Reflections on a National Survey of Administrators and Teachers
Dear
Colleagues,
I hope you had a great summer. . . but
(believe it or not), for some of you the summer is already over- - and school
has started. For others of you, I know
that you are already “crossing over” with thoughts of the new school year.
And with the new school year are thoughts of
students and instruction and proficiency. . . and how to prepare for all of
that.
Over the past few weeks, I too have been
thinking about that preparation. In
fact, I have already been working with schools all over the country. . . in
Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland. . . all the way to Alaska.
And our primary focus has been:
How
do we create the positive student relationships, reinforce the behavioral
expectations (both in the classroom and the school’s common areas), and develop
ways to teach students to take responsibility for their social, emotional, and
behavioral interactions?
We have not just been asking the question. .
. we have been preparing to implement the effective approaches- -
from Day 1 of this new school year, to Day 180 at the end of the school year- -
to make it happen.
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An Overview of Today’s Message. . . with a
Gift at the End
In today’s message, I want to:
* Summarize a recent survey of teachers and
administrators from across the country, and their perceptions of school
climate, classroom behavior, and its effects on student achievement
* Describe the evidence-based elements of
effective school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management
* Offer everyone a free Study Guide and
Overview of my best-selling book, School Discipline, Classroom
Management, and Student Self-Management
So. . . let’s begin.
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The Status of School Climate and Discipline
in America’s Schools
This past June, YouGov and Kickboard
released a new survey of 2,500 teachers and (district and school)
administrators from across the country: The
State of Climate & Culture Initiatives in America’s Schools.
CLICK HERE for Report
Focusing on school priorities, school climate
and culture initiatives, and opportunities and challenges related to creating
school environments that foster student success, the online survey was
conducted in November and December, 2015.
The major take-away from the study
was:
More
than 90% of teachers and administrators think their schools need to address
student behavior issues in order to promote student success, but only 56% say
those issues are a top priority in their schools.
Based on the Report and the educators surveyed,
the Key findings were:
* 93% agreed that behavioral issues get in
the way of learning
* 74% said that addressing the needs of
students whose academic challenges are rooted in social and emotional issues
should be a top priority for their school
* 93% of teachers said that their school had
a climate and culture “initiative,” but 79% said it was ineffective or very
ineffective
* The most common strategy for dealing with
behavioral issues is a system of rewards and consequences
* 57% of district administrators said they do
not have a plan for a district-wide climate and culture initiative
* 57% of teachers and 67% of administrators
said the main challenge to implementing a school- or district-wide initiative
is inconsistency on the types of behaviors that are tracked, monitored and rewarded
* 80% of the survey respondents want their
schools to implement a program to enhance the climate and culture- - especially
to increase student achievement for at-risk students, increase student
engagement and motivation, and reduce lost instructional time
In summary, teachers and administrators
fully recognize that we must attend to students’ social, emotional, and
behavioral status, development, progress, and success. . . as much as we
attend to their academic proficiency and success.
Indeed, these factors are interdependent.
By way of proof: Every classroom in the U.S. has students who
are behaviorally acting up, because of academic frustration. So, too:
these same classrooms have students who are not academically succeeding,
because of poor interpersonal, social problem solving, conflict prevention
or resolution, or emotional coping skills.
There is the interdependency in a nutshell.
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The Scientific Blueprint for Effective School
Discipline Does Exist... But Most Schools Don’t Know it or Use it
Over the past 30 years or more, our
collective research-to-practice activities have identified the
underlying components needed to facilitate effective and consistent school
discipline, classroom management, and student self-management success.
Over the past 30 years, we have implemented the
specific services, supports, strategies, and interventions within these
components in thousands of schools in every state in the country- -
Urban, suburban, and rural schools;
Preschool through high school;
Public schools and charters;
Poverty-stricken through affluent schools;
Low-performing to Highly proficient schools
Alternative programs through Juvenile Justice
lock-ups;
With first-generation American to Native
American students . . .
and our
work has succeeded to the extent that our approach (Project ACHIEVE; www.projectachieve.net) was identified
as an evidence-based program in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
Thus, the evidence-based components below
have been field-tested extensively in a wide range of different schools and
settings, and the results have been independently evaluated and
certified.
