(Pandemic-Related?) Behavioral Challenges and Student Violence in Our Schools Today

Preparing for Action by Pursuing the Principles Needed for Assessment and Intervention

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction: Twittering Twitter Twits

   This past week, I posted a 46-minute free Webinar discussing the importance of teaching parents how to teach social, emotional, and behavioral skills to their children and adolescents using the Stop & Think Social Skills Parenting Program—a complement to our evidence-based (through SAMSHA, CASEL, and other groups) Stop & Think Social Skills Program for schools.

[CLICK HERE if You are Interested in Watching this Video]

   After posting an announcement of the Webinar on Twitter, I received a somewhat “twittering” tweet from a parent castigating me for suggesting that you could successfully teach parenting in 46 minutes (obviously a frustrated misinterpretation on her part).

   Such is life in today’s social media world where good intent is sometimes met with public scoldings (or worse). But, in a way, she did have a good point.

   Every time I prepare my bi-monthly Blog, I fully intend to spend 20 minutes on it, and write six to eight paragraphs.

   But then, three things happen. . . resulting in a bimonthly article (even though I still call it a “Blog”), and one to two days of preparation and writing.

   These things are:

·       I am forced (as we all should be) to recognize that the problems I often discuss with you are often terribly complex, and I do not want to over-simplify either the problems or the (sometimes) many different reasons why they are occurring; 

·       I realize that the solutions that I present are similarly complex, they typically are connected to the confirmed root causes of the problems at-hand, and there are multiple root causes to the same problem; and

·       I further recognize that these multiple root causes occur because students and their problems have their own histories, contexts, and interrelationships, and that successful intervention plans must be linked to these individual circumstances.

   And so, my Twitter parent was right. Something as complex as parenting cannot be “taught” in 46 minutes. But the science-to-practice blueprints of effective parenting can be described within that timeframe.

   And this—even after one to two days of writing—is what I to do in these Blogs.

   Specifically: Knowing (as bulleted above) that I can’t provide all of the information needed to fully address any problem at-hand, my Blogs provide evidence-based blueprints that can guide your analyses of a targeted problem—if present in your classroom, school, district, or other setting—toward greater objective understanding and field-tested, proven action.

   While I describe as many specifics as possible, very often, administrators, supervisors, program directors, and others then contact me—asking for the more personal, consultative support needed to apply information in the written Blog to their specific or unique site-based situations.

   And I love it when this happens. . . because I love to work, personally and collaboratively, with colleagues to help them to truly solve their significant, persistent, or systemic challenges.

   But at the same time, I know (because they write me) that many are using the evidence-based blueprints and field-tested recommendations in the Blogs to solve their own problems.

   And that clearly is a win-win for everyone.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Why are Behavioral Challenges and Student Violence Increasing in Schools Today ?

   Since New Year's Day, numerous professional and popular press reports have discussed the increasing number of social, emotional, and behavioral challenges exhibited by students in schools across the country. These challenges range from misbehavior to physical and antisocial threats to extreme levels of emotionality to dangerous acts of violence.

   Based its December 2021 nationally-stratified survey of 286 district leaders, 199 principals, and 725 teachers, Education Week reported that:

·       Nearly half of all school and district leaders (44%) said they are receiving more threats of violence by students now than they did in the fall of 2019. More generally, two out of three teachers, principals, and district leaders said students are misbehaving more these days than they did in the fall of 2019.

·       Educators in districts where all or some of the instruction was provided online last school year were more likely to report that student threats and misbehavior have risen since 2019.

·       In districts in which nearly all the learning was remote or hybrid in 2020-21, 51% of principals and district leaders reported rising rates of student threats of violence. That rate was 30% for school and district leaders where most of the learning was in person the previous school year.

·       In districts that were offering mostly remote or hybrid instruction last school year, 71% of survey respondents said students are misbehaving more this school year, compared with 52% from districts that had offered mostly in-person instruction the previous year.

·       66% of principals and district leaders in larger districts of 10,000 or more students reported an uptick in student threats of violence, compared with 34% of their peers in districts with enrollments under 2,500 students. Similarly, 73% of teachers, principals, and district leaders in larger districts said student misbehavior is on the rise, compared with 60% in smaller districts.

·       Compared with their counterparts in rural areas and towns, urban and suburban teachers, principals, and district leaders were also more likely to say student misbehavior is on the rise. Rising rates of student misbehavior were reported by 73% of suburban administrators, 69% for urban, and 61% for those from rural areas or small towns.

[CLICK HERE for the Original Article]

_ _ _ _ _

   These concerns—with comparable data—were reported by NBC News (January 3, 2022) in an article, “The Pandemic is Affecting Student Behavior, Prompting Questions over Discipline.

   In this article, Erin Einhorn wrote (with some edits included):

The list of challenges facing school administrators as they head into the new year is long and daunting: crippling staff shortages, nasty battles over mask-wearing, deep academic deficits, terrifying sickness and disruptive quarantines. 

