New 2017-2018 School Year

Ms. Jenkins' Classroom

New School Year 2017-2018

We are coming to the starting the second month of the new 2017-2018 school year; which is also the start of the fourth year of the Social Symbolism class. The curriculum for "SoS" (e.g., the nickname my students have dubbed the course) is based off of the Social Thinking Curriculum created by Michelle Garcia Winner.

With new students, I begin with "expected and unexpected behaviors" and flexible thinking vs. rigid thinking (i.e., "rock brain" thinking). With returning students, I review the aforementioned concepts and then continue with communication skills (e.g., people/friend files), and friends (e.g., friends, friendly acquaintances, "others', and mean people). Friendships are based on common interests...

The Freshman Class of 2021 will attend the activity fair next week. All of the clubs and extracurricular activities that BHS offers will be represented at this fair. One of the requirements for the Social Symbolism class is that each student must participate in at least one extracurricular activity of their choosing. The reason for this "requirement" is that this particular class is a "skills-based" class. Participating in at least one club is essentially "homework", because the skills the students learn in class need to be practiced outside of class. Please talk to your child about which extracurricular activities they are interested in attending.

In the past, the Social Symbolism classes have participated in at least one field trip during the school year. This is a great opportunity for the students be able to demonstrate their knowledge of social communication skills, including initiating conversations and using flexible thinking that they are learning in class by using them in various structured activities. Please strongly encourage your child to participate in field trips that are scheduled!

Since I also stress the importance of setting a goal within the context of executive functioning skills with my students, we will be doing frequent agenda checks and discussing upcoming quizzes/tests and projects in order to talk about planning, prioritizing and time management skills.

Cooking Lesson

On May 19th, one of my classes and I headed to the "home ec" kitchen for a cooking lesson during long block. It had been a lesson in the making for weeks! As a group, the students decided on a menu:

Main course:

• homemade baked chicken tenders - Rachael Ray's Baked Chicken Tenders https://www.rachaelrayshow.com/recipe/15328_Baked_Chicken_Tenders/
• rice pilaf (Uncle Ben's Ready Rice -rice pilaf... time was limited)
• baby carrots (Everyone agreed on raw carrots; which worked great due to the limited time frame)

DESSERT:

•  a "cinnamon roll casserole" https://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/cinnamon-french-toast-bake/e710db37-7d40-4bba-b63e-e6e4ad81ae81

The lesson entailed creating the shopping list so that I could do the shopping. They had to figure out how much of each ingredient they would need for the menu.

According to my students, they have had little experience in the kitchen, with the exception of eating or heating food in the microwave or toaster. On the day of the cooking lesson, the four students were paired up to make the two different courses. First we discussed kitchen safety and then food safety. The most important lesson: first wash your hands and keep them away from your face and hair.


Here are two of my students working together to make the "cinnamon roll casserole." They took turns reading the recipe and following the various steps: measuring, leveling, cracking eggs, whisking, etc.

Here's the other team of "iron chefs" who made traditional chicken tenders and buffalo style chicken tenders. Learned what "dredge in flour" meant, and then dipped the tender in egg and then bread crumbs...

Here is one student who deviating from the recipe (e.g., using flexible thinking); he used buffalo sauce, instead of eggs to make the tenders.

 

Finished products... They all decided that both recipes turned out better than they had originally thought and asked if they could do another cooking lesson...

I think the most challenging step for my students was the clean up at the end. As they were unfamiliar with cooking (mostly) from scratch, they didn't realize what the clean up entailed.  Three out of four of the students said that they would like to help their parents cook dinner and be a part of the process. One student said that he would like to cook the chicken tenders for his family.

More involvement in daily activities will lead to more opportunities for communication and learning life skills.

New School Year

We are at the start of the 2016-2017 school year and the start of the third year of the Social Symbolism class; my students have nicknamed the class "SoS".

The Social Symbol class has been working on executive functioning skills (e.g., setting up and keeping an agenda), what to put in agendas and WHY these skills are important to develop and use. I have already had one student say to me that, "I didn't know why this was important until you taught me why." If we ask students to "do" things without teaching the "why", then they are only complying and NOT learning. The "WHY" is just as important!

We have also been learning skills based on the Social Thinking Curriculum created by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke; which is what the course curriculum is based off of. The topics we started the year with include "expected and unexpected behaviors", flexible thinking vs. rigid thinking, communication skills (e.g., people/friend files), and friends (e.g., friends, friendly acquaintances, "others', and mean people).

