Starting from a place of understanding - rewards don't work!

 Reading back over this blog, I realised I have never shared our journey into creating a school culture based on 'understanding.'   After listening to the radio segment yesterday and sharing it on my facebook page, I thought it was fitting to do a bit of a post, like many of my posts, it isn't short, but hopefully it may spark some thought, or at least give some affirmation to those on a similar journey.

Background...

Like all of our journeys,  it all started with play.  At the time when we started to plant the seeds of our future school culture, I really didn't realise how significant our play pedagogy would be, but as it turns out, like just about everything else we do, it ultimately it all does come back to play and understanding the brain.

We had already worked hard on being developmentally aware, changing this lens to developmentally sensitive and responsive.  We understood the difference of 'chronological age' and 'actual age', understood how play was crucial for children's development and were primed and ready for more learning about this.

Around 2018 we embarked on some learning about attachment.  Understanding attachment styles was a really useful start for us and helped to build our understandings about children.  As a school we also developed our understandings of restorative practice and saw this as a great approach for us.  We were also part of relationship based learning, or RBL as it was known then.

Over the next several years,  we were inspired by the work of Bruce Perry and did some 'bite sized' staff driven PLD around trauma, starting with a book study and building our own understandings.

A copy of some of the videos we watched are included in this document that guided our learning.

Bite Sized PLD 2021/22

Over this time we also attended workshops run by Kathryn Berkett and worked with Karina Schreurs at Aro Training, here in Whangārei.

We had worked really hard on our values as a school, and while we had largely moved away a rewards and punishment based environment, we totally stepped away from this and looked further to the work of Ross Greene.  His work on collaborative problem solving is excellent and this quote "Kids do well if they can" really resonated with me.

Key Learning Takeaways from Kathryn, Karina, Bruce and Ross

Understanding what is meant by read brain and green brain (watch this if you don't know what this is referring to)

This is also a great podcast to listen to, this is episode one on the stress response.

The stress response

We need to aim for attunement rather than attachment.  These children need to work with a trusted adult, going out with a person, who has no relationship is not going to help them.  Therefore it is us that need to work hard on those relationships.  This is a collective US, meaning whole school.  Teachers, TA, Office staff, caretaker...everyone.

Attuned relationship, children need an attuned adult.  A child needs at least four adults that are attuned to them and their needs.  This makes it bigger than the teacher.   

Sprinters - go from green brain to their red brain at the drop of a hat, is emotionally under six.  Intermediate classes possible have children that are emotionally 2, 3, 4.

Marathon runners, will hold onto 'big feelings' and stay in their red brain for extended periods of time.

Status, when a child is in their red brain, they will try to drop your status, this could be saying something silly, mocking, this is an attempt to grow their status, if you drop your status, it will lower this stress response.   If we react and become dysregulated ourselves based on this communication we will only serve to heighten their response.  

Keeping survival brain calm.  Some boys hate mullets - see me, acknowledge me,  belonging, show me how I belong, where do I seem myself here,  happening, tell me what is happening, warn me, don't suddenly surprise me, mana, let me have a say, activate my voice.  We can keep the survival brain calm in a classroom if we do these things.  The brain is aiming for safety, always asking "am I safe" if we use these key ideas, we can make our classroom a safe place for all children.

Build in moments of tolerable stress, where it is possible to become excited, but them self-calm.  We do this with little children, when we play games like hide and seek.  We do this with babies, where we play peek-a-boo.  Teaching all children to self-calm in these situations.  Play is the most important way for children to learn this and become emotionally resilient.  In play children will be in tolerable stress all of the time where they are trying to navigate this world.  Children know what they need to do and don't need to be directed in their play.

Devices can cause a heightened stress response, devices do not calm them, devices train the red brain.

Encouraging them to do something that will calm their red brain, must not be seen as a reward.  Punishing the red brain, will do nothing to prevent it happening it again.  Allowing them to choose an activity that will calm them, allows us to then engage with their 'green' or regulated brain afterwards.  The work we do in building a new template, needs to happen with the green brain.

We must consider how we interact with children who are dysregulated, we need to teach every child what works for them to find their calm.  It is all about building new templates for regulation strategies.

The first three years build the foundations of the brain, it is possible to rebuild this and at school this needs to be part of our core work.  If you do not have a strong foundation a programme is not going to assist the children without strong foundation, this needs to be rebuilt.  Music, dance, play, touch, movement are all great ways to do this.  Many of our youngest children need us to go back and think about how we would have helped our babies, rocking, touch, serve and return.

Children who are lacking strong foundations, are trauma impacted and stressed are emotionally six or less.  This is the most important work we can do.  Learning can not happen in the red brain, if we want our learning approaches to work, we must meet these needs first.  First see me, understand me, then teach me,

It is possible to rewire the foundation that has been built in the first three years, time repetition and calm, it is possible to teach these children to calm.

Our brain forms connections, the more repetitions, the stronger the connection, allowing the brain to form templates for everything that it sees, hears, feels.  This happens in the first three years, this is how they see the world.  A child that starts school swearing, actually knows no different.  Asking them not to, is not going to work.  We then actually need to work on building new templates.  The old template never goes away.  When they are in green brain, they will use the template we have helped them to build.  When they are in red brain, the old template kicks in, this is when we see the old 'behaviour.'  When we don't feel safe, our old template activates

We build new templates through attuned relationships, repetition, repetition, repetition.   It takes time, calm, understanding and acceptance.  

