2.2 Creating a framework for positive behaviour

On this page

  1. Importance of creating a framework
    1.1 Starting with a framework for positive behaviour and Ladder of action
  2. Pitfall of not using a framework
  3. Aspects of a framework
    3.1 Responsibility of the teacher
    3.2 A framework asks students to refrain from disruptive behaviour
    3.3 Students stick to the framework
    3.4 framework and authority
  4. Scope of a framework
    4.1 School-wide
    4.2 In class, but also outside the classroom
    4.3 School trip
  5. Setting up a framework
    5.1 Framework for students and teacher
    5.2 Framework for students only
  6. Framework in primary and secondary education
  7. Framework in historical perspective
    7.1 Maxime and hypothetical imperative
  8. Acting ethically
  9. Summary framework

A framework gives teachers and students a guideline for behaviour. It describes an ideal to pursue. There is always tension between ideal and practice. If the framework is a shared ideal set out clearly and concisely, everyone can adhere to it and starts trusting each other.

I hang the framework (Friendly + Fair) visible to everyone on the wall and discuss it with my students. I hold myself to the framework and ask my students to hold themselves to the framework as well. By combining friendliness with fairness, I avoid teaching too friendly or too non-committal (Laissez faire) as well as teaching too strict (Authoritarian/not friendly).

Children recognize that rules that prevent hurting others are moral rules. Turiel defines those rules as related to “justice, rights, and welfare that prescribe how people are supposed to treat each other.” Haidt (2012)

Introduction video

For more information check out our other introductory videos here.

Current approach:

This is the framework I use to this day:

Future approach:

This is how my future framework looks like:

Example

Figure: Framework

Introduction

‘Creating a framework for positive behaviour’ is one of the three modules of the perspective ‘Establishing fairness’ of Friendly and Fair Teaching (FFT).

Figure 27: Establishing fairness (overview)

With this module, you will give yourself and your students a guideline for behaviour and thus create order.
You can come up with a framework yourself or you can use a school-wide framework. A framework is the guideline for you and your students. A well-chosen framework contributes to an undisturbed lesson, creates mutual trust and facilitates cooperation. A school-wide framework has the advantage that everyone (within your lessons and within the school) is accountable for this framework.
You hang up the framework and discuss it with your students. The framework then gives an indication to both you and your pupils which behaviour does and does not comply with the framework. If your own behaviour does not meet the framework, you adjust it. If the behaviour of your pupils does not comply with the framework, you reinforce positive behaviour (Ladder of action).

1 Importance of creating a framework

The framework hangs on the wall for all to see. A clear framework encourages a positive attitude and inhibits a negative attitude. The framework indicates to everyone what behaviour is and is not desired. A framework is fair if it applies to everyone, including you. By adhering to the framework, you set a good example for your students.

The advantage of a framework is that you:

  • immediately see what behaviour does fit the framework (e.g., Friendly + Fair). Those who adhere to it you compliment (thumbs up)
  • see who does not comply with the framework. With this student you reinforce positive behaviour.

1.1 Starting with a framework for positive behaviour and Ladder of action

Framework and Ladder of Action are connected.

  1. If you have a framework and no Ladder of action, then students do not care about the framework.
  2. If you do have a Ladder of action and no framework, then your decisions come across to students as arbitrary.

Therefore, introduce both the framework and the Ladder of action at the same time. A framework provides direction. It describes an ideal towards which everyone can direct, evaluate, and adjust their own behaviour and it gives everyone the opportunity to appreciate each other for desired behaviour and to address undesired behaviour. It also gives you the justification and foundation for the way in which you reinforce positive behaviour with a student who disrupts the lesson and for procedures that secure these measures (Ladder of action).

It takes three lessons to start with Friendly and Fair Teaching

There are aspects of the Ladder of action that deviate and are in line with existing educational practice.

New

  1. Instead of warning you give a positive advise: a Tip.
  2. You only give a student one Tip per lesson (to prevent warning endlessly).
  3. Instead of penalty work you ask a student to write a Future behaviour letter. With this letter a student gives himself a Tip.
  4. If a student is disruptive, the first thing you do is making a gesture. Body language is a crucial step of the Action Ladder.

