Neuroworld

In my previous post I talked about Donna Volpitta's book on resilience. Here children's book, Neuroworld: A Guide for teaching the Brain Science of Resilience, is meant to explain to children four sections of the brain: cortex, limbic system, amyglada and prefrontal cortex, that influence our decision making and behavior. She relates each region to a bug and explains the role it plays and how they interact with each other.

region	information
Cortex (ant)	·         Involved in planning and working hard ·         Influenced by adequate rest, nutrition and exercise ·         Social skills, focus and routines
Limbic system (grasshopper)	·         Early to develop ·         Emotions ·         Short term survival and rewards
Amygdala (glowworm)	·         Part of limbic system on alert for threats ·         Being alert and looking for threats
Prefrontal cortex (dragonfly)	·         Can override the limbic system Last part of the brain to develop ·         Conscious choices ·         Executive function

The book is meant to be shared with children to introduce them to concepts about self-control and help them on the way to being more successful with their emotions. Children would need multiple exposures to the text to understand the concepts. Exploring these concepts with calm children will help them to be more responsive to scripting that encourages them to take charge of their emotions and behavior. An interesting approach to metacognition.

The Resilience Formula

I was fortunate enough to attend NYS PTA's Summer Leadership Conference where I participated in a couple of highly informative workshops. I was inspired to purchase some reading material and have started going through it. Donna M. Volpitta, a former teacher and neuroscience researcher, spoke about the interactions within the brain that help govern behavior. The book she co-authored with Joel D. Haber, The Resilience Formual: A Guide to Proactive Not Reactive Parenting, is a text for parents, especially those of young children, to help them understand how the brain governs behavior and how scripting  can be used to circumvent challenges and teach prosocial behavior.

Early in the book she describes resilience "as the ability to respond postively to adverse sitruations, typically those that arise to such proportions as natural disasters, war, or crippling accidents" (p. 18). Since none of us want to contemplate the rare occurences of such large scale disasters, she also includes a broader definition of "encompassing a person's ability to cope with any stress or adversity" (p. 18), Truly this is what we want for our children- to successfully mange the day to day challenges of our life. My favorite definition of self-esteem is around the ability to have resilience- to cope with the ups and downs of our lives. We all have them. We all must respond to them. We all handle some better than others. Wouldn't we all like to have strategies to handle them better than we do?

Scripting is the process of providing the language required to help someone manage a situation. I remember an actor who played a thoughtful and loving father on TV say how he was a great TV dad becuase someone wrote it for him and he would love to have someone do that in real life when he was challenged by his own children. I suspect learning the scripts for his show probably helped him handle his kids because he was able to see a best case senario. As kids get older the scripting we must use is not in the heat of the moment, but outside it. The authors share that the three big themes of prosocial interation are

1. how to actively include people
2. how to share objects
3. how to make compromises

We might help script how to make a phone call to invite a friend to a play date, how to include a sibling in an activity, how to share a game system or toy or how to negotiate getting the car or which treat to have. Teaching children, especially from a young age to  do the following:
     Child (whines): I want to play with Davie.
     Adult: Say, "Davie, can I play with you?"
     Child: Davie, can I play with you?
     Davie: Sure
It gives them the words that they do not yet have to achieve the ends they want. It takes time and the demand that the entire request be repeated to create the neuro pathways to establish and maintain the pattern.

As a parent of a child on the spectrum, the prosocial chapter was particularly meaningful. It reminds me of Social Thinking lite. Teaching these scripts is what we did to try and develop pragmatic skills in my child with a particular weakness. It is, however, a skill that all children can benefit from.

The book is an easy read. It's advice is straigh-forward. A great gift for a new parent who does not want their child to be living in their basement when the child is 30. More information may be found at the Center for Resilinect Leadership.

The 360 Leader

I have read many things by John C. Maxwell and enjoyed his practical, easy to read style that is loaded with examples and stories that emphasize his points.  His The 360° Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization was mentioned at a conference workshop I attended, so I went out and tracked down a copy. It did not disappoint. The book is broken into 6 sections: myths, challenges, principles to lead up, across and down, and the value of the middle leader. Maxwell contends that to be a 360° leader, you must lead up to your boss, across to your peers and down to your team. It is not an easy job, but he sets out 300 pages of advice to help you be successful.

A consistent theme of Maxwell's is the critical importance of people and their development. He stressess over and over in many ways that more leaders enhance an organization and developing leadership in people is the role of every leader. This reminds me of something from The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell where he talks about the higher up in an organization you go, the more your work is on mentoring people and the less on the business of the organization. Good leaders are about the influence they have in an organization, not titles. Influence grows from competence and confidence.

