May

19

Strategies for dealing with kids who get physcially aggressive with teachers- Part 1- Establishing the classroom climate

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icon for podpress  Strategies for dealing with kids who get physcially aggressive with teachers- Part 1- Establishing the classroom climate [7:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (301)

A. Introduction

It’s important for teachers to know how to protect themselves from those few students who deal with the vicissitudes of life by being physically aggressive. We’ve all heard those stories about teachers who get hit, punched or have something thrown at them. Fortunately, there are strategies that we can use in the classroom that will help reduce the possibility of that.

As some of you might know, I’m a special education behaviour specialist and have taught teenagers in jail, in open custody facilities, in vocational schools as well as in regular high schools. I’ve been teaching troubled, troubling and troublesome kids for over twenty years now and have learned or should I say have had to learn strategies that have kept me safe and happy in the classroom.

What have I learned over all the years? I’ve learned that the most important thing I can do to keep myself safe in the classroom is to prevent problems before they start. How do I do this- by establishing a positive classroom environment.

Ironically enough, I learned this lesson early in my teaching career when I was teaching young offenders in jail. The classroom I was to teach in had been set up by someone else so it didn’t reflect me as a person at all, and a guard was to sit in the classroom to protect me from my students-that was hardly conducive to a positive learning environment. So, I decided some changes had to be made.

You can imagine what happened when I first asked to have the guard removed from the classroom. I just wanted it to be me and the kids. The powers- that -be (I can’t remember exactly who that was) were more than a little reluctant to do that. But, fortunately Stu Auty who was my supervisor supported me in this request and the guard was gone, replaced by a large red emergency button that I could push if there were any problems. The guard now sat in an area down the hall, away from the classroom. That worked well.

Why did I want the guard gone? Of course I knew why the guard was there, I’m not stupid. But I felt that the guard brought the jail and everything it represented into the classroom, and I didn’t want that. As long as jail was in the classroom, the classroom environment wouldn’t be a positive learning environment. I wanted a safe, positive learning environment and that’s what I got. The red emergency button was there for safety, and the classroom environment was positive because the guard was gone.

Although I’m not teaching in jail anymore, I still want a safe, positive learning environment. In someways teaching in a regular high school today is scarier than teaching in jail- there’s no red emergency button and guard down the hall. You’re on your own more.

B. Establishing Classroom Climate

Establishing a positive classroom climate is essential for a safe, positive learning environment, and establishing classroom agreements are one of the ways to do that.

I used to call the classroom agreements rules, but rules seem so top down, and I don’t want that. Some kids see red when they see the word “rule”. I want them to see green instead. I want students to buy into the classroom code of conduct, not rebel against it.

At the beginning of the semester we establish our behaviour agreements. Basically it boils down to attentive listening, appreciation, mutual respect and right to pass. You can view my PowerPoint for elaboration.

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I want the classroom agreements to be a result of collaboration so that the students will be more likely to buy into the code of conduct.

This is what I do
1. Tell students that since they are in grade 9, 10 or whatever, I know they’re experts at knowing what makes a classroom work because they’ve been in many so classrooms

2. Set up a placemat group activity that will ellict the students’ expertise

3. Ask students to take a few minutes to think about what makes a classroom work and then jot those things down on their section of the placemat
4 Have students share their thoughts with group members
5. Place four pieces of chart paper on the wall labeled mutual respect, attentive listening, appreciation, and right to pass. It’s amazing , everything seems to fall into these four categories.
6. Have each student choose two or three things that they think are the most important and write each one onto a separate sticky note
7. Ask students to place their sticky notes onto one of the four pieces of chart paper according to where they think it belongs
8. Discuss the results of the activity with the class noteing how everything falls into one of the four categories
9. Add my own stickies if I see that something has been omitted. I’m part of the class too.
10. Thank the students for their expert input and tell them that I think that what we have here will make our classroom work and ask them if they agree. Most will say they agree and that’s what I want.
11. Have students create posters illustrating the classroom agreements.
12. Review the agreements next day using the powerpoint presentation I made. That’s when I make sure everyone understands what kinds of behaviours each agreement includes.
123. Ask students if anyone would like to display their posters. I let them choose where, but ask that they make sure that each wall has some posters on it.

