Reflections of #SLAYLG17 Part Three: Calm & Collected: Managing Behaviour in a School Library
During the #SLAYLG17 conference In Harrogate I
had the great opportunity to attend a session called “Calm & Collected:
Managing Behaviour in Your Library” led by Annike Dase.
To start, Annike asked us to
write down three sets of thoughts regarding managing behaviour in the library.
These were: Things I Cannot Change / Things I Could Change If I Had Help/
Things I Could Change Today.
We stuck these thoughts up around
the walls in different locations around the room and then discussed them. What
I took away from this exercise is how lucky I am to have supportive management
and well behaving students. I was very surprised at some of the answers from
the other librarians as a lot of their concerns stemmed around lack of
consistency with school policy and students exhibiting behaviour that is totally unacceptable such as swearing at staff and destroying library furniture. Again, I’m very lucky that this is
not an issue in the library I manage.
Annike then projected a slide
depicting what could be a typical day for a librarian, teacher or anyone,
really. Things like, “You get up early and get your family ready for the day,
you haven’t had enough sleep. You don’t eat lunch because there is no time, you
are constantly interrupted when trying to get things done. Breaktimes are the
most stressful parts of the day. You find out you did something wrong and it
stresses you out, you go home exhausted” and so on.
Everyone agreed that it depicted
a typical day in the life of someone who works in a school. Annike then
reminded us that students in our school can have exactly the same kind of day,
even worse in some instances. We as librarians / teachers need to put ourselves
in students’ shoes as we try to manage behaviour.
Annike discussed how we need to
take into account weather and simply being bored when dealing with difficult
behaviour. From personal experience I agree with her comment regarding the
weather. When it’s raining student behaviour changes remarkably. Also, hormones and school / peer pressure play major factors.
Annike then discussed something
called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which states that if children don’t receive
basic needs: food, shelter, sleep, self esteem and so on, there is no way we
can expect them to express empathy towards others or care about our desire to
have them behave in the library. The sad reality is that a lot of children’s
needs are not met which can translate to what we sometimes describe as simply
“being bad” when the reality is much deeper.
We as school librarians cannot
control the factors that cause this particular kind of behaviour however we can
change our response to it, Annike stated.
Tools that combat negative
behaviour according to Annike are controlling the number of students in the
library, alter your library space so it is used more effectively e.g. moving
passive programming materials like crafts & colouring books to areas where
teens congregate, get bored and cause problems. Finally, she suggests making
use of your school sanction system.
Students who come to the library “just
to hang around” should be given tasks or quiet activities to do. It will either
keep them there or prompt them to move on, according to Annike.
On a somewhat contentious point,
Annike stated that it is not the students’ job to tidy the library. This point
was made after a librarian remarked how students consistently make a mess in
the stacks e.g rearranging books in the wrong order on purpose.
I don’t agree with Annike here, I
am pretty militant when it comes to students cleaning up paper cuttings, pencil
shavings and balled up pieces of paper that should be a basic part of their
lives both home and at school. I often remind students that the library belongs
to them and they should take care of it. After hearing several of the stories
from other librarians, I realise how lucky I am in this regard as the students
do not generally make a mess at all.
Another point Annike made was
that if students are in the library messing around, it means they feel it’s a
safe place to do so and that is a good thing. Again, I’m on the fence with this
one. Yes, it’s a good thing that students want to come to the library however I
don’t find I’m mentally high-fiving myself when a group of students enter the
library and act inappropriately. In fact, I will simply throw them out if they
continue this behaviour for more than a minute or after one warning.
We have plenty of students that
feel the library is a safe place and do not mess around at all. We have to keep
the library sane for them as well.
Annike suggests that we speak to
our students and find out what kind of library they want – do they want it
whisper quiet? This is a good point and I’ve been meaning to survey the
students about library usage and perception for a long time now. However, we
also need to take into account what I want, what the Library Assistant wants
and what Senior Leadership and the Head Teacher want. In the end, I want a
library that everyone feels safe in, one they know they can get on with silent
reading or quiet work while meeting their friends and taking part in all of the
fun activities that we offer.
In the end, Annike states that
there are 3 things that we can deal with immediately when it comes to behaviour
in the library:
- Understanding factors that influence behaviour – yours and theirs
- Creating an environment that minimises some of those factors: library space, signage, distraction activities)
- Building good relationships through effective communication: being rational, not emotional. Talking in a calm voice, getting down to the student’s eye level. Being aware of our body language and pointing out the signs in the library.
Annike then pointed out
strategies for success:
- Look after yourself
- See the person in the student, not just their behaviour
- Build relationships with them through effective communication
- Create a positive environment
- Break negative cycles
- Focus on moving on
- Forgive and forget
For me this was a very
eye-opening workshop as I got the perspectives of several different school
librarians from around the country. There is no magic bullet that’s going to
create the library environment that you want and although I agreed with a lot
of what Annike said, everybody’s library is different and their approach might
be different.
What’s important for is that we
take what we have learned and employ it in our own style that creates a library
that serves all of the students that come through the doors while respecting
the behaviour policy of the school and those who want a more traditional
library atmosphere. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.
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