THE LANGUAGE OF POWER© IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

SUNSHINE AND SHAME:

The Ultimate Remedy For Teenage Bullying I

Teenage bullying is a situation that has been with us for a long time and has recently become high profile as several teen suicides have been linked to it. Fortunately, there is good news connected to this negative teen behavior depending on how we want to look at it.

Consider this an opportunity rather than as just another problem. Abortion? Immigration? Too much government? Too much business/marketplace influence? Teenage bullying is one subject all of us in our fractious society can agree on. (Perhaps even public school administrators and teachers unions?) Its bad and we should-----if we can------eliminate it. So let's begin by being positive.

Bullying is a product of the “teen peer subculture”. Teenagers live in their own world and have their own ways of communicating. It is a systemic issue and all successful interventions (a 60% failure rate is “successful”?) have in effect targeted the entire culture—usually public school culture (“you need to pay attention to what the kids are doing”- - - prevention expert Marlene Snyder, quoted in The Bully Problem, Christian Science Monitor, May 3,2010)

It is precisely because bullying arises from the peer subculture that there is reason for hope. The prevailing wisdom and virtually all our current programming regard the peer group as an absolute negative to be minimized and controlled by whatever means necessary. Yet we have a significant amount of research and considerable empirical evidence that teaches us how to turn the peer group into an absolute positive, and thereby unleash the caring, concern and clear cut accountability that teenagers consistently demonstrate when we adults create the right conditions for such qualities to emerge. The Los Angeles area has long used Teen Courts as an effective and economical juvenile justice practice and has found that teens, if anything, are harder on their peers than adults. When we have the courage to structure our interventions using the teen peer group as an asset rather than a liability, we create the opportunity to virtually eliminate the scourge of teen bullying.

          How is this done? Individual school districts, beginning with the Superintendent and the school board, would design and implement a specific system (policy) patterned after the rule of law.  What constitutes bullying would be precisely defined.  Teens themselves would serve as prosecutor, defense attorney, judge and jury.  A Wall of Shame list of those convicted by their peers would be established.  Offenders could be sentenced to the Hall of Shame, an after school remedial group therapy gathering run by knowledgeable professionals.  Teens could work their way out of the Hall and off the Wall by demonstrating to their peer sentencing authority that they had indeed “learned their lesson”.

       What is the single most important thing in the life of a teenager? “What do my friends

(and other peers) think of me? (!)”.   Shame, in and of itself, can be a powerful motivational tool especially with teens. A teen who has been so identified will really think twice about bullying others.

The process of developing and implementing such a policy can bring the entire school community together just as previously indifferent neighbors instantly cooperate in the face of a natural disaster that impacts all of them And it's cheap-----no highly paid outside consultants, no equipment, no capital outlay, everything done through the grass roots.

How about cyber—bullying? Another opportunity, only this time instead of a school district, it's an opportunity for an entire community, or township, to work together to implement basically the same model. Legal issues? As long as the punishment is voluntary –meaning that it is not a legal violation and once again those found guilty through “due process” are publically shamed in some specific way---- there should be no problem. And besides, it might be interesting to see what our Supreme Court might say about a well managed, internally consistent ,inexpensive and totally effective local program initiated and driven by total citizen involvement and consensus!

Negatives? Working with teens in a continuing group situation and with the teen peer group is like running a nuclear power plant. No complacency is allowed. And those of us trained and immersed in zero tolerance theory and practice may have some trouble contemplating the idea of positive peer pressure which is the engine that will drive this initiative. But be of good cheer. All of us have a right---brain hemisphere and it's just as big as our left brain is! All we really need to do is bring it out of hibernation and begin to practice with it…….

Sunshine and Shame: The Ultimate Remedy for Teenage Bullying II

The nearly successful suicide attempt of a fifteen-year-old finally pushed the Trackenseen School District over the edge.  Although they had studiously employed all the nationally recognized and certified anti-bullying programs available, six months of intense study and research convinced them of one thing:  Bullying, especially cyberbullying, arises from the teen peer culture itself and so a sociological model was needed.