It’s interesting to see and hear what happens. Students will start to remind each other of our classroom agreements by saying things like no put downs, attentive listening , mutual respect and right to pass when someone is behaving inappropriately. It’s much more effective to cite the classroom agreements than to say stop talking while I’m teaching or stop calling him names etc. I even hear my students cite the agreements outside of the classroom when they’re walking in the halls . I love that because I want them to be proactive and advocate for themselves in and out of the classroom.

The classroom agreements we’ve established set the stage for and support a safe, positive learning environment. That’s a good first step. The next thing I do is work at maintaining that positive climate or vibe. I’ll talk about how I do that in my next post. Look for it sometime next week.

Sep

12

Emotions affect a student’s learning

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, Special Education | 6 Comments

Those of you who have read my post about Nine things my students have taught me about classroom management and teaching will know that when I talk about classroom rules on the first day of class,I tell my students since they are in high school they are experts at knowing what behaviours make a classroom work well so that learning and teaching can go on. Then, I ask them to come up with a short list of rules for our class. Once that’s done, I have them create posters outlining the rules and put them up on the walls. The posters act like road signs on a highway reminding students how to behave.

I was delighted to learn that one of my students in my grade nine locally developed math class, a class for very weak math students, told another teacher that he liked my class because I thought he was smart. I had to smile because this is exactly what I hoped for when I told his class that they were experts at knowing what behaviours were conducive to learning and teaching.

This particular math class is for students who are really weak in math and often the kids think the class is for losers and don’t want to be in the class. It’s a self-esteem issue with them. They don’t want to be in what other students call the loser math class. I’m constantly challenged to find ways that boost my students’ self-esteem to the point where they will be open to learning and success. The negative emotions they bring to class really thwart learning.

No doubt about it. Emotions affect a students learning . The student who knocks on my door and asks me with tears in her eyes if she can talk to me about something, or the student who comes to me in a rage over something someone has done to him is not ready to learn . It doesn’t matter how great my lesson is, if a kid’s world is threatened there will be little learning going on. Given the emotional roller coaster that kids are on in their teens, emotions often get in the way of learning. That’s why it is so important for a student to have a good relationship with a adult at school. That’s why it’s so important for me to be sensitive to the emotional state of my students. I’ve found that a little empathy goes a long way and tomorrow will be another learning opportunity for my troubled student.

One way that I have found that I can be empathetic to my students is to respond to the journals I have them write. Sometimes I have students write journal entries every day, sometimes just on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I actually prefer to have them write everyday. Stuff happens everyday. It’s amazing what students will tell me in their journals. I’ve had wonderful two way conversations with students over the years who would never say anything in class but were willing to tell me about important things in their lives in their journals. I would simply read their journals and make comments. And yes, I even have my math students write journals. I think it’s important for students to be given the opportunity to reflect on their lives and tell someone what they feel.

Sometimes students have difficulty getting started when writing a journal or they worry about spelling, grammar or punctuation. When I see this happening, I get my students to write a timed journal. I give them a choice of topics and then tell them to write like crazy for five minutes not worrying about spelling, grammar, etc. After they have written for five minutes (I use a timer) I get them to count the number of words and record that number below the entry. Then I get them to create a bar graph for each journal entry. When they’ve completed five entries, I ask them to pick their favourite one and edit it and hand in a good copy to be marked. It’s amazing how the quantity and quality of their writing improves over time.

What I’ll do is share with you some of the journal topics I give my students. But since I don’t have them with me at home with me right now, I’ll bring the handout home and post the list of topics for you within the next couple of days. Maybe someone else can also share their favourite journal topics as well. The more choice kids have, the better.

May

27

What’s to be done about kids killing kids?

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management | 6 Comments

It’s happened again- a kid killing a kid. On Wednesday, May 23 2007 , a 15 year old kid was shot to death in a hallway in the middle of the afternoon in a Toronto school. That’s scary for kids, for parents, and for teachers. Parents send kids to the safety of school to learn the three “R’s. Kids go to school, albeit sometimes a bit reluctantly, to learn the three R’s. Teachers go to school, I go to school to teach the three R’s. No one expects anyone to get killed in school. Why are kids killing kids anyway, in school or out of school. What’s going on? How can we stop it? These are puzzling questions that need answers. One answer I see is : it all depends on who you ask. Ask different people; get different answers. Ask some people; get no answers.

