yes, that happened.

Well, my student has improved so drastically that he was removed from SST. The occupational therapist declared my student as “not needing any additional outside support.”

We plan to continue providing the in-class supports we are using such as allowing him to chew gum and letting him eat lunch in the classroom. I found the testing results really helpful in developing new interventions too.

I think a huge part of harmon’s development has been just developmental. However, the intervention that we found the MOST helpful was the one my CT was the most suspicious of… the EC play group. He LOVES it and has made a few friends who are slightly… quirky… too.

It’s so encouraging to see a success story!

I completely agree with the article on Awareness in Action! Recently, we attended a staff development/equity training on culturally responsive teaching. It really closely related with this article. It is so important as educators to recognize and value the cultural upbringing of my students. This article gave so many different examples that reminded me of my own class. I found it so helpful to know that the Hispanic culture expects children to seek teacher approval for their actions. I have found my students SO clingy and ridiculous sometimes… it makes me feel so much better to know that this is cultural and not necessarily meaning my latino students are really needy. It also really affirmed my philosophy of teaching that as teachers, we must be reflective of everyone as a cultural being. I believe this so strongly. I really think that students are a product of their culture, family, and upbringing, and to ignore this and only recognize and validate what they can produce on a district-issued examination is absolutely insane!

However, I somewhat disagree that schools are incredibly culturally biased. Sometimes, I see teachers who so deeply “value” diversity that they forget their “normal” students. Some of the kids in my class are white, middle class students and have been told that where they were born “doesn’t count.”

Being culturally responsive should mean valuing all cultures and children, no matter what that culture may be.

Through the month of march, my case study student displayed some serious improvement! While I was full time teaching, I made my best efforts to create a strong classroom community through a nurturing morning meeting, a friendly tone and atmosphere, signing a behavior contract “to help others learn” and providing a helpful structure for students. I found that my case study student seriously thrived under these new expectations. When I decided to let the students choose their own seats, my student surprisingly chose to sit directly in the center. He paid far more attention than I have EVER seen him pay, and worked far better with other students. I noticed when he was displaying threatening behavior and chose to redirect his behavior rather than punish him or give specific disciplinary action. It worked so well!

I’ve also worked to involve his parents further by sending home notes, emailing them, and asking him to invite them as guests to our classroom. By increasing involvement, I believe he no longer feels his poor behavior is the only thing that gets attention.

I hope he continues to improve as I cater my instruction to his, and other students’ specific needs.

I really agreed with a lot of aspects of this article. I find that my student’s noncompliance definitely is a disruption to our class. However, the most interesting part of the article to me  was the part about noncompliance getting worse when teachers are not flexible in adjusting expectations and structures to meet the needs of individual students. I find that this affects the behavior of my case study student. My teacher does not generally have structures in place that benefit children with special behavioral needs and often refuses to adjust her requirements… resulting in a ridiculous stand off between teacher and student.

The best way, according to this article to get compliant behavior is to clearly state expectations and then reinforce compliant students. I have found the “I notice how you are doing this right” works well for my students. It directly addresses students who are complying, but doesn’t call them out in front of the whole class as in “I LIKE THE WAY SO AND SO is doing what I wanted.”

This past week, I started to take notes on my student intensively. Even the note-taking process brought so much more awareness to his behavior. I noticed some triggers that I hadn’t noticed before. I also have noticed that his behavior can be halted in a moments’ notice if there is something interesting enough to capture his attention.

Last week (Thursday) we had a SERIOUS showdown. He ended up staying almost an hour after school (with his mom’s permission) to finish his work. It was awful. He was crying and hysterical. It seemed like a horrible way to handle conflict with him. I noted his response to harsh treatment.

It has been really enlightening to follow one student’s behavior so closely. It makes me wish I had the time to do so for every student in my class!

I found this chapter very helpful in “dealing” with my “behavior management” case study child. It was great to hear an educated person validate the importance of the student teacher relationship. I really appreciated the discussion of student’s self-management as well.

