Loving the Unloveable Child: Part III
Changing Our Fundamental Attitude
This is the third article in a series on approaching challenging behaviours through a Montessori lens. Read my first article here and second here. In the first article, I told the story of Ali, a student whose behaviours had earned him the label ‘bad kid’ in our middle school program, and how, by approaching the situation with a Montessori mindset, I was able to support Ali in changing his circumstances. In the second article, I talked about the typical educational approach to behaviour - labeling and the quick fix. In this article, we move towards some possible solutions.
Points for Exceptional Behavior
My daughter is about to start Senior School in the UK in the Autumn, and I have been blown away by the approach to behaviour at the school she is attending. “Good behaviour choices will be celebrated and rewarded. Poor behaviour choices will be sanctioned” - it says writ large in her student handbook. Over the course of four pages, the school lays out its behaviour system, a point-based system where students accumulate positive or negative points based on their behavior. There are milestones to hit, house trophies, rewards raffles, and rewards events for all those who have achieved at least a net positive score throughout the year. There is also a system of consequences - reminders, warnings, sanctions, detentions, community service, suspension - and a parallel system of supports - reset rooms, restorative conversations, and a support to learn program. I haven’t yet seen all of this in practice, so I have to give the school a chance, but it all seems very complicated to me, difficult to implement as a teacher, and with lots of room for potential bias and unfairness. I presume the alternative, as far as the school would see it, is a school with no clear discipline that jeopardizes student safety and learning - which is certainly a valid concern. But is there another way?
To me, this appears to be the behaviorist model for school discipline spinning out of control. I talked to a friend who has taught for years in UK Senior Schools and she says this sort of approach is typical across the country. Without the imagination to envision something different, schools have ended up trying to do everything at once - they still have a rewards and punishment system as their fundamental structure, but then they’ve tried to tack on a little bit of restorative justice here, a little bit of relationship-building there, a little bit of parent partnership over there, and then a reset room or two. The research is clear on the issues with such an approach - read Soizic Le Courtois on the dark side of Rewards and Punishments.
It has been interesting to see the impact of these behaviorist systems through my daughter’s perspective as this has been her first year in a non-Montessori classroom. She is typically ‘well-behaved’, but she is also quiet and unassuming. She has expressed her frustration a number of times this year with the reward and punishment approach in her school. Often she is overlooked when other students are rewarded for their behavior. She finds that the children who are most frequently rewarded are students who are typically poorly behaved but weren’t that day or they are students who are good behavior exhibitionists. My son, who falls into that first group, has far exceeded my daughter in the number of good behavior postcards he’s received this year!
But she is not the main victim of these behaviorist systems, the small group of students who get trapped in a cycle of sanctions, punishments, and school exclusion are the students I most worry about. The students who don’t get to go to the rewards event at the end of the year because their behaviour score is consistently below zero. Just this week, the Department for Education released record-breaking suspension and exclusion numbers for the 2022-23 school year. Ross Greene talks a lot about these issues in his book Lost at School, a book which examines the broken school discipline system in the US, and which outlines his Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) approach to school discipline, a genuine alternative to the behaviorist model. It was the CPS model that I turned to when supporting Ali - which you can read about here.
Changing Our Fundamental Attitude
“All we really need to do is change our fundamental attitude towards the child, and love him with a love which has faith in his personality and goodness; which sees not his faults but his virtues.”
Maria Montessori, “Disarmament in Education”
To go back to my original article, I feel like these school systems are ultimately rooted in a fear of children, or what Dr. Montessori called a “A war, the victims of which are primarily, but not exclusively, the children...The war is between the strong and the weak; between those who have power and those who do not.” And it is this fear of the child, this need to maintain control and reinforce the adult/child power dynamic, this fear especially of teenagers who represent chaos, violence, and ill-manners to many adults, that obscures our view of the situation and doesn’t allow us to imagine a different way of being.
Dr. Montessori says that all we need to do is “change our fundamental attitude to the child” - but what does this mean in practice?
“Discipline is reached always by indirect means. The end is obtained, not by attacking the mistake and fighting it, but by developing activity in spontaneous work… Discipline, therefore, is not a fact but a path.”
Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method
One key paradigm shift in Montessori education is the indirectness of the method - we don’t teach, we guide - we don’t see the child as the issue, instead we look to change the environment - we remove obstacles from the path of development. Rather than fixating on the problem, we work indirectly. We focus on creating an inclusive, joyful environment and culture that inspires and connects the child to work. We create a pathway towards work. And we keep the faith that the child will get there of their own means. Knowing that when they do, work will serve as the normalizing force.
For me, cultivating this mindset now comes as second nature, because time and time again my faith in children has been rewarded, but there are certainly times when I find myself getting overwhelmed and frustrated by the behavior of certain children, or a child shows up in a way that I've never experienced before. In those cases, here are some of the practices I fall back upon.
Ultimately, these are all about cultivating a mindset and approach to our work that can create the space and structure for all children to flourish. Often when approaching difficult behaviors, we enter a sort of grim, zero sum game where we focus on control, endless accommodations, reduced freedoms, discipline, etc. and this sucks the joy out of the experience for yourself and the child...and, I find, doesn't really work. If you find that you are going down that road with a child, with your environment, or with your school these suggestions can help you turn a corner.
Using a Language of Reverence
I think language is always a good place to start. The way we talk about children and their behaviors sets up the culture within which we operate. There is this belief commonly held in schools that because teachers have a hard job, they are permitted to offload about children and their families to each other, using negative, judgmental language. Using language in this way has a huge impact on how teachers then show up for those children and families.
