The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 240

Jennifer Gonzalez, Host


GONZALEZ: The year started off beautifully: You had your routines in place, made your expectations clear, and for a while, your students were behaving just fine. You were teaching right along, getting things done, and then it started to crumble. Little by little, the kids got noisier and more distracted, the classroom started to get chaotic, you found yourself yelling more, running out of time for planned activities, and generally feeling completely run down. 

It can happen to the best of us — classroom management deteriorating over time. But don’t despair: By figuring out where the problems are, you can turn things back around.

My guest today is Claire English, who runs an incredible platform called The Unteachables, where she hosts a podcast, courses, and a membership program all in the service of helping teachers manage their classrooms with confidence and calm. On top of all that, she published a book this year called It’s Never Just About The Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management. I have been bingeing her fantastic content on Instagram for the last year and am thrilled to finally be sitting down with her for a chat.

In this episode, Claire is going to talk about three reasons why classroom management can fall apart midway through a school year, and what teachers can do to get things heading back in the right direction.


Before we get started, I’d like to thank Alpaca for sponsoring this episode. Interested in knowing how your teachers are really doing, right now? I’ve always believed that asking teachers and students for feedback is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to improve a school’s culture. Earlier this year at SXSW EDU, I discovered something new that really caught my attention: it’s called semantic pulse surveying and it’s from a company called Alpaca. You might have heard them on episode 230 of the podcast back in June! I tried it myself, and it was so different from the usual surveys we’re used to. Instead of picking from a 1-to-5 scale, I just tapped words that described how I was feeling — words like joyful or refreshed or like half-hearted or drained — and I instantly thought “teachers will feel seen and heard with this.”

What’s great is that these surveys are super quick and anonymous, but they give school leaders deep insights into how their staff is really doing. Pair that with Alpaca’s teacher recognition packs, and you’ve got a system that not only listens to teachers but celebrates them too. If you want to make a real difference in your school’s culture, check out Alpaca at alpacapacks.com/pedagogy and get a special 15% off just for Cult of Pedagogy listeners.

Support also comes from Scholastic Magazines+. What if we told you there’s a way to delight your students AND take the pressure out of lesson planning? Scholastic Magazines+ delivers with captivating content for kids and time-saving lesson plans for you. Every single story, video, and activity is crafted to engage your learners and complement your curriculum. Throughout the year, your class receives all-new stories in the format of your choice: print, digital, or both. Your students will love reading relevant texts, watching real-life videos, and connecting lesson topics to their own lives. You’ll love that every issue builds essential knowledge and skills for evidence-based instruction. Visit scholastic.com/magazines today to learn more, and use code 6789 to save 40% on the 2024-2025 subscription of your choice. Offer expires January 31st.

Now here’s my conversation with Claire English about how to get your classroom management back on track.


GONZALEZ: Claire English, welcome to the podcast. 

ENGLISH: Thank you so much, Jenn. It’s honestly wonderful to be here. I am a, I would call myself kind of like a long-term listener and, you know, first time caller because I love your work. And I just can’t wait to nerd out on teaching with you. 

GONZALEZ: Well, thank you. I love your work too. You, I don’t know how I stumbled on you. Maybe it was like a year or two ago, and I was just kind of like who is this person? And all of the stuff that you have on, mostly it’s your Instagram that I see because you’re very prolific on Instagram. So if my, my people here don’t know you yet, let’s get, help them get to know who you are. You’ve got a massive audience, so they probably do. But just in case, you have got a platform that you call The Unteachables.

ENGLISH: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: So tell us a little bit about who you are and about this platform and why it’s called that. 