The Freshman Class of 2020 will attend an activity fair this week; all the clubs that represent the wide variety of extracurricular activities will be there. One of the requirements for the Social Symbolism class is that each student must participate in at least one extracurricular activity of their choosing. The reason for this "requirement" is that this particular class is a "skills-based" class; the skills they learn in class need to be practiced outside of class. Please talk to your child about which extracurricular activities they are interested in attending.

Our class will also be participating in an upcoming field trip to Project Adventure, where the students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of social communication skills, including using flexible thinking, that they are learning in class by using them in various structured activities. Please strongly encourage your child to participate in this field trip!

Since I also stress the importance of setting a goal within the context of executive functioning skills with my students, I will do the same! My goal is to write at least one blog post a month during the school year. I have written ideas for blog posts in my agenda (e.g., plan), so now all I will have to "do" is write... so here we go! One blog post down, (at least) eight more to go!

Communication and the Necessary Steps

In class, we have been discussing at length communication skills and the steps that we all need to use to be able to communicate effectively with others.

The Four Steps of Communication, as defined by Michelle Garcia Winner's book, ThinkSheets, pg.117, are as follows:
Step 1: Thinking about people and what they think and feel
             a. Ask yourself, "What are the people near me interested in?"
             b. How do they feel about what you are saying?
             c. What are you doing to show you are interested in them when they are talking?

Step 2: Being aware of your physical presence as well as the physical presence of others
             a. Your body position shows who you want to talk to (or who you do not want to talk to).
             b. Your movements show what you plan to do next. This communicates messages to people, even if you are not trying to communicate
             c. Your body language and facial expression communicate how you feel about things and people around you.

Step 3: Using your eyes to think about others and see what they are thinking about
             a. The direction of people's eyes lets others see what they might be thinking about
             b. We use our eyes to help figure out how other people feel, what they are thinking about and if they are interested in the other people they are with.

Step 4: Using your language to relate to others
             a. Talk about thinks that are interesting to others.
             b. Ask questions to find out about people; make comments to show interest.
             c. Add your own thoughts to connect your experiences to other people's experiences.
             d. Adjust your language to what the group or other person is talking about.

These are all skills that the majority of people use everyday. However, those with social communications weaknesses have difficulty in using one or all of these steps when talking with others. It can be quite evident when a person is not using one or more of these steps during a conversation.

After an in depth conversation, many students acknowledged that they do not think about others around them to even consider what they may be interested in; nor do they think about how others feel about what they are saying. A few students stated that they always talk about X, even if they know that the person they are talking to is not interested in the topic. Several students reported that they often get in trouble with their parents, because they are unaware of the message that their body language and facial expressions (e.g., eye rolling, grimacing, etc.) are communicating. These nonverbal expressions can lead others to have different sized (e.g., medium: weird or annoyed) thoughts that can have negative effects on their social interactions.

If you are not thinking about people and what they think and feel, then you are not going to be using your eyes to think about others and see what they are thinking about. For example, if you are talking on and on about a video game, and the girl you are talking to is looking at her watch, looking else where, and giving short one word responses, you are missing her nonverbal cues, because you are not using Step 1, 2, and 3. However, if you are using Steps 1, 2, and 3, then you are more likely to use Step 4; which is to use your language to relate to others, and talk about things that are interesting to the person you are talking to.

Most people do not need to think about these steps of communication, because they are innate. For some, like my students, these skills need to be taught. Therefore, if your child is not thinking of others or unknowingly using nonverbal communication, you could say, "I can tell from your facial expression/body language that you are feeling/thinking..." or "if you were to read my facial expression/body language, you would be able to tell that I am not as interested in the (topic) and try to talk about something that would interest both of us."

The Four Steps of Communication lead to the ability to initiate a conversation with familiar people. If you are not successful in using and recognizing these four steps, initiating a conversation can be quite difficult.  

Stepping Outside of the Comfort Zone

My class, along with another another class in the high school, went on a field trip to Project Adventure in Beverly, MA.  I thought it would be a great opportunity for my students to put to use the skills that we have been learning about in class to actual use (that I could witness). Many of my students do participate in at least one extracurricular activity, however, I do not get to see them in action, or lack there of.  I know a few go to the activities, but are not 100% active...baby steps, I guess. Rather than "stalking" my students at their activities/clubs, I thought participating in this field trip would be a great way of observing them in action.

