If you liked what you read please share it.

This past weekend I attended the Heart Mind Conference in Vancouver and it got me thinking about how we can be more successful at school.  Specifically, I wonder how we can change the trajectory for kids who struggle.  I worry about their long-term chances at completing school and being happy and fulfilled in adulthood.

I had the opportunity to hear Paul Tough speak.  Paul talked about the importance of challenges – he argues too often we don’t let kids fail and learn from their mistakes.  When kids are protected from adversity they don’t develop the ability to persevere and limit their chances for success in adulthood.  Children should face challenges where the outcome is unknown and the stakes are manageable.  This way they face adversity and develop character (grit, determination, etc.) that will give them the skills and confidence in adulthood.

Paul also referred to the adversity gap (his words) that exists in our society.  Some kids face little or no adversity while others face too much.  Often, children living in poverty face ongoing adversity and challenges that are beyond their control.  Paul argues that this kind of adversity does not create resiliency.   In fact, a child who is under constant stress is far more likely to have serious physical and emotional health issues and are at a far greater risk for addiction or obesity.

The point of this post is to look at some of the things that we can do to counteract this.  I don’t profess to be an expert, but I’m beginning to connect the dots and these are my initial musings.

Just before Paul spoke,  Goldie Hawn presented and talked about her foundation.  She explained that a brain under stress cannot learn.  Kids in poverty are often on the edge of “fight or flight” – all the brain’s energy is focused on survival and therefore cannot release itself to learn.  While we can’t control what happens to kids outside of school, we can support them inside our walls.  We need to be intentional in creating supportive, safe environments in our schools, because when it comes to learning the environment is key.  Students also have to understand their brain and how it works.  Once a student understands how their brain works, they can learn how to slow it down and regulate themselves.  When students are able to regulate their emotions, they are able to devote their energy to learning.  Her Mind Up curriculum, developed with Kim Schonert-Reichel was developed with this end in mind – over 3600 BC educators were implementing it last year.

Students are an important piece of the equation, but how can we as adults change to better serve our students and create the kind of environment that allows students to struggle appropriately to develop character?

Tough questions indeed.

I’m not sure I have the answers, but I think we need to take care of our own emotional needs in order to give the kids what they need.  It is powerful (and empowering) to give students our undivided attention, but when we are emotionally drained we can’t do it.  We need to find balance and focus on what is good in our lives.  Shawn Achor talks about rational optimism – looking at both the good and the bad in a situation and knowing that your behaviour matters.  As educators, like many professions, get tired.  I think we need to give ourselves permission to recharge.  Sometimes the most productive choice is taking a break.  Too often, we feel the pressure of work and don’t take time to take care of ourselves.  Like Paul Tough says when we are under constant stress and anxiety our brain (and body) begins to shut down.  When that occurs, it’s the kids (and us) that suffer.

In the end, how do we give kids the best chance for success?  I’m not really sure, but I do know that being purposeful of taking care of the hearts and minds of people in our school community is the first step.

If you liked what you read please share it.

I have written before about our involvement in Ross Greene’s Collaborative Problem Solving Model.  Recently the group got together and talked about what we learned and some of the big picture ideas that we walked away with.  We shared our thoughts with our staff, but I also thought it would be worthwhile to share them in this forum.

I have shared the slides from our presentation and provided context for each.

Last year our staff did a book study on Dr. Greene’s “Lost at School” and philosophically this is a mindset we entered the project with.  The idea that kids do well if they can is simple, but when the rubber hits the road it gets difficult.  When dealing with maladptive behaviour, it is hard not to label it as manipulative, attention seeking or even blame the parents for lack of boundaries at home.  However, through many difficult and reflective conversations we have really come to believe that at the root of difficult behaviour is a problem that needs to be solved and a developmental skill that the student has missed along the way.

When dealing with difficult behaviours, rewards and consequences don’t work.

If they did, a time out, detention, suspension etc. would rectify the problem.  I think we can all agree that for our most challenging students they don’t.  Does it give some respite? Yes, but that’s it.  Putting the student back into the same situation with the same skill set is setting everyone up for failure.  Collaborative Problem Solving is a treasure hunt to find out what is getting in the students way.  Kids don’t enter school at 5 years old thinking, “This is going to suck! I am going to make everyone’s life, including mine miserable.”  If they are UNABLE to manage their behaviour it is incumbent on us to find out WHY.

