LESSON 17 RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS FOR PROBLEMS WITH THE SCHOOL STRUCTURE AND SYSTEMS UNDER CONSTRUCTION Presented by THE NATURAL SYSTEMS INSTITUTE

PROVIDING POSITIVE PROGRAMS THAT ADDRESS ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, RAGE, AND FAILURE ON ALL THREE LEVELS USING A NATURAL SYSTEMS APPROACH

M Downsizing High Schools and Classes M All Inclusive Formal Role System Including Higher Grade Levels Mentoring Lower Grade Levels M Support Teams as Surrogate Parents M Mutual Respect Groups M Aggression Management, Mediation, and Violence Prevention Groups M Student Government, School Based Due Process, and Teen Courts M School Based Community Courts M Computer-Based, Individualized and Self Paced, Lattice, Application and Purpose Oriented Teaching and Learning Strategies M A High School Community Solutions Public Forum on the Internet PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

Formal Role Systems in High Schools Excluding and Humiliating Vs Including and Mentoring Joe1 Senior Class President Frank Fish Get out of my sight. You are not good enough to be around me! Joe1 Senior Class President Hey! Come here, Frank. I’m your mentor. I am going to help you learn the ropes and make it as a freshman. You are not alone. You are my buddy! Frank Fish Rejection, low self esteem, despair, rage. Acceptance, safety, self respect, belonging, happy.

With a Positive, Formal Role System, the Supported Freshman Becomes the Supporting Senior. Sam Senior Joe Fish Joe Senior Frank Fish Click Formal Role System to see how a formal role shapes behaviors Navigate to Slide 22 To Supporting Joe Fish Frank Fish BAM! Joe Senior BAM! Sam Senior From Harassing

Suggestions for Formal Role Systems Formal Groups within each grade are designed to enhance interpersonal relations and skills and build a sense of community within which every student may develop a sense of belonging and identification; to solve conflicts within the student body, and assist one another in learning how to solve conflict situations and develop a knowledge of consequences and skill in using good judgment.. Within each grade, students can attain levels within a Formal Role Category. Once having attained level the student has responsibilities for the role functions, for training someone in the level below them, and to be trained by someone in the level above them. Jobs are related to work that needs to be done on the school grounds and the outside and inside of the building. Social roles are related to teaching their role functions to and guiding one person in a grade below them, performing their role throughout the school, and being trained by someone from the grade above for their role.

What’s it like to be you? How do you feel about me? How do we get along with each other and be understanding and helpful? Forming Heterogeneous Groups for Developing Empathy and Preventing Prejudice, Ridicule, and Ostracism One example of how to structure Mutual Respect Groups. Form small groups of students to meet for about 30 minutes a day for one month. For the next month, redistribute students into new small groups and repeat the scheduling pattern. The goal would be to attempt to give each student exposure to other students from as many backgrounds different their own as possible. The ideal group would be six students from the same grade. Three boys and three girls. One student from each of six different ethnic groups. Group composition would also include students from as many different life styles as possible [geeks, Barbies, jocks, Hillaries, conformists, non- conformists, trend setters, followers, etc.]

Types of Direct and Displaced Aggression Predatory Aggression - Brutality Establishing or Defense of Territory or Rank Revenge and Grudge War Barrier Aggression Social Cannibalism - Bashing the Pariah Initiate’s Sadism Explosion of Repressed Anger Depression Conversion to Rage Hypersensitive Retaliation Fear Conversion or Cornered Aggression Victim Threshold Surpassed Smoldering, Anxious Withdrawal

Mediation Training for Conflict Management Mediation training can be structured so that it involves a progression from beginner to expert. Each grade level from the ninth through the twelfth grades can be introduced to a higher level of expertise in mediation, thereby insuring that students are refreshed and elevated in their knowledge and expertise each year. All students in each grade level each year can be required to take that year’s training level and be certified to be mediators between peers in conflict at school, but also to use it unofficially in their neighborhoods and at home. Certification can be legitimized so that youths who are trained can use it whenever they see conflict arising and will not be looked upon as intruders by those in conflict.

I’m going to rip your heart out for what you did! BLIND RAGE BLIND RAGE I hate you! I’m officially a mediator. I can help them settle this. Hey, guys, I can see you both are really anger with each other. Let me listen to both sides. Maybe we can find a way to settle this. Would you like for me to try to serve as your mediator? How about just giving it a try? MEDIATION THE PRO-SOCIAL ROLE CAN SETTLE DOWN THE CONFLICTS IN THE SCHOOL

Managing Aggression with Student/Staff Aggression Management Teams CLASS ROOM OR SCHOOL PREMISES Explosive Incident Enter Aggression Management Team Assess Type of Aggression or Rage Explosion of Repressed Anger Depression Conversion to Rage Revenge and Grudge War Barrier Aggression Predatory Aggression - Brutality Establishing or Defense of Territory or Rank Initiate’s Sadism Social Cannibalism - Bashing the Pariah Hypersensitive Retaliation Fear Conversion or Cornered Aggression Victim Threshold Surpassed Smoldering, Anxious Withdrawal Rage-catharsis therapy Abreaction* Mediation and Mediation Training Social Skill Training Assign to: Personal Educational Counseling Mediation and Mediation Training Social Skill Training Social Skill Training Displacement Redirection Repertoire Replacement Psycho-drama; Role Play Parent Participation Personal Educational Counseling Personal Educational Counseling Personal Educational Counseling Place in Holding Room with Tutor/Peer Counselors Prior to Return to Classroom Teacher & Student Mediation and Re-Entry Counseling as Condition for Returning to Classroom Train selected staff and students as team members for personal-educational counseling, social skill training, mediation, and rage-catharsis therapy. *View Movie: End of Innocence. A movie that explores rage therapy

