a recipe for creating a safe & respectful school...
TRANSCRIPT
A Recipe for Creating a Safe & Respectful School Climate
One Caring Adult™ Creating Climates that Invite Youth
to Thrive!
The Recipe Creating climates that invite youth to thrive. “Invite youth to thrive.” I like that concept, but what exactly does it take to truly create such an environment? To provide youth with the core ingredients that foster growth and development?
There are 6 ingredients essential to creating such a climate. Six key concepts that combine to provide a powerful foundation for youth success. If we follow the recipe, if we put in the necessary time & focus on each of the key ingredients, OUR YOUTH WILL THRIVE! What follows is a proven, evidence-based recipe for youth success. Add the ingredients then mix in your own flavorings & spices. This is your recipe for creating an environment that will invite your youth to thrive!
"When teachers understand how their strengths and beliefs may lock them into practices that limit freedom to help students succeed, they can begin to entertain fresh possibilities and stay open to new avenues for
professional growth." Jane A.G. Kise
The Essential Ingredients… 1) Focus on Creating the
Climate, not fixing the problem 2) Start with Staff 3) Provide Every Young Person
with a Caring Adult 4) Identify the Skills,
Opportunities and Support each young person needs
5) Focus on Strengths 6) Empower Youth Provide
True Opportunities for youth Leadership
We are very good at fixing problems. Unfortunately, we wait for what’s wrong to be wrong and then we fix it. We are not so good at doing what it takes to prevent the problem from developing in the first place.
Think about how many educators and administrators spend their day. Often, the majority of time is spent dealing with issues, problem solving, and intervening with individual student behavior. Universal practices are overlooked - everyone assumes they are in place. Problem is, we typically don’t have an intentional strategy to provide every student with the skills & supports they need to be successful. We focus our time and energy on intensive, interventions for a small number of students. We neglect the oh-so-important foundation that fills the toolboxes of all our students.
Consider the model to the right. There are 2 scales: one contrasting a focus on the individual and a focus on the environment. The other scale considers the underlying purpose – is it intervention or development? The 2 scales combine to form 4 quadrants, each with its own focus and purpose. Each of the 4 quadrants is important and must be addressed. The question is, “Where do you focus your energy?”
We often are pulled into “putting out fires”, dealing with the problems and behavior issues of the day. Because of this pull, our focus on truly building a safe & respectful school climate is limited. We enter a no-win cycle: The less time & energy we devote to providing our students with a climate that encourages their success, the more time we need to spend dealing with problems. We need to experience a paradigm shift, and now! If we truly want our young people to thrive, we need to focus on intentionally creating a climate that invites them to do so. We need to set our students up to be successful by providing them with the skills, opportunities and supports they need BEFORE they need them. Create the climate.
School Climate Development Model created by Marta Koonz & Jo Ann Freiberg, adapted from Williaml Lofquist’s “4 Arenas of Human Services” model
1) Focus on Creating the Climate, Not Fixing the Problem
“Climate is Everything.” Pat Ciccone, Superintendent, CT Technical High School System
!
Individual FOCUS Environment!
Dev
elo
pm
en
t P
UR
PO
SE
In
terv
en
tio
n!
School-wide Interventions in
Response to Pervasive
Issues
Dealing with, Problem Solving,
Intervening w/ Individual
Student Behavior
Individual Student
Growth & Skill Development
Safe & Respectful
Community-wide!School Climate
Building
You will never, ever have a safe & respectful school climate with your students unless you have a safe & respectful school climate with your staff. Let me repeat that: You will never, ever have a safe & respectful school climate with your students unless you have a safe & respectful school climate with your staff. Write that down. Memorize it. Post it on the wall. It all starts with us.
When we sign on the dotted line to become an educator, we enter into an agreement to be a role model. It’s part of the deal. If we want our students to engage in healthy relationships with their peers, we as adults need to model healthy relationships with our peers. Simple. Think about your school.
Are all staff treated with kindness by other staff members?
Do adults model healthy ways to deal with conflict and stress?
Are teachers, counselors and support staff valued in their roles?
Are they supported?
Are individual teaching styles honored?
If we want our young people to value each other, to treat us with kindness & respect, we need to value each other and treat others
with kindness and respect. As educators we have the opportunity to teach more than academics. We can teach kindness. We can teach respect. We can teach young people how to be in community with other people. Remember – actions speak louder than words.
The question is, “What kind of role model are you
today?”
“Teachers,
counselors,
administrators
and other school
staff whose
energy is
distracted by a
need to self-
protect for any
reason just don’t
have as much to
offer kids as
adults who feel
secure, supported
and valued in
their positions.”
Dr. Jane Bluestein
2) Start with Staff
Resiliency, School Connectedness, The Circle of Courage. No matter which body of research or model you look at, the results are the same. The number one factor that helps young people to get through the tough stuff that life throws at them is a caring adult. An adult who understands that life is challenging but rather than let them off the hook teaches them to face those challenges and succeed in spite of them.
There are many ways to ensure that every young person has an adult in school they can turn to, but remember – perception is reality. It’s not whether we as adults think that every young person has a caring adult; it’s whether young people believe they have a caring adult. The question is, “Does every young person in your school community believe they have a caring adult?”