ENGLISH: When people ask me this question, I always say, well the short version is that I’m just a regular old teacher who has kind of deeply experienced how teacher training has completely let our students and us down. So I’m just on a mission to do what I can to change that. The slightly longer version is that, you know, I came into teaching with this really, really strong why. But when I was at school, when I was at school myself I really, really struggled. I was that kid in primary school, I was in all the gifted and talented classes, you know. I was, I was the one that teachers would be like, oh, Claire, you know. She’s brilliant, blah blah blah. Got into high school and bam, you know, I was the bad kid, the naughty kid, the no hope, the one that teachers wished just weren’t in their class. I was sent out constantly. But what they didn’t know was that at home I was caring for my mom who had significant mental health needs. I was the unteachable kid, but I had so much going on beneath the surface that no one even cared to ask if I was okay around, you know. So I did somehow graduate. I don’t know how I graduated, but I did, and I never wanted to see the inside of a school again. I couldn’t think of anything worse than seeing the inside of a school again. But the work that I do now, I just felt this, like, really big kind of gravitational pull. I went into social work first, actually, and I went, oh my gosh, no. Like the key to these kids getting a brighter future, a better future and feeling confident and feeling like they can do something is through the education they can get. But they need teachers who are willing to see them more for those behaviors. So I’m like, no, I’m going into teaching. I’m doing this. So yes, I had a really strong why going into teaching, and I was just so passionate about making change, but then I got into the classroom and oh boy. And I immediately became the teacher that I did not want to be. I immediately fell back on the strategies that teachers had used with me, this frightened, sad, confused, lost girl who needed so much more. And I’m like, oh my gosh. Like what am I doing? So if someone like me could go into a classroom and still be reactive and punitive and raise my voice and be frustrated and treat the kids like they’re nothing, then any teacher could because we just, we’re in survival mode all of the time. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

ENGLISH: And so we need more than a strong why. Like 100 percent we need more than a strong why. We need more than the right values to shift these behaviors and, you know, to shift the narrative for these kids. We need strong pedagogies. We need strong support. And very early in my career, I’m talking like two years into my career when I was still rubbish at classroom management, I told myself that the work that I do now with The Unteachables is the work that I need to do one day. And fast forward 15 years, and I’m, like, living out this dream where I get to support as many teachers like me as possible. It really is something that I would never imagine for myself and for the teachers that I’m able to support. And it’s just, yeah, something that I’m able to do every single day that brings me so much joy. But that is kind of like the very short elevator pitch of The Unteachables and what I do. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: But yeah, it’s just something, I also wanted to challenge this notion that we can’t reach that kid sitting in the back. Like, they are teachable, and they are reachable. 

GONZALEZ: That’s, and so, and it is, so it’s primarily what you’re doing, and this is what I’ve seen from your feed is that it’s sort of, it feels like it’s about maybe four parts teacher wellness and mindset stuff and then maybe about six parts actual classroom management strategies. Does that sound about right? That’s what I’ve picked up, anyway. 

ENGLISH: Yeah, because you can’t have teachers who have the capacity to support the students in their classroom, especially the ones with these big behaviors if we’re not taking care of ourselves. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

ENGLISH: And, you know, teacher well-being is such a huge issue. And if we don’t, if we don’t have that, we can’t show up in the way that we need to. So definitely, like a big part of my mission is, you know, just teachers need a champion as well, and they need somebody in their corner as well. And I try to be that first, and then give them the strategies to be a champion for their students. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: So it really does kind of come from that top-down. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. And they, yeah, they’re so interrelated. Just out of curiosity, so you are, I’m talking to you right now from New Zealand, correct? 

ENGLISH: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

ENGLISH: I specifically don’t go into where I am because it gets a little bit confusing. I’m an Australian teacher as maybe you can tell by my accent. And some of you might think I’m British because I spent seven years there recently, and I’ve just come back to New Zealand. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

ENGLISH: So I know now I’m throwing another country in the mix. But I’m in New Zealand for a year just with my partner’s family. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

ENGLISH: I will be going back to Sydney. So it gets a little bit confusing. I’m a bit, you know, global. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. So your experience as a teacher and your training has been Australian for the most part? 

ENGLISH: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

ENGLISH: So Australian for half, UK for half. So I’ve kind of, yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. And what did you teach? 

ENGLISH: English. So I’m an English teacher. 

GONZALEZ: English teacher. And what grade levels did you teach? 

ENGLISH: High school. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

ENGLISH: So your 7th through to your 12th. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. And so that did, so we would consider 7th and 8th to be middle school here. 

