My Educational Journey

Be there.  A lot of working with students with trauma history is just showing up, every day, and accepting the student no matter what behaviors emerge. Be an adult in that student’s life who is going to accept him and believe in him, no matter what - children can never have too many supportive adults in their lives.  -Alex Shevrin Venet

 

 Remember that comfort doesn't always mean healthy. Just because we've settled into a way of doing things doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. -Kristin Van Marter Souers

 Change is a prerequisite for improvement. -Pete Hall

I am trying to learn different strategies to help me help students. One thing I struggle with is when they straight up refuse to work. I found this article helpful.  What To Do When a Student Refuses to Work October 15, 2018  by  pathway2success Throughout my years teaching middle school, I have had the experience of seeing many “work refusals”. These are the situations when kids, for a variety of reasons, just refuse to start the work you give them. They might shut down and rest their head on their desk or lash out in anger, shouting about how they just will not complete your assignment. This can be extremely frustrating for educators, especially when teaching a well-designed lesson that you thought would go so well! Let me say that sometimes our lessons themselves can have little or no impact on whether or not a student refuses to work. There are quite often bigger challenges at play that we’ll delve into. Quite honestly, even with a special education background, my col...

  This is something I am experiencing right now. The old me wants to be able to say "Do this, this way, now.", "You will not argue with me.", or "I'm not telling you again.". The new me is trying to learn a better way to interact with a student that will not cooperate with what is expected of them at the moment. This is one of my biggest challenges. I am a controlling person. I always have been. It is an fundamental part of my personality.  Having been in some pivotal situations in my life that I did not have control of I developed a need for control. Which has lead to some OCD tendencies as well. Here is an article I found that has some helpful information: Here are some strategies for avoiding power struggles that you can use right away: 1. Develop a relationship early on.  This is by far the most important element to reducing power struggles with kids and young adults. Talk to kids about what they’re interested in and spend time learning about those...

Tips for Helping Your Child Focus and Concentrate Jan 28, 2016 Author: Jamie M. Howard, Ph.D. Concentration is like a muscle that requires regular exercise to strengthen. Some kids are born “stronger” in this area than others, but all kids can learn strategies and engage in practices that help improve their ability to focus and sustain their attention. This is, after all, a very important skill for kids to acquire—school demands that students concentrate for long stretches of time, and as kids get older they have extracurricular activities after school that require even more concentration. Most children are able to concentrate on activities that are fun and intrinsically enjoyable. It’s the ones that are more boring, difficult or just less enjoyable that really challenge their focus. Yet this ability to concentrate and sustain attention on all kinds of tasks is crucially important, because it helps kids learn and improve, which leads to self-confidence and positive self-esteem. Concent...

 Trauma is nondiscriminatory. It affects us all equally. -Kristin Van Marter Souers

What is Tier 3 Support? The PBIS Triangle—The red area represents Tier 3 that supports a few students. Tiers 1 and 2 supports are still used with students engaged in Tier 3 supports. PBIS’ framework doesn’t just work with school-wide and targeted supports. It’s also an effective way to address sometimes dangerous, often highly disruptive behaviors creating barriers to learning and excluding students from social settings. At most schools, there are 1-5% of students for whom Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports have not connected. At Tier 3, these students receive more intensive, individualized support to improve their behavioral and academic outcomes. Tier 3 strategies work for students with developmental disabilities, autism, emotional and behavioral disorders, and students with no diagnostic label at all. Foundational Systems Tier 3 practices stem from strong foundations in Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports. With both tiers in place, schools are free to organize individualized teams to support student...

What is Tier 2 Support? The PBIS Triangle—The yellow area represents Tier 2 that supports some students. Tier 1 supports are still used with students engaged in Tier 2 supports. Tier 2 practices and systems provide targeted support for students who are not successful with Tier 1 supports alone. The focus is on supporting students who are at risk for developing more serious problem behavior before they start. Essentially, the support at this level is more focused than Tier 1 and less intensive than Tier 3. Tier 2 supports often involve group interventions with ten or more students participating. Specific Tier 2 interventions include practices such as social skills groups, self-management, and academic supports. Targeted interventions like these, implemented by typical school personnel, are likely to demonstrate positive effects for up to 67% of referred students. [1] Tier 2 interventions are: Continuously available Accessible within 72 hours of referral Very low effort by teachers A...

What is Tier I Support? The PBIS Triangle—The green area represents Tier 1 that supports all students. Tier 1 systems, data, and practices impact everyone across all settings. They establish the foundation for delivering regular, proactive support and preventing unwanted behaviors. Tier 1 emphasizes prosocial skills and expectations by teaching and acknowledging appropriate student behavior. Teams, data, consistent policies, professional development, and evaluation are essential components for these practices to work effectively. The core principles guiding Tier 1 PBIS include the understanding that we can and should: Effectively teach appropriate behavior to all children Intervene early before unwanted behaviors escalate Use research-based, scientifically validated interventions whenever possible Monitor student progress Use data to make decisions Foundational Systems Tier 1 systems serve as the foundation upon which all other tiers are built. With school-wide systems in place, sc...