One of the first concepts Maxwell tackles is that leadership can and should come from everywhere in the in the organization. "The key to succeeding is to learn to deal with the tension of whatever position you are in, overcome its obstacles, and make the most of its advantages and opportunities. If you do that, you can succeed from anywhere in the organization" (p. 33). This is true of students- if they can overcome their personal and academic challenges, they will be successful. It is also true for any of the PTA groups I have been a part of- when someone rises to overcome the problems, they, and the organization, become better.

The quote I want to share with my son is "Maturity does not come with age. It begins with the acceptance of responsibility" (p. 62). When he steps up and does what needs to be done, he is acting mature. When he dodges or is dragged into facing a responsibility, he is not there yet. This adulting is often seen by children as being able to do what you want, when you want. Unfortunately that element is tempered by responsibilites that have you completing tasks you would rather not, when it is not fun.

I have often been cited as pushing and challenging those above me who lead. I ask questions and look for better ways to do things. "Leaders push boundaries" (p. 111) becasue they want to make improvements. Acceptance of the status quo is not going to drive an organization to success. I am currently reading Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom in which he frequently talks about times when he disagreed with the majority and after debate ended up supporting the viewpoint the group adopted whether or not he whole heartedly agreed. Maxwell would agree- discuss and debate, accept the will of the group and accept that you will sometime fail. For leaders to grow they must have the opportunity to stretch and sometimes not make it. "Leaders who tend to the people ususally build up the people and the business" (p. 218).

In schools I have advocated for times of homogenous grouping. This is not a popular concept- often labeled tracking. It is true that individuals in the lower end of the group benefit from being grouped with more able peers. The problem is that high potential students do not academically grow when placed with lower level students. They grow and learn when with their high potential peers. Maxwell points out this principle when he says, "people function at peak capacity when they have someone else pushing them" (p. 172). If you want to be a star athlete, you want to be on the best team so that the players will challenge you to improve your skills. Finding people with more leadership skills than you to hang aound, will allow some of their skills to be adopted by you.

In the section on leading down, Maxwell cites a card he found on his father's desk.
"#1 Build people up by encouragement.
#2 Give people credit by acknowledgement.
#3 Give people recognition by gratitude."   (p. 227)
I try very hard to acknowledge the accomplishments of my teams with written notes- handwritten, not email- whenever possible. I know that some of them treasure these notes. Having read a book about thank you notes, I developed a simple formula: Thank the person, by name, for their specific contribution (person/attendance first, tangibles second), explain how the contibution led to the success of the organization/activity, and share how you would like to continue to work together in the future. Three specific sentences can be highly effective. This is not the thank you I have often received: "Thank you for your help at the conference. You helped us run a successful conference." I have penned notes like: "Dear Lynn, Thank you so much for running the Reflections program this year. I know that you spent many hours putting to gether the celebration that was attended by over fifty artists and their family members. Your willingness to step up and run this even truly helps out students be recognized for their work. I hope we can count on your help next year as well." As Maxwell suggests, we should "see and lead people as they can be not as the are" by treating them as a 10 (p. 227).

In order to lead, you need to slow down. He aptly points out the example of a parent teaching a child a skill. It is slower and perhaps less well done when the child is learning the skill, but with practice, the child will become proficient at the activity. I remember the first time baking cut out sugar cookies with my daughter went faster rather than slower. It was a powerful high. Teaching leadership skills is like that. It takes practice and mentoring and time, but at the end it is worth it.

In customer suggestions and reviews, negatives about with a small number of positives ever taken in. In leadership roles, the reverse is true. People will spout their wins to the leader and the world, but hold back on the challenges. When people start avoiding the leader who is doing his best to be accessible and visible, something is wrong. It is the wise leader who recognizes the problem. The wiser one goes to his boss with possible solutions before stuff hits the fan.

Another link I found to teaching is in his advice for leading down- "Experience alone isn't a good enough teacher-- evaluated experience is" (p. 235). When students practice and work they need feedback in order to improve. The student I had who was conviced she needed to skip a line on the vertical axis before countin up had misinterpreted something along the road and being graded on the problem was not improving her skill. Like many students she often just looked at the grade on a paper. I needed to sit with her while she graphed and stop her in her numbering and explain the proper procedure. Growing leadership is like this. Some people need very specific guidance and others can learn it incidentily.

