unteachables.com and I will send it over as a thank you!

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Chapters

• 0:07 Transforming Classroom Management and Teacher Support
• 10:38 The Impact of Classroom Management
• 13:53 Review for Link to Expectations Lesson

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

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.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Hello, wonderful teachers, welcome back to another episode of the Unteachables podcast. It has been a frigging big week and a really exciting week, and today marks the first day of the 2024 cohort of That'll Teach them and I have welcomed the most incredible teachers into the program and it's just been unbuzzing just getting to know all of you. If you are listening out there and you're a part of that'll teach you for 2024, it has been so exciting to be in the community, talking to you, getting to know you, hearing about your story and what's driven you to join me in my inner sphere, if that's what you want to call it. But the one thing I have just loved so much about being in this community so far this year is that, looking at the comments from you all, it's so clear that, on a values level, you found your place and you found your community and your people. It's so hard when you're in an environment and someone in the community said it really well, if this is you, thank you for saying this. You said I just feel like a square peg in a round hole in my school because around me I'm surrounded by like a system and all of these things and people who believe that my approach to classroom management, like their approach, is weak, it's not strong, it's not effective because it is driven by like more restorative, trauma-informed, compassionate pedagogy, and it's just so sad when people are forced to question what they know in their gut to be true, about what it takes to educate every single child. So if that is you out there and you are really finding it difficult to stay aligned with your values around what it really means to class, you manage in a way that makes sense to every single student in that room. You're not alone, and that's exactly why I do this work to support you, to do it in an effective way, in a way that will, one day, you can turn around to those people and go ha, look at what I have done in my classroom, look at the incredible results I'm getting with students who you deemed as unteachable.

Speaker 1: 3:14

When I post anything about my approach of classroom management on a values level on Instagram and it goes viral I always, always, always get an absolute torrent of comments from people who don't share those values, and they are always like you know, they're just going to be the loudest in the room. Usually they'll say things generally like oh, but kids need boundaries, and blah, blah, blah. And I had one the other day that I want to talk about. It was a reel where I said, as a teacher, we can't control a student's behaviors. We can only control ourselves our responses, our routines, our planning, our practices, how we foster connection, our expectations, our modeling, our mindset, our classroom environment. The reason I posted this reel was because I wanted to highlight the fact that, although we can't control an individual's behaviors, so punitive approaches are not going to work because they are there to coerce and control. What we can control are, like everything else in our practice ourselves, all the things that we can do in our classrooms outside of that child. And then I had a response that said you, as a student, are not going to act a fool in my classroom and go unchecked. You are not going to be rude and disrespectful unchecked and, yes, go tell your parent.

Speaker 1: 4:30

I said it Standards and boundaries from day one. A lot to unpack about that. And the word unchecked you know it just has a lot of connotations that I don't particularly find very helpful. But I wanted to talk about this because actually, every single thing that I listed off in that post all of the things that we can control our responses, our routines, our planning, our practices, how we foster connection, our expectations, modeling, mindset, classroom environment, et cetera, et cetera they are things that are setting standards and boundaries from day one. The difference is that students are actually going to respect them, they're going to buy into them, they're going to be a part of the culture in an authentic way. We live and breathe these expectations and boundaries as a part of the day-to-day, through everything we do.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Every single thing we do in our classroom is sending messages around what we expect, what our boundaries are. I'm going to give you one example of this, but before I do, if you are thinking about, well, what about setting expectations at the start of the year? Yes, I also do that. I also reset them throughout the year if I need to, but I do it in a way that is collaborative, that gains buy-in, that becomes a part of the shared language between us and our students. Collaborative, that gains buy-in, that becomes a part of the shared language between us and our students. And I speak about that back on episode 24, and it is called a step-by-step guide on how to set expectations. So, if you haven't listened to that episode yet, after this episode, head back there and listen to that. And yeah, I talk through the process of setting expectations in a really clear way Now, reinforcing boundaries in the day-to-day.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Everything we do, every second, as I said, is sending out messages to our students about what we expect. It's not something that is happening only when we're actively reinforcing them or checking our students. It is happening without us saying a single word, and I wanted to just talk about one of those things in the list as an example our classroom environment, because this is a bit of an obscure one. I like to think about the classroom environment as almost another human being in the room, as a support teacher in the room. Another part of my pedagogy is like an extension of who I am. What it says to them. Right, if a student walks into my classroom and the chairs are untucked, if there are little bits of garbage on the ground, when there are pencil shavings on the desk, when there are tables askew, when I'm running around and I'm trying to set up the lesson and I'm just behind from the get-go, what message is it sending to them? What expectations is it reinforcing?

Speaker 1: 6:58

Remember, every single thing we do is sending messages about what we expect to our students. If this is the case for your classroom environment, what it says to them is in this classroom, I don't expect us to keep things tidy. I don't expect you to walk out of here, leaving in a nice state. I don't expect you to respect this space. I don't care about this space and neither should you. In this space, things are chaotic, things can be chaotic, you can be chaotic in this space. Learning doesn't come first to all of these other things. Am I saying that you're thinking these things? No way, you are listening to this podcast because you care so deeply about the learning. You care so deeply about your students. You care so much about what you're doing in that classroom. I'm also not saying that your students are actively thinking these things. These are just all of the nonverbal messages that are unspoken, that are coming out when your classroom is in a really poor state.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Then imagine if the classroom is in this state and then we tell them to go tidy up, clean up. We expect them to respect their environment. We have done the setting expectations lesson at the start of the year to say, and one of those expectations is that we respect our environment and we keep things nice. What message do you think is going to win? Is it the message about the expectation you've set? Is it what you're telling them to do, or is it the nonverbal message that's unspoken? Is it what's sitting there playing out in front of you in the lesson. Is it the mess? Is it the tables turned over Like what? Is the message that is going to win? Because nine times out of 10, the message that is going to be winning there is the nonverbal message, and this is accurate because nonverbal messages are seen as more reliable, as more trustworthy than verbal messages.