In line with common practice

  1. Teachers usually warn students and then act. With FFT this is the same, with one difference being that you never give a student more than one Tip per lesson.
  2. With FFT you make each student individually responsible by giving a maximum of two Tips per period. If a student is disruptive for the third time (in a third lesson – you do not give more than one Tip per lesson), you give the student an assignment: the ‘Future behaviour letter’.

Preparation

Before you start with the following instruction video, prepare yourself this way:

Tip for all lessons. Do not send students out of class (See exceptions).

Prepare lesson 1.

  • Print several copies of the ‘Future behaviour letter‘ printed on yellow paper.
  • Buy a small notebook to use as a ‘Tip book. In the first lesson you write in that booklet the names of student you ask to write a ‘Future behaviour letter’.
  • Hang the framework on the wall.
  • Print out the two pages of this PowerPoint on which you indicate what you expect from your students (Managing expectations).
  • In the first three lessons you will show a part of this video (from 1 minute onwards show this video to students). You can request the PowerPoint used to create this video via info@friendlyandfairteaching.com
    You will also receive instructions on how to record your own voice.

Summary of lesson 1: In the first lesson you immediately give a student who disrupts the lesson a ‘Future behaviour letter’.
What do you do if a student protests a letter?
What do you do if a student continues to disrupt after receiving a letter?

Preparation lesson 2.

For each group, print out two class lists for teaching the entire class and for independent work.
In the second lesson you note the names of students you give a Tip in your Tip Book.  You make a distinction between Teaching the entire class (Tec) and working independently (Wi).

Preparation for lesson 3.

After class, transfer the Tips you wrote down in your Tip Book to the relevant class list (Tec or Wi).

Summary of lesson 3: In lesson three when a student disrupts the lesson you first make an (inaudible gesture), if necessary, then give Tips.
Advice: Give a maximum of one Tip per student per lesson.

Summary of lesson 2: In lesson two, you give Tips that you write down in your Tip book (Note date + name + Tec or Wi).

Advice: Give a maximum of one Tip per student per lesson. What do you do if a student continues to disrupt after a Tip?

Instructional video

Now follows an instructional video. The first part is for the teacher. Then follow three short parts of two minutes each, which you can show to your students in the first three lessons. This video shows how to deal with disruptions to the lesson in this first period.

Voice-over of the video above. This part is for the teacher.

This instructional video is for teachers who start working with the Ladder of action.
With this video you make every student responsible for their behaviour. How do you start with the Ladder of action?
With Friendly and Fair Teaching, you reinforce positive behaviour with a Tip. A Tip is positive advice.
A Tip remains valid for a period. The more often you tutor a group, the shorter the period. During that period, you write down Tips on two different lists: One for teaching the entire class and one for working independently. At the next period, you start counting again. Then all previously given Tips will expire.
Now follow three parts with instructions for students. In the first three lessons, you show this instruction to your students at the beginning of the lesson. In the first lesson you use the ‘Future behaviour letter’ to reinforce positive behaviour. The letter is the active ingredient. You will introduce step 1 and 2 of the Ladder of action in the subsequent lessons. The first two steps of the Ladder of action will prevent you from handing out a ‘Future behaviour letter’ too often. Each introduction of a step of the Ladder of action takes two minutes. You can show the remainder of this video to your students in three parts.

Voice-over of the video above. This part is for students.

First lesson

Look at this picture on the wall. It says: Friendly and Fair. I am going to try to be friendly and fair. If I do not, please let me know. If you are not friendly or fair, I will let you know as well. Friendly and fair applies to all of us.
If any of you are unkind this lesson, I can hand out a “Future behaviour letter’, with two questions:

  1. What is the reason for this letter, what happened?
  2. What can you change/improve about your behaviour?

The student to whom I give this assignment writes me a letter and delivers it to me at an agreed time. I also can ask one of you, to complete the assignment with me at the end of the day. I hope there is no need to hand out a letter.

