The Unteachables Podcast

#66: Are you caught in the vicious cycle of reactive classroom management?

• Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 66

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Welcome to this week’s episode! If you missed last week, head back and catch up, because this is week 2 of digging into pillars from my new book, It’s Never Just About the Behaviour, which is available for pre-order and will be released at the end of June/start of July. 

In this episode, I'll be focusing on Pillar 2: Be Calm. One of the most impactful tools in our classroom management arsenal is maintaining a sense of stillness and calm, even in a chaotic environment. A strong teaching presence is built on the foundation of regulation—what we want from our students, we need to model ourselves.

I'll be discussing:

  • Strategies to stay regulated in a dysregulated environment.
  • How to craft a strong, calm teaching persona.
  • A 5-step non-verbal roadmap to respond to low-level behaviours.

I'll also delve into the importance of awareness in avoiding the vicious cycle of reactive classroom management. Drawing from my early career experiences, I’ll share how frantic and heated responses only led to more chaos and how many teachers, lacking proper training, fall into this reactive cycle.

Breaking this cycle starts with us. We need to be the calm conductors in our classrooms. I’ll provide insights into how to recognise signs of dysregulation in ourselves and techniques to regain control, such as pausing, deep breathing, and relaxing our shoulders. Additionally, I’ll highlight the value of mentorship in identifying and addressing these signs.

Tune in to learn how to mitigate challenging behaviours through self-regulation and establishing a calm, effective classroom environment.

Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!

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Speaker 1:

Being in the classroom is probably the least relaxing thing that I could possibly think of doing, and we need to be thinking about how the hell can we have a solid foundation of regulation and calm and stillness in the space that is so opposite of that. Oh hi, teachers, welcome to Unteachables podcast Congratulations. You have just stumbled across the best free professional development and support you could ask for. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher, author, teacher mentor and generally just a big behavior nerd, and I created the Unteachables podcast to demystify and simplify classroom management. I want this podcast to be the tangible support, community validation, mentorship, all those pretty important things that we need as teachers to be able to walk into our classrooms feeling empowered and, dare I say it, happy and thrive, especially in the face of these really tough behaviors. So ready for some no-nonsense, judgment-free and realistic classroom management support. I've got your teacher friend. Let's do this. Hello, wonderful teachers, welcome back to the Unteachables podcast. It is so nice to have you join me here If you didn't listen to last week's episodes. My book it's Never Just About the Behavior is currently on pre-order. It is finally being released at the end of June the start of July, depending on where you are in the world and when Amazon and other bookshops start to ship it out. And in the lead up to the release, I will be doing a weekly episode based around each of the pillars of the book. So last week I started with Be Curious, the first pillar, and I also gave you a little bit of insight into the structure of the book and what the book was all about. And if you're listening to this podcast before that episode, then maybe give this one a pause and go back one episode. But if you can't because you're driving or running or whatever you're doing at the moment, if you're running listening to this podcast, that's pretty impressive. I would definitely need something more exciting to pump me up, but this can be listened to independently as well. So if you can't, that's fine, you can listen to this one and then go back later. But it's so nice to have you here with me to talk through the book and talk through a couple of really great, tangible things that you can take away. So today's strategy comes from the second pillar of the book. Be Calm. The most impactful tool that we have in our classroom management arsenal is probably one of the most challenging, which is and I write this in the introduction to this pillar embodying a sense of still and calm in a room that's completely incongruous to that. Being in the classroom is probably the least relaxing thing that I could possibly think of doing, and we need to be thinking about how the hell can we have a solid foundation of regulation and calm and stillness in the space that is so opposite of that, because a strong teaching presence is entirely reliant on our ability to be regulated and calm as a solid foundation, because we are the conductor of the energy in our room and what we want from our students we need to model from them, and that includes regulation. So that was a little bit of an introduction into the pillar itself, but what I really want to talk about this episode is being aware of our own regulation is so important because if we're not, we inevitably get caught into something that I call the vicious cycle of reactive classroom management.

