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The Debate Over the Causes and Solutions to the Behavioural Crisis.
All the participants in the education system, teachers, education support workers, administrators, parents, are familiar with some of the vocabulary surrounding the debate over behaviour in schools.
We hear dysregulation, trauma, triggering, safe spaces, oppositional disorder, restorative justice, social and emotional learning, but we also hear consequences, agency, boundaries, responsibility, self control, and we wonder how this all fits together. Do we cherry pick these terms, use them interchangeably, or is there a logic or a spine connecting this situation? Is it political, philosophical, how do we sort it out?
Few understand that we have all landed in the middle of a philosophical, and psychological debate that began in the universities, grew rapidly in the field of psychology in the 1990s, perhaps peaked in the early 2000s and was later exacerbated by electronic devices around 2010, and covid in 2019.
There are, in fact, two ‘camps’ factions, or schools of thought, proposing solutions. They can sometimes compromise but are often at loggerheads. It is not political in the traditional liberal-conservative or left-right sense, but they are two, well intentioned camps competing for influence within many institutions like the criminal justice system, but now including school systems. Camp 1 is the therapy-trauma informed group, and Camp 2 is the agency-responsibility group, but how do they differ? Can they come together?
Before the 1990s, group 2 was the prevailing outlook. Group 1 blossomed 1990-2010 and became dominant. As the behavioural crisis surfaced, many believed that Group 1 has failed and we need to reevaluate. So, how do they differ?
What’s the Real Tension? What is the conflict really about? When does understanding become excusing? When does accountability become cruelty? Is the primary issue unmet needs? Or is it declining norms and weakening authority.
The divide is also philosophical. Today the therapy model is dominant, but the agency-responsibility model is making a strong comeback.
Is there a potential synthesis?
It's possible. Researchers say a synthesis would seek explanation first (therapy), and offer support, (therapy) but maintain clear consequences (agency) and distinguish trauma from simple rule breaking. (Both).
Another perspective involves international comparisons. The nations that lean towards the therapy-trauma model are the Anglosphere, Canada, USA, Australia, NZ, plus the Nordic nations. Germany and France are really in the middle and Asian nations lean towards the agency-responsibility model.
The Anglosphere asks ‘’what happened to this child’’? East Asia would ask ‘’what responsibility does this child have to the group.’’ In some Asian nations, students clean the school and prepare meals. Can you even imagine North American parents sitting still for that? On one side, Asian societies top international testing results like PISA and have very few discipline problems. Asian societies, whether socialist or capitalist, emphasize the best interests of the group. Western societies emphasise the individual.
In Asia, misbehaving students commonly would write a letter of apology to the class for disturbing their education. If it continued, they might be sent out to the principal, sent home and parents would need to come to this school for reinstatement. The upshot is, few discipline problems and comparatively higher achievement.
A few nations are already shifting back towards the agency responsibility model. Notably the UK, Australia, France, Sweden, and the USA are shifting, in spotty fashion, by state or school board. Zero tolerance policies were initially strongly criticized but the alternative has been escalating chaos. Asian nations are not shifting towards the therapy-trauma model.
The rise of the therapy-trauma model emerged, not from education, but from researchers connecting childhood trauma to adult addiction, depression, and health issues. Somehow the mental health model migrated to the school system as a cause of misbehaviour in education. This is when misbehaviour became reframed as a mental health issue.
In the USA this came to be included under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Now, with a mental health designation, parents have a greater right to an accommodation. Parents armed with a disability designation, have a much stronger case to demand an accommodation, often in the form of mainstreaming into general education.
Teacher training programs shifted to social and emotional learning, restorative justice, and therapeutic education. University educated parents emphasised emotional validation and self esteem.
On the other front,Teachers are now rebelling and shifting the narrative.
Teachers are reporting an overwhelming increase in classroom chaos, a lack of consequences from above, violence, and nervous administration, pressured from below to ‘’do something’’ and from above don’t to use traditional discipline. Something had to give and that seems to manifest as a massive teacher shortage composed of both early retirement and recruitment issues. You can’t pay enough to fix it. The message from the classroom seems to be, if you mainstream everybody, insist on a therapy model, and tell us to just differentiate and scaffold that is your prerogative, but if you do, we will quit.
It all comes down to this question. Why do students behave badly?
In the Therapeutic model ‘Something bad happened to this student’. In the Agency-Responsibility model,’This student must learn self-control’.
There is a very interesting politics that is arising from this. The opposition to the Therapy model comes from three different strange bedfellows.
Traditional conservatives who have always prioritized discipline and order, believe too much therapy replaces discipline with explanation. The second could be characterized as the Old labour left. Union oriented teachers and labour-left thinkers argue, ‘’chaos and lack of discipline hurts working class kids. The well behaved, working class kids are distracted and having their learning time wasted. This second group, believes that middle class reformers underestimate the importance of structure.
Schools must provide structure as a precondition to learning.’’ The third member of the push back are teachers themselves whether union activists or just regular classroom teachers.
The allies, clinging to the therapy-trauma informed model, are school administrators, faculties of education, school psychologists, the parents of the students in question, and identity oriented liberals.
The issue is that compromise is not easy. The position of this report leans strongly to the agency responsibility model. Well intentioned people may differ. Either way, we need to deal with it.