“Werner’s nearly 40-year research journey shows that being emotionally connected with adults and people in communities is a significant part of what allows nearly 70% of young people in even the worst conditions to thrive despite adversity”
Brown, D’Emidio-Caston, and Benard
“Relationships formed between students and school staff members are at the heart of school connectedness.”
School Connectedness: Improving Students’ Lives, Robert Blum MD, MPH, PhD
“The most important observation you can make is when you become a glimmer in the child’s eyes and he becomes a glimmer in yours.”
Albert Trieschman
3) Provide Every Young person with a Caring Adult
Creating climates that invite youth to thrive comes down to 3 simple words – Skills, Opportunities and Supports.
1) Skills Every young person needs tools in their toolbox. They need skills to navigate through life. Reading. Problem-solving. Social skills. Career skills. Stress and anger management skills. Decision-making. As adults, it is our task to fill their toolbox with the tools they need before they need them – to set them up for success.
2) Opportunities
Every young person needs opportunities to try their skills out, to be independent, to share what they have learned. As adults, we must provide meaningful opportunities for young people to connect with others and gain confidence in their ability to give and be a part of a larger community.
3) Supports
Here’s that caring adult piece again. It’s important and worth repeating. Every young person needs a mentor, formal or informal - an adult in school to support them, to be their champion, to hold them accountable. This factor didn’t get to be number one by accident: Having one caring adult in their lives will be the difference between surviving and thriving for many young people. Guess what – that caring adult could be you.
The question is, “Have you identified the skills, opportunities and supports each
young person in your school community needs?”
"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the
classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the
climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a
teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a
child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can
humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my
response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-
escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized."
Haim Ginott
4) Identify Skills, Opportunities and Supports
“Start with the belief that when we celebrate what’s right, we will have the energy, creativity, and inspiration to work at changing
what’s wrong.” The Little Book of Restorative Discipline for Schools
5) Focus on Strengths
When we focus on strengths, we go a long way towards creating an emotionally and intellectually safe school climate – two aspects of climate that often get overlooked. It’s a fact – we all win when we focus on a young person’s strengths! The very energy around us takes on a different feel when we look at positives. Our likelihood of building a positive relationship and fostering success increases. Our students thrive! So how do we do it? Let’s see.
The Circle of Courage
Developed by Reclaiming Youth International, the Circle of Courage philosophy focuses on Belonging, Mastery, Independence and Generosity as the four pieces that together create wholeness and complete a young person’s circle. As adults, we can meet a young person’s needs by finding strengths & providing opportunities in all four areas. When a young person’s circle is complete they have the skills, opportunities and supports they need to meet life’s challenges.
Differentiated Learning As educators, we’re familiar with “Differentiated Instruction”, but how about “Differentiated LEARNING”? Differentiated Learning is One Caring Adult’s take on creating an intellectually safe school climate for young people. We all learn differently and by focusing on strengths that young people possess, we can intentionally create a learning environment that encourages success. Consider each student. Are they visual, auditory or kinesthetic learners? Which of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences do they excel in? What’s their thinking style? How about their inborn temperament? All of these models focus on student strengths and provide us with a treasure trove of strengths to choose from.
Resiliency
Resiliency is the ability to bounce back, to thrive in spite of the tough stuff life throws our way. The first significant research on resiliency was completed by Emmy Werner & Ruth Smith, and followed a group of young people for almost 40 years. Their findings, as well as additional research that followed, is summarized in the linked article by Dr. Jami Jones. This is where you want to start identifying needs and building strengths when young people are struggling.
The question is, “How do you focus on student strengths?”
If we want to create a safe & respectful school climate youth voices must be heard. Young people have valuable insights and opinions that must not be overlooked. When provided with opportunities for true leadership, young people rise to the challenge. The true challenge is for adults to create a shift and make it possible for this to happen.
How are youth viewed in your school community? Do adults do all the planning and decision-making because “they know best”? Are young people involved when it might be a “good experience” for them? Or are students involved because of the skills and experience they bring to the table?
How about opportunities for peer leadership, both one-on-one and group? Peer mentoring, tutoring, assisting with reading groups with younger students, co-leading a class with a teacher – all opportunities we as adults can create for young people to make a difference. Positive peer connections go a long way towards building a positive school climate, but its up to us as adults to provide the opportunities. The question is, “What opportunities do you provide for true youth leadership?”
“Youth Development refers to the overall condition and place of young people in the community –
How they are viewed and valued Opportunities for development available to them Resources available when they have problems
Opportunities they have to contribute Policies that affect them
The quality of their relationships with peers and adults”
William Lofquist
6) Empower Youth
One Caring Adult™ Creating Climates that Invite Youth to
Thrive!
Marta Koonz, PCC Managing Partner
860-573-0896
School Climate
Differentiated Learning
Coaching for Educators
www.onecaringadult.com
The Essential Questions…
1) Where do you focus your energy? 2) What kind of role model are you today? 3) Does every young person in your school community believe they have a caring
adult? 4) Have you identified the skills, opportunities and supports each young person in
your school community needs? 5) How do you focus on student strengths?
6) What opportunities do you provide for true youth leadership?