Location:Home » Caribbean » Development » Lost at School: Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them
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Avg. Customer Rating:(based on 14 reviews) Sales Rank: 2964 Category: Book
Author:Ross W Greene Publisher:Scribner Studio:Scribner Manufacturer:Scribner Label:Scribner Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published) Media: Hardcover Edition: 1 Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 320 Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1 Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.2
Product Description From a distinguished clinician, pioneer in working with behaviorally challenging kids, and author of the acclaimed The Explosive Child comes a groundbreaking approach for understanding and helping these kids and transforming school discipline.
Frequent visits to the principal's office. Detentions. Suspensions. Expulsions. These are the established tools of school discipline for kids who don't abide by school rules, have a hard time getting along with other kids, don't seem to respect authority, don't seem interested in learning, and are disrupting the learning of their classmates. But there's a big problem with these strategies: They are ineffective for most of the students to whom they are applied.
It's time for a change in course.
Here, Dr. Ross W. Greene presents an enlightened, clear-cut, and practical alternative. Relying on research from the neurosciences, Dr. Greene offers a new conceptual framework for understanding the difficulties of kids with behavioral challenges and explains why traditional discipline isn't effective at addressing these difficulties. Emphasizing the revolutionarily simple and positive notion that kids do well if they can, he persuasively argues that kids with behavioral challenges are not attention-seeking, manipulative, limit-testing, coercive, or unmotivated, but that they lack the skills to behave adaptively. And when adults recognize the true factors underlying difficult behavior and teach kids the skills in increments they can handle, the results are astounding: The kids overcome their obstacles; the frustration of teachers, parents, and classmates diminishes; and the well-being and learning of all students are enhanced.
In Lost at School, Dr. Greene describes how his road-tested, evidence-based approach -- called Collaborative Problem Solving -- can help challenging kids at school.
His lively, compelling narrative includes:
? tools to identify the triggers and lagging skills underlying challenging behavior.
? explicit guidance on how to radically improve interactions with challenging kids -- along with many examples showing how it's done.
? dialogues, Q & A's, and the story, which runs through the book, of one child and his teachers, parents, and school.
? practical guidance for successful planning and collaboration among teachers, parents, administrations, and kids.
Backed by years of experience and research, and written with a powerful sense of hope and achievable change, Lost at School gives teachers and parents the realistic strategies and information to impact the classroom experience of every challenging kid.
Not the Usual "fix my kid" Book: Deeply Humane and Engaging November 22, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you are a real teacher (or principal or dean) in a real school, this humane and engaging book will surprise you with its combination of practicality and idealism. It will inspire you to change things and to believe in the possibility of change.
After teaching for eight years, I have spent the last three as "the discipline guy", Dean of Students, in a small, rural middle school. As both teacher and now as dean I have developed a deep suspicion of a certain sort of books. You know the ones: written by theoreticians or one-on-one therapists who have never had to juggle a roomful of 25 actual young human beings with not enough time, not enough resources and far too much of paperwork, testing, and ringing bells; and more and more deeply-troubled youngsters. These are the books that anxious or angry and frustrated parents bring to meetings that tell them how you should be meeting the needs of their unsuccessful or disruptive child. These books make things far worse for everyone involved.
"Lost at School" is different; and that's clear from the beginning. After a brief introduction which pulls no punches in saying "school discipline is broken" the book launches into a story! Every teacher I know likes a good story - and this one feels so much like real (school)-life from the beginning that it sets the hook for the rest of the book. The different thing about this story is not the characterization of the troubled and challenging kids, but of its inclusion of the realistic range of adult personalities that combine to make education what it is - and sometimes isn't. The book sets out to follow the path of a handful of youngsters and another handful of fictional teachers and administrators who are struggling with the limitations of their own range of personalities and world-views as well as the real constraints of what schools can and cannot do. It is quite eye-opening and, in my opinion, dead-on accurate.
Now don't let me give the impression that this book is just another entertaining "Up the Down Staircase" or "Room 222" or even merely another inspirational "Stand and Deliver". "Lost at School" is ultimately focused on a suite of methods for understanding children who exhibit challenging behaviors in school and for working with them to help them change. The "storyline" serves as an opportunity to view those methods in action as used by some fictionalized but well-drawn characters.
