Lost at School (30 page)

“Practicing? Practicing what?”

“Doing Plan B with Consuelo. Tried it already, but I got sidetracked. So I asked Dr. Bridgman what I did wrong. He gave me a few ideas. So now I’m practicing.”

Mrs. Franco sat down. “Cool. What’s the Plan B about?”

“Well, you know what a quiet kid she is. Nothing the matter with being quiet, of course, but I sure would like her to participate more in class. So I need to find out what’s getting in her way.”

“You’re really taking this Plan B stuff seriously, aren’t you?”

“This is going to sound a little sappy, but in a way I feel like I’ve been less connected to my students for a long time. And now, I feel like I have a way of connecting with them again. Not only connecting with them,
helping
them. Like with Joey … I’ve been having some very interesting conversations with him. I feel like I know him much better than I did just a few weeks ago. I’m not scared of him anymore. Turns out he’s been feeling pretty bad for a long time about how the other kids have been treating him. Kind of explains a lot.”

“Wow,” said Mrs. Franco. “Of course, it’s not like we never talked to the kids before Dr. Bridgman arrived.”

“Yeah, but Plan B is different than just talking to a kid. I think a lot of adults who think they’re talking
with
a kid are really talking
at
the kid. Plan B helps you talk
with
the kid.”

“So now you’re trying the same thing with Consuelo?”

“Trying. But not just Consuelo. I’ve got big plans for two or three others in my class.”

“And you’re doing this yourself?”

“Well, I can ask Dr. Bridgman for help when I need it. But I want to become good at it myself.”

“You’re brave. So you really think there’s something to it, huh?”

“It just makes sense to me. Of course, the proof’s in the pudding. Doesn’t matter how much Plan B I do if I have nothing to show for it in the end.”

Mrs. Franco hated to miss out on a good thing. “Well, you and I usually think alike. I wonder if I should be doing Plan B with some of my kids.” She paused. “You know, I bet I’m not the only one who’d like to
know more about how to do Plan B. I was talking to Christine Estrada, the new seventh-grade teacher—you know I’m her mentor this year—boy, is she overwhelmed. Always has that ‘deer in the headlights’ look. Says she’s spending so much time on behavior problems that she has no time left to teach. But the last time we talked, she wondered if there was a way we teachers could get together just to talk about stuff that goes on in our classrooms, you know, maybe exchange ideas.”

“Interesting concept,” said Mrs. Woods. “When would we do that?”

“Well, that’s the thing. We talk about how to improve ourselves as teachers all the time in this school. But it’s always about academics. How come we never talk about improving how we handle our tough kids?”

Mrs. Woods sighed. “Your guess is as good as mine. By the way, I’ve emailed Joey’s mom to try to arrange a meeting to talk about him some more. You free next Tuesday morning before the kids get here?”

“That should be fine.”

“Good. It seems like she really wants to work with us.”

Later in the week, Mrs. Woods asked Consuelo to join her for lunch. After some small talk, Mrs. Woods plunged into Plan B. “Consuelo, remember the other day when I was asking you about why you didn’t participate very much in our class discussions?”

Consuelo nodded and took a bite from her sandwich.

“You know, we never really did figure out why you don’t participate very much,” continued Mrs. Woods. “So I thought we could talk about it some more.”

“OK,” said Consuelo.

“When I asked you if you had any ideas about why you don’t participate, you said you didn’t know. I was wondering if you maybe gave it some thought and had some ideas now.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

This time Mrs. Woods was prepared. “I might have some ideas about it. Would you like to hear them?”

“OK.”

“Well, I was wondering if maybe it was hard for you to understand some of the questions I’m asking you to respond to. Do you think that could be it?”

“You mean, am I having trouble, um, understanding what you want us to talk about?” Consuelo pondered this possibility. “I don’t think that’s the problem.”

“OK. Another possibility is that you’re having trouble following along with what the others kids are saying. Could that be it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you worried about what the other kids will think of what you’re saying?”

“No, I don’t … I don’t care about that.”

