Best Practices at Tier 1 [Secondary]. Gayle Gregory
![Best Practices at Tier 1 [Secondary] - Gayle Gregory](limg_read679455.jpg "Best Practices at Tier 1 [Secondary] - Gayle Gregory")
Managing loss (death, divorce, separation, and aging)
As educators, we should be aware of adolescents’ quests, struggles, and insecurities. We are not just preparing these students for a test or college but for life, and their social-emotional needs are paramount to their development and success in school. Sometimes it is not only the parent who sees all of the issues. Through strong teacher-student partnerships, teachers can address the whole student in his or her education. Empathy, sensitivity, and open communication while allowing and guiding choices are necessary for teens to be successful. (See more about developing strong teacher-student partnerships on page 39.)
The Role of Stress in Brain Development
Perhaps the most potent factor shaping brain development in any environment is stress. The brain is a survival organ, and stress is one of the brain’s survival responses to real or perceived environmental threats. Stress is a normal element of life, and brains can grow and even thrive on appropriate stress levels. Excessive stress, however, can create dramatic physical and emotional responses that can interfere with our ability to think and interact appropriately.
When we experience a real or perceived danger or other stressful situation, our brain’s default system for emergencies kicks into high gear. Our amygdala (the emotional sentinel embedded deep in the limbic area on each side of the brain) goes on high alert. It begins scanning to identify the threat and then to decide whether to fight or flee, a reflexive automatic response that temporarily bypasses our executive, or reflective, brain functions (Posner & Rothbart, 2007; Zull, 2002). In the classroom, a student’s brain may go into survival mode—or reflexive action—as a result of being ridiculed, humiliated, or bullied or in response to a fear of failure, confusion, or a task that is too far outside his or her knowledge or skill capabilities. Beyond matching challenges to student skill levels, educators also must monitor for signs of multiple other stress inducers, such as isolation from peers, unclear expectations, and lack of both physical and emotional support structures. These kinds of stress-inducing events can deeply influence a student’s opinion about school. Physical and emotional support structures may include different types of seating for comfort and variety—bean bag chairs, mats on the floor, or different height and work surfaces to appeal to certain tasks. Additionally, when classrooms have rules, routines, and expectations, students’ anxiety and stress will lessen.
Our attention guides us to interpret sound, movement, color, and pain, in a state referred to as stimulus-driven attention. When goals drive our attention, rather than environmental stimuli, our brain engages with activities that appear meaningful and interesting. Once an immediate threat has passed, our brain is able to return to the goal-driven attention of higher-level thinking. In that state, the brain can ignore stimuli and put all its energy into the task at hand (Medina, 2008). That’s not to say that students learn best in a total stress-free environment. Without any pressure to learn, students have little motivation to do the hard work necessary to achieve learning goals. That’s why educators must work toward creating a classroom environment marked by appropriate stress levels, which neuroscientist Antonio Damasio (2003) calls maximal cognitive efficiency and describes as occurring when challenge meets skill.
As you can see, high alert is not an optimal condition for classroom learning. Students thrive when they have both a high motivation to succeed and appropriate levels of stress. In an environment of excessive stress levels, student performance and engagement suffer (Goleman, 2006c). Therefore, controlling the level of stress within the classroom matters deeply in maximizing student learning.
Environmental Stressors
By controlling the types and levels of environmental stressors, educators can create a brain-friendly environment that promotes optimal learning conditions and eliminates the anticipatory anxiety students suffer when they are in constant fear of unexpected and upsetting events. A brain-friendly classroom, therefore, is one governed by clear, logical, and well-explained routines. A lack of clear and reliable routines can be one of the greatest sources of stress in any classroom. Without clear direction, consistent practices, well-defined learning goals, and established criteria for gauging learning progress, students can feel lost, unnerved, and powerless to play a determining role in their own academic success.
Rather than condemning students to a classroom experience filled with stress and anticipatory anxiety, educators who supply clarity, structure, and ample emotional and physical support in the classroom create a climate of relaxed alertness that can aid, rather than inhibit, student learning. The following list offers three practical guidelines for building a classroom environment that encourages student learning and academic success—not rules, so much as healthy habits that help teachers and students work together effectively.
1. Develop norms or expectations for classroom behaviors: Students can contribute their own ideas to this list, but here are some critical expectations for every classroom (see also Gibbs, 2006).
2. Build a community: Students must know one another and respect the differences, strengths, and needs of fellow students. Teachers need to stress the idea that students are to learn together and help each other. That understanding sets students on the path of collaboration. In a differentiated classroom, students will work in partnerships and in groups of all sizes. Those collaborative alliances give students an opportunity to better know their classmates and to share ideas and opinions in the relative safety of a few individuals, rather than in front of the entire class where students can feel more vulnerable to ridicule (Gregory & Kaufeldt, 2012). Furthermore, group interactions in a learning community may actually promote brain health. Edward Hallowell (2011) suggests we have a biological need to interact with others, and if that need too often goes unfulfilled, we actually lose brain cells. Hallowell’s findings also support Maslow’s (1968) and Glasser’s (1998) basic needs theories of belonging and being included.
3. Establish classroom organization and management strategies: Clear classroom routines and procedures reduce anticipatory anxiety and save time and disruption in the classroom. Any confusion in this area will result in a lot of off-task behavior among students. Educators, therefore, should establish procedures that address: