So are our class prepares for our of so exciting trip to Washington, D.C. Mike has become VERY excited about the trip and very interested in what we are going to see when we go. He has checked out a book on Washington from the library and every time he turns to a new page he looks for either myself or the other teacher to show and ask if we are going to get to see this in Washington which means that he has been doing really well in social studies and he has been "reading" during reading time (he is reading the captions in the book but mostly just looking at the pictures... not the most stimulating reading but he is looking at a book and reading short captions). However, when it comes to his focus in math and writing - he is still struggling. The strategies that we are using (him getting up and the timer) are working pretty well but it's gotten to the point to where it is less self motivated and more teacher motiviated. When we see him getting frustrated and zoning out we implement the strategies where as a few weeks ago it was Mike that was doing it which makes me think that we need to find a newer strategy for him because he has become accustomed and familiar with the strategies that are being used now.
Mike's social behavior seems to be improving in the sense that there are fewer outbursts because he has a way to express his issues with other students all the time (the journal) and he is still talking to his friends about animated tv shows/books but other students still need to approach him - he rarely approaches them to talk to them on his own. He has become less withdrawn but he still has a ways to go to really come out of his shell and I fear that he will just be getting out of his shell at the end of the year and then go right back to the way that he was at the beginning of the year when he reaches middle school - hopefully that won't happen though!
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That is so encouraging to hear that your student as taken a real interest and genuine excitement about the upcoming Washington D.C. field trip!
ReplyDeleteAs for the loss of focus during math time, I'm not sure what to tell you. Maybe having him check in with you at the end of the day and report and show you what he was able to accomplish would be a good way to check his work and possibly ask him a few questions about the material to check for understanding.
I think one of the biggest things I have learned from this case study is that change and improvement in a student doesn't always happen overnight. We can't physically change a person, they have to change themselves but we can provide ways and strategies to support and encourage growth and improvement. Noticing and celebrating the small improvements has become important and encouraging for me to see that progress is being made.
Hey Anna,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your blogs, a common thread seems to connect a lot of them, and that is classroom climate. First of all, our blog about Jason, who was in your elementary school class, speaks volumes about classroom community. The fact that the students didn’t understand what was going on seemed to have had a big impact on his behavior. I think that too many times we try to ignore talking about issues that affect the whole class when it comes to a certain student because we are worried about being PC, or we don’t know quite how to handle these kinds of “awkward” topics. Although it’s important to make sure that it is handled in a way that won’t embarrass the child, I definitely think it is important to make children aware of the reasons behind some of the behaviors other children are exhibiting, and to talk about strategies with how to deal with those. A lot of times, if children understand why behaviors are made by a student, they turn into helpers and friends of that student instead of becoming angry at them or making fun of them out of confusion. Sometimes, even general discussions of differences and causes behind them can have this effect as well.
Secondly, when discussing whether or not the 5 reflection rule lines up with the school discipline policy of no rewards or punishments, I would say it probably doesn’t. However, I also would say that that 5 reflection rule is something that is meant for the students who fall outside of the average tier of misbehavior that is taken care of by the Discipline without Stress strategy. I think that in some cases and with students who reflection doesn’t always work on because they don’t give a hoot, whether its because they have been trained that adults don’t care or because they have another issue that is keeping them from having the desire to take on responsibility of a community, that there is a place for rewards and punishments. I don’t think the whole behavior system should be focused around these, but for some more extreme examples of student behavior, the acting responsibly motivation isn’t going to cut it, and they need some kind of concrete consequence, good or bad, for their behavior, until they learn to trust those around them so that they want to act responsibly to make the community work.
Finally, I would like to address your concerns about not having enough experience because of the low amount of behavior issues you encounter in your class. What I would like to say about this is that we all three have different classroom climates, which means we all 3 have different classroom experiences. While Anna may have better experience in handling more extreme behavior disruptions, you have more experience with handling students who are really academically gifted and who ask challenging questions that can sometimes even throw teacher for a loop. Often, a different kind of misbehavior emerges from the really advanced crowd than in a crowd that is labeled as having behavior difficulties. However, I think that both types of misbehavior stem from an environment in which students are for some reason not respecting the teacher or the students around them, and in that sense, I think overcoming the misbehavior in your class through gaining respect from students will transfer over to another kind of disrespect in a class that has more “bad” behavior difficulties.