Teens get artistic with ‘Four Sources of Resiliency’

As a therapist in a high school therapeutic class, Damaris Pyle of Homestead High School in Cupertino, California works with students whose social and emotional challenges interfere with their ability to learn. “Our goal is to keep them at their home school and help them graduate high school,” says Damaris, who currently uses WhyTry in two of her classes.

After reading about WhyTry Founder Christian Moore’s four sources of resiliency (Street, Rock Bottom, Relational, and Resource), Damaris says, “I was hooked! I asked both classes to brainstorm what they thought each of the categories meant and then I asked them to make posters that represented their perception of the concepts.”

Damaris adds, “I think they are pretty awesome.” A few of the posters and the brainstorms that inspired them are below.

Street Resiliency

-Know who to hang out with and who to stay away from
-Ability to adapt to situations
-Trust your instincts

-Overcome obstacles
-How not to cause trouble so you don’t get in trouble
-How to do a lot with “nuttin’”

Relational Resiliency

-Don’t get discouraged when relationships “go south”
-Talk to trusted people
-Be willing to work through conflicts for a resolution

-Establish friendships with new people
-Communication skills
-Ability to talk to people

Resource Resiliency

-Awareness of support options
-Be able to change thoughts
-Think outside the box

-Get help from parents and other outside people
-Accept feedback, constructive criticism and observations
-Give respect to all people. You never know if they may become your boss.

Rock Bottom Resiliency

-Recognize the cause
-Appreciate what you have
-Realize that everything changes

-Realization of who you are
-Be willing to be super uncomfortable
-Find spirituality

If you have ideas, photos, or stories related to the WhyTry Program in your school or organization, contact us or leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

Flexible teaching ideas from a WhyTry Warrior

Parent Involvement Specialist Faye Wilson has learned to be flexible as she implements WhyTry with a variety of groups.

Sometimes a person has to be flexible – and no one understands this better than Faye Wilson, a parent involvement specialist for the Wicomico County Board of Education in Salisbury, Maryland. Since going through the WhyTry training in May of last year, Faye has implemented WhyTry in a middle school after-school program, at an elementary summer camp, with a choir/dance ensemble, in a one-on-one teen mentoring setting, and with groups of adults as a seminar teacher for her church. Needless to say, Faye Wilson is a woman of many hats.

That’s why, when it comes to teaching the WhyTry lessons, Faye is not afraid to diverge from the exact lesson outline and cater the program to the needs of the group she’s working with. Here are a few of the tried and true ways she’s “split off” from the lesson ideas in the WhyTry teacher’s manual.

The Reality Ride
A popular activity in WhyTry’s first lesson is called “The Keys to Staying on Track.” It involves having team members touch numbered pieces of cardstock in order in as little time as possible. Faye suggests using words to a song (She likes Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) instead of numbers. “I suggest that for younger children a nursery rhyme or school song, or even a motto that you want them to learn, might be a motivating factor for them to play this game.” And for the adults? “I have even used this with adults,” she says. “And they are in a huddle strategizing like you wouldn’t believe.”

Tearing Off Labels
Generally in “Tearing Off Your Label,” students are encouraged to give themselves a positive label. Faye likes to mix this up by putting everyone’s name in a box and having each student draw a name. They are then instructed to create a positive label for that person. “We ask them to write down positive words that come to mind, and we review them,” says Faye. “They also know if they choose not to be positive, they also will not receive the positive feedback/label that someone has developed for them.”

The Motivation Formula
Instead of simply showing the WhyTry visual analogy “The Motivation Formula” and moving on, Faye encourages her class to draw their own river and dams, then gives them the option to share their art with the class. “This is a great exercise to give the class artists a time to shine,” says Faye, adding, “I always show them MY rough sample so they will know it’s OK for theirs to ‘rough and gruff.’”

Climbing Out
The “Climbing Out” lesson is a picture of crabs in a pot, pulling each other down as a representation of peer pressure from friends. “Around here when we catch crabs, we often put them in a bushel basket,” says Faye. To help the students relate the visual to their own experience, she brings in a variety of pots and baskets with different items in them. “They are asked to get the item out, using only their left little finger or a fork between their teeth,” explains Faye. This helps demonstrate that some pots are more difficult to get out of than others, and it also creates a nice tie-in to “Desire, Time, and Effort” and “The Reality Ride.”

