Two More "Go-To" Interventions

Joelle and Gillian continue some “greatest hits” of school consultation, with two more interventions they keep finding themselves recommending in their travels this year.  A “parking lot” is a tool that can help with impulsivity and calling out in the group.  Having an idea, then sorting through whether it is a helpful idea for the group in the moment, and THEN figuring out how to “shelve” and remember it for later if it’s not a “right now’ thing are an incredibly complex set of mental and emotional tools that kids need to model and practice before they can do independently.  Teaching kids to externally and explicitly “shelve” ideas and information during learning time, and modeling to them that an important adult will come and sort through these with the student reliably, can have a huge impact not only on calling out but on the development of executive functions in general.  “Going at the pace of the humans in front of you” is a practice of courage, confidence, and finding an important middle between absorbing whole cloth the aspirational and often too-fast ideas of those who set the frameworks for schools in the abstract, and feeling we have to “go rogue” or defy the system by ourselves in order to do what we know is right for kids.  Joelle describes a process for staying curious both about the framework and about the kids in front of us, and collaborating with our teaching team and our admin to adjust the plan to meet the needs.

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