The Value of Developing Student Government Programs to Help Youth Development Maturity of Judgment for Decision Making. When small groups of students meet regularly to discuss, with classmates, –problems in school, –with school policies and programs, –or to initiate discussion about possible activities –and also to make decisions, plans, allocate and coordinate tasks, and evaluate progress on and outcomes of activities, –they face difficult aspects of interpersonal interaction and difficult value judgments. This is an excellent setting in which to guide them through the process of learning and incorporating those values and social skills. Student Government meeting in a Homeroom to discuss issues of mutual concern. OK, so now we know what the problem is. Does anyone have any ideas about how to go about finding a solution to the problem? These are the same students that are meeting regularly in the Mutual Respect Group. Through these meetings they become inclusive, bond, create a community, have a stake in mutual support and facilitation, share a common destiny, develop self esteem, a sense of empowerment, a sense of identification with the school, as well as develop social skills and value judgment.

Teen Courts and High School Based Community Courts Due process in Student Government –Record cases, dispositions, and outcomes. –Record statistics. Passed on to Teen Courts in High School –Record cases, dispositions, and outcomes. –Record statistics. Passed on to Juvenile Justice Community Courts held in High Schools. –Record cases, dispositions, and outcomes. –Record statistics. Emphasis in school-based teen and community courts is on solving problems, correction, mutual assistance, efforts toward inclusion and re-integration.

High School Community Solutions - Public Forum Web Site Present behavior problems and conflict situations and their remedies. –Students describe a problem situation. Analyze its causes. Call for suggestions on how to solve the problem. –Present suggestions for approaches that could solve the problem. –Present approaches that were used to try to remedy the problem. –Present resolved problem and approach that succeeded. –Archive cases. Select High School Web site cases to be included in HISD Community Solutions Public Forum Web site. Present cases that came before Teen Court [names withheld], disposition of case. Outcome of disposition periodically over the school year. Present Statistics from High School Community Courts.

INDIVIDUALIZED, SELF PACED, COMPUTERIZED, LATTICE, INTENTION and APPLICATION ORIENTED EDUCATION OPERATION 1 OPERATION 2 OPERATION 1 OPERATION 2 OPERATION 1 OPERATION 2 OPERATION 1 OPERATION 2 OPERATION 1 OPERATION 2 OPERATION 1 OPERATION 9 OPERATION 8 OPERATION 7 OPERATION 6 OPERATION 5 OPERATION 4 OPERATION 3 OPERATION 2 OPERATION 1 SKILLS RELATED TO KNOWLEDGE DOMAINS OPERATIONAL SKILLS –Language Reading Writing –Mathematics Counting Calculating Designing DECLARATIVE SKILLS –Collecting –Expressing PROCEDURAL SKILLS –Perspective Taking –Visualizing –Symbolizing –Taking Disciplined Action Cognitive operations related to knowledge domains and skills Integration across disciplines Domains of knowledge Integrated Knowledge Meaningfulness and Relevance of Knowledge Vision of one’s future Storage of knowledge for potential future use.

ALTERNATIVES FOR DEALING WITH DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR That Prevent the Teen From Becoming Completely Alienated, Living With Intense Suppressed Rage Toward ‘Society’ and Self, and from Becoming a Potential Columbine Killer. HAlternatives that teach aggression and violence prevention and management. HAlternatives that salvage self respect. HAlternatives that re-integrate into the school and develop a sense of belonging. HAlternatives that develop respect for others. HAlternatives that develop awareness of consequences. HAlternatives that develop responsible judgment. HAlternatives that develop positive behavior and social skills. HAlternatives that preserve and develop a sense of self determination, of having a choice with respect to their lives. HAlternatives that provide a positive community structure to compensate for lack of structure at home and in the home neighborhood.

The End and the Beginning Hopefully, the reader will carry with them an understanding that the approach to solving the problem of youth violence must be to focus on how we restructure the world of youth to mend and elicit the positive rather than focusing on trying to detect who among the sea of young people is that elusive, singular, Columbine Killer. Prevention is not the same as treatment. Prevention can direct its efforts toward broader issues and programs that create structures, systems, and environments in which the seeds of depersonalization, despair, and rage can not grow. Intelligent prevention should make traditional school and justice disciplinary programs virtually obsolete. Intelligent prevention programs can, on the other hand, create environments which facilitate healthy maturation of all of our youth. Click here to return to the School violence Home Page.

EXERCISES FOR RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS FOR PROBLEMS WITH THE SCHOOL STRUCTURE AND SYSTEMS