Episode 2: Classroom management, behaviour and universal themes
Teaching Artists working with youth frequently deal with behaviours that can be challenging to deal with. Hosted by Louise Campbell with guest Alyssa Kuzmarov, this episode of the Arts and Youth Mental Health Podcast addresses the classroom management, needs and universal themes featuring concrete examples coming from Louise and Alyssa’s teaching artist practices.
Transcription:
Louise: Welcome to the arts and youth mental health podcasts. My name is Louise Campbell. I’m a musician and teaching artist and your host for this series. The Arts and Youth Mental Health Podcast delves into youth mental health and well being as it relates to the practice of teaching artists. Our guest is filmmaker, teaching artist and social worker, Alyssa Kuzamrov. It’s great to speak with you again, Alyssa.
Alyssa: So happy to be here.
Classroom Management As A Guest In The classroom: Universal themes
Louise: Our topic today is classroom management. This is a big topic. Would you like to introduce us to it?
Alyssa: One of my best learnings in social work is this idea of looking underneath behaviors. Rather than taking at face value a behavior that’s in front of me, whether in a group or individually, we actually step back a second and try to understand what’s underneath that behavior or what’s behind the behavior.
There is a model written by Tom Kaplan called Needs ABC, Acquisition and Behavior Change. It’s this idea that behind behaviors, there are unmet relational needs. What does that actually mean? That means that instead of looking at a behavior as bad or good, we try to understand it as there’s a reason for the behavior. This might seem obvious, but to me, this is profound. That behind that behavior is the person is trying to get some need met. To give an example, let’s say they feel that they want to be acknowledged, or they feel invisible and that people aren’t hearing them, and so a youth might display some kind of behavior. Underneath that behavior is really just the need of wanting to be seen, heard or valued. We can step back and try to say, ‘What is going on with this young person? What is the need underneath their behavior?’ We may or may not ever know what the need actually is. We don’t have to name what the need is. But just by asking that question, it shifts the whole behavior and it becomes a whole different situation. It’s not, ‘Oh, this kid is a bad kid’ or, ‘This youth is defensive or lazy’. We give all sorts of judgmental kinds of names to the behavior. No, we step back and we say, ‘Okay, this youth has some unmet need’ and ‘How can I meet the need without necessarily knowing what that specific need is?’ Does that make sense to you?
Louise: Yes, I think this is something we see all the time when we’re in a room full of youth. It’s not necessarily just one youth presenting this kind of behavior. It may be an entire group, with different youth showing different kinds of behavior and very, very different needs.
Alyssa: Absolutely. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. It’s complicated, right? We’re coming in as teaching artists. We don’t know the youth a lot of the time. We’re there for a short time. That’s why I was very clear that we may not ever know what the needs are. But there is this concept of universal themes, which basically just means there are themes that most people exhibit through types of behaviors or having one of these needs unmet.
To give some concrete examples, respect is a very big one, especially amongst youth. They might be feeling invisible. They might be feeling unacknowledged. That is one of the universal themes, so it might be something that they’re seeking. They want respect. It might be because they feel very out of control. Whatever their behaviors are, they’re just trying to keep some semblance of control. Abandonment. There’s a whole list of them. It could be about loss or grief.
I’m going to give a specific example. This is a youth who was about 14 at the time that I met him in a group home. I arrived to do a workshop and the youth, without having ever met me, arrived in the workshop space and had a total freak out. He was very upset because (he was really ranting and raving), he had thought that he had a woodworking workshop, and he really wanted to do woodworking. I clicked in right away that this has nothing to do with me, because he’s never met me before. I didn’t take it personally, although I could have right away. I could have judged his behavior. I could have labeled him as a problem kid, defensive, defiant, all sorts of names. I could have labeled him, but I just sort of clicked that in that moment he was feeling quite powerless. He is in the youth protection system. He probably has no choices in his life in a major way for most of the day, and most of his days and weeks. In this case, he was feeling very powerless and out of control. It was also something he wanted to do. It was something he was looking forward to, and it was taken away from him. So, long story short, I could have judged him. I could have looked at the behavior at face value. I could have excluded him. There are lots of things that could have happened in that moment.