Labels and diagnosis get in the way of CPS.  Often when a child struggles we explain it away with a diagnosis – ADHD, autism etc.  I’m not saying that these are not valid conditions, but when we use labels it lets us off the hook and has us focusing on the wrong things.  Instead of focusing on its antecedents, we are looking at the outcomes of behaviour.  Ultimately, reacting to the behaviour will not yield results.

I love this slide.  I think we can all agree that being proactive is better than being reactive.  CPS is fundamentally a proactive program, but what I like best is the fact that the students is a vital part of the equation.  True collaboration means that both sides share their concerns and mutually agree upon a resolution.  In the end, the student feels like they have a voice and an important one at that.  Every one of the people involved in the process felt that their relationships with their students were enhanced by CPS.

Our biggest struggle to date is finding time.  There is no doubt that it takes time to implement and in education time is perhaps our most scarce (and therefore valuable) commodity.  We struggled with finding the time and committing time in an ongoing manner.  Although we don’t always see the immediate payoffs.  Nobody was “fixed” from our work, but we all agree that our work benefited our students and will continue to benefit them down the road.   I equate it to the work we do with our struggling readers.  A few sessions of Learning Assistance does not get them back to grade level, but ongoing support eventually closes the gap – behaviour is not any different.

I think the closest we came to an epiphany was when one of the teachers involved (Nicky Skinner) made the connection to SMART Learning (in our school this is a connection all the teachers can make).  More than anything CPS promotes deeper learning and understanding for both the student and the adults.  For students we are mining to get to the root of the issue and then scaffolding in support to help them.  For the adults, CPS gives us a framework to help us dig and get to the root of the issue.

For me, the best part of the process is it involves reflective, supportive learning for all.  It’s fundamental in perpetuating community of learners.

If you liked what you read please share it.

Spring is a funny time of year.  We still have almost 3 full months of school, but inevitably I begin working with one eye toward next year.

Our district has  moved toward inquiry in a big way.  We  no longer have traditional school growth plans, rather school are pursuing individual inquiries.  This year our question revolved around implementation of technology, but due to a number of issues beyond anyone’s control we have come to a bit of  a standstill.  That said, there is still a significant amount of learning going on in our school.

Our teachers are going deeper and interested in learning more about socio-emotional learning, collaborative problem solving, grading and assessment practices and of course there are always a number of staff involved (as leaders) in our district’s SMART Learning initiative.  There are staff members interested in all of these areas, but of course some have a more of a vested interest in specific areas of study.

Through inquiry, we can allow teachers to pursue their learning in a way that is meaningful to them and in a way that is going to fit the context of their classroom.  For me, that’s where the rubber hits the road.  How can we apply what we are learning to enhance the learning and experience our kids have at school.  I want teachers (and students for that matter) to have a say in their learning.  I want them to be passionate.   I want them to be able to choose a topic of study that is going to benefit their classwork.

Back to the title of this post.

If we have teachers pursuing a variety of questions through a structured collaborative process do we have a clear and compelling vision in our school?  All of my study and reading on school leadership is clear.  High performing schools that embrace change and put kids first, make decisions through the lens of a clear and compelling vision.

hmm…

I am struggling with this dichotomy.

By empowering teachers to have choice and allowing our school to pursue multiple inquiries, we give up on one clear and compelling vision.

If we restrict the number of inquiries  we are limiting the opportunities to learn, possibly reducing the engagement of staff, and more importantly not considering the context and specific needs of classrooms.

In the end, a large part of me feels that limiting opportunities for teachers to learn and create better, more supportive classrooms for our students is not the way to go.  It goes against conventional wisdom, but the field of education (after years of stagnation) is changing at an unprecedented speed and going against conventional wisdom may become the new norm.

I would be very interested to hear others thoughts on this question.

If you liked what you read please share it.

The more time I spend in education the more I come to realize that context is everything. It was this post by Cale Birk that challenged my preconceived notions and got me thinking about my own environment.

Last summer I read a few posts by Bill Ferriter about flipping faculty meetings. I was really intrigued with the idea. It seemed cutting edge and in my mind if we could spend more time learning together as a whole staff it would be better for our school. For the first few staff meetings this year I did change things. I put the Professional Learning pieces at the beginning of our meetings and the discussion items at the end. It was fine, but then an interesting thing happened. People began clamoring for more talk time. I began to hear comments about not talking things through “like we used to”.

I forgot about context. I started trying to implement ideas without thinking about the cultural norms of our school.