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We have taken these components, and used
them to organize the sections in our best-selling book, School Discipline,
Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management published by Corwin Press.
[ CLICK HERE to Book Description ]
The evidence-based components are:
* Staff, Student, and Parent Relationships that establish Positive School
and Classroom Climates
* Explicit Classroom and Common School Area Expectations supported by Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skill/Self-Management Instruction (that are embedded in preschool through high school "Health, Mental Health, and Wellness" activities)
* School-wide and Classroom Behavioral Accountability systems that include Motivational Approaches reinforcing "Good Choice" behavior
* Consistency--in the classroom, across classrooms, and across staff, time, settings, and situations
* Applications of the above across all Settings in the school, and relative to the Peer Group interactions (specifically targeting teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, hazing, and physical aggression)
* Explicit Classroom and Common School Area Expectations supported by Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skill/Self-Management Instruction (that are embedded in preschool through high school "Health, Mental Health, and Wellness" activities)
* School-wide and Classroom Behavioral Accountability systems that include Motivational Approaches reinforcing "Good Choice" behavior
* Consistency--in the classroom, across classrooms, and across staff, time, settings, and situations
* Applications of the above across all Settings in the school, and relative to the Peer Group interactions (specifically targeting teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, hazing, and physical aggression)
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Critically, the components within this
“Blueprint” are interdependent.
Moreover, they address both the “preventative” needs of all
students, as well as the “strategic and intensive” needs of students
demonstrating social, emotional, and behavioral challenges.
This
Blueprint also addresses such issues as:
* Positive school climate and school safety
* Student engagement and collaboration
(especially in cooperative groups and project-based instruction)
* Student
attendance and truancy
* Student teasing and bullying
* Student discipline and disproportionalit
* Trauma and students’ emotional coping
needs
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Brief Descriptions of the Evidence-based
Components
Below are brief descriptions of the five
interdependent components needed for effective school discipline, classroom
management, and student self-management:
Positive
Relationships and School/Classroom Climate
If anyone has lived in or experienced a
toxic environment- - at home, in the workplace, at school- - then you know the
impact of climate on learning, behavior, attitudes, social interactions, and
your own mental health.
Many times, these environments exist because
of the relationships within them.
Effective schools work consciously,
planfully, and on an on-going basis to develop, reinforce, and sustain
positive and productive relationships so that their cross-school and
in-classroom climates mirror these relationships.
Critically, however, these relationships
include the following: Students to
Students, Students to Staff, Staff to Staff, Students to Parents, and Staff to
Parents.
But functionally, they involve training and
reinforcement. For example, students
need to learn the social and interactional skills needed to build positive
relationships with others, and the peer group has to “buy into” the process.
Similarly, teachers need to recognize the
importance of committing to effective communication, collaboration, and
collegial consultation. But, they also
need to have the skills to accomplish these. . . in good times and bad.
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Positive
Behavioral Expectations and Skills Instruction
Students - - from preschool through high
school- - need to know the explicit social, emotional, and behavioral
expectations in the classrooms and across the common areas of the school. These expectations need to be communicated as
“what they need to do,” rather than “what they do not need to do.”
Critically, teachers and administrators will
have more success in teaching students to (a) walk down the hallway, rather
than not run; (b) raise your hand and wait to be called on, rather than don’t
blurt out answers; (c) accept a consequence, rather than don’t roll your
eyes and give me attitude.
In addition, these expectations need to
be behaviorally specific- - that is, we need to describe exactly what we
want the students to do (e.g., in the hallways, bathrooms, cafeteria, and on
the bus).
It is not instructionally helpful to talk in
constructs- - telling students that they need to be “Respectful, Responsible,
Polite, Safe, and Trustworthy.” This is
because each of these constructs involve a wide range of behaviors, and it
is the behaviors we need to teach so that students can fully demonstrate
the global constructs that we want.
Said a different way: You can’t teach a behavioral construct;
we need to teach the behaviors that represent
the construct.
But we also must teach these social,
emotional, and behavioral skills. . . the same way that we teach a
football team, an orchestra, a drama club, or an academic task. We need to teach the skills and its steps,
to demonstrate it, to give students opportunities to practice and receive
feedback, and then to apply their new skills to “real-world” situations.
