🌱 What If Trust - Not Control - Was the Key to Classroom Behavior?

Karen: “My classroom is out of control. I keep adding more rules to try and control the behavior, but it isn’t working.”

Sam: “I struggled with that too until I realized my control was external and would never be enough. When I loosened my grip and placed trust in the students, the unexpected happened, behavior improved and learning came alive.”

In Finland, you won’t see teachers patrolling rows of silent students. Instead, you’ll see learners moving, collaborating, and even laughing in class. And yet behavior disruptions are lower, not higher.

How is that possible? The answer lies in approaches that replace control with trust.

Structure over arresting control

Trust doesn’t mean lack of structure. Finnish classrooms often have:

• Clear, co-created norms (students help set them).

• Rituals and routines that provide predictability.

• Flexible transitions, movement breaks, alternating modes of work.

• Deep attention to the environment (layout, access to materials, flow).

  
  

Because structures are gentle and predictable, emergent classroom behavior issues are fewer and easier to manage relationally.

🎨 Why Control Backfires

• Stress narrows attention.When students feel watched or judged, they produce more cortisol (stress response), which narrows attention and inhibits higher-order thinking. (In other words: control narrows the mind.)

• Compliance is shallow.Students may obey outwardly, but internal motivation is suppressed. They wait for external direction instead of engaging their own agency.

• Behavior is a symptom, not the problem.Many behavior issues stem from boredom, lack of agency, unmet needs (cognitive, social, emotional). If we don’t address those, we just chase symptoms.

  
  

Thus, control strategies (threats, rigid procedures) may suppress behavior temporarily, but often backfire through resentment, resistance, or passive withdrawal.

💡 If you’d like a quick but meaningful next step, our introductory training course The Courage to Teach Differently is a single, focused module that gives you a deeper understanding of trust and behavior management, designed to fit into a busy teacher’s schedule while still offering powerful insights.

🌱 Finnish Approaches to Behavior

1. Restorative Circles When conflicts arise, classrooms gather in a circle for dialogue. Misbehavior isn’t pushed aside, it’s processed. Students learn empathy, accountability, and problem-solving.

2. Peer Mediation Older students are trained to help resolve disputes among younger peers. This practice shifts accountability from “teacher vs. student” to “student with student,” creating a culture of shared responsibility.

3. Student Roles & Responsibilities Instead of the teacher assigning jobs, students take part in choosing and rotating responsibilities together such as discussion leader, materials manager, or timekeeper. Shared responsibility gives learners voice in how the class runs and ownership in supporting the group.

4. Play-Based Regulation Playful challenges, role-plays, and creative games are embedded even in upper grades. Play reduces stress, channels energy, and develops self-regulation skills that prevent many behavior struggles.

5. Short Lessons + Frequent Breaks Finnish schools structure the day with rhythm: 45 minutes of focus, 15 minutes outdoors. Breaks refresh students before frustration builds, and teachers return recharged too.

👀 How It Looks in Practice

Picture this: two students begin arguing, voices rising, and in many schools they’d

be sent straight to the principal’s office. But instead, the class gathers in a restorative circle. The students share their side of the story, peers explain how the conflict affected them, and together the group decides how to repair the harm. What could have been punishment becomes a chance to build empathy and responsibility.

In another class, a teacher notices her students growing restless. Instead of pushing on with the lesson plan, she pauses. For five minutes, the class breathes together, stretches, and resets using one of the calming techniques from the Rekla Calm Classroom Tools Bundle. When the lesson resumes, energy has softened, and the class is ready to focus again.

In another classroom, students rotate roles they chose together. One is the discussion leader, another manages materials. When the lesson begins, the teacher doesn’t call the room to order, the students do.

Trust looks different in every setting, but the pattern is the same: less control from the teacher, more ownership from the learners.

🧩 Why It Works

• Circles and mediation turn conflicts into teachable moments.

• Shared roles create responsibility, not resistance.

• Play and breaks release tension before it escalates.

• Trust re-frames behavior from compliance to life skills.

  
  

🌟 Identity Shift

Few teachers realize this truth: the less you control, the calmer the class becomes.Shifting from control to trust isn’t just a strategy.......it’s an identity. It marks the difference between being an enforcer and being a facilitator of learning. And it’s the teachers who make this shift that students remember most.

📖 CBC Connection

Kenya’s CBC emphasizes competencies like collaboration, communication, and self-regulation. Each Finnish approach reinforces these:

• Circles + mediation strengthen communication.

• Roles + peer accountability nurture collaboration.

• Play + breaks build self-regulation.

  
  

Behavior is no longer about control it, becomes evidence of competency growth.

💡 A Rekla Step Forward

Want practical tools to bring these approaches to life? Explore our Behavior & Belonging Lesson Bundles — Finnish-inspired strategies designed to help CBC classrooms move from control to trust. You will find Behavior and Belonging for all grade levels and one collection meant for the whole school.

✨ Rekla Reflection

🌱 Which of these Finnish approaches could help reduce behavior struggles in your class this week?

📣Tag a colleague who might also be ready to shift from control to trust and share your thoughts.

📚 References

• Sahlberg, Pasi. Finnish Lessons 3.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? New York: Teachers College Press, 2021.

• Finnish National Agency for Education. Core Curriculum for Basic Education. Helsinki: FNBE, 2016.

• Republic of Kenya, Ministry of Education. Competency-Based Curriculum Implementation Progress Review Report. Nairobi: MOE, 2021.