 

On top of that, administrators are also navigating difficult questions about how best to respond to student discipline issues, including violence, which some educators say has been a growing concern this school year. 

 

“In the first nine weeks of school, we had more physical aggression in terms of fights than we probably had in the last maybe three or four years combined,” said Crystal Thorpe, the principal of Fishers Junior High School in suburban Indianapolis, who said her students had difficulty transitioning back to full-time in-person classes. 

 

Thorpe’s seventh and eighth grade students are not only reeling from trauma and loss related to the pandemic — they also missed out on social interaction at a crucial time in their development, Thorpe said, meaning they returned to school lacking skills like conflict management that they ordinarily learn from their peers. 

 

Thorpe issued an unusually high number of suspensions early in the school year — seven by the end of October, compared to none before Halloween the previous three years, she said — after her staff members broke up fights in the hallways, the cafeteria and by the buses. In one instance, she said, two girls who are normally friends started slapping each other in a dispute over potato chips. 

 

Ronn Nozoe, the CEO of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said he’s heard from members around the country that they’re seeing higher-than-usual rates of fights, drug use and other discipline issues and are struggling with how to respond.

 

His members don’t want to suspend or expel students, he said, but they have limited resources to address the emotional causes of students’ behavior while also keeping their buildings safe. . . (E)ducators note that some schools don’t have the staff, skills or resources to effectively respond to discipline challenges without conventional tools like suspensions, especially given staffing issues that have made it difficult for schools to hire enough counselors to serve students’ needs. Hiring issues have also reduced the number of aides available to monitor hallways and support students with disabilities. 

 

“These are deep problems,” Nozoe said. “You know, ‘We don’t have a place to live,’ or ‘My parents lost their job,’ or ‘My uncle died,’ or ‘I don’t have hope.’ These are not issues that you’re going to go to a counselor for 30 minutes and be done with. These are issues that are deep, and some of those issues are not resolvable at the school level.”

 

“Is sending them home the best, you know, unsupervised? No,” (Crystal Thorpe, the suburban Indianapolis principal,) said, noting that students might not be safe at home or might view suspensions as a reward, a chance to play video games. “But keeping them here in an agitated state where they are disrupting the entire school?” she asked. “That’s not the best answer either.” 

[CLICK HERE for the Original Article]

_ _ _ _ _

   The increase in the number of social, emotional, and behavioral challenges exhibited by students across the country is not a surprise. . . and it parallels similar increases in crime, violence, and murder in our communities over the past year or more.

   But, as we have emphasized in our Blogs over the years. . .

[Go to: www.projectachieve.info/blog and click on “Classroom Management,” “School Climate,” “Pandemic-Related Strategies,” or any other related term on the middle right-hand side of this page]. . .

·       Schools need to use reliable and valid data to determine whether whole-school, grade-level, classroom, and/or individual student services, supports, or interventions will have the highest probability of success to address the continuum of challenges from student misbehavior to violence; 

·       They need—using their Multi-Tiered Services Team of related service professionals and other— to objectively evaluate and validate the data that identifies the (typically, multiple) root causes of group or individual student problems; and 

·       They need to differentiate among student problems that (a) existed before the Pandemic, (b) have begun during the Pandemic and as an indirect or direct result of Pandemic-related conditions or events, or (c) have begun during the Pandemic, but are coincidental to the Pandemic and have no relationship to Pandemic-related conditions or events.

   Beyond this, schools also need to address student challenges by:

·       Using science-to-practice principles and procedures—avoiding what we call “intervention roulette” where “popular press,” or “testimonial-based” interventions are randomly thrown at the challenge-of-the-day; 

·       Using, building onto, modifying, or establishing (if it is absent or weak) their primary prevention (or Tier 1) services, supports, and infrastructure—avoiding the inclination to introduce a “special or specialized (Tier 2 or 3) program or intervention” just to address what appear to be Pandemic-related problems; and 

·       Implementing any new services, supports, or interventions with integrity—recognizing that the “right” intervention implemented the “wrong” way may exacerbate existing problems and/or make them more resistant (down the road) to change.

   In the next two sections, we outline two sets of science-to-practice principles and procedures to effectively guide those with one or more specific school discipline, classroom management, or individual student social, emotional, or behavioral challenges.

   The first section discusses, at the systems level, a strategic planning process for an entire school, district, or related setting. The second section outlines ten principles for effective behavior management at the grade, classroom, and student levels.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Strategic Planning for the Usual and Unusual

   Strategic planning is the key to a successful school- or district-wide initiative. Critically, there is a gigantic body of strategic planning science. While the science is not always definitive, when an evidence-based blueprint is used, the results are usually positive and impactful.

   For schools needing to address high(er) levels of student misbehavior through school violence, as emphasized above, they need to avoid immediately bringing in a “special or specialized program or intervention” unless so indicated by the data collected through the strategic planning process below.