ENGLISH: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: So you’ve got, okay. I want to, I wanted to establish that only because when people listen to your advice, which we’re going to be talking about in a little bit, I want them to know what you’re coming from. And my audience is primarily, it’s kind of worldwide, which I’m sure yours definitely is too, but it’s probably, leans heavily on US-based teachers and probably leans a little bit more to the middle to older grades versus the really, really young kids. Okay. And so, and you have on your site, you’ve got a course that we’re going to talk about, and you’ve also got a book that you just published a few months ago called “It’s Never Just About the Behavior.” So we’ll mention all of that at the end too, but I just want people listening to know that you, what you’re offering here is just kind of a sampling. You’ve got a lot more stuff that they can take advantage of that we’ll get into in a little bit. So, okay. So what we’re going to be talking about today is, you know, we’re recording this in November. Because I think when we originally planned to talk it was sort of to help teachers get set up for the year. But I almost think that today’s topic is even more needed because a lot of teachers now have been teaching for a few months or well into it, and this can sometimes be when things go off the rails. For whatever reason it’s, “My classroom management plan is not working.” So what we decided you were going to talk to us about today are some of the most common reasons that this can happen and what teachers can do to get themselves back on track. So we’ve decided you’re going to kind of pick three main causes of this and what teachers can do. So I’m going to just hand it over to you and have you tell us what the first thing is. 

ENGLISH: Absolutely. And I want to start by saying this is so common. And I think that most people listening can relate to the whole idea of, oh my gosh, like I’ve started the year, you know. I’ve gone gung-ho with my expectation setting and, you know, students might have really responded to that, and I’ve got quite a nice classroom. Quite a bit going on, and you might start to feel, “Sweet,” like, you know, “I’ve got this in the bag for the year.” But then, you know, things start to slip, and the consistency starts to slip and as the year goes on, you know, things can get a little bit more challenging. And there are a few things that I always talk about with teachers when this starts to happen. First is obviously that it happens to a lot of us and most of us, actually. And there are so many things that we can be doing. I’m all about talking about the things we can control. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: There are a lot of other factors that we can’t control that’s going on in this situation, but I’ll just talk about the things that we can control because I’m all about empowering teachers to go in and do their thing. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

ENGLISH: The first thing: Students are constantly pushing boundaries. What we need to understand is that throughout the year they’re always going to be pushing, pushing, pushing. At the start of the year, they’re like, oh, I don’t really know, miss or sir, like I don’t really know what they’re all about. I’ve heard their expectations, and they sound like they’re serious, but let’s see how this goes. And then as the year goes on, they start pushing and pushing. And if you aren’t meeting them there at that place, and if we’re not reinforcing those expectations, those boundaries in the day-to-day, then things will little by little start to get more difficult to handle as the year goes on. And what we need to understand about expectations, they’re not a one-and-done. They’re not even really us talking about expectations and behavior in the day-to-day. They’re something that we need to live and breathe in absolutely everything that we do. And one of the most important things that I teach teachers is that every single thing that we do in our practice is sending messages to our students. So you want to make sure that in the day-to-day you’re sending messages to your students that are proactively and consistently reinforcing the expectations and boundaries that you want to see for your students, that you want to be reinforcing and setting with them. For example, this is a really, really common one that I see. I’ve observed hundreds and hundreds of teachers in the course of my career. This is one that I see all of the time, especially as the year goes on, we get more tired. We get more fed up. We get more frustrated with the kinds of consistent behaviors that we’re seeing. So we’re not on it as much. But one of the really common ones that, you know, kind of raises this idea is that we’re waiting for attention from our students and our students are chatting away. What we start to do is we start to go, “Oh, gosh. I’m just going to keep teaching.” And we start to think near enough is good enough, and we start to teach over the chatter. And that’s one thing that happens really, really often. It’s because we feel so pressured we need to, you know —

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: We’ve got a curriculum to teach. We’ve got, you know, we’ve got higher ups that we need to report to about the progress, about students. We’ve got Billy in the front row who’s waiting there patiently ready to be taught. So we go, “No. I’m not going to be doing this. I’m just going to keep teaching you.” What happens when we continue to teach over the chatter like that is we’re sending messages to our students that you don’t need to listen to me. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: The message that I’m sending you doesn’t matter. And that’s the, and the expectation that I’m holding, it’s not really an expectation. It’s kind of like a nice-to-have, not a must-have. So Jane’s up in the corner there. That’s all right. If you want to have a chat to your friends, you don’t have to be learning this. That is something that compounds over time with all of these micro-moments. 

