More on solving problems collaboratively with Ross Greene

I spent the day with Ross Greene learning about solving problems with children collaboratively. Here is what I learned from Ross Greene approach:

• emphasis is on solving problems rather than on extinguishing or replacing behaviors
• problem solving is collaborative rather than unilateral
• problem solving is proactive rather than emergent
• understanding comes before helping... indeed, understanding is the most important part of helping

There is a big difference between believing that children will do well when they want to versus believing kids do well if they can.

When we argue that kids do well when they want to, we make up theories about why they are choosing to do poorly:

• they are seeking attention
• they are manipulating us to get their way
• they are not motivated
• they are testing limits
• they avoid things they don't want to do

There are many reasons why the list above doesn't properly explain why kids don't do well. Consider this; what person on this planet does not:

• seek attention?
• want to get their way?
• have trouble getting motivated?
• test limits?
• avoid doing things they don't want to do?

We all do these four things. We all want to get what we want.  We all seek attention. We all have trouble. We all avoid stuff we don't like. The big news isn't that kids do these things -- the big news is that while all successful adults do these things adaptively, children with challenging behaviors do all of these things maladaptively.

Why are challenging kids challenging?

At first glance, we might say that the child's challenging behavior is working for them to get what they want, or avoid what they don't want. But if we take a big picture examination of their challenging behavior, we will see that in fact it is not working for them because they are likely constantly in trouble. Ross Greene puts it this way:

Doing well is always preferable to not doing well.

The desire to do well can not be used to differentiate between successful children and children with challenging behvaviors. All children would prefer to do well. The difference between successful children and children with challenging behaviors are skills or lack of skills.

The Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems details a lengthy list of the most common skills challenging children tend to lag. More generally, these skills can be organized into these categories:

• Executive skills
• Language processing skills
• Emotion regulation skills
• Cognitive flexibility skills
• Social skills

Keep in mind that these categories are so overlapping that to think about them as independent would be foolish.

Some people like to lean on a diagnosis to explain why children are challenging, but this is potentially dangerous. Using a diagnosis to explain a child's challenging behavior is circular thinking. For example, little Johnny is losing his nut because he has Oppositional Defiant Disorder and he has Oppositional Defiant Disorder because he loses his nut. We do not want to use a diagnosis as a gate keeper for giving kids the help they need.

When are challenging kids challenging?

No child with challening behaviours are challenging all the time. They are only sometimes challenging. Children with challenging behaviors are only challening when their environment demands their lagging skills which creates unsolved problems.

Ross Greene puts it this way:

Challenging episodes occur when the cognitive demands being placed upon a person outstrip the person's capacity to respond adaptively (best conceived as "incompatibility episodes").

Why are there more behaviourally challenging kids now than there have ever been? The answer is complex, but consider this -- we are demanding more sophisticated and more mature skills from children earlier and sooner than we had in the past. We demand very young children to use their words and sit still for very long periods of time. Diagnosis implies that the problem resides inside the child, scares off people from helping and distract us from focusing on identifying and teaching the skills the child lags.

What do challenging kids do when they're challenging?

This question is not as important as we might think. Focus too much on a child's behavior and we'll never find the unsolved problem that is causing the child so much difficulty.

So what now?

Ross Greene tells us to:

1. Identify lagging skills

2. Identify unsolved problems

3. Solve problems and simultaneously teach skills

Stop wasting our time

Too many good intentioned professionals sit in long, boring meetings where they talk about things that they can do nothing. Too many meetings are consumed by theorizing, storifying and hypothesizing. Caring, good intentioned professionals love their theories, stories and hypotheses  The problem with spending our limited time, effort and resources on theories, stories and hypotheses is that they do nothing to help the people who work with challenging children.

You can find all of my posts on rethinking classroom management and working with children to solve problems here.

Here's why #kohnandsahlberg matter

This post is a part of the #kohnandsahlberg blogathon and their public education event in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, on February 20, 2013.

Merely extending the length of the school day is an example of a clear, simple and wrong solution to the complex problem of creating a great school for all children.

Too many children dislike school, so why would we subject them to more of the same?

Alfie Kohn and Pasi Sahlberg are important because they challenge us to question the preconceived notions we have about what school should look like. As progressive educators, their role is to engage and challenge us all to reconsider our assumptions about education.

Too many of us are reassured by signs of formal-traditional school and are disturbed by their absence. Too many children experience school as something done to them rather than with them. Kohn and Sahlberg challenge us to move beyond our primitive forms of achievement such as testsandgrades and to make school about what matters most -- our children's desire to go on learning.

Belonging...

This was written by my friend and colleague Ev Tetz who is a middle school teacher and councillor at Glendale Sciences and Technology School in Red Deer, Alberta. He tweets here. This post was originally found here.

by Ev Tetz

Original artwork by George D. Bluebird, Sr.

I believe that the importance of belonging to a larger group, community, or family cannot be understated in relation to today’s societies. On a large scale, we’ve wandered away from the village mentality into a highly individualized existence resulting in disproportionate demands on the person rather than persons. Pockets of true community are now sparse but tend to be the driving force for social, economic, and political change. On a smaller scale, in a school for example, a sense of community may be what makes true social and academic learning possible.

