Teaching as a Second Language
Teaching as a Second Language (TSL) is a podcast all about teaching in secondary education. There are so many aspects of teaching that it is hard to wrap your head around them all. TSL is a podcast where hosts Mark and Stew discuss their experiences in education, and give tips and advice for new and beginning teachers. We share what it's like to be teachers in QLD, Australia, but also discuss teaching with guests from all areas of education.
Teaching as a Second Language
Is Suspending Students Actually Effective?
Is the traditional approach to student suspensions truly effective, or are we just offering students an unintended break? Join us as we unpack this controversial subject with Cara, a head of department and dedicated Roosters fan, who offers her unique insights into the world of educational discipline. Together, we challenge the common narrative portrayed in the media, advocating for alternatives that could transform classroom dynamics for the better. Cara sheds light on the impact of suspensions on all involved parties—teachers, students, and their families—while we debate whether internal suspensions or educational interventions might be a more constructive approach.
Managing student behavior is no small feat, especially for those who don't fit into the conventional classroom setting. We explore the vital role that parents play in this scenario, as well as the frustrating bottleneck they face due to long waiting lists for professional help. Our conversation takes a deep dive into the transitional challenges between primary and secondary schools, emphasizing the need for seamless support systems. We also reflect on societal influences and the collaborative efforts necessary between educators and parents to foster meaningful change in student behavior.
Cara helps us dissect the logistics of student suspensions, pondering whether these measures truly deter misbehavior or merely serve as a temporary fix. We discuss innovative approaches to internal suspensions, including engaging students in community-building activities within the school. The discussion also touches on the merits of fostering accountability through face-to-face apologies, questioning how schools can implement such practices despite logistical hurdles. Wrapping up with a lighthearted nod to the power of inspirational quotes, we underscore the importance of humility, authenticity, and positive action in reshaping the educational landscape.
Welcome to the podcast everybody. We're here with a very special guest today, oh, thank you, mark.
Speaker 2:It's very kind of you to say that, yes, I am special. Welcome back, stuart, our very special guest.
Speaker 1:The extra special guest, then, I will say, is my head of department, friend and, most importantly, roosters fan, cara. Thanks for coming on, cara.
Speaker 3:You're very welcome.
Speaker 1:What do you want to talk about today? Suspension. Stuart's so excited for this one.
Speaker 2:I've been worked up about this for at least two pods now. I don't know why I'm so excited about it, except it is, like, moderately controversial and is so impactful on both us and the students, both positives and negatives, which we're going to get into today. But what I wanted to draw attention to before we start this today and you're welcome to cut this Mark- and when I say welcome, I mean don't edit this out.
Speaker 3:We've been waiting for this. Don't edit this out.
Speaker 1:Don't edit it out.
Speaker 2:A number of people have come to me to say they said to me Mark has a really good voice for podcasting.
Speaker 1:Really, I will not edit that out.
Speaker 2:And I just wanted to say, like for our listeners, not viewers, that Mark is not tall, dark and handsome.
Speaker 1:I want you to know that I'm not all three of those. If you were, in this room.
Speaker 2:If you were in this room, I want you to imagine like a kind of a pale hobbit Pale is accurate A pale hobbit. He's short. He's short At best, he's moderately attractive.
Speaker 1:Frodo levels. You know he's got hairy feet, hairy feet.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to assume hairy feet, yeah, actually they are. Yeah, look, that's the feedback that I've had so far, Mark, just so that you know.
Speaker 1:Thank you, mate. I'm going to actually edit that into the intro. Of all the pods Of every single one.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned, Stuart, that suspensions, the topic of today, is controversial? Why?