Second lesson

In the previous lesson I showed the yellow assignment: a Future behaviour letter. This lesson I first give Tips and then a letter. A Tip is positive advice such as: Please pay attention or start working. I write down Tips during class in my Tip Book. After class I write these Tips down on a list. If a student receives two Tips when I am teaching the entire class, I will write this student’s name on the board at the beginning of the next lesson.
Anyone who keeps disrupting after two Tips will receive a yellow letter. I hope this lesson it will not be necessary to give Tips.

Third lesson

In this lesson, I not only give Tips prior to the letter, I first reinforce positive behaviour with a gesture. With this gesture I ask a student to look at me. With the second gesture I ask the student to stop disrupting the lesson. If the student changes behaviour, then I thank the student with this gesture. If the student continues disrupting the lesson, I will give a Tip.

Advice for the starting teacher

Receive a group you see for the first time, no matter how they behave, in a friendly manner. If a group comes in too busy, you do not force order. You wait patiently until they calm down. If this takes too long, as a reporter you write in your Tip Book what unacceptable behaviour you see students display. You can also post general messages on the board. E.g. “Please pay attention – the lesson is about to begin.” By doing this you remain friendly and honest from the start.

Once you have the group’s attention, take the time to get to know your students. Then you tell something about how you are going to work. Then you play the part of the video above that corresponds to lesson 1.

Follow-up to this instruction – abacus – collective responsibility – professional boundary

After a period, when your students are familiar with Tips and the Future Behaviour Letter and are individually responsible for their behaviour, consider watching the second instructional video with your students. This video shows how to monitor your professional boundaries with the abacus and make the group collectively responsible for the smooth running of the lesson.

2 Pitfall when not using a framework

What are the consequences if you do not agree on a framework with a group or if you agree on a framework that is too one-sided?

  • If no framework determined, then chances are that students to approach each other in an unfriendly and unfair manner. If this happens and you do not intervene, students will exclude each other.
  • When students treat each other unkindly, they break contact. Students shun a fellow student who has previously treated them unkindly and will not cooperate.
  • If you treat a student unkindly, you break contact. Both the student and you do not seek rapprochement afterwards because the relationship has broken down.
  • There can be oppressive rules. What FFT advises against is to install in advance exactly the opposite situation of freedom. Do not make a list of squishy, controlling, concrete rules which short-circuit behaviour. These types of lists have no pedagogical value (in this bare form). If it is necessary to adjust behaviour, you will then have to say: “this is how the rules are here”. This way you create distance.
  • Laying only one principle at the basis of a framework:
    He (David Hume) also saw a diversity of virtues, and he rejected attempts by some of his contemporaries to reduce morality to a single virtue such as ‘Kindness,’ or to do away with all virtues and replace them with a few moral laws.” Haidt (2012), Jonathan
    Exactly this one-sided choice for ‘friendly’, or the one-sided choice for ‘fair’, are the pitfalls that emerge in the cartoon of Friendly and Fair Teaching. Teacher Koen limits himself in this cartoon to only being (too) friendly. The other teacher in this cartoon, Inge, limits herself to only being (too) clear. Too clear can be fair in your eyes. For the students it feels like too strict.
  • Taking one’s own framework as leading.
    The danger of having too personal a framework is that you quickly disapprove of others who have a different framework than you. This is evident in the following quote:
    Turiel, on the other hand, defined morality as “justice, rights and welfare.” But any attempt to define morality by identifying a few things as the truly moral things and dismissing the rest as “social convention” is doomed to be parochial. It is a moral community saying, “These are our central values, and we define morality as something about our central values; to hell with the rest of you.
    When you have one clear principle, you can begin to judge different cultures. Some cultures get a higher score than others, meaning they are morally superior.
    That binding is usually accompanied by some blindness – once a person, book or principle is canonized, its adherents cannot question it or think clearly about it.” (Haidt (2012)
  • Choosing kindness unilaterally or choosing clarity unilaterally. Exactly this pitfall appears in the cartoon of Friendly and Fair Teaching. Teacher Koen limits himself in this film to only being (too) friendly. The other teacher in this cartoon, Inge, limits herself to being too clear (strict).
  • A forest of oppressive school rules. Often in schools, a list of school rules hangs on the wall. A school rule can appear patronizing and therefore provoke violation of the rule. If the framework is short, concise, and applicable, it is sufficient to display only this concise wording on posters in the school.