I believe a true sense of belonging is one of the most important factors to being engaged and successful at school. The truth is though, that this does not come often enough and certainly not without work and intention. At times, we need to choose to accept what might be different, what might make us uncomfortable, or what may even scare us. We must challenge ourselves to view the world through someone else’s eyes and see what they might see. We have all found ourselves in moments when we have desperately wanted someone else to be able to feel what it is like to be “us.”

In Native American and First Nations cultures, significance was nurtured in communities of belonging. Lakota anthropologist Ella Deloria described the core value of belonging in these simple words: "Be related, somehow, to everyone you know." Treating others as kin forges powerful social bonds that draw all into relationships of respect.

I want you to think of those around you. Think of someone who may 'feel' different, or perhaps that they don’t belong to the group. What would that actually feel like? Maybe you feel like one of these people. You are certainly not alone. As we strive to create inclusive environments in our schools, we must work together to create a culture where all are accepted regardless of ability, religion, sexual orientation, cultural background, skin color, hobbies, interests, strengths, weaknesses, and family history. We must work together to be a truly inclusive community of learners. I personally believe that a sense of belonging is the foundation on which we build all other skills.

"Belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity, these are the four well springs of courage." Martin Brokenleg

In essence we may actually be discussing the underpinning of community and belonging which is empathy. Our ability to recognize feelings experienced by another being is the skill needed when forming connection, community and belonging, ultimately bonding us to the larger human experience.

Alfie Kohn and Pasi Sahlberg Blogathon

I am putting out a call for people to participate in an Alfie Kohn and Pasi Sahlberg Blogathon.

This blogathon is in response to the “Creating a great school for all - an evening with Alfie Kohn and Pasi Sahlberg,” Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at Red Deer College in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.

Click here for tickets.

Rather than have Alfie Kohn and Pasi Sahlberg simply show up and talk for a couple hours just so we can all go back to work the next day like nothing happened, I really wish to encourage us all to participate in a public blogathon. This way, Kohn and Sahlberg's talks will act as a catalyst for others to talk and learn.

What is a blogathon?

• A blogathon is just a bunch of people who want to write about something and then collect all the links in one, easily accessible place for all to see. It's a way of starting and continuing an important conversation.

How to participate:

• Between now and February 20, blog about something related to education, Alfie Kohn and Pasi Sahlberg.
• Write as few or as many posts as you like.
• You don't have to attend the Red Deer event to participate. Anyone and everyone is welcome to give this a go.
• If you do not have a place to publish your thoughts, you can e-mail me, and I will share your post here on my blog. My e-mail is joe.bower.teacher@gmail.com
• See that picture at the top of the post? If you like, you can use it in your post.
• If you are on Twitter, share your post by using the hashtag #kohnandsahlberg
• If you are a blogger, I challenge you to find a colleague who does not blog and get them to participate.
• If you have your own blog or website, go ahead and publish your post. To ensure that I find your post, please fill out the online participation form (bottom of this post). This will allow me to collect and link to your post when I do up the summary for this event. If you want to link back to this post or leave a link to yours in the comment area, that would be groovy! The form is at the bottom of this post.

Prompts to spark your thinking:

• What elements of Kohn and/or Sahlberg's work inspires you?
• What should be the role of homework in a student's development?
• In what ways does school need to change?
• Why does testing and comparing schools continue to be over-emphasized?
• What is the appropriate balance of local and government in shaping curriculum, instruction and school life?

If you don't know much about Alfie Kohn or Pasi Sahlberg, you could check out some of the links below:

Alfie Kohn's website

Pasi Sahlberg's website

Books by Alfie Kohn

Finnish Lessons by Pasi Sahlberg

Schooling Beyond Measure by Alfie Kohn

Sahlberg's Ten big ideas on Finland

Paradoxes of the Finland Phenomenon 

The problem is poverty

Online participation form

Complete this after you have posted a blog of your own.

Alfie Kohn and Pasi Sahlberg speaking in Alberta

You are invited to join in a public lecture “Creating a great school for all - an evening with Alfie Kohn and Pasi Sahlberg,” Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at Red Deer College in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.

For too long Alberta schools have been over-managed and under-imagined. The evening presentations will bring together two of the world’s preeminent educational reformers to explore the opportunities to improve Alberta’s already high performing school system. Based on their research and experiences internationally, the two speakers will explore timely issues facing educators, parents and policy-makers. 

Some of the questions they will engage include: 

• What should be the role of homework in a student’s development? 
• Why does testing and comparing schools continue to be over-emphasized? 
• What is the appropriate balance of local and government in shaping curriculum, instruction and school life?

Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The latest of his twelve books are “Feel-Bad Education and Other Contrarian Essays on Children and Schooling (2011), and The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing (2006) and Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason (2005).

Pasi Sahlberg is Director General of CIMO (of the Ministry of Education and Culture) in Helsinki, Finland. He has experience in classroom teaching, training teachers and leaders, coaching schools to change and advising education policy-makers around the world. He is an international speaker and writer who has given more than 250 keynote speeches and published over 100 articles, chapters and books on educational change.

Doors open at 6:30 with a reception until 7:00 pm. The lecture will run to 9:00 pm. The evening is sponsored by the Central Alberta Teachers’ Convention Board in partnership with its provincial Alberta Teachers’ Association.

Click here for tickets.

Best. Anti-Smoking commercial. Ever.

It might feel like kids listen to 1% of what we say but whether we like it or not, they watch 100% of what we do. The children are always watching.