Speaker 1: 8:47

Now I'm going to paint a different picture. Your students walk into a classroom where the chairs are tucked under, where the floor is clear of rubbish, where they have a do-now task, sitting on their desk with a pen or their book or a presentation projected up on the board, where they can start on something. What messages they're getting are things like we respect our space. When we walk into the classroom, we expect learning to be happening. Learning will happen from the second we sit down. We are expected to keep things tidy, to leave things as we found them. It is a living, breathing reinforcement of how we want the culture of our class to be, without us saying a single word.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Now I want to acknowledge that, as a secondary teacher, this can be near impossible. Sometimes I have had a lot of days running around before a class comes in cleaning up after a teacher who hasn't held these expectations with their class. And I do it so begrudgingly but I still do it because I know that if I don't, no verbal expectations that I set around the state of that room will beat the unspoken expectations that are already flying about from the moment they walk in, from the moment they come in, chuck their stuff on the ground and pull their chair out and pull their chair up to a different table to sit with their friends. I know that I can't beat that. Those expectations I have set before they even came in because of that class environment. I cannot beat that. I know that this can sometimes feel like an impossibility and I have worked in some of the most run down classrooms with awful, awful decor, with broken furniture. It's been dire. But we can only do what we can do and the students know when we are trying our very best to keep the classroom space as nice as we can, as ordered as we can. We can control that and I've been a casual teacher many times. I've covered for teachers throughout, like even as a leader. I'll always put my hand up to cover for my staff whenever I can.

Speaker 1: 10:38

I love doing so and you go into a lesson you've never taught in that class before and it can be a bit of a lucky dip. You just don't know what you're going to walk into if you have the capacity going two minutes early. I have very often had a pile of stuff behind my desk as the lesson starts because I've gone around like a tornado and literally swept everything into my arms. It's on the top of desks. I've tried to put in a pile. I've tried to get things under tables, because I know how important it is for it just to appear to be a little bit neater when students walk in, because I don't want the uphill battle that I'm going to face when I walk into a room that is super chaotic, because I know that it's going to set the wrong tone from the get-go.

Speaker 1: 11:23

So I know that it's not always possible to keep things nice. I know it's not possible to have full control of your classroom space, especially as a secondary teacher who moves from classroom to classroom, with teachers who don't necessarily hold those same expectations and boundaries, who don't have the buy-in to keep the room nice. It is frustrating, it is really challenging, but you can only do what you can do and, yeah, that's all anyone would ever expect from you just to do your best and do what you can do. But the main thing is for you to understand the impact of it. When you understand the impact of something like this, then you will start to go okay, crap, I'm going to spend the extra three minutes doing this because the knock-on effect for my classroom management is huge. So after a little rant, let's go back to that comment on expectations.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Being a teacher who chooses to classroom manage in a way that values compassion, kindness, restoration, humanity and emotional intelligence does not make you weak. It is stronger, it is more strategic, it is driven by integrity, by connection, by buy-in, and it is what makes it so much more effective than making sure a student knows they're not going to act a fool in your classroom and go unchecked. This approach is full of action, and I just wanted you to know from this episode that that action extends far beyond a lesson at the start of the year on expectations. It is a part of everything we do, and remember that I have only gone through one thing in this episode. There is so much more that comes with it. You know, it's just a snapshot of the things that can have immense, immense impact on your classroom management.

Speaker 1: 13:00

Now, speaking of an expectations lesson, I have made one that checks all the boxes, and I think it's pretty great, if I say so myself. It is collaborative, it is driven by buy-in, it allows your class to establish a really strong culture around expectations. It gives you an opportunity to introduce real consequences that students buy into the whole shebang. It is all resourced and ready and waiting for you. I usually just give this as a part of my course that'll teach them. I'm going to ask you for a bit of a favor.

Speaker 1: 13:27

First, though, if you listen to the Unteachables podcast and have gotten some value from it, whether it be a strategy you've used in class that saw a big transformation in what you do, or if I've given you just general support and validation from teaching just being so challenging.

Speaker 1: 13:41

If you've gotten anything and I know that some of you have, because I get random messages here and there on Instagram or through my emails saying what you've implemented, saying the transformation that has happened in your class.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Because of that, please leave me a written review, take a snapshot before you press submit, send it over to my Instagram DMs or email it over, if you don't use Instagram, and I will send you the link to that expectations lesson. It is fully resourced. There's even a Canva link to edit it for your context. And it's just a little gift from me to say thank you for the review, because you have no idea how much little things like that. I know it takes a bit of time out of your day. It takes a few minutes, but it really does have such a huge difference in the work that I do and my ability to reach more teachers who also need support. So head to the review section and just leave me a little comment saying why you like the Unteachables podcast. Take a screenshot, send it to my Instagram and I will send you that link. Okay, lovely teachers, have a wonderful week and I will see you next time on the unteachables podcast.