I am still relatively new to the school (my second year) and Giant’s Head has a long history of innovation and professional learning. It came about through rigorous discussion, often in staff meetings. In order to keep this school moving forward, I needed to provide time to talk things through.  Even talking about the structure of school, people make relevant connections to professional learning – it’s cultural. By taking away talk time in our staff meetings, I actually was impeding learning…I needed to provide time to talk about issues that are relevant to the context of our school.

In our last two meetings, we have focused almost completely on discussion items and they have arguably been our two best meetings all year. By having a forum to talk about things, teachers are making connections and in many ways clarifying the vision and path the school is going to continue on. We are looking to pursue some really innovative practices that will allow us to build long-term structures for ongoing professional inquiry (but that’s another post )

Being connected to Social Media I am inundated with great ideas. There are so many great things happening in the field. I have to watch my competitive nature (or ego) and not feel the pressure to continually implement every great idea I am exposed to.  As an educator I need to be current and aware of great innovative practices, but the more I reflect the more I realize it is even more important to understand how those practices can be tweaked to fit our context. Better yet, gauge the innovation with a critical eye and decide whether they fit the context at all.

If you liked what you read please share it.

I have written before about letter grades and how our school is moving away from them.  This year our entire intermediate team has chosen to be part of the ongoing pilot started by Carol Barton.  The district has given us permission to not use letter grades on our report cards.  However, if parents request them we are to provide them.  In the first term, we only have 3 parents (total out of 4 classes) ask for letter grades.

Overall, I think it has been a huge success.  Kids in my class are no longer asking me, “what’s this worth?” or “what did I get?”.  The focus remains on learning and the process of acquiring knowledge.  Even though we feel we are seeing progress, there is still lots of room for improvement.  When we handed out report cards in term 1 we asked for feedback.  It was important to us that in the absence of letter grades we were able to communicate where students were in their learning and where they were with respect to the Provincial standards.  The feedback we received was mixed, so we knew we had some work to do.

Report cards are going home next week and one of our teachers (Darcy Fedorak) created this document that we are using to help bridge the gap.

After the first report card of the year initiated some interesting feedback, we are including this explanation of the performance standards we are using at Giant’s Head Elementary in grades 4 and 5.  We hope this helps with your understanding of how your child’s achievement is reported for this second term.

If this is not enough information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.  We believe the information we are providing you is more informative than a letter grade.  The performance standards are provided to us by the Ministry of Education.

Your child’s achievement is matched to a description on a scale or continuum as described by the markers known as the Performance Standards or levels: Not Yet Meeting, Minimally Meeting, Approaching/Close to Fully Meeting, Fully Meeting or Exceeding Expectations.  The expectations for our class are “at a grade five level”.

Not Yet MeetingExpectations	Students who are not yet meeting the expectations have not yet been able to show enough understanding at the grade five level.  This could mean they are not able to show any understanding, or they are missing several key pieces.
MinimallyMeetingExpectations	Students who are minimally meeting the expectations are now showing some understanding.  Their work shows limitations in-depth of understanding or they are missing a couple of key pieces. They have, however, achieved a minimal score or result during evaluations.
Approachingor Close  to Fully MeetingExpectations	This category has caused the most confusion.  As educators have felt there is quite a large leap from minimally to fully meeting expectations, we wanted to honour student progress as they move between the two levels of performance standards.  The term “approaching” is used differently in the primary grades compared with grades 4 – 8.  The intermediate teachers use “approaching” to describe student achievement that is more than minimally meeting, but does not quite show the depth of understanding required for fully meeting expectations of grade five standards.  In the first term, we used “close to fully meeting” to respect the fact that many parents were used to the term “approaching” from the primary report cards as a descriptor for what we identify as minimally meeting. The students in my class are very familiar with the term “approaching” as it is used daily to describe their achievement.
Fully MeetingExpectations	Students are able to show a complete understanding of concepts and their achievement is in line with the expectations for grade five students.  Our goal is to have students achieve this level of understanding in all areas.
ExceedingExpectations	This category or standard level is to acknowledge when students go beyond expectations.  Many students will not be able to meet the requirements of this standard level, nor should they be expected to do so.  Often this student achievement is more closely related to higher grade expectations.  This could include taking their understanding in creative, alternative directions or they show exemplary extensions in depth and breadth.

I think this is a great document and a step in the right direction.  The language we use as educators is often confusing, but I think this will help clarify for parents where their child is with respect to Grade Level expectations.  I think it goes a long way in demystifying the “edu-speak” we as teacher often use.

Is it perfect?  No.