Sometimes we’re really on. That day, I was really on. I looked at him and I said, ‘Listen, I get it. You were not expecting me to be here. You don’t know me. Maybe I’m going to be a terrible workshop leader. You have no idea. How about this? I’m going to give you a role. You’re going to be the evaluator. By the end of the session, you’re going to tell me, did I do a good job or not? Was I better than woodworking, or would you have still preferred to have woodworking?’
And I think just that, it shifted something tiny in him. He still didn’t want to participate. At first, he sat in the corner. I played a little ball game just to get to know all the youth and he said he didn’t want to play, but then he did. He did join the game. And then, we actually had a great session, and he wanted to work with me specifically, and we made a really great film. He had a super passion for music, and we had a whole documentary scene and he got a guitar and played it.
Bottom line, I really learned the links with these universal themes, this idea that we could take behavior at face value, or we could go underneath and try to dig and go, ‘Okay, what does he want in this moment?’ without me knowing the youth well enough to name what was actually going on. It probably was something related to power. It might have been though, that he wanted more value or acknowledgement. Might have been all sorts of things. But again, I think that just illustrates the point that I’m trying to make.
Louise: For sure, it could be anything. I think to me, the biggest thing that I’m hearing is that you demonstrated respect for him. And with that respect, it’s like, ‘Oh! Okay, she actually wants to hear what I think.’ And that gives a lot of the power and control and agency back to that youth who probably doesn’t have a lot of that in his life.
Alyssa: Absolutely. And again, I’m using an extreme example of a youth protection youth, but it could be any youth. It could be a youth that has no mental health issues whatsoever. Still, in the moment, they’re upset about something.
I like how you brought that back to me because it reminds me to say that what’s underneath some behaviors are unmet needs. If we meet them even without specifically knowing what they might be, if we meet them with respect, or we meet them with some sense of giving them choices, then the behavior can disappear also.
Louise: Or maybe be used in a more productive way. This is an example of a youth who is in a group home, but certainly that reminds me of many examples of youth that I’ve come across in classrooms.
Alyssa: Absolutely.
The Monopolizer
Louise: For example, let’s take a student who talks a lot and wants everything to be about their ideas. These are very typical kinds of classroom behaviors that we come across as teaching artists. It would be great if you could maybe share some tips on how we might be able to manage them.
Alyssa: Okay, amazing, amazing. Yes. So there are these typical sorts of behaviors. What you just described in social work terms is called the monopolizer, which I don’t love because it’s sort of labeling and blaming. But somebody with monopolizing behaviors is someone who takes over. I think if you’re a teaching artist, you could recognize that when you walk into a classroom or a community center, there’s often one youth or two that will take over and speak a lot. This can be very wonderful when you walk in a room, as opposed to having dead silence, so you appreciate that person in one way. But it could also create a situation where everybody else is rolling their eyes. It all depends. Is it productive or not productive? Are they sharing things that move your workshop forward, or are they just distracting, or changing the subject? It’s a tricky behavior.
If we ask, ‘What’s underneath that? What is the need underneath that kind of behavior?’, it might be attention. It might be that the person fills space because they’re nervous in quiet, and they just pipe in because nobody else is speaking. That could come from some insecurities. It could come from confidence. It’s hard to know, but there are some typical ways of how you might deal with that person. I personally always like to still give them attention, not brush them off in any way, always thank them for what they’re sharing. I might have to cut them off and say, ‘Listen, let’s give other people a chance’. Or, to say something like, ‘How about you come and talk to me after and I’m just going to keep going with my lesson plan’. Meeting the need, which I don’t know what it is, but may be respect, or hearing them, or whatever the case is. Thanking them, because they’re probably a lot of the time moving in a positive way.
Maybe have them be a leader. For example, let’s say I need someone’s help. I might say, ‘You shared a lot before, can you come and help me?’ So that validates them and also gently brings it back to whatever we have to do, or gives space for other people to share. A typical question might be, ‘Does anyone relate to that?’ or ‘Does anyone else have ideas?’, just to try to bring it back to the room.
