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

by Jeffrey Benson

When children live in a persistent state of fear, the areas of their brains controlling the fear response can become overdeveloped. These parts of the brain may direct behavior even in situations in which it would be more appropriate for other parts of the brain to be in charge. It is important to note that the areas of the brain active in fearful states are different from those active in calm states, and it is predominantly the areas active in calm states that are required for academic learning…. Just as traumatic experiences can undermine the brain's development, good experiences can enhance it. (Cole et al., 2005, pp. 17–18)

"Cedric, I won't let you drown if you can't answer this question, but I am not going to rescue you immediately. I will be back in two minutes to see how you are doing. I will want to know what you have tried."

We have to reexamine our tendency to fragment schoolwork into error-proof small steps as a path to understanding. If it is true that "one of our best attributes is the ability to learn through a series of self-corrected ideas," and we developed this ability because our survival depended upon making sense of experiences as they unfolded (Medina, 2008, p. 271), then accommodation isn't what supports long-term brain development.

Through accommodation, you can get them to perform, but you may not get them to learn.

Give the student opportunities to sit quietly and look over a specific task.

Don't rescue students immediately.

Ask students to report on "experiments" they have tried in their work

Provide models of what a final product of a task looks like,

Don't treat wild guessing as a worthy cognitive task.

Ask a tester to provide in-service training on the components of tests, and how the team can read reports.

Develop a school expectation at IEP meetings for evaluators to explain how a student performed a subtask that indicated an important ability.

Copy the "Summary and Recommendations" section of the evaluation report and staple it to the front of the report for easy access.

Provide all the team with a one-page, action-oriented summary of all IEPs.

Amanda had abandoned any concern for what she herself was thinking.

Brown writes of traumatized women: "One's own suffering arises not from individual deficits but rather from the ways in which one has been systematically invalidated, excluded, and silenced" (emphasis added; 2004, p. 464).

John Dewey said in 1916, almost 100 years ago: "Were all instructors to realize that the quality of mental process, not the production of correct answers, is the measure of educative growth something hardly less than a revolution in teaching would be worked" (1916/2004, p. 207).

I also got that answer. How did you do your work to get that?"

Struggling students have a small buffer to weather criticism.

Her teachers avoided asking her the big "why" questions—Why

These "why" questions are at the top of Bloom's taxonomy, not at the entry level where a student can then be scaffolded up.

for all of our traumatized, silent, insecure, and underconfident students, the first right answer has to be what they are thinking.

sine qua non (essential condition)

Ungar: "First, resilience is the capacity of individuals to navigate their way to resources that sustain well-being; "Second, resilience is the capacity of individuals' physical and social ecologies to provide these resources." (2008, p. 22)

a student with a trauma history, didn't need to guess what the teacher was thinking; she needed to know what she was thinking.

no teacher would appreciate being so singled out at a staff meeting.

Allow students to pass on answering any question. Students who have been traumatized into silence are most often primarily concerned with safety. They watch how the teacher respects individual styles and assess whether the risks of answering questions are worth it.

Ask for parts of answers, not entire explanations and conclusions.

Ask about the thinking behind right answers.

Allow opportunities for students to share with just one other student.

Discuss Bloom's taxonomy and the questioning possibilities within each order of thinking.

"the secondary curriculum"

everything is curriculum; every moment reinforces, expands, or contradicts everything that has come before it. We are always being watched for clues on how to be an adult.

Challenging students rarely feel needed.

All parents wanted us to help restore their child's lost motivation, passion, and connections to others.

"You never know when you're making a memory."

Take into account the social and emotional pressures of performing academics for a given individual.

Define the aspects of the secondary curriculum that you intend to infuse into your academics.

Acknowledge with a student that the two of you have different genders, races, ages, ethnicities.

Explain your decisions and weighing of interests.

Storytelling:

Discuss differentiation possibilities that expand the ways students at all skill and ability levels can be challenged in a lesson.

lessons can include differentiated objectives throughout the range of Bloom's taxonomy.

Review school mission statements for goals that speak to the secondary curriculum (citizenship, pride in craft, etc.).

Seek training for teams on how to promote effective conversations about racial and economic differences with students. Consider using only well-established organizations.

Seek software that allows staff to input specific and detailed comments into report cards,

All teachers will certainly benefit from a conversation with their challenging students.

The guidelines for keeping us both safe from her panic should be followed with any student who has experienced sexual abuse. They include the following: In meetings, always give the student options of where to sit, or allow him or her to remain standing. Sit at a 45-degree angle to the student so as not to confront her or him directly. Never sit or stand between the student and a doorway; always provide the student with an escape route; never close the door. In class, sit or kneel when speaking with the student; never loom over the student. Start conversations only when the student can see you, not from behind. Never touch the student or the student's possessions. Never speak of, or make reference to, the student's clothing or body.

Pay attention to the student's capacity to make friends.

We should always be friendly with students —exuberantly friendly with some and politely friendly with others—but we are not their friends. "Teacher" is a wonderful enough role in their lives.

Repeat instructions in multiple ways and offer previews of lessons.