Two Steps Back Part IV: What Positive Behavioral Supports Might Look Like

This is the final part of the Machon issues discussion. Here are links to the 'whole megillah' if you want to follow in order: Part I, Part II, and Part III.



The concept of Positive Behavioral Supports (PBS) is derived from the not-particularly-new idea that successful student behavior is linked to the host environment. It is really a philosophy about behavior, as well as a value system or to put it Jewishly, the derech eretz, (the way of the land) that influences how a person will act in a particular place. The point of developing such derech eretz is to reduce disruptions by developing a culture of respect, responsibility and safety and thus educate beyond the particular environment in order to inculcate the utmost virtue for the children and prepare them for living in the world.



Derech eretz can also be understood to mean "the way things are done here," and if you think about it, what is really being implied is a series of rules--spoken and unspoken--that everyone follows reasonably well in order to create an environment conducive to the aims of the place, whether it is a family, a religious organization, a school, or a nation. These rules can become complex when an environment has multiple purposes. For example, a synagogue has three overarching functions. It is a beit knesset--house of assembly, a beit midrash--house of study, and a beit t'filah--a house of prayer. Each of these purposes requires people to assume different roles and each has particular rules. For example, when you enter the beit knesset, you may be coming to meet and debate, to argue and come to consensus, and at that time you will use a different voice than when you come to study or to pray. There are also overarching rules that govern behavior within the Jewish community at all times, whether you come to pray, to assemble, or to study. And much of the derech eretz is flavored by culture going back centuries. In this particular synagogue, the flavor is a blend of Jewish sensibilities coming from the Askenazi tradition, classical Reform Judaism, as well as something that is unique to New Mexico. All of this must be taken into account to develop a system of successful behavioral supports for this place.


And when considering rules, it is really important to remember that all rules are taught. Some are taught explicitly and some by example, but people do not just know them through telepathy. For example, since he was a baby, whenever N. was brought to a ceremony or worship service, we put a kippah (yarmulke) on his head. (We had lots of fun keeping the Noah's Rainbow kippah on his head during his bris--ritual circumcision--but we started with it on). He saw others doing the same: I cover my head with a scarf when I light candles for Shabbat and Yom Tov, Bruce wears a kippah at the Shabbat table, MLC got a beautiful knit kippah to wear at her Bat Mitzvah. Eventually, though, he got the idea that Jews cover their heads when they pray, eat or do something 'Jewish.'



The point is that positive behavioral supports requires that rules be explicitly developed to match or transform the culture of a place, and that they must be also be explicitly taught. People cannot follow a rule if they do not know what the expected behavior looks like. Further, it is important for those modeling and enforcing rules to remember Buddha's encounter with the Sitar master.

A Story: One day, as Buddha was meditating under the Bo tree near the river Ganges, he heard a boat coming by. On the boat, a Sitar master instructed his student: "If you pull the string too tightly it will break. If you leave the string too lose, it will not make a sound." And that is when Buddha discovered the lesson of the middle way.



In making and enforcing rules, the Sitar rule applies in this way. You don't want to be so rigid that you break the student, but at the same time, you do not want to be so loose that you are unpredictable. You want to have consistency and room for negotiation. But the consistency comes first. Establishing consistency is, in a sense, an establishment of a common vocabulary with which future negotiations can be accomplished. For example, we established the "rule" that Jews cover their heads when they pray through consistent practice. But as N. grew, he began to notice that some Reform Jews do not do so. When he asked about it, we explained that in Reform Judaism, each person chooses which ritual customs he or she will follow upon becoming a Jewish adult. We also introduced the idea of minhag ha-makom, which means "custom of the place." N. learned that when we attend services at Chabad, the kippah is not optional. We continued to reinforce the practice of wearing the kippah, however, until N. became Bar Mitzvah. Consistent practice of the rule came first, and was followed by negotiation of the practice for Reform Judaism. So far, N. has chosen to continue to wear the kippah.