Louise: Yes, for sure. I often find the person who takes over, sometimes it’s because they’ve got so many ideas they want to share. And that’s a wonderful thing. It’s not something I want to smush. But there are also all the other people in the room. So one of my questions that I ask is, ‘Okay, we’ve heard from a few people already, is there anybody else who hasn’t spoken yet who wants to share something?’ That’s a way it can become a little bit more equal in terms of creating space for multiple voices.
Engaging The Quiet Kids
Alyssa: Yes, that’s a great technique. There are lots of other techniques. For example, you see that you have a quiet room and nobody’s engaging. This can happen a lot, especially in high schools. Nobody wants to be that first person to share. Or there’s one person who shares, but nobody else is. There are lots of ways to approach that. It could be to work in small groups. I shift my whole presentation, or whatever I was planning to do, and say, ‘Okay, let’s break up into groups right now’, because I see that they’re not engaging in the larger group for the most part. I think the thing is to not take things personally, right? We don’t know the dynamics when we walk into a room. So, yeah, the students might be very intimidated for whatever reason. There might be all sorts of dynamics in this class where people don’t speak. Iit might be gender related, it might be race related. There are so many layers of why people speak and don’t speak in classrooms. We could just try different things. Small groups are a good idea sometimes. For example, like I get them started with storyboards and writing, but a lot maybe don’t like that. So sometimes I’ll do it for them, or give choices, so some people can draw, some people can write.
You led me into talking about quieter youth. I also think quieter youth are very interesting too, because they’re often observing and engaging and don’t necessarily have to speak. There is that side of youth that are just very comfortable being quiet. On the other hand, I do like to check in with every single youth if I can, which can be very challenging in a big classroom. I make an effort to say, ‘Who did I speak to this time and who didn’t I speak to?’ to make sure, because I don’t know why people are quieter. I want to make sure they’re engaged and have as much attention as someone who talks more, because often the quieter kids can get sort of pushed aside.
Louise: I was actually a quiet kid. I remember when there was a guest that came into my high school classroom. They came a number of times. I remember really distinctly when the person on the second day actually knew my name. AThat had never happened before, because I was just a kid who liked school. I put my head down and I did the stuff. I wasn’t quiet because I was insecure or didn’t know what to say. It was actually more because I was really into the activity. And so when this person addressed me by name, it was quite shocking. I still remember it.
Alyssa: Wow, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. But I think that’s something to strive for as teaching artists, because it’s true that we walk into classrooms with 30 kids, 20 kids, but there’s so much chaos and disruption and all sorts of things that it’s easy to overlook the youth like you’re just describing that just do their stuff and have their head down and are into it. Or not into it. But either way, they can get kind of disregarded.
You’re making me think of a situation. There was a young man in one of the classrooms I was in, and, in this case, his quietness was obviously a bit troubling. You could tell that when all the other youth made their groups, he did not have a group to be with. So I eyed him from afar, and just sort of said, ‘Okay, how am I going to include him? What am I going to do with him?’ All the youth went off to do their films, and he was still sitting in his chair. So I went to see him, and I sat down with him, and I said, ‘How do you feel about filmmaking?’ He hardly spoke, he just sort of nodded a lot. Then I said, ‘Okay, well, tell me what you do like.’ He shrugged. I said, ‘Okay, do you like photography?’ ‘Maybe.’’ Do you like drawing?’ And then he piped up and said he likes photography. I said, ‘Oh, okay, have you done photography? Then he started to talk to me about his dad, who did photography. I said, ‘Oh, wow.’ And then I said, ‘Okay, I have a job for you. I really need somebody to do the behind-the-scenes. Could you go around and take photos of all the other groups working, and then I’m going put it together, or you can edit it if you want, and we’ll make a video behind the scenes. It could be video or photo.’ I gave him the choice of video or photo. He ended up doing a bit of both. He made a phenomenal making-of video that we showed. We showed all the other videos, and then we featured his because he had done it all himself, and he was very proud of it. All that to say, reaching out to quieter kids, I think, is very important.