A compelling argument I have heard is that by going to this language we are just replacing a 10 point scale ( based on %) for a 4 point scale.  I agree with this assertion, but I know this is a step in the right direction.  I don’t want to belabour the point, but kids are not focusing on results, but on process and learning and that is truly what’s important.

I am sure of one thing.  The movement away from letter grades has impacted students in a positive way.  It is hard to quantify, but there is an attitudinal shift.  Students are more willing to take chances and try innovative things.  Their mindset has changed and they are more confident and willing to take risks in their learning.

We still have some tweaking and learning to do.  We are in the early stages of this project, but I know we are moving in the positive direction.

If you liked what you read please share it.

Last year was a difficult one in BC education.  We were in the midst of job action and it took a toll on everyone.  As an administrator I was on duty during every break.  It was difficult for sure, but it was my first year at Giant’s Head and I sure got to know the kids and their families quickly, so there was an upside to it.  I also got to know the kids outside of class.  I got to see who their friends were, who they had difficulty with, all in all I had a pretty good sense of where “kids were at.”

When job action was over we quickly returned to our old routines.  I was pretty tired of supervision, so I found myself making it outside at recess and lunch less and less.  To be honest, it was important for me to stay and spend time with our staff.  I was new and break times are one of the few times of the day when we can socialize and get to know one another on a more personal level.  It’s also an important time to be available to staff to talk about different initiatives,  students or concerns that arise during the course of  a school year.

This year (for whatever reason) seems busier than last.  At times it has been hard to keep my head above water. Not only that but I seem to be spending more and more time after breaks putting out fires and dealing with student behaviour.  More concerning, it seemed that more of my interactions with kids were negative.  Interacting with kids is the best part of our job, so I knew something had to change.

In a moment of insomnia (that seem to plague every educator), it hit me.  I had almost stopped going outside during recess and lunch.  I wasn’t available to the students in the same way.   In many ways I had lost touch with what was going on outside of the classroom walls.  I realized that I had to commit to getting outside at least once a day at recess and lunch.

What a difference.

When I am outside, the kids are excited to see me. They run by and say hi, or they walk around with me and we chat.  I can see what kids are doing, what’s got their attention, and often I can intervene before an incident turns into something more serious.  Being outside, almost all of my interactions with kids are positive.

At the beginning of my career a good friend and colleague (TomSchimmer) told me that “we show value by how we spend our minutes.”  I have done a lot of reflecting on that statement over the last couple of weeks.  By getting out of my office and leaving  the endless email and paperwork I am modelling what I believe is important in schools.

Spending time with kids.

If you liked what you read please share it.

I have had this post ratting around in my brain for a while, but I am just getting around to writing it now.

Back in December, on the evening of our Christmas concert I said hi to a Grade 1 student as we passed in the hallway.  I asked him if he was excited about the show.  He said he was.  All in all an innocent little exchange.

As I walked away, I heard his grandma say…

“Who’s that?”

“My principal.”

“He knows your name?  What did you do?“

I walked away thinking about my role as a principal and more importantly our roles as educators.  I will admit I don’t know the name of every student in our school, but I do know most of them and I think knowing every student is important.

Often when people find out I’m a principal the first thing they bring up is discipline.  Many people have the perception that as a principal the biggest part of my job is doling out punishments to students.  I have had many conversations with parents where they said that they have told their child if they are ever in the principal’s office they will be in big trouble and that the office is a bad place.

That is not the way I see it.  I don’t want the office to be a bad place that kids fear.  I don’t want to work in a school where talking to an adult engenders fear in students.   I certainly wouldn’t want my kids to attend a school that works that way.  More importantly, I want all students to see adults as problem solvers and people who are there to help.

Conflict is a part of life, conflict is inevitable – what’s important is how we manage conflict.  Conflict is an opportunity to learn, not to punish.

Even as an adult I make poor choices that hurt people and those choices can lead to conflict.  I don’t do it willfully, but sometimes I don’t see other people’s perspective until after the fact.  When I make those mistakes, I do my best to make amends and then learn from it.  Most importantly I try not to make the same mistake again.

Why would we treat students differently?

I can’t justify holding students to a higher standard.  I have experience on my side and I still make mistakes.

Ross Greene says challenging behavior occurs when the demands of the environment exceed a student’s capacity to respond adaptively.  When dealing with challenging behaviour it is important to work on the problem not the behaviour.  It’s true, unless it is an issue of safety, the behaviour is not that relevant.  If we just respond punitively, but don’t dig deeper we haven’t done anything to prevent it from happening again.  If students could manage conflict appropriately, they would.

