Book:
Greene, R. W. (2008). Lost
at school: why our kids with behavioral challenges are falling through the
cracks and how we can help them. New York: Scribner.
Summary:
© Scribner |
We are introduced to a kid named Joey sitting at his desk,
not doing his project, and bothering the students around him. During the next
few minutes, Joey elbows the jaw of the vice-principal, threatens to kill a
classmate, runs out of the school, and has to be chased after by staff and
physically restrained in the office. When Joey’s mother arrives to the school,
she is treated like a passive, permissive, uncaring, unmotivated, and
uneducated parent. The school principal then starts to talk about their zero
tolerance policy, and about the police becoming involved. She then suspends
Joey for five days. The question is asked, who is going to help Joey and his
mother? Who is going to help the teacher in this situation because she really
does care about the well being of her students? If something is not done for
Joey, he is likely to drop out and possibly engage in criminality.
Greene tells us that the majority of challenging kids
already know how they are supposed to behave and already want to behave the
right way. Kids with behavioral challenges lack important thinking skills such
as being able to understand the consequences of an action before doing it. This
is referred to as a developmental delay and should be treated in the same way
that you would treat a kid having trouble reading. Challenging kids like Joey
have difficulty mastering the skills required for becoming proficient in handling
life’s social, emotional, and behavioral challenges (Greene, 2008, p. 17).
Punishing challenging kids like Joey with consequences does not teach them the
thinking skills that they are missing and does not solve the problems that give
rise to their challenging behavior. Greene is of the opinion that it is
possible to solve the problems giving rise to challenging behavior,
simultaneously teach the lacking skills, and do all of this without disrupting the
classroom environment (Greene, 2008, p. 17).
Before going further it is important to differentiate
between good philosophy and bad philosophy. Kids do well if they can versus
kids do well if they want to. The first is the right way but the second is the
wrong way because you assume that the kid makes a choice to do well and that it
is your job to motivate them to do well with consequences. After Greene
explains a bit about lagging skills and unsolved problems (triggers), he
continues the story about Joey. A psychologist named Dr. Bridgman enters the
story and wants to help Joey and his mother by using the Collaborative Problem
Solving (CPS) model. Along the way we learn that there are three ways of
dealing with people, Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C. Plan A is when an adult
imposes their will on a child for an unmet expectation and plan C is when the
adult drops their expectation, at least temporarily. Plan B refers to
Collaborative problem solving, where a child and an adult become involved in a
process to solve a problem in a realistic and mutually satisfactory manner (Greene,
2008, p. 49).
Plan B has three stages: “empathy”, “defining the problem”,
and “the invitation”. In the “empathy” stage, it is important to have the child
express their concern and to collect as much information as possible because it
will help to identify lagging skills and unsolved problems (triggers leading to
challenging behavior). Next in the “defining the problem” stage, the adult
brings their concern to the table. Finally, in “the invitation” stage, the
child is encouraged to come up with a solution to address both concerns. You
have to be careful that you do not inadvertently impose your solution on the
child because that ends up being Plan A.
Meetings between Joey, his mother, his teacher, and Dr.
Bridgman take place. We learn that sometimes Joey gets embarrassed and
sometimes does not know what to do on assignments. Joey is considered a partner
in finding a solution and he comes up with a very elegant way of letting his
teacher know when he is having difficulty. Over time, the new system works and
Joey becomes less of a problem until one day his teacher is sick and a
substitute comes in her place. The Substitute is unaware of the arrangement
with Joey and that leads to a minor incident, showing to the reader that there
can be bumps along the way in this process.
Teachers at Joey’s school start to use Plan B on their
other students with varying degrees of success. One teacher, Miss Franco tried
Plan B with another student named Travis who was into bullying. It took her
multiple attempts before she got Travis to talk to her. Joey’s teacher even
figured out that Plan B could be used on an entire class and not just the
challenging kids. She took on the role of a facilitator in which her students
would express their concerns and come to a consensus on solutions. A community
culture formed in Joey’s classroom, were each student felt safe, respected, and
valued.
When the vice-principal saw the effectiveness of Plan B,
he started an initiative to educate the teaching faculty in the hopes of
adapting it to their discipline policy. Whenever new ideas are brought in,
there is always resistance and skepticism because ideas may be seen as fads. An
entire chapter is devoted to changing the culture and practice of discipline in
a school. It is important to raise awareness and get people talking so that
they consider the possibility that the current way of doing things may not be
the best way. Parents need to be included in the collaborative effort to
improve things for challenging kids in a school. Greene states in his opinion,
the vast majority of adversarial interactions between parents and school
personnel can be traced back to the failure to achieve a consensus on a kid’s
lagging skills and unsolved problems (Greene, 2008, p.194).
Critique:
Resources and Strategies:
If you identify the skills a kid is lacking, you will
understand why he/she is challenging. Challenging behavior is likely to happen
when the demands being placed on a kid exceed his/her capacity to respond
adaptively. Some kids have the skills to avoid becoming unstable when pushed to
their limits and some don’t. Teachers do not have to wait until a kid disrupts
the class because they can try to solve the problem that causes the disruption
in advance. In this case, the problem and disruption are predictable.
Getting a diagnosis from a mental health professional does
not identify the lagging skills a kid has. Too often there is an attitude
towards medicating kids with challenging behavior which might suppress a
symptom but not fix the actual problem. For example, medication would not help
a kid that has been bullied or having an unrecognized learning disability.
Therefore, teachers need to be more informed about the cognitive factors that
can set the stage for behavioral, emotional, social challenges.