I’ve been following this story in the local media where questions around the shooting are being raised. The answers given by the various players in this tragedy like the family of the victim, the friends of the victim, the administration of the school that the victim attended, the police, the politicians, and the experts in the area of youth violence remind me of the answers given in the story about the six blind men who are asked to identify something by touching different parts of it. The something happened to be an elephant. The story goes something like this

Six blind men who touched different parts of an elephant were ask to describe what they thought it was.
The first blind man touched the trunk of an elephant and said “It’s like a snake”.
The second blind man touched the body of an elephant and said “It’s like a wall”.
The third blind man touched the tail of an elephant and said “It’s like a rope”.
The fourth blind man touched the leg of an elephant and said “It’s like a tree”.
The fifth blind man touched the tusk of an elephant and said “It’s like a sword”.
The sixth blind man touched the ear of an elephant and said “It’s like a fan”.

Each of the six blind men described the elephant from his own perspective. Each description was valid given where each man stood. The problem is, of course, that because the men could not see the whole picture (well of course they couldn’t see the whole pictures, they were blind but you know what I mean) they could only describe their individual part thereby they failing to see the essence of the elephant. I believe that when we are asking the question “What is to be done about kids killing kids”, we get answers from individual players based on where they are coming from and consequently miss the essence of the problem and hence miss the essence of the solution.

The poor grieving mothers can never understand why someone would want to harm their children because they were such dutiful sons or daughters. Friends of the victims always talk about what wonderful friends and people the victims were. Everyone loved them. The police talk about the need for people who have information about crimes to come forward with information and tell police what they know. People who are in the know won’t tell because they are worried that they will suffer retaliation for ratting someone out. In this case, the incident happened in school, school officials talk about what they have done to make schools safe and then talk about what they are doing to make them safer like installing more cameras and installing more people to supervise the halls. The mayor talks about the need for tougher gun controls to stop all those guns from the United Stated entering into Canada. Experts on youth violence suggest that kids enter gangs looking for the emotional support their families didn’t give them. We should be giving them this support so they don’t join gangs.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s all the different parts of the elephant. These individual interpretations aren’t capturing the essence of the problem. The individual player’s interpretation of the problem and its solution is not going to make the problem go away by itself. It’s back to that village thing. You know the saying that it take a whole village to raise a child. Well it’s going to take the whole village to stop kids killing kids. Everyone needs to do what needs doing ,as unpopular as that might be. Or, we’re going to continue to read about kids killing kids and continue to hear the different members of the village interpreting the elephant of kids killing kids from their individual perspectives or agendas. We need to see the whole picture before we can get rid of the whole problem.

Some of the comments made by the media regarding my question of what is to be done about kids killing kids have been very insightful. An editorial in The Globe and Mail date May 25, 2007 notes that

It has been clear for some time that a large number of young people in the city’s toughest neighborhoods have guns and feel a sense of impunity in using them… There are many young men in (some of them boys,really) who, when challenged or insulted, will begin shooting. A bus shooting happened after someone asked a young man to stop swearing.

You know, I see that bit about violence stemming from a real or perceived challenge or real or perceived insult at school everyday. I was going to say almost everyday, but then upon reflection realized it was everyday. Just today in my class one kid said something that another kid took offense to, and I had to step in and verbally deescalate the situation. I couldn’t believe it. In a nano second they were both ready to throttle one another. I guess these kids have nothing but their honour and so will protect it at any cost. It just boggles the mind. So many of these kids get themselves into problems because they have poor impulse control and act before they’ve had an opportunity to think things through.