Speaker 1:

When I was really early in my career and teaching really challenging classes, I would be frantic. I'd be flipping back and forth writing names on the wall, on the board sorry, I'd be doing crosses next to the names. I had zero control of myself. I yelled a lot, I shouted a lot. You know how dare you go to the English staff room? Wait outside, you know like just go to the head teacher. I would be so out of control of my own regulation. I'd be constantly dysregulated myself. I would be constantly extinguishing spot fires, playing that old behavior, whack-a-mole game, sweat, just pouring down my back and I'm not using a hyperbole here Like I was saturated every lesson because I was so anxious and frantic. My nickname in the staff room was sweaty beast. My classroom management response was heated and it was reactive and I couldn't break that cycle. I was, I was caught in that cycle of reactive classroom management, and a lot of us are, because we don't get taught anything different. And what the hell are we supposed to do except react in the best way that we can and do what we can from what we have in our arsenal, like that's all we have.

Speaker 1:

So here is a cycle as I break it down in the book. The first thing is we become heated, frustrated and out of control, as teachers Understandably so, because it's really tough. But then what happens is our responses to behavior become heated, frustrated and out of control as well. And when our responses to behavior become heated, frustrated and out of control, our students become increasingly heated, frustrated and out of control. And then it goes around and around because we become more heated, we become more out of control, and then on and on, and then our behaviours in the classroom, our behaviours like, our responses to behaviour, need to get bigger and bigger, because the behaviours are getting bigger and bigger and it just becomes this horrific, disempowering, horrible, like heavy cycle of behaviour, reactive classroom management.

Speaker 1:

So how do we break this cycle? It needs to start with us. We are at the start of that cycle and mitigating as many challenging behaviors as we can needs to start with our regulation, as us being a calm conductor of the energy in the room, because we are the conductor, we are the ones who are like energy is so contagious and we need to be the ones to draw students into our regulation, not be dragged into their dysregulation. So when behaviors still inevitably pop up, the goal needs to be de-escalation. And if the goal is de-escalation, the way that I was approaching behaviors that I described at the start were inevitably going to be making things far harder on me, because it was escalating the room and the goal is de-escalation. This isn't even the strategy that I was going to talk about this episode, but even asking yourself what I am doing right now is this going to escalate the room or is this going to de-escalate the room is something that's so powerful for us to reflect on and ask ourselves. So if I raise my voice right now, is that going to escalate things or is that going to deescalate things? If I storm up to a student and stand over them, is that going to escalate their behaviors or deescalate their behaviors? If I go right, that is it. It's like go over and see Miss English or whoever I'm sending them to. Is that going to escalate the behaviors of that student in the room or is it going to de-escalate them? So every time we are about to do something, it's just like a micro moment. We're filtering it through, saying is this going to escalate or de-escalate the situation? And if it's going to escalate, then reconsider what you're about to do.

Speaker 1:

But if you want to break the cycle of that disempowering and demoralizing reactive classroom management, start by getting curious about yourself, and I bring curiosity through everything in the book and that behavior backpack that I fill up in the first pillar. We bring that through and we keep adding to it. So ask yourself get curious. How am I feeling in my body right now? What is my body telling me? Am I breathing calmly? Am I breathing deeply? Am I breathing shallowly? Am I breathing quickly? So all of those things are physical signs that we're regulated or dysregulated. What are my shoulders doing right now? Are they up around my ears? Are they really tense or are they nice and relaxed? Have I dropped them? Is my jaw tight? Am I pressing my teeth together? Like, what am I doing? Do I? Is my heart racing? So getting to know your individual physical signs that you are not regulated is really crucial, because when you recognize that you can do what works best for you to come back into a regulated state, what is your sign is not going to be somebody else's sign For me.