Another important practice when it comes to modeling rules is to positively reinforce the behavior you want to see. It can be as simple as saying, "N., you are getting to be such a mensch! You got your kippah on all by yourself!" This does two things. First, it lets the child know that doing the expected behavior feels good and right. The other is that, if he is behaving as expected, he cannot simultaneously be behaving in unwelcome ways. This is often called "Grandma's principle." If you give the kid the toy you want him to play with, and then reward him for it by playing with him, then he cannot also be, say, dumping your shampoo down the drain. Sometimes parents call this the "child psychology" method.



For most children, most of the time, this approach will get the desired behavior if the behavior is taught, consistently modeled, and reinforced. Of course, all children come to a place where they will challenge rules and some children will consistently challenge them. In these cases, there have to be consequences to repeated challenging behavior. Consequences work best when they are either determined in advance or clearly explained, and when they are predictable. When N. was about five, for example, he went through a phase of refusing the kippah. But when he did that, he was told that since he was too young to follow the rule, he was too young to be in services, and so one of us would take him out. Of course, people who do not attend services don't get to have a cookie at the oneg afterwards e.g. no kippah, no services; no services, no cookie. Of course, that meant that we left before the oneg, so we adults did not get to shmooze, either. But being a parent sometimes means sacrificing for the child.



NOTE: It is important to adjust rules and expectations to the child. This is known as "choosing your battle." If a child has sensory sensitivities, for example, expecting him to remain in a Purim service with noisemakers might be a tad unrealistic. You can either spend your time fighting the kid or you can take him to the nursery. When N. was little this was our choice. So we expected him to remain for through the Amidah (prayer) and then we took turns taking him out. Now he takes himself out when it gets to be too much. Groggers (noisemakers) were not a hill we chose to die on.



So how does all of this apply to Machon? First, the stakeholders for Machon must agree upon a limited number of positively stated rules and consequences. Everyone needs to know what they are--staff, parents and students. Secondly, the rules must be taught to the students so that they know what the expected behavior looks like. Thirdly, the expected behavior must be modeled by teachers and parents. Fourthly, the expected behavior must be reinforced so that students get social and personal rewards out of behaving well, and equally important, consequences must be assessed when students challenge the rules. All of this should be done with the assumption that the kids are not inherently unwilling to follow the rules. Most of them are social beings, after all. And it is really, really important not to punish all of the kids for the infractions of a few.



For me, this was an exercise in thinking through this problem, if nothing else. And it probably will come to nothing else. My teacher, Cantor Jacquie used to say: "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It frustrates you and annoys the pig."



But it is fun while it lasts.

Winter Rabbit

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

If the fog comes in on little cat feet,

as Sandburg said,

I think the snow comes in silent as rabbit,

leaving tracks and traces for us to see later.

Winter rabbit is barely visible behind the

dead grasses,

against the backdrop of the scrub oak,

feeding in the blue and gray predawn.

His nose the only movement, as he cautiously looks to my window, his ears and head are all that show above the drift.

Pictures taken on Los Pecos Ridge, Sedillo, NM, 1st in December 2007, 2nd & 3 rd on January 14, 2008, with a Sony Cybershot, Carl Zeiss Zoom lens.

Two Steps Back Part III: Good Behavior Must Be Taught

In two previous posts, I have discussed at length the problems we are experiencing with Machon--N.'s religious education. And you may be wondering, well, what do you think ought to be done about it? Besides this:

"...No more committees but only picnics and orgies

and dances. I have spoken. So be it forevermore."

Marge Piercy, The Report of the Fourteenth Subcommittee on Convening a Discussion Group

I mean picnics and dances are probably a good idea, once in a while. But orgies? Definitely not an activity likely to be acceptable in a religious school!

What I propose is a model of old-fashioned discipline, a system called Positive Behavior Supports. Although this sounds slightly politically correct, another fad out of the schools of education, it is really just 'educationese' for the development of a comprehensive disciplinary set of rules that govern a school, and the methodology used to teach the students proper behavior. In reality it is as 'old as the hills,' something that every teacher in the one-room schoolhouses on the prairie knew: in order to get good behavior from pupils, a teacher must establish a clear set of rules and classroom procedures, teach the students these rules and procedures, and then visit consequences on those pupils who do not choose to follow the rules and procedures.

