In This Issue:

How to Identify Behaviors That May Indicate High or Low Self Esteem

&

How to Design Your Resource Classroom or Self Contained Classroom

How To Identify Behaviors That May Indicate High or Low Self Esteem

Adapted from the book, Creating Confident Children in the Classroom: The Use of Positive Restructuring.

Pierangelo/Giuliani: Research Press

Introduction

Self esteem is feeling good about yourself. Because it is a feeling, self esteem is expressed in the way that people behave. However, success is important for the growth of positive feelings about oneself. High self esteem will allow your students to keep failure situations in proper perspective. Whether or not a failure situation is perceived as a learning experience, or as a self punishment, depends on one’s level of self esteem.

Children as well as adults will vary in the type of self esteem exhibited. We all feel more confident on some days than others. Feeling low self esteem from time to time is not a problem. However, a pattern of low self esteem should be observed in order for there to be a concern. Teachers can easily observe children’s self esteem by seeing what they do and how they accomplish it.

Understanding the Foundation of Self Esteem

A child with high self esteem will:

feel capable of influencing other’s opinions or behaviors in a positive way
be able to communicate feelings and emotions in a variety of situations
behave independently
approach new situations in a positive manner
exhibit a high level of frustration tolerance
take on and assume responsibility
keep situations in proper perspective
communicate positive feelings about him/her
be willing to try a new situation without major resistance

Such children will possess an internal locus of control. Consequently, they feel whatever happens to them is a direct result of their own behavior or actions. These children will therefore feel a sense of power over their environment.

Children with low self esteem will:

communicate self derogatory statements
exhibit a low frustration tolerance
become easily defensive
listen to other’s judgment rather than his/her own
be resistant to new situations and experiences
constantly blame others for their failures and problems
have very little feeling of power and control
lose perspective easily – (blow things out of proportion)
avoid any situation that creates tension
be unwilling to reason

Such children will possess an external locus of control. Consequently, these children feel that what ever happens to them is the result of fate, luck or chance.

In order to fully understand self esteem, one must consider the factors involved. Self esteem occurs when children experience the positive feelings of satisfaction associated with feeling:

CONNECTED – A child feels good relating to people, places, and things that are important to her and these relationships are approved and respected by others.

UNIQUE – A child acknowledges and respects the personal characteristics that make him special and different, and receives approval and respect from others for those characteristics.

POWERFUL – A child uses the skills, resources, and opportunities that she has in order to influence the circumstances of her own life in important ways.

The following suggestions are offered to enhance children’s positive feelings about themselves. These recommendations require consistency, genuineness and discrimination on the part of teachers and parents. No one suggestion by itself will have long lasting effects. A combination of techniques will have greater impact. However, you should always keep in mind that many other factors, not within your control i.e. peer group, school environmental factors, perception etc., will also contribute to children’s self esteem. However, the role of teachers and parents are crucial and can offset a child’s difficulties in other areas.

Be Solution Oriented

An important step in building your students’ self esteem is to teach solutions rather than blame. Some children are very “blame oriented “. When something goes wrong, he/she is quick to “point the finger” at someone else. Children who are blame oriented not only become easily frustrated, but never learn how to handle obstacles. Teaching your studnets solutions begins with simple statements like, “Who’s at fault is not important. The more important question is what we can do so that it doesn’t happen again”. Being solution oriented allows children a sense of control and resiliency when confronted with situations that could be ego deflating and lower their self esteem.

Allow Children the Right to Make Decisions

While the statement, “No one promised them a democracy” may hold true in some situations, allowing your students the right to make decisions that affects their daily life can only enhance their self esteem. Decisions about decorating lockers, seating arrangements, and free-time activities, etc. can make children feel some sense of control in what happens to them. Coupled with solution orientation, mistakes can be used as a positive learning experience. A good technique to use here is a forced choice technique. Provide the student with three options, all of which are acceptable to you, and ask them to choose which one they prefer. The student will feel like they are making the decision but all of the choices will lead to resolution and success.

Offer Alternative Ways When Handling a Situation

Some people know only one or two alternatives in handling situations. After these fail, frustration occurs. Conditioning your students to see many alternative ways of handling a situation or obstacle can also enhance their self esteem. Asking children what they have tried and offering them options to other possible solutions, increases their “tool box”. The more “tools” we have at our disposal, the easier life becomes. Individuals with limited “tools” tend to use avoidance and flight as a means of coping with frustration.

