Big Conversations: When Learners Struggle in School

 

      

"There is no standard child. Every child has talents, passions and abilities unique to them." 

              - Brad Johnson (author)

Sometimes, despite the best of circumstances, children will struggle with learning when they are in school. Occasionally, the challenges appear soon after a child begins school, while other times challenges emerge as the elementary years progress. 

And whenever challenges begin to appear, there are big conversations to be had between parents and the school.

I have been on both sides of the table, so to speak - as the parent of a child experiencing challenges at school - and many, many times as a teacher and/or school administrator attempting to support a family whose child has begun to demonstrate learning complexities. 

It is not easy being in either position - these are our children, the humans who embody the greatest emotional investments of our lives. Knowing they are encountering challenging experiences impacts us emotionally - our job is to protect them after all - as well as logically as we try to figure out a cause and the shortest route to a resolution of any problems. 

We are their protectors and we are also their life-guides, especially when children are very young. Navigating school-related challenges feels like something we should be able to do quite easily because we were all students ourselves at one time.

Emotional responses from parents are essential because they ensure the family will be there to support their child no matter what happens - ever!  Emotional responses require empathy and patience on behalf of the school as we all come to accept and understand whatever challenges a child is encountering, and together we continue to place the emotional safety and physical well-being of each child at the centre of our thinking.  

Logical responses from parents are essential as well - the questions, suggestions, approaches offered from a learner's family are the beginning steps towards discovering and implementing the best possible supports for each child. And logical responses from the school should offer a pathway to discovery and implementation of those supports.

It is when the emotional responses and the logical responses become tangled together that the biggest conversations occur. It's been my experience this almost always happens whenever any child is finding school to be a struggle for any reason - it is almost inevitable that families and school staff will spend time working through possibilities, concerns, fears, questions, suggestions together before any learner is able to feel supported with whatever learning challenge they are facing in school. 

I am going to try and unpack these processes a bit over the final few blog entries I will be writing as Principal of Eric Harvie School, since my retirement from this position will occur in just a few weeks. Supporting families, learners and school staff through the processes that emerge when a learner begins to struggle in school requires a significant investment of time, focus and opportunities by school administrators. It is my hope to clarify some of what occurs and what parents might expect that will be of greatest benefit to learners who find themselves encountering challenges in their school. 

The most important thing to never forget is that successful support for learners encountering difficulties in schools demands a collaborative, team effort on behalf of both the school and families. Success for learners requires collaboration, sharing and open communication between home and school at all times. It will require their entwined emotional and logical responses to successfully implementation of support for learners.

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When learners begin to experience school as an overly challenging situation, their challenges will usually be presented in six key ways:

• executive functioning concerns 
• issues related to attention and focus
• anxiety
• behaviour 
• communication 
• significant challenges with learning 

Sometimes more than one challenge will be represented with one child - this is a fairly common situation and one that schools are well-prepared to respond to with appropriate supports. 

Schools always have an organized approach to any issue that becomes a clear indiction a learner is struggling. Often these challenges are best met with suggestions from the teacher - perhaps a checklist to help with organization, or reinforcement at both home and school focused on sharing, asking questions, making requests to go to the bathroom, etc. Simple challenges that are quite quickly resolved are the daily work of classroom teachers and families, working together. 

When struggles with learning become too impactful to be handled simply - whether the struggles reflect an actual learning component or an interruption to learning in some way that is prompted by inappropriate behaviour, attention issues, anxieties, communication or self-regulation - then the concern is usually elevated to 'the school learning team' (SLT).  This might include any or all Resource or Diversity support teachers, Learning Leaders or school administration. The purpose of the SLT is to acknowledge a child's learning concern and then begin to explore best strategies for meeting that child's learning needs in the school. 

The SLT might recommend in-school support with an Educational Assistant, additional teacher support for literacy or math, small group instruction or a school program such as SPARK, Discovery, CALM or another school-developed support approach.  Or they might recommend a learner be seen for a speech and language referral, OT/PT assessment, pediatric assessment, social/emotional assessment, psycho-educational assessment, counseling or behaviour support assessment. There are many strategies the SLT might recommend to begin the process of assessing the best ways to mitigate and support a learner who is struggling.

Once the SLT has met, then the parents will be engaged in more formal conversations regarding the recommendations. Communication between school and home becomes more frequent and directed - this might include a 'day book' or frequent messaging communication between home and school, with the intention of tracking successes and misses related to strategy implementation. 

An external recommendation for one of these types of assessment may also result in the creation of an IPP (Individual Program Plan) that clearly describes the goals and processes to support each student in achieving their best learning. Not every learning challenge requires an IPP; however, when one is required it is a way to formalize the support and the IPP will also ensure support for a learner through to high school and even college/university. 

Whenever a learner is struggling, communication between school and home becomes of paramount importance. Keeping an open mind and honouring the very best interests of the child, the family and the school will be what ultimately supports the best learner success, no matter what the nature of the learning challenges might be.

There will need to be big conversations about the what, the why, next steps and ongoing adjustments. The most important thing to remember - no matter which side of the table one is sitting - is to hold the child at the centre of the discussion, the decisions and the adjustments.

 We are a team, collaborating to best meet the child's learning needs at all times.

Next blog entry I will explore the nature and representations of the various challenges children most frequently demonstrate at school, to build understanding and clarity of the processes schools often suggest.

Lorraine Kinsman, Principal

Eric Harvie School 

Eyes on Student Learning...Using our Infinite Mindsets

"...to establish and sustain a learning environment that fosters creativity and innovation in a peaceful community of connected, independent thinkers, problem solvers and learners." 

