The Importance of Stress

Every teacher who works in difficult areas has had the experience of a student losing control of their behaviour for no apparent reason.  The catalyst might be something as simple as raising your voice at a boy who arrives late for class and interrupts the lesson; an all too familiar episode.  The child starts off by answering back and quickly escalates into swearing at the teacher and in some cases violently throwing chairs.  This intensification of dysfunctional behaviours corresponds to an increasing level of stress experienced by the student.  The thing is, the intensity of the outburst is not related to the incident.  This disproportionate reaction to a relatively minor indiscretion by students with a history of abuse and neglect is driven by their damaged fear response, linked to a previously stressful experience.  The understanding of stress is critical for coming to terms with the human condition and understanding this process will clarify our approach to dealing with these damaged children and similar situations in the classroom.

Stress is the fuel for all brain activity and it is the brain that drives behaviour.  It must be recognised that the brain’s only capacity is to initiate movement by engaging muscles to move body parts or activate chemicals to generate changes to our biology; things like the infusion of cortisol or adrenaline.  There is a strong acceptance of what stress is, it is an electro/chemical response to a person’s environment that fuels a bodily response. 

Much has been written about the importance of stress, after all we would not move if it was not there to drive our behaviour.  Moderate, predictable stress prepares us to cope with the general world.  Sports coaches and teachers are familiar with the following diagram.  This illustrates how we need an optimal level of stress to perform at our best.

If our level of arousal is too low we underperform, too high and we get the same result.  For a teacher the trick is to hit the goldilocks-spot, get the arousal just right.  The difficulty is that for thirty students there are thirty different curves.  What will optimise on one student might barely engage another or terrify a third.  It is obvious that for children who have been severely neglected or abused it is their inability to control their level of arousal in the wake of the teacher’s efforts to engage them in the lesson that creates the dysfunctional behaviour.  They are most likely to be on either end of the arousal scale and their learning will be minimal.

Almost exclusively the stress phenomena has been studied when something in the environment threatens survival. This is the ‘flight/fight/freeze response to get the body into a state of readiness to protect itself from harm.  In these cases the body produces chemicals including cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine.  For our work, helping teachers deal with students with severe dysfunctions, this focus on protection is pertinent.  However, understanding the process that initiates stress helps with a better understanding of why we advocate our approach to behaviour management, the manipulation of the classroom environment.

We accept that, like all biological species we are driven to survive and reproduce in the environment in which we inhabit.  We have needs that must be satisfied from our environment to maintain our existence and it is this balance between what we need and its availability that regulates our level of stress.  This balance is referred to as our point of homeostatic equilibrium, that is all our needs are being satisfied.  Of course, we can never remain in this state for long.  Our demands from the environment are constantly being renewed.  Take the example of our need for oxygen, when we breathe in we are satisfied but if you stop breathing you soon fall into a state of disequilibrium and you experience stress at increasing levels.  If conversely, the environment you are in, say underwater and you can’t readily breathe you experience the same stress response.

This life-threatening comparison between our need and the external world is stark.  However, as a species we have learned to control much of our environment most of the time.  Unlike many other species who are born with their behaviour requirements intact, a critical feature of human infants is that they have to learn much of the behaviours required.  It is the early childhood environment and the lessons taught that will significantly influence subsequent levels of stress and driven behaviours.  This comparison between observed conditions takes place in the cerebellum.   The cerebellum is often referred to as ‘the little brain’ because it looks like the whole brain with two hemispheres that sit each side of a central line, located above the brain stem and behind the midbrain.  Although it only occupies 10% of the brain’s volume it contains half the brain’s neurons. 

The schematic model presented below explains how the cerebellum makes this comparison between observed and expected conditions. 

External perceptions come into the cerebellum in a general sense via the thalamus, these are observations of the environment through our senses, touch, smell, sight, etc. These inputs enter via attached climbing fibres that inform the purkinje cells, large neurons with many branching extensions that is found in the cortex of the cerebellum.  Of all the thousands of perceptions there are of the environment we ‘attend’ to those that suggest conditions that represent an opportunity or threat.  How this comparison is made is from previous experiences, as I mentioned above, the brain can only initiate movement however, the brain’s genius is its ability to predict, to predict what will happen when threats or opportunities occur in the environment.  These predictions are founded in our memory, internal schemas of what happened before. 

The process is as follows, through our senses we observe the environment.  When we perceive a threat or opportunity this is referenced back into our memory.  These memories come into the cerebellum via the mossy fibres and on to the granular cells. It is this interaction between the granular cells and purkinje cells that determines the level of stress.  If we have a history of easily dealing with the environment there will be negligible stress.  However, if we have either no memory of a condition or it is a situation that we have never been able to successfully resolve then the stress levels will be elevated.  It is this last set of conditions that sheds light on why early, systematic childhood abuse leads to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  This will be discussed in detail in a later Newsletter but for now it is the creation of the memory that is significant.

It is the cerebellum that identifies the discrepancy but it is the amygdala that initiates the fight/flight/freeze response by the production of the neurochemicals mentioned above.  This response produces feelings ranging from anxiety through to terror.  If a child experiences high levels or prolonged fear their amygdala becomes more ‘efficient’ at recognising potential conditions of which to be fearful.  As mentioned in a previous Newsletter the amygdala of children subjected to abuse and/or neglect is significantly increased in size.

The result is that the neural pathways become so fine-tuned anxiety and fear become the normal conditions and the potential for positive pathways are excluded.  Of all the debilitating consequences of this physical injury the one that most frustrates those trying to work with these children is that they become unable to respond to nurturing and kindness.

Because of the urgency to deal with situations that generate the fear response the initiation of the amygdala impedes the messages from the cerebellum from reaching the hippocampus and the frontal lobes.  Because this cognitive arrangement of our brain is denied access the child is unable to make a more calculated assessment of the potential of maltreatment (the diagram below is a modification of the work of Joseph LeDoux an American neuroscience who specialises in the fear response).  This is why so many of the behaviour management programs employed by schools and mental health professionals fail when the child is stressed, their strategies are cognitively unavailable at that time.

As can be seen in LeDoux’s model when the stimulus comes in and is assessed in the cerebellum it goes to the thalamus, the distribution point for the presenting circumstances.  If it is a high threat it goes to the amygdala, the need for an immediate response is critical.  If, on the other hand conditions are not menacing the incoming message will go both to the amygdala and the hippocampus.  There is a link between these two but this is never effective in the short term.  For example, people who become trained in contact sports such as boxing can be conditioned to suppress the fear response when an opponent is throwing a punch at them.