Trauma senstive schools for adolescents

Working in a high poverty school has had me thinking about the root of the challenge for my kids. I do not feel that poverty is the underlying cause. It is trauma. One type of trauma is poverty and the various forms of insecurity that accompany it- primarily food and housing. Many of my students are children living with only one parent or a guardian. Many live in houses where abuse is or was occurring. Many are exposed to substance abuse or are now using themselves. Many have untreated medical or dental problems, especially mental health. These kids need extensive support to help them engage in the learning process. Susan E. Craig's book, Trauma-Sensitive Schools for the Adolescent Years: Promoting Resiliency and Healing, Grades 6-12, tackles this concern head on.

Craig defines trauma as "exposure to experiences that exceed one's capacity to cope" (p. 8). Once a first trauma has occurred subsequent resiliency is impaired and individuals are more easily traumatized again. The author acknowledges the link between trauma and disengagement, something I see in the classroom. Trauma limits the "ability to use higher-order thinking to regulate subcortical brain activity" (p 7). She recommends acknowledging the academic challenge and then actively working to counter the fear response of fight or flight. The strategies she recommends to deal with this impaired brain include promoting integration of new and old information, fostering collaboration and perspective taking.

This work takes time. The brain has been impacted by trauma and needs to develop new patterns of use. New dendrites need to be built and reinforced so that old, dysfunctional to learning patterns are overwritten. It relies on the development of relationships with often relationship shy young people. Clear and precise language  needs to be used to talk about strategies that will be successful in school for solving challenges. From an instructional standpoint, she recommends using differentiated instruction and dialogic teaching.

She recommends teaching and reinforcing strategies for stress management. We cannot eliminate stress from anyone's life. A little stress is good- it pushes us to be mindful, study or be careful. Too much is a problem. When students approach unhealthy stress levels they need productive ways to deal- visualization, yoga, and deep breathing are examples. Each person needs to find their method. For my son, deep breathing was a nonstarter. We could sometimes prompt him to refocus on relaxing topics. He learned to have a book handy when it was likely he was going to have to wait. Each individual needs their own tool box of stress management.

Trauma exposed people tend to focus on the negative rather than the successes. They need the adults in their lives to celebrate and help them recognize their successes and opportunities. Many people exposed to trauma see the future as a black hole. We need to help them imagine a future of possibilities. We need to help them plan for positives rather than wallow in their problems and past.

Disrupting Poverty part 2

Kathleen M. Budge and William H. Parrett's book, Disrupting Poverty: Five Powerful Classroom Practices, begins with a discussion of poverty and it's impact on children. The first comment that hit me was their insistence that "labeling students 'poor' can provide an excuse for holding low expectations" (p 23). It struck me that we do this with many subgroups- students with disabilities, English language learners, poor kids, children of single parent households... We use that yardstick to define how far they can go and excuse their behaviors and performance. Unfortunately some kids are given a raw deal. If we use those situations to excuse their performance or behavior, we are limiting them. It sucks, but sometimes you have to work harder than your peers to achieve the same. Your boss doesn't care if you had an argument with your wife before getting to work late. We cannot excuse the kid who is chronically tardy because his life has some terrible thing in it. We need to figure out how to get him to class on time. Ignoring it merely teaches that it is ok to not meet the standards and that is a road that leads to perpetuating low success.

I have long thought we tend to ignore the factors that contribute to low performance in school because as teachers we have little control over them.