   We have discussed strategic planning before—in an August 22, 2020 Blog titled, “How Would Covey Organize an SEL School Initiative? Strategically Planning for the Usual and the Unusual.”

[CLICK HERE to Read that Entire Blog]

   Organized using Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” the strategic planning principles and practices are summarized below—as applied to the implementation of a school-wide SEL initiative... an initiative completely relevant to addressing students’ current behavioral challenges.

_ _ _ _ _

   In our 2020 Blog, we connected Covey’s 7 Habits to seven related action steps:

·       Be Proactive—Do Your Homework

·       Begin with the End in Mind—Specify Your Desired Outcomes

·       Put First Things First—Go Slow to Go Fast

·       Think Win-Win—Honor Your Colleagues

·       Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood—Listen to the Children

·       Synergize—Set Your Mission, Role, and Function

·       Sharpen the Saw—Resource, Train, and Support

_ _ _ _ _

Habit/Action 1: Be Proactive—Do Your Homework

   At the beginning of a strategic planning process, educators need to:

·       Complete a Data-Based Up-to-Date Status Evaluation. This involves the collection and analysis of (at least) the past three years’ worth of information and outcomes related to the initiative being focused on. This is done so that statistical trend analyses can be completed. 

·       Complete a Needs Assessment and Gap Analysis. The Needs Assessment uses the results of the Status Evaluation above to determine the multifaceted student, staff, and organizational needs related to the initiative. This is especially guided by the Gap Analysis which identifies the gaps that exist between the current status of the school, and where it wants, expects, or must go. 

·       Complete a SWOT Analysis. A SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning process where schools identify their (a) Strengths, Assets, and Accomplishments; (b) Weaknesses and Limitations; (c) Opportunities and Resources; and (d) Threats and Barriers related to the initiative.  A SWOT Analysis typically looks at both internal organizational (school and district) characteristics, and external situational or setting (community, state, national) characteristics.

_ _ _ _ _

Habit/Action 2: Begin with the End in Mind—Specify Your Desired Outcomes

   Too many schools plan their initiatives as a bunch of activities (many that have never been field-tested and validated with the types of students who walk their hallways), rather than focusing on what they want their students to eventually do due to the initiative.

   As Covey would emphasize, once you determine—at the beginning of your planning processes—your short- and long-term outcomes, you can work backwards and evaluate proposed goals, actions, practices, and activities with the question:

“Will these goals, actions, practices, and activities help our school to attain these outcomes in a cost-, time-, and resource-effective way? 

   For a social-emotional learning initiative, there are many possible “ends in mind.”  Among the broad target areas are the following:

·       School safety and prevention,

·       Positive school culture and classroom climate,

·       Classroom discipline and management,

·       Student engagement and self-management,

·       Health, Mental Health, and Wellness

·       Teasing and bullying,

·       Harassment and physical aggression,

·       Office discipline referrals and suspensions/expulsions,

·       Disproportionality and effective approaches to replace zero tolerance policies, and

·       Preventing and responding to students’ mental health status and needs.

_ _ _ _ _

Habit/Action 3: Put First Things First—Go Slow to Go Fast

   Every important district or school initiative should have a Leadership or Planning Team that has representatives from every constituency likely to be touched by the initiative. Critically, who is chosen to be on the Social-Emotional Learning Leadership Team (SLT) is paramount, as the Team must represent not just positions, experience, expertise, and perspectives, but also district and community demographics and diversity.

   As school climate and social-emotional learning necessarily involve issues of gender, geography, race, socio-economic and multi-cultural status, sexual orientation, and disability, the SLT Team needs to be chosen with an eye toward “equity-based representation.”

   That is, Team membership should not necessarily reflect just district staff or community demographics. If that occurs, it is likely that there will be very few staff with disabilities and/or from black, brown, and other multicultural backgrounds on the Team. If we are truly committed to giving voice to staff (and students) from these backgrounds, it is not appropriate to put these few individuals in a potential role where they feel that they have to speak “for their people.”

   Indeed, if we are truly committed to addressing the social-emotional learning needs and wants of students with disabilities and from minority and multi-cultural backgrounds (the latter who may be the “majority” of students in our schools), we need to disproportionately weight our SLT Teams with representatives from these groups.

   Beyond this, SLT Team leaders need to “go slow to go fast” by investing the time needed to build team members’ relationships, communication, collaboration, and consensus-building skills and processes.

   This will facilitate the development of sound Action Plans. . . another “slow” area that many planning teams ignore . . . as they either try to write their Action Plan prematurely, or they do not write an effective Action Plan at all.

   Briefly, an effective Action Plan identifies the goals and outcomes of the initiative (see the outcomes above) using a SMART format. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based.

   Critically, the SEL Action Plan must explicitly address issues related to gender, geography, race, socio-economic and multi-cultural status, sexual orientation, and disability, and it must be multi-tiered in nature.