Although experiences with high emotional content do generate a fear response they also create memories and remembering that the brain is a predictive system we can generate the fear response with our imagination.  If we think some abusive event might happen we become anxious, if we witness something that reminds us of that abusive incident we will re-experience that fear response.  These memories are foundational to anxiety, neurosis and paranoia not to mention PTSD!   

This is the first of a series of Newsletters dealing with stress, its causes and consequences for students.  Our approach to managing students who have been exposed to early childhood trauma is underpinned by this knowledge and why we focus on the control of the classroom environment.

Early Childhood Modelling

In this series of Newsletters we are examining the impact the early childhood environment has on the expression of behaviour in later life.  We do this with an emphasis on those factors that contribute to the development of displayed dysfunctional behaviours.  In the last Newsletter we discussed the impact neglect has on a child’s future disruptive actions.  In this we move on to the second cause of the destructive, dysfunctional conduct that interfere with the teaching and learning in our classrooms – the modelling of behaviour.

Our species has an extraordinary ability to imitate the behaviour of others.  This has allowed us to learn new behaviours just through watching others display particular actions.  This capacity is well known in all areas of teaching and particularly in coaching sport.  Demonstrations enhance the speed in which students or players learn to perform new skills.

What is really significant is that there is a considerable amount of imitation that takes place in the early years of development.  The celebrated child psychologist Jean Piaget observed the ability of infants to mimic the behaviours they observed in their caregivers.  This early work has been extended but not disputed by Andy Meltzoff author of ‘How Babies Think: the Science if Childhood’ (published by Weidenfielf & Nicholson – 1999).  He first observed what is a frequently sighted example of this when he described a new-born baby’s ability to poke out their tongue in response to their caregiver poking out their tongue, a demonstration of how infants were able to imitate behaviour only a few hours after their birth.  This is an example of the actions of mirror neurons!

Mirror neurons were first observed at the University of Parma in 1996 when a group of neuroscientists were busily mapping the neural pathways associated with hand movement in Macaque monkeys. The team of Rizzolatta, Gallese, and Fogassi uncovered what is potentially the most significant neurological component in human behaviour for our understanding of learning.

The discovery was made by accident. The breakthrough came when Fogassi returned to the laboratory and casually picked up a raisin from an experimental bowl. A Macaque monkey, who was still wired to electrodes used in the planned experiment was observing Fogassi and as he lifted his hand, the neural activity being tracked in the monkey’s brain displayed the same neural activity as if the monkey itself was reaching for the raisin, yet the monkey had not moved.

After replicating the experiment several times, the researchers realized that something new and significant had accidentally been uncovered. As a result of the series of papers following this discovery, the active neurons became known as mirror neurons. Subsequent research is progressively validating the significance of motor neurons, and they are shown to be present in most primates. In humans, they are particularly abundant and complicated.

More supporting evidence of the significance of mirror neurons emerged when Gallese and Rizzolatte found that when people listen to sentences describing actions, the same motor neurons fire as would have had the subject performed the action themselves or witnessed it being performed. The cells responded to an abstract representation that described a visual or visceral state.  This infers that watching others as well as listening to them influences the creation and the alteration of memories.

The existence of mirror neurons can explain:

• How we learn through mimicry, this is the heart of this essay.
• How we develop empathy, there is an inverse relationship between the display of dysfunctional behaviours of damaged children, particularly those who attract the diagnosis of Conduct Disorder and Oppositional, Defiant Disorder.
• Acquisition of physical skills, as mentioned above in regards to coaching sport.
• Language – the early effort to speak are manifested in the child’s attempts to reproduce the sound of the language prior to any attempt to communicate content.

We have to keep in mind that our brain’s primary purpose is to allow us to predict what will happen when we are confronted with a threatening or potentially supportive situation in the environment.  In early childhood we are building the store of memories that we will refer to later in life; mirror neurons accommodate this predictive requirement. 

In 2005, Iacoboni described two types of motor neurons: ones that respond to observed actions and ones that fire in response to the perceived purpose of that action. Iacoboni had volunteers watch films of people reaching for various objects in a dinner setting (teapot, cup, jug, plate of pastries, napkins) in different contexts. In every instance a basic set of neurons associated with the reaching for the setting fired, but different additional sets of mirror neurons would also fire depending on what expected action was suggested by the setting. For example, neatly set tables prepared for tea versus a setting that looked as though tea had been finished had disparate results. In the first instance, as the observer expected the person to pick up a teacup to drink, one set of neurons fired. However, if the viewer expected the hand to pick up a cup to clean it, another set fired. The interpreted purpose came from the arrangement of the objects, so consequent responses were different.  It has also been recognised that children acquire this ability to predict outcomes by their observations of their caregiver’s actions; this is another benefit of imitating them. 

Studies have revealed that parent-child interactions have shown that parents instinctively reflect their children’s actions, emotions and facial expressions back to them even before they are not yet able to imitate.  This is a type of reinforcement of a connection between actions and the observed outcomes, if the infant smiles that smile will be reflected back.

From the above observations it becomes obvious that the behaviour of a child that sits in your classroom is a reflection of the home in which they were raised.  A child’s parents is the greatest predictor of success or failure.  This is because they:

• Imitate the behaviour of their parents.  If the parent is forbidding, gloomy, threatening then the child will develop these traits.
• When the child displays the behaviour practiced in the home they will be reinforced.

In a sense a child being raised in these conditions learns to behave in ways that are functional in their early childhood, dysfunctional environment, that is the parent’s behaviour is offending to conventional social norms and when the child adopts these behaviours for other situations, such as in the classroom these behaviours will be dysfunctional!

There is a caveat to this model and that is about children raised by parents whose behaviour is chaotic, extremely unpredictable.  In these environments there is no consistent model to imitate and so there is no template for their behaviour.  This is a common problem for children raised by caregivers who are addicted, especially to mind-altering drugs.  These kids are also most likely to display dysfunctional behaviours but for different but connected reasons.  These impediments to the development of successful students will be discussed in a later Newsletter.

In the words of James Baldwin the American author and activist “children have never been good at listening to their elders but they never fail to imitate them”.

The Early Years and Dysfunctional Behaviour

There is no doubt that early childhood, usually defined as the first three years are critical in the development of a child’s self-perception which in turn drives their behaviour.  These years are important for many reasons not the least because up until age three children would not survive without the support of their caregiver.  Of course, very few, if any get to enjoy a perfect childhood but for the vast majority of our students it is more than adequate. 

The human brain does not burst into existence in a finished state it grows and evolves for at least 27 years but most intensely in early childhood.  The two illustrations below demonstrate this progression.