Speaker 1:

I find it really, really beneficial to pause. I find it really beneficial to take a breath. I drop my shoulders. I ask myself, like, what are my shoulders doing right now? That is my sign that I need to take a breath and become again, embody the calm that I want in the room. And I say to myself the only thing I can control right now in this room is myself. I can't control my students' behaviors. I can't control anything external to me and my practice. I can only control that. And in this classroom right now, I can't go back and change the lesson. I can't do X, y and Z. This classroom right now, I can't go back and change the lesson. I can't do X, y and Z, but what I can do is control my own regulation and my own calm and try to be the calm conductor of the energy in this room. That is all I tell myself. I tell myself that still, I've been teaching for a long time and I teach people about classroom management, but still, when I'm in a classroom, when I'm in front of those students, that is the inner dialogue that I am using and I'm asking myself how are your shoulders, how is your breathing? Like I literally talk to myself all of the time saying these things, even with the experience and the work that I do.

Speaker 1:

It's also important to note that, in order to get to a point where I was able to recognize these things, remember we can't, we don't know what we don't know. And like I had a mentor one day observed me and she noticed that my shoulders were tight, it was after Envoy training. So I talk a lot about Michael Grinder's Envoy in my practice and in my training and everything that I do with teachers. In my book I talk about Envoy After Envoy training. One of my mentors was observing me and specifically looking for nonverbal cues based on Envoy and she said to me Claire, your shoulders are tight. I can see when you're teaching that you're not regulated, that your shoulders are tight.

Speaker 1:

And I was really trying to be regulated in that lesson. I was trying to embody all of the things that I needed to deescalate that room, but it took somebody observing me and pointing that out to notice that. And ever since then I've gone. Okay, that is my physical sign, so I might not notice that my shoulders are tense, but I say to myself every lesson what are your shoulders doing? And I consciously take a deep breath and drop my shoulders and the simple act of doing that has transformed the way that I show up in my classroom.

Speaker 1:

Of course, it's not that simple all the time. There are so many things. It's never like in the book. It's not just one strategy. Is that like? Everything works together to create that beautiful, harmonious, holistic approach to classroom management? It's not just about dropping our shoulders. But, my gosh, is it a huge piece of the puzzle to be regulated in that room.

Speaker 1:

It all starts with that. Remember the start of that reactive classroom management cycle is going back to the start and saying, okay, am I frantic, am I heated, am I dysregulated? Because everything is going to be spurred on from that. So, just as a recap, we can very easily fall into that vicious cycle of reactive classroom management and breaking that cycle teaches. It needs to start with us and it could be a bit of a hard pill to swallow, but the difference between leading a room with dysregulation and with regulation is night and day.

Speaker 1:

And this is not just about the students in the room. It is about us feeling empowered and in control of that space. If you go into a classroom wanting to control your students, you are never going to win and you are going to be caught in a constant, day-to-day battle of disempowerment, feeling disrespected, feeling walked all over. It is a horrible, horrible place to be in. Once we step away from that and we start to think about the things that can empower us in our practice, my gosh, everything changes. The game changes, of course. This chapter is absolutely full of practical and explicit roadmaps for addressing behavior calmly, with prompts and scenarios to make it as real world as possible. But I do hope that this particular takeaway was really beneficial because it's just one of those concepts that if you take it into the real world, it can really change a lot. So if you would like to learn more about my upcoming book it's never just about the behavior and pre-order a copy or order it depending on when you're listening. So it's out from July 2024 onwards head to the-unteachablescom forward slash book or find the link in the episode description. So the-unteachablescom forward slash book.

Speaker 1:

And if you really enjoyed this episode, if you got something from it, it would mean the absolute world. For you to leave me a little review, a nice shiny five-star review, would be ideal. It would be the preferable kind of review that I would get. If you haven't done that already, that would just mean the world to me. If you're listening to the podcast for the first time, it's so nice to have you here. If you're a long-term listener, that is even better. You know, I appreciate you so much for listening and taking the time to improve your practice and this stuff. We are changing the education system one lesson at a time. I truly believe. I know it sounds corny, I know it sounds cheesy, but I believe that with every fiber of my being, every single one of you who takes one of these strategies and gives it a crack in the classroom, you are changing You're like, you're changing your world. You're changing your students' world. So I appreciate everything you're doing and bye for now, wonderful teachers.

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Claire English

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