The core assumptions of Greene's approach are that behaviorally challenging youngsters (a) "know how we want them to behave" and (b) "want to behave the right way". They don't need us to keep depriving them of privileges or offering them rewards to learn these two bits.
The basic premise of the book is that these youngsters lack specific thinking skills which make it difficult or impossible for them to behave in circumstances that come up too-frequently in their school lives. Much as education has come-around in the past 20 years to acknowledge that cognitive deficits, learning disabilities, must be acknowledged as part of a youngster's learning of reading or mathematics, we need to move to a similar approach with behavioral difficulties.
The goal, then, for educators, parents and the students, is to identify these missing or lagging cognitive skills and help students develop them - as central parts of their education. Greene provides an inventory which will remind educators of the sorts of rubrics we use frequently, for instance, in assessing students for attention or hyperactivity disorders. Some of these skills may well have come up in your conversations about a difficult student, e.g. "difficulty handling transitions". Some of them have probably been parts of conversations about students without the notion that they ought to be taught, e.g. "difficulty considering likely outcomes or consequences of actions". And some of them might just not have occurred to you as loci of behavioral challenges, e.g. "difficulty taking into account situational factors that would suggest the need to adjust a plan of action". Rarely, though, have you or I managed to systematically think about what to do with these anecdotal observations.
Having worked through the assessment of lagging skills, the next task is to "teach" these skills. In this regard Greene shifts gears and does not provide a "curriculum". Instead he provides an approach - a way of communicating with behaviorally challenging youngsters that he terms "Collaborative Problem Solving" or CPS. Some might find this unsatisfying. I did, at first; hoping for a "methods" approach to teaching this as any other group of skills. But I found Greene's system ultimately satisfying and revealing instead. He gives us CPS and weaves his ongoing story of sixth-grader Joey into its explication
The CPS approach is interesting because it sounds so simple. Greene calls it simply "Plan B"; distinguishing from "Plan A" - wherein the teacher or institution imposes its will on the student, and from "Plan C" in which we "drop an expectation completely, at least temporarily". I have to compliment Green on boldly sticking to such a simple naming scheme instead of coming up with typical ed-psych jargon to describe his schema or its alternatives. But the real power of such a simply-named approach is that describing it reveals how much we are all rooted in bouncing between poorly-implemented versions of plans A and C as part of school discipline. The "Plan B" or CPS approach assumes and requires listening to and the meaningful participation of the student -- and that is revealed to be a deeply-buried skill of even the well-intentioned educators in the storyline. But it can be learned and is the key to making things work.
Greene is very open to all the ways things can go awry in dealing with real kids in real school environments. He peppers the book with "Q&A" sections, and sample dialogues. But central to his acknowledgement of the "real world" is his fictional one! He weaves in, throughout, the ongoing tale of Joey and Mrs. Woods; of the Assistant Principal who got knocked in the jaw by Joey back in chapter one; of Joey's anguished mom and even of Mr. Armstrong, the "these kids just have to learn how to behave" guy, whom seems so familiar to any educator. This side-story becomes in many ways a central one as all of these people move through a year of struggle and transformation.
I won't tell you how it ends but will reassure you that it does end, as most school years to, not with a bang of disaster or triumph but with a deep breath and a look ahead as all the good but flawed folks involved anticipate the next year's labors. In this Greene manages to honor the motives and efforts of everyone who chooses to work in the often thankless business of education while he deftly reminds us of how much better we could and should be doing with these youngsters.
lost at school- a great resource November 17, 2008 I have really enjoyed reading this book and found it to be straightforward and easy to follow. I have been an educator for many years, first as a classroom teacher and now in an alternative setting (a juvenile detention facility). For many years now we have been told to differentiate our teaching, to understand that children learn in different ways and we, as educators, should be sure to address all children's learning styles. It makes sense that we should also understand that behaviors need to be addressed differently. As I read through this book I could "see" children I had taught in the past, children who seemed to be unable to control their behavior. I believe this would be a valuable tool for a classroom teacher and for parents of a child who is having difficulty in school.