Speaker 2:Okay, so the reason that I wanted to do suspensions Now, why do you think it's controversial before that? Oh, good question. Um, because it has been in a lot of media recently and particularly relevant in queensland media as well as media throughout our country and it look at, these things come in cycles about like media has a thing for education. They're always going to have a thing for education. It's there's lots of taxended. It's always not as good the outcomes as they want, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:But it has been a little bit in in media recently to talk about suspensions and to say, well, we can't be suspending students, we can't be sending them home. You know we already have a large refusal rate for schools and this is very in in the media in the last few months in Queensland and Australia in general. Right, and I think that's fair, like it's something that we need to be talking about. So, and it's interesting, and the media at the moment is in this swing towards saying that we should be using alternative methods of managing student behavior. Right, that's, that's the thing at the moment and I get that like because parents are feeling that way, etc. But what I want to get at is okay, well, that's fine, that's. That's a big talking point.
Speaker 2:It's very easy to say, but the experience for a teacher in a classroom and the impact of that student, that same kid that's suspended, and the reality of, by the time that student is suspended, what we've gone through to get that for that student to, for us to make the decision to suspend them, it just doesn't't happened. Like they haven't like been sitting at the back and thrown like a paper airplane at the front of the room. We're like, well, suspension, like that hasn't happened. So we need to understand the kind of like the steps before we get to that space, you know. Anyway, super exciting, super interesting.
Speaker 1:That's good, and we've got car on, specifically because you offer a different perspective to us. Like Stuart and I are humble teachers. We are mere teachers.
Speaker 3:I'm a humble teacher.
Speaker 1:Well, we're not humble, but teachers in general, you know what. No, I'm going to strike. Humble from the record. We are teachers with a loud opinion. But Cara is a head of department also a teacher still, of course but, head of department, how do you feel like your perspective differs from ours when it comes to suspension?
Speaker 3:I don't know if it differs a great deal. It's just more that I hear the frustration from 25 staff members around when a student does get suspended and I guess the work that goes into catering for those students when they're at home. But my brain goes to what the home life is like for those students and then also the parents who might be single parents and might not actually be able to be at home. So I think it's probably a multi-tiered approach, just like it is from a teacher's perspective approach. Just like it is from a teacher's perspective. But I guess I don't have to spend the time typing up the lessons that students have to do. Yeah, but I guess it's just the impact that's seen from a level of achievement perspective, of effort and behavior perspective as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah. So what is the? Today? We're talking about external suspensions versus internal suspensions, which is apparently not really a thing. The definition of suspension is exclusion from well. Not exclusion, but like.
Speaker 3:External from the school? Yeah, outside of the school.
Speaker 1:And that's, I guess, the controversial one.
Speaker 2:So we, so we're setting the context a little bit like our school does external suspension, we don't do internal suspensions, but that doesn't mean that schools don't do internal suspension, internal suspension. Just to just to give people a bit of an idea about what internal suspension looks like, and and again, I've only ever experienced it in two different schools. Obviously different schools face it and manage it in different ways we had an internal suspension room. Basically students were suspended from their classrooms and they're sitting in a room up in the executive, and then teachers were required to do some time in that room over a couple of weeks and then the executive was required to do some time in that room over a couple of weeks and we'd have a couple of kids in that space and then the executive was managing those kids right. So that's my experience of internal suspensions.
Speaker 2:It looks a little bit like that, as opposed to an external suspension that, like we function the way that we set it up at the moment, which might be you know two days, what?
Speaker 3:four days, five days or 20 days, ten days, ten days, up to 20, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the kids sent home, and the kids sent home and the kind of. I guess the pressure on teachers correct me if I'm wrong, cara is that teachers then are supposed to, on paper, be providing work that that kid can work through while they're at home In a quick turnaround time yeah, often by that afternoon, with meeting the pressures of everything else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That happens from perhaps the dean of students as well, where, I guess, the student incident is raised and then the deans have to investigate it and collect witness statements from lots of different students, the teacher themselves, and then contact home, and sometimes there's a delay also because whilst that investigation process is happening, the students doesn't return to school, often in lots of cases as well. So whilst a suspension might be on paper for five days, a student might have actually have been away for seven because they've been kept away whilst that investigation process occurs.
