For this HLP, we're talking about establishing a consistent, organized, and respectful learning environment. And this week I have got Manny, one of our RBTs here, who does a ton of classroom coaching. So I'm super excited to see where he takes this conversation. So, Manny, what is this HLP? What does it look like?

I mean, the consistency aspect of it is just having those set routines and procedures, the organization, keeping the classroom structured, whether that's the schedule or the stuff in the classroom, and then the respect is the respect between students and staff, staff and staff, like, all that fun, jazzy stuff.

So I think that's what this HLP is, especially in the elementary schools, but I think that's consistent throughout all grade levels. But what it isn't is setting up the rules once, forgetting about them, or putting strict rules and not letting kids-... have the students have the input on them, or not being flexible or punishing kids for doing stuff that they didn't even know was not allowed.

Yeah, it's interesting because some people find that to be really consistent, say, like, well, I told them what it is, so it is what it is, and that's me being consistent. I am holding, you know, firm expectations. Why is that not a fit for this HLP?

I mean, okay, so I tend to work with those younger kids, right? Especially in the elementary. Like, I'm sorry, you cannot tell a kindergartner the classroom rules at the beginning of the school year once and expect them to remember that throughout the rest of the school year. Some kids skip preschool, right? So, like, it's not like this is their first experience into this, into the school. This, like, yes, mom and dad can set their own stuff at home and. But this is a new environment.

They have no idea what they're doing. They have no idea what the rules are or that the rules are even different from what they are at home. You can't just set them up once at the beginning and then not provide that consistency throughout the year, like friendly reminders here and there. Just because you told them once, I'm sorry, I have the attention span as a grown adult of like 5 seconds.

Tell me the rules. Tell me the rules twice. Tell me the rules three times. Yes, by the third, fourth time, I might start being able to piece them together by myself and remembering “Oh, right. No, I'm not supposed to do that here” or “I'm not supposed to do that there”, but you got to give these kids a little more grace.

I think what you're talking about is the respect aspect is that it's not just one way, it's not students will respect the staff, but it's that staff are actually respecting students by meeting them where they're at and providing those gentle reminders and not assuming that you say it once and then it sticks and that's just the way it is forever. I mean, especially, you and I have done a lot of work with a lot of students who've been through a lot of trauma in a very short period of time.

And that the biochemistry, it just does not work that way. It's not going to assume that it's always going to be consistent. So we need to continue those reminders. But I don't know, it sounds like you're kind of saying that that is the respect that staff are showing students, so that then students can show up and kind of engage in that respectful way that maybe staff tend to assume or expect.

And I think that not only flows from the student and staff two-way street, but like staff to staff. I cannot tell you the amount of times, like, I've seen teachers and their aides in the classroom or teacher versus teacher or teacher versus admin or admin versus... And especially because we work with so many kids with trauma, seeing mom and dad fight at home or seeing mom and dad fight at school, however you want to put those… authority figures. Like, yes, is that consistent? Sure. But is that the consistency we want? No. I think that's because it should be that way too, right?

You don't just tell your aides, or whoever you're working with, something once and expect them to know it. You gotta give them that grace. You gotta give them that breathing room.

Yeah. So why is this important? I think we're kind of dancing around it a little bit of saying, you know, maybe kids with backgrounds of trauma or young students, right? But we're kind of almost caveating it to certain populations. But in all reality, this high leverage practice is applicable in all age ranges. I would even challenge in through higher ed academia or in adult learning. So when we are looking at consistency, when we're looking at really instilling that respectful environment, and a lot of that is coming through, just being organized in how we're showing up and how we're doing what we're doing.

Why is this actually helpful, especially when we're looking at the students actually learning, whoever those students are and whatever they are learning?

So, I think it sets fewer behavior problems having those clear expectations and routines. Just like, all right, there is something we have set here. We're going to keep going through that all year. So it causes those fewer problems when it's clarified more than once. And having that clarification as a routine, having schedules as a routine, adding that to the organizational piece, you get less disruptions, you get less kids upset, you got less kids crying, you got less kids trying to break the rules because they get to learn what's expected, they get to learn what's coming next without it being necessarily a surprise.

That leads to better engagement because students are more likely to participate and stay focused as they know what's coming up, as they know what to expect, as they know this teacher acts this way so we can have some more fun with them or this teacher acts this way, so we got to be a little nicer or we're doing this activity and I don't want to stop doing that, so I need to be on my A game and the activity before. That organizational piece that also, again with the schedule, just supports the learning in the sense that it provides a structured and respectful environment that helps the student concentrate because there's no surprises, there's nothing taking them by the side. I love walking into buildings and kids going, “Mister Manny!”, fully aware that that causes a disruption.