“Do you have ideas for what it is that you’d like to say?”

“Um, sometimes. But I … I don’t know what to say.”

“You mean you don’t know how to say it?”

Consuelo nodded.

“Ah, I was thinking that could be it,” said Mrs. Woods. “So the words aren’t coming to you so easily.”

“I think so,” said Consuelo slowly. “Like, um, sometimes, I kind of have an idea … of what I want to say, and, you know, I’m not sure how I could say it.”

Mrs. Woods nodded her encouragement.

“And I know it takes me a long time to say stuff,” Consuelo slowly continued, “and the other kids are, you know, they have their hands up and stuff, and they have things they could say. And I just think, you know, it’s better if they talk instead of me.”

“I understand,” said Mrs. Woods softly.

Consuelo nodded and took another bite out of her sandwich.

“So, if I’m hearing you right, you sometimes aren’t so sure of how you can say what you want to say, and the other kids having their hands up doesn’t make it any easier.”

Consuelo nodded and kept chewing. Having satisfied herself that she now had a decent understanding of Consuelo’s concern, Mrs. Woods continued with the Define the Problem step. “The thing is, I bet you have some very interesting things to say, and if you don’t say them, then we never get to hear them. And I’d really like to hear what you have to say.”

Consuelo was listening intently.

“I wonder,” Mrs. Woods began the Invitation, “if there’s a way for us to give you the time you need to say what you want to say, without you worrying about what the other kids want to say, so we can hear your ideas.”

Consuelo considered the question. “I don’t know.”

Mrs. Woods recalled Dr. Bridgman’s response when Joey didn’t immediately think of a solution to a problem. “Well, let’s think about it a little. There’s no rush.”

Consuelo thought for a few more moments. “I don’t know how to say it.”

“Take your time, Consuelo. I really want to hear your ideas.”

“Maybe, well, maybe you could tell the kids not to raise their hands … when I’m trying to talk …” She hesitated.

Mrs. Woods nodded.

“And you could tell them, I mean, you could give me more time to talk.”

“Let me make sure I understand what you mean,” said Mrs. Woods. “If I told the other kids to keep their hands down when I call on you, and if I tell them that you need some extra time to gather your thoughts, then you’d have an easier time telling us your ideas. Yes?”

Consuelo smiled. “Yes.”

“Consuelo, I think that’s a great idea. I can do that if you think it would help.”

“But don’t call on me, don’t call on me, you know, if my hand’s not up.”

“No problem. But do you think you’ll start raising your hand if you know I’m going to make sure you have time to say what you want to say?”

Consuelo nodded. Mrs. Woods made a mental note to talk to Dr. Bridgman about seeing if Consuelo might qualify for additional language therapy. But she felt as though their plan was a good start.

“Consuelo, I sure do wish I’d talked with you about this at the beginning of the school year,” said Mrs. Woods. “I just didn’t know how to, well, I didn’t know …” Mrs. Woods smiled. “Look at me, now I’m having trouble saying what I want to say!”

Consuelo smiled. “I understand.”

CHAPTER 7

Meeting of the Minds

We have now arrived at an important question, one that is often a major concern for teachers and parents:
What about the other kids in the classroom?
This question could be asking several different things. It could mean, How are we going to reduce the negative impact of the challenging kid on the learning and safety of his classmates? Of course, everything you’ve read so far in this book provides the answer to that question. Or it could mean, Is there anything we can do with the classmates to help them view the challenging kid differently and possibly even help him? This is the question we’ll focus on in this chapter, with a big assist from the community-building literature.

One of the most detrimental side effects of challenging behavior is how it causes classmates to view and treat a kid. Over time, challenging behavior can take its toll on peer relations—kids who are aggressive are often avoided, kids who lack social skills are frequently ignored or rejected, kids who get in trouble a lot are teased or ostracized—and challenging kids ultimately find themselves on the outside looking in. These patterns often set the stage for kids with behavioral challenges to become alienated from their peers and teachers and begin gravitating toward other kids who are similarly alienated.