There is one difference between the teacher in the one-room schoolhouse and teachers today, however. In those days, the teacher could be fairly certain that children would come to school having learned rules and procedures for polite behavior and smooth family living at home. Those teachers only needed to tweak the rules and procedures to fit the classroom.

Unfortunately, in our own day, many of the children starting school have not been raised by their own parents in the their own homes, but by underpaid and overworked daycare staffers who may have found it more expedient to do for the kids, rather than teach them how to do for themselves. Or even worse, children in low-quality facilities may be somewhat neglected in the area of discipline altogether. To make matters worse, kindergarten, which used to be the place where children were systematically taught the rules and procedures for working well in a classroom, has become academic and such lessons are assumed to have been taught in the pre-school or daycare. But in reality, they may not have been taught at all. Not in early childhood, not in elementary school, and not in middle school or high school.

There have also been changes in the way that children are being raised by their parents in our culture. Many parents do not maintain consistent, well-thought out discipline in the home for their children. For at least one whole generation, and part of another, children have been seen as friends and companions for many parents, and the relationship of the parent as teacher of the child has been neglected. This has consequences on what a child knows about his or her place in the world, and about discipline when they come to school or other public places. It is not my intention to disparage parents here, many of whom are doing the best they can with the tools they have been taught; rather it is my purpose to point out that we can discuss who should be responsible until the cows come home, but it will still be necessary for a teacher to teach more than content if a well-ordered classroom environment is desired.

An aside: I have noticed that homeschooled children, by and large, are much more likely to have been taught good manners and discipline by their parents. I have rarely experienced a homeschool child without them. I suspect that a parent is more bound to be more committed to this than anyone else, since parents have the greatest interest in good results in all areas.

Now, when a school or other educational setting has a system of Positive Behavior Supports in place, it is relatively easy to introduce the little ones just starting out to the rules and procedures, because the rest of the group, administrators, teachers, staff, and older students are, for the most part, modeling the good behavior. It is true that most kids will, at one time or another, challenge the rules and procedures, but if the child has been consistently taught, and has seen good behavior modeled, and has been given consequences for poor behavior, then correcting this is not that difficult. It is in the range of the child's experience to expect that the challenge will be met and the behavior corrected. One can expect that about 90% of children will respond well to a system of positive behavior supports. (NOTE: I say 'well' not 'perfectly.' One problem that we have in making any positive changes in our society is the tendency to make the perfect the enemy of the good. No child is ever going to behave perfectly. We are striving to get good behavior consistently, not perfect behavior).

However, there are real problems in implementing Positive Behavior Supports in a situation like that of Machon. There, the students are teenagers who have grown to expect inconsistent discipline or none at all, in that environment. Some may also not have been taught polite manners toward their peers and adults in other settings, such as home and/or school. In my experience as a teacher in a private school, many of the parents themselves lacked good manners in their behavior towards faculty and staff, and encouraged the same in their children. Some parents also found ways to protect their children from the consequences of poor behavior, which had some disasterous results as the children reached the age of majority. At any rate, it is more difficult to unteach poor behavior in a certain setting than it would have been to teach good behavior in the first place. The kids in Machon have had a number of years in which they have learned to work the system, getting out of any consequences for bad behavior.

An institution in the situation that Machon is in cannot expect quick response or magical changes. This does not mean that Positive Behavior Supports will not work. It does mean that it must be consistently applied for a longer period of time, and the principles must be modeled not only for the students, but for the parents in their interactions with the teachers and staff. Teachers and staff must be supported in their efforts to consistently apply the rules and procedures. Although this is not a zero-tolerance type of strategy, the rules and procedures must be applied fairly to all. If the "powers that be" find ways to make exceptions for particular parents, the strategy will fail.