This all means that we need to communicate
our behavioral expectations to students, and then teach them. Functionally, this means that our schools
need to consciously and explicitly set aside time for social skills
instruction, and then embed the application of this instruction into their
classrooms and group activities, and (for example) cooperative and project-based
instruction.
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Student
Motivation and Accountability
In order for the skill instruction described
above to “work,” students need to be held accountable for demonstrating
positive and effective social, emotional, and behavioral skills. But to accomplish this, students need to be
motivated (eventually, self-motivated) to perform these skills.
Motivation is based on two component
parts: Incentives and Consequences. But critically, these incentives and
consequences must be meaningful and powerful to the students.
Too often, schools create “motivational
programs” for students that involve incentives and consequences that the
students couldn’t care less about. Thus,
it looks good “on paper,” but it holds no weight in actuality- - from the
students’ perspectives.
At other times, schools forget that they
need to recognize, engage, and activate the peer group in a motivational
program. This is because, at times, the
peer group is actually undermining the program by negatively reinforcing those
members (on the playground, after school, on social media) who are “playing up
to the adults” through their appropriate behavior.
On a functional level, both
incentives and consequences result in positive and prosocial behavior. The incentives motivate students toward the
expected behaviors, and the consequences motivate students away from the
inappropriate behaviors (and toward the expected ones).
But critically, educators need to understand
that you can only create motivating conditions. That is, we can’t force students to meet
the behavioral expectations. When we
force students to do anything, we are managing their behavior, not
facilitating self-management. While
we have to do some management to get to self-management. . . if we only manage
students’ behavior, then they will not (know how to) self-manage when the
adults are not present.
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Consistency
Consistency is a process. It would be great if we could “download” it into
all students and staff. . . or put it in their annual flu shots. . . but that’s
not going to happen.
Consistency needs to be “grown”
experientially over time, and then sustained in an ongoing way. It is grown through effective strategic planning
with explicit implementation plans, good communication and collaboration, sound
implementation and evaluation, and consensus-building coupled with constructive
feedback and change.
It’s not easy. . . but it is
necessary for school success.
But relative to school discipline, classroom
management, and student self-management, consistency must occur all four of
the other elements of the blueprint.
That is, in order to be successful, staff
(and students) need to (a) demonstrate consistent prosocial
relationships and interactions- - resulting in consistently positive and
productive school and classroom environments; (b) communicate consistent
behavioral expectations, while consistently teaching them; (c) use consistent
incentives and consequences, while holding student consistently accountable for their
appropriate behavior; and then (d) apply all of these components consistently
across all of the settings and peer groups in the school.
Moreover,
consistency occur when staff are consistent (a) with individual students, (b)
across students, (c) within their grade levels or instructional teams, (d)
across time, (e) across settings, and (f) across situations and circumstances.
Critically, when staff are inconsistent,
students feel that they are treated unfairly, they sometimes behave differently
for different staff or in different settings, they can become manipulative- -
pitting one staff person against another, and they often emotionally react- -
some getting angry with the inconsistency, and others simply withdrawing
because they feel powerless to change it.
Said a different way: Inconsistency undercuts student
accountability, and you don’t get the behavior (or it occurs
inconsistently or differentially) that you want in class or across the school.
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Applications
to All Settings and the Peer Group
The last component of the school discipline
blueprint focuses on the application of the previous four components to all of
the settings and peer interactions in the school.
Relative to the former, it is important to
understand that the common areas of a school are more complex and dynamic than
the classroom settings. Indeed, in the hallways,
bathrooms, buses, cafeteria, and on the playground (or playing fields), there
typically are more multi-aged or cross-grade students, more interactions, more
space or fewer physical limitations, fewer staff and supervisors, and different
social demands.
As such, the positive social, emotional, and
behavioral interactions that occur in the classroom often are taxed in the
common school areas.
Accordingly, students need to be taught
how to demonstrate their interpersonal, social problem solving, conflict
prevention and resolution, and emotional coping skills in each common school
area. Moreover, the training needs
to be tailored to the social demands and expectations of these settings.
Relative to the latter area, and as above,
it is important to understand that the peer group is often a more dominant
social and emotional “force” than the adults in a school. As such, the school discipline blueprint
is consciously applied (relative to climate, relationships, expectations,
skill instruction, motivation, and accountability) to help prevent peer-to-peer teasing, taunting,
bullying, harassment, hazing, and physical aggression.
