Recently, I learned about an online test called “Is My Blue Your Blue?” It starts by showing a color that’s clearly green then a color that’s clearly blue, followed by a series of blue-green colors. At every color, you must declare it to be either blue or green. In the end, you learn your personal boundary for when a color stops being green and starts being blue.
Obviously, I had to take it.
My boundary is greener than 66% of the population. If you show me the color turquoise, I’d call it blue. In total, 15 people in our office took the test. Seven say turquoise is blue, six say it’s green, and two people tested “neutral” which I take to mean they would tell you that color is just turquoise.
So, if my blue isn’t your blue, what else do we take for granted as a universal truth? That test got me thinking a little more about the expectations and norms we establish in schools.
It’s looking really possible we’re going to have separate definitions for what it looks like to be respectful in class.
The Center on PBIS says schoolwide expectations represent the social, emotional, and behavioral skills you want to see from everyone in the building. Rather than focusing on what NOT to do, these expectations establish how TO do school in every classroom, cafeteria, and common space. Your schoolwide expectations reflect what you value as a community and set the stage for creating a positive school culture.
Let’s say your school’s expectations are Safe, Respectful, and Responsible. The behaviors you expect to see schoolwide align with these concepts. In order to define those expected behaviors, you start by asking yourself and your students what respectful looks like. (Can you see where I’m headed?)
Team, we can’t agree on whether turquoise is blue or green. It’s looking really possible we’re going to have separate definitions for what it looks like to be respectful in class. The kicker here is: If we want our schools to be welcoming spaces where everyone feels supported, we need to seek out those differences in perception, get on the same page, and work together to define the values and norms representing our whole schoolwide community.
Here are two activities to help you uncover the differences in the way you respond to student behavior and define your expectations.
Consistent Response Activity: The Big Deal-o-Meter
The Inclusive Skill-building Learning Approach (ISLA) is an intervention to reduce exclusionary discipline and increase the instructional time students spend in class. At its core, ISLA emphasizes the importance of building positive student-teacher relationships to create positive environments inclusive of all learners. Dr. Rhonda Nese and her team at The Nese Lab have some creative, tangible activities to establish consistency in your schoolwide systems for responding to student behavior. One of these practices is something called The Big Deal-o-Meter.”1,2 Here’s how it works:
Imagine you and a team of educators from your school enter a room. On the wall is a giant meter broken up into six categories labeled from Low to Catastrophic. On the table are slips of paper, each one labeled with a behavior that got a student kicked out of class. (Pro Tip: You can get that list of behaviors in SWIS from your Referrals by Behavior Graph and setting the Referral Type to Administrator-Managed) Each team member takes a stack of slips and places one behavior at a time on the meter where it ranks on the scale from low to catastrophic.
By the end of the activity, step back and look at the meter.
- Where does everyone agree?
- Which behaviors did you rank differently?
In her experience, Dr. Nese says teachers are surprised by how many behaviors they ranked low level — meaning they would have handled the behavior in class — and yet those same behaviors still got at least one student sent out of class to the office the previous year.3
The Big Deal-o-Meter is such an engaging activity to kick off a larger discussion around consistent referral practices and alternative responses to low-level behaviors.
Consistent Expectations Activity: The Behavior Dictionary
There are certain behaviors that make you more successful as an educator and certain behaviors that make students more successful in class. In PBIS, these positive behaviors align with your school-wide expectations. Ideally, your school-wide expectations and the successful behaviors you define match your students’ personal expectations and definitions. So, what happens when they’re different?
I learned about the Mama Rule from Rita Pierson who was an educator and a fierce advocate for students. The Mama Rule is a rule that overrides nearly every other rule because it’s a rule your mama told you. Family rules are an important part of every student’s identity. We can’t ask them to dismiss the Mama Rules in their life; we need to ask them to help make room for a second set of rules. There’s a strategy in PBIS called the Personal Matrix, or Behavior Dictionary to start that conversation.4 Here’s how to create one.
Start by creating a table with your school’s expectations listed down the far left-hand column. Across the header row, label three columns:
- At school it looks like...
- At home it looks like...
- In my neighborhood it looks like...
Each student gets a table. As a class, fill out the school column together by defining what each expectation looks like in that setting. Next, students complete the other two columns in their table reflecting on the norms they know at home and in their community. Bring everyone back together to see what you notice about the different settings. The Behavior Dictionary activity helps you see where your students need additional instruction around schoolwide expectations. It’s also a brilliant way to discover the overlap in values and norms between these spaces. Researchers found classrooms that completed the Behavior Dictionary saw an increase in respectful behavior, a decrease in disruptive behavior, and overall, teachers and students felt like the matrix was a good way to get everyone on the same page.5
Everyone comes to school with a set of lenses like cultural norms, personal values, and Mama Rules informing their experiences throughout the day. The trick becomes how well we’re able to seek out the differences in those lenses and use them as assets to create a space where students, staff, and families feel welcomed and supported. The Big Deal-o-Meter and the Behavior Dictionary are two activities to add to your toolbox as you dive into larger conversations about shared values and equitable responses to student behavior.
1. Nese, R. N. T.,Bastable, E., Gion, C., Massar, M., Nese, J. F. T., & McCroskey, C. (2020). Preliminary analysis of an instructional alternative to exclusionary discipline. The Journal of At-Risk Issues, 23, 1-14. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1253864
2. Nese, R. N. T.,Santiago-Rosario, M. R., Nese, J. F. T., Triplett, D., Malose, S., Hamilton, J., Izzard, S., & Newson, A (2023). Instructional and restorative alternatives to exclusionary discipline: A guide to implementing the five components of the Inclusive Skill-building Learning Approach (ISLA). OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. https://www.pbis.org/resource/instructional-and-restorative-alternatives-to-exclusionary-discipline-isla-guide
3. Nese. R. (2020,December). Developing an instructional alternative to exclusionary discipline practices. Symposium presented at the University of Washington SMART CenterAnnual Speaker Series, virtual. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpbepJhQq30&t=5s
4. Leverson, M.,Smith, K., McIntosh, K., Rose, J., & Pinkelman, S. (March, 2021). PBIS Cultural Responsiveness Field Guide: Resources for Trainers and Coaches. Center on PBIS, University of Oregon. www.pbis.org.
5. Muldrew, A., &Miller, F. (2020). Examining the effects of the personal matrix activity with diverse students. Psychology In the Schools, 58(3), 515-533. doi: 10.1002/pits.22461.