Teacher Tech: The ADHD Stategies

Chris always showed remorse when he caused a problem.  And he caused a lot of problems.  That first day of school he looked up at me, pale eyes full of self-doubt, and asked me if he did OK on his first paper.  He hadn't.  Chris wasn’t timid or stupid, he just expected to disappoint the people he loved.  Chris was ADHD.

Despite Chris’s heart of gold, he could not control his attention problems or hyperactivity.  As a result, he entered my fifth grade fully expecting to be a bad boy, yet yearning to please.

After the first day, I realized I had made more behavior corrections for Chris than all other students combined.  By the end of the first week, he probably had many times the behavior corrections of all my other students.  This wasn’t sustainable, either for Chris or for me.

Talking with other teachers and reading up on the subject, I came up with five strategies to make sure Chris and I had a great year.

I’m going to talk about one of the strategies in this blog post and the other four in a future blog entry.

Strategy One: 5:1

My goal became to give Chris five positive affirmations for every correction he received. This strategy would become the most important and effective of anything Chris and I did to make his fifth grade year a good one. 

Since Chris was nearly powerless to control his impulsivity, I had to become creative to make sure he was constantly successful in other areas and try to figure out ways to lower the number of behavior corrections.  I also spent a great deal of time watching Chris to catch him being good.  It’s a powerful thing when a teacher is looking for positive in a student.

Put yourself in Chris’s place for a moment.  How would you feel if, in the course of a day,  your supervisor told you dozens of times that you were making mistakes, being rude or not paying attention?  It would wear on you, right?  Some teachers might be crushed with just one critical comment.  What could I do to make sure Chris received lots of affirmations? 

As often as Chris would interrupt someone, it would have been easy to think he didn’t care about others’ feelings.  In fact, the opposite was true.  When I made him the “super buddy” of Greg, the handicapped student, who came in for certain activities, Chris showed a degree of empathy and tenderness that brought confidence to both himself and Greg.  I could use time-helping-in-Greg’s-class as a reward for Chris.

I also put Chris in charge of our classroom fish tank.   I trained him in the secret arts of tank maintenance and fish care.  He became the fish boss, rising in social rank among his less-knowledgeable peers.  Keeping the feeding and maintenance schedule might have also made Chris more aware of dates and times.  Like many ADHD sufferers, Chris was horribly disorganized.  Also, fish bosses must  be out of their seat to check on the fish, so I didn't need to tell him to go back to his seat so often. 

Chris and I came up with codes for me to tell him he was doing well or if he needed to knock it off.  If I touched his paper, book or desk, it that meant I liked what I was seeing.  If I shook my head at him, he knew to stop doing something.  If I needed a student to model something, I tried to find was to use Chris as a demonstrator or helper.  This got him out of his seat and often out of trouble.

Finding out that he was a valued member of the class gave Chris a new confidence.  His classmates saw him as the loveable clown he had been in previous grades, but also as a successful and respected class member.  With his classmates providing some of the positive encounters for Chris, it boosted him even more.

Chris and I had our good days and bad.  Sometimes, he seemed to need 10 positives for every correction, other times, he got along great with the 5:1 ratio.  Overall, he and I developed a close working relationship built on trust and respect based on the 5:1 plan.  There were four other strategies that helped Chris and me to have a great year, one which came from a completely unexpected source.

Teacher Tech: 5 Ways to Build a Relationship With A Disruptive Student

I’ll never forget Slade.  He walked into a room ready to fight and tried hard to figure out what the teacher wanted so he could do the opposite.  For years I would listen to his teachers tell stories about his behavior problems in class.  Then, in fifth grade, he appeared on my attendance sheet.

We got though the year with no suspensions from what he did in class.  He was suspended based on incidents in the cafeteria, on the bus and on the playground, but he and I made it through the year.

Part of the reason he was so successful in my class was a sense of trust we built up between us.  If you have a student who is difficult to manage, I suggest you will find it worthwhile to build a relationship with that student by using or adapting these five techniques.

1.            Notice something.  On the first day of class, Slade walked in with new shoes.  I asked him about them.  I wanted to know where he got them and joked that he might want to loan them to me some time.  It became a running joke that his obviously smaller shoes might fit on my big feet.  I shared this joke with no other students; it was just for Slade and me. 

Boys like to discuss objects, so with Slade, I picked shoes.  Girls like to discuss relationships, so if Slade were a girl, I’d discuss a pet, family member, former teacher or fictional character to talk about.  Look for opportunities to lightly chat about non-threatening issues with your Slade.

2.            Point out success.  This takes vigilance.   You need to watch your own Slade like a hawk to catch him being good.  When passing out papers, Slade would take first what he wanted then dump the rest on someone else’s desk.  Then one day I put a stack of papers on his desk, and he passed them out nicely.  I came up behind him and whispered to him that I noticed he was passing out papers nicely, and that I was proud of his growth.  Slade did not like public praise, so the whisper also let him know I didn’t want to embarrass him.  Also, he tended to repeat the good behaviors I pointed out.

