Strategies for Working With Defiant

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Strategies for Working With Defiant
Emotionally Unpredictable Kids Jim Wright,
Syracuse (NY) City Schoolsjim_at_jimwrightonline.co
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Workshop Goals

• In this workshop, we will learn about
• Identification of root causes of problem
  behaviors
• Ideas to deescalate confrontations with
  emotionally unpredictable students
• A school-wide approach to evaluating the
  seriousness of student threats
• Using communication tools to better manage
  defiant kids
• Recommended behavioral intervention websites

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Positive Behavioral Interventions Can Help to

• Uncover root of student problem
• Reduce disruption of teaching time
• Reduce frequency and intensity of power struggles
• Improve communication between teacher student

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Positive Behavioral Interventions Do Not

• Coddle students
• Take the place of already-existing disciplinary
  guidelines or behavioral expectations
• Tie a teachers hands in responding to
  misbehavior in the classroom

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Big Ideas About Student Behavior

• Behavior is not randomly emitted but follows
  meaningful patterns
• Observed behavior is idiosyncratic, a product of
  the unique interaction between the person
  performing the behavior and that persons
  environment

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Big Ideas About Student Behavior

• Similar behaviors may stem from different root
  causes. Find the cause of the behavior (its
  function) and you stand a much better chance of
  designing an intervention that really works

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Showed disrespect towards me when she yelled
inappropriately regarding an instruction sheet.
I then asked her to leave the room. She also
showed disrespect when I called her twice earlier
in the class to see her report card grade.
Teacher Referral Example
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I gave out a test. After a few minutes, he
crunched it and threw it on the floor. If he
were not prepared, he could have talked to me and
I would have allowed him to take it on a
different date, as I usually do.
Teacher Referral Example
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Big Ideas About Student Behavior

• It is much better to head off problem behaviors
  than to have to deal with the classroom fallout
  after those behaviors have occurred

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ABC Timeline
A
C
B
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C. and T. were horsing around in the classroom.
In the process, they knocked down an overhead
projector and crushed it.
Teacher Referral Example
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Gordons Triangle Three-Tiered Approach
Intensive Intervention
Early Intervention
School-Wide Foundation