What If Behavior Is A Message Not A Problem

Today I challenge the default “classroom rules and expectations” approach to classroom management and replace it with a feelings-first framework that builds student ownership instead of compliance. I cover:
• why rule lists often create compliance with a ceiling 
• how asking “How do you want to feel?” builds agency and student buy-in 
• treating behavior as communication while still holding standards 

Let’s keep the conversation going! Find me at: empowerededucator.com

Get the book at: empowerededucator.com/book

Instagram: @jenrafferty_

Facebook: Empowered Educator Faculty Room

Transcript

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The Hidden Weight Teachers Carry

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You became a teacher to make a difference, and you do, every day, but nobody told you about the weight you'd carry home. The kids you can't stop thinking about, that feeling that giving everything still isn't enough. And the quiet question underneath it all, how long can I keep doing this? So you're in the right place. This is Unlock Your Teaching Potential. And I'm your host, Dr. Jen Rafferty, educator, author, mom of two, and founder of Empowered Educator. And here we believe that taking care of yourself is the most generous thing you can do for your students. You are a gift to this world, and it's time to act accordingly. So let's dig in.

Why Rules Alone Fall Short

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So as we're starting to head back to school, many of us start with classroom rules. And traditionally, classroom rules are a list of things that you don't want or behaviors that you expect. So, you know, no talking out of turn, raise your hand if you want something to say, no phones, be respectful. And so many of them is around a behavior that's decided by you and it's handed to them on day one before they really even know you or even get a chance to know each other. And even if you do the classroom rules and expectations as a group activity where they're getting to know each other through this, it's still a list of expectations of behaviors, and it does not address what's underneath the behavior, which is always feelings and emotions. And today we're gonna talk about how when we address these feelings and emotions first, it becomes a different kind of classroom management model. And most of us have never once asked our students to use it in this

Feelings Create Ownership And Agency

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way. So the three things I'm gonna be talking about today are rules being more like compliance versus feelings being ownership and agency. Secondly, we're gonna be naming the feeling as a way to uncover some identity work. And I'll talk more about what that really means. This isn't about feelings as mood, it's about identity. And then lastly, we're gonna talk about behavior as communication. And of course, lastly, I'm going to leave you with a micro shift that you can start to use today that is really going to change the trajectory of your classroom. Rules are generally this idea of compliance, whereas feelings is really about ownership. And often this rules first classroom starts with the teacher's list or the collective classroom list, and it ends with some sort of enforcement of these rules. And students aren't actually building any sort of skills. They're avoiding penalties, they're avoiding consequences. And this is compliance. And compliance will always have a ceiling. It does not get someone invested, it doesn't get these kids invested in choosing good behaviors because it's just addressing the surface-level behaviors. And since feelings and emotions actually inform behaviors, doing this part first is going to make for a much more easily managed classroom. So I want you to consider this. What if you asked your students at the beginning of the year, or if you're listening to this and it's in the middle of the year, we we can start fresh anytime we want to. Ask them, how do you want to feel in this classroom? And often their answers will be safe, respected, able to focus. These aren't behaviors. This is a felt experience that they're describing that they'll choose. And when things come up that are challenging, you can actually circle back to this feeling that they wanted to feel and use that to inform the conversation.

Feelings As Identity Not Mood

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Which brings me to this next point: that the feeling is actually part of how you can have a conversation with a student about their identity of who they want to be, not just the mood of how they're feeling. Because while emotions are short-lived, right? We don't live in these emotions forever, they're temporary, they inform behaviors that have long-lasting consequences. So when we have a conversation about feelings and emotions, you can then talk about their behaviors in a much different way. Because when a student tells you they want to be respected in this class and then they're acting out, you can talk more about, hey, you told me that you wanted to feel respected in this class, yet you keep calling out of turn. So tell me how do those behaviors align with how you want to feel? What else can you choose to develop a sense of respect for yourself in this classroom? So not only are you now focusing on results, you're focusing on supporting the student, but you're actually shifting the conversation to something of agency. You're handing responsibility back to the students in a way that stays clear of punishments and consequences. This is about empowering kids to understand that their behaviors are in their control. Because we know as teachers, you can't force your students to do anything. We can't make anybody else do anything. It has to come from within. And so often, rules and expectations just aren't enough of a motivator for kids. Honestly, it's often not enough of a motivator for us as adults either. But when we get to decide how do I want to feel in this space, that becomes an empowering agent for us to actually make different choices for us, not because we want to meet some expectation or not break a rule.

Behavior As Communication

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And now when we're talking about behavior as communication, now you can start to read behavior as a message. We can stop considering it as compliance to the rules and consequence and start understanding as behavior as a way to connect, because ultimately that's what the kids need. This isn't about lowering our standards. This is about understanding what actually needs our attention. It's so easy to get caught up in the behavior because that's what triggers us as the adults in the room. You know, student acts out, a student's joking around, a student's disrespectful to another student or to you, and we address the behavior and it stops there. And what I'm inviting you to do is yes, of course, address the behavior and also address what's happening underneath the behavior because that's where the actual teaching happens.

The Index Card Reset

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So for your micro shift for this week, instead of maybe going over the rules of class to reset your room, give everyone an index card and ask them to write three words for how they want to feel in your room. And then on a second index card, ask them how they are going to show up so that they can be responsible for how they want to feel. What kind of behaviors are they going to show in your classroom to support how they said they wanted to feel in this class? And this gives the agency, this gives the responsibility back to the kids that you, as the adult in the classroom, are not responsible for how they are choosing to behave in your class. This actually teaches kids the skills that they need to be successful in all parts of their lives and particularly in your classroom. This isn't about compliance. I can't say this enough. And so much of what we do in schools teaches compliance. This is about empowerment. And for those of you who have worked with Empowered Educator before, know that that's what we teach here in our courses and in the information that we give in our community. How do you get to choose how you want to feel? And then how do you choose behaviors that support that? Because you are 100% responsible for how you show up all of the time. And this is a really important skill that we get to teach our kids now.

Book Mention And Closing Ask

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And of course, so much of this is in my new book, The Empowered Educator 10 Lessons to Prevent Burnout, Reclaim Your Joy, and Unlock Your Teaching Potential, which is available everywhere. Books are sold. But of course, you can go to empowerededucator.com slash book to get yours, and there's some other cool information there as well. And if this episode shifted how you're thinking about your school year, leave a review and subscribe so more educators can find their way here. And please remember, you are a gift to this world, so act accordingly.