Talk with Tish: How can I establish more mature relationships with a Year 10 class?

Q: I teach Spanish at an inner city academy in Leeds. We have really good uptake at GCSE and our whole department particularly enjoys teaching KS4. I love my Y10 class and have taught them since Y9. We have a really positive relationship and enjoy mutual trust and respect. However, recently some of the male students have begun to test boundaries and mess around and I feel like our positive classroom culture is at risk. How can I re-establish a more adult relationship with this class?

A: It's tough feeling you are losing good relationships. This is probably one of the most difficult age groups: young people at this age like to look confident but internally are often in massive conflict which they act out by upsetting the boat around them. As a teacher you cannot help but be in the line of fire! They are  caught between the onset of adulthood and their latent dependency, yo- yoing between feeling very grown up and then upset and and vulnerable like a three year old.  They are probably one of the most vulnerable age groups because of the number of developmental tasks they’re having to manage and deal with. They are forming a social identity and independence, all underscored by a massive fear of failure, and are often experiencing very poor relationships with parents/carers bewildered by their child turning into an unrecognisable grumpy, negative, ‘lazy’ person.

You mention that they want to mess around. If you can find the good will and energy, try proactive ways of channelling that energy and assisting concentration. They may be on a short fuse due to lack of sleep and overuse of digital technology. Also, there is now a lot of evidence that this age group, particularly the boys, needs to take risks. So, they’ll take risks in relationships and in behaviour in a classroom, sometimes leading to crossing the line, to sanctions. What’s important is that there is room for reparation, rather than us fulfil their negative expectations by reacting in a way that is angry, aggressive or authoritarian. It’s very easy, when pushed to the enth degree by silly behaviour, to go into victim mode. You are only human and might feel “I put in all this work and all this faith in you, and you’ve just destroyed it.” What young people need at this vulnerable age is so see your humanity but also resilience, they need not to be denigrated  as this confirms their feelings of failure and their easiest option is to give up. They are often unconsciously testing us to see if we will confirm this. They feel guilty, although don’t show it, for messing up their good relationship but this might be their best effort at navigating troubled waters. 

It is hard to avoid taking their negativity personally as you too are only human. If possible, we can help model reparation and optimism to rebalance their tendency to resort to catastrophic thinking and pessimism. Every day should be a fresh start and the biggest learning I have had working with children is they change by the day, by the minute, and I love that they teach me that it is me who is failing to move on not them!