• material resources: not having the internet or a computer to do assignments, limited clothing and food resources, crowded spaces, childcare concerns are areas that schools are trying to impact through free/reduced lunches and breakfast, wrap around school care, and clothing closets.
• health and well-being- poverty increases problems, starting with poor prenatal care and moving to inadequate access to doctors. I will never forget the 7 year old I worked with. The local dental school provided free check ups and care for all the kids in the school. This young kid needed two root canals and five cavities filled. How could he be expected to learn?
• Food insecurity- yes, we have lunch and breakfast programs but that is only 5 days a week during the school year. 42.2 million people lived in households with food insecurity in 2016 (p. 37). If you are hungry, it is hard to learn. Moreover, chronic stress causes other issues for people.
• neurocognitive and neurobehavioral development- Poverty contributes to problems with executive function- issues in areas such as self-regulation, working memory, focusing, and prioritizing. Chronic stress cause the brain to reshape as a result of bombardment by cortisol. While the brain is plastic and can learn new tricks, we are often ill-equipped to teach these skills. Further, they can seem irrelevant to someone living the life, reducing motivation to learn them. "When people are preoccupied with the reality of living with severely limited financial resources, the impairment in their cognitive functioning compares to a 13 point drop in IQ" (p 99). It is a functioning issue that is nearly a standard deviation.
• housing instability- this leads to fear, stress, inability to keep stuff  like school supplies and clean clothes, health and hygiene concerns. Schools can provide showers and laundry facilities. Being open before and after school can reduce these stressors.
• Family stress and trauma- I think we are only beginning to see the tip of the iceberg on this one. We need to find ways to reduce the stress so that we can increase their capacity to learn.
• Neighborhood risk factors- unsafe places outside, resource poor neighborhoods, gang presences all add up to problems. They are linked to delinquency, drug use, conduct disorders and teenage pregnancy.
• Interrupted scheduling- students who change schools often have easy to identify problems. What about the kid who travels between different households with different rules and resources. Child care responsibilities interfere with schooling.
• language and literacy development- well established differences in vocabulary between high and low income children. They have less background knowledge and less vocabulary, reduced access to books and people using sophisticated language with them. This is an exponential difference that seems to only expand as children age.
• social and cultural capital- less access to informal networks that share how to interact successfully with school. "Middle class and low income parents behave differently when visiting their children's classrooms" (p 147). Low income parents are more hesitant and less likely to advocate for their children.  Upper and middle class families are spending more than ever on enrichment for their kids- camps, instruments, lessons, tutoring, college career planning, and SAT prep are all examples of opportunities that children in poverty miss out on.

This list is hard to face and deal with. It takes a community to address. We need to establish and maintain safety nets to help these poor communities. Welfare and food stamps help, as do food pantries and clothing closets. We need medical services to be accessible, increased availability of low income housing, and childcare.

So what can teachers do?

• Build caring relationships and advocating for students.
• Hold high expectations and provide needed support.
• Commit to equity-- not equality
• Accept professional responsibility for learning.
• Have the courage and will to take action.

I have written about some of these strategies in my ramblings about poverty here, here and here.

Disrupting Poverty pt1- high expectations

I picked up Kathleen M. Budge and William H. Parrett's new book, Disrupting Poverty: Five Powerful Classroom Practices because I am trying to figure out how to best reach the kids I am working with, many of whom are in poverty. Their earlier book, Turning High Poverty Schools into High Performing Schools, I read and blogged about earlier this year (see here and here). They propose a system of integrated components to promote success with students living in poverty: building caring relationships, holding high expectations, committing to equity, accepting professional accountability, and having the courage to take action.

Holding high expectations and providing needed support. When Jamie Escalante challenged his students to pass the AP calculus exam, he offered summer, weekend, before and after school support. He took a group of poor Hispanic kids from the hood and helped them succeed on a very challenging exam, in spite of the naysayers. It took extraordinary effort. He needed to convince the students that this was a worthwhile goal and he needed them to put more effort into school than they ever had before. This well known story is held up as an example of what can be done. In reality, we know that not all teachers are as charismatic as Escalante. Not all schools would allow a teacher to work so many extra hours. Not all teachers would be willing to do so. Not all students could attend classes that were not supported with bussing. Despite all this, we can make a difference. Our students living with poverty can be successful.

Budge and Parrett point out that "the greater the risk factors in a student's life, the more high expectations matter to the student's life chances" (p 78). Our neediest need us to push them the most. That can be a lonely and hard road. People think you are ignoring the needs of the kids and expecting too much of them. You are not being sympathetic with their needs. But they matter more. When we hold low behavioral expectations because someone's life is a mess they learn that they should not be expected to rise to the challenge. My single mother is a druggy who does not provide consistent food or a place to sleep, therefore I cannot be  expected to treat others with respect. No way. Your life sucks. I get it. You need to work harder to get over it. I will help you by providing time and space to get your homework done, materials for classes and food for your stomach. I will reteach what you miss because of attendance concerns. I will not allow you to disrespect me, show up habitually tardy, or abandon your work. If we do anything less we are buying into their broken dreams. Students used to low-cognitive demand instruction become acclimated to it and resist anything else. If I want you to have an opportunity to rise above, the crap outside cannot allow you to sink to crap.

We need to constantly provide students with the idea that they are in charge. "Time is just a picture. Now you can change that frame every second" (p 85). We need to empower them, not let bad choices lead to a cycle of disempowerment. If we accept bad behavior because it is all this poor child can pull together at this time, we are giving permission to act that way anything goes wrong. That is not a recipe for success in life.