I had another student tell me a month or so ago that he had been stabbed in his upper thigh. I was shocked, but then as the details unfolded the stabbing itself took on a less shocking light. This kid, my student had accidentally stabbed himself in the thigh. He explained that he had been carrying a knife in his pocket and forgot about it, and when he sat down, as fate would have it, the knife stabbed him in the thigh. Now of course ,he and his friends didn’t want any adults to know about this, so they tried to fix the wound themselves by buying some stuff at the drug store and bandaging the wound up. But as he told me, it was bleeding so badly the bandaids wouldn’t stick on his skin so they had to go to emergency room at the local hospital. He commented on all the blood and that his good jeans had a hole in them now. At the emergency room at the hospital, he told the story that he’d accidentally sat on a knife that had been carelessly left on a chair, and it stabbed him when he sat down. That explanation worked for him at the hospital and at home with his mother. I asked him why he was carrying a knife to begin with. He look at me incredulously and told me that everyone carried a knife to protect themselves, and some of the other kids in the class told me that you couldn’t leave the house without a knife for protection. Just think of what that means- a knife in the hand of a kid with poor impulse control and nothing to lose but his honour, or even better yet, a gun in the hand of a kid with poor impulse control and nothing to lose but his honour.

My school has cameras installed in the high traffic areas and many of the 20+ doors in the building are locked during school hours and unlocked in the morning before school to let kids in. You can exit all of the doors but enter only a select few during school hours. That is a major pain in the butt. I’ve gone to my car to get something after classes were over for the day and have to walk way around the front to get back in. The locked doors help keep intruders out of the school and the cameras act as a deterrent and catch kids committing crimes. They really do. A couple of years ago, one of my students who was expelled from school because he took a baseball bat to another kid at lunch over a gambling debt asked his friends, still at school,to say hi to me. Apparently, I was his favourite teacher. But, he was afraid to come into school because of the cameras. He would be in big trouble if he got caught on school premises. Same thing happened just last March. A student of mine who got kicked out of school and wanted to come to see me to say hi but was afraid to, again because of the cameras. He too would be in big trouble if he was caught on camera. So, cameras do work. I’ve got more stories like that, but I’ve made my point already. I’m starting to get spooked out thinking about all these kids. Fortunately, these kids are a minority or no one would want to be a teacher.

I’ve said before that I wouldn’t want our schools turned into jail-like fortresses. I don’t want bars and metal detectors in my school, and I don’t want my school board to have its own police force like they do in Boston. I’ve taught young offenders in jail and in an open custody facility and believe me the atmosphere was so oppressive. I hated the atmosphere. Ironically, the kids were better behaved in jail than in regular classrooms because they had only two choices. They could do what I asked in the classroom or the guards could escort them to their cells. It was their choice. I’m trying to remember. It was a long time ago, but I think that only one kid ended up going back to his cell. I couldn’t stand the guards in my classroom, so I had them removed. That took some doing. But, I had the support of my administrator who was responsible for the school in jail,and he made it happen. They installed a panic button in my classroom just in case something happened, but nothing did.

When I first started teaching in jail, I was a bit concerned about maintaining discipline because, well, the kids weren’t in jail for good behaviour. But what actually happened was this: when I first started teaching the kids kind of checked me out and gave me a few tests I had to pass, and when I passed them I was deemed OK. So whenever new kids came to class, they didn’t act out because the other kids had done some positive PR for me. I was amazed and quite honestly thankful. Sometimes I tell my classes at work that it’s easier to teach kids in jail than it is to teach them. They don’t believe it, and they have a hard time believing that I taught in jail. I tell them I was younger then and we all laugh.

The Globe and Mail article I quoted from earlier makes some good points I want to share

  • The money spent on metal detectors etc. would be better spent on social workers , psychologist and special programs that could reach these kids before they reach for knives .
  • Schools that looks orderly and well maintained are more secure.
  • Vandalism and theft can be almost as harmful to a school as actual violence because they can create a fertile environment for loss of control and community confidence.
  • If it appears that there is no strong adult authority intruders come and create problems

S o there are some lessons here. Ones we need to pay attention to. If the solutions to the problem of kids killing kids were simple, we would have would have implemented them long ago and ended kids killing kids. We, the villagers, need to get together, learn the lesson from the blind men and the elephant and get at an accurate picture of the problem so that we can develop the solutions that get at the problem and finally stop kids killing kids. At least, that’s the way I see it.

 
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