Speaker 2:So Right, Okay, and then is it fair to say generally, in our context in particular, by the time the kid has been suspended, we will have recorded and we have like a site that we record this. We call it One School the student would have had experience like a series of events, probably behavioral events, that will have been recorded. The kid will probably have half a dozen such behavior events that have been recorded. It's although I'm sure that it happens immediately in some situations, a lot of situations are buildup of events and it's and that sequence is followed, and they use historical data.
Speaker 3:The people making the decisions on the length of the suspension will use historical data in terms of deciphering which amount of days. I guess it'll be as well. Obviously, there's a difference between a student who has a no behaviour record and it's their first incident, versus a student who has multiple behaviours and it's their maybe third major incident.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So we kind of I think everyone kind of knows, at least if you're a teacher at some level what we're talking about with suspensions. We kind of want to look at pros and cons of the external suspension versus the potential of an internalist suspension that stewart was talking about, where kids are on site. Um, just from the teacher perspective, the effort. Stuart Raises his hand like a good Stuart.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. I want you to finish, but then I just want to. You want to be next, I want to be next, is that okay? Can I be next? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:Just from the teacher perspective, all we really see is we often get an email saying that there's been an incident and it's been recorded, and then we get usually the dean of students emailing us saying the student has been suspended for X number of days. Please send work home to them and their parents. And then, after that many days, the student returns to our class. Maybe has done the work, maybe hasn't. Theoretically they're supposed to, but most of the time they haven't. And that's an obvious disadvantage for us, the teacher, in terms of the time taken for us to send the work, even just send the email. I know it doesn't seem like much and it's pretty petty saying oh, I don't want to write a three-minute email.
Speaker 1:But when it happens often and it's just another thing to add to the list, it is annoying. It's especially annoying when the student doesn't do the work and they come back and say I haven't been here, like how am I supposed to know how to do this? That sort of thing. So that's two clear disadvantages for me.
Speaker 2:Look what I wanted to. The reason that I'm enthused about discussing this with Cara and the reason that we asked Cara to come in is because I think it's there are obvious disadvantages and advantages to suspension. There's an obvious negative and I'm certainly not trivializing that like the hectic impact of these kind of decisions on students. But at the same time it's worth, and I'm I am up in the fence, like on the fence about it, like I I wanted you to convince me that it perhaps isn't a good idea. You know what I mean. I want to have that discussion because I think, like for me in a classroom so I've got some difficult classes, I've had some difficult classes over the years, right, and you can have a class where you've got three kids that when they walk into that room, if they are there on that day, they will destroy an otherwise excellent lesson. They will just tear it up and it doesn't matter how well. Look, I say this, but obviously each of us deals with managing behavior in different ways and are more effective than others, and that's just. You know that's either skill set and we can develop techniques and stuff like that, but but but it doesn't really matter how good you are, you. What we enjoy in teaching is teaching Like I want to teach beautiful science, I want to do microscope work, I want to look at cells and be like, hey, look at this cell. Like we can delve into amazing beautiful stuff. And the things that make that lesson bad, pretty much without exception, are two or three kids and they will take an otherwise beautiful moment in your day and they will trash it. They will make it so. It is stressful in and out and it'll be stressful the next day because you know you're going to face them the next day and you have a kid that's really badly behaved in a consistent way and you have had to remove them from the class consistently and you take that kid and you send them home for five days and it is unbelievable the positive impact for you as the teacher for those days on that classroom, for the other kids in the room, of which that kid that got suspended is one, but the other kids in that classroom are 26, 27. And they have a week of chillax and that's not always the case but it does. Like you will have a week where you're like, ooh, it's nice that we just did microscopes and it was amazing Like the kids just loved it and they frothed over it and I know if that kid was there it wouldn't have been like that. So it's a really there's.
Speaker 2:There is an obvious emotional impact of some of those kids on your classroom or when they're removed from your classroom. There's no two ways about it. Most teachers will mention it, they'll say it to you, even if they genuinely care and they want that kid in their room. They will say to you it was amazing, like, and so yeah, like, obviously that's not the intention of suspension, it's not the intention of suspension, but that is something, the impact of suspension on a classroom and it's amazing.
