Developing Self-Regulation

This week's article summary is 19 Ways to Help Students Self-Regulate.

A number of years ago I listened to an education report on NPR that stated that the three most critical indicators of children’s future success are their IQ, their parents’ socio-economic level, and their self-control. The report further stated that for the most part self-control is the only factor that’s changeable.

Think about that!

As we’re growing up, our IQ and parents’ income are pretty much set. Depending on the luck of the draw, we might have a higher or lower IQ and grow up in wealthier or poorer families.

So, for many of us, our greatest chance for future success is to develop strong self-control.

As elementary school teachers, we are charged with developing in our students foundational habits, attitudes, and skills, including executive function skills like self-control and self-regulation.

Self-regulation helps us in many ways.

It helps us form and sustain interpersonal relationships. It helps us be fair, take turns, listen to others.

It helps us focus and attend to our jobs and responsibilities. It helps us defer gratification.

It’s a crucial skill, and, most importantly, it can be developed in all of us.

But its development take time and effort: we all needed to be taught to control our selfish, impetuous instincts. We needed role models (adults and peers). We needed time to practice and develop our self-control. And we needed constant reminders and reinforcement.

The examples below are some ways to help kids learn about the importance of self-control and scaffolding for those who need extra support.

Ultimately, self-control is about learning to be aware and in control of our emotions, including anger and frustration, not being ruled by them.

We teach kids who have varying levels of IQ and different family backgrounds, yet our goal for all our students is to develop strong self-control and self-regulation.

Joe

------

School is all about giving students the skills they need to succeed. That certainly applies to reading, writing, and math, but equally important is self-regulation. 

Thinking about behavior objectively—as a skill to be taught rather than simply as good or bad—is immensely helpful in a teacher’s ability to guide children in learning to control their behavior.

There are a variety of proactive steps that can help keep students composed. Regularly checking in with kids—and building relationships with them—can increase their sense of safety in the classroom and give them an opportunity to share how they’re feeling. Plus, sticking to routines and simplifying your classroom expectations can decrease the risk of outbursts born from frustration or confusion.

But even with these proactive practices in place, young students with still-developing brains can struggle to control their own reactions. Here are some teacher-tested strategies that can help endow elementary students with the essential, lifelong skill of self-regulation.

Develop emotional vocabulary: To understand and discuss their emotions, kids need a wider emotional vocabulary.  Ask students to perform “feeling brainstorms,” in which they’re tasked to “think of 20 types of happy or sad.” As they generate more words and share them among each other, it’s more likely that they’ll begin to use more precise words to describe their own emotions in the future—like “anxious,” “excited,” or “satisfied.” Once students have a healthy emotional vocabulary, tools like mood meters, emotion wheels, and mood scales can help them track how their emotions change day-to-day.

Chat it out with a stuffed animal: If students are feeling stressed, they may need to talk through their feelings—but it’s not always necessary that a human be the one listening. When students are given stuffed animals to care for and chat with teachers often notice a calm in many students that they had not seen before.

Create a peace corner: A number of classrooms have a designated “peace corner”—a space for kids who need to self-regulate, filled with a bean bag chair, sensory toys, stuffed animals, and charts describing calming breathing and counting exercises. Students choose when to go to the corner, and their teacher sets a five-minute timer, but the student can request more time if needed.

Use choice time: Free choice time, when structured well, can help students learn self-regulatory skills. Kids can go to various areas of the classroom during free time (like “blocks” or “dramatic play”), and if that area is at capacity, they can put their name on a waiting list. Students can ask their teacher to set a timer for when they’ll be allowed to switch into the area— and having that visual of the time getting less and less allows them to develop their patience.

Measure the size of a problem: To many young kids, every problem can feel huge, and therefore deserving of a huge reaction. Teachers can help students put things into perspective. For example, teachers can have students rate problems—like “Someone took your pencil” and “A family member is in the hospital”—on a scale of 1 to 5 and reflect on what the appropriate response to each might be. Calibrating responses throughout the year can help students in the moment think, ‘I can take a second, then I can react appropriately.’”

Use picture books: Picture books can help kids learn about emotions and how to deal with them. Books like Big Feelings, which “identifies and addresses the intense emotions that children sometimes experience when attempting to work collaboratively.”

