We Can Teach Expected Behaviors — But You Can't Practice Not Doing Something Unsafe

There have been lots of great thought-provoking comments on my other videos about behavior and about skills and about teaching, and this idea that we can't really teach that kind of last mile of behavior I think is a really important one, because what we're hearing over and over again is that when there's a major behavior issue, when a student does something that's really not okay—they throw furniture, they're violent, they hurt somebody— If we keep framing that as a teaching issue, we're going to end up blaming the teacher and we're going to end up with a solution that doesn't really work because the student already has been taught what they need to know, which is that that's not okay and you don't do that, you do something else and here's how you do that.

I think students do need to be taught what's okay and what's not okay, and how to do the things that are okay and practice those.

But there comes a point when they actually have to do it.

I think teaching is important when it comes to behavior, but there are limits to what teaching can accomplish.

For example, the cross-country coach can give explanations of how to run, but if the student at the end of the explanation, when it's time to get up and run, says, well, actually, I would like more PowerPoint slides, please.

I don't want to actually run.

The cross-country coach is gonna say, like, no, you have to actually run to get good at this.

Like, that's the behavioral component that you have to actually do to build that muscle.

And when it comes to preventing major misbehavior, I think there is a teaching component, right?

If a student genuinely does not know that we don't throw furniture and here's what we do instead, or we don't punch people, here's what we do instead, then I think it's legitimate to teach and practice the, you know, kind of alternatives and, you know, the behaviors that we do wanna see.

But beyond that, if those behaviors are still occurring it's not for lack of instruction it's not for lack of knowledge it's not for lack of practice and you especially can't practice a negative like i saw a tick tock the other day that said i had a student uh throw furniture and break a window well what the student needs to do there is not do that right there there may be some some positives that we could teach to replace that but at the end of the day we need the student to not throw furniture and you can't practice a negative like we wouldn't say don't throw furniture and break a window throw the furniture lower so it just hits the wall and not the window like that's not what we're talking about here when we talk about teaching behavior like the student already has been taught not to do that and the question is what do we do when the student does it anyway and the idea that this is just perpetually always and forever an instructional issue that the student just needs to be taught more and more and more I don't think really holds up.

So I think that's where it becomes this kind of gaslighting of teachers where it's like, well, what did you do?

This student needs you to reach them and teach them and give them more strategies.

And I think students do need strategies, but there comes a time when they've gotten all the strategies they need and they just need the self-control and the willpower to do the right thing.

And I'm not sure we can fix that with more teaching.

Let me know what you think.