With no framework, students can approach each other in an unfriendly manner. You then will have to manage the resulting unrest and estrangement to ensure that a powerful learning environment remains. You then decide on the spot with every incident how and what behaviour you correct. Your decisions are arbitrary in the eyes of students. Conflict then lurks.

 Stress flattens the prefrontal cortex. When there is stress, the body says: you must do something to get out of that stress. Then the body makes sure you do not get to learning. The body sees to it that you do not get to learning. Therefore, spend three weeks to ensure that everyone is positive towards each other, and that people do not laugh at each other, when they make mistakes. It is precisely from mistakes that you can learn.” Harold Bekkering – Neuropsychologist in a Dutch podcast from ‘The correspondent’. 

3 Aspects of a framework

I define morality by what it does, rather than specifying which actions count as moral.” Haidt (2012)

What something does precedes what something intends. The two are inseparable. What does FFT aim and achieve?

Communication between students and between student and teacher occurs in harmony (and is free of conflict). Everyone (including the teacher) develops from intrinsic motivation.

3.1 Responsibility of the teacher

A good framework makes clear to everyone what is permissible and implicitly makes clear what is not.

  • It is your responsibility to introduce, explain and demonstrate the framework in your behaviour (Setting the standard of behaviour).
  • It is your responsibility to monitor the framework (Reinforcing positive behaviour).
  • By observing students’ behaviour and seeing how their behaviour relates to the framework, you know when to give compliments or when to reinforce positive behaviour.

A good framework brings about something that everyone immediately sees the benefit of. Therefore, most students adhere to the framework. Everyone understands why you reinforce positive behaviour of a student disrupting the lesson.

Those who deviate from the framework are primarily responsible for this themselves. With deviant behaviour, not intervening is not an option; an unguarded framework serves no purpose. A framework goes hand in hand with monitoring it.

3.2 A framework asks students to refrain from disruptive behaviour

In our experience, most students comply with the framework. A few of students engage in power struggles.

Figure 10: Most students adopt your behaviour

In the book “Nietsche and Kant read the newspaper” Wijnbergen discusses the ever-present power struggle named by Nietzsche. In his book, Wijnbergen talks about “three rights to hurt others”. Wijnbergen (2011)
FFT considers it an art not to participate in this power struggle. After introducing and explaining the framework, the implicit message is: ‘Please avoid these forms of behaviour’.

The following are three forms of behaviour students use to disrupt the lesson. They are listed in Wijnbergen’s book. In each case, a positive alternative is added.

  1. Offending others
    At school, I can shape my own life if I adhere to two simple directions: friendly and fair. To shape my own life undisturbed, I refrain from offending others.
  2. Acting without interference from others
    At school I learn to collaborate. This requires from me a willingness to adapt to the wishes of others.
    Clarification: There are students who, on often good grounds, think education is nonsense and do not accept a teacher reinforcing positive behaviour. It is important to understand that a school is meant precisely for the purpose of considering one another. By doing so a dismissive attitude of certain students is negotiable.
  3. Going against the existing framework.
    My school has established a framework that makes everyone count. It allows us to work together, develop our talents and discover our individuality. To make this possible, I abide by the framework set forth.

According to FFT, the trick is not to get involved in this power struggle, and to always friendly resolve a disruption.

Note. This enumeration is meant solely for you as a way of monitoring the framework. You do not discuss this with your students. FFT advises not to associate yourself with negative behaviour.

If you notice a student insulting others despite the framework, acting without interference from others or going against the existing framework, it is enough to give a Tip. “Please pay attention. By giving a positively worded Tip, you adhere to the framework (Friendly and fair). If a student does not adhere to the framework, you reinforce positive behaviour. By doing so you guard the framework in a friendly and fair manner.

You reinforce this effect if you ask your students to help you guard the framework and to call each other to account for behaviour that does not fit the framework. When students can call each other to account, they act with interference from others, which is exactly what you want. This ties in with the educational goal of Socialization.