3.            Do an interest inventory.  Early in the year, I had my students tell me what they liked, how they spent their time, and what their wishes were for fifth grade.  Ostensibly this was for a graphing unit, but I pulled Slade’s paper aside and photocopied it.  I could refer to one of his favorite shows, sports or songs when using an example for the class.  He, of course, was interested and tended to participate more in the discussions.  It gave me more chances to offer whispered praise and use him as an expert.

I found out Slade like cats, so I often drew a cat on his papers: no one else got a cat drawing.

4.            Be consistent.   The rule in music class was no pencil sharpening when the teacher was talking.  When sweet Emily left her seat to sharpen, the music teacher told her nicely to go back to her seat.  When Slade tried it, he got a detention.  This set Slade off in a tantrum about how the teacher liked Emily better.  If the teacher had said something like, “Emily, are you forgetting we can’t sharpen right now?  That’s strike one.”  Then when Slade tried it, “Slade, are you forgetting again you can’t sharpen right now.  That’s your third strike.”  Slade would better understand why he got a different consequence than Emily.

Consistency, even if it means consequences for Slade, gave him a sense of comfort.  He knew the rules and understood they will always be the same.  In Slade’s chaotic home life, he had very little stability, so he liked knowing where the boundaries were.  He still tested the limits whenever he felt insecure.

5.            Develop non-verbal signals.  I would tell Slade that if I showed him the bathroom pass, he was to take a cool-down walk to the bathroom and get a drink.  This signal was only for Slade and as far as I know, he told none of his buddies about it.  It gave everyone in the class a three-minute break from whatever Slade was doing.

Non-verbal signals did not count as a behavior correction in Slade’s mind, probably because he figured no one else in the class knew he was being corrected.

There are lots of ways to form a relationship with students, but the most fragile students need extra attention that causes minimal impact to the class.

Not long ago, I was working late in my classroom when Slade rode up on his bike and pounded on the window.  I opened it to see a teenaged-Slade smiling there.  “Yo, Mr. Hansen.  Still have Jolly Ranchers hidden in your desk?  It’s why I came here.”

I asked him if his favorite was still the purple color, and as he unwrapped the candy, he told me that I was the only teacher who never suspended him. 

Teacher Tech: Art Project

Why Study Art?

We study art with our students, not because it helps them with math or science, but because, in order to be a literate person, children need to know about art.

The first project of the year should focus on quality.  If you allow your students to turn in junk that first project, that’s what they think they’re supposed to do.  Your art-covered bulletin board could end up a testament to mediocrity. 

On the other hand, if your display is impressive, it tells students and parents that you are an effective educator.  It can actually boost staff and parental perceptions of you and your effectiveness as an educator. 

To Boost Quality

•            Spend time your first project teaching procedures like: Where to put their paper when done.  How to manage supplies.  How to do clean-up.  Supporting classmates by offering kind comments and observations.  Put these procedures on posters so you don’t have to spend much time explaining them the next time you teach art.

•            Make sure students put their name on their paper before starting a project.  You will get better quality if they know their name will be on the front of their paper and that you are going to put the artwork on your bulletin board to show everyone in the school what good artists they are.  Putting papers in a place accessible to others is Publishing.  Publishing includes putting the art on their class web page, gathering them into a class book, or entering an art contest.

•            If a student is stressed by the idea of doing art for public display, you can lower their concerns by asking them to do a “rough draft” first.  When a student spends nearly no time on a sloppy piece of art, tell them it’s a great start and you can hardly wait until they finish it.  Make sure every student is successful.

•            Idle hands are the devil’s tools.  Make sure students know what to do when finished. Clear instructions about what-to-do-when-done should be on your procedure poster to you can just point to if Suzie decides to attempt mischief when her art is done.

•            Quality will go up if you make sure that students get 5 or more minutes of SILENT time to work on their art.  Some teachers do this by putting on some music (not too bouncy or they will start dancing) or reading a story once all students have started their project.  Be sure to tell them why they are having the quiet time so they understand they are to focus on their work and not socializing.

•            Become an expert at efficiently distributing materials.  If students are spending time waiting for materials, there’s more chances for misbehavior.

•            Have early finishers be your helpers to clean the sink, arrange supplies or tidy up.

Family Connections: Ask and Ye Shall . . .

Sometimes parents need to encourage their children to be assertive learners.  Here's a note that you can adapt to your situation and include in a newsletter:

Kelly, my seventeen year old daughter, was taking calculus at Westview High School.  When she got stuck at a place in her homework, her daddy, who only got as far as algebra II, was unable to help her much.  Sweetly, Kelly would tell me, “It’s OK, Daddy.”

This is a situation that you may have run across already with your child.  What’s a parent to do?

Kelly found a solution for her situation.  She asks the teacher to explain things until she’s pretty sure she understands.  When she does homework, she makes notes about problems she doesn’t understand and brings her questions up to her teacher.

I am grateful that her teachers will take time to explain things to a student whose parents are eager but unable to help.  I want to be that kind of teacher for my students.

You can encourage your child to ask me repeatedly until she understands.  I promise to think about my daughter and be patient with your child.  

If your little Kelly is content to leave school with a vague understanding of a concept, she will be dependent upon her parents for clarification.  This may hurt when your child hits harder classes.  This is a good year for your child to learn to ask questions and expect to understand the material.