Their new approach, called Sunshine and Shame, was introduced the summer before Jasper's family moved into the affluent suburban district from sunny California after his dad, a pharmaceutical executive, was transferred.  Jasper, a smart, likeable and athletic 16-year-old knew none of this.  He practiced his usual approach to making friends and influencing peers in climbing the new social status ladder presented to him at Trackenseen High.

Approximately four months into the new school year, Jasper appeared before a Student Council tribunal to answer to charges of bullying.  He was informed of the specific charges and introduced to a student “defense attorney”.  He also immediately noticed the complainant, a tall, thin, bespectacled student who rode the same school bus as Jasper.  He was given half an hour to prepare a defense before the case was “called” before the presiding “judge”, a senior.  Five other students served as a “jury”.  Jasper was found guilty and sentenced to serve 3-6 months in the after-school Hall of Shame.  His name was also added to the school's Wall of Shame, along with others so convicted.

To his further surprise, Jasper found the Hall, administered by two school social workers, to be full of other Trackenseen students who immediately grilled him on not only his bullying but his life experiences in general.  For the first time his charm and easy façade failed him.  His peers were persistent, relentless and thorough.  Gradually, he discovered that they, like him, had also bullied.  Slowly, Jasper learned to trust, and to reveal the deeper levels of himself to the group.

After attending daily group meetings at the Hall for over four months, Jasper petitioned the Student Council to release him.  After another withering “cross examination”, he was released from the Hall and told his name would be removed from the Wall if he kept his nose clean for another 30 days.

Six months later Jasper ran for and was elected to the Student Council.  He was almost immediately appointed to serve on the jury which would consider bullying charges against Marina, a new student from suburban Connecticut, and Miller, late of the Florida gold coast.

When we are able to follow current science, we: Understand that the teenage brain is not yet an adult brain.  Engage teenagers based on how they think rather than how we adults think.  Communicate in ways which allow us to penetrate the teen peer culture itself.  Slowly turn that culture from an absolute negative into an absolute positive.

Sunshine and Shame.  Expose offenders to the kind of ridicule and derision that only teenagers can instantly generate.  Create a climate within which secretive macho support for bullying turns into scorn and sanctions.  By the kids themselves.  Through applied sociology.

TROUBLE IN THE LUNCHROOM

Although the Trackenseen School District's unique, sociologically based anti-bullying initiative Sunshine and Shame was beginning to attract national attention, there were still lunch time problems at its middle school. The teenagers had somehow organized themselves into three district cliques which vied for status with respect to seating arrangements, lining up for food, etc. Actually, there was a fourth “clique”, the left-outs, who were usually the victims in this youthful power struggle. And although the staff was able from time to time to single out and discipline individual wrong doers, the overall chaos continued unabated. And so…

First, notices were sent out to the parents of all the students advising them of the situation and stating flatly that if conditions did not improve by a specific date all seating in the cafeteria would be by assignment and that, if problems persisted, absolute silence would be imposed during lunch.

Then a teacher known for his rapport with teens and for never having problems in his classroom was chosen to address the students before lunch was served.

(Teacher) “Are you having problems during lunch”? (Students) “What problems, what do you mean, etc.”?

(Teacher) “Well for some reason the administration seems to think so” (Students) “That's them, not us”

(Teacher) “Well, if the administration thinks there are problems, isn't that a problem for you all”?

(Students) “Why, if we're not doing anything?”

(Teacher) “Well, would you really want the administration to impose sanctions on you, take away some of your freedom without you having the opportunity to clean it up yourselves”?

(Students) Students might respond in various ways to this, like continuing to deny the problem, claiming powerlessness, etc.

(Teacher) (Starts to wrap things up) “So anyway, because you're all smart, capable people, if you do understand that there's a problem if only because the people in charge think that there is, and so they are prepared to take further action, you now have a few days to take care of this yourself. I know you can do it; I just don't know if you will…”

        What are the teenagers to do? If they don't shape up they will lose a significant amount of (social) freedom. And if sanctions are applied, because a non-judgmental dialogue has been initiated by the adults, they will almost immediately seek to reignite that dialogue to get their freedom back. But to get there they must immediately shape up or no dialogue! And so, the adults are fully in charge. Without firing a shot.

