This is the third in a series of 10 posts on common behaviour management mistakes. If you can’t wait for all ten, and you want this as a single article, add your email address and name to the box at the right and I’ll shoot you through a full copy.
3. “I am the expert… ” or demanding positional respect
In many ways, the era of the expert leader (or leader as expert) is over. There remains a strong role for experts in content and/or process, yet increasingly, leaders today are facilitators.
Image courtesy of Pete Prodoehl (http://www.flickr.com/photos/raster/)
How many of you now consult a weather radar application or page on your smart phone or computer? How often do you or your friends ‘self-diagnose’ medical problems on the internet before seeing your doctor? Have you noticed that the dominance of the media in distributing news is waning and that social media is often first to report?
We are in a content rich world, and access to this content and knowledge is increasing exponentially each year. The time of the teacher (who is the leader in the classroom) as a content expert is over. Any teacher that attempts to demand respect because “I am the teacher, and I have the knowledge” will simply not engage students.
Such teachers (and indeed, leaders and parents) listen less to others: they have the content and need to be listened to. Such an attitude from teachers also interprets any misbehaviour as an affront to the profession, and triggers stronger Red Zones. Students, however, would say “why should I listen to you if you won’t listen to me…”. This has been the recipe in education for a number of years, otherwise known as the behaviour management grind.
While content (i.e. curriculum) remains essential, the teachers who take the position “I have the content, how can I best help you access it?” are far more likely to engage students, and are likely to spend lots less time on behaviour management. These teachers are ‘modern mentors’ – hybrids of content/process experts and coach/facilitators. Teachers who remain in Education 2.0 as experts can move to Education 3.0 (as facilitators) by gaining some coaching training.
More strategies, skills and techniques around brain-aware, coaching-based behaviour management, check out our new manual, the Success Zone Classrooms Manual (http://www.successzoneclassrooms.com/).