It’s far more relevant to look at the antecedents to the behaviour.  What is getting in the way of an appropriate response?  I believe that kids do well if can, so if they are struggling it is not a choice.  Punishment will not make the problem go away.  However, digging deeper and finding the unsolved problem and working on it just might.

As schools, I think it is incumbent on us to invest in kids, get to know them and ask the question:

“What did I do to help this young person today?” 

Schools that ask that question put kids first.  That’s where I want to work and more importantly, the kind of school  I want my children to attend.

If you liked what you read please share it.

Have you ever had one of those weeks?

You know the kind.

The ones where you are counting down the days to Spring Break.  The ones where you think, “If I can just make it to Friday, I’ll be fine.”

That was me this week.  It was no one thing – it was many things.  More than anything, it is working with students who are struggling.  Some of them struggling in very public and intensive ways.  It is hard.  I know kids do well if they can and that I believe it is our job as a school to create the conditions where all kids can succeed, but it’s hard work.  Emotionally draining work.

Hence, the countdown to Spring Break…

I am not writing this to complain about how hard my job is or that schools are broken, but more of an appreciation of all that is good.  In the midst of a day and week that was as hard as any I remember, there was some moments that made me realize why I am so thankful to be an educator.

On Thursday morning I was in the gym just as a Kindergarten class was about to do the Virginia Reel.  They had been working hard and were doing a bit of a performance.  One of the girls was missing her partner, so the teacher who shall (not) remain nameless (Cathy Brickenden) put me on the spot and asked if I would join in.

How do you say no to a 5-year-old girl.  

So dance I did.  For five minutes, everything that was on my mind was gone.  I was just playing with the kids and they were loving it as much as I was.  I was truly lost in the moment just enjoying being there and laughing with the kids. There is even video evidence, but that is not making it on this page

Our school has the most amazing breakfast club (that’s another post).  Once in a while I  go in and flip a few pancakes to lend my support for the wonderful service they give our school.  Well I forgot that I volunteered to do it this week and on Thursday night I was kind of dreading it because I knew how busy my Friday was going to be.  However, I hate to renege on a commitment,  so off I went and was it ever worth it.  Again, spending a few minutes with kids who were so excited to eat a pancake that I made was amazing.  Especially, since all I did was put it on the griddle and flip it.   Being there with the kids, greeting them laughing with them and spending a few minutes with our amazing volunteers gave me energy and immediately lightened my mood.

I guess this post is more for me than anyone else.  It is a reminder to me to the importance of committing a little time.  It is the small things and taking the time to enjoy the moment.  When I do that, I am able to appreciate all that I have and how lucky I am to work in the school I do, with the kids we serve and with the most dedicated and talented staff I know.

If you liked what you read please share it.

As mentioned in my last post, we have a group on our staff who are learning about Ross Greene’s collaborative approach to deal with difficult behaviours.

If we believe KIDS DO WELL IF THEY CAN then we can rule out the age-old excuses for misbehaviour:

• passive, permissive, inconsistent parenting
• if the student tried harder he could do it
• the student just wants attention
• the student is being manipulative

We need to take rewards and consequences off the table.  They don’t (can’t ) work, because the behaviour is not a choice.  We believe that the preferable choice is to do well, so kids who are challenging are missing the required skills to well.  We wouldn’t use a pizza to reward a student who can’t read.

Would anyone ever consider the following?

Hey _______, I realize that you are decoding at a Grade 2 level, but our class is starting to read Harry Potter.  I think if you just tried a little harder you can read along with us.  I’ll tell you what, if you do it I will buy a you a ________(insert reward here).  If you can’t, then I will have to send you down to the office and you can talk to the principal about your non-compliance.

It’s silly, but I am trying to make a point.

If we believe their behaviour is not a choice, but rather a lagging skill, then we initiate the process with an ALSUP (Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems).  It is a treasure hunt to find out what is getting in the way of a student’s learning and causing them to act in a maladaptive way.

The ALSUP helps us answer two key questions:

 1) Why are challenging kids challenging?

• Difficulty handling transitions, shifting from one mindset or task to another
• Difficulty doing things in a logical sequence or prescribed order
• Difficulty persisting on challenging or tedious tasks
• Difficulty seeing the “grays”/concrete, literal, black-and-white, thinking
• …and many more please see Dr. Greene’s ALSUP for a complete list

2) When are they challenging?