Louise: It makes a big difference. Recently, I was in a classroom where there were a lot of international youth, and there was this one girl who just seemed absent. Very, very absent. She looked depressed. The school didn’t have very strict rules on cell phones. She was on her cell phone the whole time. She just didn’t seem there at all, just did not seem at ease remotely. It was quite clear that her language skills were not great, except I should qualify that, because they were actually fantastic. She spoke at least five different languages that I know of. But her English wasn’t great. Here she was sitting in a high school where she didn’t understand most of what was going on most of the day. She was just lost. It was an audio editing thing so everybody kind of got into what they were doing, and I had some free time. I went over and asked her a couple questions, and realized that her English was not great, but it was better than I thought, and better than she thinks. I was able to find a room outside of the classroom so it wasn’t quite as noisy, so there wasn’t all this background noise to get in the way of the language comprehension. And as it turns out, she loves to sing, and she knows over 100 songs in five different languages, some of which were in English. She was really self conscious about her pronunciation in English. We recorded song after song after song, and she had the most beautiful voice, and I helped her learn how to pronounce the words for Frozen a bit better. And the thing is that that was music class, and the music teacher had no idea that she was a singer. And so with that, she was able to, first of all, pass the class, and also have a connection with me. The teacher told me afterwards that he had never seen her respond in that way to anyone, even the other youth. She was smiling, she was happy, she was laughing. I did my best to try to learn how to pronounce her name, and obviously got it wrong, but she thought it was hilarious, and I got a little bit better. That was, I think, a really incredible moment where this girl who was clearly not doing well in life, was able to share something with me that she loves to do, that she was also not encouraged to do at home. She also told me ‘My mom doesn’t like me to sing.’ But I sat there with my recorder and recorded as many songs as she would sing for me, and she would have kept on going if it hadn’t been the end of the day.
Alyssa: To me, that story exemplifies the beauty of a teaching artist. Because, look, nobody else knew that, and she sits in that classroom all day, every day, and nobody knows anything about her. What a beautiful story.
Louise: I went to the other teachers and said, ‘Look, this girl can sing, and she wants to learn how to sing better in English. So if what she needs in order to succeed in this school is to improve her language skills, do it through song.’
Alyssa: Yes, amazing, amazing, amazing. Again, it points to just this idea of the importance of our role of reaching out and shifting different types of behaviors. I was in a classroom, high school, grade 11 English class, and the students were asked to make a story. It could have been anything, anything about their lives. It could be deep about their families. It could be that they had a passion for hockey. It could be about travels, anything whatsoever. So I was giving my presentation on camera angles and getting them excited about making films. Two girls were talking the entire time that I was presenting. This brings it back to this idea of more disruptive behavior. I was annoyed by the girls, if I’m honest, right? As teaching artists, we do have our personal reactions. I was feeling they were rude. Totally rude. They were on their phones and they were talking. So I said, ‘Okay, how am I going to address this?’ because I could totally dismiss them. I could label them, I could not spend time with them. I decided, I’m not going do any of that. If we don’t tune into ourselves, we easily could brush off students like that and just say they’re rude and they’re not into it, and not give them our attention. So I went up to them, I did the exact opposite. I went up to them, and I said, ‘Listen, you guys were talking during my entire presentation. I want to know what you were talking about.’ They froze. They were like, ‘Aaah..’. And then I went on. I kept going. I said, ‘You know, I have a feeling you guys have a lot to say. So I want to know your stories.” And it shifted everything. It shifted everything.
Once again, if I bring it back to this idea of universal themes, I have no idea what their issues were, but I just met them with respect, even if they didn’t meet with me with respect, and I didn’t take it personally. I just said, ‘Okay, there’s disruptive behavior, and I’m going to meet it with good energy, just try to see them and hear them.’
So the end of that story is that both of them wrote very, very deep pieces about their families, so very personal and very beautiful, really, really beautiful. And there were only a handful of films that were actually shown to the entire grade, and they wanted to show theirs. Over the weeks (I was there four times), and I got quite close to those two girls. I like that story to bring back this idea that we can stop at behaviors, or we can dig underneath, find more creative approaches to understanding what’s going on.
