This week, we're talking about High-Leverage Practice number nine, teaching social behaviors. And this includes social, emotional, and behavioral skills. So Jon, for you and your practice, what does this look like?

For me, I think it starts with awareness. This isn't even only applicable inside of classrooms. This can be with coworkers, and this can even be in relationships. It first starts with awareness of who you are and what your expectations are for other people. Maybe you know that person who is high energy, maybe not even anxious, but just excitable. Well, they walk into a room and they'll bring the whole energy up. And it's not something that we think of consciously. We just think like, ‘hey, I'm a little stressed right now.’ Why? Or even that, you know, that really quiet, just discerning person walks into a room, and it kind of brings the mood down a little bit. Not in a bad way, but we're just not going to be as loud. Just being aware of how our bodies are kind of reacting to other people. It's not something that we think about throughout the day, but I think just bringing awareness to that is where we would start.

Yeah, I like that because the examples you're sharing are not even just within myself, of I'm noticing myself responding a certain way. You're also calling out how different either people or situations, like social dynamics, are impacting what's going on around me, that I then maybe consciously or just sort of automatically kind of show up or respond in a certain kind of way.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean even as simple as let's talk about, you know, in a classroom, a 6-foot-5, 250-pound male is going to have a different, I don't want to say interaction, but the students are going to receive that teacher differently from a, you know, five-foot-five lady. And it's not because one's a better teacher than the other, it's just the sheer presence that they have. And I think even personally in my practice, I'm a 5-foot-10 male, so I know when I'm dealing with little kids, their interaction with me can be different. And just even being aware of that is where I would tell people just to start.

Yeah. I think when I look back through all of the social skills instruction that I have run as an educator through my practice, or even different programs that we're working with districts to develop, and we're integrating some of these strategies within their instructional practices, there really does seem to be an awareness piece that is where it starts. And so if it's the physical presence that I have in any given space.

I think sometimes we work with staff who may underestimate the impact. That's just their presence has, and not in the use of, like, proximity control or anything like that, but truly, just like, because I am in this space, certain interactions may or may not happen in the way that they would if I weren't. And I think as educators, we see those social dynamics shift. We know if this kid is absent today or if this situation happened in this kind of way, we kind of see the social dynamics, but I don't think that we're always fully aware of all of the different components that go into, really, like, truly social dynamics.

Yeah. Because it's so abstract. It's not something that we, you know, see written out. It's something that we feel, but we don't often even notice it. You know, to nerd out a little bit with mirror neurons, where there's something internally that kids aren't even thinking about. They're constantly checking on other people. Really, their bodies are just scanning for safety. And so they're learning who is safe, who isn't.

And it can be something as simple as when we make eye contact. It can be something as simple as, you know, is the rest of the class loud? That will either elevate or bring down other children because they're just looking around, trying to find who's safe. And it's not something that they're even conscious of. You know, there are some students who, if you put on music, they're going to be stressed out during a test. Other kids are going to be calmed down. And I think it's just knowing those underlying things and really kind of paying attention to just the body language. This is from elementary to high school, just noticing the, what do we call it nowadays? The ‘aura’ of the room.

Yeah, I think that is so spot on because again, I think as educators, we see those things, but we aren't always attributing all of the pieces to it. I mean, I'm thinking of examples in my practice. I love how you're framing it around safety. I'm just scanning to see am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? I've worked with so many staff who do not understand why students may kind of naturally gravitate toward either more aggressive, vocally, verbally forward types of peers. Because of the staff, they're perceiving those actions as unsafe. But given that students see their network, situation, background, there are some things that are saying, no, those people will step for me. Like, I may not like how they interact, and I may not want them to interact with me like that. But I know if they interact that way, they can hold their own, and that means they can hold their own for me, too. And there is a safety piece to that. But the perspective of the staff looking at that behavior and the perspective of the student looking at the exact same behavior, they are perceiving it completely differently.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that circles back to if we don't know how we're perceiving a situation, we're not even close to perceiving how another student is going to be perceiving the situation. And even walking into a classroom stressed for no fault of your own, rough day, not having it, don't want to be there. Kids are going to pick up on that 100%. It's amazing how perceptive kids are to what's going on internally in us that we don't notice. And it does go back to again, those mirror neurons, like they have, their brain is on high alert for who is safe, and they don't even know that. So even a teacher walking in who is, you know, kids may love this teacher, something inside that kid, and it's not spoken, it's not conscious, it's like, oh, they're not okay. Well, if they're not okay, today is not okay. So this isn't okay. And the learning, the distractions, that day are going to look different.