   That is, the Plan should include the multi-tiered services, supports, strategies, and programs that address the needs of all students—from those who are gifted, talented, and/or excelling, as well as those students who are at-risk, struggling, and/or challenging. These latter students usually are already known to the school or district, although additional students in need may emerge from the Needs Assessment and Gap Analysis.

_ _ _ _ _

Habit/Action 4: Think Win-Win—Honor Your Colleagues

   In order to initially generate the commitment and energy to sustain a systemic initiative, everyone needs to feel that a “win-win” potential exists.

   While this rarely reaches a 100% consensus, initiatives must begin with the full, clear, and public commitment of at least 80% of everyone involved to the Action Plan. While this starts with the SLT Team’s systematic involvement of these different constituencies in the Action Planning process, it especially requires reaching out to instructional, support, and administrative colleagues.

   This takes time and effort, and it is best guided by asking instructional, support, and administrative staff what they need to feel involved, and how they want the Action Plan approved.

   This is yet another example of “Going slow to go Fast,” and it involves sharing the results of all of the Habit/Actions discussed above.

_ _ _ _ _

Habit/Action 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood—Listen to the Children

   Piggy-backing on Habit/Action 5, initiative planning must also involve the children and adolescents who eventually will be targeted by many initiative activities, and whose social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes will determine the success of the process.

   Too often, we forget to “Listen to the Children.” In most cases, I find this to be an oversight, and not a slight—although some educators do undervalue student input. . . or they are afraid of it.

    Clearly, students’ voices must be continuously, consistently, and systematically heard from the beginning and throughout any social-emotional learning initiative. Implicitly or explicitly, schools should not be “doing things” to students, they should be collaborating, communicating, and carrying activities out with students. 

   Thus, the use of student surveys, focus groups and interviews, observations, and action planning feedback are all essential to a sound Action Plan and the potential success of a multi-year initiative.

   Ultimately, on a social, emotional, and behavioral level, when students support, reinforce, and guide the implementation of critical social-emotional learning practices, everyone wins.

   Similar to Habit/Action 4 above, if students are not involved and committed to a social-emotional learning initiative, they will not engage. And if they do not engage, all of the planning, training, and resourcing will go for naught.

_ _ _ _ _

Habit/Action 6: Synergize—Set Your Mission, Role, and Function

   As part of a new district-wide initiative, many strategic planning experts believe that an Initiative Mission Statement provides a helpful “compass” to keep the initiative on track.

   Typically an extension of the district’s Mission Statement, an Initiative Mission Statement:

·       Specifies the reason(s) for the initiative’s existence and the target populations and/or beneficiaries;

·       Specifies the actions and/or activities that define and operationalize the initiative’s existence and the scope and nature of those programs;

·       Specifies the outcomes of the initiative’s actions and/or activities, and describes what the target populations will look like when the initiative has accomplished its goals; and

·       Guides the development of the initiative’s general and specific objectives, timelines, and activities, acting (once again) as a compass for the semester to semester, month to month, and week to week interactions of targeted staff, students, and significant others.

   From the Mission Statement and embedded in the initiative’s Action Plan, the Roles and Functions of the different training, supervision, implementation, and evaluation “players” in the process is important.

   When written in a formal document, this helps to publicize and clarify who is involved in what parts of the initiative. This also serves to identify areas of shared and solo responsibility and accountability, who the “Go-To” people are (and are not), and where important lines of communication, engagement, and collaboration need to be.

_ _ _ _ _

Habit/Action 7: Sharpen the Saw—Resource, Train, and Support

   When strategic initiatives consciously “sharpen the saw,” they use their Action Plans to prepare for the initiative prior to its formal “roll-out” or implementation, as well as to periodically review, reflect, rejoice, recalibrate, and renew the energy and commitment to the initiative’s goals and outcomes.

   In the former area, too many initiatives fail from the beginning because the district or school has not spent the money and quality time (sometimes an entire year prior to the initiative’s formal roll-out) making sure that (a) the resources are available, (b) the training and coaching has been effectively completed, (c) the staff (and others) are prepared and motivated to implement their parts of the multi-tiered process with integrity and intensity, and (d) a supportive process of progressive and continuous improvement is explicitly evident as a guiding principle.

   In the latter area, formal evaluation, analysis and reflection is needed in every major area of implementation or student, staff, and school outcome. Periodic celebrations are planned, and recalibrated “mid-course corrections” are needed so that everyone shares and commemorates the successes, while realizing that, when miscalculations or “wrong turns” have occurred, Team Leaders are willing to acknowledge and change them for the better.

   In these ways, initiative participants do not burn out, they have opportunities to renew their energy, and they can take heart in the transparency of the process and the dedication to growth and success.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The Ten Principles for Effective Behavior Management at the Grade, Classroom, and Student Levels

   Many times over the years, our Blogs have described the five interdependent science-to-practice components of an effective school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management system.

