Rebecca

Rebecca and Nicola have worked since the beginning of the year to manage the behavior of one of their more challenging students.   As is often the case, a co-taught classroom offers additional support and focus that is not available if a teacher is working solo. Rebecca and Nicola realized that because Rebecca had built a stronger rapport with the student, Rebecca would work on a protocol to address the student’s needed behavioral skills in order that he and all the students moved forward. 

From my perspective, Rebecca’s early path with this particular student was rocky. Early on, she approached any misbehavior with positive reinforcement type comments - possibly because she was coached by colleagues that this approach had worked with Jayden in the past.  But she could see that misbehavior continued and this approach was communicating to Jayden that his behavior was ok - which it wasn’t; perhaps, he somehow viewed that she had low expectations of him - and so he didn’t need to improve. 

It was at this point - that Rebecca developed a road map that included charting/tracking misbehavior and aligning the misbehavior with designated, clear cut consequences that she explained to Jayden.  

Rebecca’s roadmap worked because she stuck to it - she took charge of the plan and believed the plan would work.  She persisted.  She varied very little - as Rebecca executed each step, she built up confidence in her ability as a teacher to help Jayden learn how he needed to act with his classmates, during lessons, outside the classroom, etc.  Rebecca had the confidence to break Jayden’s behavior code so he can develop the necessary tools to interact with others. 

Again, from my administrative perch, I see that Rebecca has changed the dynamic between Jayden and herself.  This is not to say that she can forget about Jayden and that his behavior is perfect - they know he can revert back to his old ways from time to time, but she is not operating out of a mindset toward Jayden that is self defeating - “Jayden’s not going to change” “Jayden needs a new placement”.

We are grateful to Rebbeca for the commitment to Jayden because he has made gains in behavior and achievement - and that is in large part because Rebecca followed a disciplined, focused plan in her daily responses to Jayden. 

In circling back to the benefits of being in a co-taught classroom, it is impressive to hear Nicola represent her concerns with Jayden.  Nicola commented that she was going to take a “wait and see” approach, that is, she was going to wait to hopefully see Rebecca build a stronger rapport with Jayden, and then she would seek to repair her relationship with Jayden.  Nicola was strong enough and wise enough to know that her relationship with Jayden wasn’t firm enough to get him past his struggles, so she leaned on Rebecca to help - sounds like a great use of the co teaching model.


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