The first illustration shows the emergence of the functionality of the various areas of the brain shown by the changing deep blue and purple colouring.  You can see the frontal lobe doesn’t fully develop until the late teens and into the twenties.  These ‘blue areas’ also represent the activity of thinking which necessitates the use of memory.

The second diagram illustrates this progression up until they graduate from school.  In each period there are what is referred to as ‘windows of opportunity’ times when the brain is prepared to ‘learn’ new skills by providing an abundant supply of myaline used to reinforce the memories that drive the appropriate perception.  An example that is usually given for this phenomena is the acquisition of sight.  Like all memories it is the pairing of a stimulus with an interpretation of that stimulus that creates a memory.  For sight, the eyes project the various wave lengths of light on to the retina which, through the excitement of nerves called rods and cones sends a signal into the visual cortex of the brain for interpretation.  These interpretations become our memories of objects still and in motion.

However, if the child does not receive this stimulation before about eight months old, they will never properly interpret sight.  This is because for efficiency, once this critical time has past the brain flushes away the unused myaline and more tragically removes the inactive neurons.  This phenomena of memory acquisition is similar for all memories and the danger of inaccurate interpretation or lack of stimulation is at the core of dysfunctional behaviours due to early childhood abuse or neglect.  

In broad terms there are three types of parenting that lead to children having dysfunctional behaviours.  These are:

·         Neglect – the absence of appropriate stimulation for the establishment of memories that define a child’s sense of self which in turn drives behaviour.  The unused neurons are removed from the brain in the quest for efficiency, they can’t be re-established.

·         Poor Modelling – a child learns to behave in ways that are functional in dysfunctional environments, that is the parent’s behaviour is offending to conventional social norms and the child adopts these behaviours.

·         Childhood Abuse – this is often seen as the major cause of dysfunctional behaviour and there is every reason to believe this is true.  The severe levels of stress generated in those times of abuse do real, physical and emotional damage to the child.

Of course, there are other more obscure causes such as one-off traumatic events or illness that can interrupt a child’s ‘normal’ development.  However, too many children get a combination of all three of these destructive ingredients.  A detailed discussion of each will take place in the following Newsletters but in this edition we will examine neglect.

Nothing is straight forward and neglect has a series of impacts on the behavioural development.  Not the least is the impact on the formation of their sense of self resulting from interference with a child’s sense of attachment. As pointed out above, a child needs a caregiver to survive for at least the first three years.  We are hard-wired to form these attachments in early childhood and how this happens will shape the brain.

Children will make an unconscious judgement about the security of that relationship with the caregiver between the seventh and eleventh month.  Security is the key, if the child can rely on the caregiver to always (well nearly always) meet their needs then the child will develop a secure attachment.  The certainty of outcomes allows the child to build a confident, optimistic sense of self, they are confirmed as being important.

In some cases the attention from the parent is inconsistent, sometimes their parents will pay attention other times they will be ignored.  This triggers a fear that they will be abandoned.  This is referred to as anxious attachment and children with this profile are often very needy and become clingy to their parents.

Some parents are not responsive to their child, they are emotionally unavailable.  These parents are dismissive to the needs of the child.  Children raised in this environment learn not to expect a sensitive response to their needs when stressed and so they develop a lack of trust.  This is referred to as avoidant attachment.

The final type is referred to as disorganised attachment because the environment they are raised in is chaotic and unpredictable.  The child craves attention but it steers clear of the parent because they fear what will eventuate.  The secure, predictable home life they crave just doesn’t exist.

The graph above indicates the impact each style of attachment has on a child’s anxiety and how they will avoid relying on adults.  Only children with secure attachment find the creation of relationships with others, especially their teachers, rewarding.  The significance of attachment is important and these descriptions provide only a rudimentary outline of this process.

Early in this work we discussed the windows of opportunity where the brain is primed for new learning but if the required stimulus is not forth-coming the myaline and the neurons are pruned from the brain.  This is particularly important for attachment because, if in the time ‘allocated’ to hard wire the ability to attach securely, the appropriate stimulus was not present it becomes almost impossible to create them later in life.  This has significant implications in forming secure adult relationships.

This pruning will take place for all the required learning in the first three years which is the time a child really develops their sense of self.  The real tragedy is the amount of neural material that can be reformed or removed.  For example:

•      The Amygdala, which is sensitive to fear is increased in size which makes the child very anxious.

•      Hippocampus is reported to have a 12% reduction in size which impacts on their ability to comprehend incoming stimulus and the formation of memories.

•      Prefrontal lobes are 20% smaller and have lesions on the surface.  It is in this area of the brain, often referred to as ‘the executive’ where complex decisions are made.

•      Cerebellum which is the area of the brain that evaluates the potential of danger or opportunity in the environment in relation to needs is reduced in size becoming more inefficient.

•      Reduced efficacy of the corpus callosum, that is the coordination between the brain’s hemispheres is compromised.

It is important to note that neglect is not the only cause of these injuries, extreme levels of stress associated with abuse also significantly contributes to the alterations of the neural landscape.  This situation will be discussed in a later Newsletter and it is frequently the case, abuse and neglect work in tandem for too many of these children.  In any case these injuries result in permanent, intellectual disability. 

An extreme example of the damage to the brain is shown in the now imfamous MRI image of children raised in the hell holes which were the orphanages in Romania under the reign of Nicolae Ceausescu.  Too many children were condemned to lie in their cots without ever being attended to beyond their basic needs.

It can be seen just how much damage has occurred and follow-up studies has shown that this disability continues.  The difference is, the younger the child was when adopted the better chance they had of partially overcoming this permanent damage.

This neglect is not always deliberate as was the Romanian experience.  Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz, in their extraordinary book ‘The Boy who Thought He was a Dog’ (Publish by Basic Books – 2006) describes the child of an intellectually delayed mother who could not cope with the demands of a new born baby would leave it alone in its cot all day while she travelled around the city.  This child lacked any ability to connect with others and became a sociopath, if not a psychopath.  Perry describes the factors that created what became a vicious killer and how this young teen could not comprehend why everyone was upset.  I highly recommend this and any other work done by Bruce Perry, he is a leader in this field.

 These are extreme examples but the damage is on a sliding scale and teachers should be aware that some of the students who you find difficult to engage with are that way because of what happened to them when they were babies.  Its not their fault and it is our responsibility to help them overcome their cognitive injuries.

In our review of the previous Newsletters we have tried to underline how the development of a child with severe behaviours is linked to the environment in which they were raised.  Understanding the cause of their dysfunctional behaviour will inform the approach we take to help teachers manage and in some cases modify that behaviour.  It is important to note that our model does not apply to those children who have genetic disabilities or psychotic illness, as the cause of their behaviour is not developmental.  However, it is my experience that the adoption of the interventions we advocate when dealing with these children will be an effective non-medical intervention.  All our interventions rely on the provision of an environment that is predictable, consistent and persistent and that provides an environment of safety for both the teacher and student.