Pay attention to language processing and communication
skills difficulties because they are often ignored in challenging kids. The book gave an example of a girl that was
very quiet and avoided answering questions. We later find out that she needs
more time to organize her thoughts to form an answer and that the other
students keeping their hands up while she was trying to answer was distractive.
Adult imposed consequences only serve to punish a kid and
alienate them from their peers. Kids already know how they are supposed to
behave because adults tell them. They simply do not have the skills to put into
practice what they know about behavior. Using CPS, you are able to help kids
understand how their behavior is affecting others, which provides a more
reliable framework for kids to do the right thing without adult assistance.
When you identify the kid’s unsolved problems (triggers), you can work with
him/her to solve them, and eventually the challenging behavior will disappear. Behind every challenging behavior is an unsolved problem and a
lagging skill (Greene, 2008, p. 31).
There are two variants of Plan B. The first is Emergency
plan B which is used the moment a kid starts to show signs of challenging
behavior and occurs in front of the other students. The other is Proactive Plan
B which has a goal of getting the problem solved or the skill taught
proactively before it comes up again (Greene, 2008, p. 51). Only use
Emergency plan B only when you have to.
The stronger the relationship between the teacher and
student, the more easy it is to promote a change in the student. If a
challenging kid feels that you care, listen to their concerns, can be trusted,
are wise and pragmatic, and genuinely wanting them to be involved in the
solution, then he/she will be more receptive to Plan B. If a kid’s concerns about
a problem remain unidentified and unsolved, then the kid will have no
motivation to work with you and the problem will remain unsolved. Plan B takes
time, practice, and perseverance (Greene, 2008, p. 96).
It is important not to rush through the empathy step of Plan
B or you will have only a vague notion of the problem which will lead to a
vague and ineffective solution. The steps of Plan B cannot be done out of order
nor can you end up with two solutions during the first two steps of plan B.
Just because teachers are adults, it does not mean that their solutions take
priority over the kid’s. If a kid is not okay with a solution, or it doesn’t
address his/her concerns, the problem is not durably solved and will resurface (Greene,
2008, p. 108).
Just because you are having difficulty succeeding with a
challenging kid, it doesn’t mean you should stop trying to use Plan B. It may
be that the challenging kid has been mistreated by schools for so many years,
that it is going to take time to build trust and wipe out those unpleasant
experiences. You are methodically trying to attack the unsolved problems and
teach the lagging skills that have been setting the stage for a kid’s
challenging behavior for a long time (Greene, 2008, p. 123).
Plan B does not waste time, it saves time. An unnecessary
amount of time is wasted on class disruptions, and administering consequences.
When Plan B is being used with kids to solve problems, skills are being taught
simultaneously. For example, kids learn to identify, articulate, and clarify
their concerns. They also learn to take into account the perspectives of other
people and work towards realistic and mutually satisfactory solutions.
When trying to identify
lagging skills and unsolved problems, you can use the ALSUP (Assessment for
Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems) sheet and the other support documents.
Recommended Readings:
Amstutz, L. S., & Mullet, J. H. (2005). The little
book of restorative discipline for schools: teaching responsibility, creating
caring climates. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.
Charney, R. (1992). Teaching children to care: management
in the responsive classroom. Greenfield, MA: Northeast Foundation for
Children.
Danforth, S., & Smith, T. J. (2005). Engaging
troubling students: a constructivist approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.
Gibbs, J. (2001). Tribes: a new way of learning and being
together. Windsor, CA: Center Source Systems.
Greene, R. W. (2005). The explosive child (New ed.).
New York: Quill ;.
Heifetz, R. A. (1994). Leadership without easy answers.
Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Kohn, A., & ebrary, I. (2006). Beyond Discipline:
From Compliance to Community, 10th Anniversary Edition.. Alexandria:
Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.
Lightfoot, S. (2003). The essential conversation: what
parents and teachers can learn from each other. New York: Random House.
Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom
responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, Va.: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Critique:
Lost at School is structured very nicely so that the
concepts are easy to understand and apply. Each chapter is comprised of a
theory section, a question and answer section, and a story section that focuses
on Joey or another challenging kid. The writing style is entertaining and the
language used throughout the book is easy to understand unlike “Ideology and
Curriculum” written by Michael Apple. The author constantly repeats concepts so
as to ingrain them into the philosophy of the reader which is necessary
considering its anti-consequences approach to discipline.
The book matches most of the material covered in our
psychology course. In one of the articles we read by Alfie Kohn, it was
mentioned that kids are more interested in things they do when they have a say
in it. This directly supports the theory behind Proactive Plan B. In the
section on community building in the classroom, Lost at School mentions that
students are likely to succeed in a place that makes them feel safe, respected,
and valued. This again matches the material that we encountered in the course.
The chapter on “Fostering a Sense of Togetherness” that we had to read was by
far the heaviest concentration of overlap with the material in Lost at School.
Things like encouraging kids to express their opinions, and having teachers and
students work together to solve problems, are all characteristics of Plan B. The
only minor flaw in Greene’s books was the absence of any discussion about “play
time” or “connecting with nature”.
In conclusion, Lost at School is a valuable text for helping
challenging kids. Its concepts are based on well founded research that Greene
has referenced throughout the book. There are enough examples of how you would
use CPS in real life, with the only limitation that it requires practice to
perfect. With the increase in bullying and gun violence in schools, it is
obvious that current practices of discipline are not working. Greene has
provided us with a more humane and compassionate solution to a very serious
problem affecting our schools.
No comments:
Post a Comment