Behaviour management low level disruption

Blaming mobile phones for bad behaviour misses the point, says Paul Dix. Reducing low level disruption starts with helping children take res

We all blame the inanimate for our failings at one time or another. I stub my toe and blame the door, beat my car for running out of petrol and, all too often, shout at the telly. These emotional responses are over in an instant and I laugh at myself as the emotion subsides. I am not cut out to be Ofsted’s chief inspector. In his world, blaming the inanimate is rational, sensible, even worth making speeches about.

Blame and behaviour are old friends. Teachers take their share of blame when it is dished out. Parents take theirs too. Yet it seems the public may have grown tired of these previously popular punch bags. The search What can we learn from secondary schools? for someone else to blame has been replaced with the search for something to blame, as evidenced by Sir Michael Wilshaw’s call for mobile phones to be removed from classrooms.

Blaming inanimate objects for children’s behaviour works perfectly for the inspectorate and the media alike. Objects don’t answer back, don’t complain and don’t vote.
Blaming ‘stuff’ for the failings of human beings is a clear sign that the some people in education have run out of ideas. Blaming mobile phones for children’s poor behaviour is like blaming spray cans for graffiti, dictionaries for sweary children or booze for bad parenting. It makes no sense.

In his 1989 report on behaviour and discipline in schools, Lord Elton must have struggled to find a reason for distracted children. Without phones to blame he talked of exactly the same low level disruption: I presume that conkers were at fault, or that dangerously subversive communication device, the pencil.

Children by their very nature are disruptive. Perhaps it would be simpler if we banned pupils from the classroom? This would at least give the disciplinarians the rose tinted silence for which they appear to be striving.

Stamping down on low level disruption is rather like stamping on a cockroach. It feels good at the time, but in truth you have seeded more problems for the future. Eradicating low level disruption is not helped by emotive (and ridiculous) ‘solutions’ that involve banning.

Banning, of course, has a great track record. From the war on drugs to short skirts, it has always provided a huge motivation to subvert the rules. If prohibition truly worked then we would simply ban low level disruption. But we can’t. Let’s face it, we have all tried more than once.

Who’s responsible?

Reducing low level disruption comes through hard work and a clear plan, not with foot stamping and throwing our toys out of the pram. We need to teach children personal discipline not simply obedience. Great teachers make themselves more fascinating than the lure of the touchscreen, clicky pen or jangly conkers. When behaviour becomes difficult, they refocus on routines and rest heavily on positive reinforcement. They do not reach for sanctions and shouting; they know that it appears desperate and out of control.

In the Netherlands, no one wears a uniform to school. Are the children rioting in the streets because they have been allowed to wear hooded tops? Has denim rotted their moral fibre? No. In fact, most schools in Europe realise that it is not how people are dressed that determines their ability to control their behaviour. Parents, educators and politicians are grown up enough to understand that what children wear or bring to school is not responsible for their achievement. Why is it that we have not reached the same conclusion?

The contradictions are obvious. While Sir Michael Wilshaw is making Pythonesque “You were lucky!” speeches, his inspection team is encouraging the use of mobile devices in school. (Ofsted criteria for outstanding leadership and management in ICT: “The school is likely to have promoted the use of mobile technologies.”)

Mobile technology is being harnessed to give children control over their learning and access to information presented in a 1000 different styles. Sir Wilshaw’s views represent the dying light of the last generation to leave education without being taught about or with computers. A true dinosaur of the 21st century – a Wilshawrus, if you like. In the 80s, my teachers seemed to be out of touch, from another age, another planet, some of them. They came from a world where children sat and listened and teachers threw board rubbers around for fun. A world where casual violence inflicted on children was amusing. I hated how detached and distant they were. I struggled to find any common ground. Are we not in danger of creating the same separation, the same wedge between children and their teachers by knee jerk responses to mobile technology? In attempting to ban mobile phones, don’t we deliberately suppress learning, digital collaboration and external audiences for children’s achievement?

Children want mobile phones because they have spent their entire lives surrounded by adults who cannot put them down. Children see, children do; so it goes. They are addictive, distracting and irritating on one hand and on the other they hold huge advantages for self directed learning, research and collaboration. The children we teach are not growing up in a world where things are banned, censored and locked away.

They are in a world where censorship has been blown away, information is everywhere and access is easy. We have a duty to keep them safe, to teach them how to use new technologies wisely and to show them what is possible.

At some point, children will need to be able to use their own tech in school responsibly. Teachers will not be able to police it. Teach personal responsibility sooner rather then later.

I refuse to blame parents, children, teachers or dangerously subversive pencil cases for pupils being disengaged in classrooms. Instead, I am going to look to what I have absolute control over: the quality of my teaching and my ability to grab and hold attention better than any screen.

What can we learn from secondary schools?

A more considered, sensible and intelligent approach to mobile technology has been developed at the Priory School in Portsmouth. Students created the policy alongside teachers.

“The first thing you’ll notice is that no one is getting into confrontations about mobile phones,” says headteacher, James Humphries. There are no stand-offs between children and teachers or huddles of pupils secretively trying to check their text messages at break time. There is a healthy use of mobile technology for communicating and social networking. As a result, behaviour is better and pupils are much more prepared for further study and workplace environments. Cyber bullying is more widely reported and teachers are confident to deal with it. We respond swiftly in the same way as we do to any incidence of bullying. Our pupils are more independent, trusted and responsible.”