The Unteachables Podcast

#118: The number one reason you’re finding behaviour tough right now

• Claire English • Season 6 • Episode 118

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You’re not failing at behaviour because you’re “just not cut out for it.” And no, it’s not because you don’t have that magic voice or commanding presence either. The truth? Most of us simply weren’t taught how to manage behaviour effectively. And it shows – not because we’re not trying hard enough, but because no one gave us the tools to begin with.

In this episode, I’m taking you right back to where it all began for me: the whopping 20 minutes of behaviour training I received across two degrees, and how it left me wildly unprepared for what came next. From sinking in my first classroom to swimming thanks to exceptional mentors, I’m sharing what made the biggest difference – and how you can find the same transformation.

IN THIS EPISODE, I DISCUSS:

  • Why your struggles with behaviour are absolutely not your fault
  • A behind-the-scenes story from my first chaotic solo lesson (yes, there were flying keyboards)
  • How real, effective classroom management support turned things around for me
  • What “The Confident Classroom Pathway” is – and how it can help you feel calm, in control, and confident

Classroom management doesn’t have to feel like constant firefighting. The right support – practical, actionable, evidence-based – can change everything. That’s why I created The Confident Classroom Pathway, a free training based on all the gold I’ve learnt over the years from some of the best mentors and trainings around.

If you’ve been on the fence about learning with me, this is the perfect place to start. Head to the-unteachables.com/learn to sign up for one of the two sessions – they’re free, fun, and packed with stuff people told me they would’ve paid for. I would love to see you there.

And remember – if behaviour feels tough… it’s because it is.
 But it doesn’t have to stay that way. You’ve got this. 💛

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

JOIN MY FREE LIVE TRAINING: TURN YOUR TEACHING INTO A CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT MACHINE

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Speaker 1:

Oh, hi there teachers, welcome to the Unteachables podcast. I'm your host, claire English, and I am just a fellow teacher, a toddler mama and a big old behavior nerd on a mission to demystify and simplify that little thing called classroom management. The way we've all been taught to manage behavior and classroom manage has left us playing crowd control, which is not something I subscribe to, because we're not bouncers, we're teachers. So listen in as I walk you through the game, changing strategies and I mean the things that we can actually do and action in our classrooms that will allow you to lean into your beautiful values as a compassionate educator and feel empowered to run your room with a little more calm and, dare I say it, a lot less chaos. I will see you in the episode. Hello, hello, welcome back to the Unteachables podcast, or welcome for the first time, if you're new here. I am Claire English, I am the host of this podcast and you know I'm all things the Unteachables. So it's lovely to have you here. It's lovely to be able to support you in any way that I can.

Speaker 1:

I wasn't around last week so I apologize if you're waiting for a new podcast episode to drop. The reason being is I was sick, which isn't too surprising. I feel like as a toddler mum, I can say that almost every single day of my life now, but last week I was particularly bad with my throat and I knew that if I was to record any podcast, I would completely lose my voice, so I just decided to take care of myself, which is something I don't do very often. I don't do as much as I preach about, that's for sure. And also one other thing is that I was doing the um, the quick win episode, so I was actually doing two episodes of the podcast a week. However, that was becoming a lot for me to be able to manage, and what was happening is I felt like I was rushing the main episode of the week and then I felt like I was going too deep into the quick win episodes. They were like the same length of episodes, so I was really struggling with that. I really struggled to keep an episode to like three minute short, sharp things. So what ended up happening was I was just, instead of doing one full episode a week, I felt like I was accidentally planning for two full episodes a week, which was it was taking a lot of time, a lot of energy and other things in the unteachables. Land was then going downhill because I wasn't able to use that time for other things. So I am going to go back to doing one episode a week. So I hope that's okay with you. I hope you're not going to miss the second episode too much, but I promise the first episode of the week, the one episode I do, will be better than it was before, because I've got the time to do it and the energy to do it. So enough of that.

Speaker 1:

Today's episode is all about why you might be finding behavior really tough. So the number one reason why you're finding behavior tough at the moment Because I have gotten a lot of emails recently. There's been a lot of things popping up in my behavior club community. There's just a lot of people coming to me lately going. I just don't feel like I'm cut out for this job. I don't feel like I'm cut out for this work. I need you to know that.

