Teachable Moments

One of my students, we will call him Trey, came to me after recess to ask me for help. Trey* is a boy who has had a rough road in his eight years of life. Divorced family, physical and verbal abuse, and just plane cruelty. On top of that he has had to stand up for his younger siblings and help to prevent them from being on the receiving end of an angry man, stepping forward to take the blame so his siblings were safe. He had all of his toys broken or disappear while he was at school, returning to emptiness. He became very good at hiding one toy, his dominoes, which he treats as his secret treasure. Trey has learned to be reactive, which has become an automatic response to any situation that is uncomfortable. Needless to say, Trey has become very near and dear to me. He is an amazing little boy who needs someone to love him no matter what he does wrong.

Yesterday in my social skills group, I began a new curriculum- Stop & Think. Up to this point we have spent our time together in this group identifying our level of emotions on a scale of one to five and what each level means. Now, we get to Stop & Think about our levels. Step 1- Stop & Think. Step 2 - Am I going to make a good choice or a bad choice? Step 3 - What are my choices or step? Step 4 - Do it! Step 5- Pat yourself on the back and say GOOD JOB! OK, that may sound like over kill but with kids that struggle with social skills you have to start from the beginning. Anyway, I took a bottle of water and a bottle of coke and as I began talking to the students (Trey is in the group of course) about the steps of Stop and Think I also began to slowly shake the two bottles. As I grew closer and closer to step 5 I was shaking very fast. I asked each and every student which bottle they want to open. Hmmm.... the water bottle really? Nah, I think I will open the coke bottle! I sat the water bottle down and acted as if I was going to open it. You can imagine the looks and gasps of horror and well honestly some were begging me not to open it. So I asked them why I should open the water bottle instead. Oh, because nothing will happen and if I open the coke bottle I will get covered in pop? They were able to connect that stop and think is like the water bottle and that reacting to a situation without stopping to think is like the coke bottle, you can explode!


I say all this because today, Trey asked me for help right? He knew he had gone a little too far at recess. He had called some girls a few names, used words he shouldn't have and he didn't understand why he couldn't just walk away. I was very proud of him for wanting help. I decided that I needed to see for myself what was going on at recess so I went outside at his second (shorter) recess. He decided to play wall ball which he grew tired of because the line was very long. He quickly discovered that four square was moving fast and joined that game. He was doing well until a boy called him out. I knew he wasn't out because I was watching, but I did not intervene; I wanted to see how he would react. He began by trying to explain but the boy just cut him off saying he is out. Trey screamed at the boy, I hate you and then stormed off throwing his hat, kicking his hat, screaming in frustration, and trying not to cry. He put himself in a time out over on the grass. I walked slowly over to him, pulled up a piece of grass next to him and said, well that didn't work out so well did it? We talked about how he was the soda pop and we went through the steps of how he can become the water bottle. He then was able to go apologize to the boy and I asked the boy to please listen to the explanation. Trey told him why he wasn't out and then the game continued with a smile on Trey's face. Now that is what I call a teachable moment. There is no way I could have recreated that in the classroom. Looks like I will get a daily recess now!

**** Side note ****** For those of you wondering, Trey is living in a much better situation. He is happy and healthy. He just has some bad learned behavior. In time he will learn to be a the water bottle!