In college, several of my Educational Theory courses heavily discussed Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Therefore, we enter into our careers very familiar with this theory. I feel like all teachers would agree that the individual needs must be met before self improvement can take place. However, with the pressure of closing gaps, higher order thinking, and improving student performance, we focus on the top of the pyramid. We spend so much time thinking about how to motivate, problem solve, and create that we don't spend enough time just trying to understand the child. I also found the window of stress tolerance very interesting. I have never looked at a potential student meltdown from this point. Teachers must work on how we respond to their dis regulated behavior if we hope to see their coping abilities improve.
I had a very similar thought related to the window of stress tolerance. The author presented this in a very simplistic way, but it really made me think about some of the students that I have had. While I know that every child is not the same, I have never really thought about how some students are almost at their "breaking point" from the minute they walk into my room. Since this is not necessarily obvious until the student has an outburst of some type, I need to focus more on how to help the student use a coping mechanism that will allow him/her to deescalate his/her reaction to the situation.
I was not excited about having to read a book because I'm not a reader and def not a writer so excuse the incomplete sentences and bad grammar. But needless to say after reading the first 2 chapters I am excited to learn more about Billy and how his classroom or a regulated environment is suppose to look. I think it is a good read for some teachers in our building. Some (including myself a few times) react first instead of respond. I am intrigued to go deeper in this book. I want to know how to RESPOND to students like Billy.
I have always known that they teacher controls the climate of the classroom, but I loved how it talked about the teacher's ability to widen their window! I never thought about having the ability to improve someone's breaking point. Too often, I let students push me to my breaking point, which is never going to improve our relationship or their ability regulate their emotions.
I agree Beth.. I never thought about being able to widen someone’s window or really even their window at all. That’s why I’m excited to get further in the book to see how we can widen the window. I know staying calm and making them feel safe but I want to know more for when we are in that situation.
Being able to treat every child as themselves and not group them all together. We have to be able to learn what works for each individual child and use those practices so that we get the most out of each student.
On the first page of this book it says we need to add more "tools" to our toolbox. "We must step back and broaden our perceptive of children and understand what their behaviors are indicating." But in order for us to do that, "We must be willing to step back and see things differently..." I believe in order for us to step back and look at things in a different point of view, a teacher needs experience. I can remember as a "new" teacher, I did not take the time to see things differently. I don't think I really realized it until I was teaching under Mr. Watkins. (I had been teaching for about 4 to 5 years.) I was complaining about one of my students. This student never turned in his homework, and he slept a lot in my class. Mr. Watkins said to me...Put yourself in his shoes. He goes home and has to take care of his younger siblings. He also told me not everyone gets to go home to a home like you had, Jill. That is when I finally saw the light...All children don't come from a stable home life and are cared for by 2 parents. This helped me to see my students' lives through their perspective.
Exactly Jill! This is so hard to do sometimes. I sometimes have to stop, look them in the eyes and say...are you okay today? The tough part is that many students say yes because they don't trust or are scared to tell. Again, back to building that relationship.
As education has evolved, we have gained a larger understanding of how the brain is wired and how this will affect the behavior of our students. This book will give us the opportunity to learn how to identify experiences that may keep a child from his/her full potential and learn to develop new approaches that will allow us to reach this student. The importance of relationships and how they help with development should encourage teachers to create cohesion with our students so that they are more apt to have a better educational experience. The information about the “Window of Stress Tolerance” is something that I want to gain a better understanding as to why there are a variety of reactions to the situations students find themselves in.
As I read through the book, there were many things that I found to be very interesting and other ideas I had heard of that were clarified for me. The first thing I was tempted to mark in book as a key thing I need to remember is related to the table of possible traumatic childhood events. I was not surprised by the items in the list, but I found that I need to remember that for the child "It is about the feeling of being safe or not and it is always determined by the child's perspective - not reality." I need to remember it is about how the child interprets the situation not how I see it or even how I meant for it to be. I have not walked in their shoes, and I need to remember to be more tolerant of those who have a different view based on their personal experiences.
Absolutely! Knowing that my perspective comes from privilege, I need to consciously tell myself exactly what you said... how a child interprets the situation is the key, not my interpretation or even what I think "reality" is. Recognizing and validating how that child is feeling in that moment and the events that shaped those feelings will be the key to widening the window.