Speaker 2:And it's hard if you're a non-teacher to really understand the impact of removing that kid. And in my case it might be two to three kids and you can see it, you can see the impact of it. You know what I mean, anyway. So that's my kind of position in the kind of pro sending them home space, though I acknowledge that if we did internal style suspensions, perhaps that works just as well. That has disadvantages as well which we can get into in a bit Like the mechanics of managing that is really quite difficult, having worked in schools like that before. But so that's my kind of positive space, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:I think that the parents of those students, though, like I think the traditional classroom environment doesn't fit everyone and I think those students who often become the hectic behavior class like problems in the classroom, this environment doesn't, isn't super conducive to their learning, because they need to be moving around, they need to be using their hands, but then I think it comes back to again moving around, they need to be using their hands, but then I think it comes back to again then whether the parent has the ability to be able to enroll that student in a non-traditional learning environment as well.
Speaker 3:And I think most schools have. Whilst we do educate for all, most schools do have some sort of behavior management policy where the teacher can, I guess, evict that student from that classroom environment, but also, at the same time, every teacher wants the best for every child in their room. So as a teacher, you don't want to be evicting that kid every lesson, every five minutes of the start of every lesson, but then you also see the 26 other students who are in there whose I guess, behavior is being negatively impacted Sorry, learning is being negatively impacted by that student's behavior. So I think a lot of it comes down to parents acknowledging that perhaps their child has some difficulty with behavior, but not necessarily being able to do much about that.
Speaker 2:That's absolutely accurate. It's so hard. You call that parent's home and you call home and mum, dad, whoever it is, is like yeah, I know what you're saying. Where are you going with this? Like, what do you want me to do?
Speaker 3:It's hard and their wits end with how to deal or assist their child, and often waiting lists to get into paediatricians as well is monumentally high three to four months, I think. Parents are actively trying to do or the majority of parents are actively trying to do the right thing by their child, and it might be the sixth or seventh phone call they've had in a week about that child, so it's got to be pretty disheartening. Yeah, I think there's also certain students that want to get a suspension because they get to have a holiday at home for five to ten days because there's no one at home watching them, because they have to work their parents.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I wonder about that because that's a fair accusation. Like that they're intending to get suspended, to go home. But I do actually wonder how many kids do like a school is a social space and I wonder how many actually do like they might say that, but I don't know that many of them actually do want to go home and be suspended. Do you know what I mean? Because the reality of home, like while it is easier now than it was, say, when I was at high school, you know, going home there wasn't much to do at home.
Speaker 3:I think it's more in this day and age, with juvenile offenders, the other kids who are at home at the same time as a particular child, and maybe not necessarily being at home, but if there's no one at home to watch you, then what else can you get up to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, valid, go to the shops.
Speaker 3:Vandalize some more property.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think it's bigger than what our reality was when we were at school. There's a lot more adult type behaviours happening in students these days, from a very, very early age.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, that's fair. And then I think the other thing to be aware of is, like is that we're talking about teenagers in our case, and so parents are stuck like what, what can you do to manage a teenager that's badly behaved? Like what, what are?
Speaker 3:you gonna do?
Speaker 2:I. The positive is that I've experienced potentially recently, but certainly you know in the long term that parents that follow this stuff up they can have success and we can see success with students. There's no absolutely and suspension can be one suspension at the end of a road that's followed with good practice around that and the return and like reintegration, all kind of stuff can have a positive impact I don't know whether suspension itself is the positive impact or all the attached.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's really hard for particularly junior secondary kids as well, because to get suspended in a primary school it doesn't really happen. And then they hit a senior high school, like us, and suddenly they've had three behaviours, which for us often then becomes a suspension, and students just aren't used to that, I guess quick elevation of their behaviours. So yeah, I wonder if we're really educating them properly around the impact of their behaviours and perhaps what they might have been able to have just been able to go for a walk in a primary school setting because of their behaviour versus what we set as our expectations in a high school setting as well, and I think there needs to be a bit more transition work done in that space.