Public Montessori in Action International has a resource and training called Language of Reverence, which includes a glossary of terms to use in schools for replacing words that diminish children and their behaviors, that instead see beneath the behavior, and that are more empathetic and reverential of the child.
"Through our word choice, we connect with the unmanifest potential of every person, recognizing that everyone is learning and growing all the time, and honoring their inherent worth and dignity."
Elizabeth Slade, Public Montessori in Action International
This is how we should be speaking to children and about children. And also, we should apply this same grace to parents and our colleagues.
Instead of unloveable children, which is obviously not an ideal term for use in schools, I propose PMAI's term - key children - to refer to children who are struggling in our environments:
“Key children is a term that puts wide arms around the most complex children in our Montessori classrooms. These are children who may have big personalities, may have experienced trauma, have individualized education plans or have a vision and passion beyond their years. They are the children who hold the key to our own personal transformation as they help us to grow and change in our practice, becoming ever more flexible and widening our view of what is possible.”
Elizabeth Slade, Public Montessori in Action International
Getting the language right helps with shifting our mindset towards these children and their behavior in our spaces.
Creating a Culture of Joy
As well as language, the culture you establish in your environment is essential. From my experience, many teachers hold a harmful belief about teaching that it has to be a hard, draining, and exhausting job. There is this idea sometimes celebrated between teachers that teaching is something you have to survive.
Sure, teaching can be hard and exhausting, and we should be advocating for better working conditions for teachers. But at the same time we should work towards cultivating joyful teaching environments for children and for ourselves.
If your classroom is joyless and draining day in day out, then something is out of balance. Teaching should be joyful. Teachers should feel energized by their work. And we have to cultivate this joy and blitheness on a daily basis through inspirational lessons, joyful art and music, class celebrations - singing, dancing, and laughing with the children. With key children, find a joyful activity to share with that specific child. A joyful classroom community is one that 'outsider' students then want to be a part of, and they will work then to adapt their behaviour accordingly to belong. This is intrinsic motivation.
I want to share this quote from Renilde Montessori which is a guiding quote for me:
“Montessori was a blithe spirit...Her love of life was the leitmotif of her teaching. If we wish to understand, adopt and implement education as an aid to life, then it is the blitheness in our own spirit that we should seek to nurture in our dealings with the child. Joy is seldom considered in any serious discussion on education...We live in a spiritually bleak climate of anxious and violent times.
It is incumbent upon us to bypass prevalent despondencies and build on our potential for exuberance, strength, intelligence and versatility. It is our highest obligation to be happy. Happiness is not an easy discipline - it is one of the most demanding. Our great good fortune as parents and as educators is that we have the most expert guides in our attainment of true happiness: the children.”
Renilde Montessori, Educateurs sans Frontières Assembly 1984
It is so easy to be cynical about these ideas - I get that saying "don't worry, be happy" doesn't necessarily feel like a solution, but I swear that if you start with joy, and take steps to build joy back in to your environment, it goes a long way solving a lot of classroom management issues. It is so easy in the face of difficult situations and behaviors to lose our faith and to descend into joylessness, control, victimhood, etc.
Find Time for Connection
Relationship-building is one of the most important tools in our work with key children - this goes for all adults at every developmental level. It is through honest, loving, equal relationships - not through control - that we can help children truly change their behaviours through intrinsic motivation. As Donna Bryant-Goertz says:
“It takes at least 6 weeks to establish a relationship and build trust with a new child or parent and reach the point of making a first move. By then the teacher knows what first step can be taken most easily. A series of first easy steps leads up to a difficult one. First, a child must know to his bones that the teacher loves him deeply and unconditionally. The child needs to feel a strong human bond that transcends individual eccentricities of personality and relies on faith of our shared humanity.”
Donna Bryant Goertz, Children Who Are Not Yet Peaceful
Here are a couple of steps you can take to foster this bond:
Begin each day with connection
I feel like the beginning of the day is always the most important moment for me and my key children. If you dread the arrival of a child because of the impact you think they will have on you and the environment, they will feel this as they arrive, and they will remain an outsider.
Instead, you have to work to love these children with all of your being. This is where mindfulness can be useful. If you have a loving kindness practice, where you authentically contemplate and recite aspects of that child that you love and value, you can then carry that through to when you greet them in the morning.
Key children need to be certain you love them - show up for them in small ways every day
Look them in the eye, offer a hug, ask about their lives, and exude in your words and body language a deep care and love for this person. This can then be carried throughout the day - your whole attitude towards them is one of love, trust, and confidence.
Exude confidence, trust, and high expectations in your language and actions
However, don't mollycoddle or overburden children with care and concern - also give them space so they know you believe in their ability to do it themselves. Hold them accountable to high standards, but in a way that is aspirational, loving, and about community - “Sarah, I noticed you didn't clean up your work area. Now, neither myself nor the other children are going to clean up for you because we know you can do it yourself. It would be an insult to do it for you. Show me that you can do this for yourself.” Present expectations as an opportunity and an obligation.
Support the child in their connection with others, be their translator for the community
And help the other children in the environment see this child as a person with value too - as a person in process. Be their translator - “He’s looking for a friend. He’s figuring out how to be a friend. We’re not yet good at it, but we’ll learn.”
Still No Easy Solutions?
Sorry, I’ve got to the end of another article and all you’ve got is - be kinder in your words and actions. It might not feel like a rigorous, all-encompassing discipline policy, but we’ll gradually get there. This work isn’t simple, which is why schools always fall back on reward and punishment. Fostering a culture of high expectations, relationship-building, joy and curiosity, and positive/affirmative language that is built on mutual trust is no small feat. Next article, we’ll look at some more key practices.