IEPs _ Individual education plans - CPS/RDI and the autistic spectrum

The pedagogy of poverty discriminates not only against poor children and their families but also against kids who receive ' special ed' ,  or are behaviorally challenged. The IEPs – the individual education plans   that are supposed to remediate their problems  often fail them because they do not  address kids' needs for autonomy , competence and relatedness.

'In 1991, Martin Haberman, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, coined the phrase “pedagogy of poverty.” Based on his observations in thousands of urban classrooms, Haberman described a tightly controlled routine in which teachers dispense, and then test students on, factual information; assign seatwork; and punish noncompliance.  It is a regimen, he said, “in which learners can ‘succeed’ without becoming either involved or thoughtful” -- and it is noticeably different from the questioning, discovering, arguing, and collaborating that is more common (though by no means universal) among students in suburban and private schools.'  - Alfie Kohn


The same approach – a top-down drill and skill approach   is used for special ed kids or kids whose  cognitive skills are lagging behind.  The truth is that these kids need a   constructivist   approach more than regular kids. All kids need a constructivist approach to help them develop a love of learning and to become creative and critical learners. The challenging kids need the approach to also help them overcome developmental   delays and promote cognitive skills that they can use in dynamic environments.  Teaching kids skills like a pet dog in a static way does not promote dynamic skills. Teaching that focuses on kids' thinking and how they make meaning of what they learn will promote skills.


Teachers need to undergo a paradigm shift and focus more on ' guiding ' and less on 'getting' certain responses and certain things from their child. Deborah Meier, the esteemed educationalist said that teaching is more about listening and learning is more about talking. Here is an article by Libby Majewski  , a RDI relationship development intervention consultant – http://www.rdiconnect.com/tips-on-creating-an-iep/  Tips on creating an IEP



She recommends a teaching and communication style that uses a lot of non-verbal communication, the use of indirect prompts and hints rather than telling them or direct prompts.  We should give them more time to process language by waiting longer for responses, share  experiences, and use  'declarative ' language to introduce open-ended questions. Expressive language which is driven by the kid's thinking and autonomy is far more important than answering questions or quizzes.


These   tips however are only a part of the plan. They focus on teaching skills ' in the moment ' , as part of one's  general interaction with kids. The IEP also needs to include the collaborative problem solving of the kid's pile of specific   unsolved problems which are predictably occurring on a regular basis.
IEPs should be replaced with the CPS Plan ( collaborative problem solving Plan ) – CPS Individual education plan  and include the RDI – relationship development intervention plan

Rewards -a Collaborative problem solving and SDT approach

In a Sunday times article Professor Richard Ryan , the co-author of the Self determination motivational theory ,  Should we reward kids for A grades ?  warns parents not to reward children for A grades.

 His arguments for grades are similar to the CPS – collaborative problem solving approach discouraging rewards for good behavior.

1 Kids are naturally motivated to be curious and learn, do well and behave in an adaptive and appropriate way. Rewards undermine intrinsic motivation as kids see themselves learning and behaving only when there is a reward. Kids do well if they can and not if they want to. If they are struggling we need to ask what is getting in their way and how we can help them. When it comes to motivation we can try create an environment which is conducive to kids motivating themselves.


2 Rewards put the responsibility for learning and behaving on the parent.' Now the parent is the one who has to monitor the child, instead of the child assimilating and really internalizing the value of learning and hard work, (pro-social behavior ),which is really what we want to develop. The locus of control shifts from the child to the parent. Instead of asking what type of person do I want to be – a caring person who is curious and loves learning, kids learn to ask what will I get or what will be done to me ?


3 Rewards reward outcomes and often negative behaviors and values such as cheating, non-cooperation, not taking risks,  that help kids get good grades. They ignore the process of learning, the activity itself , valued behavior   and the feelings of the whole child.


4 Rewards actually cause the very problems – poor grades and maladaptive behavior – they are supposed to remedy. Rewards increase stress and anxiety which in itself can compromise performance.


5 They way to go is to avoid rewards and instead express appreciation and encouragement. We can be supportive and love a child unconditionally no matter how well he does in school or how he behaves. We can take steps to foster the child's competence, and his perception of being autonomous, self –directed and help him enjoy whatever he does. This will lead to a happier and self –motivated child.

