Boppinwithaborderline

Hello everyone! This summer is flying by at the speed of light. I am grateful that I was able to take a couple short trips. First, my fiance and some friends went and enjoyed Gulf Shores together. Later, we spent a little time with my sister’s family down in San Antonio. My sister is currently navigating the foster care system, and like everything else she does in life, she’s rocking it! 

I have spent many moments pondering about the topic of my next post. If it was up to me, I would probably spend the majority of my summer writing by a pool or beach. However, reality dictates that I have 2 weeks before I go back to work and I still have a million things on my to-do list. 

This morning, I decided to press *PAUSE* and do something that brings me joy, which is writing. Honestly, I still do not know what I am even going to write about.. But if I do not try.. Then I might be stuck forever.. So lets goooooooooooooo…….

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Roughly 8 billion people in the world, and YOU chose to read THIS blog post. 

Why? What is your motivation? Also, I have already told you that I do not know what else to write about AND YOU ARE STILL READING… 

So now I only have one thing to say: “Thank You!” 

Thank you for choosing to connect with me and thank you for inspiring my next topic: MOTIVATION 

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One of the songs I work out to (LOL I don’t really work out), is a song called Till I Collapse by Eminem. 

Here are the lyrics to the intro: 

“Cause sometimes you just feel tired.

You feel weak and when you feel weak you feel like you wanna just give up.

But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength

and just pull that sh*t out of you and get that motivation to not give up

and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse”

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It is 5:30am on a Monday. I wake up excited to take on the day. I am a positive person that desires to be thankful for every blessing. I walk to my gratitude journal and I log 20 items that I am truly thankful for. I think to myself, “lets goooo today is going to be great!!” 

I stumble to the coffee maker to find that it is making a weird noise. I fickle with it for a few seconds until I realize it’s fried. I have some internal dialogue that goes something like, “Hey, just be grateful that you own a nice coffee maker. Just update your monthly budget and get a Mcdonalds coffee then order a new machine.” 

I go to Mcdonalds and get my coffee. Now, I need to run by Walmart. We have a sand unit at work (I work at a PRE-K),  and I want to grab a bag of Kinetic Sand. I am unaware that there is a flock of giant crow-like birds that live in a tree outside of this particular Walmart, ready to attack my blond locks… IF I SEE YOU DAILY, I am sorry that you now have heard this story 1,000 times.. PTSD THOO!!!

It is now 6:30 am on a Monday. 

I get to my classroom to set up and process my morning. I text my family and make light of the funny parts of my morning, but honestly I don’t really feel like laughing for very long.. Because on the surface the story is pretty funny.. But let’s take it one step further.. 

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A few weeks before my grandma had been diagnosed with cancer and I was going through some other intensely personal issues. I am a fairly open book, but honestly and unfortunately, I do have a few chapters for only my eyes, God’s eyes and my therapist’s eyes only to see. Life is hard, and although I have overcome A LOT.. There are still parts of my story that still send me to my knees. Maybe it’s just the human in me, God knows.

ANYWAYS, let’s continue now with my Monday. At this point, it is time for the students to come. I have been made aware, prior, that my assistant would be out for the day, and I would be having a substitute. Just want to note that young students often struggle with changes in routine, such as changing out the caregiver. 

I think I only need to make it to 12pm in this story to relate to so many. I could have thrown in a flat tire or sick dog to make it even more realistic, but I think we all get the point. When life gets hard, it is not always about the flat tire or the broken coffee machine, sometimes it is about something completely different.

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Working with non- verbal students has taught me so much about human nature. People always joke that I know my students so well. I believe this is because my students express themselves in a manner I understand. If a student only plays with red toys, then I am likely to wonder if it is their favorite color. If a student packs a bag of Cheetos every single day, then I am likely to wonder if that is their favorite snack. Do not get me wrong, I get them wrong sometimes, just like people get me wrong sometimes. For the most part though, they do not usually mince their words. If a student wants the Buzz Lightyear Toy, they will let you know! 

Most problems in pre-k come from the perspective of the pre-k student, when life is just not going their way. 

For example (completely fictional): Bobby is 3 years old. His dad just got incarcerated. His mom loves him a lot but works full time and has 5 other kids. He loves his mom, but he sees his dad like his super hero. They would kick the soccer ball every night together. His brothers and sisters love him but they are older than him and find him kind of annoying. His father was the only one that would laugh at all his jokes. 

Bobby comes to school and is sitting at circle time. He is feeling wiggly, he forgot to eat breakfast and all of a sudden, begins to miss his dad. 

Bobby starts crying and screaming. Bobby starts throwing chairs. Bobby does not care about anything about kicking the soccer ball with his dad. 

When the teachers ask Bobby what is wrong he just repeats, “NO circle time! NO circle time!” 

What do we do with Bobby? A huge debate often forms as this particular question has been asked by so many teachers regarding students having explosive behaviors. 

The debate begins something like this… 

“Well whose fault is it for putting Bobby in that situation?” 

