Читать книгу The "Why" Behind Classroom Behaviors, PreK-5 - Jamie Chaves - Страница 5

“Kids are different from how they used to be.” This is a refrain that, over the last few years, I’ve heard repeated by seasoned educators all over the United States. They mean a variety of things when they say this, but in general, the message is typically something along the lines of more kids being more dysregulated more often in response to the typical demands of the school day, and that more children struggle when it comes to attention, behavior, and mood, all of which obviously impact learning. I’m consistently told by teachers that they don’t feel that they’ve been trained to work with so many kids with such varieties and intensity of needs, and they don’t feel supported enough to do this demanding work well. Add in a generation of parents who are sometimes less trusting of teachers, and the job, in many ways, really is harder than it’s ever been.

If you’re like many educators these days, you’re feeling tremendous pressure to do more in shorter periods of time and with a larger number of students in your classes—many of whom have higher needs. Understandably, you feel that despite (or maybe partially because of) your desire to be a great teacher who loves your students and wants to champion them, you experience toxic levels of stress. You feel desperate for tools and perspectives to help you make sense of and address the most challenging behaviors you see in your classrooms, and you want ways to reach parents so that they partner with you and support you instead of blaming you. You may be a gifted teacher who’s even considering leaving the field because the challenge feels too great. You’re inspired by the idea that you can do hard things, but you’re tired of doing those hard things day after day without the tools and support and time to manage classroom dynamics more effectively. For years I’ve wished that committed educators like you could find powerful, practical tools to help you be more effective in dealing with these challenges.

Now, Dr. Jamie Chaves and Dr. Ashley Taylor, both of whom have spent countless hours in classrooms observing students, providing support to teachers and administrators, and working as consultants and collaborators in school settings, are making that wish come true. They both bring a tremendous wealth of knowledge to the table, and I’m so proud of them, of the work they’ve done and of how many schools and families have been transformed by having worked with them. And I’m excited about this book, which brings you incredibly interesting, meaningful, and relevant knowledge from their fields which will help you face the pedagogical and behavioral challenges before you.

Working from their respective fields of expertise, Jamie and Ashley take what’s crucial in order for children to learn, and make it accessible and readily applicable. In this book, they’ll guide you in how to approach situations with curiosity, allowing you to work from a deeper awareness of a child’s nervous system and internal landscape. After reading The “Why” Behind Classroom Behaviors, PreK–5, you’ll be in a strong position to begin to make transformative changes, particularly for the most difficult children who need the most help. You’ll discover how to create a sensory-aware environment, as well as how to honor individual differences and learning capacities, and make sense of and change behavior. You’ll have new analogies, examples, and language to encourage parents to see what’s really happening with their child, and to join with you in doing what it takes to help their child learn. This book offers you a toolbox that will allow you to problem-solve in whole new ways and be more effective in navigating the challenges you face daily.

Let me give you a little background to help you see why I can so wholeheartedly endorse the authors of this book. I’ve known and worked with Jamie and Ashley for years. They’ve both served in leadership positions at The Center for Connection (CFC), an interdisciplinary clinic I founded and direct, where we’ve gathered a team of experts from various fields such as mental health, neuropsychology, educational therapy, occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy. Jamie and Ashley have made enormous contributions to the success and vision of the CFC, where we ground everything we do in the science of interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB), an integrative field that looks at the findings of many fields of science—neuroscience, psychology, education, etc.—that help us understand how we function in the world. One of the primary foundations of the framework of IPNB is a concept called integration, which describes the process of different parts becoming linked together while maintaining their distinctiveness. For example, different parts of the brain that are specialized to perform specific processes are also functionally linked with one another, so the student can function with a whole brain instead of just responding in a moment from only part of the brain. Integration matters, because when students are in states of integration, they are more flexible and adaptive. They can then be more regulated and stable, making better decisions and more effectively addressing obstacles that appear before them. Being in states of integration leads to well-being, receptivity to learning, and many other positive outcomes. Therefore, we want to promote integration in our classrooms.

