Re: Jack
Dear Amy,
Education is imperative to the development of our student’s physical, mental, social and emotional wellbeing. It is therefore critical that we teach our students to like school and to stop them from running away from it. It seems that running away from school is a major priority for one of your students Jack. Running away from school can occur due to a number of reasons. For instance, a student may simply have a disinterest in school, feels bored or is scared of a teacher who may treat them badly. We at Project BEAM have put together a compilation of thoughts, suggestions and resources for you to effectively use with Jack in terms of identifying why he is running away and ways for you to best manage the situation when it arises.
To achieve the best results with Jack you must know why he does what he does, to be able to determine the problem, and the appropriate solution. Remember, you must know your students and how they learn by understanding their social, ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds as well as their different approaches to learning and the typical stages of their physical and social intellect as outlined in 2.1.1, 2.1.2 and 2.1.3 in the NSW Professional Teaching Standards (2004). All these factors impact on a students’ learning. For some students school is a constant uphill battle and this may be the case for Jack. Students are not born with bad behaviour and we must acknowledge that behaviour is a communication attribute based on biology, past experiences, prior learning, thoughts, feelings and actions or habits (Chess & Thomas, 1984). With this in mind, Jack may be a victim of childhood trauma suffering dysfunctional attachment meaning that he may have been exposed to:
- Ineffectual, ill-informed, stressed, inconsistent parenting
- Violence – domestic, victims of infantile violence
- Trauma – death of a loved one, pet or a parent with a mental illness
- Multiple trauma – physical or sexual abuse
- Neglect
- Parental drug alcohol abuse
This may very well be a reason behind Jacks tendency to run away from school. Children who are attachment disturbed usually respond to situations in primal rather than reasoned responses (Chess & Thomas, 1984). This can be referred to as the fight or flight response. In Jacks case it seems that he chooses the flight response. Children who suffer childhood trauma tend to learn fear, shame, accusation, confusion, betrayal, injustice and inequality (Konza, Grainger & Bradshaw, 2006). If a child is suffering childhood trauma they may:
- Experience heightened stress – exhibit difficult behaviours, anxious,
oppositional, looks for trouble.
- Needs to have control of the moment they are in, believes threats are
everywhere.
- School’s negative reaction may further worsen child’s stress and
inappropriate behaviours.
- Communication problems – too many questions or shuts down.
- Sees extremes – all good, all bad.
Another possibility is that Jack could be suffering from emotional disabilities (ED) or behaviour disabilities (BD) which are described as mental health problems in children and young people. ED/BD children are those who regularly exhibit indicators which seriously impair the ability to successfully engage with peers and adults in social and educational contexts (Konza, et. al, 2006). Some indicators are:
- Inability to engage in learning which cannot be explained by other
cognitive, sensory or health factors.
- An inability to maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with
teachers or peers.
- Behaviour or emotions that are considered inappropriate under normal
circumstances such as running away.
- A tendency to develop physical symptoms of fear responses associated
with home and/or school.
(Konza, et. al, 2006)
ED/BD students usually develop serious problems given unfortunate sets of circumstances similar to children suffering dysfunctional attachment in addition to maturation difficulties, other disabilities such as vision, hearing and intellectual as well as specific learning difficulties such as ADD and ADHD. There are three types of emotional and behavioural disorders:
- Internalising conditions – depression, anxiety or obsessive compulsive
disorders.
- Externalising conditions – Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or
Conduct Disorder (CD)
- Developmental disabilities – pervasive developmental disorders, autism
spectrum disorders such as Asperger’s, childhood dis-associative
disorder, Rett’s disorder etc.
(Konza, et. al, 2006)
If Jack is suffering from an emotional or behavioural disability we at Project BEAM believe that it could be anxiety. Anxiety can be characterised by feelings of fear usually accompanied by physical symptoms such as heart racing, sweating and tense muscles and changes in behaviour often called avoidance behaviours (APA, 1994). Most children experience anxiety surrounding change, challenges or confronting experiences. If anxiety becomes a habitual way of thinking it produces physical symptoms that can seriously impair a child’s life and future development such as:
- Complaints of physical illness such as headache, nausea, shaking, panic
attacks and hyper-ventilation.
- Avoidance of certain people, tasks or activities.
- Refusing to come to school or running away from school.
So how can you make a difference? As a teacher you must have an understanding of the dynamic nature of your students as well as student behaviour, child development and your teaching goals – what is possible for each individual child. Simply talk to your supervisor, principal, school counselor and Jack to find out if there is anything going on in Jack’s life that may be causing him to runaway. As soon as you have identified why his running away can you then put in to place effective strategies to keep him at school. The strategies that you can implement require you to have confidence in setting behaviour expectations, academic/curriculum restructuring, positive behaviour responses which involves social skills training, positive correction, effective praise and consequences (Wolfgang, 2001).Don’t worry if all these fail as good teaching is an imperfect science – things go wrong and sometimes the best learning occurs by accident (Wolfgang, 2001).The above by explanations and tools are by no means an exhaustive and further information should be sought out. Below are some useful links.
http://www.mentalhealth.org/publications/allpubs/CA-0006/
http://www.ericfacility.net/ericdigests/ed261811.html
http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content4/coping.w.stress.sp.ed.
html
http://www.kidsource.com/ld/disabilities.calendar.html
http://www.educationworld.com/
http://www.nasponline.org/
http://www.schwabfound.org/
We hope that above will help you work with Jack in getting him to stay at school and improve his outlook on school. Be proactive with him and not reactive and remember that students are not born with bad behaviours and it is up to you as a classroom teacher to develop your skills in behaviour management so that you are able to enhance quality of school life and reduce problem behaviour.