 - Eric Harvie School Vision Statement 2016-2022

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'...navigating what will come to be known as this inter-pandemic space—a time between what our traditional notions of schooling once were and what they have the potential to become." - Allison Rodman, 2022 ASCD

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Since we are a Kindergarten through Grade 4 school, over half our school population has never experienced what we would typically consider a full 'school year' experience. Children currently in Kindergarten, Grade 1 and Grade 2 have never participated in a spring concert, a year-end celebration of learning at the school with their families present, seen our Magician (Steve Harmer) perform in person, participated in a year-end sports day, been part of a parent-attended Peace Assembly. Even our current Grade 3 students would have experienced these things through the lens of a Kindergarten student with modified participation due to the half-time nature of the program itself.  And for our Grade 4 students, participating in all these new experiences only once as Grade 1 learners may seem very much like distant memories. 

This is without considering how learning itself has also looked and sounded vastly different over the past 2 years and 2 months than it ever did before.

Should we consider this a loss for our students currently enrolled in our K - 4 school?

Well, it is a loss of what used to be for sure - yet, perhaps not a loss of what is now 0r might be in the future. 

Children don't actually have a sense of loss for such experiences as spring concerts and sports days, anymore than they have a sense of loss for field trips or guest speakers or reading clubs in the library they have yet to experience either. 

The children and babies I've encountered over the years have a lot to teach us about living each day for the experience and the joys of living in that experience - they do not mourn what they do not know they have lost. 

While adults seek to restore some sense of normalcy - or what we remember as normal - the children come to school every day excited to do whatever the day offers to the best of their abilities. They learn, they laugh, they attempt new things, sometimes they get frustrated - or even angry, sometimes they are sad but they are always actively doing something with their brains and bodies active. They are not living regretfully, lamenting lost experiences.

Even when we were enveloped in online learning, the children still were children. Some of them found ways to talk all the time regardless of mute buttons and turned off cameras. Stories continued to be told. They emailed written work and read books digitally, sent photographs and videos of themselves learning. They built relationships with their teachers and peers - differently, for sure - yet they were nonetheless relationships. They still trusted and cared, helped one another and smiled, grateful to see each other without masks without even making note of the difference.

When we look back on these past 2+ years, I have a hunch we are going to notice children who consider school, life and each other a bit differently than what we adults recall. 

I believe we will see overall greater resiliency - our youngest learners have grown up needing to adapt quickly to new circumstances - learning at home with parents physically present and their peers absent, going back to school with masks, constraints and lots of adult control for 2020-21, and then returning to school again, in the fall of 2021-22, to an unpredictable school year where masks, constraints and vaccinations were defined and monitored initially.  Quickly these constraints gave way to a less-structured approach accompanied by much higher levels of illness for both children and adults, significant school absences, a huge focus on assessment for learning gaps and, finally, the presence of new curriculum waiting to make their next school year yet another one of uncertainty and much-needed adaptability.

And still the children persevere - with smiles! 

They put forth effort, seek discoveries, ask questions, wonder aloud at all things unfamiliar. Their spirits are resilient and they do not see themselves as enduring learning losses in any way. They are learners, they are learning at their own pace. They are quicker to notice emotional responses in each other and in adults, and they are more willing to help if they are able.

They also squabble more than they used to, often with the peers they know best. Their patience for each other is less obvious; they are wearying of the specific company of some of their peers. Familiarity, on occasion, will sometimes breed contempt...

Are they reading, writing, counting, printing, etc at grade level? There is a ton of data to sift through and we are trying to make sense of it all. Truthfully, the non-strugglers will forever be the non-strugglers. Other learners will find some tasks to be challenging and other tasks much easier. 

All the children will, however, find a way to persevere and try again, to adapt and adjust and find a way to grow, learn and succeed. This is the trajectory of learning, teaching, human existence. Children living through this inter-pandemic space will find ways to thrive, to survive, to adapt and grow. Their ways will not necessarily echo the 'before pandemic' times, yet will define the characters and qualities of this generation. 

If we look forward with infinite mindsets, there is a clarity required that is essential for sustaining quality teaching and learning into the future. It is clarity that acknowledges adaptability, resiliency, the capacities to accept a situation as it is temporarily and still make the most of it. 

 These are qualities humans have exhibited for centuries when confronted with wars, famines, drought, disease, pestilence, poor governance. The human qualities necessary to thrive despite life's challenges have been blanketed by a few decades of prosperity and gentler living requirements - at least in western countries. As learners, as parents, as teachers we became accustomed to every option being readily accessible for as many learners  - as well as ourselves - as possible. 

And then it seemed like everything stopped, walloped by COVID-19. Everything we wanted was no longer easily accessible - especially to schools and learning as we understood them to be. 

We mourned the loss of predictable patterns to the school year, of ritual and sharing and growth, yet the children really did not. They got up and adjusted to a different reality and acquired resiliency and adaptability as a result. It was not a perfect process - not for anyone - for sure. Nonetheless, we have children in schools now who are thriving despite the loss of field trips, football teams spring concerts and big graduation ceremonies. They will become, instead,  resilient, thinking, adaptable adults. 

Infinite mindsets allow us to imagine a much different future for all of us as a result of a generation of children faced with unpredictable, inexplicable, challenging life experiences. All that is required is staying aware, awake to possibilities, being encouraging, positive and recognizing the potential provoked by two years of interrupted routines and events. 

Given what we have endured through the pandemic so far, being hopeful seems like the best possible strategy. 

I remain hopeful.

Lorraine Kinsman, Principal