3.3 Students adhere to the framework

Students stick to the framework:

  • when they see that you efficiently reinforce positive behaviour.
  • if you remain calm while reinforcing positive behaviour and let go of anger.
  • because they do not want to waste time writing a ‘Future behaviour letter’: They don’t feel like writing substantively about their disruptive behaviour and making suggestions for improving their behaviour and then discussing this with you as well.
  • because they know that they really must write the letter and turn it in to you or a senior member of staff.
  • because students who get an assignment exaggerate its size to classmates, other students avoid getting an assignment by sticking to the framework.
  • because they see that predictable steps precede the ‘Future behaviour letter’ and because there is no arbitrariness in handing out the assignment. This predictability creates calm and clarity.
  • because they see that you hand out the ‘Future behaviour letter’ without rancour, with empathy and only rarely.
  • because they notice that students who get an assignment have no chance to continue disrupting the lesson.
  • because they notice that the behaviour of a fellow student who wrote a ‘Future behaviour letter’ improves, allowing everyone to better concentrate.

3.4 Framework and authority

When students see the usefulness of a framework, they demand that you guard the framework on the condition that you abide by it. If you place yourself outside the framework, you render the framework implausible, and your students will challenge your right to reinforce positive behaviour.

Students who perceive the school as restricting freedom will challenge your authority despite your good intentions. FFT recommends creating a positive learning environment and monitoring it with the Ladder of action. Especially in busy classes, reinforcing positive behaviour in the manner of FFT can cause protest. One explanation is that in busy classes, students are able to treat teachers as marionettes. By setting a framework, by being friendly and fair, and by monitoring the behaviour of students, you no longer allow yourself to be treated as a marionette. Of course, students of a busy class will look for the weaknesses of the new approach. FFT advises to be patient and persistent. Gradually, you acquire authority with FFT’s approach. With FFT you do not enforce authority.

4 Scope of a framework

You can introduce a framework on your own initiative. The school can also take the initiative in this regard.

If you find that the school does not have a clear framework (but does have an oppressive jungle of rules), then draw up a framework yourself. With your framework, you express the direction you want to take as a teacher. Before you use your framework in your lessons, discuss it with your students. If it works well in your practice, chances are that other teachers will adopt it.
Usually a school has a framework. The school leadership formulates a framework with the team and gives directions on how to monitor it. The framework then defines for the entire school the way of dealing with each other. At the beginning of the year, all teachers present this framework to students and discuss it with them. Supervisors support teachers if a student does not alter behaviour in a positive way.

What is the scope of a framework? Does it apply in the classroom, across the school, and on school trips?

4.1 In the classroom, but also outside it

A framework applies in all situations in which you find yourself with students. If you agree on a framework with your students, it applies between you wherever you are responsible for the students. That is, of course, during your lessons and in your classroom, but also when meeting in the auditorium and hallways, during contact at projects, performances, excursions, visits to school gardens and museums, or during school trips. A well-chosen school-wide framework suits everyone. With a school-wide framework colleagues and students can hold each other accountable. Together they strengthen the effect of the framework.

4.2 School-wide

A school-wide framework is the benchmark and touchstone for all teachers and their students. It also applies for the staff and the educational support staff.

4.3 School trips

Even if the framework is not school-wide, you can uphold your own framework (your ‘moral contract’ with your students) outside your own lesson and classroom:

  1. By doing so, you prevent students to ignore the framework outside your lesson and classroom and misbehaving with justification. This can happen e.g. at school trips.
  2. You avoid creating a perception among your students that the framework has only a relative, limited value and reality, which also reduces its efficacy within your lesson and classroom.
  3. Even outside your own lesson and classroom, the framework should help you reinforce positive behaviour, otherwise there is something lacking in its formulation.
  4. And finally, because of its “self-evident acceptability,” the framework should also aid in reinforcing positive behaviour with students who are not in your class. Even if a student hears the framework for the first time, the framework should immediately set the standard of behaviour.

In short, it is critical that you agree with your students that the framework applies wherever you are together under school responsibility.

5 A framework for everyone?

When creating a framework, look for directions with a general scope.