   This was most recently done in our August 14, 2021 Blog, “The Components Needed to Eliminate Disproportionate School Discipline Referrals and Suspensions for Students of Color Do Not Require Anti-Bias Training.”

[CLICK HERE to Read this Blog]

   And we complemented the August Blog with another one from an SEL perspective on October 23, 2021, “Addressing Students’ SEL Pandemic Needs by Addressing their SEL Universal Needs: What Social, Emotional, Attributional, and Behavioral Skills Do ALL Students Need from an SEL Initiative?”

[CLICK HERE to Read this Blog]

_ _ _ _ _

   Below, we add value to these two Blogs by identifying the Ten Principles for Effective Behavior Management. These “building-block” principles are important for any schools needing to address students’ challenging behavior— whether Pandemic-related or not.

·       Principle 1. We need to teach the social skills, and classroom and building routines that we expect students to demonstrate.  “Teaching” involves students learning the “Skills and Scripts” through teacher instruction, modeling, role playing and performance feedback, and the transfer of this training to real-life situations.

 

·    Principle 2. When teaching social skills, we need to simulate “conditions of emotionality” and guide students through positive practices of the social skills—so that they are better able to handle the real emotional situations in their lives and into the future.

 

·     Principle 3. We need to continually give students opportunities to practice and apply their social skills. Social skills are never fully mastered—students just progress to the “next level” of development and maturation. These “next levels” often require more sophisticated social skills to respond to more complex social interactions and situations.

 

·      Principle 4. Social skill “success” at the preschool level means that students (a) respond to adult social skill prompts (b) within a reasonable amount of time, and (c) that they are able to demonstrate their social skills for longer and longer periods of time without prompting. As students get older, and with continued social skills training and reinforcement, they will demonstrate their social skills more automatically and independently.

 

·   Principle 5. Positive responses and incentives best motivate students to use their social skills. The most motivating ratio of positives to negatives is for students to experience 5 positive interactions (from adults, peers, self) for every negative interaction.

 

·   Principle 6. Skills need to be taught and learned in order for incentives and consequences to motivate future appropriate behavior. You can’t motivate a student out of a skill deficit.

 

·  Principle 7. When students make bad choices, meaningful consequences (used strategically) should be used to communicate to them that they have made a bad choice, and to motivate them to make a good choice the next time (in the future). However, bad choices occur across a continuum of intensity. Students who demonstrate significant, violent, or dangerous behavior need administrative actions complemented by root cause analyses to determine why the extreme behavior is occurring.

 

·     Principle 8. When using consequences (strategically), adults need to use the most strategic consequence for the student, and the mildest consequence needed to motivate a (future) change of behavior (use the Behavioral Matrix).

 

·   Principle 9. “If you consequate, you must educate.” Restorative practices should be built-into the consequences that occur when students demonstrate disruptive or anti-social behavior, but these practices will not change student behavior if (as above) students do not have the social, emotional, or behavioral skills needed to behave or interact appropriately the next time.

 

·   Principle 10. Discipline and behavior management consistency by teachers, support staff, and administrators is essential to both prevent and respond to student behavior.  Inconsistency undercuts or undermines student accountability, and this often results in continued, more extreme, or more resistant inappropriate behavior.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Summary

   Given the increasing number of social, emotional, and behavioral challenges exhibited by students in schools across the country this school year, this Blog encouraged schools to avoid “crisis-oriented” reactions and responses.

   Instead, we recommended using a strategic planning approach that is guided by both systemic and student-specific principles and practices.

   To do this, we first emphasized the following:

·       Schools need to use reliable and valid data to determine whether whole-school, grade-level, classroom, and/or individual student services, supports, or interventions will have the highest probability of success to address the continuum of challenges from student misbehavior to violence; 

·       They need—using their Multi-Tiered Services Team of related service professionals and other—to objectively evaluate and validate the data that identifies the (typically, multiple) root causes of group or individual student problems; and 

·       They need to differentiate among student problems that (a) existed before the Pandemic, (b) have begun during the Pandemic and as an indirect or direct result of Pandemic-related conditions or events, or (c) have begun during the Pandemic, but are coincidental to the Pandemic and have no relationship to Pandemic-related conditions or events.

   Beyond this, we also noted that schools need to address student challenges by:

·       Using science-to-practice principles and procedures—avoiding what we call “intervention roulette” where “popular press,” or “testimonial-based” interventions are randomly thrown at the challenge-of-the-day; 

·       Using, building onto, modifying, or establishing (if it is absent or weak) their primary prevention (or Tier 1) services, supports, and infrastructure—avoiding the inclination to introduce a “special or specialized (Tier 2 or 3) program or intervention” just to address what appear to be Pandemic-related problems; and 

·       Implementing any new services, supports, or interventions with integrity—recognizing that the “right” intervention implemented the “wrong” way may exacerbate existing problems and/or make them more resistant (down the road) to change.

