Dr. Ross Greene

Today's program featured an interview with System Principal Lori Pamplin from the Calgary (Alberta, Canada) public schools. Lori's been helping the assistant principals in her school system learn about Collaborative Problem Solving, and reported that folks were positive buoyant when first learning about the lagging skills and unsolved problems setting the stage for social, emotional, and behavioral challenges in students. Naturally, the challenge is to maintain the buoyancy when learning how to do Plan B and trying to apply the CPS model to the many different kids in the system whose unsolved problems and lagging skills have gone unattended for so long. Lori will keep us posted on progress in her school system next school year...but, in the meantime, this is a very informative, hopeful program. Do listen!

Today's program featured a caller who had questions about a variety of aspects of the CPS model, including: How does working on unsolved problems teach lagging skills? What do we do about the other 28 kids in a classroom when a challenging student is shutting down/acting out? How can we justify spending that much time with one student? How can we justify giving one student exemptions for assignments or making concessions for disruptions when we need to set a precident for other students? Answers, of course, were also provided! But you'll have to listen to the program to hear the answers and find out how the theme for the day -- landfill -- are related.

Teachers and students are running on fumes at the end of the school year. The weather is warmer and the finish line is in view. What should your Collaborative Problem Solving efforts look like here in the home stretch? Well, you want to start preparing for how you're going to improve your implementation of CPS next school year, and there are lots of things to focus on...all the focus of today's program. Listen to the recorded program at your convenience.

The theme for today's program was "Making a Difference"...and that's pretty much what it's all about.

Today's program was broadcast from Harpswell Island Elementary in Maine, where staff are in the early phases of learning about and implementing Collaborative Problem Solving. They had some questions about how to move things further along and make CPS an integral part of their way of doing things, and you can listen in!

The theme for this program was CONTINUITY, so it's fitting that Dr. Greene spent the program interviewing Thomas Ambrose, principal at Lafayette School in Sanford, Maine. Mr. Ambrose -- who's a first-year principal -- and the staff at Lafayette have been putting lots of energy into implementing the CPS model at the school, and Mr. Ambrose talked about where that energy came from, how things have gone, and the challenges they've overcome along the way. It's an ongoing effort, and it's paying off. Listen to the archive!

This was a very interesting program. A special education teacher called in to try to get a better handle on the behavioral challenges being presented by one of her middle school students. After first considering whether the student needed to be evaluated for a psychiatric condition, the discussion turned in the usual direction: toward consideration of the student's lagging skills and unsolved problems. Slowly but surely, the unsolved problems that require further exploration became clarified, and some of the questions that might be asked in further "drilling for information" became clearer as well. Definitely worth listening to!

We went with a more technical topic today, but one that comes up frequently in schools: how to incorporate the CPS model in general and the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) in particular into a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and a Behavior Plan. First, you may want to reconsider your definition of "function"...it's not that the student's challenging behavior is helping him get, escape, or avoid, but rather than the behavior communicates that he's lacking the skills to deal with the demands being placed on him in a more adaptive fashion. After that, the ALSUP pretty much gives you all the information you need to write your Behavior Plan...except that you might want to change the name of that document and call it a Problem Solving Plan instead. Helping kids with their challenging behavior isn't about altering their behavior through use of incentives...it's about collaborating on solutions to the problems that are setting in motion their challenging behavior. Listen to the recorded version of the program!

If things aren't going so well with the students with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges in your school, you're not alone! Helping challenging kids in a classroom...while attending to the diverse needs of the other students...and trying to make sure they all do well on high-stakes testing...can be a daunting challenge. In this program, Dr. Ross Greene -- author of The Explosive Child and Lost at School, and originator of the Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) approach -- helps you view challenging behavior in a more compassionate, accurate, productive manner and intervene more effectively. Want to learn more about the CPS model? Do you have questions about how to get the ball rolling on using the model in your building or classroom? Are you running into trouble in your attempts to use the model with a particular student? This is your opportunity to get your questions answered and listen to how other educators are using the model and overcoming some of the hurdles involved in responding more effectively to the needs of behaviorally challenging kids in schools. You can join in live -- the program airs every Monday at 3:30 pm Eastern time -- or listen to archives of past programs.

The topic of this program was the much-neglected but really-important Invitation step (these days, referred to as the "Brainstorming ingredient") of Plan B. But woven into the discussion was another topic: time. In other words, it's one thing to learn how to do Plan B, to appreciate the need to do Plan B proactively, and to become proficient at the three ingredients of Plan B. But when are you going to do all this in the ongoing stream of a school day? Probably by devoting 15 minutes a day, every day, to helping kids solve problems. Listen to the recorded version of this program at your convenience.

Dr. Greene thought he was going to focus on the seldom-talked-about Invitation step of Plan B in this program. But -- and this is always a welcome development -- a caller shifted the agenda. So instead Dr. Greene helped a teacher who is very devoted to using Plan B -- but is just beginning to learn how -- sort through the possibilities for why a student didn't provide much information in the Empathy step of Plan B. So maybe we'll focus on the Invitation step in the next program. In the meantime, this one is definitely worth a listen!

Educators often blame parents for students' behavior problems at school, and often feel that a student's difficulties at school can't be resolved without parental involvement. While working collaboratively with parents is certainly a goal, some unsolved problems don't require parental involvement...and some parents aren't available to help anyway. Listen to the archive of this program and lots of others at your convenience!

In this program, Dr. Greene initially spent some time reviewing several ALSUPs that were completed by teachers of actual students so as to examine whether the items listed in the Unsolved Problem section were too vague (and to provide suggestions for information that would be more specific). Then he spent some time with a classroom teacher who called in to inquire about doing full-class Plan B with her group of students. A very informative program! Listen to the archive (or archives of other past programs) at your convenience.

In this program, Dr. Greene had the pleasure of talking with Alfie Kohn, author of Punished by Rewards, Beyond Discipline, and many other critical books. This was a fun and enlightening discussion about a variety of school-related topics, including school discipline, socially healthy classrooms, high-stakes testing...the whole gamut. Listen to the archive!

In this program, Dr. Greene helps a group of educators -- who are trying to re-engage a student academically so he doesn't drop out of school -- figure out why they've been "going around in circles" in their efforts to resolve the student's concerns using Plan B. A few of the common ways in which Plan B can go awry -- difficulty "drilling" for information in the Empathy step, and proposing solutions before the concerns and solutions of both parties are well-understood -- were the focal point of this discussion. A great, real-life example of how Plan B can veer off...and how to get it back on track.