Talk About It Tuesday - Lost at School Review

It's Talk About It Tuesday again and I am finishing up the book: Lost at School by Dr. Ross Greene

I will use the acronym FISH (c) to convey my thoughts...

First thoughts...

Impact of the reading on...
Summary of the chapters, reading, etc...
                           How will I use this to grow...



The final few chapters of the book continued to talk about Plan B with the story continuing. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and will definitely implement Plan B with a few of our students. As I continued reading the book, I imagine collaborating with a few of our students to help solve problems. 

I'm so excited I read this book and look forward to seeing how Plan B will help our students. Below are my final notes...it focuses on Plan B more in detail...

Plan B - Collaborative Problem Solving - From the book Lost at School by Dr. Ross Greene

Kids become fully invested in solving the problems and the solutions are more durable when they participate in Collaborative Problem Solving. Students learn the skills they were lacking during the collaborative problem solving process.

Plan B has 3 Ingredients:

1. Empathy - involves gathering information so as to achieve the clearest understanding of the student's concern or perspective about a given unsolved problem. The goal is to gather information and achieve an understanding of the student's concern. Begins with a neutral observation ("I've noticed that...) and on initial inquiry
2. Define the Problem - involves entering the adult concern or perspective on the same unsolved problem into consideration. Often, the concern is related to how the problem or behavior is affecting either the individual or other' sin the student's environment.
3. Invitation - involves having the adult and student brainstorm solutions so as to arrive at a plan of action that is both realistic and mutually satisfactory (a solution that addresses both concerns and that both parties can actually do.

Plan B can be used with individual students or with an entire class. It builds healthy relationships with challenging students and  will create a healthy community in the classroom. Healthy relationships is build through collaboration and the key part of Plan B allowing teachers to speak with students and not at students.

Schools can use Plan B in two ways:

Emergency - Used at the time the student is beginning to show signs of challenging behaviors.

Proactive - Get the goal solved or skill taught proactively before it comes up again.

In summary, Plan B fulfills five goals:

Goal 1: Pursue unmet expectations and ensure that your concerns about a given student's challenges are addressed.

Goal 2: Solve problems in a collaboration, mutually satisfactory and durable way.

Goal 3: Teach students the skills they are lacking.

Goal 4: Reduce Challenging behavior.

Goal 5: Create a helping relationship.

Next week for Talk About It Tuesday, I will share what I learned from a few other books I read... The Principal 50 and What Great Principals Do Differently