Hanging In: Strategies for Teaching the Students Who Challenge Us Most

by Jeffrey Benson

believe that Charlie had every intention of being a good student—his behavior was out of synch with our expectations because the environment affected him, not because he wanted to be difficult.

Charlie was always revved up from the chaotic stimulation of the cafeteria.

don't ask challenging students to do what they can't do. Don't set them up for a failure

Too many students internalize a belief that our failure to know how to teach them in the moment is actually their failure to learn.

Assess the sounds, lighting, smells, and textures of the classroom if a student is having trouble with a transition into a room.

Preserve the student's standing among his peers during difficult transitions by limiting those times.

Consider the arrangement of the desks and chairs and how it will enhance or inhibit the completion of each task for the student.

Don't tolerate significantly bad behavior.

Storytelling: Share what you have done in any setting to make your classroom an inviting place to enter. What have you seen other teachers do that you wish you could do?

Consider ways to soften the sound in classrooms,

Discuss particular transition routines that have been effective with challenging students and that likely will be comforting to all students.

Support each other in strategically, and temporarily, removing a student before the transition that routinely causes the student to undermine the functioning of a class.

prevent the intervention from being seen as a punishment.

The need of every child to be understood, to be listened to respectfully likely has roots in our evolution

Listening is a fundamental way to invite a child into the community.

John Holt

How Children Fail,

"What some of these kids need is the experience of doing something well—so well that they know themselves, without being ...

Challenging students often display diminished academic confidence because they have dimin...

"Nonverbal behavior is a primary mode in which emotion is communicated"

When they walk into the room, are they alone? Laughing? Slumping? Alert to the characteristics of the room? When they sit, are they comfortable in the chair? Wedged behind the desk? Organizing their books? Checking out who is behind them? When they are working on their own, do they look up to think and then return to the task? Are they smiling to themselves? Do they look scared? Rushed? When they express emotion, do they say the emotion they are feeling? Do they express it through their physical movement? Do they hesitate to show what they feel?

The moods of trauma victims can rapidly alternate between hyperarousal and numbing, and the often uncontrollable swings significantly interrupt learning. These students are often flooded or, just as often, are empty

The pace of their thoughts and emotions cycle so fast that they lose their cognitive organization, shut down, and become unresponsive—or they overrespond, their reactions seeming disproportionate to what is going on.

Are you having a bad day? Are you confused about this work? You seem angry today, yes? Does it all seem too much right now? Do you need a couple of minutes to just sit and do nothing?

trusted her own capacity to metabolize her feelings

Suggest words to describe how a student is feeling.

Sit in silence sometimes.

Help the student separate behavior from emotions.

You sure were mad. It's OK to be mad." Then address the behavior—"It is not OK to throw books."

Model emotional intelligence, within a professional context.

Engage with students through their strengths.

Introduce the student to an appreciative younger student.

Provide opportunities for movement.

Praise students when they make the effort to communicate their emotional states.

Share how you discovered an unexpected nonacademic (social, ethical, personal, artistic) strength in a student. In what ways, if any, were you able to work with that strength?

Brainstorm words that describe emotional states and ways to include them as part of vocabulary building

Share strategies for fostering physical movement in classes.

Facilitate and compare observations of your students at work.

Designate a quiet place in the school for temporary retreats,

available to cover for a teacher who is de-escalating a challenging student.

As with many adolescents, Marcus could identify self-destructive traits in others that he could not acknowledge in himself; he could criticize others for actions that he himself sometimes displayed

There is a "secondary curriculum" that lies just below the academic one. As we hang in with challenging students, we predicate our success on what we accomplish beyond the standard lessons.

The challenge for me in doing this was to be professionally authentic, the essential element of building relationships with students

If I can provide a certain type of relationship, the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change and personal development will occur. What is this certain type of relationship I would like to provide? I have found that the more that I can be genuine in the relationship, the more helpful it will be. This means that I need to be aware of my own feelings, in so far as possible, rather than presenting an outward facade of one attitude, while actually holding another attitude at a deeper or unconscious level. Being genuine also involves the willingness to be and to express, in my words and my behavior, the various feelings and attitudes which exist in me. It is only in this way that the relationship can have reality, and reality seems deeply important as a first condition. It is only by providing the genuine reality which is in me, that the other person can successfully seek for the reality in him…. It seems extremely important to be real. (p. 33)

Students have the right to know our goals—all of them. Challenging students, who have experienced adults as unpredictably dangerous creatures roaming their landscapes, have earned the right to be suspicious of us. If these students are to try again, we have to be transparent in our efforts. We have to bridge the distance between us so that they can "connect one mind to another within relationships" (Siegel, 1999, p. 131) and learn.

Allow time—months of time—to build the relationship.

Allow for approach-and-avoidance behavior.

Help students articulate their own goals—come

Post goals for lessons. Give the specific academic skill goal ("use adverbs in sentences") and the larger academic goal ("be better at arguing"). Don't forget to provide the secondary curriculum goal ("know how to get what you want out of life").

Allow for mistakes you'll make in gauging how much you can push and how much space the student needs.