Teachers' propensity to intervene

Abstract

The ability or lack of ability to intervene when intervention may be justified is discussed from time to time.  It often occurs as a result of an incident brought to attention through mass media focus.  This is true regardless of whether it involves interventions in trouble spots from organisations such as the EU or the UN or governments like the United States, or if it concerns individual citizens' behaviour in specific situations, writes Marcus Samuelsson.

This has been the focus of international attention and debate during autumn 2011 as a result of footage from a surveillance camera in a Chinese city.  The film depicted how 18 people in different ways passed by a two year old who was run over by several cars.  The film was disseminated via the internet and social media.

This has also been the focus of national attention and debate during autumn 2012 due to a situation where several people looked on while a group of youths assaulted an elderly man in a square in Kortedala, Göteborg.  Court hearings on what actually occurred were initiated in August 2012.

Thus far, these concern moral considerations in general, outside the school's defined context.  But that does not mean that those working in schools are beyond the sphere of ethics and morality.  On the contrary, educational activities require adult, moral considerations as well as interventions as part of the everyday activities.  

One case of an intervention related to a school environment was settled in early May 2012 and the judgment in the case, concerning an incident that took place at a school in Kiruna (Case no. B 1105-11), was pronounced on 3 May.  The grounds for the judgment, count 1, presented the case of a teacher who had been supervising the dining hall and had intervened against a pupil who repeatedly violated the rules of conduct in the school dining hall by wearing a hat indoors.

When the teacher removed the pupil's hat, the pupil became very angry and tried to throw a plate at the teacher, whereby he was physically removed from the dining hall.  While the teacher was removing the pupil, he received a kick to the shin and then several punches to the stomach.  The pupil said he became very aggrieved when the teacher took his hat, according to the judgment, and defended himself, according to his statement, and shouted that he would kill the teacher.

According to his statement, the threat against the teacher was issued by the pupil as a result of him feeling insulted and humiliated in front of his schoolmates.  The District Court found that the teacher had acted reasonably with respect to their supervisory duty.  The pupil was convicted of assault and unlawful threats.  However, claims for damages were rejected on the grounds that

a teacher performing their supervisory duties must be prepared for the possibility of threats and violence when intervening with a pupil, in the same way as, for example, a security guard or police officer.  (Judgment B 1105-11, p. 6)

The verdict, and especially the comparison between teachers, security guards and police, angered many writers, representatives from both the teachers' unions and the Minister for Education Jan Björklund.  Regardless of who said what, this case is only one example of many interventions by teachers ??during the previous school year.  This aspect of the teacher's work warrants continued discussion in relation to, (a) the new Education Act (SFS 2010:800) and its increased powers for teachers to intervene so as to maintain order, (b) the increasing juridification of the teaching profession (Colnerud, 2010) and (c) the future interaction between pupils and teachers.

This article is intended as a contribution to such a discussion by providing examples of other considerations surrounding interventions by teachers and recreation leaders.  Their considerations are discussed in the light of the pedagogical concept of intervention propensity.

Intervention propensity

This concept was introduced in the mid 1950s by Torsten Husén, Lennart Husén and Nils-Erik Svensson (1957;1959).  The concept was part of the results of a study on the conditions in Stockholm's primary schools based on a perceived problem with "the school's educational nurturing problems in general and its discipline problems in particular" (Husén, Husén & Smith, 1959, p. 9).  The authors noted, as did the 1947 Commission of Inquiry on School Discipline (SOU, 1950:3), that at the time it was particularly distressing to teach in the big cities.  Husén, Husén and Svensson found that

a relatively high percentage of big city teachers have a "high level of preparedness" with regard to - with greater or lesser success - intervening in cases of poor work and conduct discipline.  In other words, they have a high "intervention propensity". (Husén, Husén & Svensson, 1957, p. 2)

They also discussed the fact that other teachers had lowered their ambition level regarding pupil behaviour and order to be able to carry out their work duties.  In this way, it was also revealed that teachers, like people in general, relate differently when it comes to intervening in various situations.

Contemporary examples

In recent years I have, on repeated occasions in my communications with teachers, educators and recreation leaders, become aware of how they have considered whether, when, how, in what way and with what motives they shall intervene in specific situations.  What unites their descriptions is that they all, in one way or another, return to different types of risks that they have experienced or are experiencing associated with the profession.

Fear of being reported by guardians and pupils

While I was following a class teacher in a small town in southern Sweden and listening to his experiences and stories as leader of a new year 4 class, he mentioned at one point how he has become more administrative in his teaching work:

"Nowadays I am always extremely careful with documentation in cases where I have needed to intervene against one or more pupils.  I write down the what, how, when, who, why and so on in order to have that support in the event that pupils or their guardians would report me for what I have done.  I also make sure to always have a copy of the documentation on hand to, where necessary, submit to the school management."

The class teacher felt compelled to do it this way, as a way of dealing with a concern, although it took time and energy from the thing he really liked with the teacher's work - the teaching.  He wanted, in this way, to feel safe in case the school and he were reported again to the Swedish Schools Inspectorate.  In his reasoning it also emerged that the school and the municipality had previously been reported to the Schools Inspectorate and the Child and School Student Representative (Beo) by different guardians.

