classroom managementstudent behaviordisruptive behaviourdigital distractionsmartphone policyteacher wellbeingdiscipline strategiesparental involvementpost pandemic educationschool culturebehavioural trendschild developmentglobal education issuesequity in educationmental health in schools

The behaviour backslide: Why classrooms everywhere feel louder, rougher—and what’s driving it

By Cristian

It’s not just you. From São Paulo to Sydney, teachers are reporting that the post-pandemic classroom feels markedly harder to manage. A January-2025 EdWeek survey of nearly a thousand educators found that 48 percent say student conduct is “a lot worse” than before COVID, up from one-third the year prior. Hallway fights, verbal abuse and phone-fuelled pranks now top staff concerns, often eclipsing academic catch-up on the worry list. (edweek.org)

image alt text

Smartphones: A pocket-sized Pandora’s box

Cheap data plans and unfiltered Wi-Fi have moved the playground onto TikTok. In England a grassroots “phone-free childhood” campaign took off after studies showed one in ten children view pornography on their phones by age nine, normalising content that would once have been unthinkable in primary school. (theguardian.com) Many teachers describe scenes where explicit videos are Airdropped mid-lesson or spread on class group-chats before staff can intervene. Not surprisingly, large districts from Maryland, US, to New South Wales, AU, are trialling all-day handset bans; early pilots report calmer corridors but also pushback over who polices the rules. (washingtonpost.com)

Discipline without teeth

Even when misbehaviour is caught, sanctions may be scant. A 2024 report from the Tony Blair Institute labelled disruptive conduct an “epidemic” and warned that teachers feel “powerless” to enforce consequences unless parents actively support the plan. The think-tank went so far as to propose statutory powers that would compel families to attend behaviour conferences—sparking a fierce debate over where authority should sit. (tes.com) Similar frustrations surface in Australian, Canadian and South-African staff-room surveys, where teachers note that suspension thresholds keep rising while alternative supports lag behind.

Where are the grown-ups?

Parental partnership, long a buffer against misbehaviour, is also under strain. Brookings researchers surveying 65,000 students found that parents routinely overestimate their children’s enthusiasm and sense of belonging at school—by margins of 30–40 percentage points. When families don’t see the disengagement educators witness daily, collaboration on discipline or motivation stalls. (brookings.edu)

Substance use: the perception gap

Teachers increasingly report alcohol or vape paraphernalia turning up in backpacks, yet national data paint a nuanced picture. The U.S. Monitoring the Future study shows adolescent drug and alcohol use stayed at or below pre-pandemic lows in 2024, suggesting that media-heavy incidents may be driving anxiety more than widespread misuse. (nih.gov) The takeaway: isolated shock events (a bottle of vodka in homeroom) can skew perceptions and policies if not set against reliable trend data.

Digital childhood, vanishing play

Behaviour is also tangled with a wider lifestyle shift. A 2025 UK “Raising the Nation” investigation concluded that children are growing up “sedentary, scrolling and alone,” with shrinking outdoor play time feeding attention issues and low-level agitation in class. (theguardian.com) Put bluntly, devices fill a supervision void once covered by neighbourhood games and after-school clubs—so screens get the blame while the deeper deficit goes unaddressed.

So, can—and should—you write about it?

Absolutely. The spike in behavioural challenges is a global, multi-factor story that resonates with teachers, parents, and policy-makers alike. Framing the article around three intertwined drivers—digital immersion, diluted authority, and shifting family engagement—lets you move beyond headline horror stories to systemic roots.

A few narrative tips:

  • Anchor each section in a lived vignette (e.g., a teacher pausing a lesson to confiscate a phone streaming explicit content).
  • Blend hard numbers with human quotes to avoid moral panic while keeping urgency.
  • Close on forward-looking moves: phone-free pilots, restorative-justice programmes, and ways tools like ClassMap surface early disengagement signals before they flare into misconduct.