But when I've gotten to buildings on a more consistent rate, that becomes less of a surprise. Like, yes, I get less kids going, “Mister Manny!”, but that's good. I love the fact that they're excited to see me, but the less excited they are to see me upon initial contact, the less of a disruption, the less of a surprise it is. It's part of that routine, it's part of that organizational structure. I'm expected to be there at some point, and that, I think, applies in various capacities in that.

I mean, what you're saying is exactly what I implement in higher ed as well as in alternative ed in high school. In my classroom, it wasn't organized in the sense of rigidity, and this is what we're doing, and there is no way around it. It's no, like if we're gonna change a schedule and we're gonna do that, especially in high school, if we're gonna do that in a collaborative way, something's gotta give here.

Well, there's a consistent way of walking through how we're negotiating that change in that system or in the schedule. Also, students coming in with all kinds of chaos happening outside of the doors, walking in and needing an opportunity to, how do I ground myself? How do I know what's even coming? I mean, that's what you were talking about with the schedule. So it might look one way in elementary, look a completely different way in secondary, but there is still that opportunity to say, like, hey, here's what's coming. You can prepare yourself for it, because I am going to ask you to do it.

And if we've set up that respectful learning environment, we've set them up to be successful in just like that organizational structure around them, well, then they can rise to the occasion. We're not dealing with all the unknowns and the uncertainty, and that's actually the resistance. It's not the activity, even, that we're asking them to do. It's the uncertainty or the “I didn't know what's coming”, and I'm just pushing back to “I didn't know”, as opposed to “I don't want to do that thing that you're asking me to do”. We see that across all grade levels.

Yeah. And I may have shared this before on some other thing we've recorded, but one of my favorite examples of, like, having student input, not just with the rules, but scheduling, right? [I] worked early on with a high school teacher, an alternative high school teacher. Super great guy, he had a bunch of kids from different grade levels in his room. But he was big on student input, everything from the rules to, “Hey, guys. All right, so we have a little flexibility in the schedule. Do you guys want to do the gym before lunch? After lunch? Do you guys want to do this before or after math?”

And, yes, there were some things that the kids would shove to the end of the day, but it was still accomplished. You can't have it and not do it. But he would do that weekly at the start of each week. “Hey, guys, here's the rules we had last week up. Do we still need some of these? Are we following them so intrinsically at this point that we can add a different rule that we've noticed that the classroom is struggling with? Not that so and so is struggling with, but, like, that we as a classroom are struggling with. Can we add that here and remove this one?”

And that student input, like, was he still given flack by the students? Yeah, but, to a large degree, I'd say that it was a very mutually respectful classroom.

And I think that student input helped a lot. That's not easy to do with the elementary school kids. But “do you guys want to do this activity before or after snack? Do we want to do it during snack?” “All right, guys, here's the rules.” You know, once a week, twice a week, beginning, end of the week, if you're doing a point system in your class, “all right, here's the rules that we had set up this week. People earned points for this”. And don't call out students specifically. Don't give quantities, just give them that refresher.

Yeah, I think what you're talking about is both on that organization side. Like, “I am partnering with my students to walk them through what they're about to do”. But I think that we're almost positioning them to then learn from their choices, which I believe is a respectful thing to do. I'm not just going to give the answer or tell them what they need to do. Yes, I probably know how this is going to be done best, but they don't yet, and they haven't figured that out. And if I just then strong-arm them through what I know is best for them, and they're not necessarily part of that, they may not even register it as actually good for them. And that just instills that power struggle and all those points of tension and frustration on all fronts.

When I have had the opportunity to set out opportunities for them to pick, like, here's what we need to do. You tell me when and how we're doing it. I've definitely had those situations. They pushed the thing all the way to the end, and I'm like, oh, that's gonna suck. This is gonna be horrible, right? And then we get to that moment, and they're like, oh, miss, this is horrible. I'm like, yeah, I agree with you.

