A disturbing spurt in suicides and violent disruptive classroom behaviour among adolescents in Tamil Nadu’s 53,000 government and aided schools and 19,161 private schools over the past few years, has belatedly prompted investigation into the causes and effects thereof. 

In 2016, the Nazareth College for Women, Chennai, in collaboration with University of Queensland, Australia, studied the behaviour of 50 students in the 13-15 years age group in the Nazareth Higher Secondary School (NHSS), Avadi, Chennai — a private school with students from rural low-income households. Faculty from the two institutions studied disruptive behaviour — refusing to complete academic work, making inappropriate gestures, sleeping in class, destroying school property and other attention-seeking behaviour challenging teachers’ authority — in the school’s classrooms. 

Ten teachers of NHSS were given three online one-hour behaviour management training lectures per week for six weeks by University of Queensland faculty. These lectures were followed by weekly online interaction via Skype in which specific case studies and techniques used to improve children’s classroom behaviour were discussed. 

Subsequently, feedback on behaviour change in the school’s classrooms was reviewed by teachers and students. The results were positive. Before the Queensland University training programme, teachers tended to be peremptory and terse with students. Therefore, they were trained to be more explanatory, offer praise liberally, suggest routines and advise students to stick to them. 

An analysis of student behaviour after the training and implementation of positive teaching practices showed there was significant reduction in aggressive and disruptive classroom behaviour, with the greatest benefit being readiness to follow directions and sharp reduction in attention-seeking behaviour. Currently, the classroom behaviour management modules are being implemented in all schools of the Nazareth Group including NHSS, Nazareth Matriculation School, Kovilpathagai and Nazareth Academy, a CBSE school at Kovilpathaigai, Avadi.

Although based on a small sample group, this pilot project has impressed a large number of educationists and psychologists in Tamil Nadu, where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to manage a new generation of aggressive and disruptive children with low tolerance thresholds. On February 5, a class XI student of a private-aided higher secondary school in Vellore district stabbed his headmaster in the abdomen with a kitchen knife, because the latter had advised the student to get a haircut and summoned his parents to complain about him. Last November, four girls studying in the Panapakkam Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School in Vellore ended their lives after being reprimanded for disobedience and mediocre academic performance by the headmistress. 

“Environmental factors including parental conflict, child abuse, inadequate attention from working parents and rising parental and faculty pressure to excel in academics are prompting teenagers to explode in anger, fear and frustration. Teachers and parents have to identify what is disturbing children and counsel them on how to handle conflict situations. Teachers too are stressed and need mentoring and training programmes to help them cope with angry children,” says Dr. Latha Janaki Ramanujam, child psychologist at JAYS Multi-Speciality Counselling & Psychotherapy Centre, Chennai.

However, educators and child counsellors say that a one-time classroom behaviour management module delivered online is unlikely to sustain positive behaviour in classrooms. Instead, parents and teachers should focus on the missing elements of child rearing while discharging their duties. “Squabbling parents with anger management problems give children the impression that it is alright to express their emotions aggressively. At school, principals and teachers criticise, admonish and humiliate students publicly, with the result that children begin to react violently against authority figures or inflict self-hurt and even take recourse to suicide. Therefore, teachers need compulsory workshops and continuous training on child behaviour management, and parents too should attend these programmes. Treating children with respect by being kind and polite to them and attending to their emotional needs and problems will go a long way in rectifying violent and disruptive classroom behaviour,” says Magdalene Jeyarathnam, founder, Centre for Counselling, Chennai.

Although a small pilot study, the NHSS experiment has made a deep impact on teachers and educators in Tamil Nadu. It may well prompt widespread review of traditional classroom conditions and practices in a state where teaching-learning outcomes have been falling continuously. 

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)