Simple solution to Kiwi students’ bad behaviour problem - Heather du Plessis-Allan

OPINION

When I was 9 years old at Don Buck Primary School in West Auckland the tubby kid chased me around the classroom with a pair of scissors in his hand.

It was one of those open classrooms where about three age groups are all in one space, each separated by a low bookcase or some other piece of furniture. I remember having to run very fast and vault that low bookcase to escape him. And I was scared.

I can’t remember how it ended but I didn’t get stabbed so it’s either a good or bad ending depending on how you feel about me.

I imagine the teacher intervened.

So, it obviously didn’t take me by surprise to read this week that the behaviour in our classrooms is the worst in the developed world. Not some of the worst. The worst.

I suspect most will share my lack of surprise. Because most of us either went to a public school in the past 20 years, had kids in a public school in the past 20 years, currently have kids in a public school or work in a public school.

So we’ve seen it or heard about it: primary school-aged kids throwing chairs at teachers, kids chasing other kids with scissors, kids beating each other up badly, kids swearing at teachers.

According to the Education Review Office report, 25 per cent of principals see kids either hurt other kids, break things or steal things on a daily basis.

This has been popping up in our Pisa results for a while. Pisa surveyed 15-year-olds about classroom behaviour and found Kiwi kids were more likely than any kids in the OECD to report noise, disorder, and students ignoring the teacher. The kids complaining about it, are also the kids learning less, Pisa noticed.

The biggest problem is probably that teachers have lost the power in classes. Kids have it. And they know it. Teachers can’t touch them.

Greg Robinson’s case became slightly famous a couple of years ago because of the absurdity of what happened to him.

He was relief-teaching Year 10 maths at Mt Maunganui College in October 2019. He gave a couple of boys the privilege of listening to music through headphones in class. But they started jumping around in their seats.

He told them to stop or the music would be gone. But they started head banging and drumming the desk with their hands.

In his frustration, Robinson ripped the headphone from one boy’s ear.

In response, he says the boy called him a f***ing old c**t.

The boy says he swore back. He says he didn’t.

The Teaching Council’s disciplinary tribunal found him guilty of serious misconduct, censured him and ruled that he would have to declare the incident to every future employer for the next two years.

He was the problem, according to the tribunal, because pulling the earphones was an “unjustified and unreasonable use of physical force” that was likely to “adversely affect [the student’s] wellbeing”.

The boy was yelling and swearing, the tribunal said, because he was upset and “and it was likely that he was experiencing considerable angst from embarrassment that this exchange had occurred in front of his peers”.

He retired.

There are countless examples of teachers being punished when the pupil really should be.

Like most things in this world, the problem is simple. School kids are not afraid of their teachers, authority and consequences.

So the solution is simple too, bring in consequences. Set a standard of acceptable behaviour. Back the teachers to enforce it. Stop riding the teachers’ arses when they try to do it. Ride the kids’ arses for misbehaving.

That way, our kids will learn maths not bad behaviour.