There are so many lessons in that story. Why were they talking the whole time? Maybe because they really did have a lot to say. Sometimes these are defensive types of behavior. Teenagers or young adults can cross their arms and put up their hoods, you know. It’s sort of this way of not engaging and not going there and not taking risks to be vulnerable. If we dare to tiptoe towards them, despite all that, they’re actually calling out for it. It’s just that they can’t say it themselves. That behavior can be turned around and seen as actually neediness, you know, and wanting your attention. And if we give them positive attention, then it can be really very positive.
The Class Clown
Louise: You’re making me think of the opposite kind of behavior, which is the class clown. I would say one of my biggest ‘oops’ moments of my teaching artist career was with this class clown. He was funny. He was very funny, but was it ever hard to get anything done. And it was clear that this was the dynamic of the class: he’s funny and everybody else laughs. As a teaching artist, you’re coming in, you’re new, you don’t necessarily have the same kind of relationship or role as their other teachers. And it was really like, ‘Wow, what do I do with this?’ When it was possible to focus that energy into the activity that we were doing, it was great. We split out into small groups and I was able to kind of go around to the small groups and give feedback that way. We came back and shared everything at the end of the workshop. And, my bad, I diss-ed him. I don’t even remember what I said, but oh boy, the big, big, big class clown came out. He totally, totally let me know that that was not okay. And I just said, ‘Okay, you’re right.” I realized right away, as soon as it came out of my mouth, ‘Oh, wow. That was not the right thing to do.’ And it wasn’t. It was a good lesson for me to realize that this teenager was absolutely in the right to pull out the class clown to the biggest. That’s his right. It’s his school, his home. And here was this guest coming in, not giving him the respect that he deserves. I had another workshop after that, and I talked with the teacher and said, ‘Obviously I misstepped the last time, like, oops. Big thing not to do ever again, I know better than that. How can we turn this around?’ And so I worked with the teacher a little bit on that, and you know, he was still the class clown. You can’t change that in a single time, if you need to at all, but it was a big lesson for me that a lot of this comes down to respect for who the person is, their life experience that we can’t possibly know all of and how best to find a way for them to engage, and how to give them that respect.
Alyssa: I love your story for so many reasons. Number one, I think it’s such a great lesson, as a teaching artist, as a worker in general, as a person in general, to be humble and admit that we’re wrong. I’ve done it a million times. I also teach social work at Dawson. I say to my students, as much as I feel very confident in the work I do, I also make every mistake in the book. That’s how we learn, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just to say, how do we work with this? So I really commend you for that.
I could tell many stories where I’ve done the same thing. It’s also a lesson for teaching artists – we walk into, you said it so well, this is their environment, right? We don’t know the dynamics. It’s time to tune in a little bit to what is going on here. Who has the power in this room? How can I use that? The class clown is a really great person to leverage as a leader
You’re making me think of my story with the class clown. There’s a bit of a serious side to this story, though. A grade 11 class, and this young man clearly was a leader in the class, also a class clown. Class clown has a funny connotation, because it could be very negative, but it can also be very positive, right? However, there are two parts to this story. One is how I used him. But first, I didn’t know the dynamics yet, and he actually tested me a lot. We broke up into groups and I was walking with a group of four of them to go film somewhere in the cafeteria, and he started, this was a black student, he started saying some racial things in the hallway. He was testing me. I’m not a Black person. He was testing what was I going to say, how was I going to react to him? This is part of what youth do with some of the behaviors they show, it’s testing us. Are we going to be open with them? Are we going to respect them, or are we going to judge them? And so in this case, he was testing me. How was I going to react to him? And I couldn’t not say anything because he was saying these racial slurs. I mean, I could have not said something. I think many people might have been scared, given the racial issue, that I’m not Black, that he was Black. For me, I had to address what he was saying. But how to do that in a respectful way? I said to him, ‘Look, you don’t know me. I don’t want to come across as patronizing in any way whatsoever, but I’m wondering what’s going on here. You’re saying these things that might seem offensive to some people.” And then he said to me, ‘Oh, well, you know, I’m Black. I’m allowed to say these things.’ And I said, ‘Okay, well, tell me more about that. What if I said those things?’ He said, ‘Oh, no, that’s not allowed.’ And I said right away, ‘I agree with you, that would be so wrong. But why is it okay for you to say them? Explain it to me’. And we had a great discussion about race. He was testing me, and then there was also, how am I gonna react? Am I open, or am I judgmental? So sometimes behavior is just that. In the end, we created a great bond. We had a great discussion around race. It came up again because I actually said to him, ‘Obviously, this is a topic that’s really important to you. Why don’t you put that in one of the films that you’re going make?’ And in fact, he did, which was cool.
