A Must Read for Teachers

I am going to copy an entire letter that was sent to Tom Daly who writes Tips for Teachers and has some terrific ideas for managing classrooms. His website is: adhdsolution@gmail.com If any teacher(or actually anyone who works with kids on a regular basis) is looking at this blog during vacation, it is a great inspiration for the new year when you return to your classroom.

Dear Tom,

I have been a teacher since 1968 (with a break for four years to
have my children). I have kept every single "Thank You" or
Christmas card that has been given to me by my students.

Yesterday I was looking for old cards for a Christmas Activity for
the day's lessons and I stopped to take the time to read the
comments that my students had written to me. Overwhelmingly, the
common message in these cards was a student thanking me for taking
the time to "care" about them as an individual.

Many said that they would remember me always because I touched
their heart and gave them hope for the future. There was never a
day that went by when I did not plan how I was going to achieve
this goal. It was time-consuming (in terms of preparation) and I
planned my day right down to how I was going to implement
strategies so that I could engage each child.

My reputation went ahead of me at this private girls school,l and I
can honestly say that I have never raised my voice or had to send a
child to the principal. I believed that if a child reacted
negatively in my class, then I had done something wrong and I took
time to "self-evaluate" my role in each situation. And each time I
believed that I could have handled the situation in a very
different way.

I was never afraid of taking the child aside and calmly
"deconstructing" the incident and negotiating a plan of action (
with the child's input) for the future.

I retired in June but soon realized there was something missing in
my life. And so now I am a relief teacher in the primary schools in
my local area - a very demanding role and very different.

I find it difficult to be able to evaluate the individual needs of
each child in a day's teaching. Then again, you have to remember
that these children have never seen ME before either!

I just completed a month's contract with a class at one of my local
primary schools. This class had a reputation and sending supply
teachers home in tears by lunch time. I never gave up on them and
set my standards very early. I came up with the idea of giving them
a month's challenge to turn the classroom into a Fantasy Land (the
theme of their novel). The students planned how they could achieve
this, they formed committee to construct the displays for each
section of the room, and then they met to bring it all together.
They were really engaged in all this.

On the last day of my contract, the class decorated their room in
bright colors and held a "Fantasy Day" inviting the prep year
students. I had tears in my eyes watching these "tough" children
relate to the younger students and explain their displays in
detail. On the last day of my contract, the principal said that I
had "turned the class around."

I enjoyed the experience so much, I was sad to hand them back to a
teacher who was clearly in need of help. The students showered me
with gifts and cards that totally overwhelmed me.

How did I do it? To be honest, I had never taken time to analyze
my methods when I taught full time, but now, as a relief teacher, I
needed to know.

But here's what it came down to: I simply never gave up on them.
Their normal teacher (who was away because she was experiencing a
"breakdown") called me to say that some of the students (the
naughty ones) improved their marks significantly in that short
time.

To be sure, there were some very testing days (and tears at night),
but I kept saying to myself "Susan, they are just children crying
out for help". I was preparing lessons at night (some nights as
late as 2 a.m.) that catered to the individual needs of the
students (as I saw them).

I think the day that I turned them around was the day I decided to
take a "relaxation session" with them after a lunch break to settle
them down. I was very nervous as these kids thought that they were
"tough." However, I got them to imagine or create a place where
they felt safe. I encouraged them to remember to visit that
place (no matter where they were) whenever they felt unsafe.

This session lasted 5 minutes - some of the tough kids said that it
was "stupid." Within days, they were begging me to do "relaxation
sessions" with them each day.

Every student entered into the spirit and this relaxation time
became their reward for trying their best in all classroom
activities. I endorse your philosophies on behavior management and
reading your ideas has given me the opportunity to do some
self-evaluation. I have always gone beyond the call of duty and it
has been rewarding BUT I am still learning.
Susan

