Why Do Children Get So Mad?
nzei
Tue Jul 31 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Why Do Children Get So Mad?
Tuesday, 31 July 2007, 1:44 pm
Press Release: NZEI
Why do children get mad? So mad that they lash out and hit their teachers? New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Vice President and primary school principal Frances Nelson discusses the issue.
A recent survey by NZEI found that one in seven teachers and a similar number of school support staff reported being physically assaulted last year by primary school students.
The survey Physical and Verbal Aggression Towards Primary and Intermediate Staff: Report of National Survey of NZEI Members found that verbal assaults are even more frequent with nearly 60 percent of teachers and more than a quarter of school support staff reporting aggressive verbal confrontations with children in the past year.
Assaults were reported in nearly one-third of the random sample of 270 principals, teachers and school support staff. Nine out of ten of the physical assaults were by boys, and a large number were from Year 1-3 children - children just five to seven years old.
These results reinforce teachers’ perceptions that there has been a significant rise in disruptive behaviour at schools - and it was the increasing concern from members that led to NZEI carrying out the survey.
Those of us working in schools, who may be subject to this aggression, are not concerned simply for ourselves or the child involved - who obviously needs to learn new methods of dealing with anger and frustration - but we are also concerned about the disruption violent children cause to the learning of all the children in the class: aggressive behaviour undermines teachers trying to teach and children trying to learn.
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In my view, as a principal of 20 years experience, the aggression we see in school is linked to violence across society generally. It appears that violence generally is on the rise within society. Inevitably, as schools are, in a sense, a reflection of the wider community, violence exists in schools. As people working in education we can’t magically eliminate that violence from our students' lives and behaviour. However, there is a growing pool of information, research and resourcing to address the issues surrounding disruptive student behaviour and there are ways of working with children that have proved successful.
Firstly, children absorb the influences around them. Without having an understanding of their family, social, economic and cultural context, identifying when they are likely to reach "boiling point" and diverting them into more positive behaviour is impossible. So knowing our students and, where possible, creating close links between home and school is essential.
Secondly, a priority must be to ensure all children have access to quality early childhood education (ECE), be it kindergarten, playcentre, kohanga reo or other services. All local and international research shows that children who have had quality ECE do better at school. Part of this is because early childhood services give children experience of socialisation with other children and adults, alongside pre-literacy and numeracy experience. Quality services also provide early identification and support for parents where children have developmental delays or physical/emotional issues that need addressing. Some schools are now hiring early childhood teachers to teach in their new entrant classes because a number of their new entrants are simply not ready for school. Thirdly, ensuring that all schools can attract and retain experienced staff - both teachers and teacher aides - is critical.
It is not surprising that most schools put their most experienced teachers into their new entrant classes. Using the skills and knowledge and critical acumen of your best teachers is a wise investment at the beginning of a child's school life. Unfortunately, not all schools can do this.
There are successful behaviour management programmes being implemented in many schools. In South Dunedin, for example, schools are working collectively on a strategy called Circle Time which encourages children to use words to express their feelings and to come up with solutions for each other. At Inglewood Primary School in Taranaki an investment of $33,000 in a positive behaviour programme has led to a 35% drop in bad behaviour this year. We know that addressing this issue requires both systemic change - working across a school community to create a positive school culture - and individual management and change strategies for disruptive children.
We are totally opposed to any return to corporal punishment in schools. We know that violence begets violence and hitting children when they misbehave is not seen by teachers as appropriate. Corporal punishment is gone from New Zealand schools and we are not interested in relitigating this issue.
NZEI members are committed to addressing and solving the issues around disruptive students, but it is essential that this is seen as more than just a school problem. It is one we all have to "own" and work together to solve.
"The survey and the report Disruptive Student Behaviour - A Primary Perspective can be downloaded from www.nzei.org.nz, following the Annual Meeting 2007 link.
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