Integration is actually a great way to think about mental health, whether we mean a healthy mind, a healthy relationship, a healthy classroom or school community, or a healthy world. With this information, along with another big foundational concept of IPNB—neuroplasticity, the process by which experiences change the brain—we can begin to examine whether a particular type of intervention might be promoting integration within a student in a specific way or getting in the way of integration, and whether there might be a more effective way to help a child regain balance—in a particular moment, and in her life overall.

Guided by the principles of IPNB, everything we do at the CFC proceeds from this unique, integration-based way of viewing individuals who are facing obstacles in their lives. Traditionally, adults who have worked with struggling kids have focused on symptoms and behaviors, diagnosing a problem and then creating the appropriate interventions. That makes sense from a certain perspective, but the problem is that too many times, this process occurs without deep attention to the “why”—what’s causing the symptoms? The way I talk about it, and the way Dan Siegel and I explain it in our book No Drama Discipline, is that it’s important to “chase the why.”

Chasing the why changes how we work with kids and the kinds of outcomes we achieve. For example, I once worked in therapy with a third-grader who was experiencing a lot of anxiety. He felt paralyzed any time he was asked to speak in front of his small class, made up of kids he’d known since preschool. He was also having trouble sleeping and was experiencing almost daily stomach aches, and every day he would cry, not wanting to go to school, even though he loved his teacher and had been primarily happy at school before third grade. As I began to explore his individual anxiety experience—its severity and frequency, when it started, what triggered it, what gave relief, how his parents amplified or calmed his states, and more—I also talked with his teacher and asked his parents about his daily schedule. I was chasing the why.

I discovered that while his teacher and parents were suggesting that he “try harder” because he wasn’t completing much work during the school day, he was actually working harder than any other student, spending as many as three to five hours after school each day trying to complete his homework. My mental health lens helped me understand the issue from the anxiety disorder theory and see that as anxiety would go up, it was harder for him to concentrate and complete his work. But I needed more than that knowledge: I needed curiosity. I wondered about anxiety as evidence that a nervous system is in hyper-arousal, and that led me to ask the next question: What’s causing or at the source of that hyper-arousal? Why was his nervous system sending out threat and reactivity signals, when all the other kids were experiencing his classroom as a safe environment?

The thinking that he experienced anxiety because he had an anxiety disorder seemed like circular reasoning. But worse, where did that diagnosis leave him? It wasn’t very helpful to me, either, as I sought to help him. Sure, I could work with him using “top-down” interventions, where I would give him experiences that would activate the top parts of his brain, like his prefrontal cortex, to encourage insight and problem-solving. And I could also work with him using some “bottom-up” interventions, where I would give him experiences to regulate and calm the more reactive, lower structures of his brain, his nervous system, and his body through movement, rhythm, guided breathing, or sensory input. Those were helpful strategies, but they didn’t really address the issue.

As I chased the why, I began to wonder what was preventing this child from managing the demands of his classroom. Luckily, at the CFC I worked with and learned from neuropsychologists and brilliant educational therapists, and as a team we explored some possibilities of some learning challenges. Could he have an attentional regulation challenge, maybe? Or perhaps a significantly slower processing speed, compared to his other cognitive skills? After a psychoeducational evaluation, and a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), inattentive type, and a processing speed percentile in the teens, along with the rest of his cognitive profile in the 80–90th percentile, it became clear that the anxiety was communication. It was telling us, “Something isn’t working here for me. Doing well is unachievable for me, and I keep feeling like a failure. I try really hard, and still I can’t keep up.” He wasn’t articulating that message with his words, but his behavior was definitely telling us. Of course he felt anxious! Anxiety was an appropriate emotion, given the discrepancy between the demands and expectations of his classroom and his current capacity. The anxiety was a symptom, and one that should not have been seen as pathology, but rather helpful information, leading us to a deeper understanding that would allow us to better support him so he could thrive.

Peeling back the layers to get to the why led us to discover some really important things that allowed him to realize that he wasn’t “dumb” like he thought he was. On the contrary, he simply had a powerful brain that had strengths as well as challenges that made parts of school more difficult. With the right accommodations in the classroom, combined with working with an educational therapist for a period of time to learn how to capitalize on his gifts and find work-arounds for his areas of difficulty, and eventually going on a low-dose stimulant, everything changed. The adjusted perspective turned out to be transformative for this kid, who, I’m happy to report, thrived, achieved, and even spoke in front of the whole school the next year without much trouble. That’s what chasing the why can do for us.

