Lost at School (39 page)

Not coincidentally, teachers often feel most uncertain, exposed, and
defensive in interactions with parents, feeling that their competence and professionalism are challenged. Teachers often receive little if any preparation for working with parents in their educational training. Teacher education usually does not offer a conceptual framework for understanding the importance and complexities of building productive parent-teacher relationships, and many teachers feel ill-prepared to interact with parents collaboratively.

Why do parents and teachers have such trouble solving problems together? For the very same reasons kids and adults do: the blaming of one party or another; the attempt of one party to impose its will on another; the failure to achieve a consensus on the true nature of a kid’s difficulties (lagging skills) and the true events (unsolved problems) precipitating his challenging behavior; the failure to identify the concerns of the different parties; dueling solutions. Some examples (not to be emulated) are:

Imposition of Will

      S
PECIAL
E
DUCATION
C
OORDINATOR
:
Mr. and Mrs. Nelson, we’ve decided that your son, Jeff, is no longer appropriate for the program he’s in, so we’re moving him to a different program in a different school. We need you to sign the revised IEP.

Imposition of Will

      P
ARENT
:
My wife and I have come to the conclusion that this school is unable to meet the needs of our daughter, Leah, and we are pursuing placements outside of the school system and have been in contact with an attorney.

Perfunctory Empathy

      P
RINCIPAL
:
Ms. Donaldson, we understand that the past few months have been very difficult for you and Tony. We appreciate that. We know how hard that can be. But we have a school to run and the needs of many other students to consider.

Perfunctory Empathy

      P
ARENT
:
Look, I know you all haven’t had an easy time with Johnny. But I have to do what I think is best for my son.

Failure to Achieve a Consensus

      G
UIDANCE
C
OUNSELOR
:
We really think Greg’s difficulties trace back to the fact that he has no father figure in his life. We think he needs counseling so he can talk about that.

      P
ARENT
:
Greg hasn’t had a father figure in his life for a long time. I tried getting him a Big Brother, but it just never seemed to work out. Anyway, that’s not why Greg is still having trouble. He’s having trouble because he has no friends at school. I wish you all could find a way to help him make a friend.

      G
UIDANCE
C
OUNSELOR
:
We just don’t see it that way.

      P
ARENT
:
I think I know my son.

Dueling Solutions

      S
CHOOL
P
SYCHOLOGIST
:
Jabbar needs to be in our self-contained classroom.

      A
DVOCATE
:
No way. What Jabbar needs are teachers who understand him and know how to work with him … and he needs to be around ordinary kids so he doesn’t just emulate the bad behavior of other bad kids. I want him in an inclusion classroom.

More Dueling Solutions

      P
ARENT
:
She needs an IEP.

      S
PECIAL
E
DUCATION
D
IRECTOR
:
She needs a 504 Plan.

What’s going wrong here? Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot notes that the factors that lead to enmity and a breakdown in parent-teacher communication are fairly straightforward. They are defined by a
lack of empathy
and a
disregard for the other’s role, perspective, and concerns,
factors that should sound familiar to you. Contrary points of view are commonplace, almost inevitable, as parents and teachers bring to the table unique and equally valuable perspectives about the child. It is far better for contrary points of view to be expressed openly than to be hidden behind a veil of civility and feigned deference. Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot counsels, “Do not go to the table to say ‘you must’ or ‘you need to.’” (She’s referring here to Plan A, though she doesn’t call it that.) In the parlance of CPS, this means that both parties
need to concentrate their efforts on hearing each others’ concerns rather than imposing solutions. In my experience, the vast majority of adversarial interactions between parents and school personnel can be traced back to the failure to achieve a consensus on a kid’s lagging skills and unsolved problems. Both parties need to be part of the process of working toward a mutually satisfactory action plan—you’re on the same team.
Let’s see if we can get a handle on the skills that need some work and the problems that need to be solved … then we can work together to come up with a plan of action to teach those skills and help solve those problems.
Here’s what that might look like:

      T
EACHER
:
Mr. and Mrs. Knight, now that we’re through talking about how Sally is doing academically—and I’m hoping you’re getting the message that I think she’s doing quite well and that I really enjoy having her in my class—there were a few other issues I wanted to discuss.

      M
OTHER
:
Uh-oh. We were waiting for this. She been giving you a hard time?

      T
EACHER
:
I take it I’m not the first.

      F
ATHER
:
Nor the only. She’s a handful at home, too.

      T
EACHER
:
How do you mean?

      F
ATHER
:
Well, she doesn’t take too well to being told what to do. We walk on eggshells. In the earlier grades, she didn’t cause any trouble at school. But then they started seeing the same things at school that we were seeing at home. We’ve been to a lot of folks for help and I know she worked with a guidance counselor at school for a while.

      M
OTHER
:
Yes, she was in a social skills group at school for a while. We’ve also had her on some medicine to see if we could help her be a little less, you know, brittle. She’s not on anything now, but she’s still pretty much the same kid she’s always been. Is that what you’re seeing?

      T
EACHER
:
Well, yes, in a way. I’ve certainly noticed that she’s not too keen on being corrected, especially when it’s a behavioral issue, but also on academics. She seems to be quite the perfectionist. And I think the other kids think she’s rather bossy. They say she always has to have her way.