Back to the class clown. I actually quote, unquote, ‘used’ him. I said, ‘I can see that you’re a leader in this class. And I need you, I need your help. If you don’t do the activities that we’re going do, then they may or may not fly, they may or may not go well. But if you get engaged and get everyone into it, what do you think? Can I count on you? You could be the director even.’ I gave him a special role. I’m illustrating an example that as teaching artists, if you see there’s a leader in the room, use it to your advantage. Give them a special role, for example, or just acknowledge that, ‘I see that you’re so influential. Can you help me?’ It can be very positive.
Louise: Like finding a way to get somebody on your side.
Alyssa: Yes. It’s called in social work terms the Emerging Leader, or just a leader. Using that energy so that instead of it being defensive and disruptive, it can be turned around by praise and by acknowledging the strengths of the person or their role in the classroom. Giving them the respect, like you talked about earlier.
Louise: All this talk about needs and behavior actually makes me think about the teachers. What about the teacher’s needs?
Alyssa: What do you mean by that, exactly?
Louise: Well, as a teaching artist, we’re always in a room with the teacher. There is a certain way that things work already. Teachers have hard jobs, they have a lot on their plates. It’s a demanding job with many, many things to do. They’ve built up relationships with these students for a long time. Sometimes the teacher’s needs are as loud and clear as the students’ are. For example, you know a teacher who’s just feeling harried one day might come down really hard on one of the students who I don’t necessarily know, and I don’t really understand why. Or a teacher may be more hands off and isn’t engaging. There seems to be this vacuum going on, and I’m not quite sure how to fill it. I think that the teacher plays a really important role in how teaching artists engage with youth.
Alyssa: Absolutely, and also how the behavior plays out. It’s true, I’ve heard from different teaching artists that sometimes they walk into a class, as you said, and the teacher sometimes even leaves, which they’re not supposed to. Or they’re not engaged whatsoever, and it’s up to the teaching artist to deal with some of the difficult behaviors without knowing what’s actually happening.
My feeling is that as teaching artists, it is not our job to manage behaviors. We can do all this that we’re talking about, of course, being sensitive to youth and engaging them in order to do our workshop, But if there are major disruptions in the classroom or certain behaviors, it’s up to the teachers. For example, one time I went to a classroom and a girl ran out and was having a panic attack. In my hat as a social worker, I might be able to deal with that, but as a teaching artist, it’s not my role to deal with that. There are limits to our role.
Yes, we can work with the teacher to understand their needs, and also explain ours because we might have to have them be a little bit more involved than they are. For example, when a teacher might be having a bad day, and taking it out on a student, it always upsets me. For me, my workshop is about freedom and expression and a step out of all the rules. If I see a teacher excluding a kid for their behavior from the workshop, I actually really try to tell the teacher that I try to avoid doing that for my workshop because I’m only here for a short amount of time. Could they possibly please continue to participate? Or things like that said in a very respectful way, respecting that it’s the teacher’s domain, it’s not mine. Nonetheless, I’m here, and I really want to include everybody.
Also, I feel like kids sometimes are labeled as resistant or problematic when actually, you know, they’re reacting to things that feel unfair to them. Sometimes it is unfair. For example, yesterday, I was doing a workshop in a community center, and a youth had told me that they were looking forward to the workshop all week, and then was suddenly pulled out because she had to go to math tutoring that was not planned. It was a very upsetting moment, because she said, ‘Can’t we do this later?’ And it ended up being a situation where she was labeled as resistant and defiant and defensive, when, to me, it was a bit unfair, what happened, you know? Those are hard situations to deal with. Teaching artists just have to have compassion. What I did with that girl yesterday is, I said, ‘Okay, look, I know you’re gonna miss this hour, but as soon as you get back for the math tutoring, we’re gonna focus on your film. So we’re going to do other films while you’re gone, and then we’re going to focus on yours.’ And I think that did help. At least she felt like I acknowledged that she was sad and upset, and I met her where she was at, if that makes sense, without labeling her, without judging it, and actually seeing her point of view.