Yes, "my perspective comes from privilege." Perfect statement, Amanda. What the child perceives comes from their reality which is often times vastly different than the experiences that shaped my thinking and emotional controls. My perception is often not the student's reality.
Since my year long journey into Foster Care, a lot of this information has been on my mind. I was blessed with two wonderful parents who helped me to grow and learn and succeed in school. Not every child has that. But it goes even further than that. With Harmony, I have no idea what she experienced in the 10 months of her life before I got her. I have no idea about how her family took care of her before her birth and after. I question things she does and wonder if they are a result of that or just a typical toddler. And truthfully, some of it may manifest the older she gets. But I think the important thing as a parent or as a teacher is being aware of this, and as the book says "widen the window."
Rebecca I agree with you and just as you have no idea what Harmony went through the first 10 months of her life, as teachers we often times have little knowledge about the students entering our classrooms. Looking at the list of possible traumatic childhood events MANY of our students have faced several of these things. We probably don't know half of the ones they have faced by the age of 10, 11, or 12. I really have to be mindful that some students have a very small window and I have to find a way to help widen that window.
Rebecca- I was thinking about you and Harmony when I read the first two chapters. You and I have talked before about not knowing what Harmony experienced those first 10 months of her life, and how that's scary. But, this book gave me encouragement in regard to Harmony when it talked about the ability to widen the window of stress tolerance. The love, support, and safety you and your village are giving Harmony now can and will counteract whatever might have happened in those first 10 months. I am so thankful she has you. And again having that sweet little girl in our lives should remind me that not every kid in our classroom has been blessed with someone to widen that window of stress tolerance. Certainly a lot to think about!
As I dove into chapters 1 and 2, I noticed several important themes begin to develop. One that stood out most to me was about students knowing what they need from a teacher and a learning environment. Sometimes as teachers we get consumed with planning for the things that we think students need academically, and we forget that each class is different and therefore needs different things. I would love to implement more student surveys into my classes so students can express their ideas about what would best motivate them and put them in a good head space for learning. I think letting them have a voice in the way class is run would help with student buy- in and classroom management as well.
Audra - I love this idea! It is so important for middle schoolers to be able to voice their opinions in order to take ownership of their learning. I agree, we as educators are mainly focused on their academic needs that we forget to incorporate each students specific needs to be successful.
There were so many great points in chapter 1 and 2. The window of stress tolerance was a huge aha moment for me, I loved reading the science behind even in utero experiences and how the child was affected. But, the one thing that stood out as an overall take away was the first quote shared, "if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." That sure made me think- we have to find more tools to put in our toolbox. We as teachers have to be willing to adjust, adapt, and bend without breaking. There are way more things that our kiddos are facing these days that can't be fixed with a hammer. We have to find other ways to approach them. I am excited about this book!
Gretchen I agree the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the phrase about the hammer. As teachers we have to constantly adapt and pull things out of our toolboxes for our students. We do it all the time for our students academically when they just aren't understanding, but its hard sometimes for us to do the same for behavior. We feel as though the child should just do what we have asked them to do obediently without refusal or questioning it.
Two things that really stuck out to me was the quote about the hammer being the only tool, but also the stress window. When we have 20-25 students in our classroom, it is sometimes hard for us to look at each student individually as soon as they walk into the room to determine their stress window. Until I entered the education world, I was very naive in my thinking. I grew up in a two parent home, sure we weren't rich, but I had clothes that were clean and that fit, I never wondered when or where our next meal was coming, and I had a nice roof over my head. I lived in a world that I thought everyone had that. My first year of teaching in a very low SES school, my eyes were opened wide. Those students BASIC needs weren't met so how was I supposed to teach them science? In the back of my mind of course I know each kid has different things they are dealing with, but seeing the graphic of the difference in stress windows really opened my eyes of what I need to be very mindful of. Two specific 8th graders come to mind that I had this year. One comes from a good home with both working parents, nice clothes, and well fed. The other comes from a large family where neither parents worked, clothes were never clean, and comparing their attitudes about learning now thinking of their stress windows. It wasn't defiance on the one kid's part, but bless him he was more worried about where his food was coming from then learning the Pythagorean Theorem. There were lots of good points made in CH 1 and Ch2.
