Purpose
The purpose of this tool is to establish behavioral boundaries with your students in a realistic manner several times a day.
Examples
Mrs. Jones’ class is very excited to get into school in the morning and everyone runs in to get to his/her locker first. As a result everyone is pushing and teasing.
Mr. Williams’ class can’t wait to get to lunch and closely watch the clock for the bell to ring. Once that happens the class rushes out of the room to lunch.
Mrs. Ortiz’s class can’t wait to get out of school and as a result they pack up and run to the door before she has a chance to speak with them.
Mr. Samuelson’s class is “every one for him or herself” and never seems to be centered. His style is loose, and as a result, his class is unstructured and pretty much does what it wants without direction or plans.
What May Not Work
When working with children with special needs, one must always be aware of the number of students that do not possess internal controls and self-monitoring qualities. As a result, if left up to their own devices, they will often operate on impulse, self serving behaviors, control and resistance to tasks. When a class is not focused or grounded, you will have 8, 10, 15 etc. students all operating on their own schedule or needs. What they need is a focus, a center, and a person in charge who leads the way and establishes boundaries.
Try This
Four times a day you will want to pull the class together in a group so that you can create a feeling of control and a central starting and ending place for the day. This procedure should occur at the beginning of the school day, before lunch, after lunch and before the end of the school day. These four boundary periods led by the teacher and the assistant will provide the necessary boundaries, priorities, structure and leadership from which many students with special needs will benefit. During these group boundary meetings, you will want to lay out the morning routine, discuss what will be done after lunch, structure the afternoon, and provide guidance about what needs to be done or brought in for the next day and a brief overview of the next day’s activities. This may also be a good time for handouts to parents, to go over homework required for the next day, and to provide a positive thought for the day.
Purpose
The purposes of this technique is to control student outcomes and foster a sense of task completion and sense of accomplishment.
Examples
As a teacher, you will be confronted with many attempts by students with emotional issues to control their environment by wanting things their way. In many cases, these students will want their needs provided for first before they are willing to conform to your rules or requests. For instance:
- a student may promise that if you let him/her talk to a friend he/she will do the math class work, or
- if you let a student text message her friend she will do what you are asking, or
- if you just let them work on the computer they promise to do what you are asking after they finish
While these are just examples, many attempts at manipulating the environment are exhibited every day by these students and place the teacher in difficult positions.
What May Not Work
What definitely does not work is allowing a student who is trying to manipulate you or the environment to determine the rules governing completion of rules or tasks. Some students can be persistent in their attempts to get you to let them do it their way and eventually you may give in. However, this will only reinforce the student’s beliefs that he/she can change your rule at anytime.
Try This
The best rule for this type of situation is not to necessarily deny his/her request. After all, in some cases the request may be realistic and not unreasonable but doing it before the task is not acceptable. After all, this is very much like a child asking a parent for dessert before dinner but the parent lets them know they can still have the dessert but after dinner. So very calmly you tell the student, ” You do this first , and then you get that.” If the student comes up to you asking if he/she can now do what he/she wanted, you ask him/her, “Did you complete…”. If he/she says that he/she did not you simply say, “Well come back to me when you have completed it and we will talk.” This technique allows the student to understand priorities and delay of gratification. The technique of “You do and then you get” is an effort saving approach when working with students who have issues of control.
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