Louise: Absolutely. Also, I like to talk with the teacher a lot before I get into the classroom, so we’ve agreed on some form of workshop, some form of topic, some form of approach. I usually try to make sure that they know that this is a different kind of approach than is always possible in the classroom, a regular classroom with someone who is there for nine months. I know that I can allow more liberty than someone who is there for nine months simply because I have a different role. Sometimes that can mean that kids can get really excited. And that’s wonderful. So I try to make sure the teacher is aware of that in advance, so that they realize when their kids get really excited (I’m saying kids, too, I mean teenagers), and they have all these ideas coming out, that that’s okay. That’s actually what I’m looking for.
Alyssa: Yes. On that note, I had one teacher who pulled me aside after the three sessions and she said, ‘You know, this was really good for me because I’m so used to being in control. I had a really hard time in your workshops because they were all over the school, I didn’t know where they were, it was chaos’. And I had warned her, same as you, because it’s very important to me to prepare the teachers, but she said ‘It was very good for me to step outside of my control zone and see that it’s okay.’ She made me realize that teachers are worried when guests come in, that they’ll look bad if the class is chaotic, for example. I actually really like to reassure teachers that it will be chaotic, and that that’s a good thing, exactly what you just said, and that’s okay.
Louise: It’s okay and also, that it’s teamwork. That I need the teacher. I give a lot of respect to the teacher: they have invited me into their classroom. Whatever we can do together in order to make the best experience for the youth is really the goal at the end of the day.
Alyssa: They’re out of their comfort zone, so it’s important to work with them, I agree. I’m very clear with them. If I need them to be more involved, I’ll ask them, or less involved if they’re trying to control too much. It’s very important because it goes back to the behaviors in the classroom. If we can create a good environment with the teacher, that can trickle down to the youth.
Louise: For sure, absolutely. And those behaviors, they can be tricky for us to manage in the moment when we’re just there for one or two or three days. I think it’s important to remember that the teachers are dealing with these students every day for nine months. There’s a lot more history there, and as much as the teachers have a very important role, so do we. Those behaviors can really push our buttons, and same thing for the teachers. That is something really interesting that we’ll talk about in our next episode, about how we can take care of ourselves and establish good boundaries for ourselves so that we can work best with the students.
Is there anything else you’d like to add on the subject of behaviours?
Alyssa: Yes, I just wanted to add one last thing. Sometimes one youth or one or two might express something in quote-unquote ‘difficult behaviors’ that others in the group aren’t comfortable expressing. For example, I ask them to do something and it’s too quick, or they don’t feel they know me well enough to do what I’m asking them to do, then some of the youth might break out in jokes or there might be some disruptive behaviour. Just tune in to that, because they might be expressing something that I’m not fully aware of, they might be representing a discomfort in the group that they are expressing on behalf of others. Just keep in mind that difficult behaviours are often a sign of something, whether it be the relational need being met in the individual or perhaps some kind of group dynamic that makes people feel uncomfortable.
Louise: This topic of classroom management is a huge one. We could go on for hours and hours and hours.
Alyssa: We could, we could.
Louise: Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.
Alyssa: Thanks for having me.
Acknowledgements
Hosted by Louise Campbell, this podcast was recorded at ELAN’s Community Digital Arts Hub, with mixing and editing by Tyler Rauman. Music featured on this podcast was produced by Kuzmo, a youth involved in the creation of the soundtrack for the film RESILIENCE.
The Creative Care podcast is funded by the Community Health & Social Services Network (CHSSN), the Secretariat à la jeunesse and the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation. The views expressed herein are based on the experience and professional training of the guests, and supported by information on mental health and wellbeing that were current at the time of recording in June 2024. These views do not necessarily represent the views of ELAN or the funders.