How can teachers and educational professionals handle challenging situations in schools? How can they manage the resulting conflicts? We have conducted an interview with Ulrike Becker, author of “Managing Challenging Behaviour in Schools. Educational Insights and Interventions”.
Interview with Ulrike Becker on “Managing Challenging Behaviour in Schools”
Dear Ulrike Becker, what topics does your publication Managing Challenging Behaviour in Schools cover?
I would like to present tools from my book that enable teachers or educational professionals to prevent or end violence in unexpectedly difficult educational situations. To do this, children or young people and their teachers often need an “interruption.” This should serve to limit aggression and violence while giving teachers time and space to reflect on their pedagogical actions.
I call this form of intervention through interruption a “cut.” I have tested it over several years in everyday school life and presented it for the first time in my book Auffälliges Verhalten in der Schule.
The “cut,” in the sense of a film edit, is unexpected and immediate. It works by using the element of surprise, interrupting the unconscious transfer of the child or young person to the teacher. As a result, the child or young person ceases their aggressive or violent behaviour without being singled out. This means that lessons can still be successful, even with children and young people who are perceived as very difficult.
I am very pleased that the Helga Breuninger Foundation has filmed the “cuts” as staged videos based on the case histories presented in the book for use in further training and everyday counselling. These videos are particularly suitable for the further training of secondary school teachers and lateral entrants. I am delighted that purchasers of the book will have access to these staged videos.
How did you come up with the idea of writing this book? Was there a particular ‘trigger’?
Prof Dr Annedore Prengel asked me if I would be willing to write the book for her series “Pädagogische Einsichten: Practice and Science in Dialogue” series edited with Anne Piezunka, Keke König and Sophia Richter. I was delighted and agreed, as I have decades of practical school experience and scientific expertise in the inclusive support of children and young people with challenging behaviour.
You first published the book in German. What led you to publish an English edition as well?
The book is in high demand in German-speaking countries, and I would like to make it available internationally to teachers, school principals, school psychologists and social workers.
In your book, you also examine pedagogy in times of social crisis. Which external crises are currently having the greatest impact on teachers’ daily work?
In view of the current social challenges, heterogeneity in learning groups is likely to increase despite all efforts to achieve educational equality. The number of children growing up in poverty or difficult life situations will increase. Over the next few years, schools will increasingly be staffed by multi-professional teams, including lateral entrants to the teaching profession. The aim is to organise the work of multi-professional teams in such a way that inclusive education can succeed for all children. To this end, it will be necessary to create conditions in schools that help to limit conspicuous behaviour without having to segregate children. Pedagogical research will be necessary that deals with the success factors of inclusive education under these social conditions.
Who would you recommend this publication to?
Teachers, Teacher for special educational needs, social worker, case worker, school psychologists, school principals.
About Ulrike Becker
Today:
- Adjunct Professorship, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Potsdam
- Training and counseling for teachers, head of schools and pedagogical specialists on the inclusion of children and adolescents with challenging behaviour
- Development, dissemination and professional support of the program „Transition“ – five learning pathways approach to inclusive education for students with challenging behaviour
- Responsable for general matters of primary school education with the „Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Jugend und Familie“ Berlin/Germany,
In an earlier decade I worked as a teacher and School principal in Berlin/Germany.
Order “Managing Challenging Behaviour in Schools. Educational Insights and Interventions” in our shop or download as e-book
Managing Challenging Behaviour in Schools.
Educational Insights and Interventions
by Ulrike Becker
About the book
Challenging behaviour of children and adolescents in everyday school life is often a sign of the difficult life situations in which they grow up. For teachers and educational professionals, dealing with the resulting conflicts is the biggest challenge. This book presents approaches and solutions for understanding and acting in difficult educational situations at school. In addition, an inclusive support approach offers impulses for school development to prevent challenging behaviour.
More interviews can be found on our blog.