Challenge to Teachers

In early October, on my facebook page: Challenging Children, I posted a challenge to teachers to work for the following couple of months, until winter break, with the child or children in their classroom who provided the greatest challenges. Here is a summary of those tips:
1. Continuously be aware of where children are cognitively, chronologically, AND emotionally. You may have a 5th grader who is behaving like a 3 year old…that child is STRESSED. When we stress, we regress. To admonish a child who is in a stressed out state is foolhardy at best and truly unaware at the least.
‎2. Be a mentor: if you can’t be a mentor for the child, identify another staff person who can be. It will be someone that the child can communicate with. It shouldn’t be someone who will tell them how they should behave; it is someone who will listen.
3. Create structure and routine: predict that when
the routine is going to be disrupted the stressed student/s will regress. Immediate example is a substitute in the class whether it is the classroom teacher or the specials teacher. Consistency and predictability ...are important factors for at-risk/traumatized children.
4. Learn to RESPOND rather than REACT in the midst of behavior issues? Do 3 things: Reflect, Relate,Regulate
5. Be an investigative reporter when it comes to the difficult child/children in your classroom. Ask WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? AND HOW? WHO was around when the child had the problem? WHAT happened before, during and after the incident? WHERE do the incidents occur? When do things happen? And HOW does it escalate?
6. To be successful with students there is more at stake than a mastery of subject matter and teaching methods, it is all about RELATIONSHIP. If you don't have a relationship with your students, your will not be able to influence them. And if you can't influence them, there will be no learning. If there is no relationship nothing else can matter.
7. When kids are faced with a stressful situation, they move into freeze, fight, flight. Actually, everyone does. There is a momentary freeze to assess the perceived potential danger and then we stay frozen, or we fight, or we leave.
8. Connect in relationship with your students. Negative behavior arises from an emotional state of stress and fear. It is not rational nor logical, it is emotional. Behavior modification is logical and cognitive and will NOT "take" with the kid who is reacting from a state of stress and fear.
9. Be attuned to where each child is in terms of affect; note where you are emotionally when you approach that child who is seemingly off kilter. Be aware that they could be triggered by any sight, smell, touch, sound. Be attentive be that detective searching for the who, what, where and when dysregulation occurs and then be that wise teacher and reach out rather than pushing that child away to the principal and perhaps ultimately in-school or out of school suspension.
10. Let's talk negative feedback loop...you come into classroom from weekend of power shopping, cookie baking, bank account shrinking and you are on the edge. Kids come in, some of them dealing with home stresses: not enough money for the holidays, Grandma's sick and not coming ...for Christmas, auntie's husband's in jail for robbing someone...and progress reports were not good. When teacher's dysregulated state, meets students dysregulation...you are in a negative feedback loop. And it is manifested in the very cells of the body. It is up to you, the adult, the regulator of stress in the classroom to step back, consider where you are at emotionally, think about where in your body you are feeling the stress... and calm yourself so that you can be there for the student/s in your classroom who are at these moments at the emotional age of very young children.
11. The reason kids really enjoy a certain teacher over others is because the teacher LISTENS to students; he RESPECTS students; students are allowed to express THEIR opinions. The teacher LOOKS her students in the eye when she talk to them; the teacher SMILES at his students, and SPEAKS to students when... she sees them in the hall or in the cafeteria or even on the street.
12. Assess your classroom environment for too much stimulation; is there too much instruction time for the challenging student/s; do some assignments need to be simplified for the challenging student/s?

Those of you reading this blog who are parents, I urge you to give some of these suggestions to your child's teacher if he or she struggles with behavior issues in the classroom.

What Do Elephants and Humans Have in Common

On the news last evening there was a segment about the Elephant Orphan Project: http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphans.asp It was all about this amazing project in Africa that has been going on for year to save elephants who are orphaned because of severe drought or poaching. What struck me most were the stories of the relationships between the elephants and their human caregivers. We know that humans are hard wired through the brain to be in relationship, it turns out that the elephant shares that wiring with humans. The caregivers in this compound take care of these young elephants until they are developmentally ready to be on their own. At that point they take them out of the compound to join elephant herds. And contrary to what you might think, the elephants are ready to return to "wild life". I can't help but think that the nurturing that is provided by humans has the same physiological components that elephant parents provide to their calves. The Sheldrick Wild Life Project was started when a young elephant had to be left by his mother because he would not move on with the herd as she was asking him to do...had he not been found by Mr. Sheldrick and nurtured and I mean that in the human sense of taking care of young children he would have died. He needed to be in relationship. Part of the story that was told, was of a young calf who Mrs. Sheldrick had cared for by herself. She left the compound to go on vacation and the young calf died from grief. It was at that point that a change was made in that no single person provides the care of a calf, but there are shifts of caretakers round the clock and they all provide the same schedule and routines, but it is not just one person, so when someone has to leave, another steps in and the calf is already use to several caregivers. And yet, the elephant calves remain in the same environment with the same routines and the same caregivers to assure continuity of caregiving and continuity of relationship.

What Do Elephants and Humans Share?

My Passion

I had an epiphany this evening about how grateful I am to have learned all that I have in the past 5 years about the effect of trauma on the developing brain. How it has so impacted the work that I do with children and families. How certain I am that if we switch the paradigm from using behavioral modification with difficult children to listening to the children, trying to understand what their behavior is conveying, we could actually help them. If we would stop trying to mold behavior, stop trying to change children through punishment and/or reward systems we would be so much further along in our ability to help. How much more fruitful it would be to listen and try to understand at the front end, rather than after we have meted out consequences...how much more loving it would be. And how we would teach children a love-based way of being with one another...Funny, John Lennon said it, and it has been oft repeated..."all we need is love, love; love is all we need".

"You Look Like A Lion Scratched You"

This comment was made by the 10 year old brother of a little 6 year old who has many labels including Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and Reactive Attachment Disorder. The child had scratched up her face after having gotten in trouble at school for scratching at the classroom aide. And her face did indeed look like she had been attacked by a very large animal. After the incident at school she had been admonished by her teacher, and a call had been made to her foster mother. When she got home she immediately told her mother what had she had done and then after being talked to about how she shouldn't behave in that way, she was taking a bath and going to bed early and the mom left the bathroom for a minute and when she returned the child had mutilated herself with her fingernails. The horrified parent asked why she had done that and the child stated that she was bad. The foster mother gathered the child up from the bath, dried her off and helped her dress and tended to the scratches on the child's face all the while telling her that she was not bad, that she was a beautiful little girl and that sometimes she got upset and did things she didn't mean to do. The foster mother then set about trying to find out what had happened at school to trigger her child. You see this mom knows that something set her child off; something that her child cannot yet identify and may never be able to identify. This mother tries to be a "sensory detective" to help the teachers, as well as the family be able to see what might begin such an incident...the incident that led to her "attack" on the aide.