JONATHAN JANSEN | An unruly pupil is one thing, a disorderly teacher another

There is chaos in and around some of our schools. Principal shot. Student knifed. Teacher attacked. Most of the turmoil happens inside the classroom. I have tried to make sense of disorder over the past year and there is a stack of invitations from schools everywhere to advise on how to bring about stability in schools and classrooms so that learning can proceed with as little disruption as possible. One thing is clear: without a stable school and classroom environment, teachers cannot teach efficaciously, and pupils simply cannot learn optimally. To put it simply: there is a direct correlation between order in a school or classroom and the examination results.

So what can be done?

First, the school environment directly influences what happens inside classrooms. Where students are routinely late and the school has no mechanisms to stop this, there will be constant interruptions of classes because of late arrivals — and early departures. Schools that cannot fix starting times by closing gates and imposing deterrents such as detention, do not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting good results.

What gets my goat is that often teachers first drop off their own children at former white schools and then arrive late for the education of children of the working classes. 

Here’s our major challenge: it is relatively easy to fix learner late-coming; it is infinitely more difficult to correct teacher late-coming, let alone chronic absenteeism. What gets my goat is that often teachers first drop off their own children at former white schools and then arrive late for the education of children of the working classes. 

Here personal values are detached from professional obligation. As long as my own are taken care of, why worry about the rest? Let me be blunt: that teacher knows she will be booted out of a former white school with that kind of behaviour, but hey, job protection is a perk if you teach in South Africa’s struggling institutions.

Second, you must learn how to control and manage your own classroom regardless of what happens around you. Many teachers simply do not know how to do this. Some are teachable in this regard, and the Instructional Leadership Institute South Africa is one of the most impressive agencies available to help teachers organise disruptive classrooms for effective learning. Some teachers are simply impossible to change with respect to management competences in the classroom — which leaves school leaders with a mammoth problem: how to ease such colleagues out of a system where saying ‘you’re fired’ is not part of our culture?

The point is this, the individual teacher matters. I can prove it. The same class that is out of control with teacher X in period 3, is the model of order and productivity with teacher Y in period 4. The problem (as always) is not the children.

Third, you must make coming to school and to your classroom worth the effort on the part of students. Yes, I know attendance is compulsory and the Bela Act threatens all kinds of reprisals from parents holding children back from school attendance. Yet I know of no other way of bringing children into learning than being thoroughly prepared as a teacher, delivering imaginative lessons and enhancing their in-classroom participation in the course of teaching.

Fourth, you must be consistent from one day to the next and from one period to the following. Young people have a keen sense for detecting inconsistency and hypocrisy. This does not mean you must be the perfect teacher; nobody expects that. But it does mean you must show up every single day with the same high expectations, firm rules for behaviour, and a personal example that is evident to each and every student. You will soon earn disrespect from youth if your talk and your walk do not coincide, and if your behaviour is erratic.

Fifth, the key to classroom management starts outside the classroom. It’s the little things, and here is a series of consistent rules I apply whenever I teach high school and I wait for the students to arrive at the door. I am always outside.

Good morning. Beanies off your head, two lines quickly (boys and girls; I expect a third line soon with changing identities), stand up straight, enter fast because in 60 seconds I will start teaching. I know, sounds over the top. Not so if you work in a school where the simplest of routines do not exist. ‘Don’t smile until June,’ the advice we give new teachers, is only half-funny.

Here’s the good news. Children are remarkably receptive to actions that moderate behaviour when they sense you are genuine about their social and academic wellbeing. Last week as I moved between blocks at my current school, a girl of about 15 or 16 walked over to me. I do not believe that I taught her in 2024 or that I ever engaged her on personal behaviour issues. She looked at me, then she looked away as emotions showed on her face. “I want sir to know that I have changed; I am no longer the same.” Unasked for, unexpected. I too had to look away, for the same reasons she did.