   We then detailed some important systems-level principles and practices—applying Covey’s 7 Habits to the current student behavior problem. This was followed by a discussion of the Ten Principles for Effective Behavior Management.

_ _ _ _ _

   As noted in the Introduction to this Blog, I know that I can’t provide all of the information needed to fully address any problem that I write about. And yet, I always try to provide evidence-based blueprints that can guide your analyses of a targeted problem—if present in your classroom, school, district, or other setting—toward greater objective understanding and field-tested, proven action.

   Over the years, once they read a specific Blog, many administrators, supervisors, program directors, and others contact me, asking for the more personal, consultative support needed to apply information in the Blog to their specific or unique site-based situations.

   I love it when this happens. . . because I love to work, personally and collaboratively, with colleagues to help them to truly solve their significant, persistent, or systemic challenges.

   And to “give back” to those who contact me, I always provide the first consultation—individually or with a selected team of professionals—“on the house.” 

   As always, I hope that the blueprints and discussion in this Blog are useful to you. As we continue to address Pandemic-related issues, we clearly need to differentiate the issues that existed before the Pandemic and those that are Pandemic-specific. And we need to use the science-to-practice principles that will best guide us to success on behalf of all of our students, staff, and schools.

   Once again, if I can help you, your colleagues, your school, your district, or your professional setting to address your students’ social, emotional, or behavioral challenges, send me an email and let’s set up a time to talk.

Best,

Howie

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Educators Need to Deal with Reality by Facing, Analyzing, and then Changing Reality

The Damage Done When We Ignore, Lie About, Misinterpret, Sugar-Coat, or Surrealize Reality

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

 

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   “Happy” New Year. . .

   If you work anywhere near Education, I’m not sure how “happy” it is.

   Indeed, if you read the popular press. . . alongside the educational press... we are starting 2022 with any number of potential, continuing, or daunting challenges.

·       The Pandemic continues to affect whether schools should remain open, and how to best educate our students in this context. . .  

·       Student attendance remains down, and students’ social-emotional engagement (at school or virtually) is tenuous at best. . . 

·       The need for racial equity and social justice remains, but now there are “controls” over who can say what about race and related issues in the classroom. . . 

·       Many students have academic readiness and proficiency gaps, and the debates persist relative to how to accurately measure and effectively close these gaps. . .

·       Teachers’ (and their colleagues’) health, mental health, and wellness is stained, creating administrative challenges that undermine the continuity and effectiveness of instruction. . .

·       Even in the presence of emergency federal funds, the personnel, supports, and interventions to ensure positive school climate and safety, effective classroom discipline and management, and multi-tiered social-emotional services are not available to match the need of students (and staff).

   And just this week, adding more pressure to our “educational crockpot,” the CDC publicized another confusing, mixed-message guidance on COVID exposure and quarantining, and our country marked the one-year anniversary of the insurrection at the Capitol complete with the ongoing denials by some in the media and our communities that it actually occurred.

   And this latter situation is the topic of today’s Blog: the potential damage when we ignore, lie about, misinterpret, sugar-coat, or surrealize reality.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The Impact on Students and Staff When Reality is Ignored or Altered

   With all of the issues above, and our collective experiences over the past five years, it is still mystifying that reality and objectivity continues to be so strained.

   I addressed this relative to students earlier this week (January 4, 2022) in a radio interview on Education Talk Radio with Larry Jacobs.

   In a session titled Discussing Race and Individual Differences with Your Students, the primary thesis of the program was that—when you directly talk with and listen to students of different cultural, economic, political, religious, and gender identification backgrounds—they too are mystified that:

·       Their need to discuss and understand the similarities and differences of the students taking notes in the desks next to them is so controversial at a national, state (legislative), and local level; and 

·       This need has been dismissed in some states and districts across the country and, therefore, has been unaddressed in their schools and classrooms.

   Jacobs promoted the radio program with a very nice endorsement saying, listen to “our resident expert in school psychology, Dr. Howie Knoff, with his incredible insights on what matters to students and teachers in these crazy days, and how to deal with it all.”

    You can listen to this 35-minute program for free at the following link:

[CLICK HERE to Link to our January 4 Education Talk Radio Interview]

   The “take-away” from the radio program is that when we, as educators, ignore (or are forced to ignore) the realities in the Introduction to this Blog and as discussed during the program: 

·       Our students feel invalidated and also ignored;

·       They miss discussing and reconciling difficult issues—some that do not have simple or single solutions; and

·       They are potentially unprepared to address these issues now with peers and, later, in the community and at work after graduation.

_ _ _ _ _

   Relative to adults and educators, there are similar and additional outcomes when told to ignore, lie about, misinterpret, sugar-coat, or “surrealize” objective reality—for example, about the Pandemic, race relations and individual differences, politics and history, and school and schooling processes.

   Some of these outcomes include:

·       Students receive no, diluted, inaccurate, or biased information in the classroom. 