Fear of being filmed and exposed

In connection with research on pupils, teachers and social media, I inquired as to pupils' and teachers' thoughts on why pupils expose teachers on social media such as Youtube.se.  One teacher from a small town in central Sweden replied that

"I don't know why they're filming. But I know that they have done and continue to do so.  If they've filmed me, I'm not aware of it. However, I am now constantly aware that recordings are being made in the classroom."

The teacher also said that sometimes she did not give it much thought.  But she felt all the same that this was hampering her way of structuring and carrying out the teaching. This is because the teacher did not want to find herself on videos on the internet.

Fear of coming to physical harm

During a conversation with recreation leaders in a large city in southern Sweden about their profession and their professional status, one of them spoke of an incident when he was working as a recreation leader in a nine-year compulsory school:

"On one occasion, the break-time monitors came into the common room during the middle of the break and asked for me.  They asked in a way that I did not recognise so I reacted immediately and asked without thinking if something had happened.  I was told that I was needed immediately. The monitors told me that the school had been "visited" by several pupils from another school who were "going around" and behaving in a "threatening" manner in the schoolyard. I followed the monitors to the school's entrance.  We looked out and I saw a group of pupils, some that I knew, out by a group of benches in the schoolyard.  The teachers said that the pupils had been rude and aggressive, so they decided to bring in "the school's own pupils and lock the doors" to the "uninvited guests".  They then looked pleadingly at me and wondered if I, who perhaps knew the pupils, could go out and talk to them.  The pupils in the schoolyard were now jumping on the benches, they kicked over a trash can, swore and screamed loudly.  Without understanding what would happen, I naturally went out and to talk to the pupils.  Behind my back, I heard the teachers lock the door."

The recreation leader described that afterwards the teachers had been very grateful and happy when the so-called uninvited guests left the school area and promised not to come back.  They also showed appreciation for his ability to talk some sense into the youths, as they expressed it. The recreation leader was on the one hand surprised that the teachers were afraid to speak to ordinary teenagers, but on the other hand happy that this did not apply to all teachers everywhere in the municipality where he worked.

Fear of being labelled as troublesome by one's employer

In connection with me following a crafts teacher and his work in a smaller city in southern Sweden, it was found that on several occasions he had changed his leadership style in the workshop as a result of past incidents:

"On two occasions, some pupils complained to the head teacher about how they felt I had behaved as a leader in the classroom.  They said that I had looked at them and talked to them in a derogatory or even offensive manner.  As the headmaster found their testimony credible, I received criticism for my behaviour in the workshop. As a consequence of this, I lowered my ambitions.  I decided not to demand as much of the pupils, not to expect them to be active during the classes, not to require that they should want to do something, work quite simply.  This was to avoid more criticism and avoid being seen as troublesome."

The crafts teacher also said that it had been difficult to change and lower his level of ambition, especially in a practical subject like craftwork which to a large extent is built on pupils' own willingness and ability to pursue their own work.  But the fear that pupils would once again react to his way of leading the workshop meant he did everything he could to avoid this.

Implications

It seems reasonable to suggest that intervention propensity, as part of a high level of preparedness, is nowadays not only a concern for teachers in large cities, as illustrated by my four contemporary examples and the case in Kiruna.  Perhaps this is why intervention propensity does not primarily worry teachers in big cities in general, but in this case more specifically concerns teachers at certain schools in certain parts of big cities.

This relationship can on the one hand be understood as a change over time since Husén, Husén and Svensson's concept was introduced in the 1950s.  But, on the other hand, the relationship can be understood as criticism of Husén, Husén and Svensson's (1957) specific assertion that high intervention propensity was a phenomenon linked to big city teachers.  Support for their particular assertion is hard to find in the existing literature.

Instead, it seems nowadays to be the case that teachers across the country have a high level of preparedness when it comes to intervening and returning pupils to the work, or indeed maintaining or restoring order in the classroom.  I consider it to be unlikely that this would be an effect of the concept that was introduced in the 1950s.  For one thing, the need for interventions for various reasons seems to vary.  Some teachers at some schools are expected or compelled to have a high level of preparedness, while some teachers in some schools may not need to have the same level of preparedness, and that this applies regardless of whether they work in smaller or larger cities.  It also seems that the need to intervene differs from one school year to another.  This is due to the teachers and pupils who, during the current school year, interact in the workplace.  The importance of maintaining a high level of preparedness in the context of intervention propensity has thus spread, while at the same time it has been concentrated.

This importance has also been modernised, in part, as a result of teachers nowadays being expected to have the ability to intervene in order to maintain order, as expressed in the Education Act (2010:800). At the same time, the increasing juridification sits uneasily insofar as the school's content and teachers' work are valued and determined by lawyers and courts rather than the teaching staff itself. Another aspect of modernisation is what happens in the classroom has been digitised through the internet and social media. What took place behind closed doors in the 1950s is today more or less public via videos on Youtube or My Space, in written form on blogs or exchanges on Facebook and similar social media (Samuelsson, 2011).

The need to discuss whether and how interventions can prevented, the extent to which they can be understood as arresting and in some cases also as obstructing should continue to be discussed.

These discussions should be initiated, held and driven by us with an interest in and knowledge of what happens in the meeting between pupils and teachers in school. This is important, not least because educators' behaviour has important implications for what pupils are learning (Hattie, 2012).

We must not be afraid to discuss this which can be said to be a central aspect of teachers' leadership!