Yours Sincerely,
Dear Amy,
Education is imperative to the development of our student’s physical, mental, social and emotional wellbeing. It is therefore critical that we teach our students to like school and to stop them from running away from it. It seems that running away from school is a major priority for one of your students Jack. Running away from school can occur due to a number of reasons. For instance, a student may simply have a disinterest in school, feels bored or is scared of a teacher who may treat them badly. We at Project BEAM have put together a compilation of thoughts, suggestions and resources for you to effectively use with Jack in terms of identifying why he is running away and ways for you to best manage the situation when it arises.
To achieve the best results with Jack you must know why he does what he does, to be able to determine the problem, and the appropriate solution. Remember, you must know your students and how they learn by understanding their social, ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds as well as their different approaches to learning and the typical stages of their physical and social intellect as outlined in 2.1.1, 2.1.2 and 2.1.3 in the NSW Professional Teaching Standards (2004). All these factors impact on a students’ learning. For some students school is a constant uphill battle and this may be the case for Jack. Students are not born with bad behaviour and we must acknowledge that behaviour is a communication attribute based on biology, past experiences, prior learning, thoughts, feelings and actions or habits (Chess & Thomas, 1984). With this in mind, Jack may be a victim of childhood trauma suffering dysfunctional attachment meaning that he may have been exposed to:
- Ineffectual, ill-informed, stressed, inconsistent parenting
- Violence – domestic, victims of infantile violence
- Trauma – death of a loved one, pet or a parent with a mental illness
- Multiple trauma – physical or sexual abuse
- Neglect
- Parental drug alcohol abuse
This may very well be a reason behind Jacks tendency to run away from school. Children who are attachment disturbed usually respond to situations in primal rather than reasoned responses (Chess & Thomas, 1984). This can be referred to as the fight or flight response. In Jacks case it seems that he chooses the flight response. Children who suffer childhood trauma tend to learn fear, shame, accusation, confusion, betrayal, injustice and inequality (Konza, Grainger & Bradshaw, 2006). If a child is suffering childhood trauma they may:
- Experience heightened stress – exhibit difficult behaviours, anxious,
oppositional, looks for trouble.
- Needs to have control of the moment they are in, believes threats are
everywhere.
- School’s negative reaction may further worsen child’s stress and
inappropriate behaviours.
- Communication problems – too many questions or shuts down.
- Sees extremes – all good, all bad.
Another possibility is that Jack could be suffering from emotional disabilities (ED) or behaviour disabilities (BD) which are described as mental health problems in children and young people. ED/BD children are those who regularly exhibit indicators which seriously impair the ability to successfully engage with peers and adults in social and educational contexts (Konza, et. al, 2006). Some indicators are:
- Inability to engage in learning which cannot be explained by other
cognitive, sensory or health factors.
- An inability to maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with
teachers or peers.
- Behaviour or emotions that are considered inappropriate under normal
circumstances such as running away.
- A tendency to develop physical symptoms of fear responses associated
with home and/or school.
(Konza, et. al, 2006)
ED/BD students usually develop serious problems given unfortunate sets of circumstances similar to children suffering dysfunctional attachment in addition to maturation difficulties, other disabilities such as vision, hearing and intellectual as well as specific learning difficulties such as ADD and ADHD. There are three types of emotional and behavioural disorders:
- Internalising conditions – depression, anxiety or obsessive compulsive
disorders.
- Externalising conditions – Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or
Conduct Disorder (CD)
- Developmental disabilities – pervasive developmental disorders, autism
spectrum disorders such as Asperger’s, childhood dis-associative
disorder, Rett’s disorder etc.
(Konza, et. al, 2006)
If Jack is suffering from an emotional or behavioural disability we at Project BEAM believe that it could be anxiety. Anxiety can be characterised by feelings of fear usually accompanied by physical symptoms such as heart racing, sweating and tense muscles and changes in behaviour often called avoidance behaviours (APA, 1994). Most children experience anxiety surrounding change, challenges or confronting experiences. If anxiety becomes a habitual way of thinking it produces physical symptoms that can seriously impair a child’s life and future development such as:
- Complaints of physical illness such as headache, nausea, shaking, panic
attacks and hyper-ventilation.
- Avoidance of certain people, tasks or activities.
- Refusing to come to school or running away from school.
So how can you make a difference? As a teacher you must have an understanding of the dynamic nature of your students as well as student behaviour, child development and your teaching goals – what is possible for each individual child. Simply talk to your supervisor, principal, school counselor and Jack to find out if there is anything going on in Jack’s life that may be causing him to runaway. As soon as you have identified why his running away can you then put in to place effective strategies to keep him at school. The strategies that you can implement require you to have confidence in setting behaviour expectations, academic/curriculum restructuring, positive behaviour responses which involves social skills training, positive correction, effective praise and consequences (Wolfgang, 2001).Don’t worry if all these fail as good teaching is an imperfect science – things go wrong and sometimes the best learning occurs by accident (Wolfgang, 2001).The above by explanations and tools are by no means an exhaustive and further information should be sought out. Below are some useful links.
http://www.mentalhealth.org/publications/allpubs/CA-0006/
http://www.ericfacility.net/ericdigests/ed261811.html
http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content4/coping.w.stress.sp.ed.
html
http://www.kidsource.com/ld/disabilities.calendar.html
http://www.educationworld.com/
http://www.nasponline.org/
http://www.schwabfound.org/
We hope that above will help you work with Jack in getting him to stay at school and improve his outlook on school. Be proactive with him and not reactive and remember that students are not born with bad behaviours and it is up to you as a classroom teacher to develop your skills in behaviour management so that you are able to enhance quality of school life and reduce problem behaviour.
Yours Sincerely,
Project BEAM