Teach Children the Proper Labels when Communicating Feelings

The ability to correctly label one’s feelings is a factor in self esteem. Children have a very difficult time communicating because they lack the proper labels for their feelings. When children are unable to label an internal feeling, it becomes trapped and the frustration may become manifested in behavior problems, physical symptoms and so on. When such feelings are manifested in other forms, they are usually misunderstood or misinterpreted. Teachers can offer children the correct labels. For example, you may want to say, ” While the feeling you are expressing sounds like anger, it is really frustration and frustration is… Now that you know this, is there anything that is causing you frustration? ”

Building an emotional vocabulary allows communication to flow more easily and reduces a child’s unwillingness to deal with situations.

Allow Children the Opportunity to Repeat Successful Experiences

Whenever possible, allow your students the chance to handle any job or responsibility in which they have proven success. A foundation of positive experiences is necessary for self esteem. Since the child has mastered skills required for the job, any opportunity to repeat success can only be ego inflating. Jobs such as collecting homework from other students, handing out materials, cleaning the room, are examples of repetitive experiences that will lead to a feeling of consistent success. However, in the cases of children with severe disabilities, the activities chosen will have to take into consideration the limitations so as not to frustrate them.

Allow Avenues for Disagreement

Children with higher self esteem will always feel they have an avenue to communicate their concerns. Even though the result may not go in their favor, the knowledge that a situation or disagreement can be discussed allows the child to feel some involvement in his destiny. This factor becomes important when one sees that many children with low self esteem feel a loss of power in affecting change.

Help Your Students Set Realistic Goals

This is a very crucial issue in helping children improve their self esteem. Some children will set unrealistic goals, fall short and feel like a failure. Repeated over a period of time, these unrealistic goals will result in consistent failure leading to more unrealistic goals. This circular behavior sometimes results with children becoming unwilling to venture out or take chances. The more limited children become in their experiences, the less chance for success. Avoidance, passivity, rejection of an idea or experience will only reinforce feelings of inadequacy.

Help your students by defining their objective. You may want to ask them what they want to accomplish. After this, try to help them define the steps necessary to accomplish the task and break down the task into smaller, controllable tasks that have the greatest chance of success. Each step becomes a goal in itself. Children should not see one final goal, but a series of smaller goals leading to a final point. In this way they will feel accomplishment at every step.

Use a Reward System to Shape Positive Behavior

Punishment tells a child what not to do, while rewards inform them of what to do. Rewarding positive behavior increases self esteem. Children enjoy winning the approval of teachers, parents and peers, especially when it comes to a job or task. You may want to use rewards such as notes indicating how proud you feel about what the child has accomplished. Rewards can also be special time where the student can choose from a list of fun activities, lunch with the teacher etc.

Make Sure you Communicate to Parents Not to Pave Children’s Roads

Some parents make the mistake of reducing frustration for children to the point where the child receives a distorted view of the world. Children with high self esteem get frustrated. However, they tend to be more resilient because they have previously handled frustrating situations and worked out the solutions themselves. When parents rush to the aide of their children, finish assignments for them, or make excuses, they are changing the environment to prevent them from becoming frustrated. However, they are unwittingly reinforcing children’s low self esteem and creating feelings of learned helplessness. After awhile, children become so dependent upon their parents to “bail them out” when they are confronted with frustration. The need to master the environment and find solutions to challenges is crucial to positive self esteem. The old saying, “Catch me a fish and I’ll eat today, teach me to fish and I’ll eat forever”, seems to apply.

In conclusion, improving your students’ self esteem is a process that needs to be viewed in a positive way. Altering feelings of low self esteem offers children a more positive future.

