THE RELATIONSHIP CONNECTION

Two teachers were talking in the hall sharing information about some of their more challenging students. “I don’t know,” said one teacher “I have tried everything with Tom and nothing works.” Behavior modification, extra gym time, phone calls home, parent conferences, restrictions and rewards, it almost seems useless.” The other teacher responded, “Tom, he is one of my better student’s. I have very little difficulty with him at all.”

This sounds like a familiar scenario. But, why is it that some teachers have all kinds of problems with one student while others who have the same student have little or no trouble at all. In order to completely understand this problem it is helpful if we understand the how our brain is wired. If we were to take a cross section of the brain we would discover that the top part of the brain is where we do most of our higher order thinking and where we process information. Understand that I am trying to draw a very basic picture for you. The middle part of the brain called the limbic system is where our emotions are located. Our mind and will would be located there. The bottom part of the brain, the stem is where we go for survival. When we are under emotional stress our first response is to survive. The two basic methods for survival are to either attack or to escape. In getting a visual image of what I’m talking about the one thing you will notice is that all incoming information has to go through the emotions in order to be processed.

So, if I were to say to you “When are you going to get this information right?” “I am so sick and tired of explaining this to you what are you dense or something?” Your natural tendency is to survive and you emotionally will either escape or attack. As a matter of information children and adults who escape usually have clinical problems and are your students who are constantly late, sleep at the desk, chronically absent and ultimately have substance problems. These students need to be watched carefully. In education the squeaky wheel gets the grease. We may not even be aware of these students until an event occurs that is catastrophic in nature such as suicide or even worse a violent incidence that could impact lives for generations to come. Students who have the attack mentality are more argumentative, disrespectful, and non-compliant. They are always in school and are looking for a victim that they can take their anger out on. It usually turns out to be the person in charge. This student spends a lot of time in the Vice-Principal’s office has problems in the community and with the police.

The key to working with both of these students is understanding what qualities they need to develop in their life that will make them successful adults. The student who escapes needs to develop responsibility, the student who attacks needs to develop respect. In order to achieve the desired behavior from either of these students they must be taught to comply with the rules of the system that they are in.

The one thing that is in common with both of these students is that when a relationship is established with them they will obey at a more frequent rate and will display a respectful and responsible attitude when the person they are working with understands them as individuals. The order of the day is to realize that there are bricks in the wall of the limbic system that were put there by other adults who responded to them in a reactive and angry way.

Our goal is to remove the bricks and develop a trusting relationship. Behavior modification is an excellent extrinsic structure but teaches students to behave in an adult’s presence not in their absence. Our aim is to develop an intrinsic mechanism that changes the child’s attitude and helps him develop a value system with standards that he will be able to sustain as an adult.

Listen to Pink Floyd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dabH45Af2bo