Up Yours

Up Yours

Exploring powerful approaches, strategies, and techniques aimed to improve student behavior by elevating your skills and taking your teaching practices to a higher level.

Copyright 2024 

SNT Ed. Consulting, LLC.

All Rights Reserved

Under the copyright laws, this resource may not be copied or shared, in whole or in part, in any form without the written permission of the author and publisher. Additionally . . . scanning, uploading, and distribution via the Internet or via any other means without written permission is illegal and punishable by law. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author, editor, and publisher.

ISBN: 979-8-35095-217-9

ISBN eBook: 979-8-35095-702-0

It’s UP to you!

Table of Contents

Bitter or Better

Unit One : The Student

1. Blow Up

2. Start Up

3. Downside Up

4. Stink Up

Unit Two : The Teacher

5. Change Up

6. Teach Up

Unit Three : The Behavior

7. Set Up

8. Build Up

9. Think Up

10. Feel Up

11. Speak Up

Unit Four : The Behavior

12. Step Up

13. Look Up

14. Frame Up

15. Limit Up

16. Pull Up

17. Finish Up

Bitter or Better

In his article, First-Person: Codfish and Catfish, Tim Patterson uses an interesting account between codfish and catfish to demonstrate how challenging experiences can make us better.

In the article, Tim shares that demand for codfish was growing throughout the United States around the turn of the century. As demand for codfish increased, distributors had to engineer an effective way to ship the codfish from the northeast coastline to destinations across the United States.

At first, distributors froze the codfish before shipping them. But freezing the fish diminished the flavor. To fix this problem, distributors decided to ship the codfish alive in railroad cars turned into huge seawater aquariums. But this didn’t help. The flavor of the codfish remained diminished, and the texture of the fish became soft and mushy as the fish sat inactive in the tanks during the long journey across the country.

Finally, the distributors experimented with a unique solution. The codfish were placed in tanks of water along with their natural enemy, the catfish.

Throughout the entire journey, the catfish caused mayhem agitating the codfish. Amazingly, when the codfish arrived at their appointed destinations, their flavor and texture was as fresh as the day they were caught.

How did this happen? 

It turns out, the catfish was more of an asset than an enemy for the codfish. All the chaos and havoc the catfish caused developed the codfish into healthier, stronger, and better tasting fish. 

I find this story similar to the challenges we experience teaching students who are chronically disruptive. We don’t have real catfish in our classrooms—fish with gills and fins. I’m referring to students who are chronically disruptive—students who choose to cause chaos and make havoc. Students who choose to be oppositional, defiant, and disrespectful. Students whose disruptive behavior is so challenging it can destroy the confidence of good teachers and suck the joy out of this wonderful career called teaching. These catfish can cause you to become bitter. But they can also cause you to become better. Their disruptive behavior can nudge you to learn new skills and stop using ineffective practices.

The choice of being bitter or better is up to you.

This resource has a simple goal: to develop you into a better teacher. Don’t let the catfish in your teaching tank cause you to become bitter. Reframe your thinking about the situation and use the opportunity to become better.

Lessons learned should be lessons shared. I want to share the lessons I’ve learned teaching disruptive students so you can become more skilled and avoid mistakes I made teaching challenging students.

This resource is not designed to make you a perfect teacher. It’s not designed to shape perfect student behavior. Neither of these exists. Rather, this book is designed to provide you with insight, tools, techniques, and strategies to teach you how to think about student behavior.

This book does not provide specific safety or supervision advice or guidelines, which are best determined by school districts and individual school sites. No responsibility is assumed by the author or publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. 

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information and methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties to whom they have a professional responsibility. Product or corporate trademarks are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. The contents should be considered as a resource only. 

Unit One

The Student

One

Blow Up

Joshua was a new student in Mrs. Snyder’s fifth grade classroom at Lincoln Elementary School. Just minutes after the morning bell rang on Joshua’s first day of school, Mrs. Snyder referred Joshua to Principal Hinton for refusing to follow directions and shouting profanities toward Mrs. Snyder and Joshua’s classmates. 