GONZALEZ: Yes. 

ENGLISH: So at the start of the year, you know, you’ve got your expectations set and they’re fresh in the kid’s mind, and they’re up on the wall, and you know, you’ve got all of those things that are really fresh, but then they’re pushing the boundaries. And little by little things start to slip and it’s all of those little micro-moments that happen. So that’s the first thing. 

GONZALEZ: You know, I think I have a post out there somewhere about that, and I call it the Five-Second Rule, that if you will just wait five quiet seconds to get it actually where it’s 100 percent, and you don’t have to be making a snotty face. You don’t have to say anything sarcastic. You don’t have to fold your arms. You can literally just sit there and wait, and it’ll regulate your own emotions too while you’re waiting for that quiet. And then you’re not wasting your breath trying to, yeah, talk over that chaos. 

ENGLISH: Absolutely. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, so what’s the second thing? 

ENGLISH: Well it kind of leads really nicely into that, to be honest with you because it’s a nonverbal teaching presence. What also happens as the year progresses is we get to know our kids more, don’t we? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: Like we become, you know, we have better relationships with them, their rapport becomes stronger. We might have, you know, more of a casual kind of chat with them here and there. But what happens in this situation is we begin to slip into a different kind of teaching presence and teaching persona. There’s two teaching presences and these are, it’s a nonverbal concept by Michael Grinder. I don’t know if you’ve heard of his work before. Like one of the things that I would say that I am the most lucky about in my teaching career is being able to go and do Michael Grinder training when I was in my early career. 

GONZALEZ: Say the last name again. Grander? 

ENGLISH: I think it’s, I think it’s Grinder. I can’t remember how he pronounces it. But we say Grinder. 

GONZALEZ: Oh, so it’s spelled like “grind”? 

ENGLISH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, Michael Grinder. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I heard you right because I’ll look it up myself later, but yeah, okay. 

ENGLISH: Because I do know that you would say it differently than me. 

GONZALEZ: We might say Grinder, yeah. Okay, so Michael Grinder. And what is his training? You’ve gone to his trainings? 

ENGLISH: So it’s kind of the foundations of non-confrontational, non-verbal classroom management. Classroom management that is connecting rather than disconnecting. It is brilliant. So a few of his concepts, other things that really underpin some of my work. So he’s got this idea that there are two teaching presences, and there’s the credible and the approachable. The credible is when we practice more stillness. This is exactly what you were just saying before, waiting five quiet seconds, and it’s not about having a sour face on. It’s not about giving that, you know, the teacher look out over the glasses. It’s just five credible, quiet, still seconds. So one way, credible. We’re still, we’re quiet, our pace is slower. We’re weighted evenly on both feet. And the message that we’re sending when we’re in this teaching presence is that, “I’m serious, and I’m credible, and I mean business, and we’re going to be learning. This is a place of learning.” The approachable, and I was trying to embody it a little bit there, when we’re approachable, we’re looser, we’re louder, we’re more casual, we’re faster. You know, you might get frazzled, you might, “Come on, guys. You need to be listening.” Like, all of that language and the body language is the approachable. I am a very loud, you can see my hands and, you know, they’re going all over the place. I’m a very gestural person. I’m a very loud person. I’m a very fast, quick-talking person. And this was the one thing that I struggled with the most. And when I shifted, when I learned how to shift between the credible and the approachable, the game changed for classroom management. So I wanted to talk about this in particular because when I’ve spoken about this on my podcast or when I’ve done training around it, this is the thing that most people come back and say, “Oh my gosh. It was like a magic bullet. Oh my gosh. It is like day and night.” 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: So I always like to come on and talk about this stuff because it is, there’s no quick fixes in classroom management. It’s really complex. 