But what if there was a level playing field? In other words, what if all the kids in a classroom appreciated one another’s strengths and limitations and recognized that they were all on the hook for helping one another overcome their respective challenges? What if they all understood that social, emotional, and behavioral challenges are no different from other challenges confronting kids in the classroom, such as reading, writing, math, catching a ball, public speaking, test-taking, memorizing, spelling, and so forth? What if challenging kids were not solely in the position of
needing
help but were also in a position to
provide
it? Kids with behavioral challenges aren’t the only ones in a classroom who can benefit from Plan B. If we operate on the assumption that every individual in every classroom has something to work on, then they
all
need Plan B. Why save it just for the challenging ones? Furthermore, if Plan B is being applied to everyone in the group, it won’t be viewed as something that negatively distinguishes the “bad” kids. It will be the norm.

In addition, Plan B can be applied to unsolved problems affecting the group as a whole (or specific subsets of the group). Now, the thought of doing Plan B with an entire class often causes some apprehension, especially if one is still feeling a little shaky about using Plan B. And it’s true, full-class Plan B can be more daunting, since there are more concerns and perspectives to keep track of, organize, and address. On the other hand, in some ways full-class Plan B is easier. First, Plan B meshes well with the community-building strategies we’re about to consider, strategies that have become common practice in many classrooms. Second, many kids in a classroom may have similar challenges. While these challenges could be approached by doing Plan B with each individual kid, it can also be fruitful (and sometimes more efficient) to tackle shared challenges with the entire class and arrive at a solution that works for more than one kid. Third, some problems—general classroom conduct, teasing, bullying—do affect and involve the entire class, and are sometimes best resolved by engaging the entire class in Plan B. Fourth, in some instances, twenty-five brains are better than two when it comes to considering the range of potential solutions that could be applied to a problem. Some kids may have already overcome a challenge with which a classmate is currently struggling,
and may be able to offer the wisdom that comes with experience. Fifth, if you want to teach yearlong lessons in democracy, empathy, problem-solving, and consensus building, and give kids lots of opportunities to practice, frequent class-wide Plan B is a good way to get there. And sixth, Plan B is an excellent way to help two kids resolve a conflict or problem together, initially with the adult as a facilitator and eventually independently.

Let’s think a little about community building in general and then move on to how the addition of Plan B to community building can make for quite a combination.

Community Building

You may already be familiar with some of the excellent resources for general community building in a classroom, including
Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community
by Alfie Kohn,
Tribes: A New Way of Learning and Being Together
by Jeanne Gibbs,
Teaching Children to Care: Management in the Responsive Classroom
by Ruth Sidney Charney, and Open Circle Curriculum: Reach Out to Schools Social Competency Program, based at the Stone Center at Wellesley College. The goal of this chapter is not to provide an exhaustive review of community building, but rather to point out how the added ingredient of Plan B can make community building that much more productive.

To begin, here’s my definition of good teaching (you may be interested to know that the definition of “good parenting” is the same):

Good teaching means being responsive to the hand you’ve been dealt.

It goes without saying that each group of kids is different. The task with each group is to get a handle on its collective strengths and limitations and work toward building a community where each member feels safe, respected, and valued. But that takes time and concentrated effort. It doesn’t happen by itself. And it looks different every year. That’s what it means to be responsive.

It also goes without saying that every individual in a classroom is
different. As you know, the best way to get a handle on each individual kid is to determine his or her strengths, lagging skills, and problems to be solved, and then start teaching each kid skills and helping them solve problems.

The ultimate challenge is to be responsive in both ways—to the group and to the individuals in it—simultaneously. This is hard to do, and is perhaps the hardest for teachers who have adopted the mentality, “I don’t adjust my style of teaching to my students, my students adjust to my excellent style of teaching.” The problem for such teachers and some of the kids they teach is that their style of teaching works well enough for the groups and individual kids who can adjust, but doesn’t work well at all for the groups and kids who can’t.