In my classroom, self-management is seriously lacking. Students really struggle to control their own behavior, even on tasks as simple as unpacking their bags in the morning. It’s frustrating as a teacher to have to micro-manage every single task.

I hope that in my classroom I’ll be able to implement these strategies to help build relationships with my students that will lead to a class full of self-guided learners.

These chapters on classroom rules really provided a lot of clarity for me. I was really concerned that the “autocratic” approach was the only way to maintain order in my classroom, since the “permissive” approach I am currently seeing is clearly not effective. In reality, I believe I am seeing a combination of both, which is “even worse,” according to the text.

I really believe that this approach could work SO well. The first two chapters and the introduction provided a good background for me and helped me feel like I wasn’t alone in thinking that mass chaos isn’t conducive to learning. I loved how the text discusses appropriate rules and ways to “discuss” them together per grade level. The narratives were helpful. The pictures of the bulletin boards were so helpful to me! I can truly see myself having my first graders illustrate their hopes and dreams and using these to create a few “rules” and expectations.

I really appreciated the list on pg. 53 of procedures that should be “modeled.” These concrete examples are so, so helpful as a “new” teacher.

In the second chapter, I loved how they discussed the differences between reinforcing, reminding, and redirecting language. I feel newly empowered to be direct without passing judgement. This is a skill I am eager to practice! I often feel like students won’t understand or respond unless I accompany my instructions with a question, angry stare, or other nonverbal cue. However, imagine if I only said what I meant, never passed judgement on the student but rather the behavior, and they all knew it?

It would be amazing!

In my class, there is a strange combination of “community” centered management, positive behavior systems, and negative criticism. I feel that in order for a management situation to really “work,” everyone must be committed. If some teachers are reinforcing positively and others are making harsh negative comments, the “positive community” effect is destroyed and the reinforcements become somewhat useless.

I have noticed that my students benefit from positive reinforcement. However, the absence of boundaries seems to invite negative behavior. If there are no lines, how can we expect to teach our students what is commonly accepted behavior in the adult world. I know I am not going to allow students to speak over one another in my class because doing so does not promote learning for all students, nor respect for one another. Why shouldn’t I make my expectations clear?

I believe my classroom management style will be to initially make my expectations known so that my students are prepared to succeed. This is, in my opinion, the best way to help students become better learners and members of the community.

I found this article very supportive of the need for community, not only in inclusive classrooms, but all classrooms. The paragraph explaining “promoting membership” in particular truly peaked my interest. I found myself evaluating my own promotion of membership and the right of “belonging” in my classroom. It is easy for me to encourage the outcasts, so to speak, to belong, but do I truly promote “belonging” for every student? Do I encourage children to be responsible for the role they must fill as a member of the class and hold them to that standard?

This helps solidify my opinion that grouping and categorizing students by level or ability is totally wrong. Students should not feel that they need to “earn” a place in the classroom, and by being “leveled” and constantly referred to by teachers as “low” or “high,” they seem to develop a “value” in the class that doesn’t correspond to their participation as a member, but rather their test scores.

I am so excited to have  all of these strategies to help my students become excellent readers and writers. My favorite to use in my class will be author’s chair. I I LOVE WHEN KIDS SHARE THEIR WORK. Seriously. The chair provides motivation, opportunity, and positive feedback. What could be more motivating than wanting to write quality work to share with the class. I still get excited to share my work with peers. This is a great way to turn sharing time into authentic peer review. On a more diplomatic front, the author’s chair gives all students equal opportunity to be writers. It teaches students to be respectful peers and how to provide authentic feedback.

I am also really excited to implement reading workshop time. It is somewhat implemented in my class right now, but there are aspects missing that don’t allow for the full experience. I’m ready to totally launch my class into advanced reading workshops as frequently as possible. The same goes for writer’s workshop.