For another student, years earlier, I was asked to observe and make some suggestions for a first grader—I’ll call her Lila—who refused to walk, but would instead stomp everywhere she went. She would not sit on the rug but would hide under her desk with her hands over her ears, sometimes plugging her nose. She had such intense emotional storms that at times she looked almost dissociated. She was very smart, yet she couldn’t get ideas down on paper if she had to use a pencil to write. At times she was a model first-grader with lovely collaborative social interactions, then the next moment she’d be oppositional, dysregulated, and inconsolable. Her experienced teacher’s strategies that were consistently effective for most students didn’t make even a tiny bit of difference in changing how Lila behaved day after day.

There was no trauma history, and Lila was fortunate enough to have engaged parents who were both providing her with secure attachment. Her environment seemed “just right” in terms of providing developmentally appropriate stimulation and challenge. She lived in a safe neighborhood, and after ruling out pervasive developmental disorders, the only way I knew to view her actions was as evidence of some sort of mood or behavioral disorder, neither of which really fit. I could see that her nervous system was experiencing a threat response, but I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Chasing the why, I went down the rabbit hole of researching and reading about what I was seeing. That’s when I discovered the phrase “sensory processing” and learned about the world of pediatric occupational therapy. This student had a sensory processing challenge that, as we discovered with the help of an occupational therapist (OT), activated a threat response in her nervous system, and it impacted many areas of her functioning. The stomping was in part because she had under-responsive sensory processing in one domain, and the forceful march she used to walk allowed her to get enough sensory input to make sense of her movements and the world. It wasn’t an act of defiance. And in other areas, she had over-responsive sensory processing, particularly to sounds and smells. Her behaviors were a result of her nervous system activating the threat alarms. Once Lila was evaluated by a skilled OT, who was then able to cultivate an experience of safety by creating playful moments, building a trusting relationship with her, and providing individualized sensory input to integrate how her brain processed sensory information, things began to improve for Lila. In partnership with Lila’s school, the OT offered guidance on how to meet her sensory needs in ways that allowed her to feel safe and to learn. Over time, Lila learned how to meet her own sensory needs and to ask for what she needed, allowing her to be an active, engaged learner who became skilled at regulating her emotions and behavior.

Notice that in both of these cases, the community of people who cared for these children chased the why, trying to get to the root of the problem. We had to get to its source. Just as it would be ridiculous to repeatedly prescribe an antihistamine for a person getting hives every day, without working to discover what the person was allergic to, it didn’t make sense to treat symptoms without examining the cause of what was going on.

This is what we aim to do at CFC—to look not only at behavior, but at what’s causing the behavior in the first place. From the beginning, our foundation has been built on the science that regulation and safe relationships go hand in hand; that we can harness neuroplasticity to change the brain by utilizing the power of regulated relationships; and that by chasing the why as an interdisciplinary team, we can provide specific, repeated experiences that will allow the brain to fire and wire in ways that build integration, allowing the child and the family to more fully thrive.

And it was through building our team at the CFC that I came to have the privilege of knowing, working with, and learning from Jamie and Ashley. First I met Jamie. Within minutes of meeting her (over breakfast burritos), I knew she was the one to build our OT program, to teach the rest of us how to think from a sensory-savvy lens. She could help us go beyond our too-differentiated points of view and introduce us to concepts and interventions that became game-changers: processing, attention, regulation, social communication, and more. Jamie had the IPNB lens and was ready to learn more to layer complexity into her own work. She talked about how mental health and occupational therapy needed each other. She used the magic words of “regulation” and “relationships” and “the use of self” to create safety in order to create the best chance for neuroplasticity. I’m grateful for all that Jamie has taught and continues to teach me and our team, and for the stellar OT program she’s built at the CFC that has changed the lives of so many families, and also so many classrooms and teachers.