The fact that a pregnant mother in who stays in distress throughout her pregnancy effects the baby for the rest of its life. If the mother is constantly stressed out, the baby is fed the hormones released by the stress, called cortisol. If the baby is predisposed to these hormones in utero, they are less likely to be able to successfully self regulate their emotions especially if they live in a stressful, inconsistent home environment. Basically, it seems like they are set up for failure, unless we can help them adapt and not over stimulate them with stressful situations.
I took a full year of human anatomy in college and was amazed at what all the body can do! We also discussed in one of my biology courses the effects that a mother can have on their unborn children. It sad to know that so many of our students we teach today could have been dealt a “bad hand” from birth and are spending their entire lives recovering from their mother’s bad decisions while pregnant. It’s sad when you think about it.
The terms regulated and dysregulated caught my attention. When I was younger it was called: those with “home-training” and those without. In essence, I think the concept is the same, but further realizing the rewards and consequences of those behaviors in the school environment I am curious to discover the techniques endorsed by this book in helping the child functioning with a dysregulated mindset.
One thing that stood out to me in the first two chapters is how much trauma a baby can go through before it's born. The stress hormones the mom produces can constrict blood vessels to the fetus thus causes less oxygen to make it to the baby. The fact that this can cause harm to the child for years to come is heartbreaking. Another thing that stood out to me is the stress tolerance window and that teachers can help increase that window for students like Billy. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the book for more information on how help students increase their stress tolerance windows.
As I finished chapter 1 & 2, I really have never thought of all of the life events that can trigger trauma for our children, depending on how the adults dealt with the support given to the child. We often think about those students that have had horrible childhood experiences (the ones that everyone knows), but we often forget those students that have had these traumatic experiences, and the adults or caregivers were dealing with the event, themselves, and never even realized what an impact of "just being absent" had on the child. The adults or caregivers may not have been abusive or harsh, but they just simply wasn't there to provide the love and support that the child needed to cope. This hit home for me. We have so many students that would and could fall in this category. This is where the extra step of teacher-student relationships come in to importance more than ever.
In college, several of my Educational Theory courses heavily discussed Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Therefore, we enter into our careers very familiar with this theory. I feel like all teachers would agree that the individual needs must be met before self improvement can take place. However, with the pressure of closing gaps, higher order thinking, and improving student performance, we focus on the top of the pyramid. We spend so much time thinking about how to motivate, problem solve, and create that we don't spend enough time just trying to understand the child.
ReplyDeleteI also found the window of stress tolerance very interesting. I have never looked at a potential student meltdown from this point. Teachers must work on how we respond to their dis regulated behavior if we hope to see their coping abilities improve.
I had a very similar thought related to the window of stress tolerance. The author presented this in a very simplistic way, but it really made me think about some of the students that I have had. While I know that every child is not the same, I have never really thought about how some students are almost at their "breaking point" from the minute they walk into my room. Since this is not necessarily obvious until the student has an outburst of some type, I need to focus more on how to help the student use a coping mechanism that will allow him/her to deescalate his/her reaction to the situation.
DeleteMy thoughts...
ReplyDeleteI was not excited about having to read a book because I'm not a reader and def not a writer so excuse the incomplete sentences and bad grammar. But needless to say after reading the first 2 chapters I am excited to learn more about Billy and how his classroom or
a regulated environment is suppose to look. I think it is a good read for some teachers in our building. Some (including myself a few times) react first instead of respond. I am intrigued to go deeper in this book. I want to know how to RESPOND to students like Billy.
I have always known that they teacher controls the climate of the classroom, but I loved how it talked about the teacher's ability to widen their window! I never thought about having the ability to improve someone's breaking point. Too often, I let students push me to my breaking point, which is never going to improve our relationship or their ability regulate their emotions.
DeleteI agree Beth.. I never thought about being able to widen someone’s window or really even their window at all. That’s why I’m excited to get further in the book to see how we can widen the window. I know staying calm and making them feel safe but I want to know more for when we are in that situation.
ReplyDeleteBeing able to treat every child as themselves and not group them all together. We have to be able to learn what works for each individual child and use those practices so that we get the most out of each student.