I don't think this book will solve every problem for every child, but I do believe that the methods set forth in this book could be a godsend for many teachers, parents, and especially for many children who are getting lost in the shuffle.
I highly recommend this book for parents and teachers dealing with children who are struggling with behavior issues.
Theoretically Interesting--Practically Unrealistic November 9, 2008 0 out of 4 found this review helpful
18 November: Dear readers, I wanted to let you know that I have not forgotten to update my review. When I write reviews I do a lot of research to help support what I am saying. To this end, I am currently playing phone tag with the psychiatrist who worked with my son, and apparently has experience with the CPS model discussed in this book. I am looking to confirm some conceptual and practical understandings about the program before I re-write my review. Secondly, I am still attempting to find out if it is possible to change the "star" rating I gave without deleting this review and starting over. I apologize for the delay and any problems this may be causing.--Karl 12 November: Dear readers, based upon comments I have received from several sources, I have just finished re-reading "Lost at School" more closely and with a different perspective. Based on this re-reading I will be editing my review considerably as soon as I can. For the moment however, I can state that I made mistake in my first reading, and will be giving the book a much more positive review.--Karl
Like most popular psychology/education books published over the last few decades, "Lost At School" is long on ideas and short on practical applications of those ideas. In tune with the trend towards cognitive behaviorism, Ross W Greene expands upon his earlier book by providing examples of some of the more easily adopted concepts. While I believe that users of the collaborative problem solving model feel it is truly effective, I would argue that they most likely have been fortunate to "work" in an environment willing to fully endorse and cooperate with the program. That is, this program is fully dependent upon all parties agreeing to take the extra-ordinary time, patience, practice, and collaboration to assess the difficulties, develop a realistic program, implement it, AND, most importantly, FOLLOW THROUGH TO THE "END."
While the notion that children fall through the cracks because they are kids who struggle behaviorally due to a lack of critical social skills is a wonderfully "sociological" notion befitting social-behavioral theory, I would argue that it is still essentially psychological reductionism; it still comes down to developing alternative "habits" or skills. And while such policy will work with some students, and some providers will have more success than others, ultimately the challenges involve far more complex cognitive activity networks that defy simplistic behavioral transference of skills. While perhaps overly sarcastic and pessimistic, reducing so called behaviorally challenging children to kids that need to learn how to behave "properly" is like saying veterans with Post Traumatic Stress only need to learn how to behave "happily."
Regardless, for me, the bottom line is that the one thing that distinguishes human actions from behaviors is the cognitive process known as "thinking." Without factoring this into what you are trying to do, you will inevitably have nothing more than a new "trick" for people to "learn" (also known as conditioning).
If this review was not helpful to you, I would appreciate learning the reason(s) so I can improve my reviews. My goal is to provide help to potential buyers, not get into any arguments. So, if you only disagree with my opinion, could you please say so in the comments and not indicate that the review was not helpful. Thanks.
necessary and needed November 4, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As a comrade in the effort to make the care of challenging kids humane and healing, I can not say enough about Dr. Greene's work. The collaborative problem solving model is the first truly effective model of care and conceptualization for these kids I have seen in nearly 25 years of work, and is the only model that uses the best of the people who really give the care-the teachers, the parents, the staff-to make a difference.
Lost at school is not only for educators but for anyone who cares for troubled kids. For caregivers using the Collaborative Problem Solving model, Lost at School develops and deepens understanding of why kids have problems and how they can be helped. Since school is the primary work of childhood, anyone who works with children needs the wisdom of this book.
no news October 23, 2008 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Much of this book is consist of strategies and theories already written many times. It's a good reference reading for teachers who deal with students with behavior problems, and good reminder for teachers that these kids need special attention, but I didn't find that it provided me any new information, therefore it was a bit dry to me.
There are some useful scenarios, though, for teachers new to the profession. I would recommend this book for new teachers before they step into the class room, but experienced teachers may feel that it is preaching to the choir.
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