A Vision for Our Community of Social Thinkers
We’ve Come A Long Way: A guest post by Jen Minnelli, SLP
Looking back over the year at everyone’s social development gives me hope for an even better year next year. We have gone to amazing places with our social thinking. Many of our children have come to us as veterans of social skills and manners groups, but they came lacking the thinking skills to generalize beyond the social scripts. Therefore, there was work to be done in knowing and really understanding what is appropriate, based on the setting and the others in the group.
Bucket Filling
We started by talking about everyone’s invisible buckets. Everyone learned how we fill a bucket, by saying or doing something kind and helpful, and how we dip out of a person’s bucket. Some of us needed help with keeping a lid on our buckets, so that others would not have the power to dip out of our buckets, and make us feel bad. Realizing that people who dip out of buckets are usually those who are already feeling really unhappy with themselves helped us keep our own good thoughts about ourselves, so that we can continue down the bucket-filling path.
Dealing with the Bullies: A Community Solution
As with every school community, we had our episodes of bullying this year. People, in turn, played the roles of target, bully, and bystander. We called upon the excellent work of Trudy Ludwig and Kim John Payne to sort things out. In our community, we understand (and research is bearing this out) that children who bully have been the victims of bullying, and should not be rejected, punished or kicked out of a community for acting this way. We have seen that this has been a cry for support, and the adults have worked to provide appropriate consequences and compassionate support for the children who have acted in the role of bully. For the target or victim, we have helped them put together a Power Anti-Bullying Toolkit, with strategies for dealing with bullies, like telling them to STOP, using an I-statement, asking a grownup for help, or making a joke, when that feels safe and comfortable. The bystanders who see this going on know that they are not tattling when they see a person getting hurt by someone else. The bystanders now know the important distinction between tattling and reporting.
The Four Steps of Social Communication (based on the work of Michelle Garcia Winner, 2010)
We have a diverse group of children who are grappling with social communication at all stages. We have used the Social Thinking TM methodology (Winner, 2010) to support everyone’s development along the continuum.
Step 0.5: When you go to school, you realize that you share space with others.
Sharing space has been a biggie. Many of our children have come from more structured environments, and many have come from being home-schooled. Part of sharing space is making the appropriate sensory adaptations so that people can feel comfortable around others. Some children wear earphones to dull the ambient noise. Some children require more movement to learn. They have been comfortable sitting on ball chairs, chilling out in the tent, standing up to do fine motor activities, and walking around to stimulate their thinking. Some children have needed to leave early on some days because sharing space for 6 hours straight is a big challenge. Our community can handle this.
Step 1: When you share space with others, you have thoughts about others, and they have thoughts about you.
We have called on Winner’s SuperFlex curriculum to help the children recognize the thoughts that they are having about others and to realize when we should keep certain thoughts inside our heads.
Step 2: Since we are sharing space with each other, we wonder what the other person’s/people’s plan is.
Many of our children have been working on using their detective skills to understand others’ plans. We use our eyes, ears, and brain to notice things about others, make inferences about others, and then make choices based on those inferences. It has been really okay and helpful to ask questions like, “Does it bother you when I do this?” And, if you are doing something that bothers others, our community offers you support and encouragement, rather than stigmatization.
Step 3: We realize that people are having good thoughts/uncomfortable thoughts about us based on choices that we make.
At times we have used the social behavior map system with children who are having trouble understanding why their choices and actions are unwanted. Usually, when people, especially teachers, are having uncomfortable thoughts about us, we end up having very unhappy feelings. It has helped many of us to see the direct, visual connection between our choices, others’ feelings, the consequence we receive and then our own feelings.
Step 4: Since people are having thoughts about us when we share space, we try to adjust our behavior to keep others having good thoughts about us.
Ever so slowly, the adults have seen a shift in how we all treat each other. This final step is a work in progress. We are all actively engaged in supporting this step with our kids. We repair a goofy thing we might have said. We offer an authentic apology. We think before we speak. We use an I-statement to help others hear our perspective. We stay out of something that does not concern us. We take deep breaths and say, “I hear what you are saying, and I have a different opinion.” This is the work of this community.
Looking Ahead to an Amazing Place
In a few short weeks, I am heading out to the Social Thinking Providers’ Conference, where I look forward to being inspired by the work of my peers and mentors in the Social Thinking world. I will get to hear Dr. Ross Greene, Harvard professor of Psychology, and author of Lost at School and The Explosive Child, offer concrete strategies for Collaborative Problem Solving. I will get to hear Michelle Garcia Winner talk about the latest in Social Thinking research. Professionals will talk about incorporating Social Thinking into daily narratives, casual conversation and physical education. SuperFlex will be there with new strategies to defeat the Unthinkables. I hope to be able to share with others one of our student’s brilliant ideas: a brand new team of “Thinkables” who help a person get through the day with social competence.
I feel blessed to be among a community of parents and teachers who see the direct connection between academic success and social cognition. As we target these important cognitive linguistic goals over the next year, we are preparing our kids for productive, connected lives outside of JRA. Building our community in this way is what defines us and sets us apart from other independent schools.
Struggling to fly
The story is told of a man who found a chrysalis. He hung it up and watched it eagerly. Finally the time came for the butterfly to emerge. It struggled mightily to free itself from the hole in a process that took hours. Then it stopped and seemed to be able to go no further. The man, being a kind man, took scissors and cut the remaining cocoon off, allowing the butterfly to emerge. He was surprised to see that it had a swollen body and shriveled wings. He waited for the swelling to go down and the wings to expand, so the butterfly could fly out into the world.
It didn’t happen. What the man didn’t realize was that the small hole and the insect’s struggle to get through the opening were designed to force fluid from the body into the wings. Without the struggle, this didn’t happen and the butterfly was unable to fly.
Our first academic year at Just Right Academy is coming to a close. We promised less stress and anxiety, but we never promised a struggle-free time. Our students have worked so hard this year to overcome academic and social difficulties. Students worked in language arts and math, going back to the areas that had been skimmed over and relearning that material, sometimes going over and over and over it, sometimes learning it easily and moving ahead. In Achievers class, our older students argued and listened, learning the interpersonal skills that will help them be successful in life. A wonderful occupational therapist and a speech and language pathologist from A Place to Grow came twice a week to work with students who needed this support. Reading tutors worked one-on-one with some students. Our Japanese neighbor came to teach a weekly Japanese class to four students. Social studies, science and Spanish classes helped us to make sense of the world we live in. And every fifteen minutes, our kids received feedback in three areas: following directions, being kind, and participating in a positive way.
It worked. The child who couldn’t follow a direction if he tried, now does—most of the time. The quiet one, who hid his work because he knew it was wrong, shoves it at me confidently and waits for me to check it. Students have learned that apologies don’t have the word “but” in it, but sound like this: “I’m sorry I ____; what can I do to make it better?” One seventh grader finished pre-algebra in three months and is making his way through the algebra book that he and his teacher chose together. Calling students on every unkind remark now means that they have begun to monitor themselves and each other.
One child’s story is an example. She came with an attitude that wouldn’t stop and regularly had a number of dots on her point sheet. She was disrespectful and perpetually angry over her work—it was either too babyish or too hard in her eyes. She would slam down her book and stomp out when we “picked” on her. Her academic skills were woefully behind her grade level and she had developed a number of behaviors to keep from having to show those underdeveloped skills to the world. Working with her was exhausting.
A twice a week reading tutor trained in the Orton-Gillingham technique was our first prescription. The tutor also became somewhat of a mentor to her and gave her a great deal of encouragement. A speech and language pathologist worked with her on pragmatic speech. We took her back to the beginning in language arts and math and practiced, practiced, practiced, until she had learned the missing skills to automaticity. Our art teacher found in her a gift for art and nurtured it. Constant and consistent feedback, structure, and lots of positive reinforcement address her behavioral problems.
Our post testing shows that she has gained about three years in reading and made significant progress in math and language arts. She has a new confidence and has developed real leadership skills. She enjoys working with the younger students and often seeks them out during group work. She is a joy to be around. It hasn’t been an easy time for this child and she will continue to develop her newfound talents. But then learning to fly is supposed to be a struggle.
Come visit us at our upcoming open house on Saturday, May 21, 2011, from 9:00 am to noon, and see if your child might find JRA a place that both challenges and supports him.
Open house and staff updates
It’s hard to believe our first academic year is drawing to a close. But that doesn’t mean we’re slowing down any. We have lots of news to share.
—Our spring open house will be held Saturday, May 21, from 9:00 am to noon. You can tour our space, meet the director, learn about summer camps, and get information about our next academic year. Please join us.
—We will offer three summer camps this year:
Ancient Egypt, June 20 – 24
Ancient Greece, July 25 – 29
Puppetry, August 15 – 19
Camps are for rising first grade through middle school and will offer the same structure, consistency, and positive environment that our students enjoy throughout the year. You can use the camps to see if the school might be a good match for your child, or come just because your child loves the subject for the week. For more information, use the contact form on this website or call the school number.
—JRA will offer our first year of high school as some of our students move up to the 9th grade. We will add a grade each academic year. Ninth grade courses will include world history, English 9, math, physical science, foreign language (either Spanish or Japanese) and art.
—We welcome Jen Minnelli, SLP, to our staff for the 2011-2012 academic year. Mrs. Minnelli will work with the younger students as well as those most impacted by language difficulties for math and language arts, giving those students almost two hours of work with a speech and language pathologist each day. In the afternoons, she will work with individuals and small groups on pragmatic speech and social thinking. This is offered at no extra cost to parents.
There are even more exciting things going on at JRA. Stop by and see us and we’ll tell you all about them!
"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got." - Janis Joplin
