Part 2: Student Behavior and Time

"Kids do well if they can..." -Dr. Ross Greene

Greetings and wishes for joy wherever you are, lovely Snackers!

This (in case you didn't notice) is part of a series of articles following the "propaganda I'm not falling for" social media trend, and what it can look like in our classrooms. In case you missed it, here is the link to Part 1!

(deep breath!) Propaganda I'm not falling for in my classrooms is...given time, repeated instructions, threats of disciplinary action, etc. every child in my class will be able to meet my expectation to sit quietly and get all their work done (or, insert desired task here). This one is difficult to frame, because I'm sure that most, if not all of us have thought (or said out loud) some variation of "focus, sit down, let's get started, everybody lock in, get to class, etc.). Multiple attempts, even...RIGHT?! Is it working? Has it ever, for longer than a few moments before you have to say it again?

There are a great many things that are potentially in play here. First, go back and reread Dr. Greene's quote at the top of the page. We all know that everyone's (not just our students') brains are different, and that there are unknown external forces that can affect how and why any of us do what we do at any given moment. I'll focus on two.

ONE: Is it a lack of attention...or a lack of sleep?

Dr. Matthew Walker, author of the book WHY WE SLEEP: UNLOCKING THE POWER OF SLEEP AND DREAMS, states that at least 50% of people he sees in his practice that have and ADHD diagnosis are actually suffering from a sleep disorder. Give that a minute to sink in. It's not hard to imagine anyone, attention-challenged or not, being able to concentrate and focus if they haven't had enough sleep. But, here is the word of a world-renowned sleep specialist telling us what is actually going on. What, if anything, can we do about this?

Our schools are most often designed with blocks of time assigned to specific content areas. Therefore, our systems expect students to engage on a schedule. Ours, not theirs. Can we feel our personal impairment when that book/movie/game/show/level of doom scrolling kept us up way later than it should have? How many times have we let ourselves get too low on caffeine and still need needed to be our best teacher-selves? Now, flip that into the student chair, and sub out brains that aren't yet fully mature.

We can't mandate more sleep for the students who need it. We can, however, be mindful of abrupt transitions, and we can be gentler with hard and fast deadlines around work completion, extra time, etc.

TWO: The same students are always hearing their name.

Kids who struggle know that they struggle. They use self-talk that employs words like bad, screw-up, failure, stupid, etc. Unfortunately, these words are sometimes spoken by their adult caregivers. As a result, they may arrive at school expecting validation for those labels from the adults they encounter at school. When this happens, trauma responses can happen. When we walk over to a student who is struggling to focus and say, "please focus", they might get really upset, start yelling, or otherwise escalate. Students who struggle spend much of their day masking their lack of focus by trying to sit still and trying to control their impulsivity (I'm a teacher, and a former student with ADHD). It gets more and more difficult to do that as the day (or the class period with less flexible expectations) wears on. Sometimes it explodes into a series of undesirable classroom consequences (power struggle, elopement, destruction of property, etc.)

Sometimes, unfortunately, these conflicts can't be avoided (depending on where we are emotionally, and where these students are). Doing these things have helped me to mitigate some struggles. First, find reasons to call the student's name...and it's a good reason. Caveat: this has to be genuine. Kids see through false praise almost as fast as they see the text on the YouTube video that's up on your whiteboard! Second, let some behaviors go. The kids who struggle the most hear their names called the most...and it hurts. Maybe see it, acknowledge it with a look, and allow both of you to move on.

Hope these snacks hit the spot, colleagues! Have a wonderful week! Join the conversation. Please like and comment below so that we can share other things that work in our classrooms!

Happy snacking,

Chef Charles

Head chef

www.teacherssnacks.com