Our work is underpinned by two fundamental beliefs:

1. Our brain exists to support our life by directing our physical actions in response to threats or opportunities in our environment
2. The choice of that action depends on our memory of what worked before to best satisfy our needs

When you consider the demands on our body to continually support life and the complexity of the brain, these factors seem inadequate.  However, these underlying principles drive a really complex narrative which will be the theme of these latest Newsletters.

In the last Newsletter we examined the brain and how any conditions in the environment could activate activity to drive behaviour.  In this essay we examine the formation of our sense of self that defines our identity and our temperament, this is our consciousness and how we behave in any given situation this will be based on the nature of our ‘self’. 

Just how much of our self is determined by our genetics or how we are fostered is the age-old question, is it nature or nurture.  There is no doubt our genes do play a part in our character, things like temperament but it is generally accepted that the quality of our family of origin is the main predictor of our personality.  In any case, we have little chance to alter our genetic profile (excluding the phenomena of epigenetics) so we need to concentrate on how the quality of their nurturing impacts their future behaviour.  So, the ‘sense of self’ is developed in an environment and the characteristics of that environment will play a significant role in the manner in which each individual behaves when they are confronted with similar environmental features.

Those students with dysfunctional behaviours have evolved their responses to various circumstances as a result of the ‘lessons’ they received from their family of origin.  This is why mental illnesses such as Conduct Disorder and Oppositional Defiance Disorders are considered developmental, these are learned.  The following describes the process of constructing our sense of self!

The schematic shown below illustrates the process by which memories of behaviours, the basis of our sense of self is acquired.  This occurs in stages:

1. In the first instance we find our self, our sense of self in a situation.  If that situation does not threaten our sense of equilibrium then nothing happens.  However, if the conditions in the environment impacts on our equilibrium than we have to act to alleviate the stress that is a consequence of this imbalance.
2. We have to decide what to do and this will require us to reflect on our memories to decide what we consider the optimal action we should take.  These memories are of previous events that have the same or similar threats or promises.  This process happens instantaneously condemning these children to those behaviours learned in a dysfunctional home.
3. When we act there will be a consequence.  The consequence might be that the actions solved the imbalance and we return to equilibrium.  This outcome is fed back into our memory and the behaviour is reinforced.  If the action does not deal with the problem and the discomfort remains, that outcome is also fed back into our memories and sense of uncertainty changes our memories.  We will try a different action until the situation is resolved or we moved on without a resolution.
4. Every time this sequence is executed our sense of self is changed and we return to the problem in the environment differently.

You will notice that there are two types of memories on the schematic; emotional and cognitive.  There is a significant difference between these which will be addressed later when we examine consciousness in more detail.

Memories begin simply, young children first learn rudimentary behaviours.  When they are hungry they need mum to feed them so they learn to cry and (hopefully) when she does a lesson is learned.  This link between crying and getting fed becomes a fundamental memory which will modify as the child learns more sophisticated behaviours.  The initial memory is not forgotten but becomes much more complex.  There is an attachment that coincides with the provision of those things we need, those who support us through these years when we can’t fend for ourselves.  For now, we will concentrate on the acquisition of behaviours but it is in these early years children form attachments to caregivers and the security of those attachments will be discussed in a later Newsletter.   

These complex memories form a series of schemas across our brain and each will display many of the characteristics of a fractal as seen below.  Unlike a fractal they are not an identical repeat of the first pattern but each a slight modification of that first memory.

Within each schema of behaviours associated with the primary memory there will be a leading behavioural candidate for any situation that threatens our equilibrium.  This preferred behaviour will have achieved dominance because it has been used successfully the most times.  This reflects one of the principles of behaviour development, ‘neurons that fire together wire together’.  This is not to exclude change.  Remember, if the behaviour doesn’t address the disequilibrium then you try different things and your memories change.  Nothing is stable!

Life is extremely complex and there are many schemas across the brain in the form of hubs.  Recent research has identified 180 separate hubs, specialist fractals of memory and each is connected via axonal pathways.  The ability to consider solutions from more than one schema but sampling from other hubs we can create alternate solutions or even unique ones.  This blending of memories becomes most effective when our prefrontal lobes mature.  This is where our working memory is co-ordinated and that ‘co-ordination’ is the analysis of our connectome!

This ability to combine multiple clues associated with the incoming stimulus from the external world, allows us to combine multidimensional stimulus into a single perception.  We then assess the potential effectiveness of any behaviour that we might choose to address that external environment.  This connection, our connectome holds all our memories, it is our ‘self’.

From the information above it is obvious that the greatest predictor of a child’s success is the family characteristics in which they are raised.  Of course, the child had no choice about where and to whom they were born and this makes a mockery of concepts like meritocracy.  And, it must be remembered the concept of guilt becomes much more complicated.  What we do know is that those children we focus on come to school with dysfunctional behaviours that they have acquired and it is our task to help them develop alternate ways of behaving, for their sake and the sake of their classmates.  Their history does not have to be their destiny and we have the privilege of supporting that change!

Time For Revision

Welcome back to our Newsletters for 2022.  It has been a long journey from our first offering in March of 2017 up until the end of last year, December 2021.  In that time we have published 186 free editions.  A lot has changed over these years, some dramatic and sequential such as the impact of COVID and others gradual and progressive like the emergence of the punitive demand for accountability.  The first exacerbation, the pandemic is a problem shared across the community including the unfair increase in teachers’ workload that is a burden placed on a single part of our community; the teachers.  So, we go into a new year with teachers being subjected to even more pressure without any significant increase in assistance.

One major demand on teachers that was there before the pandemic and has been there since the beginning of organised education is the management of classroom behaviour.  Helping teachers address this issue has underpinned all of our work and it will continue to be that way.  I believe it is time we reflected on the work we have done, revisit crucial issues and create, if you like a second edition of many of the significant subjects integrating new material.  In this essay we will examine the benefits of having a calm and safe classroom.

The brain is at the heart of all behaviour, if not the brain than what?  Our approach accepts the thesis proposed by Richard Dawkins in his seminal work the Selfish Gene and that is our fundamental drive in life is to survive and reproduce. To survive requires an optimal set of environmental conditions that support life.  These conditions allow us to maintain our body in a steady state of internal biological, physical, social and intellectual equilibrium a condition referred to as homeostasis.  When the perceived conditions of the external environment will not satisfy our needs we are in a state of disequilibrium.  When we are in this state our cognitive energy focuses on behaving in a way to return to equilibrium. 