         This is applied sociology. This is using power and authority without being heavy handed and confrontational. And this is how we virtually eliminate bullying! We teach parents, educators, and therapists how to do this. Online.

WHEN IS AN ERASER ALSO A SOFTBALL?

The eraser came flying out of the back row and hit the board close to where the teacher was writing.

     What to do? Mr. Ralsten pretty much knew the culprit was Della, star lefty softball pitcher who had just helped the team qualify for the state tournament. Send her to the office and make her ineligible? Or find some other alternative? The class snickered while he thought. Then…

     “Good grief! I never imagined a 10th grader could be unable to tell the difference between an eraser and a softball! Someone or something pushed a button in Della's head! How can we help her with her problem?”

     Instantly, the class shifted their focus from Mr Ralsten to Della, laughing openly. When we as the adults engage teens based on how they think, rather than on how we adults think, everything changes. Almost overnight.

     Mr. Ralsten then asked the class to help him find an appropriate response. The final decision was that Della would immediately write “an eraser is not a softball”60 times on the board. Only she would do this in the English class next door, exposing her to further derision from her peers. Even though she is just as much a rebellious teen as a standout athlete, do you think she will ever try this one again?

     We spend prodigious amounts of energy to control and contain the “teen peer subculture”. But we know how to turn that very same culture into a positive force for social control through applied sociology. This is the approach that finally restored law and order to the ultra-turbulent 1960s. This is how we can virtually eliminate bullying. We teach parents and educators how to do this. Online.

Improve Trackenseen Schools Through Effective Handling of Disruptive Students

Introduction

The Trackenseen Special Report “Why the Trackenseen School District is Continuously in a Financial Hole” (12-5-18) lists several specific areas in need of immediate attention.  If we can effectively deal with disruptive students each and every one of the listed problem areas will be improved.  Here's how:

Q.  What is “applied sociology” and “group process”?

A.   The applied sociology movement arose in the early 1960s in juvenile justice as teenagers of that turbulent era basically began to run amok.  Research Guided Group Interaction (GGI), Positive Peer Culture (PPC), and Therapeutic Community (TC).

Q.   What has it accomplished?

A.   The watershed moment came in 1972 when the state of Massachusetts rather abruptly closed all its juvenile reform schools, turned over 600 adjudicated juvenile delinquents loose in the community and yet experienced no rise in its juvenile crime rate whatsoever.  (The so-called Massachusetts Experiment – see Last One Over the Wall, by Jerome G. Miller, PhD, and numerous other studies by Harvard, Boston College, etc.)

Q.   How does it work?

A.   See our documents Teenagers and Trouble, The Power of Group Process, and many more.

Q.  How can it help the District?

A.  By directly addressing student misbehavior in continuing small group sessions with offenders, we are able to get students to own up and take responsibility for their behavior, help other group members do the same, and ultimately penetrate the teen peer culture itself.  The practice is based on:

       1.  Teens do not yet have an adult brain and so cannot possibly think like adults.

       2.  Teens struggle daily to learn social constraints on their behavior.  (We pretty quickly learn physical constraints – such as touching a hot stove and getting burnt.)  And so if the core teenage issue is learning (social constraints) we as the adults can also learn to refrain from making judgments (all of us once went through the teenage journey ourselves).

       3.  The “tools” teens use in this learning process are what we call power and freedom.

Q.  Be more specific.

A.  See our complete Draft Plan, already submitted to the District, plus other supporting material.

Q.  If applied sociology is so effective, why isn't anyone else practicing it?

A.  See our documents:  The Core Science that Big Research Left Behind, Do Our Evidence Based Practices Shortchange Teenagers?, and, from juvenile justice, Reentry & Aftercare:  A National Model.  (All are under 1000 words.)  Because our research community has abandoned research on applied sociology it is no longer a mainstream practice.

Q.  Please relate all this to the current problems being experienced by the District?

A.  Sure.  From the Special Report here are the listed non-financial improvements needed:

       1.)  “Be proactive rather than reactive”

     Reviving a decades old practice (that apparently everyone else has ignored or abandoned) with a sterling record of accomplishment and impressive research results is the very definition of being proactive.