GONZALEZ: Right. 

ENGLISH: This is one thing that is, it is, it’s like a flick of a switch. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. So first of all, I think this is, I don’t know if they have this in Australia, but we have this thing in America with teaching where it says don’t, don’t smile ’til Christmas. 

ENGLISH: Yep. 

GONZALEZ: And I think this is the much more sophisticated nuanced version of that. Because we’re thinking, “No, I want to build relationships with my kids. I don’t want them to think that I’m unkind.” But what you’re talking about is the difference between somebody who takes themselves seriously and somebody who wants more to be liked than anything else. And so I guess my question is though, if you’ve slipped too far into approachable, how do you get it back to credible? Because they already have seen that.

ENGLISH: So that’s fine because we are both all of the time, and we can use both. In the same lesson, I’ll be going between approachable and credible constantly. 

GONZALEZ: Okay. 

ENGLISH: It’s so important to be able to build the relationships with our students. It’s so important to be able to be warm and I mean, being credible doesn’t mean you’re not warm. You can smile, you can have that face on. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah. 

ENGLISH: But it’s just embodying a nonverbal presence that is stiller, slower. It means business. We are constantly credible and approachable. The most important thing is knowing how to balance those. So as a starter lesson, when I’m trying to set up that first five minutes and I’m trying to get students to, you know, start on their starter activity, I will be standing at the front. I’ll be using my proximity, my presence. I’ll be moving around slowly. At the end of the lesson, I might go, come on, let’s have a game. Stand up, everyone. And I’ll get the energy up, and I’ll get the energy going, and I’ll get students over to my desk and have a chat. When I’m one-to-one with students during the lesson, “Come on, what’s happening here?” Like, my language will change. My body language will change. So this is not to say that you need to be 100 percent credible, and you can’t shift between modes, and you have to be this strict, stern person. That is not me at all. It just means knowing this is a tool, this is a strategy, this is being able to be really cognizant of how the messages that you’re sending through your body language, that’s all that it is. And your body language is either saying, “Now is the time to have a chit chat and relax a little bit,” or your body language is saying, “You know what? This is time where we need to get down to have some work and have some independent work.”

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: Does that make sense? 

GONZALEZ: It does. I’m thinking that there’s probably a good amount of people listening that can self-identify right off the bat like yeah, that sounds like me. But are there other ways that you can figure out if this is a problem for you, if you don’t recognize it?

ENGLISH: A lot of, yeah, a lot of teachers will say, “Oh my gosh. Like, I do feel like I’m, I’m awkward when I’m trying to get them to do their work,” or “I feel uncomfortable when I’m, you know, trying to be furious in that part of the lesson, and I feel like I want to be a teacher who’s really kind and compassionate, and I want to build good relationships. So I don’t want to tarnish that.” Like, a lot of teachers who are more empathetic and warm, and I love that. Like, you are my people. You are brilliant. But you struggle sometimes to, when you are credible, you are not sacrificing the relationship. And if you feel like you being a little bit more serious is going to maybe tarnish that a little bit, it’s not going to and that’s a good telltale sign that you might be leaning more into the approachable in the day-to-day. And if you feel like you’re constantly kind of flipping from one place to the other and trying to get, keep the tension using your voice and, that’s a good telltale sign as well that you can start to embody the credible a little bit more. How much are you speaking during the lesson? Like, if you are trying to give instructions, how much are you talking and how much are you just trying to, you know, use all the nonverbal at your disposal? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: Like, just really tune into yourself, like, what you’re actually doing and what you’re actually saying. And just get a little curious about that. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. I’m wondering too. Would it help to video yourself and actually watch — I’ve always found watching myself teach on video is phew, mind-boggling every time. 

ENGLISH: Yep. 