We have what is referred to as a triune brain, that is three levels that have developed sequentially over time.  The first is the brain stem and mid brain, often referred to as the reptilian brain.  This is the area that deals with our biological and physical demands.  Things like heart-beat, blood pressure, balance and other body motions (see illustration below).

The next level to emerge is the limbic system; that area of the brain that attends to our social needs and consequentially our emotional status.  The development of this area of our brain occurred when, as a species we appreciated the advantage working in groups provided for each individual.  Much of our work will focus on this social brain but for this particular paper we will explain the impediment for learning outcomes that result from the limbic system being in a state of disequilibrium or homeostatic disequilibrium.

The last stage of our cognitive development occurred when we realised the advantage that could be experienced when we used tools.  This was the start of the development of our intellectual brain or our cerebral cortex including the important prefrontal lobes.  How far we have come as a species is reflected in the types of tools we use today.  We have come from using early stone tools to things like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is the world's largest energy particle collider that measures minute sun-atomic particles.  The fact we have evolved to this level is a tribute to the advances in our thinking and we owe all of this to our ability to educate the next generation. 

The development of this area of the brain has been so significant the additional neural material required increased the volume of the brain to such an extent it no longer fitted in our skull.  This accounts for the cerebral cortex being folded, providing a greater surface area in the confined volume of our head.

It is this part of the brain we are interested in as teachers however, we can only optimise our access to this if the other areas are in homeostasis.  We use all our brain all the time, for instance we require oxygen to breathe and about every 30 seconds or so we need to refresh the supply of air to our lungs.  This requires cognitive energy albeit at the unconscious level.  The thing is that if we want to maximise our access to the student’s intellectual brain we need to minimise the demands from our physical/biological and social brain.  The sum total of all our cognitive energy can be described as a percentage, the more of that percentage is accessible to our cerebral cortex the more efficient our learning will be.  The illustration below explains this circumstance.

It can be seen that only when the physical, biological and social needs are not too demanding then we have a greater access to that part of the brain needed for academic learning.  We have evolved to pay attention to intellectual problems when we feel safe.

There is plenty of evidence that dysfunctional behaviours in the classroom is the greatest impediment to learning.  John Hattie identifies their presence and the environment in the classroom as two of the top three impediments to learning.  There is an obvious close relationship between classroom environment and the presence of these students and combined they would constitute the leading cause of student failure in our system.  This is a condition where the social demands rob the intellectual potential.  We all understand how that disruptive student commands the attention of the teacher and the other students.

In any case, collectively or alone these factors have been identified as more significant than the quality of the teacher yet the focus on learning improvement is completely focused on the latter element.  If you take the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers as an indicator of how the Department accepts these findings, a superficial look at these might suggest that there is a recognition that the child’s physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students are considered.  For example, in Professional Knowledge the Requirements - the following guiding principles are given beginning with the basic level:

• Standard 1.1 ‘Know Students and How They Learn’ you get:

• Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students and how these may affect learning.

But if you examine the Professional Engagement, the top level of knowledge required you get:

• 6.1 Identify and plan professional learning needs:
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the role of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers in identifying professional learning needs
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the role of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers in identifying professional learning needs

• 7.1 Meet professional ethics and responsibilities:
  • Understand and apply the key principles described in codes of ethics and conduct for the teaching profession.

No where is the issue of managing severely disrupted students even acknowledged as a ‘professional requirement’.  Any beginning teacher and most of their experienced colleagues will cite the issue of behaviour management as one of the major impediments to the maximisation of their teaching and their student’s learning. 

I hope this Newsletter sets the scene for upcoming papers that focus on approaches that will allow students to learn in a calm and secure environment.

Note:  These Newsletters are free and if you find them useful please invite your colleagues to join our mailing list.  Just go to Frew Consultants Group and click the appropriate box to be added to our mailing list.

The Continued Abuse of NSW Public Schools

The just released ‘Advice for Parents’ regarding protocols to deal with the return to school of students, is another example of the incredible incompetence that has devastated public education in NSW.  This release, like most decisions coming from both the Federal and State governments falsely promises the very best possible outcome by assuming a tough stance.  These current directions that have been released are so full of holes they do nothing to address the situation.

Take for example the real shortage of teachers.  Prior to the anticipated teacher absentees due to COVID protocols, a significant number of teacher shortages already existed.  These numbers will inevitably be compounded in a workforce that is already dealing with 3,000 vacancies.  These vacancies are not equally distributed across the state but strongly reflect the socio-economic profile of the schools.  Research by the teachers’ union revealed about a 20% shortage due to teachers leaving the system in droves.  Between 40% to 50% of teachers leave in the first five years because of the ridiculous workload and pitiful pay rates compared to equivalent jobs in the private sector. 

To add to this workload schools will have to take on the additional task of distributing six million RAT tests to all families who will be responsible to conduct two tests per student per week.  The parents are to pick these test kits up from the school.  Anyone who has worked in a school, especially those in difficult areas understands how this simple direction is laughable.  Just trying to get a 100% response from any school instruction regardless of its value is impossible.  So, what do schools do when parents refuse to cooperate?  Nothing, it is not mandatory.  The kids don’t have to be tested before they go back and there are no penalties for non-compliance.  How are the schools expected to provide a safe environment?

As Angelo Gavrielatos of the Teachers Federation points out, no other industry would be allowed to subject their workers to settings where there are up to 2,000 personnel at one site, groups of up to 30 people confined to poorly ventilated rooms and no prior evidence required that everyone on site has tested negative to a COVID check.

The Premier and the current Minister for Education, Sarah Mitchell feel confident that these guidelines will suffice and as for the teacher shortage they are appealing to attract teachers through the ‘joy of teaching’ while they desperately try to entice staff from overseas.  This is a familiar hopeless idea shared by other portfolios to address other shortages resulting from the plummeting appeal living in Australia has experienced under our Federal Government.  Previously the US has been a source of teaching staff but Australia now has a ‘do not travel to Australia - Level 4’ warning to US citizens placed on it by the US Government.  Another smart idea is to attract retired teachers back into the classroom.  For many of these old teachers, the ‘over my dead body’ sentiment is a bit too prophetic.  And, in a last-ditch effort, student teachers will be co-opted into school to cover the vacancies. Does this mean these untrained teachers will be subjected to the outrageous demands that currently exist for first-year-out teachers? 

School goes back next week to conditions that can only be seen as abusive.  We have seen the ‘let it rip’ approach to the pandemic take the lives of too many for the sake of the economy.  Now this ‘let’s pretend it will be okay’ attitude by the government may well have the same deadly outcomes for teachers and students. 