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How To Design Your Resource Classroom or Self Contained Classroom/Special Education Classroom

(Classroom-options and Considerations)

Step I – Classroom Design-(Resource Room and Self Contained classroom only – Inclusion Class teachers proceed to Step II)

Setting up the physical structure of your classroom is a personal choice. However, some logical reasoning should be utilized when determining the layout of the room. In a resource room and self- contained special education classroom, there are several designs that you can consider:

Station oriented model

In this model, the room arrangement is divided into stations that contain specific content area materials. For example, there might be a reading center, math center, computer center, writing center etc. in which specific children go to work on their specific IEP goals. Houghton Mifflin (2006) lists several different types of learning areas:

Whole-Group Area
For whole-class lessons — this includes informal discussion, direct instruction, and student presentations. This is a good place for an Author’s Chair from which students can read their writing to the class.
Small-Group Area
Here you can give small-group instruction or allow groups of students to gather for peer-led discussions.
Reading Area
This is a place for students to read independently or quietly with a partner. It should provide comfortable seating, a variety of books, and a quiet, secluded atmosphere.
Writing Center
Here students write independently and collaboratively. The area should contain comfortable space for writing and a variety of supplies.
Cross-Curricular Center
This is an active center where students explore relationships across different curricula, including literature, science, social studies, art, and math.
Computer Station
This area is for computer use in writing, math, reading, keyboard practice, research, telecommunications, and creative games.
Creative Arts Center
This area is where students can get involved in visual art and dramatic play. It should have a variety of art supplies, costumes, and props.
Communication Area/Post Office
This area has mail slots for students and teacher to exchange written messages and suggestions.
Listening Station
Here students listen to tapes of books, stories, songs, and poems.

When setting up your room with a station or learning center approach, take the physical features of your classroom into account when planning. As the school year progresses, you can change or add learning centers to fit your class’s evolving needs. Keep the following things in mind if you use this type of design:

Different learning areas should be partitioned off through the use of bookshelves.
Provide comfortable seating by having the children bring in seat cushions.
Save space by using walls for posters, display shelves, books, and supplies.
Keep computers facing away from windows to keep glare from sunlight off the screens.
Separate learning centers of high activity, such as the cross-curricular center, from areas like the Reading/Language Arts Center, where students need quiet.
Set aside an area to meet with small groups. Allow enough seating for about eight students.

Child oriented model

In this type of setting, the room is arranged so that the children are separated to avoid distraction and increase concentration. Here, the teacher moves from student to student. Since most of the work is individualized, the teacher and the assistant can work on specific limitations for each child with special needs.

Teacher center model

In this type of design, the teacher’s work table or area is the center of the room. In this way, the teacher can work with several children at a time and monitor their progress. If the teacher feels a child needs less distraction, he/she can be moved to another part of the room with or without the assistant teacher.

Step II – Designing Your Classroom (Inclusion class)

In this instance there may be very little to do depending on the relationship between you and the regular education teacher. If you are hired for an elementary inclusion class, the general education teacher may set up the room. However, your input would be helpful and you may want to ask if he/she has any concerns about the room design in light of the children with special needs. In this case, assist the teacher, making suggestions if you feel they will better serve the population of children with disabilities, e.g., quiet corner or study carrel to avoid distractions. If you are hired as an inclusion teacher at the high school, then there may be less to do with setting up the room, since many different teachers will be using that same room. However, try to assist the teacher and suggest anything that you feel might help.

The following comments concerning setting up your classroom come from teachers who posted their thoughts at the University of North Carolina, School of Education (2005) comment board:

I was fortunate enough to have my own classroom during my first year of teaching. My school building was too small to provide every faculty member that luxury. Some colleagues taught in a different room every period, using carts to transport their materials. Others, at neighboring schools, settled into trailers that had been rented to handle an unexpected increase in the number of students enrolled.

I was grateful, but had no time to dwell on my good fortune. Students were coming in less than a week and I needed to focus on developing my course materials and management systems. I had a minimal amount of time to set up a physical classroom. Still, I knew my students would benefit from a positive environment. The previous history teacher had been kind enough to leave pictures to decorate the wall space, but those images did not create the atmosphere we needed. Every portrait displayed the head of a white male who had been a “Creator of Your Country!!!” There were no pictures of women, ethnic minorities or anyone under the age of fifty. Would my students feel a sense of belonging and engagement in a classroom like this?