Desire, Time, and Effort
WhyTry’s “Desire, Time, and Effort” visual is a difficult maze that shows students the importance of hard work to succeed in life. Faye likes to share the biographies of famous people her students are familiar with, such as LL Cool J, Michael Oher, or Venus Williams, and have her students identify the “desire, time, and effort” those people put in to be successful.

Lift the Weight
WhyTry’s “Lift the Weight” lesson teaches students that laws and rules make us stronger, and Faye likes to help her students see how this applies in real life. “I have them brainstorm some ‘terrible’ news (either from TV, Internet, or school),” she says. “We talk about what rules were broken (at that moment or earlier in life). Then we talk about what might have been different if they had chosen the HARD things, and we identify those: walk away from a situation, choose a different friend, not being ‘smart’ with the teacher or police officer.”

Faye also uses a team-building STEM activity to teach this principle, giving each team four sheets of paper and encouraging them to use their paper build the tallest tower. She explains, “I share that we can lift a lot more weight just as we can get that tower higher – when we work together, observe the rules of physics (or the environment), and exercise some patience.”

Get Plugged In
The “Get Plugged In” lesson emphasizes the importance of having a variety of positive connections, and uses the examples parent/guardian, positive friend, teacher/counselor/school official, positive mentor, and something that inspires or motivates you to do good. Faye divides the categories into envelopes and gives each student one, then challenges them to describe in 1-2 sentences a positive connection in their life that falls into that category. For example, “Lynette is my positive friend because she always tells me that I can do things.”

Recently, Faye’s class presented an overview of WhyTry to a group of AmeriCorps volunteers, and asked everyone to share the name of someone to whom they are “plugged in.” Three of the 11 people shared the name of one specific volunteer who has made a difference to them. “It was quite emotional,” Faye says of the exercise.

Faye says she is always looking for ways to reach her students, and WhyTry has given her additional tools to help her in her work. After meeting WhyTry Founder Christian Moore last year, she says, “I saw how these visuals and activities would help youth in particular think and reflect on their lives. Some students do not have family support…”

She continues, “I understand Christian’s premise that students need to be empowered, they need to practice skills of resiliency. I also believe that if more parents understand and use these skills in their own lives, they will be more effective, caring, and consistent parents. They won’t be easily rattled. They’ll be able to share with their children, ‘Dad’s in a flood plain, but these are the lifelines being thrown to me and I’m going to make it out.’”

If you have ideas or stories related to the WhyTry Program in your school or organization, contact us or leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

Enhancing WhyTry with a professional learning community

“We really think with each other as far as using WhyTry… We’re trying to determine what works best.” -Cindy Weber, Comprehensive Student Support Provider

Cindy Weber returned from her Level 1 WhyTry Training just over a year ago excited to begin implementing the program with the middle school students she works with on a daily basis. The training gave her the foundation for getting started, but she attributes the program’s growing success to a group of six other women – comprehensive support providers from other middle schools – who formed a professional learning community following the training.

“We meet every other week, sometimes every week, on Wednesday morning for about three hours, depending on our agenda,” she said. “We really think with each other as far as using WhyTry, sharing activities, what’s working and isn’t working… We’re trying to determine what works best.”

Recently the women were asked to take on one elementary school each on top of their middle school caseload, and having the group already in place has been a big help.

“We started doing what we could with WhyTry as an elementary program, and it’s gone really well. Banding together has helped us know how we’re each covering the posters, how much time we spend on each one. We break it down. And depending on the group of kids, we’re finding we can cover one poster in three sessions for one group while the next one might take six.”

Cindy is a Comprehensive Student Support Provider for the highest risk elementary and middle school students at Fontana Middle School and Primrose Elementary in Fontana, California. Students are pulled from an elective or PE class once a week with 6-8 other students to learn the principles of WhyTry under Cindy’s direction. Currently, Cindy’s caseload totals 104 students.