Personally, I believe that Positive Behavior Supports would be a good way to go for Machon and the entire religious school at our synagogue. It would require training teachers and staff, and consistent, non-egoizing support from the clergy and adminstrators. However, in my experience with the system there, it seems they go for the quick-fix, like the arbitrary 'kick 'em' out rule outlined in the letter. There was a pretty good system of discipline outlined in the parent handbook at the beginning of the year. It failed for lack of being used in the difficult cases. This new rule will fail regardless of whether it becomes a one-strike-and-you're-out policy or a revolving door, because there is no consistent set of rules and procedures, no method for teaching the desired behavior, and the misbehavior is not well defined, which means that the kids and parents can continue to work the system.

Still, one can hope!

Next time, I am going to outline what a Positive Behavior Supports system might look like in the Machon setting.

COH: MLK Freedom Edition

Just as MLK had the dream of freedom for all, homeschoolers have the dream of freedom for ourselves and our children. Freedom to raise our children in the way we deem to be right, freedom to educate our children to think for themselves, and the freedom to be different, even among ourselves.

This week, and every week, the Carnival of Homeschooling allows us to share what we do, what works, what doesn't and the joy we have along the way.

This week, COH: The Martin Luther King Freedom Edition is up over at Consent of the Governed. There, the articles are organized by the kinds of freedoms they discuss or represent. So go on by, and enjoy! Excercise your freedom to choose what's best for you and your children.

Two Steps Back Part II: The Organization or Lack Thereof

A Digression on Cause

"In the room fog gathers under the ceiling and thickens

in every brain. Let us form committees spawning

subcommittees all laying little moldy eggs of reports.

Under the gray fluorescent sun they will crack

to hatch scuttling lizards of more committees."

--Marge Piercy, Report of the Fourtheenth Subcommittee on Convening a Discussion Group

The quote from the poem above summarizes some of my feelings about what might be going on with the problems in Machon, and in religious education in general, which has encompassed Sunday School (K-6) and Hebrew School. This at least, is how have experienced it over the past four years.

I think the ultimate problem is that the problem has been talked to death. Many bright and shining generalizations have been developed, mission statements have been written, and overarching dreams for a utopian future for education at the synagogue have been expressed. All of this at the expense of actually hiring an educator who knows what he or she is doing and then letting that person actually get something done. To put it more bluntly, the problem lies in talk as a substitute for action, and micromanagement as a substitute for competent leadership. Rather like the federal government.

Gentle Reader, I will leave who is doing the talking and who is doing the micromanagement to your imagination. If you have ever been a member of an organization that has slid into chaos, especially religious chaos, you know who I am talking about. If you haven't, then count yourself as a fortunate soul, and may you always be so blessed.

Now I don't have a clue as to how to solve such a problem. And I am rather thankful that my synagogue would never call on me to solve it. Or even to help solve it. I am not among the rabbi's favorites, and in fact, I expect he winces every time I approach him with a question, like I did on Friday night.

We haven't been going to services much lately.

We have lots of reasons, most of which are probably unimportant to anyone else. However, this past Friday night, we had been invited, and then uninvited, and then, through some politic maneuvering on the part of someone far more skilled at diplomacy than I, invited again, to light the candles at the evening service in honor of our covert anniversary. If you can follow that, you can probably understand why we have felt the need to step way back in our participation in the synagogue.

That this small personal insult unfolded at the same time as the latest crisis in Machon, and a turf-war surrounding a Torah study group, and a sudden, unexplained reoganization in the early childhood center--and if you can grok the fact that these are all probably unrelated--except to certain egos-- you might begin to get the picture of why I call it chaos. And you can probably also see how difficult all of this for me, hampered as I am by the absence of political and social savvy that is associated with the broader autistic phenotype, to even begin to unravel. For example, I am not certain which egos are at work here, or who might be behind what, but I can certainly smell something rotten in Denmark.

And I wonder why it took G-d forty years to get the Israelites to the promised land?

Meshuggeneh*!

*Nuts.

Where was I? Even telling the story tends to induce an episode of full-blown situational confusion in which all I want to do is throw my hands up in disgust and plead for mercy. Well.

Oh, yes. Friday night.