ReplyDeleteOn the first page of this book it says we need to add more "tools" to our toolbox. "We must step back and broaden our perceptive of children and understand what their behaviors are indicating." But in order for us to do that, "We must be willing to step back and see things differently..." I believe in order for us to step back and look at things in a different point of view, a teacher needs experience. I can remember as a "new" teacher, I did not take the time to see things differently. I don't think I really realized it until I was teaching under Mr. Watkins. (I had been teaching for about 4 to 5 years.) I was complaining about one of my students. This student never turned in his homework, and he slept a lot in my class. Mr. Watkins said to me...Put yourself in his shoes. He goes home and has to take care of his younger siblings. He also told me not everyone gets to go home to a home like you had, Jill. That is when I finally saw the light...All children don't come from a stable home life and are cared for by 2 parents. This helped me to see my students' lives through their perspective.
ReplyDeleteExactly Jill! This is so hard to do sometimes. I sometimes have to stop, look them in the eyes and say...are you okay today? The tough part is that many students say yes because they don't trust or are scared to tell. Again, back to building that relationship.
DeleteAs education has evolved, we have gained a larger understanding of how the brain is wired and how this will affect the behavior of our students. This book will give us the opportunity to learn how to identify experiences that may keep a child from his/her full potential and learn to develop new approaches that will allow us to reach this student. The importance of relationships and how they help with development should encourage teachers to create cohesion with our students so that they are more apt to have a better educational experience.
ReplyDeleteThe information about the “Window of Stress Tolerance” is something that I want to gain a better understanding as to why there are a variety of reactions to the situations students find themselves in.
As I read through the book, there were many things that I found to be very interesting and other ideas I had heard of that were clarified for me. The first thing I was tempted to mark in book as a key thing I need to remember is related to the table of possible traumatic childhood events. I was not surprised by the items in the list, but I found that I need to remember that for the child "It is about the feeling of being safe or not and it is always determined by the child's perspective - not reality." I need to remember it is about how the child interprets the situation not how I see it or even how I meant for it to be. I have not walked in their shoes, and I need to remember to be more tolerant of those who have a different view based on their personal experiences.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Knowing that my perspective comes from privilege, I need to consciously tell myself exactly what you said... how a child interprets the situation is the key, not my interpretation or even what I think "reality" is. Recognizing and validating how that child is feeling in that moment and the events that shaped those feelings will be the key to widening the window.
DeleteYes, "my perspective comes from privilege." Perfect statement, Amanda. What the child perceives comes from their reality which is often times vastly different than the experiences that shaped my thinking and emotional controls. My perception is often not the student's reality.
DeleteSince my year long journey into Foster Care, a lot of this information has been on my mind. I was blessed with two wonderful parents who helped me to grow and learn and succeed in school. Not every child has that. But it goes even further than that. With Harmony, I have no idea what she experienced in the 10 months of her life before I got her. I have no idea about how her family took care of her before her birth and after. I question things she does and wonder if they are a result of that or just a typical toddler. And truthfully, some of it may manifest the older she gets. But I think the important thing as a parent or as a teacher is being aware of this, and as the book says "widen the window."
ReplyDeleteRebecca I agree with you and just as you have no idea what Harmony went through the first 10 months of her life, as teachers we often times have little knowledge about the students entering our classrooms. Looking at the list of possible traumatic childhood events MANY of our students have faced several of these things. We probably don't know half of the ones they have faced by the age of 10, 11, or 12. I really have to be mindful that some students have a very small window and I have to find a way to help widen that window.
DeleteRebecca- I was thinking about you and Harmony when I read the first two chapters. You and I have talked before about not knowing what Harmony experienced those first 10 months of her life, and how that's scary. But, this book gave me encouragement in regard to Harmony when it talked about the ability to widen the window of stress tolerance. The love, support, and safety you and your village are giving Harmony now can and will counteract whatever might have happened in those first 10 months. I am so thankful she has you. And again having that sweet little girl in our lives should remind me that not every kid in our classroom has been blessed with someone to widen that window of stress tolerance. Certainly a lot to think about!
DeleteAs I dove into chapters 1 and 2, I noticed several important themes begin to develop. One that stood out most to me was about students knowing what they need from a teacher and a learning environment. Sometimes as teachers we get consumed with planning for the things that we think students need academically, and we forget that each class is different and therefore needs different things. I would love to implement more student surveys into my classes so students can express their ideas about what would best motivate them and put them in a good head space for learning. I think letting them have a voice in the way class is run would help with student buy- in and classroom management as well.