The next few days of school were extremely rough for both Joshua and Mrs. Snyder. Joshua’s disruptive behavior became more frequent and intense. He refused to complete any academic work. Instead of starting independent practice, Joshua would tear worksheets into tiny pieces. On one of his math pages, he drew pictures of guns, swords, and hand grenades. When Mrs. Snyder asked Joshua why he would draw such disturbing things, he simply replied that he was going to choose one of these to be tattooed on his neck.

During whole-group instruction, Joshua would jump out of his seat and roam around the classroom touching everyone and everything in his path. When Mrs. Snyder told Joshua to Please return to his seat, Joshua argued with her saying, What’s the problem? I’m just going to get my folder! But there was no folder to get.

Joshua’s blowback comment to Mrs. Snyder was part of a pattern emerging from him. A pattern of Joshua justifying what he was doing (or not doing), arguing with Mrs. Snyder about it, and blaming someone or something else for his behavior. 

Joshua was causing mayhem. 

During independent work time, when the other students quietly worked by themselves, Joshua would suddenly burst into singing songs, humming loudly, or making odd noises like a cat screeching or a cow mooing.

Joshua was rude. While Mrs. Snyder was teaching about the digestive system, Joshua impulsively and loudly asked, Is your butthole a part of your digestive system? While Mrs. Snyder was teaching language arts, Joshua continually interrupted her by hurling offensive and rude comments like, This is stupid! and This is a joke!

Like an untamed stallion that had to be forced into a stall, Joshua couldn’t sit still in his seat. His legs constantly bounced up and down. His hands were always moving, touching everything on top of his desk, underneath his desk, and inside of his desk. He couldn’t regulate his body. In the matter of a few seconds, Joshua moved from sitting, to kneeling, to lying on his desk chair. It seemed as if he’d rather run wild than get comfortable and settled in just sitting quietly.

Joshua was disorganized. The area around his desk resembled the aftermath of a tornado. Papers that should have been neatly filed inside folders were instead scattered on the floor around his desk. On the inside of his desk, papers were crumpled and torn, crayons were broken in half, and every pencil eraser was chewed down to a nub. 

During free time one afternoon, several students rushed to tell Mrs. Snyder that they had seen Joshua stealing Pokémon cards from another student. These students didn’t normally tattle, so Mrs. Snyder had good reason to believe something had happened. When she confronted Joshua about the incident, he immediately defended himself arguing that the Pokémon cards were his and the other student was the one trying to steal them. 

When the students were working silently on their Chromebooks, Joshua bolted out of the classroom without permission and hid in the hallway bathroom stall. Once Mrs. Snyder found him, he refused to come out. She was furious (and embarrassed) when she finally had to call Principal Hinton to come down the hall and coax Joshua out of the stall. 

During recess, when a group of fifth grade boys refused to let Joshua play, Joshua became angry and punched one of them. The boys claimed Joshua cheated when he played with them, and that he constantly complained some part of the game was not fair. 

Punching another student was the final straw. By the end of his first week at Lincoln Elementary School, Joshua earned a three-day out-of-school suspension for a collection of egregious behaviors. 

He Blew It Up

Mrs. Snyder shared with me that she had seen a lot of things during her twenty years of teaching, but she had never taught a student like Joshua whose behavior was so intense and so extreme. With tears ready to burst from her eyes, she said, He just came into our classroom and blew it up. 

Mrs. Snyder was already at a breaking point—and it was only Joshua’s first week of school! By the tone of her voice, and the look of exhaustion on her face, I could tell Mrs. Snyder was dreading Joshua’s return from his suspension. She didn’t know how she was going to make it through another day with him. She wasn’t sure of what to do or even where to start. So far, nothing she had tried was working to manage Joshua’s behavior. In fact, his behavior became worse as the first week progressed. 

