Disruptive Behaviour and Self Regulation: an SEL Approach

Stress, anxiety, restlessness, noise, poor nutrition, and lack of engagement are just a few of the factors that can trigger disruptive behaviour within the classroom. In an attempt to tackle this growing problem of disruptive behaviour in our schools many districts and teachers have adopted a social and emotional (SEL) approach to education that relies heavily on student self-regulation.

Self-regulation puts individual students in charge of their own learning and behaviour within the classroom. It is an approach in which teachers can help students become aware of their own behaviour, what their individual needs are, and what they can do for themselves to calm down and be productive in class. Thus, self-regulation refocuses the responsibilities to learn and behave appropriately back to the child. In a report published on the CBC News Canada website, Philosophy and Psychology Professor Stuart Shanker presents the idea that Canadian students do not know what it feels like to be calm anymore because there is far to much stimulation in their lives (2013). He argues that when a child’s brain enters a state of stress, anxiety, or general overload of some sort, that the child’s ‘thinking’ part of the brain shuts off and they can no longer hear what anyone is saying to them. This is why self-regulation and teaching our students how to self-regulate themselves is so important. Shanker suggests that the best way for a teacher to manage events of disruptive behaviour is to ‘de-escalate’ the situation, or in other words, to teach the child how to calm themselves down and get them to think again.

As noted by author Karin Wells, there are many ways that teachers can help teach and implement self-regulation within the classroom. Some of the easiest and most cost effective methods include incorporating more physical activity and movement into the school day, regular brain breaks or ‘engine breaks’, and providing students with the skills to be able to implement some of the above techniques by themselves without disrupting the rest of the class. Some additional self-regulation tools that are commonly found within classrooms are noise-cancelling headphones and small toys that students can play or fiddle with.

Learning about self-regulation and the different methods that can be used to help students learn how to self-regulate is something that I am very interested in learning more about. I have noticed that students who are both educated about self-regulation, and who have been given the tools or knowledge about how to self-regulate, appear to have far less behavioural problems in the classroom then students who do not know how to self-regulate. I believe that teaching students how to self-regulate is extremely important at any age, but exceptionally important during their intermediate years. For the most part I have noticed that as students progress from primary to intermediate, often their school days become more focused on academics and they are spending more and more time sitting in desks learning and less time actively moving around the classroom. This definitely may not be true for all classrooms and schools, but as for my experiences in elementary schools so far, it is what I most commonly observe. Many intermediate students struggle with stress, anxiety, hyperactivity, frustration, and emotional issues, and these are just a few of factors that can cause disruptive behaviour and impact learning. I believe that by educating intermediate students about self-regulation and by providing them with the proper skills and tools to properly do so, we as educators can help students to relax, de-stress, calm down, and in turn, improve classroom behaviour.

Reference
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/self-regulation-technique-helps-students-focus-in-class-1.2440688