Beware of Despair

Working in the highly stressful conditions of a modern school have been the subject of many of our Newsletters however in recent times I have seen a worrying shift from the high levels of stress working in such a demanding environment to the emergence of a culture of despair amongst teachers and principals.  Despair differs from anxiety or worry in that it represents a complete loss of hope that things will recover. 

This feeling that things are profoundly wrong is reinforced by the evidence that public schools have been abandoned by our governments both state and federal who continue to differentiate the provision of resources and the work/time demands on employees in the public sector in comparison to the private system.  It is as if our employer has abandoned any effort to deal fairly with the issues facing our public schools.

In a renowned speech made by John Ralston Saul in Canada, a jurisdiction much like our own he draws attention to the strength of a democracy being reliant on the strength of its public-school system.  The systems built on privilege, like our own where wealthy schools for kids from rich families are based on a philosophy of institutionalised selfishness.  In Australia this selfishness is supported by the governments who, unlike other countries provide significant funding of tax-payers’ money rather than have these individual schools being completely self-funded!  It is an example of social engineering by the elite class and supported by the government to reinforce privilege; a situation that has historically ended badly!

The perennial inequity has grown from its origin in 1964 when the then Prime Minister Robert Menzies did a deal with the Labor Party’s break-a-way group the Democratic Labour Party to fund catholic schools in return for their support to form a government.  Because of the poor state of the existing ‘parish’ catholic schools this was hard for following governments to reverse this support.  However, from the late 60’s and beyond, neo-liberal philosophies permeated throughout the western world and Ministries of Education of all persuasions supported non-government schools.  The inevitable partition between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ happened when the principles of market-based competition and consumer choice was introduced into the school systems.

The funding for public schools per student is now at a scale that see public school teachers being asked to compete against private teachers while facing a huge disadvantage.  For example, funding per student in Victoria is 80% higher ($11,528 per student per year) in the private sector than in public while in NSW it is 60% higher.  Comparisons between results in tests such as NAPLAN or Matriculation show no evidence that there are educational values for the increased expenditure.  However, teachers in the public system have to work in such disadvantaged condition it’s no wonder they despair!

As we close in on the end of the 2021 school year and look ahead to 2022 one acute issue that will fill the teaching staff with a sense of dejection is the serious staffing shortage they are facing.  In NSW, the current circumstances are:

• 3,000 school teaching vacancies
• 95% of teachers say that teacher shortage is a significant issue
• 93% of schools struggle to recruit casuals to fill vacancies
• 51% of permanent teaching positions are not filled
• 60% of those teachers employed are teaching outside their area of expertise
• Students in Broken Hill are going into 2022’s HSC without having teachers qualified to teach their subject
• More than half of the classroom teachers surveyed would not recommend teaching as a career to family members or friends.
• 85% of respondents said they did not think that the Education Directorate was sufficiently resourced to meet the demands put upon schools

And, if you want any more evidence that teachers are living in despair, 58% of teachers are considering leaving work due to the workload.

The move to privatisation since the 1970’s has been supported by the adoption of a neoliberal approach to management which encourages the use of market forces reflected in the increasing support for choice.  Parents have been encouraged to make a choice for their own children and governments have set-up so-called contrivances to base that choice on.  These are things like the NAPLAN test and the My School website where comparisons could be made.  However, any close examination of this site could only conclude that sending a child to a private school will make no difference in their learning outcomes yet the drift continues to grow.

These changes have been ‘legitimised’ by a tidal wave of specialists who reinforce this reliance on the market-based approach to management.  These consultants have concluded that the inclusive systems that prevailed before are no longer viable if we want to move to a competitive system.  This movement away from the professional educators that existed in the public service has not been cheap with over $9.3 million being spent on just four companies, KPMG International Limited, Deloittes, Ernst and Young and Price, Waterhouse and Coopers.  Their advice is based on the modern management model and pays only marginal lip-service to any educational expertise.  The corporate knowledge of those who have served public schools is at most downgraded and the call to ‘get rid of the lifers’, that is remove those with years of experience, echoes throughout the education bureaucracy.

We end 2021 with this inescapable feeling of depression and despondency.  There is no real expression coming from any government that would give teachers any hope things will get better.  The current Minister for Education Sarah Mitchell, when asked about the teacher’s union’s concerns about staff shortage claimed "The current NSW Teachers Federation campaign is misleading and simply untrue”.  She went on to accuse the Teachers Federation of ‘peddling misinformation’.  There is an all-too familiar reliance on denying the facts!

I have called this essay ‘Beware of Despondency’ because I understand that the feelings teachers have always enjoyed at this time of year, watching the students move on in their education or finally graduate on to a productive adult life have become much more difficult to recognise.  This is particularly so in public schools who have been purposefully and systematically weakened and for what purpose.

I think it was Carl Jung who, when discussing the importance of motivation in behaviour said if the motivation is not clear then look at the outcome and infer back to the motivation.  The outcome for public education is that it has become an under-funded, resource poor, residualised system where we have a class-based structure.  This is a betrayal of the principles of democracy.  Strong public schools are at the heart of all flourishing democratic societies and so I must conclude the motivation of our current system imposed by our elected government is to return to a class-based, ‘me first’ political system.  I for one, see the inherent dangers in this with the emergence of class dictatorship.

This outcome will only be avoided by the actions of our teachers in our public schools and so I would urge those of you who are feeling that legitimate despair to turn that despair into energy to resist this unfair and dangerous situation!

An Ignored but Vital Workload

Tomorrow teachers in NSW will take industrial action airing many grievances but critically the unreasonable workload imposed by an ill-informed Government and bureaucracy. However, one aspect of this workload that is critical for all students and teachers is the management of disruptive behaviours.  Not only is the amount of work generated significant, but it is also disproportionately distributed across the socio-economic division, concentrated in public schools and geographically diverged.

The evidence for the unsustained workload is verified in the ‘Understanding Work in Schools 2018 Report’ carried out by the NSW Teachers Federation.  This concluded that full-time employed classroom and special teachers work an average of 55 hours per week, made up of more than 43 hours in school and 11 hours per week at home.  This result is supported with research from the University of Sydney which confirmed teachers in New South Wales were working an average of 54 hours a week and principals 62 hours.

Tactics designed to reduce the workload focuses on the reduction of administrative work and unrealistic demands on accreditation however these strategies, along with a succession of ‘improvement’ plans fails to address what continues to be the elephant in any classroom and that is the effect dysfunctional students have on children’s learning.

