While as a CRT we are a naturally disruptive element to our classrooms, special development education is an arena where you can initiate challenging behaviour with very little you can do about it. All it takes is one student that does not respond well to strangers and they will do their darndest all day just to get out of the room and away from this new and worrying person invading their safe environment.
It can be a tough gig!
The benefits though are astounding. Working in a Special Development classroom for a length of time is most likely to be one of the richest behaviour management learning opportunities you are ever going to encounter as a teacher. It is such a huge part of Spec Ed education that you are going to learn about things like patterns of behaviour, behavioural triggers, the use of visual resources in behaviour management and many other things.
The first thing to come to grips with is that as a CRT in Spec Ed you are a lot less likely to be using your own behaviour management tools. Any reward systems or other methods you use are very likely to take a back seat to a pre-prepared plan that has already been put into place by the school. This is going the be a plan prepared by all involved staff from heirarchy, teachers ES staff and, almost always, parents as well. These plans have been designed for many students after having a serious look at the particular student through a wide range of input and with a desired outcome at the end of it.
That desired outcome is something you are going to really have to understand. Behaviour management in Spec Ed isn't just about getting the students to behave and do their work. These students have many issues that create impediments to them enjoying their life with school, work and home issues all rolled up into a tangled ball. The goal is to work towards patterns of behaviour that will make them able to hold down a job, engage in social interactions or simply not drive their parents towards a breakdown in the long term.
While we do this as teachers for all of our students, in Spec Ed it is a far more hands on and complicated process and a very high number of students need a unique approach to overcome these things. Class sizes in Spec Ed are not as small as they are for no reason, nor is it an accident that the classes almost always have one or more ES staff in them.
So, we come to the part where I harp on about ES staff again.
In some respects you need to be working towards being a master of behaviour management. Not so you can institute control but so you can look at the walls and instantly sum up what's already going on. When ES staff explain the strategies in use to you for various students you will then know exactly what they are on about and can step right on and provide the consistency that these students need in their school lives.
Flexibity is also a good trait to have. As mentioned above, different classrooms have different strategies and techniques in place for individual students. You will not find two classrooms the same. Neither will the ES staff in different rooms operate the same way.
Stepping into the Spec Ed classroom, and I understand that I go on about this but it is VERY important, you are not always the expert. You will frequently be completely out of your depth when you're first starting out. The ES staff you work with know these students like the back of their hands. They will be able to give you the heads up on everything from toilet schedules to likely triggers and forecast meltdowns.
Working with ES staff in a preventative way is one of the surest ways to keep challenging behaviour to a minimum.
Keep your connumication open with ES staff at all times. Talk through situations and debrief about your day or time in the room. Don't always look at the negatives but always look at the postivies. It is easy to bog yourself down on what didn't work and stress out about it. Remember to always to build on the postive things as well.
Quite often, if I am in the school taking a class, I will try to catch up with different staff members and ask about the students they work with, how they are going and special events that have happened. This helps for if you are booked to take the class again as you are able to talk with the students about what has been happening in their lives while you have not been there.
This contact is also a "team building" exercise. In Spec Dev you are rarely alone and having a functional ":team" in as many rooms as possible is not only going to make your career far more enjoyable, it is also going to boost the outcomes of the students. All being on the same page just results in a more rewarding day for you, ES staff and the students.
Engagement and behaviour management.
This is a tricky area with working in Spec Dev. Not only does each activitiy need to be suitable, age appriatriate but also connected to the skills these students will need when they leave school.
Some students' have attention spans that will not allow them to concentrate on anything for more than 3 minutes before needing something else to keep their attention. A junior I taught last week has this condition and if he is not re-directed immediately, he will engage in inappropriate behaviours. Having a couple of plans up you sleeve for ideas is very helpful in this instance. More than anywhere else in education, this is where knowing how to engage students in an off-the-cuff way will serve you particularly well.
The student mention is mostly non-verbal but understands spoken language very well and this last lesson with him bears mentioning.
Each week when he comes into the art room his attention span grows. Understanding the boundaries and what he needs to complete is something that has helped his engagement with an activity grow. He also knows what is availiable in the room as choices for alternate (productive) activities after the art activity and will indicate his preference.
Recently he completed the art activity and re-directed himself to the drawing table. This has not happened before without an adult stepping in. He selected his own pencil colour and went about drawing on a piece of paper left out for this very reason.
Students in Spec Ed environments are no different to those in main stream settings. They will take ownership of their own learning when they have some choice. Unlike most mainstream classrooms however, it's not a matter of just being authoritative and/or instituting a reward system. It is a process that takes time and this is an important realisation. You won't hook them all your first day no matter how good you are.
The ES staff, again, are going to be the experts in your teaching team. They understand that you won't get it right the first time, every time and you need to be able to defer to their advice and knowledge until you have your own.
A bit of a story...
In the art lessons I implement I provide the resources and the theme or topic. For example, i have uppercase letter cut out on cardboard for student to trace around. I have students find and trace around the letter that their name starts with. Then students can pick a coloured piece of paper to rip up and paste over the top of the letter, covering the letter. Students love finding the letter their name starts with and it makes them feel special. They love being allowed to choose the colour they are going to rip and paste to their name.
In this one class, however, all one student wanted to do was trace around as many of the letters as possible. The ES staff member asked me if I wanted her to move this student along to the next step of the activity. Tracing within itself is a skill that is not easy for little fingers so I said, no, let them have at it. This student was engaged and happy and practising the skill of tracing. I think she traced around every letter she could get her hands on and as the session went on, the better her tracing got.
I certainly didn't do this just because it kept her happy and out of everyone's hair. Ownership and choice (with boundaries) leads to engagement and active learning. These children often live such regimented lives that a modicum of choice is engaging in itself. The rest of the activity was ripping paper and gluing it to the letters and ripping and gluing is something that happens frequently for them. This student would not miss out on any learning and had expressed an interest in mastering a certain skill.
This student remained engaged and self motivated for the entire lesson.
The lessons to be learned? While rules, boundaries and reward systems all work and/or are are necessary, they are extrinsic rewards. They provide a carrot on a stick to get a student to complete their work. Engagement is an intrinsic 'reward' and by far the harder side of behaviour management to master. A student who is self motivated and engaged will not seek out alternative activities.
Further, allowing a student to explore a certain topic in a deeper or different way shouldn't be discouraged as long as they learn the intended lessons. We allow this almost every day as teachers, our heads are racing as students ask questions and pick out the relevant and interesting ones to follow. We do this on a class basis and this is really just doing the same thing but on an individual basis. No, this should not be overused but it is certainly an excellent engagement/teaching tool.
Challenging behaviour is often the result of wanting to "get out of" whatever they are doing and move to a more preferred activity. This goes with ALL classrooms, mainstream and Spec Dev alike. IF they don't want to get out of it? Things will go a whole lot more smoothly.
Last one, make a point to become familiar to the students.
I try to touch base with as many students as possible while in the school. This is not easy. But all it needs to be is a hello or hi in passing, catching up with them while on duty in the yard, or a goodbye at the end of the day. These students often don't handle change very well so if you are able to be in their lives while you are around the school, you won't be an unknown quantity anymore. You will, instead, become a 'safe' person and making it easier to step into their classroom if you are booked to work.
Stick with the students you already know or the ones that talk to you first, don't force yourself on new students, just become that familiar face when possible.
Regards,
Mel.
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