I've just reviewed an excellent e-book, Better Classroom Behaviour (Phil Freeman and Mary Hartley) and have had some further thoughts, which belong here, rather than in the book review.
The book presents 28 activities for PSE lessons (KS 3&4) and is very cleverly-structured, so that pupils are unwittingly learning the cornerstones of PSE (objectivity, respect for themselves and for others, and cooperation,) whilst engaged on a specific issue. This benign 'hidden curriculum' structure works at both the single-lesson level and over the year's course.
Each activity-lesson begins with an individual, written assignment. All humans start from the self, and the discipline of writing encourages greater objectivity about the self. Pupils then proceed to assignments in pairs, where the object is frequently to compare and contrast what each has written as an individual. This is the next important step in an individual's development - the ability to see things from another's point of view. A baby just demands (usually food,) but as it grows into a child, it develops, gradually, a true relationship with the mother who provides, because it learns that the mother is also a person! Several activities pursue this further and encourage pupils to advocate the opinions of others, as if they were their own. To Kill a Mockingbird springs to mind: "You don't really know a person till you've walked around in their shoes."
It struck me, whilst reading through the activities, that if only ONE of the objectives were achieved - learning that others in school are just people like you, with needs, anxieties and opinions - then the rest (personal responsibility and classroom discipline) would follow automatically. I particularly liked the 'Teachers Are People Too' activity, which encouraged pupils to imagine the terrible morning a teacher might have (cat being sick, car breaks down etc) before coming to school, and to speculate on what sort of mood the teacher might then be in. The exercise is doubly clever. Firstly, it introduces what might have been a dull, unengaging and moralistic topic "Why you should be nice to your teacher" in an amusing and engaging way. Most pupils will be instantly engaged by imagining dreadful things that might befall a teacher. (Most, too, will be entertained by the novel concept that teachers even have lives outside school.) Secondly (and this is the benign hidden curriculum,) pupils are learning, without realising it, to objectify their own moods. Whilst dreaming up things-that-might-put you-in-a-bad-mood for their imaginary teacher, they are actually examining the things that put them in bad moods, from the safe, objective distance of an entertaining game.
Bad things happen to everyone. The pupil who comes to school angry, without knowing why, will disrupt, swear, lash out and bully. The pupil who can gain objective distance on their negative emotions can still function and interact in school and later, in society.
Better Classroom Behaviour is available from Chalkface and there's a homework site at iamclever.
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