       2.)  Mental Health Services

     The overarching goal of all mental health services for teenagers is to establish a relationship of trust and openness between adolescent and adult.  We do this through group process rather than one-on-one individual interactions.

Q.  “Trackenseen Needs to be More Competitive”

A.  This is the heart and soul of what we will be able to accomplish. Our CEO trained directly under the founder of PPC while at the Iowa Training School for Boys, was recruited to Pennsylvania to introduce the system to a 150 bed state facility for delinquent teens as Assistant Director, was appointed Director of another such state facility two months after a state police investigation into conditions there, and reduced the runaway and “incident” rate (physical safety issues) from the highest in the state system to the lowest in about 15 months, Our very positive yet very structured group process approach will slowly but surely become contagious – as it has everywhere else – throughout the District.

Q.  What else?

A.  “Graduation rate” – almost 20% lower than the state average - will slowly but significantly improve as our system spreads throughout the District.  Ditto “State math and reading tests” and problems generated by poverty (“low income students”) as an inclusive and non-judgmental culture takes hold.  As parents begin to recognize and appreciate the underlying cultural changes, their desire to opt for “charter schools” will significantly diminish.  State oversight will be less of an issue.

Q. How about:

          “An enriching focus”

     “Dance classes”

     “Environmental Lessons”

     “Career focus”

A.  We have introduced all of this and much more to our work in juvenile justice.  (See Summertime Programming in our Draft Plan.)  We introduced Positive Peer Integration (PPI) in 2012 and in 2013

Q.  How do you hope to proceed?

A.  Nobody can be expected to buy into such an out-of-the-mainstream proposal without first being given a demonstration of its effectiveness.  

     We have two trained and experienced people of color ready to go.  With our male we will provide at least two weeks of group process (for free) to in-school suspension students.  

     Should the District wish to proceed, we will work with an influential local elected official to seek funding to enable both of our Youthworkers to establish applied sociology in an entire school for perhaps the rest of the school year.

     Should the District then conclude that we can indeed do what we say we can do, we will seek Social Impact Bond (SIB) funding through whatever channels may open up for us.

     As District teachers become more and more interested, we will be able to offer online training in this approach as we now do with parents of struggling teens.

     We are excited about the possibility of creating a national model for our public school systems. Our 13 years of running a school for disruptive students (Choctaw Ridge Academy 1996-2009) can serve as a precursor for what we can do.

     And, we are deeply grateful for the community support we have already received.  

PROPOSAL

The Trackenseen School District has experienced considerable disruption with respect to student behavior over the past several years and its safety numbers are among the worst in the state. We propose to address and ultimately completely revamp the District's secondary school culture, thereby ensuring that positive change will be lasting and permanent.

HOW?

We need to recognize that virtually all current and former " solutions" to the continuing and well documented struggles of our public schools across the country have fallen far short of their goals for one simple reason.

Everything in our educational system begins and ends with the public school teacher in his or her classroom. And we have failed to recognize that we have not provided our teachers with the one tool they need the most and the one science that should be the foundation for everything they do.

How much time do our educators spend working with students in groups rather than individually? As in middle school and high school classrooms? And yet, we have almost totally abandoned the science that informs all of us how to address and handle people in such situations. That science is sociology —the science of group behavior. Applied Sociology. It used to be a staple of our undergraduate social science curriculums. Now we have apparently relegated it to the halls of academia and research.

Everything we do and will do is based on the science of applied sociology.

What other factors will govern our work?

The current science of human brain development tells us that our brains do not fully develop until the age of 25-26. This is why our colleges often struggle with binge drinking problems among 19-20-21 year olds but never with 27-28 year olds.

Teenagers do not yet have an adult brain. And so they can't possibly think like adults. They are not playing with a full deck.

And so we continue to ask our teachers to engage, educate and control groups of people who are not playing with a full deck without giving them the tools offered by the science of applied sociology. And then we are surprised when they continue to struggle and don't " take to" all the solutions offered almost yearly by the best and brightest from our research laboratories.