Thanks to many of the ideas exchanged in her PLC, Cindy has watched WhyTry transform the lives of several of her students. “Kids have turned it around from straight Fs to Cs,” she said. “Some of them had huge truancy issues, and have gone from 40 days last year to 10. That’s huge. Some kids last year had major suspension issues and this year maybe had one. We look for any steps that are in the right direction.” Cindy said that her students love the learning activities that are a key component of the program, and she’s getting better every day at keeping her students focused and involved. “As we continue with it we become better,” she said. “It’s only going to get better with using.”

Cindy said starting a PLC in your school or district is simply a matter of forming a team and making it happen. District buy-in is also key, she said, but that increases as people at the district level start to see results. “We produce an agenda and keep minutes every time we meet, and we’ve told our district bosses that they’re welcome to come in any of our meetings. We’re just being translucent. We’re a team.” Further evidence of the PLC’s success has been the pre and post tests they’ve created together to assess the program’s effectiveness with their students. “Some people like doing their own thing, but if I don’t have to reinvent the wheel I don’t want to. Plus I like sharing it with others.”

If you’re finding it difficult to form your own professional learning community in your school or district, take advantage of the WhyTry PLC available in a WhyTry Online Curriculum subscription.

If you have similar stories about how WhyTry has benefited your school or organization, contact us or leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

Guest Blog: ‘Circle of Influence’ Learning Activity (Visualizing Support Systems)

Here’s a new activity to use the next time you teach (or re-teach) the Why Try lesson “Get Plugged In.” Simple and powerful, this visual and hands-on activity helps students grasp the importance of strong positive support systems.

Materials needed:
-Poster sized paper
-Markers
-String/yarn
-Tape
-Scissors
-White board & dry erase marker

Length of Activity:
-60-90 minutes

Step 1: INTRODUCTION

Analogy/Explanation

Carrie Johnson, school counselor at Jones Regional Education Center, introduces students to their “circle of influence.”

Circles of influence are like a stone thrown in a pond. The first ripples are close to the stone, deep, and powerful. As they expand away from the stone, they become more distant, shallower, and less powerful.

We are each like that stone. The people closest to us have the most power and influence in our lives. And just as ripples extend out from a stone, we have relationships that extend out from us that may still be important, but have less power and influence the farther out they extend.

At this point the facilitator should explain this analogy while drawing an example on the board. Draw a circle (stone) with your name in the middle surrounded by circles (ripples). Identify people who are a part of your life and put their names in the circles that represent their distance from you. Use specific names and avoid generic labels like “my family”.

After the “Circle of Influence” is explained, students can begin creating their own.

Step 2: CREATE POSTERS

Hand out posters and markers and have students create their own circles of influence. As they work, here are some questions to have them think about:

1)   Which family members are the most supportive of you?
2)   When you are hurting, who is there for you?
3)   Who knows the most about you?
4)   Who can you count on to help you in an emergency?
5)   Who do you say “Hi” to on a daily basis but you don’t really know anything about? (store clerks, the janitor at your school)

After creating their "circle," students use string to link their names to the positive influences in their lives.

After creating their “circle,” students use string to link their names to the positive relationships in their lives.

Step 3: MAKE CONNECTIONS

Hand out tape, scissors, and string to students. You will use one piece of string for each positive relationship, so some students will need more string than others. Have students tape a piece of string from their name to each name on the poster that represents a positive influence in their life.

When the poster is finished, students will have a visual depiction of their positive influences.

Step 4: CONCLUSION

Processing Posters
-What do you notice as you look at your poster?
-What would you like to see different about your poster?
-What are you willing to do to make that change?

The activity can be enhanced by comparing life to a high wire and pointing out the importance of a strong safety net.

Analogy
Life is like walking a high wire. You can do it without a safety net, with a very poor safety net, or a strong safety net. If the string on your poster represents your safety net, what would happen if you fall off your wire? (And we all fall off the wire).