The authors point out research that indicates severely limited financial resources can reduce functioning by a full 13 IQ points (p 99). We want to provide as much social support as we can to mitigate the challenge that nearly a full standard deviation drop in IQ score amounts to. We need to provide the social supports that will allow these kids to live in a world with as much cognitive support as they can garner- medical services need to be available, housing and food insecurity need to be avoided. We cannot say "you poor thing" we need to say "here is the support to help you make it through." It is too easy to make excuses for poor behavior and success. That trap will not help our kids. They need warm demanders who share the view that yes, that sucks. What can we do about it to help you move on.

leading and managing a differentiated classroom

Carol Ann Tomlinson is the leading expert on differentiation in the classroom, although by now she has been joined by many others on this path. I think about my journey: As a special education teacher, the ideal is the individualized program for each student. In reality this is rarely achieved because of the numbers of students that teachers work with, theories on what is appropriate, curricular mandates and working conditions that run counter to individualized instruction. As a parent of a pair of difficult to educate children- one a child with ASD and above average intelligence but significant behavioral challenges and the other a gifted child- I saw how the lip service of differentiation did not occur in practice. Focus on the students who struggled to achieve meant that the ability was often used as a tutor or a concern that I should not have. As a teacher working amidst the new buzz word- personalized learning- I see the challenge of implementing the idea. Several of the components of differentiation and personalized learning are in conflict with our current program whose other elements do not change such as age based progression through the grades, inflexible pacing guides, single element grading practices, and limited access to supports to develop individual programs. As I read Tomlinson and Marcia B. Imbeau's book, Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom, I was struck by the measured approach they took. My current district wants to go from no personalized learning to fully implemented, every day all day personalized learning in a year and a half. The adoption rate is as preposterous as the all children will be grade level readers by 2014 goal of NCLB. Their suggestion is to take one or two ideas, try them, refine them and keep going. It is not a rapid transformation, but a slow evolution. Their book provides a rationale for differentiating and a rich panoply of ideas on how to arrange the environment and manage the space so that you can lead the ship. Acknowledging that people need implementation suggestions from anecdotes like their situation, they present a large variety of ideas and stories from across the grade levels and subject selections.

Below is a chart slightly modified from page 18 that showcases some ways to differentiate assignments.

	Readiness	Interest	Learning profile
Content	·         Materials at varied readability levels- Newsela.com, hi-lo textbooks ·         Spelling assigned by proficiency ·         Alternate presentation methods- auditory, reading, video ·         Targeted small group instruction ·         Front loading vocabulary; reteach vocabulary ·         Highlighted texts ·         Websites and programs that vary the content and pace based on student progress	·         Range of material that apply key ideas and skills to a variety of real-world situations ·         Teacher presentations designed to link to student interests	·         Varied teaching modes (verbal, visual, rhythmic, practical) ·         Video or audio notes for students who learn better with repeated listening ·         Podcasts or video lessons to see the material presented again or a different way
Process	·         Tiered activities ·         Mini-workshops ·         Flexible use of time ·         Learning contracts varied homework assignments- three assignments: create a poster showing the character, fill in a worksheet about the character or write a paragraph ·         RAFT options ·         Video record the answers, Voicethread.com- to present without writing ·         Choice boards	·         Expert groups ·         Interest centers ·         Supplemental materials based on student interests ·         Jigsaw ·         Independent studies ·         Interest-based application options ·         RAFT	·         Choice of working conditions (alone, partner, group) ·         RAFT options ·         Blogs and vlogs to share ideas
product	·         Tiered products ·         Personal goal-setting ·         Varied resource options ·         Check-in requirements based on student independence ·         Providing samples of good student work at varied levels of complexity	·         Use of student interest in designing projects ·         Design a Day options ·         Use of contemporary technology for student expression	·         Complex instruction ·         Varied forms for expressing key content ·         Varied working arrangements ·         Varied modes of expressing learning

The authors stress the value of collaboration to create a differentiated classroom. This could be across grade level or subject matter teams or with specialists to divide the workload up. Starting a leveled or personalized or differentiated program takes time. Using the human resources to develop the program is efficient and effective- but it requires administrative acknowledgement and support so that co-planning time is available.

While differentiation is an important goal, it will not happen without heaps of support. Simply putting an expectation out there is not enough. It requires rethinking our approach to education in general and systematic changes beyond the four walls of the classroom. To truly enable this approach, mindsets need to change. It can be done. It takes time and effort.