21 School-Based Scenario: Joaquin Establishes Control

Approaching the end of the first quarter during his first year as a fifth-grade special education teacher, Joaquin realizes that he notes behavioral challenges for more students than he expected. Of great concern to him is that students who have not been identified with behavior-specific diagnoses or needing behavioral supports demonstrate increasingly disruptive behaviors in the classroom. He reflects on his approach at the start of the year. He wanted to build rapport and trust with the fifth graders, but perhaps didn’t establish clear enough expectations and parameters. He thinks to himself, “I need to start the second quarter making clear that I control my classroom.”

In advance of report card distribution and the end of the grading period, Joaquin sends an email and letter to all families explaining that the group’s behavior isn’t acceptable and that he’s establishing more clear classroom rules. He delineates these rules in the letter and notifies families that he will contact them when their children’s behaviors veer from these expectations. As the second quarter begins, Joaquin follows through on his letter. He contacts each family every time their child behaves disruptively. He logs all behaviors and uses a stoplight style chart at the front of the room so all students can see who is in the green (good), yellow (marginal), or red (very not good) category throughout the day.

Joaquin’s inbox has fewer and fewer emails from families and he notices a clear drop in what he previously felt to be positive interactions with the students in his class and their family members. On the other hand, there are fewer disruptions in the classroom during learning time.

Let’s take a moment and consider this from the perspective of Maura Strauss, the mother of Luca, one of Joaquin’s 11-year-old students we introduced in Part 1 of this book.

Maura and Joaquin had a bit of a bumpy start (as described in Part 1), but resolved the misunderstandings. From Maura’s perspective, Luca seemed to be learning and feeling appropriately challenged. Maura felt cautiously optimistic that, despite Joaquin’s lack of experience, things were heading in a positive direction. That feeling began to change after she received communication about new classroom rules. On its own, that could indicate higher expectations for all learners, something Maura fully supported. But when her daughter’s classmates’ parents started to share their disappointment and frustration about increased communication regarding behavior, she began to wonder what was going on in the classroom and if her daughter’s learning was being interrupted. Then, she received two messages from Joaquin within one week. The first indicated that Luca’s behavior didn’t meet his expectations. The second message described Luca’s lack of compliance with a direction that may have been confusing to her. She revisited the initial communication about rules and noted the stoplight at the front of the room. She realized that her daughter might react negatively to such a public display, even feel humiliated. She reached out to the school counselor for advice, uninterested in engaging in a second negative confrontation with Joaquin.