“You can be the emotionally consistent teacher that you want to be. Just not overnight. It takes time to find the balance between being your true self and being the person your children need. Context also matters. Being transparent, open and honest with some classes is a fast track to relational currency. With others it means getting mugged off and asked by every giggling child you meet for the next 6 months ‘Sir, is your middle name really Lesley?’ Revealing too much of yourself too soon is a crap shoot. It might go brilliantly but you will in all probability end up rolling 7, walking home in the rain wishing you had never picked up the dice.
When you have been at the school some time you may allow yourself a slightly smug smile when hearing of another new teacher explaining that they told the class about their Slam Poetry YouTube Channel. “You told them WHAT!’ is always funny because we have all trod much the same route. I wanted so desperately to be the teacher I never had that I thought I could mimic the performance of a great teacher. Yet behind that performance I had no substance. What I needed was the route map of how to get to being that teacher, but what works for an expert may not be the best next step for a novice. Being an emotionally consistent adult takes most of us a long time and we get better incrementally not in one dramatic leap.
Watching your teacher demonstrating their knowledge or skills can be the first spark of a positive relationship. Respect is built long before it is spoken or becomes obvious.”
from After The Adults Change: Achievable Behaviour Nirvana
After The Adults Change:
Achievable Behaviour Nirvana
There is a behavioural nirvana: one that is calm, purposeful and respectful. Where poor pupil behaviour is as rare as a PE teacher in trousers and where relationships drive achievement. Annoyingly and predictably, the road is hard and the ride bumpy and littered with clichés – but it is achievable. And when you get there it is a little slice of heaven.
​
The book delivers a blueprint for school behaviour improvement that is inclusive, practical and well structured – and covers a range of key issues, including: restorative practice, emotionally consistent teaching, creating a coaching culture, and proportionate and productive consequences for bad behaviour.
Audio book
In this audiobook version of his bestselling title, Paul Dix talks you through how teachers and school leaders can move beyond the behaviour management revolution and maintain a school culture rooted in relational practice.
Each chapter, as in the paperback, delves into the possibilities for improvement in pupil behaviour and teacher–pupil relationships, drawing further upon a hugely influential behaviour management approach whereby expectations and boundaries are exemplified by calm, consistent and regulated adults.
Paul delivers a blueprint for school behaviour improvement that is inclusive, practical and well structured – and covers a range of key issues, including: restorative practice, emotionally consistent teaching, creating a coaching culture, and proportionate and productive consequences for bad behaviour.
Narrated by Paul Dix himself, this audiobook is suitable for teachers and school leaders – in any setting – who are looking to upgrade their approach to school behaviour.
It is available on Audible and at www.CrownHouse.co.uk