As we conclude our exploration of Teachers and TBRI with the Correcting Principles, it’s vital to emphasize the empowering role of the Empowering and Connecting Principles (introduced in Part 1 and Part 2). While the need for Correcting Principles remains, their frequency will significantly diminish when these foundational principles are given due focus. This reduction is a testament to the relational equity you have fostered with your students. Both Empowering and Connecting strategies not only justify the time, energy, and effort invested but also empower you as educators, making you feel capable and in control of cultivating a positive classroom environment.
TBRI Correcting Principles
Correcting Principles in the classroom are used to change behavior. Again, the goal of Correcting or Discipline is to teach or mentor. When defining correcting principles, we have already unpacked proactive and responsive strategies (Part 2), which we will cover in this section. Proactive Strategies help us to teach both social and behavioral skills, while Responsive Strategies help us with challenging behavior.
TBRI Proactive Strategies and Principles
The Proactive Strategies used with TBRI are items covered in Part One, Connecting Principles. These included the balance of structure and nurture, shared power, choices, compromises, play, and short scripts using Life Value Terms. We use these tools in our classrooms in calm, alert learning environments. When these concepts and tools are used consistently and frequently, connection will win. The ability to speak into a student’s life will occur. You have earned relational equity and trust. Relational equity is the trust and respect that is built between you and your students through consistent and positive interactions. It is the foundation of a positive classroom environment and is crucial for effective teaching and learning.
When challenges surface and dysregulation rears its head, it’s imperative that we view behavior through a fresh lens. We must constantly remind ourselves that behavior is a form of communication. So, the question we should be asking is, ‘What is this student trying to communicate?’ Better yet, ‘What does this student need?’ Educators play a pivotal and valued role in meeting student’s needs, making a significant contribution to their learning and development. Your role transcends mere teaching; it’s about understanding and fulfilling the needs of your students, making you feel integral and valued in the learning process.
TBRI Responsive Strategies and Principles
The Responsive Strategies will provide structured guidelines for handling challenging, repetitive behavior. It’s important to remember that our goal is not to find the proper punishment for the “crime” but to help our students produce appropriate behaviors. In correcting, we want our students to experience learning and create motor memory for the next time they face similar challenges. We always want to keep a connection, even in moments of correction, to ensure our students feel understood and supported. This connection is a vital part of the correction process, making students feel that they are not alone in their journey of learning and growth. It’s about being empathetic and supportive in these moments.
The IDEAL Response
TBRI employs a strategy known as the IDEAL Response. This acronym stands for Immediate, Direct, Efficient, Action-Based, and Leveled at the behavior, not the child. In a school setting, these behaviors can range from disrespect and arguing with a teacher to more severe actions like fighting with students or throwing items. The purpose of the IDEAL Response is to provide a structured approach to handling these behaviors, ensuring that the focus remains on the behavior itself, not the student.
When challenging behavior occurs, you must act Immediately, within a few seconds. The payoff for doing it immediately is that a student learns quicker when addressed quickly. This immediate action empowers you as an educator, making you feel effective and in control of the situation. You must then be Direct, getting on their level (sitting if they’re sitting). Use gentle touch if possible and try to get “good eyes.”
Eye contact is a beautiful way to connect and create good neurochemistry in your student’s brain. It is then essential to be efficient—meaning more structure is needed—only use the lowest level of structure necessary for the offense. The goal is to get a student’s train back on track as soon as possible. This is where TBRI’s Levels of Engagement come in. I will list them all, but for the sake of our classrooms, I will focus on Levels 1, 2, and 3—remembering that most everything can be brought back online with Levels 1 and 2.
Level 1: Playful Engagement
They can listen with their entire brain. We use short scripts as reminders, “Are you askin or tellin?” They are then able to self-regulate, and the train keeps moving.
Level 2: Structured Engagement
This student is agitated, and things seem to be escalating. When playful engagement and our example of “Are you askin or tellin?” They say, “tellin!” They are moving towards what we call fight, flight, or freeze. Emotional dysregulation is occurring right before our eyes. At this point, your student needs our help to help get their train back on track. It’s also important to say that they need a regulated teacher to assist, not a dysregulated one. If you need to take a few deep breaths, do it. If you need to remember the new lens of looking at the outburst or behavior as communicating an unmet need- it will help you maintain compassion and say, this kiddo is having a hard time. Healthy touch, calming practices, and empathy will all assist in bringing calm.
Level 3: Calming Engagement:
Your student is now in the Alert (hyper) stage and moving into a fight, flight, or freeze state. We are tempted as educators to think that our students should be able to get themselves together by themselves. A common way we do this is by establishing a calm-down spot or corner in our classrooms that is decorated nicely, filled with fidgets and other tools to help kids find their calm, and is, most of the time, used as a glorified time-out space.
I encourage educators to re-think these spaces and use them more appropriately; they genuinely need a “time in,” meaning a close experience with a trusted adult to assist them in regulation. I propose that these spaces in our classrooms eventually become quiet spaces that students begin to utilize on their own when they have identified that they need a moment and can utilize calm-down tools, regulate themselves, and then move back to the task or subject at hand. Self-regulation skills will take time, consistency, modeling, and frequency, but what a glorious sight!
Lastly, Level 4: Protective Engagement
Hopefully, this is nothing you will experience as an educator. Harm is involved (to others or themselves), behavior is out of control, and imminent danger exists. Their brain is in a state of fight, flight, or freeze with no available upstairs brain (logic and reasoning state). Formal training is needed to combat level 4 behavior. As we practice the principles we have learned and practiced, I’m confident that this would be a rare place to find ourselves in a classroom setting.
Connect, Empower, Correct
No matter which level we engage with our students, it is always important to return to playful engagement—remember, play disarms fear. Staying connected even as we correct enables us to keep in the right relationship, earn relational equity and build trust. It can be helpful to build a calming engagement plan to be prepared.
In closing to our 3-part series, Teachers and TBRI, I remind you that by using the tools and strategies to Connect, Empower, and Correct while being proactive at a new way of looking at behavior, the students and families you serve will soon be on a path to healing. Their futures will be brighter as you assist them with skills they can carry throughout their lives.