Mrs. Snyder had arrived at a place in her career where most of us who’ve been teaching for several years have also arrived. A place where our smooth operating classroom that was once full of obedient and cooperative students enjoying learning was instantly turned into chaos by one maladaptive student like Joshua. A place where our dream class that resembled the perfect ending in a Hallmark movie suddenly flipped into one resembling a country song full of headache and heartache. A place where this thing called teaching, which we once loved, became the thing we resented the most. A place where our frustration and exhaustion drove us to say, I didn’t sign up for this! They don’t pay me enough to deal with students like him. A place where we dread coming every day. A place full of confusion, exhaustion, despair, frustration, and hopelessness. 

Nothing Is Simple. Nothing Is Easy.

Nothing Is Quick.

If you’ve been teaching for, um, let’s say three days or longer, then you know the place I’m describing. Chances are you’ve encountered a disruptive student. You know the pain Mrs. Snyder was experiencing. A chronically disruptive student, like Joshua, can instantaneously blow up the classroom, turning a smooth operating classroom upside down and sucking away all your time, energy, focus, and joy. 

Maladaptive students, like Joshua, are beyond complicated. They’re complex. Nothing is simple. Nothing is easy. Nothing is quick. Nothing is convenient. They’re extremely challenging. They’ll exhaust you, annoy you, frustrate you, and confuse you. The frustration and exhaustion of teaching a student like Joshua can make any teacher consider a career change or early retirement.

So, if you’re a great teacher (and I’m sure you are), please don’t beat yourself up too badly for feeling defeated, exhausted, frustrated, angry, or irritated if you have a maladaptive student in your classroom right now. Most of us have been there—that place—right where you are now. That place where you feel stuck and hopeless. A place where you think that the entire educational system is against you. 

Although Mrs. Snyder was an accomplished educator, with a successful performance record throughout twenty years of teaching, she felt hopeless. Helpless. Defeated. She didn’t know what to do with a student like Joshua. She didn’t know where to start. 

Maladaptive Students Need Something Different

None of the tricks she used with students in the past worked with Joshua so far. And they never will. Joshua was a maladaptive student. The traditional behavioral strategies and techniques that teachers are trained in to manage student behavior won’t work with chronically disruptive students. They need something different. 

Mrs. Snyder tried a clip system moving Joshua’s clip from green, to yellow, to red when he was rude, or when he refused to start his work. However, within the first few minutes of the school day, Joshua blew right through the green and yellow zones on the clip chart, directly landing his clip in the red zone for the rest of the school day. It didn’t work. 

Mrs. Snyder privately met with Joshua several times to discuss why he was hurling insults toward her during instruction and why he would make rude statements to his classmates. Joshua would scoff and roll his eyes, argue with Mrs. Snyder, and always blame someone else for doing something that caused his behavior. It didn’t work. 

Mrs. Snyder called Joshua’s parents when she found out he had stolen the Pokémon cards. But his parents never answered the phone and never returned her call. She also emailed them, but they didn’t respond. It was as if his parents didn’t exist. It didn’t work. 

When Joshua tore his worksheets into little pieces or drew pictures of guns on the backside, Mrs. Snyder sent him to Principal Hinton’s office, hoping a visit to the office would put some fear into the kid. But Joshua returned to the classroom twenty minutes later, and within a few minutes, he was in trouble again for making screeching noises like a cat. It didn’t work. 

After Joshua ran out of the classroom, hid in the bathroom stall, and refused to come out when she finally found him, Mrs. Snyder kept Joshua in the classroom during recess thinking it would teach him a lesson. However, Joshua seemed completely content sitting at his desk doing absolutely nothing while his classmates enjoyed recess on a beautiful afternoon. It didn’t work. 

He’s Going to Be Here for a While

At this point, you might be thinking, If that kid were in my class, he wouldn’t step one foot back into my room until his behavior is fixed. He’d be heading to an alternative program pronto! 

That’s what Mrs. Snyder said as well. Her exact words were He needs a different classroom that’s designed to support kids with his behavior. My classroom isn’t the right setting for him. 

It’s possible that Joshua may eventually be placed in an alternative setting or a specialized program. But, in many schools, that’s not guaranteed to happen for a variety of reasons. 

