Why Behaviorally and Emotionally Challenged Students, Teaching Classroom and Building Routines, and the Hippocampus (in the Brain) Should Matter to You
Dear Colleagues,
With the
school year about to begin (or, in Arkansas, already beginning), I usually
spend this month working with different schools around the country helping them
to prepare.
This
year, however, has been a little more unusual because I am spending almost two
weeks (last week and then again in two weeks) working with an elementary
through high school day and residential treatment center for emotionally and
behaviorally disabled students in Montana.
Quite
honestly, while factoring in these students specific social, emotional, and
behavioral needs-- and their individual services, supports, strategies, and
interventions-- the beginning of the school year for them needs to focus
on the same things that all students and all schools need:
***
Establishing safe and secure school and classroom settings
***
Creating the staff-to-student and student-to-student relationships that result
in positive school and classroom climates and interactions
***
Identifying the classroom and building routines needed for student
success-- in the classrooms and across the different common areas of the
school-- and preparing to teach the students the behaviors that will help
them learn and perform these routines at an automatic level
***
Implementing a behavioral accountability system that positively reinforces
appropriate student behavior, and that responds to different
"intensities" of inappropriate behavior-- annoying versus
classroom disruptive versus major disruption/ antisocial versus
dangerous/"Code of Conduct" behaviors
***
Ensuring that all instructional, related services, clinical, and support staff
(e.g., paraprofessionals, cafeteria and custodial, and others) have
participated in the training, are committed to our processes, and are ready for
collaboration and implementation
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Last Week's Accomplishments
In order to accomplish the goals above, I spent a lot of time last week working
with the school's Superintendent, Principal, and School Psychologist.
*** On a personal level, I really had fun working with them-- something
that actually should be a professional goal for all of us.
We were comfortable and open with each other, there
were no "ego's" involved, we challenged each others' ideas when
necessary, and we complemented each others' strengths while compensating for
our respective weaknesses.
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*** On a professional level, we consistently focused on what was best for
the students-- relative to teaching them the academic and social, emotional,
and behavioral skills both that they need now, as well as in the future.
To do this, we knew that we needed to know, functionally, what the students
could do and not do in the curriculum-based assessment (CBA)/"scope and
sequence" skill areas of literacy, math, oral expression, and written
expression.
We also needed to know what social, emotional, and behavioral self-management
skills the students possessed-- so that we could design a large group, small
group, and individualized instructional program to teach, prompt, reinforce,
and maintain these skills.
At the foundation of all of this planning was the
importance of (a) teaching students the skills that they need-- building on the
skills that they had already mastered; and (b) recognizing that the instruction
needed to originate with the classroom teachers, supported and reinforced by
the related services and clinical staff.
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Staff
Training and Preparation
In addition to working with the administrative staff last week, we also spent a half-day last week with the staff in preparation for the beginning of the school year-- in two weeks time.
At that time, we decided that the first three days of the school year
(Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) will be spent (a) building relationships
and positive school/classroom climate with the students; (b) doing behavioral
instruction and walk-throughs of the classroom and building routines;
(c) teaching and practicing the other expected behaviors in the classroom,
while also roleplaying what will occur if students demonstrate different
intensities of inappropriate behavior (including teaching and practicing
the Time-Out process); and (d) demonstrating to the students that all of these
processes will be implemented consistently, constructively, and in a
student-centered way.
In other words, we do not anticipate doing any
academic work during the first three days of school, and every teacher-- from
elementary through high school-- will have an explicit schedule of what they
are going to do these three days along with the paraprofessionals, the elective
and vocational arts teachers, and the clinical/mental health staff.
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Our expectations are that this structure will help
our students understand what they need to do. . . that the instruction will
help them to successfully do what they need to do. . . and that the discussions
about staff responses to inappropriate behavior will create a disincentive to
engage in this behavior, and help them recognize that there will be consistent
responses designed to hold them responsible.
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So What's the Brain Got to Do with It ?
A recent article in
Nature Neuroscience by researchers at Stanford University reported on a study
where 28 students-- when they were between 7 and 9 years old-- were asked to
answer basic addition and subtraction problems while they were inside a
brain-scanning MRI machine.
The results showed
that as the students' math skills became more automatic (such that they relied
less on their fingers or different counting strategies), different parts of the
brain became involved. More specifically, as the skills became more
automatic, the brain's "memory center"-- the hippocampus-- had more
electrical activity, and the "counting areas" of the brain-- the
prefrontal and parietal lobes-- had less electrical activity.
Critically, students'
positive practice repetition of their math calculation skills best predicted
this neurological shift. Moreover, as their calculation skills became more
automatic, the prefrontal and parietal lobes were "freed up" to
address more complex mathematical processes.
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Knowing that students learn
behavioral skills the same way that they learn academic skills, this study
reinforces the importance of us teaching students-- especially at the beginning
of each school year-- the classroom and building routines that they need to be
successful using behavioral instruction and positive practice behavioral
rehearsal and walk-through strategies and techniques.
When this is done
over time, these behavioral skills will be more automatic (in the hippocampus),
and students will be more able to do the social problem-solving (in the
prefrontal and parietal lobes of the brain) needed when these routines must be
executed in the presence-- at times-- of some complex or emotionally-tinged
social situations.
While this
instruction is especially important for students with social, emotional, or
behavioral challenges-- it is important for all students at different age and
development levels. That is why my school in Montana will spend the first
three school days emphasizing this instruction. . . and why you should consider
the same thing even if you are teaching in a public school with "typical"
students.
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Summary
Clearly, there
are many school-wide discipline and student self-management activities that
could occur before and during the first days of the school year, and we are
highlighting only a few. To read about others-- organized in a three-year
Positive Behavioral Support Implementation Blueprint, feel free to download
our free PBSS
Implementation Guidebook.
(Click on the Link
below; Find the document titled: PBSS School Implement Fact
Sheet)
This
recently updated 100+ page resource has the following sections:
- The Components of an Effective Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS)
- A Step-by-Step PBSS Implementation Blueprint
- Professional Development Approaches and Resources
- Evaluation and Outcomes
- Appendices
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Meanwhile, I hope that your preparations for the new school year result in the
positive school and classroom climates and relationships that are needed
so that students and staff work together in productive, progression, and
collaborative ways.
Think about how you want the school year to begin, and make it happen.
Let me know if I can help in any way.
Best,
Howie
