Don’t Be A Bad Fortune-Teller – Start Challenging Your Assumptions
Staff should call out low expectations and thoughtless labelling for the counterproductive habits they are, says Jarlath O’Brien…
Being a headteacher can be a very lonely existence that leaves you feeling isolated. For a long time I thought it was the only role in school where this could be a potential problem – but put your tiny violins away, because I’ve learned I was wrong.
I’m married to a SENCo, and have therefore seen first-hand how it’s possible to feel like the lone voice advocating for a group of children that we work so hard to champion. We can sometimes find ourselves alone in having to challenge negativity or low expectations, but challenge them we must.
I used to be one of those people that needed challenging. When I taught in a secondary school, one of the most important times of year was that day in the summer term when we received our timetable and class lists for the next academic year. One such day sticks in my mind – as I scanned the lists, a distinctive surname jumped out at me, that of a family of half a dozen siblings and cousins, who all had behaviour and learning difficulties of some sort. They were – in the language I used to employ before knowing better – a nightmare.
The boy in question was joining Year 7 in September. I’d never even met him, but had already consigned him to my watchlist as someone to impose my will on at an early stage; someone who needed to understand who was boss. Two things happened that year. I learned that he wasn’t related to the school’s other Clarksons, and that he was delightful, with a wicked sense of humour.
I felt incredibly guilty afterwards for writing him off, and learned a salutary lesson that has never left me. I had predicted failure on one very dangerous and erroneous assumption. I had made the ‘fortune-teller error’.
The fortune-teller error – a prediction of failure that fails to materialise – is one of many exaggerated or irrational ways of thinking that we engage in when responding to children and their needs and behaviour. The American psychiatrist Dr Aaron Beck did extensive research into ‘cognitive distortion’ during the 1970s as part of his work on depression, which I’ve found useful for challenging my thinking. I’d like to highlight here some of the cognitive distortions I’ve seen most often (and sometimes been guilty of myself), and how you might challenge them.
All-or-nothing
“Sîan. You have to be perfect for the rest of the term or else you can’t go on the class trip.”
All-or-nothing thinking places children (particularly those with behavioural difficulties) in an almost unwinnable position, by demanding perfection and deeming them to have failed if they don’t achieve. This faulty thinking is reinforced by the notion that we’re extrinsically motivating the child to hold it together for the trip and assuming that the prior negative behaviour was just a premeditated choice to be naughty. To compound it even more, we tend not to impose such unattainable expectations on the rest of the class. We demand that this one child has to work harder than everyone else, despite their difficulties.
Helping colleagues understand the position the child has been placed in can allow them to readjust. (And besides, if the trip is part of the curriculum, your school’s unlikely to let it to be used as a reward).
Ignoring positives and focusing on negatives
“Lara’s had an awful week.”
Doing this will maintain negative beliefs in contradiction of actual evidence regarding child’s conduct when viewed across the whole school. This can be reinforced in a secondary school environment, where we are almost certain to see a partial picture of a child’s time in school, which is then held to be true for all other teachers and times of the day.
Asking colleagues to describe things the child has done well can redress the balance, as can use of the school’s database to show where and when the child has been successful elsewhere in the school – “Yes, a missed homework and a uniform detention for you – but three bonus points in English, a bonus point in French and picked for the school netball team!”
Labelling
“Them? They’re a nightmare.”
My unforgivable dismissal of an entire family above is a case in point. Labelling (or more accurately, ‘mislabelling’) uses strong and emotionally loaded language in an extreme form of generalisation, extending one area of difficulty a child may have to their entire being – or in my case, their relatives. This should always be brought to the attention of colleagues:
“We don’t label children or families in this school.”
Catastrophising
“Emily is going to destroy my lesson today.”
A nuclear version of the fortune-teller error, this is a prediction that things will go pear-shaped on an epic scale. Also called ‘magnification or’ the ‘binocular trick’. I’ve previously had to say, more often than I’d like, “We don’t predict failure in this school.”
Fallacy of control
“If you’re not the most influential person in your classroom, Mr Turner, then who is?”
This is a form of selfemasculation, whereby we see ourselves as helpless and at the mercy of fate. It weakens our position, as we feel little or no ability to influence, change and therefore improve behaviour. In these cases it’s support that’s needed, not challenge. If a colleague feels helpless, that’s the time for us to pile in with as much support as we can muster to turn that mindset around.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll all admit to having done one or all of the above at some point. I know I have. Yet it’s hard to train ourselves out of it, especially when times are tough.
That’s why it’s vital that we challenge each other when we encounter such labels being used, even if that’s easier said than done. If we’re to develop a culture in our schools where such limited thinking will no longer be heard, it’s a duty we can’t afford to avoid.
About the author
Jarlath O’Brien is the headteacher of Carwarden House Community School in Surrey and the author of Don’t Send Him in Tomorrow, published by Independent Thinking Press