GONZALEZ: And I think also for younger teachers, this is an especially big challenge. If they’re closer to age of the kids, one thing that really helped me to try to figure out, because I am a small female, so I think sometimes if you’re like an older man, you can just walk in and have that kind of presence just naturally. And so I think for some of us, it’s hard to figure out, what do I, what is my teaching serious personality going to be? It helps, I think, to look for role models within your school or even online. And if you can find a person who sort of hits the right note for you, it kind of feels like you, that can be kind of something to channel or shoot for when you’re trying to get that more credible teaching presence. 

ENGLISH: Yes, absolutely. 

GONZALEZ: Okay, so what’s the third thing? 

ENGLISH: At the end of the year, so this’ll be coming up, but we’re recording in November, aren’t we? So I’m assuming you’ll be listening around the December time. And at this time of the year, wherever you are, like so in the Southern Hemisphere, we’re actually winding down the school year and we finish up for summer in December. If you’re listening in the Northern Hemisphere, you are going into winter, it’s cold. The calendar year’s ending. So either way, things are going to start getting a little bit more challenging. And it’s on both sides of the spectrum. There could be a lot of apathy, so you might get less out of some students, you might have them coming to class late. You might hear a lot of, “But why are we still doing this? We’ve done our exams.” You know, all that kind of stuff. And then you might have real high energy classes. You might have more of the chatty behaviors. You might have students who are just really hard to get on task, really hard to get that buy-in. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: So many reasons for these things, really nuanced reasons for anywhere from the fact they’re just excited, like, for the year to end. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah. 

ENGLISH: To, like, they don’t see the point in learning anymore because they’ve been there, done that. They’ve done their exams. Or maybe there are some students who the holidays represent something really challenging for them, so while some students are super excited to be sleeping in and going and having lunch with their family, other students might be going, “Actually, I’m not safe.” And they might be witnessing domestic violence. They might be having, not having food on their plate. So just recognizing that there are a lot of experiences that our students might have as well. So there are a bunch of reasons why we might see an increase in apathetic behaviors, energetic behaviors, or just big behaviors in general that are really dysregulated. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: No matter what though, because you can’t diagnose all of those right now and I can’t diagnose those for you, so all of the strategies that I teach around this stuff is the same. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: The first thing is just stay super consistent with your routines until the very end. Even if you want to do that fun activity. I’m not saying you can’t watch that movie or do that, you know, whatever task you want to do. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, the power is in the predictability. When those students get to that lesson, keep the same entry routine. They need to be met with something that’s really consistent and predictable because that’s going to help to mitigate the behaviors that you are seeing a rise in, and across the school they’re seeing unpredictability, they’re, you know? 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: They’re going into all different classes and things are changing. They might be doing a fun activity here. They might be doing a sports activity there. Like, things start to shift. So if you can be, I like to call it like our island of safety, if you can be that consistent, predictable island of safety for your students and still have all those lovely routines, then you can break out something in the middle of the lesson and that’s okay. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: So that’s the first thing. Like, keep the same expectations. Do a starter. Do what you’ve always done. And then you can kind of swap up the middle. The second thing is just be equipped with a bunch of things in your toolbox that are going to up-regulate and down-regulate whenever needed, like at a pinch. Like, have things ready. But also it helps to channel that energy positively when needed. So I just have a bunch of classroom games, and I have a bunch of games. Like, I’ve seen the kind of things that you’ve put out there, Jenn. It’s amazing. So those kinds of things, like games. To use at a pinch, read the room and just know when to throw in a brain break. Know when to go, you know what, everybody? I can see. Everyone put their head on their desk right now. Things aren’t going too well. Like, stand up. We’re going to do a game. Pick a card out of this bunch and let’s choose what game to do together today. So that helps to refocus, but it also gets students up and moving when needed. I also just keep like a big list of mindfulness links if I see that things are just really high energy, and I need to bring that energy down. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: So, you know, guided meditation, a bit of chair yoga, just something to have up on the board. Like sometimes when students walk in at the end of the year, I’ll have, like, an ambient, like, sound, like animal sound, nature sound video going with like a nice, calming video on the background. Just things that I know are going to help, like it’s almost like a teaching assistant in the room helping me to down-regulate as well. But the main thing, be consistent. Know when to revert and just read the room because you’re going to be reading the room a lot when it comes to the end of the year. Things are super unpredictable. The energy’s unpredictable, and it’s all about having some tools at a pinch to be able to grab — 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: — to help you get to the end of the year in one piece and your students as well. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so we’ve talked about some things that can help when things go awry. But if you have just sort of one final piece of advice that you would give to any teacher that’s kind of your go-to advice for improving behavior in the classroom, what is that? 