Speaker 2:So not necessarily loosening our requirements or our expectations, just making sure that we transition them into that space more effectively with good discussions.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because when I have conversations with my friends that are primary school teachers and I might talk about a particular behavior and they might talk about a particular behavior and I'd say, oh, that's automatically. I'd say that's a five day suspension. They're like what are you talking about? That would never happen at my school. So I think it's just the perspectives are very different and the bar is set very differently between the two sectors. Perhaps.
Speaker 1:One thing I want to touch on is we've been looking at this from the perspective of the teacher, I suppose, and the perspective of the students, I suppose. Welfare, I think one big feature facet is the school culture. If suspensions are, I suppose, like when you're talking to your friend, if no one gets suspended in that school for a reasonably serious offence or multiple offences, what is that kind of? What message is that sending? And I don't know.
Speaker 1:At the very least at our school I found the expectations around behavior are usually upheld by the vast majority of students. Like, in the grand scheme of things, we don't really have big behavior issues here. Lots of little ones, chatty kids. It's always going to happen, but the big stuff not really. And I feel like there is a fear of getting suspended at our school because it happens and even for things like that kids wouldn't expect. Like if they misuse their devices and they're doing the wrong thing on it, you can get a suspension for that, or students have in the past and so they know that and so they just avoid those behaviors. I'm curious if suspensions didn't exist and we just like would continuously being like you shouldn't have been doing that and you get a detention or whatever it is, and we're just trying to educate them about appropriate use. Is that going to be effective, or as effective as just?
Speaker 2:you will get suspended if you do that, so don't will it like set a culture of a certain behavior if we allow that? Yeah look, I think that's really valid. I think also, in a way, one of the other things that suspension does is it penalizes the parents in a way that makes them follow up with their kids in terms of managing behavior. I'm not like I'm not taking a position on whether it's good or bad, but I can see how, like, if you're a parent, you've got a 14 year kid and you've been ignoring bad behaviors at school and it becomes a suspension. You've got to go to work and that's a hassle for you. Suddenly you're following up on it.
Speaker 1:It's true, my parents. I avoided a lot of misbehavior because of the wrath of my parents that I would have faced oh, absolutely, I'm the same, and it would have been 100%, because they would have been disappointed in me but also inconvenienced by my behaviours, and so I think you're absolutely right with that point. I think, and if they had to stay at school, like, say, we did an internal suspension instead and the parents are not inconvenienced at all, are they almost just going to be like, well, the school's dealing with it, I don't have to worry.
Speaker 3:I think, though, if you're a single mum whose husband's left, perhaps, or partner's left, and you're dealing with three children One of them has a lot of diagnoses your break from dealing with the day-to-day behaviours is to send them to school, and that might just be like allowing you to be one step away from a mental breakdown, for somebody else to kind of assist you, because that is your primary job, from what? Three till 3 pm until at least 7, 30, 8 o'clock of the next day. So I think it's really different depending on the family unit that the student comes from, and I think we're very blessed to have come from families where we had expectations that were very concrete, very black and white, and I believe a lot of parents want to do that and they try to do that. But when you're the sole person that's responsible for drawing those lines in the sand and you have an adolescent who's hormonal and might have lots of diagnoses, I think you need support definitely, particularly if you don't have a strong support network, and I think that parents need to school sometimes for that as well.
Speaker 3:I think my concern around suspensions comes more from probably yeah very Old Testament. It should be, because kids aren't particularly what intrinsically motivated. So I feel like if a suspension is due to some sort of damage at a school level, then the student would learn best by making their physical environment more beautiful or fixing the thing that it is that they broke. And I know that from a financial perspective that's very difficult, but I think in like an amazing world, it would be wonderful for us to actually be able to provide a suspension, whether it be internal or external, based on what it was that the student did.