Morning check-ins: Quick check-ins at the beginning of the day can help students reflect on what they’re feeling. Ask students to share one “rose” (something they’re excited about) and one “thorn” (something they’re worried or upset about). Ask students to describe how they’re feeling in a single word. They might start with words like “good” or “bad,” but with more development of their emotional vocabulary, they might progress to “anxious” or “serene.”

Picture your peaceful place: A moment of mindful meditation can help kids regulate themselves. When kids are overcome by their feelings, asking them to close their eyes and “visualize a moment or place that makes them feel the most peaceful,” like a specific room in their house or playing with a particular toy. Picturing every detail—every sound, every smell—can help calm students who are “feeling high levels of emotionality.”

Relaxing body movements: Stretching, bending, and balancing exercises provide sensory input that can help regulate strong emotions. During a transition period in class, for example, ask students to stand straight, then “use your right arm to help you bend your left knee toward your shoulder, and hold this position for five seconds,” before repeating it with the left arm and right knee. Asking students to clench and release the muscles in their hands and faces can have a similar effect.

Write down your values: Taking time to reflect on and write down your core values, improves self-esteem, executive function, and inhibitory control. Write down “10 things that define who you are and make you special.” Ask students to reflect on the “anchors” in their life that stabilize them—people they care about and trust, calming places, or pets. Students can return to this list of anchors—to add to it, or just read over it—whenever they’re feeling overwhelmed.

Leverage the power of nature: Connecting kids with the natural world has wide-ranging mental benefits, including less overall stress.

Positive self-talk: Students’ stress often derives from feeling like they’re not good enough—or simply unable to accomplish a given task. Teaching them to develop the habit of positive self-talk in the face of challenges can help. Tell your students that when they have a negative thought about themselves, they can replace it with an affirmation, like “I can totally do this!” or “I can feel proud that I’m trying my best!”

Simple breathing exercises: Breathing exercises have a calming effect, making them a great tool for self-regulation. Ask students to breathe in through your nose slowly for 4 seconds, hold, then breathe out through your mouth slowly for 6 seconds. Put one hand on their stomach and one hand in front of their nose: As they breathe in, they feel their stomach expand, and as they breathe out, they feel warm air hit their hand. Prompt students to “exhale away” any negative thoughts they might be feeling.

Sensory brain breaks: Quick brain breaks focused on sensory activities allow students to process what they’ve learned and reduce stress. Here are some examples:

• Name Scribbles: Have students write their name four times with their dominant hand and four times with the other hand. Afterward, discuss how it felt; which was more difficult? Why?
• The Junk Bag: Create a bag full of junk drawer items—shoelaces, markers, a can opener, etc. Pick an item from the bag and ask students to come up with two ways the object could be used outside of its intended purpose. They can write or draw their answers.

Calming sounds: Teachers can use a variety of effective sounds in their classroom—rain sticks, bells, chimes, peaceful music.

Express emotions with art: Artistic activities can help kids process and express emotions, as well as create a sense of safety and comfort, reducing stress.

Self-regulating games: Many games require players to exhibit restraint, which can help kids develop discipline over their bodies and brains. For example, games like Red Light, Green Light and Freeze “require participants to exert self-control.

Create time to discuss: Even if you feel like you’ve given your students all the tools they need to self-regulate, some kids are bound to have difficulties. In those cases, it’s helpful to make time to chat with students one-on-one. Kids need objective, nonjudgmental feedback in order to improve their behavior. When a problem arises, find a calm time to discuss what went wrong, why, and how it can be handled differently next time.

Incoming College Freshmen

Is This the End of Reading is this week’s article summary and it focuses on how academically ill prepared many incoming college freshmen are.

It may seem odd to start our school year – we’re an elementary school after all --  with an article on college students, yet when I read this article over the summer, I thought about how good teaching is good teaching regardless of the grade.

As I discussed in preplanning, students will rise to the occasion when their teachers provide:

• Kindness: fair, understanding, compassionate, perspective-taking
• Optimism: high expectations, encouraging, believe in them
• Inclusion: individuality and diversity celebrated
• Calmness: maintain equanimity (regulate emotions) even in stressful times
• Clearness: consistent classroom structure/routine, clear instructions/explanations

Or our mission in a nutshell: we cherish the childhood of our students as we simultaneously prepare them for the future by developing in them a strong academic and character foundation.

