A Call for Help

As a successful tutor centre owner, teacher and learning difficulties expert, the ONE thing that I find many teacher have a disconnect from is what a call for help looks like from their students.

In a nutshell. Behaviour. Or misbehaviour of a student. 

Through my 15 years of teaching experience both inside and outside of the classroom, I've been able to have a very unique opportunity to see the inner workings of many schools, and pick up on the things that seem to thread commonalities between each place. 

I know. I've been there. It's hard. It's hard to teach in a room where students just are continuously disengaged, where the outside struggles enter our classrooms on a daily basis and where we just don't seem to find enough time to make the connections that the students in our care required. There is a way however to begin to turn it around. 

The thing is, when we are always caught up on the behaviour that is occurring within our classrooms- the disruptions, defiance, disengagement, we are quick to label this as an issue. 

To continue to build our own skills, we need to begin to look behind these external behaviours and start to look underneath to find the reason why.

We need to become curious. 

So how can we do this?

 Become really interested in the root causes of misbehaviour.

Often misbehaviour is a symptom- and not the problem.

So what could be going on? 

Academic struggles: 

Is the student finding the work too challenging?

Is it not challenging them enough?

Emotional needs:

Is there external stress, anxiety or issues at home?

Is the student overstimulated?

Did something happen at lunchtime?

Do they feel unfairly "blamed" for something? 

Social struggles:

Are they trying to fit in?

Struggling with bullying?

Unsure of classroom procedures and expectations?

Learning differences:

Are they struggling with a learning challenge?

Do you need to assess other ways to draw the student in?

Is the disruption masking their challenges? 

So what is actually going on with your students? What do you think is going on below the surface?