Like, we're in this together now. Maybe let's not make that choice again. Right? And it gives them that opportunity to see. “Oh, that's why. Okay, cool. Hey, next time, do we want to make that choice again? No, no, no. Okay, cool. Let's make a different choice.” But it's allowing them to walk that so that they can see it, right? Within reason. I know there's things that we can't always just let them explore and learn on their own, but I do believe a whole lot of things within classroom structures, routines, and it really does position us to demonstrate the respect to them that we are assuming and expecting from them, and it becomes just mutual right off the bat.

And quite honestly, it's not standard practice, although it's all over the research, it's all over everywhere. Like, this is the way to do it, but it just isn't common. So it's really, really interesting to see in classrooms where we get to partner with educators who are partnering with their students. They're living this out and not even knowing that it's a fancy, high-leverage practice because they're just doing right by their kids, and then their kids are doing right by them, and we see them to be really effective, efficient, like, we're closing those learning gaps and making things happen.

You've been part of some of those interactions, coaching some of those staff and working with some students that are trying to make sense of things, too. What other examples are kind of coming to mind for you as I'm talking here?

I've seen staff of different ages implementing this. I had a conversation with staff at one point of, like, Oh, only the younger teachers do that. Right? And I think there is a weird perception of the older teachers. You know, “I've been here, I've done this this way for so many years, and this is how we're gonna keep doing it”. And I think that shifted specifically after COVID.

Good call.

Like, I'm sorry, but things are not normal. You have a generation of kids who may not know what's coming next, to the expectations that were set before them, because we had a weird reset during the time.

Yeah.

But I've also seen some younger teachers do it, and I've seen older teachers do it. And it's funny because the older staff that I've seen, it's like, “yeah, no, I've had so many kids and I've had so many grandbabies, and I've had so many,” they're like, “it's just easier to have them help instead of strong arming them because then we actually accomplish stuff”. And the young teachers are like, “they're about the same height as me, so, like, if I can get them to help me, it negates some of that negative behavior, some of those weird power struggles”, especially when there's not a significant age difference between the young teacher and the oldest student in the classroom.

Yeah. I don't know if you were part of the conversation or not, but I know I ended up working with a teacher, and we kind of uncovered the reason that they preferred a more authoritative, kind of top down, directive style classroom management or style of interaction was truly because they didn't have any other tools and they just didn't know. And so it's really scary to be like, “I don't even know what I'm doing. How the heck am I supposed to now partner with my students to help them tell me what I'm doing?”

And I think that does cross at the generational divide of folks that are in the classroom right now as well. And I think that's really, really wise of you to note kind of that COVID shift because we saw educators who are master educators and have been doing amazing things in the classroom have a complete, “ Oh, what is this?” when everything shifted to go online, right? And so then all of a sudden, they were first-year teachers all over again.

And some people, we saw the exit. You know, some people just said, “This is not for me. I can take early retirement, and I'm out.” But other people, it was like this renewed refresh of like, “Okay, well, let's try other strategies. Let's figure out other ways to do it.” And it's been really cool to see then some of those, you know, if it's virtual instruction or just the openness to try new practices and see what sticks that that has then translated back into, you know, I would say traditional education in terms of, like, brick and mortar show up in the morning and leave in the afternoon in style.

And that has cross-generational generations. So that was really astute of you to note that some of those stereotypes really are maybe not as applicable anymore, especially for anyone who was teaching within the heat of COVID

Yeah, and like I said, I've seen what we're talking about here with the collaboration style with staff and students. I’ve seen that with the older and I've seen that with the youngest of teachers that we worked with. But I've also seen that top-down view, organizational hierarchy with older staff and younger staff. Like, you got the older staff, again, “I've been here this long. This is how I've always done it. This is how I'm going to keep doing it.”

But I've also had the younger staff of, like, “I don't know what I'm doing. I'm so overwhelmed. Like, this is helping me maintain myself sane.” And they may not be expressing it as well as they could be, but I understand where both sides are coming from. But I think when this HLP is implemented well, I think it just naturally leads to better collaboration between staff and staff, staff and students. That's the consistency. That's the organization. You can show up with a new student and be like,” all right, here's how we do things” without having the teacher having to explain, right? Like, “here's where we put our stuff.” You know, “that teacher's super cool. That teacher's super sweet. That teacher always has candy on their desk.” You can have students leading other students. You can have subs being led by the paras. But when everyone knows things because things are set in a collaborative, consistent way.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your expertise. I know you were in a bunch of different classrooms with a bunch of different kinds of students and staff, and you are navigating this conversation in so many different ways on a daily. So thank you very much for sharing what you are out there doing.

Yeah, no problem.