• Dr. Greene argues kids are challenging when the cognitive demands exceed their ability to make to make adaptive decisions, and makes maladaptive instead. He refers to these as incompatibility episodes.
• Behaviour issues is a matter of development…they have not developed the skills.
• Theses are called unsolved problems – what ever causes the kid to behave maladaptively.
• The ALSUP helps us find and pinpoint these problems.

It is important to look at the ALSUP as a discussion guide.  Rather than working in isolation, it is preferable to bring a team of people who know the student together to work on it.  The team needs to focus on what can be controlled and avoid hypothesis and theories.  It is not a focus on WHAT the behaviour looks like – that’s not really important, but rather, what is causing the behaviour.  What is causing the incompatibility?  What skills is this student lacking and how can we pinpoint them?  Are the unsolved problems identified specific enough?

Hands on outside?  Too general.

Hands on outside when playing chase games?  Getting there.

Hands on when playing chasing games with ______, _______ and ________ . Yes – now we can get somewhere.

Students who struggle with behaviour often are very inflexible and rigid in their thinking.  As adults when we are dealing with rigidity, the natural reaction is to become more rigid yourself.  Our trainer Kim, referred to this as “reciprocal inflexibility”.  When both parties are digging their heels in the discussion is bound to go nowhere.  A detailed and specific ALSUP helps you reframe our thinking about the student.  It brings clarity to issue and the lagging skills.  It also makes us realize that students don’t misbehave all the time (it just feels that way sometimes).  It also creates predictability about what is going to happen and when the student is likely to struggle.  This predictability and understanding will help mitigate reciprocal inflexibility and focus on the unsolved problem(s) and lagging skills.  Ultimately, it prepares you for the collaborative discussion with the student…otherwise known as Plan B.

If you liked what you read please share it.

Last year our school engaged in a book study on Lost at School by Dr. Ross Greene.  Many others in our district also read his book and were very intrigued by the Collaborative Approach he uses.  This year our school was given an opportunity  to go deeper.  Six of us are working with one of Dr. Greene’s trainers (Kim Bortle) every Monday after school for 16 weeks to get a better understanding and to figure out how (and if?) we can take this approach school wide.

We are in week 11 and there has been a lot of learning….a lot.  There are many steps in the process and I can see a series of posts chronicling our journey and our learning.  However, above all else the process is rooted in the fundamental belief that KIDS DO WELL IF THEY CAN.

All kids (and adults for that matter) want to be successful, but not all have the requisite skills to be successful.  If we truly believe KIDS DO WELL IF THEY CAN, then we need to create the conditions for success and look at misbehaviour for what it is – a student who is coping with a situation the only way they can.  Misbehaviour should begin a series of questions, not a series of consequences.  We need to dig deep and find out what it getting in this students way?  What skills are this student lacking.

A great analogy that Kim has used with us on more than one occasion is that of a struggling reader.  If a student is unable to read grade level text, we support them.  We implement a series of strategies to support them in the classroom, pinpoint the areas of weakness and target them.  Often this type of intervention will “catch them up”. Why would we look at behaviour any different?

While I am no expert, I am trying to be true to the process and learning as I go.  I’m not going to sugarcoat it…it is hard.  It is hard to change the mindset we have all grown up in and that we are comfortable with.

This year we had a new student come to us and she came with some very challenging behaviours.  Her teacher has been very frustrated and at times I have been very frustrated with her non-compliance.    Initially, I used all the age-old interventions (Plan A) - ultimatums, taking things away…pretty much everything in my punitive tool box.

Guess what?

They didn’t work.

The behaviours were not extinguished.  I was in the midst of this training, yet I was unable to connect what I was learning to what I was doing.  Finally, the teacher (who is also involved in the training) and I looked at each other and said, “what are we doing?”  It was an “aha” moment for us and completely changed the lens we use to view this student.

We have gone from a reactive model, to one where we look at his behaviour for what it is.  Her maladaptive behaviour now is not a reaction, but a treasure hunt – we want to find out what is getting in her way and the skills she is lacking.

Have we got there yet?

Nope.

Will we?

We’ll get further…that’s for sure.

One of the things about the Collaborative Model is that it takes time and you have to invest.  That said, when we invest in kids, we build trusting relationships that are fundamental not only in school success, but also modelling adaptive behaviour to the students that need it most.  When we believe KIDS DO WELL IF THEY CAN, the we also believe that ALL KIDS CAN.  Some just need more help.