One of the great challenges of teaching is being put in a room alone with up to 30 students and being expected to keep them focused on learning. All teachers find this daunting and as the years go by, it does not always get easier to ensure students are well behaved and engaged with their learning.

There are usually at least two factors at work that lead to a disruptive class. Firstly, it may be that the lesson the teacher has prepared is not working for the students. That is, it may be too difficult or too easy, not imaginative enough or not connected to their world enough to catch their attention. It may move too slowly or too quickly; their presentation of the material may be boring to students or the language they use too advanced and so on. The craft of teaching is very much about getting a whole range of factors in balance and this is challenging and different for every class a teacher has.

Secondly, students often disengage and play up because they themselves feel incapable of doing the work. They may lack confidence, suffer from a learning challenge or be dealing with a personal issue and unable to concentrate. They may be afraid of looking stupid to others or find it better not to engage with the work so they can’t fail. There are many reasons a student may be disruptive, but often it is not so much naughtiness as inadequacy.

Of course, occasionally we do have a purely wilful student who just enjoys engaging in rude or disruptive behaviour, but this is actually quite rare. As children become teenagers, this sort of behaviour tends to escalate. They are wrestling with their own body changes accompanied by mood swings, body image issues, relational challenges, friendship triangles that break up and so on. With all this going on it is hard for many to be able to concentrate for long periods of time in a classroom. All this adds to the teacher’s challenge of how to engage all the students with a wide range of abilities and personalities in common work.

So, what can be done? Traditionally schools worked on the fear principle. Being sent to the Deputy Principal’s office meant the cane or some other form of physical discipline that might have helped to control unruly behaviour. Of course, it did not in any way address the causes of the poor behaviour. Over time schools were told to move from fear to a laissez-faire approach in which students were allowed to be free to express themselves. This usually increased the chaos. Fortunately, more recent work leads us to consider the two main factors I outlined above.

Teachers now work on how to vary lessons and take account of the factors that may lead to disengagement – this still remains a significant professional challenge though. We also work with students to identify their own factors and help them gain the confidence or the peace they need to be able to remain focused on their work. Disciplinary consequences are still required (but no cane) but are a back-up rather than a first attack strategy.

Underpinning all this is the relationship students develop with teachers such that they want to do the work to please the teacher and receive the reward of growing success. At GPCC we are working on these issues as we look to have classrooms that are productive and focused, helping students to learn and develop well.