Brad: Teaching Youth with Emotional Disabilities: The Long and Winding Road



The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) defines emotional disturbance as follows:

 “...a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance:

 (A) An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.

 (B) An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers.

 (C) Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.
 
 (D) A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.

 (E) A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.”

I can remember a time not too long ago when I didn’t have a clue about what I would need to know in the future. I wasn’t worried about it. The future would come. And it did, along with many tough lessons about how not to handle certain situations.

When we’re young, most of us are capable of learning lessons through direct experience, even if we aren’t paying attention when our parents, teacher, school counselor, and Aunt Lydia try to tell us that it isn’t a good idea to play by the river in winter (just as an example).

Not all lessons are so dire or so dangerous, but all it takes is one slip into the icy current and a mad scramble to the bank for a child to begin hearing words through a different set of ears and seeing life through a keener set of eyes. This is the way most of us grow up and, with a little luck, go on. But not all of us.

I worry about Ray. Ray is a student who stands six-foot-two, wears a black snowboarding jacket, and looks as though he’ll be joining the police force after graduating in May. In fact, if you met Ray, he might tell you this, and you’d probably believe it — even though there’s no truth to it whatsoever.

Ray has a hard time keeping track of his schedule, forgets where he’s going, and often gets side-tracked on the way to forgetting where he’s supposed to go next. We’ve tried a few things: We’ve asked him to carry a planner and his schedule at all times. We’ve escorted him to his classes and led him to his bus after school. But Ray always seems to find a way to slip the escort or find the wrong bus, or he simply decides to walk down the street with a group of friends and texts his sister when he gets somewhere, wherever that is.

Last October someone found Ray asleep (and in the beginning stages of hypothermia) on a playground across the street from school. He was out late, wasn’t able to find his way home, and figured the best option was to just sleep outside in the 35-degree weather.

And the school nurse called our classroom the other day to let me know that she saw Ray bending over to pick up something in the middle of the street; she worried that if someone didn’t watch out for him, he might get hit by a car. I didn’t remind her that one of our students was hit by a car last year, right in front of the school — and that Ray was one of two students who reacted a little more quickly and managed to dodge the vehicle.

As a life skills teacher, I value real situations in which students can learn from direct experience. To access these experiences, we often leave the classroom so students can learn to navigate their environment with the level of intensity and supervision that their achievements have warranted. It often amazes me how most students seem to learn from these direct experiences, while visceral lessons replete with near-death experiences leave Ray’s navigational and decision-making skills generally unaltered.

Teaching a student like Ray is frustrating because he exhausts your bag of tools more quickly than a whole team of educational professionals can fill it. In addition, Ray’s cognitive difficulties are often overshadowed by his defiance toward authority and general malaise toward the disciplinary consequences that are traditionally meted out in schools (i.e., detention, work details, suspensions).

When the traditional consequences don’t work, educators are compelled to collaborate to form behavior plans that seek to identify and address underlying causes of behavior. Most of all, it takes perseverance both in the observation of the student and in the communication between family and educators.

So far much of our plan to address Ray’s behavior hasn’t always worked, but some of it has. And while I can’t say I’ve been in Ray’s corner at each turn in our relationship, I’m beginning to understand that he needs more advocates willing to help him, not fewer.

Do any of you have a Ray in your classroom?

Comments

[Jason Tracy]

I don’t have a student like Ray yet, but I am still in graduate school and do not have my own classroom. I am sure that your story about Ray will inform my future practice in educating youth with emotional disabilities. I’m sure that even though my content is in ELA, that I will have students with emotional disabilities in my classes. From your story about Ray, I will mostly take away your patience and desire to keep trying to help educate Ray in and out of the classroom.

[Mayra]

Hello
My name is Mayra and I'm a teacher for special needs, I'm from Spain and I've just finished my degree last june.
I found this blog by coincidence, and I jus wanted to say that I really liked what you posted.

Please forvige my awful English

[Brad]

Thanks for the comment Mary! And we do have school psychologists working in schools, who are often great resources in terms of providing more information about children like Ray. While there are a lot of great strategies for teaching all types of kids, every now and again there are students who don't seem to respond to interventions in ways that make sense... and it's up to me to keep trying something new. It's all a part of teaching, especially in this field. Your comment and questions are valued.

[Mary]

Seems like severe consequenses to bad or worsening behavour isn't working. Possibly the kids are blocking the inherent lessons to be learned because they are so REALLY fearful of the punishment. Ignoring or blocking the punishment perhaps enables them to feel strong and very secure - why would he want to change? We all need to feel secure. BUT by blocking the consequences he's blocked the lesson entirely...maybe? Ray sounds abused to me; I don't think Ray knows his own worth, direction, and thus has no motivation. OR possibly that's the disease? Possibly he is loved, but doesn't understand the effects (as you already pointed out) of love. He does understand the effects of blocking. You almost have to be a psychologist to be his teacher. Does that exist? If not WHY NOT?

I am just a mom - interested in how other people learn and teach and considering special education a career. Thought I'd share or pose questions / comments.

[Allisence]

I don't have a Ray like yours in my classroom, but I do have a student who certainly seems to learn best from direct experiences. My student, let's call her Sarah, has gotten away with a lot in life. Her parents are divorced and as a result, her mom lets her have her way almost all the time. She's also the youngest of a number of children, which does not help the situation. When Sarah arrived in our kindergarten classroom in the middle of October, it was immediately apparent that she had an attitude and what seemed to be a clear lack of respect for the adults in her life. For her, it was no different in the classroom.

On a number of occasions, the general classroom behavior plan had to be implemented before she was willing to even consider cooperating. One afternoon, it got so bad that the school's behavior specialist had to drag her out of the classroom kicking and screaming.

After that day, she was a completely different child. All of a sudden, she understood what it meant to respect the adults in her life (at school anyway). For the first time, Sarah finally understood that her actions have consequences. What an eye-opening experience that was — for her and for me. Because while most kids don't need to be dragged out of a room to understand that actions have consequences, then again, there are those kids that need that experience. I'm just glad this happened when Sarah was five and in a safe school environment, as opposed to when she was 25 in a not-so-safe place.

[Shannon Brown]

I have had several students in my class that seem to be lost and do not learn the consequences of their actions even when these actions get them in trouble on a regular basis. One in particular, was severe. He had to be restrained many times and escorted out of my classroom for being aggressive toward the other students and myself. This was in kindergarten. He is now in second grade and has just recently been institutionalized.