Next steps/Challenge
-What small change can you make today that will make a big impact on your life tomorrow?
-What are you willing to do to improve the relationships in your life?
-Add questions from Why Try curriculum, such as:
-“What is one “conflict,” “argument,” or “power struggle” that I can give up today that won’t hurt me but will lower my parents anxiety about me?”

Alternative Program Instructor Hannah Byrne (guest blogger) and School Counselor Carrie Johnson work at Jones Regional Education Center at Kirkwoood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If you have examples of learning activities that have helped students in your classroom, or to find out more about WhyTry’s 150 learning activities, contact us.

Choosing to lift the weight

Life epiphanies can happen at the most unexpected moments. For high school student Anthony* in El Paso, Texas, that moment came while looking at a picture of a weightlifter during a once-a-week class.

Lily Wooley is a literacy coach at Raymond Telles Academy, an alternative high school for students who are kicked out of their home campus for misbehavior, attendance, weapons, and other violations. Every Friday for 45 minutes, Lily introduces her students to a different metaphor in the WhyTry Program. “They were mesmerized by the maps and the direct honest dialogue it produced,” she said. “We had amazing discussions that were so heartwarming.”

On one Friday in particular, Lily was being evaluated by the high school principal and decided to teach the “Lift the Weight” metaphor to her students, which emphasizes that keeping laws and rules makes us stronger and more capable of achieving our dreams. At the end of the lesson, Lily invited her students to turn their “Lift the Weight” metaphors over and write what they learned. Anthony carefully wrote something on his paper, then looked up and said, “I need to change.”

Because students at Telles Academy come and go within 30 days, Lily said she appreciates a program that works so quickly with her youth. “This is straightforward and to the point,” she said. Her favorite teaching approach is to show video clips of WhyTry Founder Christian Moore, who, as a learning disabled student in special ed, turned to a second mother he endearingly titled “Mama Jackson” for support. “These kids are all ego driven and feel that they can do everything on their own. They need to know that they need support and people are here to help them,” she said.

Lily added that after hearing Christian Moore’s story, the students find hope in the fact that they can grow up and succeed as well. “We have quite a few special ed students, and the kids see that video and are like, ‘Wow. This guy made it.’ And they’re just staring at these videos dumbfounded. It never occurred to them that they could do something with their lives even with that label on them.”

After Anthony resolved to change, Lily watched him begin to turn his life around. “A lot of times they come in and don’t want to talk, and we could not shut him up afterwards. He wanted to tell us everything all the time,” she says. “In his journals, we could see that he realized what he was doing in his life: getting in trouble at school, hanging around the wrong crowd, and trying to fit in and impress others. We could just see him maturing right in front of our eyes. He’s seeing that these things aren’t working for him anymore.” Anthony also recognized that his younger brother was following in his footsteps, and saw the need to change not just for himself, but for his entire family.

With a new semester underway, Lily looks forward to helping other students change using the WhyTry Program. “A lot of [students] have walls built up, but [WhyTry] really helps open them up and change… I think this is the most powerful tool I’ve worked with in 20 years.”

Lily’s advice to alternative educators, at-risk counselors, mental health workers, and people that work with “kids in trouble”: “I would say that they just need to be trained in WhyTry and use it. That’s the key. USE IT. A lot of times, people want to get out for the day and they come back and shelf everything. But this is really worth using. Start out slow, using one map at a time, and take it from there.”

If you have similar stories about how WhyTry has benefited your school or organization, contact us or leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

*Name has been changed.

Getting a handle: How one senior learned conflict resolution

Flying off the handle used to be common for a high school senior named David.* Fistfights were his number one problem-solving strategy; damaged relationships were his norm.

WhyTry Fridays and a dedicated staff helped David discover his own self-control.

Ron Ross is the lead teacher and social studies instructor at David’s alternative high school in Richmond, Indiana. He’s worked with David for four years now; the same amount of time he’s been working as a teacher at Richmond High.

Each Friday, Ron joins a team of his fellow teachers in teaching a 45-minute WhyTry lesson to a class of about 60 students. “The Reality Ride is the theme for the whole year,” he said. “We teach that first, then we start hitting all the others from that.” The teachers realized early on that the majority of students at the school were hands-on learners, so generally opt for movement and interactive activities to emphasize the concepts. “We really adapted the program to fit our students’ needs,” he said. “WhyTry is a toolbox, and you have to decide which tools are going to best fit your school.”