So we lit candles, although our blessing was omitted, for reasons that are unclear and which will remain so until the coming of the Messiah. We also stroked the possibly responsible egos by thanking them profusely and pretending we did not know that we had nearly been handed our hats.
(Score: political correctness 2, us 1).

The sermon--why, oh, why did the early reformers have to copy that particular Protestant invention?--was about the latest vision statement out of the Lifelong Learning Committee. They actually have a plan. Well, maybe not an actual plan--more like an ideal. Or..well, I don't know what to call it, but they said that they wanted to hire a Director of Life-Long Learning that will do just about everything except actually run the religious school. For that they want a Religious Education Coordinator. Oh, and they will need an Early Childhood Coordinator. And, naturally, so that adult education will not feel left out, they need one for that, too.

At this point, Bruce leaned over and began calculating on his watch. He was muttering:

"Open parentheses. Recruitment expenses. Salary. Expense account. Benefits. Close Parentheses. Open parentheses...."

I poked him in the ribs and muttered, "Don't geek out on me on Shabbat!"

He poked me back and hissed: "Well, they're the ones that mentioned money."

I whispered: "Well, they actually didn't, but..."

He muttered: "I can't pray when they start upping our dues in the middle of a service. How many relatives do they have anyway?"

But the part that really got my attention was when were told that if they could not find exactly the right person, they'd wait until the next year and start again.

I poked Bruce. "Great," I whispered, "So we can have chaos in the religious school for another year."

Bruce whispered: "I thought our G-d liked cosmos."

"No, honey," I whispered. "That's the 'Geek' gods. Ba-bum!"

Then we both turned and smiled angelically at the rabbi who was gazing in our direction.

Maybe he was regretting making us move out of the back row.

So at the oneg I asked my question: "In the meantime, what are you going to do about the current problems in Machon?"

I could give you a blow-by-blow account of that conversation, but my fingers are getting tired. Let's just cut to the chase.

Probably not much.

Possibly some new emergency policy that has not been well thought out.

Maybe a "coordinator" who knows something about school policy and discipline. Which raises another question. Will they let the person actually do the job?

Score: 'Process' 100, our kids ZIP.

I realize that I did not write the promised What Should Be Done installment.

But I wanted to answer a comments question: Why do you think this has become a widespread problem?

Maybe you can ferret out an answer from this account. I think it is ego-politics and focus on process at the expense of results.

In part III, I will get to what I would do if I were the Queen of Machon.

Here's a hint:

"...but oh, oh in me

Lurks a tyrant with double-bladed axe who longs

to swing it wide and shining, who longs to stand

And shreik, You Shall Do As I Say, pig-bastards!

No more committees but only picnics and orgies

And dances. I have spoken. So be it forevermore."

--Marge Piercy, Report of the Fourteenth Subcomittee on Convening a Discussion Group

Two Steps Back...More Machon Mizzukis Part I

Part I: The Crisis Deepens

Machon is the teen version of religious school at our synagogue.
In the past ten years, the religious school has been through a number of make-overs, each one of which was heralded with much fanfare,
and each of which was promised to improve the education of our children.
And with each make-over, it seemed that the kids learned less and less, until finally, a few years back, there was a parent tuition rebellion that led to more meetings, more discussions, more new mission statements, and more dashed parental hopes.
The ongoing mizzukis has included curriculum redesigns, changes in personnel, changes in rules, and an overall lack of continuity in the Jewish education of the children.

As you can imagine, this lack of continuity has been particularly difficult for N., as it would be for any child with AS. Last year, the combination of a too-large class and a rigid teacher caused us to make the decision to remove N. from Machon for the second semester. I blogged about it here and here. I was told at a meeting that the synagogue wasn't planning on meeting the needs of my child anytime soon, and I began to think about other arrangements.
Ultimately, though, upon the advice of two consultants, the Machon scope and sequence was revised (once again), the classes were restructured, and some accomodations to special needs were included (see description here). So, with a certain amount of hope that maybe this would work, we went ahead and enrolled N. and paid half of the tuition.