This is done by involving the different peer
groups in a school in group “prevention and early response” training, and
motivating them- - across the entire school- - to take the lead relative to
prosocial interactions.
Truly, the more the peer group can be
trained, motivated, and reinforced to do “the heavy prosocial lifting,” the
more successful the staff and the school will be relative to positive school
climate and consistently safe schools.
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In the end, from a school and district
perspective, these five interdependent and evidence-based school discipline
components are exactly what the YouGov/Kickboard survey participants
were asking for.
In summary, the components and the
blueprint need to be integrated into the fabric of every school and district. This can happen when they:
* Focus on teaching and reinforcing students' interpersonal, social problem
solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional coping skills from
preschool through high school.
* Do this by implementing a systematic "Health, Mental Health, and
Wellness" curriculum (to complement your literacy, math, science, and
other curricula).
* "Job embed" the skills above into the classroom and academic
program-- teaching and reinforcing students for interacting successfully (a) on
an individual level, (b) in cooperative and other instructional groups and lab
experiences, and (c) within their classrooms, at their grade levels, and across
the school.
* Integrate prosocial strategies and approaches into teachers' classroom
management systems, and evaluate them (through the district's teacher
evaluation system) for consistently using them.
* Create a continuum of services, supports, strategies, and/or programs
for students (with disabilities, mental health issues, or who are just
emotionally or behaviorally struggling) that are implemented through an effective
Student Assistance Team process.
* Plan, implement, and evaluate these approaches every year as part of
the school and district's strategic planning and School Improvement Plan
processes.
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So. . . Let’s Get to Work: A Free Planning Guide
In order to help schools think about these
components more deeply, and begin to apply them for themselves, I am offering
the following:
* A
free Study Guide and Overview of my best-selling book:
School Discipline, Classroom Management, and
Student Self-Management.
This 138-page Study Guide (a) summarizes
the content of each chapter; (b) provides “study questions” and discussion
templates if a school faculty want to read the book together as part of a “book
study;” (c) includes a Three Year School Discipline Implementation Fact
Sheet along with an Action Plan with specific activities; and (d) gives
case study examples and results from a number of schools across the country.
In total, the chapters in the School
Discipline book and Guide cover each component of the blueprint
above. They are:
Chapter
1: Designing School-wide Positive Behavioral
Support Systems (PBSS)
Chapter
2: School Readiness and the Steps for PBSS
Implementation
Chapter
3: The School Discipline/PBSS and Other
Committees: Effective Team and Group
Functioning
Chapter
4: Behavioral Accountability, Student
Motivation, and Staff Consistency
Chapter
5: Teaching Social, Emotional, and Behavioral
Skills
Chapter
6: School Safety, and Crisis Prevention,
Intervention, and Response
Chapter
7: Teasing, Taunting, Bullying, Harassment,
Hazing, and Physical Aggression
Chapter
8: Functional Assessment and Why Students Become
Behaviorally Challenging
Chapter
9: Behavioral Interventions for Students with Strategic
and Intensive Needs
Chapter
10: Evaluating and Sustaining PBSS Outcomes
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To
receive this Guide, all you have to do is e-mail me and request it:
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In addition, I am also always happy to
provide any School Leader or Leadership Team with a free one-hour conference or Skype call to discuss how to begin
implementing the blueprint described in this Blog, the Guide, and my book.
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Summary
Summary
As we begin the school year, it is essential
to prepare students for academic success by also preparing them for social,
emotional, and behavioral success.
If you are similar to the teachers and
administrators in the YouGov/Kickboard survey who knew that their school
needed to address student behavior, but were not doing it or doing it
successfully, now is the time for change.
We have the scientific foundation. We have the related strategies and
approaches. We only have to invest our
efforts in implementing these strategies- - rather than continuing to be
frustrated for another school year.
And so, as you begin this school year, I wish
you the greatest of success.
Paulo Freire once said: “There is, in fact,
no teaching without learning. One
requires the other.”
I hope that the information presented here
has helped you to learn, so that you can better teach for this entire new
school year.
Best,
Howie