David was always an active participant in WhyTry Fridays, Ron said. “I think it’s because he had more to say because of his poor choices… He was always one of our all-stars.” David especially enjoyed the activities, Ron explained, because they gave him the opportunity to “have a handle on stuff.”

David recognized that he had anger management problems, and would often confide in Ron and other teachers about the relationship struggles he had as a result. David had a good relationship with Ron, and would sometimes look at him and say, “I’m flipping out! You gotta do something!” when he started to lose control at school. But Ron recognized that he wouldn’t always be there to help David cool down, and was working hard to give him the necessary skills to handle conflict situations on his own. “As much as I’ll always be there for them, I’m not always going to be there for them, you know?” he said. “I told him he’s got to learn how to do it on his own, whether he likes it or not.”
On one particular WhyTry Friday, Ron and the other teachers taught the Motivation Formula to the students, using activities and discussion questions to reinforce the idea of “staying out of the flood zone.” David returned to school on Monday with a look of achievement on his face. “He came in and told us about this fight he had had with his girlfriend,” explained Ron. “There was something to do with another guy, and normally he would have flown off the handle and had a fist fight. Because of WhyTry, this time he stopped and listened to what she had to say. He practiced good listening and used the conflict resolution skills that we’d talked about.”

“When the flood happened, I didn’t get carried away. I decided to stay in the clean water and not get myself in trouble,” David told Ron. Ron is sure that before WhyTry, David would have lost control under the same circumstances.

“He’s at the end of that road where I’m not going to always be there for him,” said Ron. “It was great to see that he was realizing how to do this by himself.”

If you have similar stories about how WhyTry has benefited your school or organization, contact us or leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

*Name has been changed.

Journals: the missing link

The change began with two things: a great teacher and some journals.

Before WhyTry came to Hope Online, an online school with a physical building for students to attend, School Social Worker Kelli Korn was struggling to reach the youth in her small ISP/special ed group. “The students were unresponsive and didn’t talk much with each other,” she said.

When Kelli was introduced to WhyTry, she knew it was exactly what her Hope Online students needed to find real hope, and the motivation to succeed in life. With a limited budget, however, Kelli couldn’t afford the WhyTry Student Journals. The students wrote in their regular, everyday notebooks grudgingly. One student refused entirely, and Kelli resorted to being the boy’s scribe while he half-heartedly dictated his response to the day’s journal prompt. Kelli was seeing progress in her students, but the journal was a missing piece she desperately wished for.

Soon thereafter, that wish was answered in the form of a grant, giving her enough funding to provide each of her students with their own personal “WhyTry Game Plan Journal.”

Suddenly, the classroom climate began to transform faster than ever. Kelli observed that the students who were reluctant at first were suddenly eagerly journaling during their own free time. “The student who didn’t want to write for himself began to journal on his own and has become very active in the class,” said Kelli.

And it didn’t stop at journaling. “The kids really began to open up and share their feelings, especially after activities,” she said. What’s more, the same students who were apathetic and uninvolved a few months earlier were volunteering to help in other school programs.

“I love the WhyTry Program,” said Kelli, reflecting on the transformation she has witnessed. “It’s the best program I’ve ever implemented at the school. I can really see the difference in the students.”

Then thoughtfully, she added, “The journals brought everything together.”

If you have similar stories about how WhyTry has benefited your school or organization, contact us or leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

Finding your Mama Jackson: One ‘hopeless’ student’s journey to hope

A girl named Catherine* started high school this month. She participates in group activities in class. She takes baths and combs her hair in the morning. When she eats lunch, she uses the proper utensils. Sometimes after school, Catherine volunteers with animals at a local pet store.

While these things may seem mundane and even expected for most teenage girls, they are giant leaps for a young woman who, only three years ago, was described by teachers as “feral,” and who convinced a district psychiatrist that she was a hopeless case who would one day end up in jail.