Project Adventure is an outdoor adventure type of experience. The 35 students plus eight chaperons were divided into three groups. Each group had a group leader who lead us through a series of activities that were designed to "stretch" us and encourage us to leave our comfort zone to enter the "stretch zone." Pete was our leader and he was great with the students!

The first set of activities were designed to get to know each other's names, work on communication skills, memory skills and good sportsmanship. The next series of activities were on the "low ropes" course. The purpose of these tasks were to facilitate problem solving skills, communication and team work...and good sportsmanship. Out of the four student that were from my class, only one chose to participate in the low ropes course; which entailed swinging on a rope swing and trying to land on a very small platform. The second part of the low ropes course was more inclusive and gave the option to walk with the rope swing so that the students who did not want to swing could participate in problem solving activity with the students who decided to "stretch" themselves. One student, who is not in my class, demonstrated an amazing ability to keep trying even when he did not succeed in what he was attempting. What was even more amazing was when the others in the group 1) showed concern for him, 2) encouraged him to try again and 3) cheered him on when he did succeed. This happened at least three times. I know that at least one of my students feared that he/she would fall and become embarrassed.

After the group finished the "low ropes," the group got together to put on their harnesses for the "high ropes" course. The look of fear and panic descended on several of my students. They did not want to even put on the harness for fear that they would have to go up. This was when Pete, the P.A. Leader, reminded the students about the "challenge by choice" philosophy; to stretch outside of your comfort zone to your stretch zone, but not enter the panic zone. Even though my students did not want to climb up the 20 (or 30) ft ladder to walk across a telephone poll, they did participate in handling the rope as the climber ascended to the top of the poll.

At the end of the day, my students realized that teamwork and communication is really important in working in a group to accomplish a goal or group plan. Several of them stated that if they had the chance to do it again, they would try holding the ladder for the climber to climb on or swing on the rope, or even try to climb the ladder. When asked why, they stated that it was because the group of students they were with were supported and cheered the others on, even if they were not successful.

   





    Yes, this is the "high ropes" course!

October 2015

September quickly flew by and my students continue to learn about expected and unexpected behaviors, hidden rules across different environments, different size thoughts that we give others, and flexible vs. rigid thinking.

Here are how these terms are defined:

• Expected behaviors are a range of behaviors that are either hidden or explicit for the specific environment that you are in.
• Unexpected behaviors are behaviors that are atypical or inappropriate for the situation or environment. Not following the explicit or hidden rules in a given environment. 
• Hidden Rules are rules that are not explicitly taught, but we are expected to know them and follow them. 
• Small thoughts are the size thoughts people will have when you do something expected (e.g., when a student raises his hand to answer a question) that does not draw attention to oneself and gives them good thoughts about you.
• Medium thoughts are the size thoughts people will have when you do something unexpected which draws attention to yourself and may cause them to have "no-so-good" or "weird thoughts" about you. However, this could also apply to an expected behavior which will give others "good thoughts" about you.
• Large thoughts are thoughts that people have when you repeatedly engage in an unexpected behavior (e.g., blurting out answers in class) that violates the rules.
• Flexible thinking refers to having "mental flexibility" to interpret verbal and nonverbal information. A person who uses flexible thinking is able to see things in shades of gray. 
• Rigid thinking refers to thinking in only one way; one way is the right way and there is no other way that "this" will work. A person who uses rigid thinking uses a strict set of rules or has difficulty in one's ability to interpret subtly different meanings in language, expressions, play and intention.

They are able to explain what expected and unexpected behaviors are in any given environment, as well as explain the different size-thoughts that people will have when they observe expected and unexpected behaviors. For example, peers will have small thoughts about you when you raise your hand to answer a question. When you  blurt out answers or go off topic, your peers will have medium thoughts. If a student continually blurts out answers or frequently veers of topic, then others will have large thoughts.

Topics have also included safely using social networks (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, etc.). The students made lists of what you should post and what you should not post. Basically it came down to the following question, "would I want my parents/grandparents/teachers/school administrators/college admission boards/employers or future employers to see this post or picture?"

New School Year

Well, we are back into the swing of things! Back-to-school night was a success in my book! As a specialist, I do not typically see many parents outside of IEP meetings, however, I was pleasantly surprised to see the how many came out!

This year in Social Symbolism returning students will continue to build upon skills that are based on Michelle Garcia Winners' Social Thinking Curriculum while new students will learn these new skills to help them become better social communicators.

I will be providing monthly updates! Stay tuned!