The article states that all students from early childhood through graduate school learn more when they are challenged with meaningful school work, are held to high expectations, and have strong, trusting relationships with teachers and peers.

I so enjoy working in an elementary school because we get to shape our students, so they can eventually enter college poised to learn and thrive.

Thank you all for such a smooth first full week of school!

Joe

-- 

Students are coming to college less able and less willing to read. If you design a freshman class based on the assumption that students will do the readings, you’ll get nowhere. If you make it easier, and go over what they should have read in class, students will participate. But the are you really helping them, develop the skills and habits needed for college.

What has caused this? The symptoms are students’ weak vocabularies and background knowledge; limited reading stamina and ability to synthesize, summarize, and write; fragmented and distracted thinking; freezing when given challenging assignments (a 750-word essay feels long); and not seeing the point of doing much work outside of class.

Why do so many students have these deficiencies? Was it having smartphones in their pockets since middle school, endless drivel on social media, reduced academic expectations during the pandemic, and facing a deeply troubling future?

We shouldn’t put all the blame on Covid-19. Before that, observers noticed an increasingly transactional approach to schoolwork, with students assigned short passages rather than books, social studies and science downgraded as students prepared for high-stakes math and ELA standardized tests.

“There was no room for my creative side at all in high school,” said a student who studied hard and got good grades at a top-tier school. “Reading has to be work. It has to have a grade assigned to it. I was largely deterred from reading for entertainment. I almost never read any books for fun.”

And there was a watering down of academic demands and loosening of deadlines, with many students getting good grades for mediocre work and heading to college unprepared for its demands – especially writing research papers.

Running parallel to this has been an increase in social isolation, loneliness, and anxiety, with many young people almost constantly on their cellphones, worrying about how their online profiles look to others, skimping on in-person interactions. When kids encounter stress and difficulty, they lack skills and a support system.

Students say that was does make a difference in lifting their motivation point to the same thing: having someone who is invested in their success.

That means rigorous and meaningful work, high expectations, and relationships – in K-12 schools and college.

“Students will read,” said Chris Hakala, a psychology professor at Springfield College, “if they know why they are doing it and time is taken to help them begin to develop an approach that is effective.”

 

The 4 Dimensions of Workplace Conflict

This week's article summary is Leveraging 4 Dimensions of Better Conflict Conversations, which I referenced during preplanning.

As I discussed last week, there are many benefits to teaming, yet there are also sundry challenges.

Patrick Lencioni is his classic book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team views effective teaming as a pyramid with the base being trust. From that foundation of trust—the most critical component of any well-functioning team--emanate four other needs for all members of a team: productive conflict, commitment, accountability, and focus on results.

The 4 Cs of teaming I discussed last week are as follows:

• Connection
• Clarity
• Curiosity
• Commitment

These alliteratively focus on the same teaming needs as Lencioni.

Teaming takes time and effort, yet as we discussed--and many of us have experienced--it also reaps many rewards.

Thank you all for a smooth, productive start to the school year!

Rest up this weekend as we gear up for our first five-day week! 

Joe

------

When dealing with inevitable disagreements/conflicts with colleagues, especially within teaching teams, it’s important to keep the following 4 Dimensions of Conflict in mind:

• Connection — Do we know one another well enough? 
• Clarity — Do we have a shared understanding of what success looks like? 
• Curiosity — Are we interested in other ideas and perspectives?
• Commitment – Do we have a clear agreement with follow ups/throughs

Connection: Do we know one another well enough? 

Workplace conflict always involves others — and every conflict gets easier the more you know one another, understand one another’s perspectives and see one another as human beings. 

Imagine that you’re in a clash with a coworker named Bob. You’ve come together to talk about it. Bob opens the conversation with: “I really care about you and this problem, and I’m confident we can find a solution we can all work with.” 

Well, if Bob’s basically a good guy, who got you out of a bind last year when your child was sick, that’s a solid way for him to start the conversation. 

You might think, “Well, I’m frustrated but come to think of it, Bob always seems fair. Let me listen to what he has to say. I bet we can work this out.” 