Children also have a self-belief template, such as saying things like "I am mean."  Repeating when they are in their green brain "that action was mean, but you are not mean". This takes repetition, patience and calm.  

We are not capable of thinking in our red brain, punishments do not work.  A reward based economy will only work for children that feel safe and have strong foundations.

Red brain is oppositional, selfish, aggressive, negative.  Our aim is for children to be able to activate calm quicker, but engaging with the red brain is never going to go well.  Think fight, flight, freeze.

If we watch children and over time we see children staying in their red brain for shorter times, this is proof that we are helping them build a new template.

While in their green brain, we need to allow them to share with us what they like to do when they are moving into their red brain.  Discuss it after when they are in their green brain.  Think of places outside of the classroom, it could be climbing a tree, hiding in a hut, nature is a great way to activate the green brain.  Teach children to recognise the signs that they are becoming dysregulated so that they can begin to use these strategies independently.

So, where are we at now?

The notes I have shared above are not a complete picture of everything, in fact it is an incredibly vast topic, however if we can lock onto these key understandings, we can really make a difference.

Firstly, this work really bound together what we do in approach to wellbeing, it has in fact accelerated this work forward and allowed us to tie everything together under the framework of Te Whare Tapa Whā

This work has also really helped me grow my understanding of nuerodiversity and  and impacted the strategies we use to assist these children in terms of belonging, safety and inclusion.

In fact, this work has benefited all children, it has helped us establish a school culture that is often remarked on by visitors as being calm, safe and welcoming.  People often comment on the wairua of the place.  

What we have done, is over time built on our understandings, not discarding one piece of knowledge for another, but weaving together our understandings.  We will of course, keep weaving, embedding these approaches into the very fabric of our place.  What we have not done, is leapt on a programme, we have shaped something that is right for our place and our children.

Play

The catalyst of it all.  Having a pedagogy based on play is vital to the success of our environment.  Play enables us to give children to practice their social and emotional skills.  It allows them to have mana and to regulate within situations of tolerable stress.  Play also allows us to see children, to hear them, to understand them.  Play is absolutely golden.

Whole Staff Knowledge

Something we continue to work hard on.  This is an approach that takes all of the adults in the school.  We wrap around children, understanding that we are all a part of their journey.

Te Kōhanga

Te Kōhanga, or the nest, was our take on a nurture space.  With little funds, it was impossible to build something, so we reinvented our library.  This is now a space children can take themselves to if they feel overwhelmed.  It has become a safe place for our neurodiverse children and anyone that needs it.  Over time it has shifted and changed, I am certain it will continue to do so, as our understandings change.

SEL

Social emotional learning is so vitally important, it is something that needs to be taught across the whole school.  Across our juniors, we use the little spot of feelings, which is awesome, it gives children the vocabulary to describe how they are feeling when they need to.   We also have a whole school wellbeing curriculum, with areas of focus for each term, or ideas for when problems come up.  This curriculum is based on Te Whare Tapa Whā.

Empowering Children 

Part of our wellbeing curriculum includes teaching about the brain, the red brain and green brain.  Children are taught to recognise this in themselves and others and how they need to respond.  Children are also taught about neurodiversity, so they can respond appropriately and come from a place of understanding.  Our neurodiverse children are empowered to to embrace their diversity as something that makes them special, we want them to be able to advocate for themselves.  This comes through strongly when children are talked to, one instance where our target learners were spoken to recently, a child said "sometimes I find it hard in the classroom because of I am autistic."  I consider these small comments wins.

More recently I started sharing a series of videos about neurodiversity with my wider school community, change comes from a place of understanding.

Wellbeing Teams

We have several members of staff who make up our wellbeing team.  If a child is identified as needing extra support (for whatever reason) a member of the team will be assigned as a support person.  In some instances the child may be asked who they would like, but in most cases, these staff members have already proven themselves to be attuned adults.  These children are checked in with regularly and together they problem solve and work on strategies to find solutions to what might be going on.  In some instances, it is just a chat, just someone who I can go to who cares.  In some cases, our whole staff forms the team, ensuring we see and hear that child in the playground and make a deliberate attempt to connect to build that sense of belonging.

I am part of this team and if the 'case' is seen as more complex, I will be assigned to help.  We will generally use collaborative problem solving. 

In every case, there is communication between home and school.

In parting...

I don't know if I have done a very good job of describing our journey, or where we are at.  I know I will have missed things, because there are so many parts of the puzzle.  It is a journey that never stops, next term, we are again working with Karina, she will be working with our children, our teachers and our whānau.  We are committed to deepening our understandings to help our children.  

This has been a largely self-led, self-funded journey, but an important one.  I despair at the idea of pushing outdated rewards based programmes into our schools.  Every day I hear of children being stood down and suspended at schools, because a well meaning teacher engaged with a dysregulated child in a way that heightened their response.  Often these children are our neurodiverse and it breaks my heart.

We are not perfect, that is not possible, but we are striving to do the best for our children, to understand them, to see them, to hear them.  

To be developmentally sensitive and responsive, Neuroscience informed, should be the goal of all our schools.

I will leave you with this short video featuring Ross Greene, I really recommend you getting your hands on his book "Lost At School".   This video is the first of a series, that is well worth watching!