Speaker 1:

The number one reason you're finding behavior tough is not because you're innately terrible at behavior management, because you're terrible at classroom management. There's none of that. It's not because you're too quiet of a person and it's not coming naturally to you. It's not because you're not exactly like that teacher down the hall who just seems to be so beloved by every student. And I get that feeling, that comparison that we can go to, because when I first started teaching, of course I was a little bit less confident, of course I didn't have my teacher voice, of course I hadn't established myself, but one of my best teacher friends, Kiara, she had established herself and she was just bigger than life. She just had all of the students hanging off her every word and she was so energetic and so incredible and the relationship she had with the, with the young people, were incredible. So I would always compare myself to her and go oh well, that's not the personality that I bring in and I am maybe a little bit less you know out there, and so it's easy to start comparing ourselves. But none of those things are the reason why you're finding behavior tough. It's not because you're terrible at it, it's not because you're too quiet, it's not because it's not coming naturally, it's not because you're not exactly like Kiara down the hall. And of course there are plenty of reasons why you might be finding behavior tough right now. There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle, but I need you to know the number one reason that you are finding behavior tough is ready for it. It's because you weren't actually taught how to do it. Shocking right, it doesn't feel that groundbreaking, but I need you to know this. So this episode is more about a little bit, just a bit of validation for you, just for you to walk away and go okay, like that's why. And I have the power now and I feel empowered and I feel hope that things can change. So that's the purpose of this episode really to give you a bit of hope, to empower you, to make you realize that it's not you.

Speaker 1:

And I'm going to start with my experience with classroom management and I am going to take you back to 2010, 15 years ago now. It was my final year of my Masters of Secondary Teaching and finally a tutor was about to teach me about classroom management. I knew it was on the schedule that this lesson was going to be about classroom management and I was excited. And I tell this story in the introduction of my book. It's never just about the behavior. So I am going to read that to you now rather than just talk through it, because I feel like it's easier to do that. And, by the way, this is just from the manuscript draft, so a few sentences and words might be a little bit different than the actual book. I just want to say that, just in case. Okay, so I'm going to read you the introductory part of my book. Ahem, 20 minutes, that is the total amount of time I was explicitly taught about classroom management over two degrees and five years.

Speaker 1:

When students aren't listening or doing what you've asked, you've got a few options, my tutor proclaimed. He stood front and center, pulled his glasses halfway down his nose and dramatically shot us his sternest teacher look before breaking out of character and into a chortle. Then, if they aren't following instructions, he comically raced to where we were sitting, stood in front of us, looked down staunchly at the boy next to me, paused for a moment and delivered a dozen rapid taps to the open book of his page this will get them back on track before he walked around the room demonstrating the how-tos of squashing disruptive and undesirable behavior. A finger point here and a noxious, attention-grabbing throat clear there. As studious, few wrote notes, others awkwardly commented amongst themselves and some were trying their darndest to avoid eye contact. I was dismayed. I was yet to step into a classroom and although I did not know what was awaiting me on the other side, I knew I needed far more help than that. I just didn't know how much more. So why am I telling you this? That was the end of that. By the way, I'm telling you this because, naturally, when I did walk into my first teaching placement at a very tough school, I absolutely sank. And here is the next part of that introductory chapter in my book. Surprise, surprise, the 20 minutes did not suffice.

Speaker 1:

That first day, flying solo an absolute baptism of fire I was plonked in a cramped computer room located in one of the less trodden and very isolated corners of the school. A post-it note of scribbled instructions sat on the hefty pile of comprehension worksheets and it said year eight, tech period. Two students are to complete worksheets collect at the end of the lesson with their names on them. Worksheets collect at the end of the lesson with their names on them, seating plans laminated up the front. And it's a computer-free lesson. That's it.

Speaker 1:

So, with the class roll, the worksheets and the seating plan in front of me, I anxiously awaited the ringing of the bell. Then my career was off with a monumental and quite literal bang. Those names on a roll. Well, they were just that faceless names. It was 30 on 1, and with no way of knowing who they were or who. To report back on. The seating plan was as useless and as powerless as I was. I was busy in my attempts to settle a large group that amassed in the corner, headphones hanging out of ears, raucously chatting, shoving each other and laughing. When one student in the class jumped up on the surrounding computer tables he was kicking keyboards into the class one by one. I raced over, I screamed at him to get down and he looked me dead in the eye and sent a monitor crashing to the ground.