      
M
OTHER
:
That’s our girl. Hope she’s not giving you too hard of a time.

      T
EACHER
:
Well, we’ve definitely had our moments.

      M
OTHER
:
Do you think we should see about medicine again?

      F
ATHER
:
Do you think she needs an IEP?

      T
EACHER
:
Oh, I’m not the one to be guiding you on medicine. And I guess we wouldn’t know if she needed an IEP until we got a handle on the factors contributing to her difficulties. Around here these days we’ve actually come to view kids’ challenging behavior as a sign that the kids are lacking some of the skills they need to behave appropriately. A learning disability of sorts.

      M
OTHER
:
A learning disability? I thought you said she was doing fine academically.

      T
EACHER
:
Yes, she is. I’m using the term “learning disability” to say that we don’t really view behavioral challenges as being any different from some of the academic challenges a kid may exhibit at school.

      F
ATHER
:
So if she has a learning disability, she needs an IEP, yes?

      T
EACHER
:
Well, even academic learning disabilities don’t automatically lead to an IEP these days. But what I’m really saying is that Sally may need us to teach her some of the skills she’s not quite up to speed on so she’s not, to use your words, so much of a handful.

      F
ATHER
:
So what kind of skills are we talking about here?

      T
EACHER
:
Glad you asked. I brought a form we use to try to identify the skills a child is lacking, and the problems that cause their challenging behavior. I wanted to get your input on the skills she’s lacking, see if we could come to some sort of consensus. Then I thought we could talk about how we could help her.

      F
ATHER
(examining the ALSUP): This is a new take on things. Skills, eh? Never thought about it that way. I see a few items on here that would apply to Sally … in fact, more than a few.

      M
OTHER
:
I see a bunch here in the middle. Difficulty seeing the
“grays,” concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking—geez, that’s her. Difficulty shifting from original idea or solution, difficulty adapting to changes in plan …

      T
EACHER
:
Yes, I was thinking those might apply to Sally.

      F
ATHER
:
So, does she need some kind of special school or something?

      T
EACHER
:
I don’t think so, but to tell you the truth, I hadn’t gotten that far yet. I do have some other parents coming in just a few minutes for their conference, but I was thinking, if we could schedule another meeting so we could put our heads together and figure out what skills she’s lacking and what problems are causing her worst moments, then we could come up with a plan for what to do.

      M
OTHER
:
She’s already had her share of sticker charts and missed recesses …

      T
EACHER
:
Oh, I wasn’t thinking along those lines. I thought we could talk about how we could work with Sally to address her challenges together.

      F
ATHER
:
I don’t understand.

      T
EACHER
: Well, I probably can’t do this justice in the time we have left, but I’m operating on the assumption that Sally is already motivated to do well, but that there are some problems she’s having trouble solving on her own and needs our help. We wouldn’t help her learn how to solve those problems if we solve them for her. She needs to be a participant in solving them. I don’t know if I’m making sense with all of this …

      M
OTHER
:
I can’t say that I understand completely, but we don’t want to hold you up. Can we take this form home with us?

      T
EACHER
:
Yes, please. At the bottom there, where it says “Unsolved Problems,” that’s where you list the problems that seem to set the stage for her challenging behavior.

      F
ATHER
:
That’s easy. The word “no
.”

      T
EACHER
:
Well, we’d want to know what you were saying “no” about if we wanted to be really precise about the specific problem.

      
F
ATHER
:
Ah, got it. So, like “No, you can’t tell your friend to go home just because she won’t do things your way …” Right?

      T
EACHER
:
Exactly.

      F
ATHER
:
So we fill this out and then meet with you again and come up with a plan?

      T
EACHER
:
That’s what I was thinking.

      F
ATHER
:
And the plan would involve us.

      T
EACHER
:
Well, you know her better than I do, so I’d certainly want you to be involved in the creation of the plan. We’d want to involve Sally in the plan, too. But I don’t think we’ll know what the plan looks like until we know what it is we’re working on. Shall we try to find another time to meet?

What happens when school personnel and parents start collaborating? My friend Pam Charles, the principal at a special education school for kids with behavioral challenges, puts it this way: “Once we started reaching out to parents, once we started helping their kids succeed at school, they stopped hanging up on us, they started returning our phone calls, they started showing up at school.” And the father of a challenging kid I know offered his own perspective: “At some point, I stopped feeling like the people at school were judging me or blaming me. I started feeling like they weren’t just paying lip service to my concerns. They wanted to work together. So did I.”

LEADERSHIP

Leadership is a hot topic in schools these days, and for good reason: An effective school leader can make a world of difference for kids, teachers, and parents. Revamping school discipline is a daunting challenge, one that is unlikely to be met without
vision
(what we are trying to accomplish),
perseverance
(we won’t accomplish it overnight),
resilience
(this isn’t going very well yet, but I’m confident that it will),
collaboration
(let’s put our heads together and figure out how to make it go better),
patience
(progress occurs at different paces for different individuals),
perspective
(let’s not forget what we’re trying to accomplish, but look at
how far we’ve come already), and
a sense of purpose
(I know we have a lot of other things going on around here, but this is important).