There is ample evidence that students with extreme behaviours have a very significant influence in learning outcomes.  John Hattie has identified the presence of dysfunctional students and the environment in the classroom accounts for two of the top three impediments to learning.  There is an obvious close relationship between classroom environment and the presence of these students and combined they would constitute the leading cause of student failure in our system.   In any case, collectively or alone these factors have been identified as more significant than the quality of the teacher, yet the focus on learning improvement is completely focused on the latter element.  In personal communication with Professor Hattie, the question was asked why he dropped these findings from subsequent reports and he advised that the result of his work was being used to exclude these children. 

In no way am I advocating the removal of these students from the classroom but I am promoting the removal of these behaviours.  As with all our work the maxim ‘100% acceptance of the child with 100% rejection of the distractive behaviour’.

The work I present below was carried out about 2015 and will use the most available data of that time.  I see no evidence that things have improved since that time and would suspect the drift to the private sector would have exacerbated the problem.  The data used comes from Long Term Suspension rates up to the Year 2011.

As there was no available known records of the individual incidents nor data refined to individual schools I was compelled us to use Long Term Suspension (LTS) numbers as a means of inferring the whereabouts of these students and their numbers.  The table below shows the growth of LTS in NSW Public Schools per 100 students.

The graphical representation below clearly reveals the consistent growth of these proportions.  The rate has more than tripled since 1998.

This statewide representation does not show the variability across the state at the Regional or District level.  The next table shows the rate for each Region in 2011 numbers and the range for Districts within each Region.

The Average per Region along with the Range between Districts within each Region

To establish a reliable quantitative measuring tool that would calculate the hours required to address the student welfare demands for different schools, principals were surveyed to estimate the hours taken to deal with a suspension and the percentage of time dealing with suspensions relative to other welfare issues. 

From the results an index was calculated using the relationship between long, and short-term suspensions for my school, Holsworthy High based on the following computation:

• To deal with the average suspension takes 3.2 hours (results from survey)
• For 115 (the total number for Holsworthy High of suspensions) this equates to 368 hours per year.
• Work on suspensions is only 14% of the total time spent on behaviour management by senior executive of a school (results from survey) the hours become 2,628 for the year or 65.7 per week for a forty-week school year.
• If this is divided equally between the three senior executives, each spends 21.9 hours each week dealing with behaviour issues. 
• If this work were applied to one deputy and principal the time would become 32.9 hours each.
• Students spend only 30 hours each week at school (discounting after school detention) all three are spending over half our pupil time dealing with behaviour management issues. For two senior executives this becomes all of their time.

The figures cited above reflect the impact on actual educational practices at the senior executive level at Holsworthy High.  Of course, these figures represent what would be the optimal allocation of resources and this would be impossible considering the multitude of other demands on the time of the senior executive.  As a result the issue is never properly addressed.   

It would be fair to assume that a proportionate amount of time would be taken away from other educational tasks for all teachers and this is also not feasible.

The results above show the average across the state but as mentioned the workload is not equally distributed across the state and the table below shows the average rate for each Region and the hours of work, based on the index found by considering the number of LTS for the year and the subsequent derived number of hours for discipline and welfare we arrive at an index of 22.8.  If you apply this to the number of LTS at a school you will calculate the hours per week spent on student welfare and discipline.  The table below provides these hours for the highest and lowest time demands, reflecting the highest and lowest numbers reported above for the districts within each Region

From these observations it is seen that one District in Western Region would require 132.2 hours per week just to deal with student welfare issues.  This equates to more than three executive doing a 40-hour week just addressing this problem.  Contrast this to 6.84 hours of work demands for one senior executive in one district in North Sydney.  The implications for the attention that can be focused on other mandated duties are obvious.

The distribution of the problem is not homogeneous but the support services offered such as counselling services are broadly based on enrolment numbers not need. 

These results were provided directly to the Minister at the time and to other professional bodies with no response and no change to the approach to dealing with dysfunctional behaviours.

The presence of children with severe behaviours has always been a major impediment to the learning outcomes of our children and the issues to be highlighted will continue this lack of acknowledgement.  I despair as I see the continued drift or should I say torrent away from public schools as the parents’ solution to the problem.  This is exacerbated with the current political appetite to disregard the lowest levels of our society and finance those from the privileged strata.

Supporting a Sense of Self

Throughout all writings about success there always a link to the concept of a robust sense of ‘self’.  This is described in terms like positive self-esteem or self-confidence and there is no doubt that how we feel about our selves really does impact on our performance.  The same relationship holds for our students; if they feel confident they approach their lessons with a positive attitude.  But, what about those students in our classes who suffer low levels of self-esteem, those who have suffered abuse or neglect or those who come into the system with undiagnosed disabilities.  These kids are already at a disadvantage even before they start the lesson!

The emergence of our sense of self occurs in our childhood.  In the first three years there is a massive period of learning through trial and error and, because our cognitive memories do not take shape until the hippocampus becomes active all these memories are emotional.  This explains the degree our sense of self is based on emotions.

At about the time a child reaches the age of eight their sense of self is reasonably stable.  At this time, we ‘know’ who we are and that ‘who’ is the aggregation of the emotional and cognitive memories.  But, as stated earlier this sense is highly skewed to the emotional memories.  It is my understanding that this emotional dominance of our sense of self is the reason cognitive interventions are limited in their success when dealing with those children who have suffered early childhood abuse.

Many, or most of these damaged kids suffer from Toxic Shame, that is they don’t make mistakes, they are mistakes (see Newsletters Toxic Shame – 3^rd July 2017 and Faulty Beliefs – 6^th November 2019).  The challenge for the teacher is to counter this negative mindset by producing a classroom atmosphere where the lesson is no threat to their sense of ‘self’, eliminating the negative impact of their faulty beliefs!  By consistently presenting an environment that esteems the student their attitude will change but this is not a quick nor easy solution.  Remember, these beliefs have been formed over many years, it may take the same number of years to change them but it is the only a teacher can make this happen.  

For children who have suffered abuse or neglect, the consequence they received for their actions produce levels of fear and anxiety no matter what they tried to do to get their needs met.  Eventually they will either accept their inability to succeed, cease trying and disengage from their world.  This feeling of worthlessness and incompetence underpins that toxic shame.  

All beliefs are just memories that are formed in response to our needs and the environment in which we find ourselves.  The illustration below crudely explains how this process functions.

The student comes into class from home with a certain attitude, they might be feeling great after a big breakfast and positive encouragement from mum or they might be hungry leaving home early so they didn’t get hit by their angry father who was abusing their mum; this is their ‘antecedent condition’ or their contemporary ‘sense of self’.  The situation is the classroom and the lesson and this is where the teacher has some control.  The decision on whether or not to participate depends on how they feel about being in class, do they feel secure and accepted and how the teacher frames the lesson, is it interesting, do they think they can do it!