Speaker 3:I also find that students who are a little bit disrespectful to their teacher. We seem to have gone away from making a face-to-face apology from the student to the teacher, and I know that for me that means more than anything if a student has disrespected me, whether it be in the classroom or outside on the school grounds and it takes a lot of courage to come up to a teacher and say, hey, look them in the eyes and say I am sorry for what I did and we seem to have kind of like pushed that to the side a lot in this new culture of I don't know. We don't want to hurt everyone's feelings, but I also feel that if that's what fits and it's appropriate, then a student should be required to do that.
Speaker 1:I would imagine that the vast majority of students would choose a 10-day suspension over having to go and apologize to a teacher in a staff room.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily agree that the reason we don't do that has to do with some kind of cultural change, except that I think it's the logistical issue of managing that, because I think if you looked at our policies around I don't know, but if you looked at our policies I reckon there's a chance that we are. They are supposed to be reintegrated into classrooms after suspensions and that probably best practice for that probably is like a meeting and to own the behavior and look the person in the eyes?
Speaker 2:yes, and I don't necessarily think that that is not in in our policies. I think it just isn't done. And I think it isn't done because it's a mission to organize and timings wise for executives and stuff like that. I don't know like you're going to know better than I am and correct me if I'm wrong, but it used to be our literal policy on the documents that we did it and we still didn't do it and the reason was because it was such a, because I looked, I wanted it done because I agree with you. Like what, what it looks like, is kids done the wrong thing? Kid gets suspended in from your classroom. They should be coming and going. Hey, this is what you're going to do differently. And what more, if you have an executive team member sitting with me doing the interview, you watch the behavior from the kid. Because I've just done a couple of kind of stakeholder meetings with kids and it's amazing the dynamic change in the kid's behavior and I reckon that'll last on that kid.
Speaker 2:It won't be forever, but that'll last on that kid because they realize that they can't like when their behavior was bad in that classroom there was 26 kids, eight of them were their mates and there was you one adult and so they feed on each other right and they have the power.
Speaker 2:There's no two ways about it. They've got the power right, so that power then becomes self-justifying in their heads. Second, they don't have the power which is for adults and them. They're actually better able to identify their mistake, and so I do think that there should be, but I also realize that that's hard, like if you took all our kids that have had behavioral issues, been kicked out of a classroom and they're supposed to be reintegrated, which probably really should be buddy classes as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The logistical hassle of managing all those.
Speaker 3:I think I'm probably just more of a sharper focus on if it's been like a personal you know they've had a crack at you or called you something, call that sort of thing, rather than like the consistent misbehaviors in class that amount to a suspension. So I think it's just and I know that it's not a perfect world, but it would just be great if the consequence could fit. I guess what the behavior was, yeah, the crime.
Speaker 2:But I think that those incremental buddy class things, that result in a suspension like that's removal class removal three times and we transitioned to a suspension. I think that's an example of that, because what you're looking at you're looking at three incremental events where they've been disrespectful or rude to you almost certainly. They've certainly been disruptive, which tends to mean being rude to you, like it just does right. The perfect outcome should be I totally agree with you there should be a reintegration.
Speaker 3:And I just don't know what's changed like. And I feel like just when I was a student, if I felt like I had upset, or you know, done something against my teacher, I would automatically go and say hey, I'm sorry and I apologize.
Speaker 1:You were raised very well.
Speaker 2:Just like what we said, you and I, with the exception of Mark right.
Speaker 1:The hobbit, sorry End through the microphone.
Speaker 2:We are not examples of the students we're interacting with and, like you were saying before, like when you call home for those kids that are buddy classed or suspended or something like that, the number of those individuals that don't have two parents at home, the number of those individuals that have all those two parents at home, the number of those individuals that have all those extra struggles. It just is the case, it's the nature and it just goes to show that the impact of family background and the struggles of family impacts students so that for the vast majority of those kids, it's not necessarily their fault that they're struggling.