With Ashley it was much the same. From the moment she joined our team, she began building our assessment division, founding everything on a quality, relationship/regulation-based approach to assessment. She also began our 0–5 program, and soon she was in high demand throughout our community. Ashley’s brilliance, deep clinical discernment, kind heart, and ability to hold complexity while joining with parents and teachers in ways that don’t overwhelm them are inspiring. Our team and I are better for having worked with her and learned from her.

As you’ll see in the coming pages, a key concept for Jamie and Ashley is the importance of understanding not only a child’s behavior, but the context as well. As they’ll explain, they often see, in homes and in mental health offices and in schools, that compliance- or obedience-based behavior modification is enforced without understanding where the breakdown is for the child. Without exploring the appropriate interventions or skills that need to be enhanced, a child often experiences not just tolerable stress, but toxic stress. Chronic states of stress can lead to more dysregulation and more behavioral problems, making things worse. Many of these children experience what I don’t think is too dramatic to call “educational trauma”—they undergo overwhelmingly terrifying or intensely stressful experiences because they have repeated experiences of getting in trouble for things they cannot help and cannot change, and this leaves them feeling helpless, afraid, and angry. No wonder their nervous systems are so reactive.

But when regulation is cultivated, created, and built, the problematic behaviors typically take care of themselves. Regulation emerges over time as development unfolds and as the prefrontal cortex develops and strengthens its ability to down-regulate, or lessen reactivity and threat signaling. As Jamie and Ashley will explain, regulation is also something that can be built through various types of therapies, medications, safe relational experiences, and more. When adults co-regulate, by being the calm, safe harbor in the storm, and by helping children calm and become regulated, they achieve feelings of safety and comfort. Repeated experiences of co-regulation become internalized both in terms of mental models, where children expect that someone will show up for them and help, but also in terms of neural wiring so that they can develop the capacity to regulate themselves.

It’s sometimes easier to go with our assumptions and decide that a child won’t behave or that she has some character flaw like being lazy, or that the student’s parents are too indulgent and don’t ask enough of him. But we want to do better than that in our interpretations of a situation. Many children are punished, criticized, or told scary things about who they are as learners and humans because a parent or a teacher assumes the child is choosing to not do well, when it often turns out that the child has a learning challenge or a trauma history, and in fact the “right” behaviors were something the child is not yet able to demonstrate.

Instead, we need to recognize that unwanted behavior is often communicating that something isn’t working for this child, and she’s likely experiencing intense stress. Instead of saying, “This kid is so rude,” or, “Why is he making bad choices?” or “Why doesn’t she try harder?” our question should be, “What’s causing that threat response?” Then we can more compassionately and effectively respond and intervene to change what’s happening in our classrooms.

This book and the ideas in it come at an important time, and I so admire its two authors. With intellect and clarity, Jamie and Ashley have taken crucial concepts from beyond their field of expertise and applied them in their own professional domains, offering a gift to educators everywhere, just when we need it. The focus on regulation and a felt sense of safety as the essential beginning for learning and accessing content, which may look and feel different for different students, is crucial if we’re going to shift to meet the needs of students today. One of the most powerful paths to cultivating regulation and safety is simply the relationship between student and teacher. You, as an educator, hold tremendous power to change students’ brains, minds, and behaviors, simply in how you build relationships with them. Connected relationships lead to connected, integrated brains.

Teachers—what you do matters. Through your relationships with students, and the kinds of repeated experiences you provide, you’re not only influencing their abilities, skills, knowledge, behaviors, and minds, you’re also changing how their brains fire and wire. You are brain architects and sculptors. With 40 percent of children not having secure attachment with their parents, you are a safety net for so many children, helping them feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure, showing up for them so that they can learn and become their best selves. We thank you for the gifts you give our children, mostly by who you are, and how you build relationships with them.

My hope is that this book is a gift to you—to fuel your own journey of curiosity and innovation; to give you a wider, richer lens that leads you to more compassion for yourself and your students; to help you understand more about the mechanisms behind what you already do that works, and why other things don’t work; to give you practical strategies you can implement to help students be more successful and regulated; and to empower you to effectively do the work you feel passion and purpose to do so that you find deep meaning in being the teacher you aspire to be.

—Tina Payne Bryson, LCSW, PhD