ReplyDeleteAudra - I love this idea! It is so important for middle schoolers to be able to voice their opinions in order to take ownership of their learning. I agree, we as educators are mainly focused on their academic needs that we forget to incorporate each students specific needs to be successful.
DeleteThere were so many great points in chapter 1 and 2. The window of stress tolerance was a huge aha moment for me, I loved reading the science behind even in utero experiences and how the child was affected. But, the one thing that stood out as an overall take away was the first quote shared, "if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." That sure made me think- we have to find more tools to put in our toolbox. We as teachers have to be willing to adjust, adapt, and bend without breaking. There are way more things that our kiddos are facing these days that can't be fixed with a hammer. We have to find other ways to approach them. I am excited about this book!
ReplyDeleteGretchen I agree the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the phrase about the hammer. As teachers we have to constantly adapt and pull things out of our toolboxes for our students. We do it all the time for our students academically when they just aren't understanding, but its hard sometimes for us to do the same for behavior. We feel as though the child should just do what we have asked them to do obediently without refusal or questioning it.
DeleteTwo things that really stuck out to me was the quote about the hammer being the only tool, but also the stress window. When we have 20-25 students in our classroom, it is sometimes hard for us to look at each student individually as soon as they walk into the room to determine their stress window. Until I entered the education world, I was very naive in my thinking. I grew up in a two parent home, sure we weren't rich, but I had clothes that were clean and that fit, I never wondered when or where our next meal was coming, and I had a nice roof over my head. I lived in a world that I thought everyone had that. My first year of teaching in a very low SES school, my eyes were opened wide. Those students BASIC needs weren't met so how was I supposed to teach them science? In the back of my mind of course I know each kid has different things they are dealing with, but seeing the graphic of the difference in stress windows really opened my eyes of what I need to be very mindful of. Two specific 8th graders come to mind that I had this year. One comes from a good home with both working parents, nice clothes, and well fed. The other comes from a large family where neither parents worked, clothes were never clean, and comparing their attitudes about learning now thinking of their stress windows. It wasn't defiance on the one kid's part, but bless him he was more worried about where his food was coming from then learning the Pythagorean Theorem. There were lots of good points made in CH 1 and Ch2.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that a pregnant mother in who stays in distress throughout her pregnancy effects the baby for the rest of its life. If the mother is constantly stressed out, the baby is fed the hormones released by the stress, called cortisol. If the baby is predisposed to these hormones in utero, they are less likely to be able to successfully self regulate their emotions especially if they live in a stressful, inconsistent home environment. Basically, it seems like they are set up for failure, unless we can help them adapt and not over stimulate them with stressful situations.
ReplyDeleteI took a full year of human anatomy in college and was amazed at what all the body can do! We also discussed in one of my biology courses the effects that a mother can have on their unborn children. It sad to know that so many of our students we teach today could have been dealt a “bad hand” from birth and are spending their entire lives recovering from their mother’s bad decisions while pregnant. It’s sad when you think about it.
DeleteThe terms regulated and dysregulated caught my attention. When I was younger it was called: those with “home-training” and those without. In essence, I think the concept is the same, but further realizing the rewards and consequences of those behaviors in the school environment I am curious to discover the techniques endorsed by this book in helping the child functioning with a dysregulated mindset.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that stood out to me in the first two chapters is how much trauma a baby can go through before it's born. The stress hormones the mom produces can constrict blood vessels to the fetus thus causes less oxygen to make it to the baby. The fact that this can cause harm to the child for years to come is heartbreaking. Another thing that stood out to me is the stress tolerance window and that teachers can help increase that window for students like Billy. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the book for more information on how help students increase their stress tolerance windows.
ReplyDeleteAs I finished chapter 1 & 2, I really have never thought of all of the life events that can trigger trauma for our children, depending on how the adults dealt with the support given to the child. We often think about those students that have had horrible childhood experiences (the ones that everyone knows), but we often forget those students that have had these traumatic experiences, and the adults or caregivers were dealing with the event, themselves, and never even realized what an impact of "just being absent" had on the child. The adults or caregivers may not have been abusive or harsh, but they just simply wasn't there to provide the love and support that the child needed to cope. This hit home for me. We have so many students that would and could fall in this category. This is where the extra step of teacher-student relationships come in to importance more than ever.
ReplyDelete