Yeah, I mean, I know. I especially like working in my alternative ed. Honestly, I've worked in emotional behavioral disorders for the far majority of my career. And it is like the sixth sense for things that you think you are hiding. It does not matter how well you think you are hiding it; you are not. They will see it. And if you have a good rapport with them, they're going to call you out on it. And so I've had multiple students be like, ‘Yo, miss, you don't seem all right.’

I love that.

You know, and be like, you're right. I'm not like, thank you for calling me on that. Like, can I own that today? Is it okay if I'm just not okay today?

To call that out, to name that. Because if you then say, No, I'm fine. Well, now you've just lied, right?The kid is noticing well, what I'm perceiving in my body and what I'm hearing with my mouth is not consistent. So something's off here. And this is for what I do in practice with parents a lot of times, that, especially with teachers, you don't have to be the most powerful person in the room if you're off and the kids know it and you're lying to them. Uh oh. I love that you name that.

Well, it's that incongruence, right? If I'm noticing something and I'm feeling fairly well attuned. And I think sometimes staff are not as willing,  maybe, to notice how well attuned students who may be completely off on the regular, how well attuned they still, very much so, are to their surroundings, to people, to the norms of the people in their lives. Like how people typically show up and notice that something's a little off, even for students who staff would characterize as either volatile or unpredictable, or those kinds of things, because that's not making sense to the people outside of that student. That doesn't mean that kid is not observant. They're not highly aware. And I know you do a lot of work with folks who've walked through some really tough stuff in very short periods of time. And a lot of times, I find those students are the most attuned to the tiniest of imperceptible details, so it's just automatic to them. Like, they just see it, and it's almost like they can't not see it. So then to dismiss it or be like, not a big thing, or like, no, your perception is off. Ouch.

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if you've touched on this, but teachers are there to impart information, right? And that's the goal. You know, there's a broader goal. And so I think it can be hard to even just take the time to really understand. Like, well, if socially my classroom is not connected, learning's not going to happen. And I've messed this up in groups all the time where I've thought, well, we just need to get this piece of information so we can check on homework, yada, yada, yada.

And I've totally forgotten to do a check-in. I've not checked in with myself, and I'll walk out of that meeting run over, right? And it's all because I'm thinking content, content, content. But, at the end of the day, we cannot pull the human factor and the relational factor. I mean, if you want to go all the way evolutionary, like, we were made to be in a tribe, right? Being alone meant dying. Being alone meant not finding a mate, not getting food. Tuk Tuk's gonna get hit by a rival gang. And so that's still in us today, where we're looking around for, who are my people? And when there's, like you said, incongruency that sends off all sorts of alarms, even in teenagers.

So I know in my practice, one of the things that I'll do to help students kind of see what parts are necessary to pay attention to at any given time. When I'm teaching social skills, we're talking about this is a skill, but this is how this shows up in the classroom versus this is how this shows up at recess or in the lunchroom, versus this is how this shows up locally.

So the example I always use is raising your hand. Because most of my guys will either blurt out or not be engaging. And so raise your hand. Raise your hand. Raise your hand. It’s the feedback that they receive on the regular. So in the classroom, you may need to raise your hand and wait for time to pass and for you to be engaged by typically the teacher or whoever is kind of like running, whatever that activity may be.