What is the history of applied sociology in the modern era?

Back in the late 50s an approach called Guided Group Interaction arose out of the juvenile justice arena in New Jersey (research Essexfields and The Highfields Story). An improved version of this initiative emerged in Minnesota and Iowa: Positive Peer Culture (PPC). The writer was blessed to be a direct participant at the Iowa Training School for Boys when the founder of PPC, Dr Harry Vorrath of the University of Minnesota, was hired to transform the entire culture of the School into what became a national model for effectiveness in juvenile justice institutional programming (at that time).

Then a third applied sociology movement arose in Europe and gradually grew to encompass not only juvenile justice but the mental health and human services field generally. Therapeutic Community (TC) is still a staple of our drug treatment and self help systems.

What else do we bring to the table?

We have in fact created two other national models. We took over a struggling state institution for juvenile offenders in Huntington County (Pa) two months after a state police investigation into conditions there and—using applied sociology—took it from the highest per capita runaway and "incident" rate (safety) in the state to the lowest in 12-15 months. In 1996 we introduced an alternative school for certified disruptive students and ran it as a TC until 2009 (see our document The School With No Bullies).

Our second national model is our current endeavor: Community Commitment, Inc (CCI). We were the first nationally (October 1972) to create a program model that keeps adjudicated delinquents at home and out of further trouble thus saving taxpayers from paying for expensive congregate care (group homes, residential, institutional, etc.). Now of course this approach is a permanent part of the juvenile justice landscape.

And finally, after the closure of Choctaw Ridge Academy in 2009, we reviewed all the right brain initiatives that made it so successful and from them created a structured left-brain online training module, the LANGUAGE OF POWER© (LOP) for parents and educators.

Everything we do and will do is based on communication. Not therapy, communication. The LOP consists of 11 Principles (of communication) plus The First Rule In The Book and The Biggest Mistake (made over and over again by us adults when dealing with teenagers). Its bloodlines trace back to the early years of GG1, PPC, and TC. Because the LOP came initially from working with teenagers in group situations, it is made to order for secondary school classrooms.

We understand how power works and we have embedded its concepts into Positive Peer Integration ©. Basically, power is expressed in three ways: cultural, institutional and personal. Personal power, which is what we are dealing with here, is expressed as physical, hierarchical or indirect. When we are able to train others in the LOP, they essentially learn to use power indirectly. When we are able to train Trackenseen teachers how to use power indirectly with students, we will have reached our goal of transforming the culture of the Trackenseen School District into an absolute positive and our mission will be complete.

However, bear in mind that working with teenagers and using applied sociology is like working in a nuclear power plant! No complacency is allowed. (Sadly, this is what has apparently overtaken our two previous national models. Although the state built upon our accomplishments at the Huntington County facility, they gradually ran out of steam. And the juvenile justice arena struggles to embrace creativity, intensity, intuition and vision. (Could this be because our world of today, buffeted increasingly by social, political and economic storms, must now rely on the structure of left brain thinking and so the right hand part of our brain begins to atrophy from lack of use?)

How might we proceed?

We have submitted a draft plan.

With the help of the District, we will initially target all the disruptive students in the District's middle and high schools in a structured, predicable and scheduled manner.

There will be five of us. Our experience doing this kind of work includes 45 +, 20, 7, 4 and 3 years.

We expect all our people to be available 24-7.

We will target drop outs, truancy and absenteeism at the direction of the District.

We have qualified professional family therapists available. The writer himself is a certified marriage and family therapist (MFT) as well as a Board Certified clinical social worker (LSW, BCD).

As this process begins to take hold, we will begin to identify (through the teens themselves) the best teachers in the various schools. We will begin to reach out to them to offer specific online training in the LOP if the District so desires. We anticipate however that after about five or six months of positive culture "creep", some of them may themselves request training.

There will be many logistic, scheduling and data collection problems.

We will need to plan together while at the same time recognizing that, since this is a brand new and never before attempted initiative, many unforeseen issues may arise.

We hope this proposal will meet the District's current needs and look forward to a response.

DRAFT PLAN

1) In the beginning, all PPI employees will be available to immediately reach out and address any identified student disrupters in all high school and middle schools.