I quickly replaced the pictures with a more diverse array of images and began moving desks, adding plants and organizing the board space. I created folders for students, a filing system for my materials and hung a “welcome” sign on the door. I thought I had covered the basics. I didn’t discover the infamous “guillotine window” until a few weeks later when it slid shut forcefully and unexpectedly, nearly removing the arm of a student. I didn’t learn that the carpet would be soaked after every rainstorm until I had ruined the teacher’s edition of our textbook by leaving it on the floor near my desk.

My point? If you’re a new teacher, one of your first jobs will be to set up your classroom. You’ll want to do it quickly so you can focus on other aspects of teaching, but you want to do it well so that it becomes an environment in which your students can learn. There will be some hurdles that you cannot anticipate — guillotine windows for example. But the purpose of this post is to encourage you to talk to teachers in your building about classroom issues that might affect you and your students — and to provide a few practical tips that could save you some time, frustration and money as you begin a new year.

Other issues to consider for setting up your classroom should include:

1.Check school policies
Before designing your classroom, ask if there are any school policies that affect classroom displays. Some principals require you to post daily objectives. Many schools have fire policies that prohibit hanging paper signs on the door.

2.Plan for inspiration
Use a portion of your space to inspire students. This could mean hanging engaging posters about content or attitude. Or if you are planning to display student work, post a sign above the area that says “ALL of my students are capable of excellence. These really showed it on a recent assignment!” (Make sure you print letters large enough for students to read!)

3. Save plenty of space for information
If you need students to access certain types of information daily, create a consistent space for them to find it. For example, you could post permanent signs at the front of the room that say “Objectives”, “Warm Up Activity” and “Homework” and use the area near these signs to provide details about each. Also have a space where the date is consistently posted, and make sure your name is posted at the beginning of the year.

I also recommend having a section of the room devoted to students who have been absent. If you decide to do this:

Label the space clearly. I have a sign that simply asks “Were you absent?”

Hang a calendar nearby to help students identify the day of school they missed.

Use a small filing cabinet to house an activity log (listing the work completed each day) and blank copies of all assignments (labeled with titles matching those in the activity log)
After you introduce students to the space, they become responsible for identifying days they miss, checking the log for work completed on those days, gathering the blank assignments, completing the work and submitting it to you.

4. Protect what you post
If you’re going to display any poster in your classroom for more than a month — or want to use a temporary poster again next year — laminate it before you hang it on your wall. Otherwise, you’ll need to recreate it after it is tattered and torn. Many of your schools will have laminating machines. If they don’t, other teachers will be able to tell you where the service is provided in your area. Make sure you check the school limits on use or prices at stores before making final decisions about what to laminate!

5. Make it stick
Ask other teachers in your building what adhesives work on the school walls. I once spent hours creating a display only to find it on the floor of my room the next day. Tape works on some walls. Others require puddy. I have heard that hot glue guns work on the concrete walls in many schools. Finally, you can nail things into the walls. The nails are especially good for holding clipboards (if you want to clip a sign in sheet near your door) and bathroom passes (if you use anything larger than a paper pass).

6. Leave space for colleagues
Leave space for other teachers who use the room. If you have your own classroom, but other teachers use it during your planning period or after school, leave them a drawer in your filing cabinet and sections of the board and wall. Have a conversation about what else they might need. This is important to preserve both your materials and your relationship with colleagues.

If you are a traveling teacher, initiate a conversation about space sharing with teachers you encounter in those travels. Get a copy of keys for each room in which you’ll be teaching and ask the administration if there is a quiet corner where you can have a desk and filing cabinet that is all your own.

7. Arrange desks thoughtfully
Consider your teaching style, management style and the needs of other teachers using the room when arranging the desks. You may decide to use rows, clusters, a circle or some other configuration. Design with a purpose in mind!

8. Lock it up
Have at least one small closet or drawer in your classroom that can be locked, even if you have to add a small lock yourself. You’ll need this area for confidential files and personal items. (This lesson cost me one camera and some priceless pictures on the roll of film inside it. It cost another teacher her gradebook the week before our grades were due.)

9. Be cheap
Save money on supplies! Ask a colleague what supplies are provided, how you can get them and if teachers are given a certain amount to spend on their classroom each year. If there are things you need to buy on your own, ask retailers if they have discounts for teachers. Office Max, Staples and Barnes and Nobles all offer price reduction on classroom supplies, and other stores in your area might too. For most, you will need evidence of your educator status — a school ID badge, union card or pay stub works well. Finally, save all of your receipts. If your school offers money later, you could be reimbursed for purchases if you still have the paperwork. Those receipts also help during tax season since purchases for work are tax-deductible.