Now imagine the same conflict different Bob. This Bob recently threw you under the bus and took credit for your work. He also scoffed at your idea during a team meeting in front of others. 

Now, if Bob starts the conversation the same way, by saying, “I really care about you and this problem . . .” you might think, “Nice try, Bob, but I don’t trust you.” 

That’s the power of connection. The more connection you can build before you need it, the easier conflict becomes. As you seed the ground for easier collaboration, influence and trust, one of the best things you can do is get to know the people you work with as people, not just their function. Treat them with dignity and be trustworthy. It takes extra time, but you’ll earn it back many times over when you work through conflict. If you’ve not invested in the relationship, or the other person doesn’t trust your intentions, even the most carefully chosen words will fall flat. 

And speaking of connection — there’s one more person to connect with: you. Constructive conflict requires you to know your values, your goals, what you need and what you want. 

Clarity: Do we have a shared understanding of success looks like? 

Think about any significant conflict you have now or had in the past. We’re willing to bet that the source of that conflict includes an expectation violation. You thought they’d clean up their coffee mugs after the meeting. They thought the magic coffee mug fairy would take care of it. Everyone carries around expectations of one another. And sometimes, you don’t even know you have an expectation until someone doesn’t live up to it. So, the second dimension of constructive conflict is to get on the same page: create clarity about outcomes and expectations. 

One of the common mistakes we see people make in workplace conflict is that they don’t clearly understand what success looks like.

When you get clear for yourself and help other people find their clarity, now you can have a more productive conflict conversation. 

Curiosity: Are we interested in other ideas and perspectives? 

One of the fastest ways to get to the root cause of a workplace conflict is to show up genuinely curious about the other person’s perspective. Your sincere curiosity helps people feel seen and gives you a better understanding of what it will take to solve a problem. 

This is often the hardest part of constructive conflict because you have your point of view for a reason. But the benefit of being curious is that when you ask a good question, it automatically helps pull you out of that reactivity. It’s hard to be defensive and genuinely curious at the same time. 

Commitment: Do we have a clear agreement with follow ups/throughs?

One of the most frustrating aspects of workplace conflict conversations is that it seems like they’ll never end. As you connect, get curious, and build on one another’s suggestions, your conversation needs to produce action, or nothing changes. And if nothing changes, it’s worse than if you never had a conversation. Now you’ve wasted time, trust drips away, and people lose hope. Commitment is the answer and the key to moving you from words to action.

There are two keys to a useful commitment. The first is to get specific. You want specific actions with specific owners who have specific finish lines. The second key to an effective commitment is to schedule a time to review your agreement. 

Let’s look at an example. 

Say you have a peer you rely on for data. Let’s call him Don. And the two of you are in conflict because Don’s not giving you the reports you need for your team members to do their jobs. You have a friendly conversation, and because Don’s team is drowning in work, you agree your team will request the data only once a week. 

That’s good so far, but that’s not a commitment. You still need specific actions, specific owners and specific finish lines, with a specific time to review your commitment. So, you build the following agreement: This Friday, you will explain the new process to your team. Your team members will get data requests to Don’s team by 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Don will explain the new process to his team at their meeting tomorrow morning. Don’s team will supply the requested data on Wednesdays by noon. You and Don will meet in two weeks on Monday at 4:30 p.m. to see how it’s going. 

The specificity makes it clear what everyone will do. You don’t leave it up to good intentions. The follow-up meeting makes it more likely that you will both keep your commitments, and it creates time to deal with the inevitable challenges that will disrupt your new plan. 

By fostering genuine connections, ensuring clarity of goals, maintaining an open curiosity about different viewpoints and securing clear commitments, you can transform potential conflicts into opportunities for growth and collaboration.

 

 

 

 

 

7 Things Teachers Can Quit Doing This Year

Thank you for an uplifting and productive first week of preplanning! So much positive energy, camaraderie, dialogue,  consistent messaging—and ample time to prepare classrooms and plan with classroom and grade teams!

For me, there’s always a mix of excitement and nervousness as we begin prepping for and putting the finishing touches on what’s needed for a smooth opening of school as we prepare to welcome back our students and their parents.

Preplanning is my favorite time of year, especially the opportunities for us to learn, grow, collaborate, and socialize together.