To begin with, the school, or the district, may not have an alternative program as an option for students like Joshua. If the school or district has an alternative program available, the program may already be at capacity and Joshua may be placed on a waitlist for weeks or months. 

In addition, the school or district may require that Mrs. Snyder try several interventions before an alternative placement decision is even considered on a student. This could take several weeks or several months. Even then, some schools or districts may determine that the interventions were not in place long enough or practiced with fidelity and deny the alternative placement. 

Given all of that, the chances were high that Joshua was going to return from his three-day out-of-school suspension and remain in Mrs. Snyder’s class for a while. 

We needed to get a plan in place for when he returned. 

Spraying and Praying

My professional heart went out to Mrs. Snyder when I met with her during her prep period. I know how frustrating, exhausting, and deflating it is to teach a strong-willed, chronically disruptive student who turns a smooth-running classroom into chaos. It never feels like two steps forward and one step back. It always feels like zero steps forward and ten steps back. 

For many years, I’ve trained and equipped teachers with approaches, strategies, and techniques to use with disruptive and oppositional students like Joshua. Whenever I’m requested to come into a school like Lincoln Elementary to help a teacher like Mrs. Snyder, who’s struggling with a student like Joshua, I know the best way to provide guidance is to first help the teachers understand why the behavior is happening.

Once we have a solid understanding on why behavior is happening, then we can move forward with determining what approaches, strategies, and techniques are going to be most effective in changing behavior. 

I know this may seem a bit counterintuitive, but what I’ve learned over the years is the key to this entire journey with Joshua is to begin with understanding the student.

It’s human nature for us to want to immediately jump into determining what strategies to use with Joshua. Skip the fluff and get to the real stuff—the solutions. But when we jump directly to strategies and techniques, without gaining insight into what is driving behavior, we end up falling into a trap called spraying and praying.

Have you stepped into this trap before? Sprayed a bunch of strategies at the behavior and prayed that one of the strategies would work? Don’t beat yourself up too badly for doing this. Everyone does it. Just know that it doesn’t work and will often make the situation more challenging and frustrating.

Step Back before You Step In 

Step back and take perspective. Step back and explore why behavior is happening. Gain some insight before you step in with strategies. Then ask key questions. Asking key questions is one of the best ways to gain insight aimed at finding out what is fueling and driving behavior. Questions like:

Is the student trying to get something, or get away from something? 

Does the student want attention? 

Do they want to avoid and escape something? 

Do they want power and control? 

What are the student’s thinking patterns that are driving the functions?

Does the student think they’re a victim? 

Do they think they’re special? 

Do they think they’re entitled? 

Are they gaslighting? 

Don’t rush and try to figure out what approaches or strategies to use. If you can figure out why behavior is happening first, then the strategies you choose to use will be more aligned to the root cause that is driving the behavior. 

The Fruit Comes from the Root

The behavior you see and hear is the fruit of something happening at the root. There is a root cause. The fruit always comes from the root.

A student who talks too much (the fruit) may be starving for attention (the root). A student who shuts down during math (the fruit) may be extremely frustrated, stressed, and anxious because they’ve failed math before (the root). The student who becomes emotionally hijacked and explodes over a boundary set by a teacher (the fruit) may be struggling with a disintegrated brain caused by complex developmental trauma (the root). There’s always a root that yields fruit. To address the fruit, we must first explore the root. Be curious. Ask questions. 

Why does a maladaptive student become defiant and oppositional so quickly? 

Why does something so simple and minor like following directions to line up for lunch cause a student to have a major eruption and explode emotionally? 

Why does a student blame someone else for their behavior? 

In effect, this is what happened to Mrs. Snyder. She first stepped into strategies before stepping back to explore why the behaviors were happening (the root). I don’t blame her. Her classroom was hit with a behavioral hurricane the minute Joshua walked in. She had to do something.

And what she did is like what most teachers do when they have a maladaptive student show up in a big way in their classroom—Mrs. Snyder immediately reached into her bag of tricks she had filled throughout twenty years of teaching and started spraying and praying. It didn’t work. 