Speaker 1:

Naively, one of my biggest fears going into that first lesson was that they wouldn't complete the set work for me. The reality was far worse. I felt like I couldn't keep them safe. It was abundantly clear then that nothing prepared me for the true challenges of teaching. It seemed. If I was going to stay the course in the profession, I had one option cut my teeth, get on with it, sink or swim. I needed to learn how to swim, and fast. Okay, that's the end of that chapter.

Speaker 1:

So that was the introduction, and the reason I chose that as my introduction to the book it's never just about the behavior was because I needed everybody to know that I'm not talking from a place of. Oh my God, I walked into a classroom and that was pure magic and I am just the authority on classroom management because I'm just this, this guru at class. No, I'm not at all. There is nothing different between me and you, except the fact that what happened next and it really was pure luck, because I did learn how to swim and it was only because I was blessed with the most incredible training, the most incredible mentors, like in my first two years of teaching, I was able to do envoy training, choice theory training, the most incredible and rich in-school training, led by my mentor, cara Cobden, who was the MVP of teaching us routines and structures and differentiation strategies that actively mitigated low-level disruptions.

Speaker 1:

I feel like so much of what I teach now is just, you know, something that's born from all of those things that she started that many years ago. So I need you to know now, if you're listening to this and you're struggling, you are no different than me. You are just as capable as me, probably more so. I'm going to be honest with you I'm a hot mess most of the time. You have just as much potential to absolutely nail classroom management and feel confident and feel in control and feel calm walking into a classroom. The only thing different, the only thing, is the fact that I've had the experiences that have allowed me to grow in my practice exponentially when it comes to behavior. That's the only difference. I was chucked in the deep end. I was able to have incredible training, incredible mentors and I was able to every single day practice and hardwire the things that have become bread and butter in my practice. I'm not telling you this to say, ha, I can do it and you can't. It's to make sure that you know there is hope.

Speaker 1:

I did not walk into the classroom on the first day feeling all over it and knowing, yep, I'm going to leave on this with staff one day and I'm the bloody bomb at it. You know it took time and work and development and trial and error and a whole lot of chaos. It took the right support. I really want you to take that message away that you are no different than me. If you're in the first few years of teaching, you can be sitting here in 10 years time leading on this staff If you have the right support, the right training, all of those things. And I've taught teachers who are 20 years into their um, into the profession, and the reason they haven't been able to get all over it is because, yes, they've had the experience but they haven't been able to have the training and the support and all the things that I have been so blessed with. So please make sure you remember that You're no different than me. There is hope you can do this.

Speaker 1:

And speaking of the right support, this classroom management approach that I do teach is the amalgamation of everything that I've learned over the years and have put together into a neat little package. And I now call that package the classroom compass method. And the reason I call it the classroom compass is because it's this four step kind of process that will always guide us in the right direction. No matter what's going on in our classroom, no matter what behaviors we're experiencing we're, you know, having to deal with on a day-to-day basis the classroom compass will always guide us to something to do. Because it's holistic, it's something that we can always kind of fall back on. We'll know what to do. We'll be empowered by that. The reason I call it that, rather than like positive behavior is because it's so much more than just behavior and it's really about taking control of what we do before the behavior even starts. And it's also about you feeling confident and in control and calm and all of those things.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you would like me to take you through that four step pathway, step by step, I am running a free live training at the end of this month called Turn your Teaching into a Classroom Management Machine. If you have even been a little bit interested in working with me and learning from me but haven't taken the leap yet, this free training is going to be so incredible. I ran it around this time last year and a lot of the comments I got were I would have paid for it. So definitely, just because it's free, it doesn't mean that it's not worth your time. It is definitely worth your time. So come along. The link is in the show notes or you can head to the-unteachablescom forward slash learn.

Speaker 1:

I have two different times. You can enroll in if you would like to come along live, but there'll also be a replay for 10 days if you would like to come along to that as well. So hopefully one of those suits you and we can have a bit of time together. If you can come along live, that would be brilliant. I'm also giving away like a free gift for anybody who does come live and spend that time with me.

Speaker 1:

So the link again for that is the-unteachablescom forward slash learn and it would be so wonderful to be able to take you through my classroom compass method. Even just being able to see that in action and kind of have a little bit of an understanding around that is going to give you a lot of aha moments when it comes to your teaching practice. Okay, that's all for now and remember, if you are finding classroom management tough, it is because it is tough. It is bloody tough, and you just need the right support, the right training. But things aren't hopeless and no matter where you are in your teaching journey right now, you can make incredible change for yourself and the brilliant young people you teach. That is all Bye for now and I will see you next week.

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Claire English

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