But in a cafeteria, if you sit there and raise your hand, or if you're on the playground and you're up on the monkey bar somewhere and you stop and raise your hand, is that actually going to get the response that you need? If you need, like, help with something in that moment? Well, maybe there. It's not actually raising your hand. Maybe it would be, go to an adult and wait. And that would be, like, the equivalent and the same thing. Like, if I'm driving and we have a flat tire and we're stuck on the side of the road, please do not stand next to your car and raise your hand. At least in the United States, that's not going to result in someone pulling over to assist you, or at least most likely not.

And so it's like. So there's this skill I need to wait patiently for my turn to engage in whatever that is. If it's directed or if it's something that I need, I'm kind of soliciting assistance for. That's a skill. But how that shows up in different contexts, I mean, that's completely different. So that's like needing to be aware of that situation to know then how does this skill need to show up so that I'm really engaging in it in a way that I'm going to get what I need and they are as well.

So I'm curious, with all of the work that you've done teaching social behaviors, is there anything that you've noticed that you're like, that's not actually teaching them anything? Like, what are some of those fail points that you've seen in your practice or maybe in kind of collaboration with other practitioners that's like, yeah, you're teaching social behaviors, but you're not actually teaching that. That's not sticking. Or that's maybe not as effective as what we would hope it would be.

Yeah, you know what? I haven't put much consideration into that, but right off hand, something does come to mind. And I think I'm going to have a hard time explaining this, but let me give it a shot. I think when we teach from- and I'll explain this purely from a behavioral standpoint- if I raise my hand, then I get a reward. There's a benefit to that. Like, we don't want the students who are blurting things out to be the ones who are heard, and the ones who are raising their hands to be ignored. We do want to enforce the behaviors that we want. But if it's purely do your homework so you get A's, and this is actually a personal thing, it's like, well, I get an A, and I still have to do more work. And I get to play football less. So I think teaching it purely from a ‘do these things that are socially acceptable’ which we say is law, but take that to another, maybe not even another country, maybe another state, maybe even another neighborhood down the street.

Different classroom.

Exactly. Yeah. And so when we teach these, like, do this to be this, it kind of puts your value and worth in how are you performing in your social context? And not so much, well, who are you? Right. So like, the student who has a hard time raising their hand is probably also the student who interrupts their friends right when they're talking. Maybe it's ADD, maybe it's, you know, we could label it, but it won't change it.

But getting the student to know, ‘hey, your voice is important. You want to get your voice out there. I love that about you, but let's let other people have a voice.’ And approach it more from, like, letting them understand your voice matters, but so do other people. And when you put your voice in front of other people, you're saying you're more important. And not just ‘you get a treat for not interrupting today.’

Yeah, thank you. Because I think so often this High-Leverage Practice can get kind of conflated or mashed up with providing constructive feedback for performance. If that's academics or social, emotional, behavioral, it's kind of either way, this is truly separate from. And, I really appreciate you calling that out because some folks will think, ‘oh, I teach social behaviors by using PBIS or positive behavior interventions and support.’

Not necessarily. And you're right. Like, there are some not great things that have come from leveraging strictly behavioral strategies without really informing the social application. Like how that's actually making sense. It's really, you're just using like these behavioral pieces to draw kind of bumpers or guardrails around what would be kind of expected interactions. But you're not really creating the context within that ‘why’ is going to sit. And the why, in my opinion, is really what drives that social engagement. It's also part of how I've engaged with a ton of different cultures and a bunch of different ways. And it's all been consistent for me because I'm understanding kind of the why that's behind those different styles of interaction.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, Jon, thank you so much for engaging in this conversation with me. Teaching social behaviors. It is very nuanced, and so I don't know that we're leaving any major takeaways or actionables with this conversation. But if nothing else, my hope is that people who are listening to this understand that it is not a clean, clear-cut curriculum. You do not just pick up something and run this social skill, and then your kids are going to be cured. It's so much bigger than that.

And if we can acknowledge our role in that as well as the context in which we're situated, it's going to be so much more likely that our kids are going to be walking away with skills that are useful well beyond just our classroom. So thank you for engaging in this with me.

Absolutely. Thank you, Heather.