10. Keep track of textbooks
Number your textbooks and create a system for loaning books out to students who forget theirs. Students have to pay up to $60 for lost books, so you don’t want any confusion about which book they had or whether it was returned to you. Track which books are assigned to each student by noting each student’s book number next to his or her name in your gradebook. Create labels with your name and room number to place on every textbook so that lost books can be returned to you.

Also, decide if you are willing to lend books to students who do not bring their own copy to class. If you do loan books, track them with a sign-out sheet — I’ve created a sample textbook sign-out sheet in MS Word format that you can use as a template. Finally, if you can, wait a few days to distribute the books. Students transfer in and out of classes at the beginning of the year, and when a student leaves, textbooks can disappear.

11. Prepare for emergencies (but don’t create them)
Locate the emergency call button in your room and learn how to use the intercom system. You don’t want to accidentally signify an emergency when you’re trying to answer a page from the office on your first day!

12. Be ready to file

Create your own filing system. You will need places to
record and store your lesson plans and resources
file administrative materials such as: student IEP’s, notes from faculty meetings, a parent contact log, discipline log, a faculty handbook, student handbook, hall passes, sub plans, passcodes (for the computers and phones) and important contact numbers.
Although this may all feel a bit overwhelming, hopefully organizing your classroom now will save you time later. Doing it quickly will allow more time for developing your curriculum and management systems. Doing it effectively will create a space in which your students can thrive.

Helpful Sites for Information on Setting up a Classroom

https://inspiredclassrooms.wordpress.com/setting-up-a-classroom/ Teacher comments and direction for setting up a classroom

https://forums.atozteacherstuff.com/showthread.php?t=6501 : Teacher comments about setting up a classroom

https://www.washington.edu/doit/Faculty/Strategies/Universal/: Universal Design of Instruction: Designing any product or environment involves the consideration of many factors including aesthetics, engineering options, environmental issues, safety concerns, and cost. Often the design is created for the “average” user. In contrast universal design is “the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.”

Step III-Evaluating what you have and ordering new materials

Do not be surprised that when you enter your room for the first time you find very few materials available for use. What you need to do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst. In the worst case scenario, you will need to catalog what is available to you. The following checklist might help determine what you have available and what you may need to order:

Furniture

Chairs	Tables	Round Table
Computer table or cart	Bookshelves	Blackboard
Portable blackboard	Book carts	Filing Cabinets
Children’s mailboxes or cubby holes	Closets for storage	Teacher’s desk & chair

Classroom Supplies

Writing, drawing, and construction paper	Pencils/Pens	Paper clips
Crayons	Paste/glue	Rubber bands
Stapler/staples	Straight and safety pins	Transparent tape
Manila file folders	Marking pens	Rulers
Art supplies	Grade book	Lesson plan book
Attendance materials	Textbooks/workbooks	Boxes for keeping units
Calculator	Post-it notes	Kleenex
Hole punch	Pencil sharpener	Lined & blank paper
Scissors	Chalk board erasers	Graph paper in several sizes
Pencil grips	markers	12″ and 3′ rulers
gummed reinforcements for 3-holed paper	pencil erasers	pencil holder
key ring	personal a coffee cup or beverage mug	5 x 8 index cards
changing files	push tacks & safety pins	calendar
small size legal pads	small screwdriver for glasses repair	small sewing kit and tool kit

Academic Materials

Textbooks at several levels	Workbooks & Worksheets
Reading Programs	Math Programs

Technology

Computer	Printer & Color Printer	Scanner
Cable hook up to the Internet	Internet access	Word Processing program
Reading Software	Math Software	Spelling Software
Writing Software	Voice Recognition software and devices	Magnification devices

Summary

In summary, the atmosphere of your classroom will go a long way in minimizing problems and hopefully provide your students with a warm, comfortable, logical, and exciting atmosphere in which to work.

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NASET’s “How To” Design Your Resource Classroom or Self Contained ClassroomCLICK HERE