5.1 Framework for students and teacher

When creating a framework, consider its general validity. It should apply to your students as well as to you.

5.2 Framework for students only

If the framework is only for students and not for the teacher, the framework misses its purpose.

In his book ‘Lessons in Order’, Teitler discusses the use of a framework (Teitler 2017). He writes the following about it:

In doing so, keep in mind a framework against which you can always evaluate student behaviour: This is how I want work to be done: Optimal and Undisturbed. This is how I want us to treat each other and the material: Safe, Friendly, and Responsible.”

His uses the term framework differently than FFT. First, he names it as something that stays in the teacher’s mind. Second, the way he advises teachers to reinforce positive behaviour lacks the self-regulatory effect of the framework that always hangs visibly on the wall.

Moral contract

Teitler also appoints his framework as something against which the teacher can evaluate student behaviour. That is fine. His framework does not include the teacher’s behaviour. The strength of the framework made explicit is precisely that it works as a moral contract between all those involved: between students, between students and teacher (from the students’ point of view) and between teacher and students (from the teacher’s point of view). With that reciprocity, that “fairness” you build relations.

6 Framework in primary and secondary education

Primary Education

In PE, it is valuable to translate your – or the existing framework of the school – with the students into concrete behaviour. If the students make these positively formulated class rules themselves, they are more likely to behave accordingly and are easier to hold accountable. During a school year, you can, in consultation with the group, add elements to this list as needed.

Secondary Education

If the school has a framework, it is advisable to give your personal and subject-specific translation. At the beginning of the school year, discuss with your students what attitude you require in your subject and why this is important to them. In case of a new type of disruption, discuss it with the group. Conclude this conversation with a positively worded rule.

7 Framework in historical perspective

It is important that everyone benefits from the framework. Another name for framework is imperative or moral imperative. The philosopher Kant calls directions for behaviour of general application a categorical imperative. An imperative is categorical if it is unconditionally valid for everyone under all circumstances.

[Kant] notes that a good theory of parenting is a wonderful ideal, and that it is not at all bad when we are not immediately able to realize that ideal. One should not immediately regard the idea behind it as a chimera, or as a beautiful but unrealizable dream, precisely when all sorts of obstacles (within oneself or from without) arise in its implementation. And then he says: ‘An idea is an understanding of a perfection not yet found in reality, for example a republic ruled perfectly according to rules of justice! But is it therefore impossible?’ In any case, the point is to get your idea clear, and then, if possible, remove the obstacles.” Visser (2017)

Kant calls a framework of general scope that calls on everyone to behave well: A moral imperative.

7.1 Maxime and hypothetical imperative

Immanuel Kant also coined these two terms related to this topic:

  1. Personal maxim: An instruction for behaviour only meant for yourself, is not a framework.
  2. Hypothetical imperative: An instruction for behaviour that does not always apply or only applies under certain conditions, is not a framework.

The trick is to make a framework apply to everyone and always apply it (categorical imperative). Only then will a close-knit group emerge where everyone is welcome.

8 Acting Ethically

When you see your students making wise choices in their lives and taking responsibility in society, it is satisfying. What role do you play in your students’ actions? How do you encourage students to act ethically?

A first step is to create a framework. In their school years, the framework determines how students behave in your classes and in school. You then hope that they will continue to behave in the manner of the framework after leaving school.
By the way you teach, you set an example for your students. Not only your example is decisive:

Only if you yourself think something is good, you will do it” Wijnbergen (2011), Rob.

“You” in this quote can refer to both student and teacher.
With different approaches to teaching, students gain ownership over their own actions. This determines their identity: Why I act is who I am (Kant).

9 Summary

A framework gives direction to both your own and your students’ behaviour. You show behaviour that fits the framework and thus set a good example. If you behave in a way that suits the framework, you will see this reflected in the behaviour of your students. Subsequently, you benefit from the fact that students behave better. As a role model you have the right to reinforce positive behaviour. When the framework offers advantages to everyone, students effortlessly conform.  When colleagues and senior staff members also show the framework in their behaviour the effect of the framework is even stronger.