I.E.Ps vs CPS - collaborative problem solving plan

Many teachers and parents of challenging kids need to participate in writing up an I.E.P – an individualized educational plan for the kid. The question asked and addressed in the CPS book for schools             Lost at School

 Is ' How do we incorporate collaborative problem solving into an I.E.P'?

' In the real world, problems, persons and settings continually change. And , attempts to solve problems actually modify the problem itself. Events or activities are inherently dynamic, rather than consisting of static conditions. Change and development, rather than static characteristics, is assumed to be basic..

A problem solving approach places primary emphasis on people's attempts to negotiate the stream of life, to work around or transform problems that emerge on the route to attaining the diverse goals of life '   - Barbara Rogoff

I think the way to go is to understand where traditional IEP and CPS differ.

The IEP may contain useful information such as lagging skills and academic problems that would impact on behavior.  

 IEPs and behaviorism focus on behaviors =static intelligence which makes IEPs static documents. CPS focuses on problem solving =dynamic intelligence which leads to a dynamic CPS plan.

 The goals and benchmarks in an IEP focus on the symptoms of the lagging skills -  behaviors that make the kid look bad – and teaching replacement behaviors for eg using words instead of hitting, stepping back to chill out, and asking for help etc. The focus on behavior is in part due to the way progress is measured and ' data ' collected.  Behaviorism looks at the ' behavior ', because it is easy to measure but ignores the child's feelings, concerns and the role of others in the problem, in other words the specific conditions giving rise to the problem. So IEP goals call for the display of appropriate replacement behaviors when the kid is challenged ignoring the problem

Treating the symptoms of an underlying problem with replacement behaviors or procedures does not deal with the underlying problem and the concerns of the kid. So the crucial components of an IEP and the goals and benchmarks should the pile of unsolved problems and lagging skills that need remediation. Once we have identified the unsolved problems and lagging skills we can use a CPS plan to prioritize problems and lagging skills.  The low priority problems will be put on the back burner - Plan C , and the high priority problems and lagging skills will be addressed by named teachers who will do plan B with the kid.

We can then show how Plan B – the mutually satisfying solution

 1 addresses the both kid's and teacher's solves problems in a realistic and durable way

2. and at the same time how the Plan B process teaches   indirectly the various lagging skills.

When we assess how the Plan B solution is addressing the problem, we are not only evaluating the lagging skills but whether the solution is the appropriate one to address the problem. We also need to reflect on the actual discussions themselves. These discussions are not only revealing about the kids concerns but also give information about how the kid is using his cognitive skills  for e.g– the ability to identify and express his concerns, planning, hindsight and foresight, perspective taking , being  flexible in his thinking.

Behaviorism and IEPs that focus on measuring behaviors gathering  ' static ' information . This leads to ' static' documents. CPS gathers ' dynamic ' information which is more helpful in dealing with the kid's issues.

Ross Greene concludes that since IEPs tend to be static documents, CPS is likely to be more effective at prioritizing and revising goals, tracking a kid's progress, deciding what skills have been satisfactorily trained and problems resolved, and helping kids appreciate the progress that is being made. IEPs become outdated rather quickly – the CPS plan is a living, breathing plan of action.

Struggling teen brains

On the subject of Parenting a struggling teen – Thinking beyond the crisis 

 Dr.  F. Reamer argues parents to look beyond the quick fix. He rightly says that these kids have skill deficits particularly  in the area of ' executive functions '.

'Thus, an important task with struggling teens is to place them in protected, supervised settings that can contain their inappropriate, impulsive, destructive, and counterproductive behaviors, keeping them safe during this critical period of brain development. As the brain matures, many struggling teens show evidence of improved judgment, better impulse control, more stable moods, and more appropriate behavior.  '

My question to Dr Reamer – why do we have to wait for the teen's brain to mature , why should we not act according to neuro-science and brain plasticity that CPS – the collaborative problem solving approach promotes brain development ,helps teens acquire ' executive functions ' and addresses their pile of unsolved problems in a realistic and durable way.

The high rates of recidivism in Juvenile Detention system prove that unless teens essential needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness are addressed by using collaborative problem solving , teens brains won't mature and be skilled over time.