“Well who’s responsible for helping him?” 

“We are teachers of academia, not of human behavior and emotions.” 

In my humble opinion, Bobby is 3. Out of the 8 billion people on this planet, his brain is so similar to soooo many other individuals. What we know about developmental brains is that developing is a process. Tesla might be a cool company, but do you know how many vehicles have crashed for seemingly “no reason”. To understand Bobby, you have to CONNECT with Bobby. You have to find what is best for Bobby and you have to know that both the teacher and the student will make mistakes… it is part of the process… 

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For any readers that are not familiar with positive reinforcement theory. I will simply be referring to the use of people, objects or activities that can help motivate an individual to complete ANY task. For example, I hate driving to San Antonio, but I know that I will be rewarded by the presence of my family upon arrival.  

Something that I hear ALLLLLL the time is that the use of positive reinforcement is equal to using a bribe. To end this post, I would like us all to get out a mental dumpster and throw that toxic thought so far down in there!! 

Here is the truth about positive reinforcement and the use of motivators to help humans to hit their next goal. 

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Have you ever heard of the phrase “street smart?” This phrase is what comes to my mind when people associate positive motivators with a bribe. 

I think of a little 4 year old Morgan that realized very early on in life that if I pretended to be asleep that my dad would carry me into the restaurant and I would get to save some precious leg energy for the soccer field. 

I think of this same 4 year old Morgan and think about her if she were to attend my pre-k class. I would have seen students getting skittles, bubbles, toys and other fun stuff for activities like going to the bathroom or completing a puzzle. I know for a fact that 4 year old Morgan would have abused that system so hard. I would have schemed my way to all of the skittles.

The issue is thus: I do not need Skittles to be motivated to use the bathroom or to do a puzzle. I was motivated to use the bathroom and other activities the second my mom clapped and was “so proud of me!” I doubt the wet diaper really bothered me. I was a pretty lazy kid. So for me, words of affirmation are enough to motivate me to try again and to give new activities my best shot! 

For my students in particular, verbal praise sometimes does not bode well. Speculating what happened to a student before coming into school or what particular part of the brain was affected by a particular mental diagnosis might give more understanding into that particular child. However, I argue that it is not the most important aspect of motivating other individuals. To motivate individuals, you MUST get to know them on a personal level. 

I will end this particular section, by arguing that positive reinforcement gets a bad rap because students often get REWARDED for NEGATIVE BEHAVIOR. This is something that teachers often do from a place of love and compassion. However, this is likely to make the behavior vastly more intense. 

Students must practice self regulation techniques such as: breathwork, heavy work, etc… to practice self-regulation. The motivator being used is given after the student is done exhibiting any negative behaviors. At first, motivators are given to my students frequently. This often looks like a bribe from the naked eye. However, the cool part of my job is that I will slowly fade these motivators. Students that would ONLY work for one particular item at the beginning of the year, might work for just a high five by the last day of school. I do this because the goal is self-reliance and the motivators are just a tool. If the tool is not working, then is it really doing its job effectively? 

In the case study above, the student might have wanted to kick a soccer ball as a form of self-soothing behavior. However, after being properly regulated by his nervous system he is more likely to try NEW ACTIVITIES such as: 

-Willingness to ride a bike

-Helping a friend 

-Building a new tower

-helping the teacher at circle time 

Other classroom management techniques such as “taking a break” MIGHT be effective in this situation. It might cause Bobby to sit nicely during circle time for the rest of the year. As I said, learning is a process. Sometimes, I need to go take a break when I get upset at the aspects of my life that I deem as “unfair”. Sometimes a good pout in a hot shower is all I need. Every individual is unique and similar to other individuals. We can probably all agree that getting screamed out for making a simple mistake probably is not healthy. The key is mindfulness and flexibility. What is going to motivate the student to reach a particular goal?

Motivators just simply help us through the scary moments that hit right before we are on the verge of greatness. 

Things that motivate me: 

-Laying in bed at night watching 90 day finance with my fiance 

-Seeing the ocean one more time 

-Seeing my nieces and nephews one more time

-Taking my dogs for one last walk 

-Seeing the Tigers play and screaming “1234 1234 CLEMSON TIGERS FIGHT TIGERS FIGHT TIGERS FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT WHOOOOO!!” 

-Becoming a College Professor 

-My mom and all of the words she ever used to encourage me to keep going 

-My students doing something awesome for the first time 

-Someone at work that cracks a joke at the absolute perfect comedic timing 

-The fact that there is always a chance that we can all start working together and making this place a better place

-Hope that my students can change the world 

-Hope that family is out changing the world 

-Hope that I am changing the world

What motivates you? What is a new goal that you have in your life? How can you fade motivators so that instant gratification becomes a thing of the past? How can you strategically utilize your motivators so that you can leap across the scary and tough times of life by grounding yourself to people and other aspects of life that make you feel calm, loved and HEARD.

Bops about finding that motivation to reach your potential…