ENGLISH: It leads on from everything that I’ve just said and everything that I’ve just said can kind of be reinforced by this one thing. But it’s the one phrase: Be what you want to see from your students. And it ties into everything. Be what you want to see. If you see students in front of you that are chaotic, be the opposite. Be the calm presence. Co-regulate with them through that, you know? If you’re seeing that things aren’t going well, what do I want to see from my students? I’m going to embody that. And as much as we can try to, I think of it as us steering the ship of our classroom energetically. As much as we can do that, and that’s why I always, you know, talk about teacher well-being and all of that stuff. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: Because, you know, our own regulation is so paramount to everything that we do. But that one phrase, if you’re ever in doubt, just ask yourself, like, what am I, how am I right now? Like, how am I in my body? How can I be what I want to see from my students? And I just go back to that all of the time. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. That’s a really good just, like, compass to get yourself back in line. Let’s talk a little bit about all the things that you offer. You’ve got a podcast, you’ve got The Behaviour Club. Tell me about those. 

ENGLISH: So my podcast, The Unteachables Podcast, it’s kind of just the go-to place if you want to, I mean you’ve just heard me speak on this podcast, haven’t you? So if you want a lot more of that, then you go to my podcast. 

GONZALEZ: And I’m going to be a guest on your podcast next year. 

ENGLISH: Yes. 

GONZALEZ: So I will also be reminding people to go over there whenever I come on as a guest for you. 

ENGLISH: Absolutely. 

GONZALEZ: And so you cover all this kind of stuff over there too? 

ENGLISH: Oh, all the things, yeah, all the things. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yes. 

ENGLISH: So come and soak up all of that free classroom management support. And I’ve got The Behaviour Club, so if you are like, “You know what? Yes. I love a good podcast, but I actually need to dive into some, like, real tailored mentorship, some training. Like, I want to really get a handle on this classroom management stuff.” I’ve got my membership, The Behaviour Club, and that’s the mentorship, the community, the support, the training, the resources, all of the things that I’ve mentioned today, by the way, have either a training or a resource attached. Like I try to make everything as easy as possible for my Behaviour Clubbers. But freaking brilliant. So if you are looking for something a little bit more deeper in the support and more accessible as well, The Behaviour Club is definitely the go-to. And of course I’ve got my book, “It’s Never Just About the Behavior,” and that is perfect for anybody who prefers their professional development in their hands curled up with a cup of tea, really. 

GONZALEZ: Yeah. 

ENGLISH: So however you want to work with me, whether it’s the podcast, The Behaviour Club, the book, and I’ve got a bunch of other things as well. 

GONZALEZ: And your stuff is, it’s fantastic. Every, everything you do. I mean I’ve already fangirled over and over again. 

ENGLISH: Aw, thank you, Jenn. I really appreciate that. 

GONZALEZ: You’ve got a massive following of people, and so clearly it is really hitting and resonating with people. So I’m just, I’m excited that we finally made this happen. I can’t wait to come on your show too a little bit later. And everybody should just go check out The Unteachables. So thank you so much, Claire. 

ENGLISH: I really appreciate it, Jenn. I am beyond happy that we got to do this and to see your lovely face in person, kind of. 

GONZALEZ: Thank you so much.


For a full transcript of this episode and links to Claire’s book, her podcast, her courses, and the Behaviour Club, visit cultofpedagogy.com, click Podcast, and choose episode 240. To get a bimonthly email from me about my newest blog posts, podcast episodes, courses and products, sign up for my mailing list at cultofpedagogy.com/subscribe. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.