Download this self-assessment form and complete it honestly. Think about ways you contribute to, or distract from, a productive learning environment.
Disruptive Behaviors Self-Assessment
The ways you open and close a session become a “frame” for your massage. Here are some easy and soothing ways to end your sessions.
Soothing Ways to End a Session
We sometimes encounter people who annoy us in class. Choose to make the relationship better—and Take 5!
Ways to Practice Kindness with Annoying Classmates
Are You Disrupting Class?
Research shows that disruptive student behavior is a major learning inhibitor for other students. Some disruptive behaviors are covert, such as sleeping in class, texting under the desk, or arriving late. Others are overt, such as carrying on side conversations, constantly seeking attention, letting cell phones ring, or addressing teachers or other students in aggressive, judgmental, or cynical tones. Are either of these you?
Everyone in a massage training program is paying a significant amount of money to learn classroom material in order to obtain a massage license. Both the instructor and students have a responsibility to curb disruptive behavior and improve the classroom environment. How is your classroom decorum?
What is Considered Disruptive Behavior?
Disruptive behavior is defined as repeated, continuous behaviors that obstruct the ability of instructors to teach and learners to learn. Common examples of disruptive behaviors include:
- Eating in class
- Monopolizing classroom discussions
- Failing to respect the rights of other students to express their viewpoints
- Carrying on distracting side conversations
- Constant questions that interfere with the instructor’s presentation and take the presentation off track
- Overt inattentiveness like sleeping in class, or using a laptop for non-class-related activities
- Creating excessive noise with papers, book bags, and personal articles
- Entering class late or leaving class early
- Texting in class or leaving the cell phone on so that it rings during class
- Poor personal hygiene (e.g., noticeably offensive body odor)
- Use of profanity or pejorative language
- Aggressive behaviors during classroom interactions toward the teacher or other students
Download the Disruptive Behaviors Self-Assessment from the Picked Fresh section of this newsletter. Use it to determine the level of disruptive behavior you might be exhibiting and seek to better understand it.
Understanding Disruptive Behaviors
The psychology behind disruptive classroom behaviors is complex and related to a number of factors, including personality type, the presence of mental health issues, culture and upbringing, past educational experiences, level of emotional intelligence, the ability to think about one’s own thinking processes, overall self-awareness, coping mechanisms, and a variety of other factors. It is helpful to think about disruptive behaviors in a very general way as a need for a person to discharge anxiety.
What this means is that everyone has methods for coping with the anxiety they feel in a given situation. Some coping methods are useful and effective (e.g., reassuring self-talk that helps a person calm and soothe themselves). Other coping methods are counterproductive and even emotionally harmful (e.g., interrupting the teacher in class as a means to obtain attention from classmates in a subconscious effort to fit in).
Classrooms trigger insecurities about cognitive ability, social acceptance, belongingness, and worthiness in everyone. It requires a great deal of self-awareness to confront your own behaviors and to make new choices. If you are the person disrupting class and have difficulty understanding your own behaviors, seek out a school counselor or administrator and ask for help. With some counseling and dedication to understanding yourself, you can find better ways of coping.
My Learning is Being Disrupted!
Perhaps you’re the student whose learning is being negatively influenced by others. What can you do? First, you have to decide if the disruptive student is safe. If he or she seems to be acting from a place of deep psychological trauma, it may not be safe to confront the student with his or her behavior. In this case, write a letter of complaint and provide the teacher and a school administrator with a copy.
Teachers and schools have an obligation to manage the classroom effectively so everyone can learn. This may mean the disruptive person should be suspended until he or she can get help and participate in classes more effectively. In your letter of complaint, request the school respond to your concerns in a timely manner with a plan for how the situation will be handled in the future.
Oftentimes, classmates don’t realize their behavior is disruptive to other students. In this case, it is appropriate to pull the classmate aside and share how you feel. Use “I-statements” to ensure your message doesn’t come across as judgmental. For example, “When you are texting under your desk in class, I find it distracting. I wonder if you would consider putting your cell phone away during lectures.” This may be enough to increase your classmate’s self-awareness and prompt a change.