In the past, these tricks might have successfully managed behavior of students who needed a little correction from time to time or ornery students who tested the limits occasionally. But these tricks were no match for a strong-willed, chronically disruptive, maladaptive student like Joshua. 

I had to convince Mrs. Snyder that the best course of action was to first take a giant step back from spraying and praying and begin analyzing this complex arena of maladaptive behavior. 

She wanted to know strategies to address the fruit. 

But first, we had to explore the root. 

You Don’t Have to Buy This,

But It Would Be Easier if You Did

I explained to Mrs. Snyder that Joshua was a maladaptive student, which meant he thought much differently than the other students in her class. He had stinking thinking patterns that drove certain functions of behavior. 

Most of her students thought adaptively. Joshua thought maladaptively. The way Joshua thought about school, learning, homework, recess, classmates, and his teacher(s) was completely different from other students in his class. His thinking was distorted. 

Mrs. Snyder’s fifth grade students might have thought learning was fun and enjoyable, but Joshua thought throwing insults at them while they’re learning was fun and enjoyable. Mrs. Snyder’s fifth grade students thought working together on a project was exciting, but Joshua thought destroying the project they’d worked on for two weeks was exciting. Mrs. Snyder’s fifth grade students thought she would be disappointed if they didn’t obey and follow her directions. But Joshua thought it was thrilling to defy and challenge her directions. 

I told Mrs. Snyder a different approach would need to be used if she was going to find any traction in making life in the classroom better for Joshua, and for his classmates. I enlightened her by explaining the bag of tricks she had used with countless students throughout years of teaching wasn’t going to be as effective with Joshua. 

I explained this journey with Joshua wouldn’t be easy, quick, or convenient, but life in the classroom could get better, little by little, day after day, if she would take a different approach with Joshua—an approach I was going to teach her. 

I could tell by the look on her face that Mrs. Snyder wasn’t buying it. But it would be easier for both of us if she would. The look on her face was a mixed look of disbelief, disappointment, and irritation that sent a resounding message to me.

A message that she didn’t want things to get better little by little over time; she wanted things to get better right now, instantaneously.

A message that she didn’t want to learn a different approach than the one she had used for twenty years to manage student behavior. 

A message that she wasn’t the one who needed to change, because she wasn’t the one who had the problem. Joshua was the one who needed to change. He’s the one who had the problem. 

Wrap Up

I get it. I remember thinking and feeling the same way when I first started teaching disruptive students. I remember thinking, If this kid doesn’t get his act together, then he doesn’t belong in my classroom. What about the other students in my class? Doesn’t anyone care about how their education is being disrupted? It’s not fair to me, or my students, that this kid is in our class causing mayhem.

The reality is we have students like Joshua in our classrooms. Maladaptive students who are oppositional, defiant, and explosive. And that’s not going to change. 

But we, teachers, can change. I’m proof of this. 

We can change our approach from teacher centered to student centered.

We can change our approach from reacting to behavior to responding to behavior. 

We can change our approach from saying words that provoke a student to anger to using words that promote cooperation. 

We can change our approach by learning when and how to disarm a defensive student and disengage from a power struggle with a student. 

If we’re going to have students like Joshua in our classrooms, then we need to equip ourselves with powerful approaches, strategies, and techniques. 

How about you? Are you ready to change? Are you ready to elevate your skills and take your teaching practice to a higher level? Are you ready to up, everything? 

If so, then the best place to start is . . . well . . . from the start. 

Two

Start Up

Chronic disruptive behavior is complicated and complex. There are many moving parts. We can easily become confused, annoyed, frustrated, and exhausted as we attempt to address maladaptive behavior. It’s challenging to know where and how to start addressing behavior of students like Joshua. 

In the spirit of keeping complex things simple, I want to introduce the behavior formula. This is the best place to start addressing chronic disruptive behavior. Applying this formula will yield a ton of insight before you jump into strategies. This formula provides insight into what