CPS in Maine's Juvenile Detention System

Rod Bouffard, Superintendent at Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, Maine, speaks about his experiences in implementing CPS in his facility.

Scroll down to the video clip

http://www.livesinthebalance.org/annual-conference

Personalization and Differentiation in Learning – A SDT, CPS , Constructivist view

On the 7th March, 2012 Alfie Kohn twittered   '2 Ed Week essays warn that “personalized learning” may be impersonal & behavioristic:  '

http://ow.ly/9qQHo ,
http://ow.ly/9qQIf

Some schools today seem to be moving away from the classical Skinner models of learning in both the academic and socio- moral ( behavioral ) areas of learning. The PBIS  - positive behavior al interventions and supports approach appreciates that kids behavior can be explained in terms of lacking skills and modern technology supports ' personalization and differentiation '  in academic subjects.

When we look at PBIS and personalized learning through the eyes of  Constructivist and The Self Determination theories , the approaches tend to be impersonal and behavioristic.

These approaches focus on ' competence '  and not only  don't address the needs for autonomy and relatedness  but limit their expression.

PBIS teaches lacking skills in a direct top-down way. The CPS – collaborative problem solving approach mainly teaches skills in an indirect fashion through the process of cps. The kids concerns and the kid participating in the defining the problem and finding the solution are central to CPS. In PBIS the process is not collaborative, kids concerns are ignored, and solutions are top-down. CPS addresses the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness and are active in constructing meaning and reflecting on what they are doing. PBIS in a way addresses the need for competence or in other words the ability to comply.

When it comes to learning ,  cutting –edge developments like personalization and differentiated instruction  may be in fact the same old learning by transmission style  pedagogy where the student is conceived as a passive receptacle just receiving information in a different way.

The fact that the internet provides multiple resources at great speed changes exactly nothing in terms of the pedagogical approach. Collecting facts from the internet is no different from pulling them from the World book encyclopedia.

The constructivist approach kids learn by talking and constructing meaning from their learning.

'Teaching is mostly listening, and learning is mostly telling '  Deborah Meier

An Oregon teacher in her 50’s once summarized her professional growth to me in one short sentence:  “The longer I teach, the less I talk.”  She’d come to realize that only by making sure she didn’t monopolize the classroom was there a real chance for her students to talk – and therefore to learn.   Given how much silence (that is, student silence) is valued in the Old School, that last idea may be counterintuitive, but, as a British educator explained, “Talking is not merely a way of conveying existing ideas to others; it is also a way by which we explore ideas, clarify them and make them our own.” Every minute a teacher is doing the talking is a minute this isn’t happening.    – Alfie Kohn   - The schools our kids deserve

'If we are genuinely concerned with students' intellectual development (as opposed to their scores on standardized tests), then it makes sense to do all we can to help them focus on effort rather than ability, to become absorbed with the learning itself rather than being preoccupied with their performance. This, in turn, can be facilitated by what I have elsewhere called the "three C's of motivation": collaboration, choice, and content (of the curriculum).

Collaboration involves more than occasional cooperative learning activities; it means that students feel connected to their peers and that they experience the classroom as a safe, supportive community -- not a place of isolation and certainly not a place where they must compete against each other. Choice means that students are brought into the process of making decisions about what (and how and why) they are learning -- as well as other issues of classroom life. Finally, to raise the question of content is to challenge the assumption that students are indifferent about their schoolwork because they are not sufficiently "motivated" (or, from another point of view, because they simply have low self-esteem). The real problem may be that the work itself is not meaningful, engaging, or relevant.'   - Alfie Kohn article , The truth of self –esteem

Constructivist learning addresses the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness for kids in school.



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Why French parents are superior - Mindful eating and SDT- self determination theory

Pamela Druckerman , the author of ' Why French Parents are superior',

says that unlike American parents who insist on their kids ' finishing' their food and 'cleaning their plates ' before they get desert , French parents tell their kids – you don't have to finish your food , you just have to taste everything.

American parents are concerned with the results- the product whereas French parents focus on the ' process' of eating and the culture around food. The French menu has lots of variety and this promotes ' tasting' rather than filling yourself up. Why does this resonate with me ?  The reason is that ' tasting ' food is the basis of ' mindful eating.'