From then on, the process is much more difficult to influence, the action they choose and how they perform that action.  How the teacher reacts to their effort impacts on the consequence of their actions and that feeds back into their memory, back into their belief system.  Knowing how this process works and using all the teaching skills, this is where you can change their sense of ‘self’!

We need to create an environment around building, or re-building their sense of ‘self’ in stages.  The first stage is to get a predictable connection between the child’s actions and the consequences.  The more we can make this a successful and importantly a pleasurable experience, that ‘experience’ will feedback into the emotional and cognitive memory bank, their sense of self, the second stage!  This takes some creative manipulation of the curriculum and lesson delivery.

There will obviously be times when their actions will be inappropriate and they should get a predictable, negative consequence.  It is at these times the feedback is delivered in a way that addresses the behaviour but respects the child.  If this approach is adopted eventually the child will understand that ‘they made a mistake’ but they re NOT a mistake!

As always, the skills the teacher needs to have, other than their pedagogical knowledge is to be able to:

• Have a structured and persistent discipline and welfare policy
• Set understandable expectations for the behaviour and class work
• Develop strong professional relationships with their students

The following Newsletters have detailed descriptions of these features:

• Creating Structure - 12^th August 2019
• Structure - 15^th June 2020
• Be Persistently Consistent - 26^th October 2020
• Expectations - 17^th February 2020
• Relationships – They Know What You’re Thinking - 25 June 2018
• Special Relationships - 10^th February 2020

The road to recovery is cyclic, as the student experiences success their memories will be changed, their sense of self will change and the student will attempt to take on situations they denied themselves previously.  They will say yes to opportunities and more notably they will say no to those who try to deny them what they need.

Creating Policy for Student Wellbeing – Behaviour Management

For as long as there have been classrooms one of the significant problems teachers have faced has been the management of students’ disruptive behaviours.  Throughout my over 40 years working in NSW Public schools, I have seen a procession of interventions that range from physical punishment to making everyone feel good about themselves!  Since the mid-eighties there have been a succession of commercial programs trying to cash in on the problem filling the void left by education bureaucrats and academics.  The Education Department has never taken a real interest in this problem leaving it in the ‘too hard’ basket with not much more than platitudes and unrealistic suspension policies.    

The latest proposed ‘student welfare policy’ does little more than making schools more responsible to solve the problem without any effective non-commercial training and support.  It is time teachers were provided with an accessible, substantiated and effective approach to behaviour management that is part of their training.  Instead they rely on those commercial programs that are expensive both on school revenue and teacher’s time!

The history of ‘off-the-shelf’ programs includes the classics like Reality Therapy which morphed into Choice Theory, Assertive Discipline, Restorative Justice, Social-Emotional Learning, Positive Psychology in the form of PBIS and PBL4 and the latest silver bullet Trauma Informed Practice.  All have provided useful approaches, the problem is, because they are the property of a private enterprise they need to limit their tactics to make their programs unique.  Generally, they insist on in-house training, provide workbooks, recording scaffolds and incident records which increase the workload of the teacher and the school.  Of course, training, recording are important but can be done much more efficiently than is required and schools already have the facilities to do this.

I would like to comment on the current front-runners in the choice most schools are acquiring those based on Positive Psychology and more recently Trauma Informed Practice.

Positive Psychology came from attempts to aggregate and rationalise the factors of studies identified as leading to a life of satisfaction.  Using empirical data Positive Psychology studied how our activities impacted on our lives at all levels, physical, psycho/social or intellectual.  The common conclusion in the field is that to experience the ‘good life’ you must be engaged in meaningful activities.  This research underpinned the programs developed from that data.  In the current form, that was purchased by the department this approach produces a considerable amount of unnecessary administrative work.  I personally have a few of issues, these being:

• Although the focus on feeling positive is attractive it is not a real reflection of human nature.  There are many times it is appropriate to feel sad, it is part of a grieving process but more importantly it is fitting that everyone should feel a sense of shame when they ‘do the wrong thing’.  This is what I refer to as healthy shame as opposed to toxic shame (see Newsletter 14 – Toxic Shame – 18 August 2020).
• Children who suffer from early childhood trauma and neglect require a good deal of healing before the principles of positive psychology even make sense and in their literature they acknowledge this approach is not effective for extremely disturbed children.
• Any success relies on full school training and commitment and even if you achieve this at the end of every year there will be a change in staff and this requires additional commitment including the full training of the new teachers.

The positive psychology approach has been practiced in schools for a significant amount of time and I would argue that unlike the impact on workload, any influence on the general behaviour of students has not been significant.

The trauma informed approach does attempt to address the problems children with early childhood repeated abuse and neglect bring to the classroom.  A prominent program is the Berry Street Education Model and like all other models it provides a commercial package which requires teachers to complete their program.

A problem with dealing with these children with recurring early childhood abuse and neglect, the basis of complex trauma is that any attempt at a therapeutic approach by non-qualified mental health professionals is extremely dangerous and could exacerbate their emotional status.  I understand this approach has gained attention since my retirement I have only a superficial understanding of the course content and this appears to be well considered.  Of course, those who follow these Newsletters and understand my line of attack there seems to be a great congruence between both approaches.

The strategies of their approach are:

• Expect unexpected responses
• Employ thoughtful interactions
• Be specific about relationship building
• Promote predictability and consistency
• Teach strategies to "change the channel"
• Give supportive feedback to reduce negative thinking
• Create islands of competence

My concern is that there needs to be a strong focus on the boundary limits between the lived history of the student and the presenting environment in order to avoid activating past experiences.  Teachers need to be very sure of where their professional responsibility ends and the work of qualified mental health practitioners begins.  In my experience it is too easy and tempting for teachers with the noblest intentions to feel ‘qualified’ to cross that line.

Successful teachers have always been Bower Birds when it comes to their work.  They collect resources from where ever they can to supplement their lessons.  They should be the same about behaviour management, all the programs have something very valuable to add to any teacher’s repertoire when dealing with a disruptive child.  However, all the effectual advice should be free and offered in a straightforward manner. 

This has been the purpose of our Group.  Our three books and the over 180 free Newsletters present advice to help teachers particularly those dealing with very difficult students.  The outline of our work is caught in our description of a complete learning environment as shown below.  All the parts of the model are important but the most important is the relationships between the student, the teachers, the school and the community.

Our group has never charged for Newsletters and the resources we make available and nor should they be so.  Successfully dealing with kids with dysfunctional behaviour is an on-going challenge and being locked into a prescribed program fails to accommodate new approaches.