The first six weeks with a dynamic, professional teacher, went very well. N. was participating in discussions, he felt safe in the class, and he came home able to tell me--in great detail--about the moral dilemmas the class discussed. He also developed a relationship with the teacher and every week, he goes up to give her a spontaneous hug. Now that's pretty amazing for my sensory-sesitive "Aspie." And then, in November, the classes switched and N. transitioned to a new teacher. And things went straight to...Gehinnon*. Although she was a very good Hebrew tutor for N. in years past, this teacher is not a professional teacher. And there were a couple of rather mean kids in the group that let her know it. During the second class--which occured after the Thanksgiving break, two of the boys succeeded in driving out this teacher. There was one more session before the winter recess which involved a guest speaker, and then this past week, still another teacher--with yet another, discontinuous lesson plan.

*GeHinnon: the garbage dump outside of ancient Jerusalem where the bodies of children sacrificed to Moloch were buried. It is the closest Jewish equivalent to Hell. We do not have a concept of eternal damnation. But sarcophogi of children sacrificed to a false god seems equally aweful.

N. shut down. As I heard it, he put his head down in his arms on the desk and refused to participate. Fortunately, the substitute --who is also yet another interim director--did not take it personally. Since there will be still another teacher next week, she recommended that we put N. back in the first teacher's group, which I agreed to, although I do not think the situation is ideal for any of the kids. In my conversations with the interim director, I found out that there has been: extensive bullying of girls by mean girls, physical violence, as well as threats of it, and other nasty behavior on the part of a few of the kids. I guess that explains the letter we got last week.

Yes, I forgot to mention the letter. The reason that I had a conversation with the interim director was the letter. Last weekend, upon return home from a day in town, we received a letter from the religious school. It was to announce a rules change. Essentially, instead of a series of well-planned, well thought out steps for disciplining infractions, with clear rules and definitions, the rule is now this: if a teacher feels that a child is being disruptive, then the teacher will dismiss the child from class, the parents will be called and the child will not be allowed to return until s/he and the parents have had a conference with the rabbi or cantor.

Good grief! As a professional educator with credentials in special education, and specific training in classroom organization and positive behavior supports, all I can think of this is, Feh! The rule is arbitrary, easily abused, and most importantly, does not teach the children how they are expected to behave. It is clear that no one on the education committee has any experience in classroom behavior management. The rule gives no guidelines whatsoever to the hapless teachers, most of whom have no training in this area, and, in fact, have no training in teaching in a classroom at all. (I was once one of these teachers, before I was a licensed teacher, and I do not disparage them at all. They would not be there if they did not have the heart to share what they know with the kids. However, teaching groups of other people's children is a very different proposition than is teaching your own. Teacher training is aimed at methods for teaching content, but even more so at developing an effective classroom management system. Even more to the point, a school has to have a structure, and a set of rules and procedures, that support the teacher in the classroom).

Clearly, then, the "crisis" in the religious school, which has been deepening for years due to lack of competent leadership, has fallen to a new low. There are clearly serious discipline problems in the school that imperil the learning of all of the children, as well as their personal safety. And there is a lack of continuity that also obviates learning. For N., it is disastrous. His "aspie" mind needs structure, continuity, and firm boundaries in place in order for him to relax enough to learn. And even then, the highly academic nature of the religious instruction is still problematic. Shutting down is his more grown-up method of defense against the overwhelming sense of chaos that he is feeling. (When he was younger, melt-downs were his MO). But shutting down in the presence of an untrained "teacher" may well be seen as oppositional and disruptive.

We are very, very concerned.

NEXT: What Should be Done and Why

A Homeschool Snow Day

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

It started Sunday night.

On Monday morning we woke up

to wind and snow.

It was Monday morning, so Bruce had to clear

the snow from the car and creep down the hill.

The snow came in waves.

All day, the clouds would lift, and then more

would come spilling over the Sandia front,

like water over a dam.

When the dogs needed out,

it was an expedition,

into the blizzard winds.

Sometimes, the snow fell

almost like rain,

and sleet, and hail.

And then the wind would blow,

and obscure the mountains again.

On a homeschool snow day, we do math while sipping cocoa.