Tips for Teachers
Tips from a SECOND STEP Vice Principal
George Goss, a counselor and vice principal at Hampton Elementary in New Brunswick, Canada, has been using the SECOND STEP program for four years. In that time, he has seen discipline referrals drop by almost two-thirds. He and his school reached that point through hard work and a conscientious implementation of the program. He has some pointers for getting there:
1. Be consistent. Goss makes sure that students and adults use prosocial language consistently. He also makes sure every lesson in the program is taught every year.
2. Use the materials the way they are presented. That means doing all the lessons in order, putting up the posters, and watching all the videos.
3. Supplement with appropriate materials. Goss sometimes brings in videos or books with prosocial themes that fit into the particular lesson students are learning.
4. Don't tear down. Goss and his colleagues focus on positive reinforcement. The idea is to notice "when they do stuff right rather than noticing when they do it wrong, and saying to them, 'Good job. Well done,'" says Goss. "You can just be amazed with them, and they love it. They like the praise."
5. Start somewhere and build. If you can only implement the program in one classroom of one grade, do it. There's always room to grow.
6. Get the whole staff on board. At Hampton Elementary, all teachers are responsible for delivering a monthly set of prosocial skills to the students, so that everyone is on the same page. "The staff's response is superb," says Goss. "They love it. They see connections between the kids learning these skills and the changes in behavior."
7. Don't be put off by the very deceptive little box. "It isn't stuffed; it isn't like a lot of programs where you almost have to drag them behind you on a trolley. You can carry this with you, and there is enough material in that little box to do a lesson every week for a full school year and maybe more. And the materials are extremely friendly."
8. Track your referrals. Goss started using the behavior tracking system at Hampton to analyze the information about referrals. "After about three years, we got really good at identifying what was going on." Then he was able to use the SECOND STEP program to address the problems he had identified, and later he could use the referral tracking to find out whether it was working.
9. Ask children for their stories. In a lesson about conflicting feelings, Goss asked a group of third-graders to tell them how they felt about going to camp for the first time. "Then they get the idea that they can have conflicting feelings about the same event." They told him they felt excited but also worried. Goss asked them, "What were you worried about? What would you want someone to say to you?"
10. Make rules that are specific but concise. Goss found that long-winded explanations of rules during class time made kids tune out, so he started "Hands off, feet off, words off." For example, if a teacher sees a student bothering another during class, he or she can say, "Hands off." "The whole thing is two words, you don't have to stop teaching to do that, and it means hands off other people or other people's things," Goss explains. "It's quick, and it works."
Allison Wedell Schumacher
Editor
Committee for Children