·       When told to ignore or sugar-coat reality, some educators feel professionally slighted and disrespected, and/or they become anxious, conflicted, or defiant as they, nonetheless, decide to still share different realities accurately in classroom or school discussions—regardless of state legislation, district regulation, or administrator declaration. 

·       When told lies or misinterpretations that match their attitudes, beliefs, or expectations, some educators may become (further) empowered or emboldened, and/or their beliefs may become even further entrenched and resistant to change. 

·       When “alternative realities” are promoted or endorsed—especially by respected colleagues, some educators may be thrown into a surreal state of confusion or crisis that tests their professional (and/or personal) grounding, equilibrium, objectivity, moral compass, or ethical interactions.

   None of these outcomes are positive or productive.

   And some of these outcomes help explain why so many teachers, administrators, and support staff are resigning from their positions and leaving education altogether.

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More on the Sugar-Coating of Reality: The Impact on Staff

   As an international presenter, one of my primary goals is to give the individuals in my audience the knowledge and skills needed to strengthen their confidence and motivation, so that they can return to their professional settings with the plans and ability to change their behavior and interactions on behalf of students and colleagues.

   And while I hope I am motivational, I do not:

·       Pump my colleagues up into a false emotional frenzy; 

·       Ask them to blindly, idealistically, or unrealistically take actions that are unproven, unattainable, or uncertain relative to their success; and

·       I do not avoid, ignore, or sugar-coat reality.

   Too many conference (and in-service) speakers present simply to be inspirational, motivational, or aspirational. They are more interested in enhancing the “emotionality of change,” rather than the functional steps and processes that result in change.

   In the end, any “results” they accrue are short-lived. Their presentations often turn out to be exercises in escapism.

   Unfortunately, some educational leaders—in their districts or schools—practice the same way. And when their emotional (but largely substance-thin) “can-do” messages are over, they sometimes leave staff members worse off (or more jaded) than when they started.

_ _ _ _ _

   In fact, over the past few months, articles in the professional press have discussed and applied False or Toxic Positivity to the educational arena.

   False Positivity occurs when, for example schools experience challenges that are inherently stressful or emotional, and their respective leaders “put on a positive or courageous face” in order to help (or manipulate) staff to (a) cope and maintain emotional control; (b) plan and act in behaviorally beneficial ways; and/or (c) change their perceptions of reality in an attempt to actually change reality.

   All things being equal, however, False Positivity can be organizationally, interpersonally, and even psychologically harmful.

   Indeed, when I have seen district and school administrators practice False Positivity with their staff, students, and parents. . . they are often concurrently ignoring the reality-based issues, emotions, and stressors embedded in the challenges. This results in heightened or more intense emotions and stress, because (a) needed interventions are not provided; (b) people’s feelings are invalidated; and (c) those who “buy-in” to the False Positivity feel even more incompetent or hopeless when things (predicably) do not change.

   Toxic Positivity, meanwhile, works at the extremes. Here, we not only ignore stress, but we also reject or deny the stress and our emotions—telling ourselves to focus only on the positive.

   In schools, this occurs—for example—when administrators remind teachers to “take care of themselves,” but then (a) evaluate staff on where they are on pre-Pandemic academic pacing templates, and pre-Pandemic benchmarks of student proficiency; (b) load teachers up with extra meetings and responsibilities (to address some of the challenges discussed earlier); (c) micro-analyze how teachers are covering topics that relate to race, culture, and politics; and (d) once again, arrange professional development sessions led by “motivational” speakers who encourage, in essence, a toxic positivity mindset.

   Parenthetically, these presenters often have no clue as to what teachers and other educators have experienced (and are experiencing) due to the Pandemic and the current political zeitgeist, or they believe that their presentations will have some kind of long-term positive impact on their ability to cope and move on (which, we’ve established, they do not).

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What Do We Need to Do?

   Metaphorically: Educational leaders need to take the “NASA (yes—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Approach” to planning and executing strategies to address some of the present challenges that have breached the schoolhouse door. . . especially those described in this Blog message.

   The NASA Approach to strategic planning has four important component parts:

·       Consider and plan for what needs to happen so that everything can go right, and consider and plan for all of the possible things that can go wrong so their impact—if they occur—can be isolated, minimized, and quickly resolved; 

·       Build back-up or “redundant” systems into your “hardware and software” so that safety nets are immediately available to seamlessly close any gaps if a primary system falters or fails;

·       Train staff, before beginning an initiative or intervention, in the implementing both the primary and secondary systems, and how to effectively respond under conditions of emotionality or emergency; and

·       Know your available resources and assets—especially when your primary resources or assets have not succeeded or are not available.

   To expand briefly. When planning and training, NASA spends equal amount of time identifying and planning for what might go wrong during a mission than on what needs to happen to make everything right.

