So far this semester, I have been able to attend two student meetings: one IEP meeting, and one child study meeting. Both included the student, his/her parents and teachers, and at least one counselor. In both, teachers expressed concerns regarding the students but also mentioned strengths. In both, we heard from the parents.
Despite similarities, however, they were two very different meetings. In the IEP meeting, the counselor set the tone immediately. He said to the student that even though it was intimidating to be surrounded by teachers, we were there to help him.
In the child study meeting, the counselor set a different tone. He let us know that we had been called together to discuss some concerns. This particular student was causing a lot of disciplinary problems, so we needed to talk about them.
The meetings proceeded according to the tone set at the beginning. In the IEP meeting, teachers first mentioned strengths: "He's really intelligent," "He asks good questions," He's a critical thinker." Then they mentioned areas of improvement. They identified causes for the issues raised and, altogether, the team developed solutions.
In the child study meeting, a couple teachers mentioned strengths before concerns, but the others only talked about problems, and that was the orientation of the meeting, in general. Solutions were left for the student to figure out: HE needs to adjust, HE needs to change. Only one teacher mentioned not having problems with the student anymore. She said she just had a conversation with the student about what was appropriate, but she still gave him his couple minutes to be the class clown. Unfortunately, she spoke at the end, after all the other teachers had left.
And finally, the biggest difference I noticed between the two meetings was the role of the student. Because the IEP meeting's goal, as stated by the counselor, was to help the student, we heard from him. He told us why he thought he might have these problems; we asked him what he thought might help. The student took an active role.
In the child study meeting, we never asked the student what he thought. We never asked him why he might behave the way he does, and how he can learn best. It seemed the tone set guided the meeting's message into something like this: "This is what you're doing wrong, and this is what you need to do to change."
As the title of my post implies, I believe these two meetings were different because of the way we started. I believe the child study counselor wanted to help the student, too, and I'm sure his teachers felt the same way. However, since it started the way it did, without saying from the beginning that we were there for the student and not to vent about or issues with regard to the student, it might have been a lot more productive.
I love the comparison in this post and your observation. I think it's important to check yourself before meetings, especially when you are the one holding it. I think the way you start out determines the tone for the rest of it. I think people react differently for the rest of the meeting depending on the atmosphere at the beginning. If it starts off tense, people start putting up their guards or even taking themselves out of the conversation, thus not helping the student.
ReplyDeleteIt bugs me when people assume they know the situation and what to do with out asking the main person involved. As humans we jump to conclusions instinctively, but we also have to realize we need to step back and ask that "What do you think" "Or why did you do it this way." That student might feel a lot of disrespect from the child study meeting and further distance himself which is completely opposite of what the goal is.
I know exactly what you are talking about. In 6th grade, we have one period where majority of the students are special ed and is co-taught with the special ed teacher. If a student acts out or doesn't get their homework done the teacher is asking questions about how they can help and what is going on that this is happening. In any of our other classes, if a student is acting out or doesn't do their homework, there is none of that. The student gets sent to the office for acting out or gets an F on that assignment. I understand that the students with IEPs or 504s need the extra help, but what about the other "normal" (I use that very very loosely) students? They need help, too. Majority of the time they aren't acting out just to act out. There is something more, something deeper that we don't know about. I wonder where the students would be if we just asked what was going on instead of automatically jumping to conclusions.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that child study meetings without the student have just gone in circles. It's more discussing what the teachers could do to help the student change, but there was a lot of speculation as to how the student would respond to certain strategies. It seemed useless because if we weren't talking about drugs, sorry, if we weren't talking about "meds" then we were talking about what type of punishment or reward the student would respond to best. Since this was in a middle school, the drugs, excuse me, the "meds" were something that the parents needed to follow through on, but other than that, it would have been nice to have the student there to give input as to what consequence would motivate him/her best. Also, I have noticed that staff and PLC meetings go a lot better when the objective of the meeting is explained at the very beginning. Interesting how meetings parallel classroom lessons.
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