2) As soon as any of the schools have identified 10 or more disrupters, the Group process kicks in. Boys alone/girls alone.

3) All Groups will be one hour per day for 10 consecutive school days

4) After " graduation" from Group...

    A) 1 month follow up

    B) home visits—possible family therapy

    C) weekly behavioral report card from all teachers

    D) 2nd offenders get 20 days in Group

    E) students must keep up to date with all missed classes due to Group

5) When PPI staff have available time away from group process, the District will schedule them to work with dropouts, truancy kids, etc.

6) Data Collection?

7) Scheduling?

8) A place in each school to be " on call"?

Positive Peer Integration©

Rules of the Road

1) The Teacher is Always Right

By definition

  You have worked hard to attain your status and have your own classroom. If any PPI staff     member ever says you are wrong, the boss wants to hear about it. Immediately.

The problem arises because teenagers sometimes do not respect your status or authority.  You are right; they are wrong.

What to do? Even though we may be right, sometimes we may not always be effective. We teach effectiveness.

2) Science

What does current science teach us about the development of the human brain?

Do teenagers yet have an adult brain?

  If not, how can they possibly think like us adults?

  Teenagers are not playing with a full deck.

  Through no fault of their own. Were you ever a teenager? Can you remember?

  So you as a teacher are being asked to manage a whole bunch of people every day who not     

  only are not playing with a full deck but also may not be all that interested in what you're

  trying to teach them. And you are evaluated on whether you can actually get them to learn

  anything!

3) Group Behavior

How often do you have to handle teenagers as a group? Like maybe every day? What is the science of group behavior? (Hint: it's not psychology or political science!)

Sociology is the science of group behavior. How much specific training have you received in sociology? In how to handle and manage groups? Groups of people who don't yet have an adult brain?

4) It's Always, Always, All About POWER!

   Have you ever been taught about how power works?

   The three kinds of personal power?

   Would you be interested in learning how to not give your power away to teenagers?

   Or how to get it back if you have already done so?

   PPI is all about training people how to do this.

5) Training? What Training?

Because we're all unique human beings and not widgets, much of today's research cannot be validly applied to the social sciences, like sociology. (even though some PhDs claim differently and have made plenty of money by insisting that medical research can automatically be applied to people as well as placebos and experimental drugs). Most all training in applied sociology (what we do) must be experiential. Hands on. Learn by doing. We cannot learn it from a power point or an expensive seminar at a fancy hotel. But the internet offers a short cut. Suppose you all—working with teens every day—were able to ask questions online whenever you have a classroom problem with a teen or a group of teens? Although PPI will be focusing directly and intensely on the disruptive students, if the Administration agrees, you may be offered the opportunity of specific online training in the LANGUAGE OF POWER© which is the foundation for everything we do.

So stay tuned.

Who knows—this may turn out to be a more interesting year at work then you first thought! And perhaps a safer one too...

Summary Of Proposal to Address Disruptive Student Behavior

in the Trackenseen School District.

1) The teacher is always right. By definition. Disciplinary problems arise when students fail to recognize or respect the teacher's authority (power).

2) Teachers work daily with teenagers (students) in a group situation—the school classroom.

3) We have failed to train teachers in sociology—the science of group behavior.

4) Current science has determined that the human brain is not fully developed until about age 25 or 26. So teenagers cannot possibly think like adults. They are not playing with a full deck.

5) Our program model—Positive Peer Integration© (PPI)—engages teens based on how they think rather than on how we adults think. This enables us to penetrate the teen peer culture itself.

6) We will address student disruptive behavior through 10 hours of corrective action classes (one hour per day for 10 days) in each of the six District secondary schools. This will be in addition to the District's customary disciplinary procedures such as in-school and out of school suspensions. Disciplined students in groups of 10-15 will be assigned at the discretion of the District.

7) An understanding of how power works in one-to-one interactions—such as between teacher and student —enables us to train educators and parents how to not give their power away to teenagers and how to take back their power if they already have.

8) As this initiative takes hold, we will begin to offer District personnel specific online training in the LANGUAGE OF POWER

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