   Given this, they build their hardware (e.g., rockets, satellites, telescopes, space capsules) with back-up or redundant systems in case one or more primary systems fail. They also have back-up software or redundantly-programmed computer systems in case a computer goes down, is hacked, or becomes incapacitated due to system-level problems.

   Next, NASA runs its astronauts, technicians, and other support personnel through never-ending trainings and simulations—to ensure absolute readiness before they are ready launch. Clearly, in the case of an actual emergency in space, all of the primary and secondary hardware needs to be on board, the primary and back-up software needs to be immediately available, and all personnel need to be prepared to instantaneously coordinate their efforts in fluid and productive way.

   Finally, even when an unanticipated emergency occurs, the astronauts and ground personnel need to know what resources are available so that the right professionals can be deployed and the right solutions can quickly be identified and implemented.

   Here, from the movie Apollo 13, is what I mean.

_ _ _ _ _

   While I know that some schools and districts are stressed because they do not have the personnel available to address their most critical needs or problems, administrators still need to use the NASA Approach to best address their needs on a short-term and long-term basis.

   But, to circle back to some of this Blog’s primary concerns, some of these needs or problems—especially those related to (a) students’ social-emotional support; (b) students’ desire to learn about and discuss issues related to race, politics, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, and mental health; and (c) schools’ need to address issues related to racial equity and social justice—do not exist due to personnel gaps or the unavailability of funds.

   Indeed, in many schools, there are enough people—the gap is in how they are used. And with federal funds available to address the Pandemic, in many schools, the money is there—the gap is in how it is allocated.

   Ultimately, one outcome of not facing, analyzing, and changing the challenges and realities in our schools today is that staff—due to the poor quality of their professional lives, and how this impacts their personal lives, just give up. In fact, teachers and administrators are leaving (or want to leave) their jobs right now in devastatingly record numbers. As this occurs, the staffing problem worsens, student challenges compound, and the change process becomes more convoluted and less likely.

_ _ _ _ _

   These issues will not be solved by avoiding reality, playing safe in how and what we prioritize and target for change, and being timid relative to strategies and solutions.

   We need to be courageous. We need to have high and realistic expectations. And we need to plan effectively for what needs to go right, and for what might go wrong.

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Summary

   With all of the polarized political, Pandemic, and pressurized issues and challenges facing education right now, this Blog encourages districts and schools to analyze, prioritize, strategize, and recognize that these issues will not go away or be solved by putting our collective “heads in the sand.”

   From a “formal” political perspective, educational leaders need to follow state law, but they also need to read those laws.

   Education-related laws, many times, are written in such vague or open-ended ways that districts tend to interpret them conservatively—to avoid any chance of questions or audits, for example, by a state department of education.

   At other times, the laws are interpreted inaccurately—sometimes due to naivete, inexperience, or to conform to pre-existing biases.

   From an “informal” political perspective, educational leaders need make student-centered decisions that are based on sound science, equity, and the common good—even in the face of small pockets of parent, school board, or community pressure. But this, once again, sometimes does not occur.

   Either way, when reality is passively ignored or actively manipulated, students can be negatively impacted. One example of this was discussed earlier as students shared their frustrations when they were not allowed to formally discuss issues related to race and individual differences at school.

   This Blog also discussed the impact of false and toxic positivity when staff are asked to help implement strategies and solutions for significant student, staff, school, and system challenges.

   To this, we briefly added the importance of educational leaders having high and realistic expectations.

   When educators have high and unrealistic expectations, in addition to using false or toxic positivity to “motivate” their staffs, success is unlikely to occur.

   At a first level, success is unlikely because the expectations are unrealistic right from the start. But at a second level, the additional layer of toxic positivity typically creates staff stress, frustration, and even helplessness—especially when they go “all in” to an initiative, project, or intervention that eventually crashes and burns.

   When educators have high and realistic expectations, use the NASA Approach, carefully plan the stages and steps needed for success while simultaneously preparing and training for how to respond when initiatives get off-track, everyone knows that they are going “into battle” prepared and with their “eyes wide open.”

   In the end, we do a disservice to students and staff when we ignore, lie about, misinterpret, sugar-coat, or surrealize reality. Educators need to deal with reality by facing reality.

   Clearly, given the challenges in education today, this is not going to be an easy journey. But let’s load our backpacks with the supplies needed for progress, productivity, and proficiency. But let’s also avoid those who want to load our backpacks with rocks—making the journey far more treacherous than it ought to be.

_ _ _ _ _

   As we begin this new year and start a new semester, I hope that these thoughts are helpful to you. Significantly, we are only half-way through the school year. There is plenty of time to make the mid-course corrections needed to make this an incredibly successful school year.

   If I can help you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me. Please also feel free to review the many resources on the Project ACHIEVE website (www.projectachieve.info). These resources are the result of work that we have done in thousands of schools across the country over the past 40 years. Please use the lessons that we have learned over time to benefit your students, staff, schools, and other professional settings.

Best,

Howie

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]