Everybody gets angry. Yet, although we can often understand the source of a person’s anger, the act of being angry is largely looked down upon. It is seen as a loss of control, a surrender to emotion, even an act of selfishness. Is it useful, then, to separate the emotion of anger from the behaviour that can result from that emotion? In schools, this is certainly an approach that is gaining traction. To find out what that would look like, Tes spoke to Vicki Williams, who has worked with secondary students to make this separation a reality.

Tes: Anger is a big part of childhood - is it a necessary part?

Vicki Williams: When we think of anger in childhood, we tend to picture a red-faced toddler with balled-up fists, screaming and stamping their feet. We see the behaviour rather than the feeling. We need to understand that anger is an emotion, not a behaviour. As an emotion, anger can be an incredibly useful and necessary part of childhood. It can help a child to get their needs met, help them learn how to solve problems, and can protect them in situations in which they feel threatened. Also, the emotion of anger brings about physical changes in the body, in the form of the release of adrenaline and cortisol, which speed up reactions, sharpen the brain and can make a person temporarily stronger.

So, the negativity surrounding anger comes from the behaviours associated with it. The challenge comes in helping a child to learn how to manage the negative behaviour that often results from feeling the emotion.

It’s the negative behaviours that schools will usually associate with anger, right?

Within schools, anger is usually viewed as negative and disruptive to learning. And it is often the resulting behaviour that is managed rather than the emotion and the root cause. Due to many constraints, schools will often use a consequence system for students expressing anger. Students are likely to be spoken to about their actions and will often receive unrelated consequences, for example, isolation or loss of free time.

Both of these can further enhance the feelings of anger and shame rather than calm them, and are only short-term solutions that won’t bring about any lasting change in behaviour.

So, what is the more effective approach, in your view?

We aim to educate students about how the brain reacts to emotions, to teach them how to manage their feelings. For anger, we do this with Dan Siegel’s “hand model of the brain”. It’s a student-friendly, practical model that allows students to understand what is happening within their brains when they feel angry, and explains why they feel out of control.

It works like this: make a fist with your hand with the thumb inside. This represents the working brain with the four fingers on top representing the prefrontal cortex - the logical-thinking part of the brain responsible for rational thought, self-control and problem solving. The thumb underneath represents the limbic system - the emotional area of the brain. When we become hyperaroused due to anger or fear, the four fingers lift up, the prefrontal cortex disengages, and the limbic system (thumb) is exposed and takes over. In terms of behaviour, this is demonstrated by students losing control.

The key to calming the anger and being able to rationalise again is to re-engage the prefrontal cortex and “shut the lid” - or close the fingers back on top of the thumb.

Can you talk us through the implementation?

While the strategy worked on paper, preparing students to use it when they felt out of control was another matter! Students practised the hand actions to help themselves understand how their brain was working. There was a positive uptake with students agreeing that this did represent how they felt.

Students told us that the practical model helped them to understand the changes that were taking place in their brains. We then discussed activities that could help to re-engage the prefrontal cortex.

The methods that work for each student vary, but involve repetitive actions such as humming, swinging, walking, tapping out a rhythm and colouring. This was very much a process of trial and error while we established what worked for each student.

All our students have a grab-bag of activities that are known to calm them and they have access to these at all times. It is easy to discuss and put plans in place while students are calm but, as the model suggests, actually actioning it when the limbic system has taken over and students feel out of control is quite another. Teaching students to notice the changes in their bodies when they were beginning to feel angry or out of control became key. Staff being able to observe changes and using language with students such as “I’m wondering if you’re starting to feel annoyed”, rather than telling them how they felt, often brought about a positive response, with students engaging in interventions.

We were able to monitor when students had calmed down using the hand model. We learned that, as students felt calmer, changing the activity to a quieter one often helped. For example, going from doing chin-ups on the gym equipment to tapping or colouring, as their arousal lowered, was effective.

Discussing how students managed their anger became part of the restorative conversation when enough time had passed for them to reflect objectively. Students were articulate about how they were feeling, how they felt the interventions worked and what they would do differently next time.

Which bits of the process were the hardest?

While the theory is sound, students are not robots that respond in the way we think they should. As a progressive school, trying out new initiatives is encouraged. However, it is easy to question what you are doing and lose confidence when results are not immediate. Applying this model is a new way of thinking, and it is easy to forget and try to manage the behaviour rather than the cause, or not see a change in behaviour quickly enough so that you miss the opportunity to put interventions in place before it is too late. It still is very much a learning process for everyone. We work in a very supportive environment, and staff and students are willing to discuss mistakes and learn how to move forward. This has led to some interesting, reflective conversations. I have learned a lot from students about their views on how I manage behaviour!

What was the impact?

Clearly, Covid-19 has affected students’ attendance, but before lockdown, we were having positive results with students starting to express the feelings behind their anger, some of which were deep rooted and others were the results of misunderstandings, which were easily corrected.

While this is still very much a work in progress, we are seeing students engage in their chosen intervention with less prompting, and situations are being rectified more with talking and less shouting or physical expressions of anger.

Vicki Williams is a specialist teacher of secondary students with social, emotional and mental health issues and a consultant for Big Bear Bespoke Education

This article originally appeared in the 30 October 2020 issue under the headline “How I... Tackled pupil ‘anger’”