Speaker 2:They're struggling, you know that behave in class. I totally agree with that. I think it's not necessarily their fault that they're struggling. They're struggling, you know they behave in class and I totally agree with that.
Speaker 3:I think it's completely fair because often when I call home, the parent will be able to list at least 24 things that they've done personally to try and support their student and they're at their wits end, going. I just don't know anymore. And I feel like that transfers sometimes to the classroom environment when you're trying to teach a concept and you've tried plan a, b, c, d, e and you're like man, how can I get this so that the kid it clicks and you have that light bulb moment. I think we all feel like that from time to time.
Speaker 1:So so should we talk about? To somewhat wrap up, we wanted to talk about external suspensions because we've identified a few big negatives, particularly issues with home life and also the kids not really feeling punished in certain circumstances.
Speaker 3:Being held to account account.
Speaker 1:So the internal suspension theoretically would solve some of those problems. Is there, the internal suspension being theoretically, the kids get suspended from classrooms traditionally and they spend the entire day of school in a single space with other suspended kids and some teacher adults and they get. They still have to do the classwork and potentially teachers drop in and whatnot, but the point being they're at school still. So that'll save the parents and the families, and yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:Just again, just before, because I want you to roll on this, cara. I'm really interested in your position on it, my experience of seeing it before and, look, I've seen it at other schools, but have I actually supervised it? Only a couple, probably only a couple of times. So it's not a big sample size, but the is that you can imagine the logistics of taking a room and putting in, say, five let's call it five, I don't know at any one time four suspended kids that are the battlers of the battlers, and putting them in the room and then supervising that room.
Speaker 2:And obviously, obviously, the executive team can't always be managing that right, because they've got other jobs, and so they often end up with teachers having to manage it. And they do like a rostering system where the teachers manage it. And that's only my experience, right, you can imagine that that feeds on itself, like you'd imagine, like what a difficult space that can be, you know, and whether it's any more productive than sending them home. And and that's, do you know what I mean? Like what? Like where's that gap? Are they actually gaining more, perhaps, perhaps not? I don't like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anyway, go for it. I think probably I look a little differently from it being in a classroom setting and I guess I've just seen it where the students who often go to these internal suspension rooms are often the kids who, without drawing too much of a bow, have constant misbehaviors because academically they are struggling a little bit or they find the work particularly challenging and again need to be active and working with their hands. Ideal world for me, if they broke something, they would then have the day with the janitor at school who would. They would spend the day with them going around and fixing things and kind of assisting to kind of reestablish that connection to the school in a positive way and therefore building relationships with other people, and I think that that would assist. I think there's like multiple ways to look at internal suspensions and again it's the behavior that's triggered that that you'd have to adjust the way that this child is dealt with.
Speaker 1:What about an incident where students are fighting or specifically bullying another kid?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I, is that just a? Chuck you in idea classroom and say think about your actions. Go sit over there no, I think there's some pretty powerful like online online courses that students can do about the impact of bullying, but I also wonder whether, developmentally, a student can think sometimes beyond themselves and the actual impact they're having on others. But often, yeah, online courses assist and I think that doing the right one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because honestly, at the end of the day, if a kid gets a five-day suspension for being a bully, a genuine bully they're missing out on five days of maths, english, history and science. It's not going to make or break their life, but them having to sit through eight hours a day of like an online course telling them about this is how you're supposed to behave honestly might have a profound impact. I really like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's more about the logistics of supervising that process and how much energy can school put into that. Because what you're designing, I like the idea of it. You're designing kind of like a situation specific course for a kid to assist them with the punishment fits the crap yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, but it is, but it's situation somebody has to design that you know what I mean, and then supervise it and then run it.
Speaker 3:I just think students re-offend and if nothing changes, the behaviours continue. So something has to change from our end, because we're the adults there to be able to.
Speaker 1:And I suppose, like if a kid bullies someone and they get the exact same suspension as a kid who did academic or IT misconduct, then yeah, they're not learning anything, except what they did was wrong in a very superficial way.