This year there’s a very palpable esprit de corps. Let’s continue to build on this momentum and inaugurate the year with energy, positivity, and purpose!

For those of you new to Trinity, most Fridays during the school year, I send out a summary of an article that piqued my interest and that I hope provokes thought in you as well.

I don’t agree with every article, yet I enjoy the ones that challenge me to reflect on my educational beliefs and even confront my educational biases.

This week’s article summary is 7 Things Teachers Can Quit Doing This Year.

I have always been a self-reflective person. Yes, I’ve benefitted from external feedback and advice from supervisors and colleagues, yet it’s been self-evaluation that has led to the greatest changes and growth in me.

As my entire career has been in education, I’ve had summers to reflect and new school years to implement.

To me, this article is ideal for the start of a new school year because it asks us as educators to avoid falling into the same routine and experiment with new ideas and practices.

As I read the author’s seven suggestions, I thought of the following, all of which were mentioned this week:

• The process of learning is equal to the product of learning
• Each child is the principal driver of his/her learning
• Learning is a social endeavor
• A teacher’s positive attitude greatly benefits classroom culture and student effort and resilience
• Teachers need to ensure their self-care throughout the school year

Thanks again for such a fulfilling week and enjoy the final weekend of summer!

Joe

--- 

Teachers, your well-earned summer is winding down and school is starting up again. Right now, you might be focused on turning your empty classroom into a supportive learning environment.

But before you know it, you’ll have fallen into a teaching routine: lesson planning, classroom management, grading, and everything in between.

This year, are you returning to some old habits? Have you asked yourself if your standard practices are essential or superfluous? Have you thought about shaking up your pedagogy or mindset by casting off some of your classroom traditions? Here are seven things teachers can let go of in the spirit of being a better educator:

Grades: Author and Education Week blogger Starr Sackstein has been a longtime advocate for ditching grades. “Ungrading” isn’t a new concept, but it’s catching on and even has a robust online community. In this short video (you need to click the article link above to access the video), Sackstein offers some quick tips for teachers who want to stop marking student progress with letters and numbers.

Talking so much: Have you reflected on how much time you spend talking in class? “Simple changes to how long teachers talk can have a profound influence on the effectiveness of their instruction,” writes Wendy James, coordinator of collegiate renewal and curriculum for Saskatoon Public Schools in Canada. James offers teachers three strategies for cutting down on oral instruction. Check them out.

Seeing students’ struggles as problems: Students “are mysterious, developing individuals,” writes teacher Kyle Redford. “Approaching their struggles like puzzles to solve, rather than problems to react to, makes our instruction more effective.” One way to do that, she argues, is by adopting “compassionate curiosity”–a concept she borrowed from a mindfulness expert and spiritual leader. Learn more about it.

The fear of “getting in trouble”: Justin Minkel, a teacher and regular contributor to Education Week, says most teachers he knows share a phobia of being reprimanded. “Seventeen years since I started teaching, I still get nervous when my principal walks into my room,” writes Minkel. He offers this challenge to educators: Throw the rules out the window for a week and see what happens. Wondering where to start? Minkel has you covered.

Being a martyr: “It’s time for the unhealthy narrative of the martyr teacher to die. This expectation does a disservice to the entire profession.” That bold statement comes from teacher Natashia Hill, who is fed up with the idea “that great teachers must live a life of imbalance, poverty, and continual self-sacrifice.” Check out her five tips for shaking off the expectation of martyrdom.

Running yourself ragged: “Self-care is not selfish,” says Danna Thomas, a kindergarten teacher in Baltimore who founded a teacher-support group called Happy Teacher Revolution. She’s not wrong. Recent studies have a drawn a link between teacher burnout and student stress. So get a good night’s sleep. Eat lunch. And focus on your social and emotional needs. Here’s what educators and researchers are saying about the positives effects that could have.

The teachers’ lounge (well, metaphorically): “The teachers’ lounge is not a place at all,” writes teacher Lauren Powell. “It is an attitude or atmosphere fostered by disenchanted teachers intent on bringing everyone down a level.” Gossip breeds negativity, Powell argues, and creates a toxic environment that spreads to the students. Hear her out.

Hopefully this list has left you inspired (or at least intrigued).