In general, we encourage all faculty and staff to learn about the acting-out cycle. You can think of this as a seven-step cycle that
begins with a calm stage. And although (laugh) not every student comes to school calm every day, we think at some point in their
life they have experienced some type of calm. And then something sets that student off and that can be thought of as a trigger. And
sometimes those are school-based things like assemblies or schedule change, or could it be a difficult assignment or something like
that. And some of those triggers can also be non-school based. It could be coming to school tired or hungry, or having not slept well
the night before, or having had an argument with their parents or a conflict with a peer. And then if those triggers aren’t noticed
and responded to, then that behavior can shift from signs of agitation and then really ramp up to signs of acceleration. And it’s during
that acceleration phase, the behavior can really ramp up. And that’s when it’s easy for teachers to begin to notice these concerns when
those behaviors are escalating. And for some students, this acceleration phase can last for several minutes, and then left unchecked, it
can continue to escalate if it’s not nipped in the bud right there. And eventually it creates these peak behaviors when behavior is
very, very out of control. And that’s when we start to see things like verbal and physical aggression in the classroom in a way that
sometimes results in property destruction or harm to others. And then following that, there is a de-escalation and then eventually
a recovery phase. So, you’re going up and then you’re coming back down. The good news is that it is possible to interrupt this acting-out
cycle much earlier in the chain, long before the student reaches peak behavior, which can be frightening for teachers and students
alike, and not just the student experiencing the challenging behavior, but others in the classroom.
In addition, we’ve learned that timing is everything. Meaning that it’s important for adults to understand when low intensity support,
such as reminding students of expected behaviors or providing praise when the student meets desired behaviors and even offering choices
can be introduced efficiently and effectively, and also knowing when they should not be used. Because used at the wrong time, it
could actually have a counterproductive outcome for the student.