Welcome to your weekly Classroom Management Quick Win Challenge . True classroom management is not how we address behavior when it pops up . Instead , it is the compounding effect of many , many micro decisions we make in our teaching practice before the behavior even pops up .
In these Quick Win episodes I'm handing over one actionable , small but mighty tool to help you move the needle every single week to stop crowd controlling and to start calmly classroom managing like a pro . Let's dive into this week's game changing challenge .
Welcome back , teachers , to Quick Wins , where I just give you one small thing you can immediately action every single week . That is going to compound and compound over time to create incredible change and I mean life-changing stuff for some of our students in small , incremental ways . And today's quick win is called positive post-its .
I want you to just think for a second . Those students who display the most challenging behaviors , what are their daily interactions with adults like ? They probably come into contact with adults hundreds of times in a day and what are those moments like ?
One of the many roles I've had was the head teacher of learning support and during this time I was conducting some observations of students whose behaviors are really challenging because I was trying to come up with plans to support them All day . They were just getting withdrawals from their emotional piggy bank . The behavior was the constant focus which I get .
It was , you know , right there in front of teachers' faces Like the behavior is the barrier . It is this massive , challenging thing that we have to deal with . But there was one student who I went through the entire day with , who didn't have one single positive interaction with an adult . Not one single positive thing , not a hey , how are you going ?
Like nothing ? So I started to think right , how might things change for that particular student if every single day , even just one of those interactions was intentionally positive ? Was a teacher going out of their way , even if they were frustrated and over it , to just make a gesture that could potentially break that cycle of constant ?
You know , don't do this or stop that , or what do you think you're doing ? Or get out or not again , or go and see her , I'm calling your mom . So I started to experiment in my own classes and I chose one student per day to write a positive post-it note to and pop it on their desks .
Even if they were doing 10 things that were challenging , I was challenging myself to focus on one thing that was positive and write about that one thing and just pop it on their desk . Sometimes , I'm telling you , I had to dig deep , like all of the challenges in front of me .
I found it really hard sometimes to find something positive , but I would always find something . When I started doing this , the change with the behavior that I was seeing was like night and day . It is one tiny action that sends a huge , huge message of care to that student .
It invests in the emotional piggy bank of students who are spending all day , every day , getting withdrawals from teachers . You are catching the positive with the students who need it the most , who need to see themselves as more , feel worthy , feel seen .
They probably don't feel positive about themselves at all and I know that some students who have these big behaviours really come across in a way that they , you know , seem like they don't care . They're presenting themselves in a way that is , you know , quite confident and strong in the way that they feel and behave .
But this is often a mask for some really big , challenging feelings about themselves and the world around them and the way that they're disconnected with people around them . So just this one action of finding something positive and like .
I don't think it's a tiny action at all , like taking the time to write a post-it note of something positive and putting it on their desk .
That is a huge action in the lives of some of our young people and it can be a catalyst to not only transforming your relationship and transforming the behavior , but also supporting that student to transform the way that they see themselves and how they interact with the world around them . I know that seems like a lot , but it really can .
Like I know I speak about these things like they can be life-changing , but little by little , these things actually can be life-changing for our students .
So I want you to go into the week with the same challenge that I gave myself all of those years ago , which is finding one student per lesson that has big , challenging behaviors and just writing a positive post-it note . Not only will it help that student , but it will also help you to start to shift your mindset .
When you're looking for the positive things , we often find more positive things in return . So go and try it this week and remember . If you're doing any of these weekly challenges , I'd love to hear about it . Pop into my Insta inbox , say hi and let me know what you're doing and how it's going and what has actually changed for you .
One other thing before I go if you have been finding these podcast episodes useful , it would mean so much to me for you to head over and leave me a review and just a little note to say what you love about the Unteachables podcast is something that will help me reach more teachers this year who are stuck in that cycle , that really challenging cycle of crowd
controlling their class , and those teachers deserve to be seen and to be supported and to have a community of badass teachers , just like you , who get them . So thanks for tuning in my wonderful Unteachables team and I will see you at the same time next week . Bye for now .