It is hard to think of one experiencing ' self determination ' – endorsing one's actions at the highest levels of reflection when we are involved with food and eating. Eating is often a reflexive experience where one is not aware of what one is eating, just being an ' object ' who is being filled with food and who will stop eating when one  cannot eat any more.

 Parents and kids may have healthy eating goals and are able to express their 'autonomy 'and 'relatedness ' by participating in family decisions concerning what is served for meals. Kids who are not given some control over their eating are likely to suffer from obesity. 

Childhood obesity and SDT

But we need to ask if ' eating' for them is something intrinsically valuable beyond meeting the basic animal needs of survival or not.

People behave like objects when they merely react to the external stimuli that food provides. How does focusing on ' tasting' make people 'subjects ' rather than objects. ?

By being mindful about eating, we are being subjects , eating slowly, being  very aware of the present, attentive to how the food looks, smells, tastes, feels – texture and sounds. It is about being ' reflective ' rather than 'reflexive.'

Here are 2 links to the classic mindful-eating practice '  eating a raisin made famous by Jon Kabat-Zinn in his mindfulness-based stress reduction program.

 Mindfullness raisin exercise

You tube Mindfulness raisin exercise

Mindful eating promotes good health. People are often ' mindless' about food and are multitasking while eating. This creates a mind-body disconnect so that critical brain signals that regulate food intake may not be received by the brain and instead the brain continues to send out additional signals of hunger , increasing the risk of overeating.

So during the meal , we should not hold conversations while eating but engage in ' mindful eating' and then stop eating and be attentive to the conversation and other people at the table.

According to my religious tradition the ' taste of food ' , is its spirituality. The snake in the biblical story of Adam and Eve was the symbol of materialism and natural drives used in a negative way. The snake was cursed that he would have to eat dust – something that lacks taste.

Family meals promote ' relatedness' among family members and are very empowering for kids development. Mindful eating can help us transcend beyond addressing the basic animals needs of hunger and make eating an experience which is intrinsically valuable.

Praising kids - Alfie Kohn, Carol Dweck , Social Conservatives

In recent years the self esteem movement has come under fire especially in relation to verbal rewards – ' Praise'. Alfie Kohn has just written a summary of his approach to praise and how it differs from both that of social conservatives and Carol Dweck.

Alfie Kohn , Carol Dweck, Social Consevatives - Praise

He takes issue with the idea that one should praise ' effort ' rather than ability . Carol Dweck showed how helping kids to acquire a growth mindset,  - that by making an effort we can succeed - rather than praising their ability, we can help them be successful.

'Praising kids' efforts may be counterproductive as it may signal that they have to try very hard because they are not very good at what they are doing. It may communicate that they are not really capable and therefore unlikely to succeed at future tasks. For this reason others have suggested praising ' ability' which is supposed to enhance one's feeling of competence. This is also problematic. As Carol Dweck has shown ,that when kids attribute success or failure to something that is outside their control, such as a ' fixed' level of ability,  they are discouraged from taking responsibility for working to improve their performance. It may be most sensible to avoid casting praise as a comment on either effort or ability.' -AK

What should we do instead of praise. ? To answer this we must revisit our parenting goals. We want our kids to be self directed and act in an autonomous way, self assess and evaluate the impact they have on others and the environment, find meaning and enjoyment in what they are doing, focus more on the process and less on achievement, focus on their feelings – the intrinsic reward rather than achievement and pleasing others. We also want them to be supportive of others and not to manipulate them with praise to get what they want or show approval to others who jump through their hoops.

The way to go is to use ' declarative language '  just describing what we saw and then pausing. This gives the kid time to reflect on what you have noticed and  also experience some inner pride or other feelings for eg.  satisfaction. We can then ask open ended questions – how did you feel about what you did ?  what were you thinking about when you drew the dog? What made you decide to end the essay that way ?

'These comments and questions help a kid focus his attention on his feelings and thoughts rather than on his accomplishments. He is talking about what he did and self assessing. By emphasizing the process rather than the product, the kid will realize that it's the trying that counts.'  Myrna Shure 

By focusing more on achievement parents put a full stop on life, when we focus on the process we focus on life and the new challenges it presents us.