Special Education Teacher Judy Laseak says Catherine arrived at Cockrill Middle School three years ago as a victim of severe abuse. “She was completely lost,” she explains. “She couldn’t sit with a group; she ate with her hands. She had lots of hygiene issues, and was very possessive. She would growl or hiss if anyone touched her stuff.” When a psychiatrist assessed Catherine as “hopeless,” Judy says, “It was very sad for us. We don’t like anybody to think that way.”

Judy and her colleagues in the special education department use the WhyTry Program alongside the Boys Town social skills curriculum. As they taught WhyTry to Catherine, they began to see hope in the “hopeless.” “She completely embraced the program, especially the music,” Judy explains. “She even has her own little dance for the crab song.”

By her 8^th grade year, Catherine was mentoring the younger students by explaining the principles of WhyTry and how they help in real-life situations. “She can break down the program to the kiddos in a way that we as adults couldn’t,” says Judy. “She relates better.”

The teachers were thrilled to see Catherine using the WhyTry metaphors as a navigation tool throughout the day. “The metaphors helped her know when she screwed up and where she did in the process of her day. She used the visuals to retrace her steps, figure out what she did, and fix it,” says Judy.

Catherine isn’t the only student at Cockrill Middle School who has used WhyTry to find hope. “A lot of our kids have been through horrific abuse situations,” Judy says. “We like to tell them about Christian Moore and Mama Jackson, because we think that’s a great piece that people forget. We always say to the kids, ‘Find your Mama Jackson.’”

WhyTry Founder Christian Moore was helped in his childhood by a second mother he endearingly called "Mama Jackson."

Mama Jackson was WhyTry Founder Christian Moore’s second mother; an African American woman who took him in, fed him, and encouraged him to dream big, even though at the time he couldn’t see himself as ever being more than an inner-city kid with severe learning disabilities.

Catherine was one of many students to approach Judy and her fellow teachers and confide, “You’re my Mama Jackson.” To Judy, building that relationship with her students is the most important part of her job.

“I think the [Mama Jackson] story is a big piece of the program that teachers don’t really go over with the kids,” says Judy. “They can connect to that because a lot of them have had food withheld from them. They’ve been taken away from families who didn’t feed them. They buy into the program because they know it isn’t some talking head that made this up in grad school. They can see, ‘This guy lived my life.’”

Judy says the WhyTry Program has become “their Bible,” and she plans on using it religiously as long as it keeps giving hope to kids like Catherine.

If you have similar stories about how WhyTry has benefited your school or organization, contact us or leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

*Name has been changed.

Guest blog: Four tips to improve your WhyTry research

"Students would come in...with frowns on their faces and leave with smiles."

This year, I conducted research about the impact that the WhyTry Program had on two 4th grade classes in the Southeastern region of the United States. I would like to share my experience with you, along with some information that I hope will be helpful if you are also conducting research on WhyTry. This turned out to be a very interesting, educational, as well as a frustrating process!

In my research project, I utilized pretest and posttest information from one class. Furthermore, I collected data regarding the students’ English, Math, and attendance in two classes. I conducted an analysis in which I compared the students’ data while they were in WhyTry to the grading quarter after they finished WhyTry. In the end, the results of my study were not significant, however this could be due to a multitude of reasons- the data was collected over a very short period of time, data was only collected from two classes in one school, the pretest/posttest was not validated, etc.

As a result of my experience with this research project, I have a few recommendations for those of you that plan on conducting Why Try research:

When using secondary data, ensure that you have access to all data in your research design. While I thought I had this access, it was not until I began collecting my data that I realized this was not the case. This resulted in having to make tremendous changes to my research design.
Ensure a large data set, especially when working with students, as parental consent greatly limits the final sample size of your study.
Research on the WhyTry Program should be mixed method. My study only utilized quantitative data and would have been much more valuable with a qualitative aspect.
Ensure that your assessments are validated materials, as it strengthens the significance of the results. It was not until after the pretest was distributed that I found out it was not the validated assessment offered by the WhyTry Program.

