Teacher identity and behaviour management

As Kira has described maintaining relationships is vital for effective behaviour management.

But how do we build effective relationships, whilst maintaining professional identity? I will now examine the
fine line between professional and personal identity.

Many teachers struggle to develop a professional identity and we battle daily with dilemmas involving
boundaries in the teacher student relationship. And teachers often spend time teetering between teacher like
this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0h9oQu5tU8 or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbF4qz_-
PCM

And so we as teachers begin to walk many fine lines which affect our relationships with students and our ability
to manage the classroom environment.

In their research Aultman and his team conducted interviews with teachers and identified a set of boundaries
that teachers must navigate in order to develop their teacher identity. I want to give you an example of the
possible dilemmas we may face and then some advice given by teachers, for us to mull over.

1. Communication Boundaries:
Boundary dilemma: Students should see teachers as a real person, but how much of ourselves do we
share?

Advice: Being too open with students can lead to students taking advantage of you.
Create very specific- self disclosure boundaries. Know what you will share with students (e.g families
and hobbies) and what you wont share (e.g personal issues).

2. Emotional Boundaries:
Boundary dilemma: How much, and what type of emotions should we be sharing with our students?

Advice: Extreme emotions in the classroom either, pleasant or unpleasant, can lead to a loss of control.
Keep your emotions in check. Some emotions (especially negative ones) should be masked or at least
expressed with great care. The emotions themselves may be expressed but the intensity may need to be
reduced.

3. Personal Boundaries:
Boundary dilemma: Do we, as teachers become too involved in our students lives?

Advice: You are getting too involved when your desire to support your students interferes with your
teaching or interferes with your personal life. You are not their Mother, counsellor or friend.

4. Relationship Boundaries:
Boundary dilemma: How to be friendly without being friends?

Advice: If you become too friendly with your students this can lead to a loss of control.
Your primary goal should not be to be liked by your students. Remember you have are

5. Temporal Boundaries:
Boundary dilemma: How much time do we spend on maintaining emotional connections with students
compared with academic work?

Advice: Know that there is a job to do. Use counsellors and people with expertise to help you deal with
emotional issues of students.

Here is a checklist for appropriate relationships that will help you develop a professional identity. It comes
from this book that Matt got me onto. Its in Unibooks.


The relationship between creating a confident teacher identity when relating with students and managing
behaviour in the classroom is strong.
As Teacher Kristi Johnson Smith writes
Students are most comfortable with teachers who have a clear sense of their own professional
identities. To build a relationship [with my students], I needed to acknowledge who I was and the
limits of our connection. I was a teacher, with all of the associated roles and responsibilities. I would
be contacting parents and guardians about misbehavior. I would be assigning homework. I would be
calculating course grades. I would be making some decisions that were unpopular, but were from
my adult perspective in the best interest of each of my students. If I presented myself sincerely,
acknowledging that actions in each of those realms would be conducted in a fair manner with each
students perspective in mind, we could begin building relationships. Those relationships would grow
when I demonstrated that as a teacher and in appropriate ways as a person I would listen and
care.
When these boundaries are managed well teachers create a teacher identity which will enable them to
effectively manage their classrooms.






Alsup, J 2008 Teacher identity discourses: negotiating personal and professional spaces, Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Accessed Taylor and Francis e-Library 30/8/14
http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d2-
RAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=professional+and+personal+identity&ots=lCJRzoa7c3&sig=JCasst9QXBo
mXpH3PlkNEwz-_vI#v=onepage&q=professional%20and%20personal%20identity&f=true


OConnor K. E. (2008) You choose to care: Teachers, emotions and professional identity, Teaching
and Teacher Education, 24 117126.

Aultman, L. P. Williams-Johnson M. R. Schutz P.A. (2009) Boundary dilemmas in teacherstudent
relationships: Struggling with the line Teaching and Teacher Education 25 636646

Smith, K. J. (no date) I know who they are, but who am I? UNC School of Education Accessed 21/09/14
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/firstyear/362

Thompson, J. G. 2013 The First-Year Teachers Survival Guide 3
rd
Edition, John Wiley and Sons Inc. Jossey-Bass
Teacher, San Francisco , pp.140-156