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

by Jeffrey Benson

In examining the effect solely of trauma on students, Cole and colleagues (2005, p. 4) identify a long list of potential problems: decreased concentration, fragmented memory, poor organization, language deficits, perfectionism, depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior. It is reasonable to add to this list excessive absences, uneven skill development,

and deficits in content knowledge.

These students remind us that humans don't change as much as grow.

If it takes a village to raise typical children, challenging children in our villages need their schools to provide critical attention and some very unique structures.

Atwool (2006) notes that for students like Toni, success in school will be "unlikely to develop … without a relationship with at least one … adult in which they feel worthy and loveable"

The sum total of a day in school should not be an overwhelming reminder of what students cannot do. Ensure that all students have a school adult or activity that connects them to their best possible selves.

behaviors that are not to be tolerated, behaviors that the school can ignore, and behaviors we choose to respond to as teachable moments.

Administrators can unite a staff around a smaller set of absolute rules—easier to remember, easier to enforce, easier to supervise—and a lot of reasonable guidelines.

One guideline for hanging in with challenging students is to make directions simple and consistent.

For most secondary school students, walking into a score of rooms every day is a simple task. For a handful of students—those challenged by sensory stimulation or by trauma or by a learning disability—crossing each threshold is a risk, which they have to take over and over again. Few jobs for adults require us to switch work sites and supervisors every hour, to adjust to a shift in sound and seating and objects and tones so often. The chairs in classrooms are hard, the desks rigid, the lighting harsh.

Don't set them up for a failure that will have no redeeming possibilities. In our work with challenging students, we have to accept that they will stumble, periodically regress, make unexpected leaps in functioning, and then still have bad days or hours or moments. But we must not ask them to do tasks that are likely to result in 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.

You don't have to remove challenging students from the group after the damage is done, if you can alter ahead of time the conditions of entry.

listening is the cheapest concession you can make.

the one who did not understand—not the one who wasn't understood.

One-to-one time with a challenging student, when we are not lecturing, can profoundly shift the dynamics.

Hanging in with challenging students often requires teachers to quickly prioritize our most important interests in the moment.

When an adult can give the student a name for the feeling, the student can sometimes let go of the behavior, because someone has noticed.

When you are hanging in with a challenging student, make an effort to identify the feeling a student is experiencing before coaching a behavioral change.

be professionally authentic, the essential element of building relationships with students

"I want you to be strong and self-reliant and have the tools to build a good life.

Challenging students threaten staff unity. They expose our differences, often cultural and familial, in the areas of discipline and respect for institutions and traditional authority.

Countertransference is a term from the world of therapy—it basically means you are getting too personally caught up in a situation.

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

"One's own suffering arises not from individual deficits but rather from the ways in which one has been systematically invalidated, excluded, and silenced"

The complex

decision making teachers do is only marginally reflected in the scores our students receive on standardized tests. Were test scores my primary concern, and were I to be paid for how my class did on tests, in the absence of their understanding of empathy and community, I would say, "Enough, Jay. You're doing it wrong. Have a seat." The rest of the students could then have done more math, perhaps inched up a notch on their test scores and brought me closer to a pay raise. Not working under those conditions, I aimed for societal goals other than a relentless accumulation of math skills.

The required curriculum is a given; the secondary curriculum is what distinguishes us as professionals.

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:

"I am lending her some ego, to see a piece of her work through my eyes, and to agree with me that what I saw was good."

a student can silently struggle with a disability that is mistaken for defiance

"ADHD is NOT a disease of the will, nor a moral failing. It is NOT caused by a weakness in character, nor by a failure to mature. Its cure is not to be found in the

power of the will, nor in punishment, nor in sacrifice, nor in pain."

Getting to Yes,

Fisher, Ury, and Patton (1991)

How to Make Temporary Exceptions

Is it in the best interest of the individual?

Do we have the resources to carry out a different plan?

Can the plan be done safely within the community?

Keep the risk small, so the learning and relationship building is not overwhelmed by what the student may or may not do.

Be aware of the accommodations you are making because you are deciding to make them.

If the student fulfills the expectation, let the volume of your praise match the action.

If the student fails to follow through, keep the lecture brief about the disappointment you feel.

Be explicit:

we are teaching more than the mandated objectives: we are teaching people.