Although the results of my research were not significant, I see such significance in this program. In one of the schools where WhyTry was implemented, we did not see the same class for six consecutive weeks. Instead, sometimes weeks passed between the time we were able to see them. However, at the beginning of each class when we conducted a recap, we were always shocked to hear how much information these students retained! Furthermore, there were many times when students would come into the classroom with a frown on their faces and leave with smiles. Other students would come in with smiles because they were so happy to see us. Finally, there were times when we saw the students implementing the goals of WhyTry right there in our classroom. All of this evidence is proof of the impact this program has on the students we taught this year.

Thank you for reading this post- hope this information was beneficial! Good luck to any of you who are also conducting research on Why Try!

Marissa Emrich is a senior social work student, aspiring school counselor, fiancee, sister, friend, and daughter. To read more about research surrounding WhyTry, visit our website.

Guest blog: How “surrendering the one-up” can go a long way

Guest blogger John Larrison recently listened to a keynote address by WhyTry Founder Christian Moore. The following is John’s letter to Christian, responding to his speech and sharing his own personal story. Thanks John!

Christian,

I really enjoyed hearing you speak. When I compare your life story and my own, we are very similar in a lot of ways. I was raised in a family where my mom stayed by us and our dad was an alcoholic. It was just the way life was.

The year after I got out of high school, I was in a 70-mph head-on wreck with people who were way past legally drunk. Four people were killed and one was the girl I was dating. I couldn’t walk correctly for three years. During that time, I decided there was no way I’d be like them and drown my sorrows in alcohol, but I got deep into using and selling drugs. I can’t even count how many times I nearly got caught or saw my friends go to prison, get shot, or die. But somehow I made it through. I always tell myself that there was a reason, and it was the kids I work with. I made it through to help them make it through!

Thank you for addressing the importance of ASKING students to do something rather than TELLING them to do it. Many teachers teach how they were taught and not how they were taught to teach. Their behavior management practices in the classroom are those they have experienced as students and have come to accept as their own. I contend that these are parental and law enforcement tactics, and should not be employed in the classroom. I was one of these kids, and I am one of these adults. Ask me to do something, and I may comply. Tell me to do something, and I’ll likely refuse!

For the most part, students come to school every day willing to learn. If a student thinks you believe in them, they’ll pay attention and attend to task. When a teacher shares the power of his/her classroom, the student will work. Respect has to be earned, and this is not done through intimidation and punishment. Everyone in the classroom wins when a teacher will simply tell students, “I am going to do my best to NOT treat you like other adults treat you.” The other side of this is, “I expect you to NOT treat me like you may treat other adults.” Instead of saying something like, “Antonio, you NEED to get to work,” or “Heather, you NEED to sit down,” say, “Antonio, can you go ahead and start for me?” or, “Heather, can you come over and sit down?” When they do, thank them for what they did. “Hey, thanks, Antonio,” “I appreciate it, Heather,” “Thanks for helping me out today.”

As you use this approach, the classroom will become like a community with everyone working together. This isn’t a one-time thing. You have to live that life. Tell students, “If you ever hear me not treating you like this, please tell me, because I don’t want to be like that.” If you find yourself misspeaking, stop immediately and say, “I’m sorry, let me give that another try.” Students respect respect. They are mirrors of their environment. If you don’t like what you see, rather than looking at the student and finding something wrong, look at yourself and see what you can do or change in order to bring about a change in the student. Pay attention to that student’s learning style and teach that way.

Some administrators seem to believe that if they expel or discipline a student, that the student will “learn a lesson” from their punishment. They expect the student to start “fresh” with a new attitude. It’s the adults who hold grudges and who can’t let things go. They seem to stand ready to say, “Ah, see, they’re at it again.”

The very first premise of the Mandt System (a system for managing individuals who may be out of control) is that you cannot manage someone else’s behavior until your own is under control first. I wonder how many of us would like to be publicly called out and disciplined, and then be asked to return to work the next day and start fresh with a new attitude?

Thank you, Christian.

John

John is a counselor and teacher in Topeka, Kansas. To learn more about the principle of “surrendering the one-up,” visit our website.