The Keys to Success: Understanding Student Misbehavior

1. The Keys to Success: Understanding Student Misbehavior Governor’s Academy for Urban Education June, 2004

2. Vision for Student Success • Every student will live a satisfying life and meet life’s challenges by: • Achieving personal goals • Fulfilling responsibilities • Enjoying good health • Producing high quality work • Contributing to his/her community Compliments of CASEL

3. Challenges Facing Our Students • Economic and social pressures • Alterations in family composition and stability • Breakdown of neighborhoods and extended families • Weakening of community institutions • Less contact between young people and parents • On-going exposure to media that encourages health damaging behavior • Social - emotional- behavioral concerns Compliments of CASEL

4. A Look At Our Students • Our children lead complex lives • They are doing the best they can with the tools that they have • It is our job to give them additional tools

5. Meeting our Students’ Needs: Seven Developmental Tenets • Safety/Structure • Relationships • Belonging • Self-Worth • Independence • Competence/Mastery • Self-Awareness/Control (Youth Development Model)

6. Understanding Student Misbehavior • Why do children misbehave? • To meet basic needs the best way they can • What is our job? • To give students additional tools

7. Reflection on Current Practice: Punishment Versus Discipline

8. Punishment -Passive experience -Demands no student participation -Does not require student to reflect on consequences of actions -Engenders anger/resentment -Teaches no new skills -Typically isolates student further

9. Traditional Approach to Managing Challenging Behaviors Challenging behavior Perception of non-compliance Look to control or punish Maintain or increase challenging behaviors Design/apply interventions to gain control Student’s need remains unaddressed

10. Discipline • Discipline: Holds Student Accountable Through Active Engagement -Relational model - Helps student examine choices and impact on others -Promotes learning and mastery through providing a combination of control and support

11. Restorative Justice Confronts and disapproves of wrongdoing while supporting and valuing the intrinsic worth of the student who committed the wrong (Wachtel)

12. Restorative Practices • Any response to wrongdoing that is: -both supportive and limit-setting -respects the student by assuming that he/she may not be aware of the impact of the misbehavior on others

13. Restorative Practices • Any response to wrongdoing that: -assists the student in identifying the impact of misbehavior on others -allows student to reintegrate into the community by allowing an opportunity to address the wrongdoing with those affected by it

14. Restorative Justice High TO WITH Punitive Restorative Neglectful Permissive NOT FOR control Low High support (Adapted from SaferSaner Schools)

15. Restorative Practices:Informal and Formal interventions • Informal Interventions: • Affective Statements/Questions “I like the way you helped Gretchen out. I bet you made her feel better.” “ I was disappointed when you gave Ray a hard time today.” “How do you think Jasmine felt when you did that?” “What do you think you could do to make her feel better?” “How do you think the class felt when you did that?” “What could you do to make things better?”

16. Restorative Practices: Formal Interventions • Small Impromptu Conference • Large Group Reintegration • Formal Conference

17. Restorative Practices • Effective Restorative Practices: 1. Foster Awareness 2. Avoid Scolding or Lecturing 3. Actively Involve Students 4. Accept Ambiguity 5. Separate the Deed from the Doer • See Every Instance of Wrongdoing as an Opportunity for Learning

18. Positive Behavior Support • Positive behavior planning is a process by which adults support students in meeting needs in alternative ways which: -Promote growth -Improve control -Increase connectedness -Teach new skills