Speaker 2:It's been bored, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just like you did the wrong thing, you broke the school rules, Off you go. They'd be like okay, it's like the same as swearing at a teacher. That's so different from academic misconduct, cheating on an assignment yes, you know what I mean. And like if they don't get a. I guess I've been convinced if they don't get an appropriate consequence for their actions and actually think about it, then nothing's going to change.
Speaker 3:They have to develop empathy, I guess in that bullying situation and if you have been, lots of the bullies have been bullied in their life and it's like reconnecting to why they feel like they have to defend themselves so much now and, I think, reconnecting to how small they felt when that happened.
Speaker 2:It's more of like a one-on-one psychologist session yeah, I was gonna say like literally a guidance course like you'd actually do well, there you go. Some guidance officers can probably okay, so I like the sound of this, so we so basically what you'd have but to be fair, we could have, you could have a series of packages.
Speaker 2:You could have a series of packages associated with specific behaviors, like that's not impossible. We end up with, like you know, four or five different packages because they're the same, like they do the same, the same things you have. Yeah, I can see that I guess if I'm a school administrator and you might know this better than me, you're like well, that sounds expensive.
Speaker 3:I just feel like there's a lot of. I think there's a lot of resources that are out there that we just don't know about or have our hands on, and I think that obviously a lot of time would have to be put in to find something that's actually impactful to a student and is developmentally appropriate to connect with them for that particular behavior. But nothing's going to change unless we do something differently yeah, hence the discussion.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, I like metaphorical round table.
Speaker 2:I liked that I was never going to end up in this space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Wow I feel like Thought.
Speaker 1:we were just going to be like, yeah, so internally, suspension, put him in a room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mark was really anti this discussion. I want you to know.
Speaker 1:I just didn't have a dog in the park, no, he just doesn't care about children.
Speaker 2:That's how I feel he doesn't care about students. He just doesn't care about students.
Speaker 3:Yeah, punishment pits the crime, but obviously a lot of time would have to be invested into getting the exact thing right and it would take a while. But I think kids would benefit and that's who we're here for at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the whole point of suspension is to make that kid better, better human suspension is to make that kid better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. Yeah, just a better human. Yeah, no, that makes sense and I I guess it's hard from the classroom end to let go of the what I discussed earlier about like having them out of the classroom and the positives. And it's really hard emotionally as a teacher when it's impacting you day to day and three times a week and you're looking into it. You're like, okay, next lesson and I've got….
Speaker 3:You're preparing for combat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every time you step in that, it's really hard to let go of the combat prep, and you know, look, we've talked about relationships and developing relationships in a podcast before and there's no two ways about it. You need to be able to develop good relationships and you need to be able to let go of problems and move and like forget be a goldfish, right, yeah, but I liked that.
Speaker 3:That was good and I think there's a saying and I always get my sayings wrong. Mark knows this because I'll try and say something inspirational or come out ass about face, but anyway is there something like the kid always remembers. They don't remember the times you were mean to them, but they'll remember the one thing that was good that you did. There's some inspirational quote.
Speaker 2:I still didn't get it. Can we get you back again to actually remember some inspirational quotes?
Speaker 3:I can never remember anything If we get you back on the podcast on another time you can write it down and have them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll have them. In fact, we might just get a pod when you just do Inspirational quotes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:That sounds great Well. Thank you very much, cara, that was inspirational.
Speaker 1:So inspiring and we have Probably fixed suspensions, stuart Right then Job done, tick done, fixed, problem solved.
Speaker 2:Couldn't have done it without me, that's right, that's correct.
Speaker 1:Cara has fixed suspensions. We end every podcast, cara, with how we've fixed education Wonderful, we just stumbled.
Speaker 3:We realized that we've just fixed stuff and this is why humble is taken out from the start. Very true Case in point.
Speaker 2:We're just saying it how it is.
Speaker 3:We're saying
