"Critical Friend" Kevin

Tonight, on Halloween, my daughter Cosette will go door-to-door seeking candy dressed as Hermione Granger, the notorious female lead in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. In the books, Hermione distinguishes herself as an intelligent and confident leader. She is loyal to her friends, brave, and handles problems calmly, seeking logical solutions. I am so glad Cosette chose a character with these traits to “be” when she goes trick-or-treating, because being Hermione is not just about putting on an outfit. My daughter’s imagination will truly allow her to be Hermione today. She’s even practicing speaking in a British accent all day so she can best play the part! And if my daughter can imagine herself being a person she admires, then so can I . As adults, some of us may physically put on a mask tonight; but the truth is, we’re putting on masks everyday. Social media allows us to try on masks on a regular basis...and that’s a good thing! If you’ve read my blog before, you know that I...

The CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention (NCI) Program Instructor Guide defines “postvention” by saying that it is an opportunity to “work towards change and growth for individuals who have engaged in risk behavior, as well as for staff members.” This tenth and final unit of the NCI training helps participants to recognize that without a postvention strategy, “crises are likely to occur over and over again.” This unit uses an acrostic model for the word “COPING,” allowing a word for each letter to represent an action that we should take – in order – when working with a staff and client after an incident. While the words are the same – Control, Orient, Patterns, Investigate, Negotiate, and Give – the actions we may take to prevent future crises may differ from students to staff. In my effort to best transfer this information to participants, I like to tell a story about a young lady named Kelli who was a frequent visitor to my office when I was an assistant principal. I discuss how ...

Unit 9 of the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Training allows participations to learn restraints that are to be used as a last resort when clients are demonstrating behaviors that put themselves or others at risk. While the majority of this training conveys that there are many options staff members have to deescalate a crisis situation before needing to restrain an individual, the need to know and understand restraints that are proportionate and as least invasive as possible is a very necessary practice. In an effort to help training participants recognize the range of behaviors that may require a restraint, it is important to structure trainings in a way that move from “classroom models” to real-life scenarios as soon as possible. Classroom models help participants to understand the movements that go along with a restraint and help them to gain confidence that the restraints are designed in a way that will keep both clients and staff members safe. To do this, I typically mo...

I have a gaping hole in my favorite dress shirt. Last week, while teaching Unit 8 of the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Course, we were practicing clothing disengagements when a participant tore my shirt. Probably, I could sew it back together and get away with wearing it again. However, instead, I think I am going to hang it in a prominent location in my closet, serving as a reminder of two important things. First, I must always be cognizant of being the best model I can be of these disengagement skills. When I am demonstrating these skills, I am not just modeling techniques for my participants to practice in a few moments, I am also showing how effective these disengagement techniques can be! As a result, I don’t fault my participant who tore my shirt; I should have been more cognizant of how well I was “creating a lever” when the activity called for one. Importantly, this participant was clutching my shirt in a realistically aggressive way. She needed me to show her I co...

A great deal of the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Training focuses on “rationality.” For instance, we acknowledge that a person who is demonstrating “defensive” behaviors is “beginning to lose rationality.” At the same time, we are going to respond more positively to a defensive person if we, as staff members, have “rationally detached.” We are going to more positively influence behavior if we can control our rationality, and that is something that we have the power to do! While Unit 6 helps us recognize “unproductive” responses to defensive and risk behaviors, including “overreacting” and “responding inappropriately,” Unit 7 helps us to think rationally about crisis situations so as to avoid irrational (and unproductive) responses like these. Unit 7 highlights the Decision-Making Matrix, a mental model that places “severity” on a y-axis and “likelihood” on an x-axis, providing an objective way for us to measure risk. And more importantly, the matrix offers us an objective w...

The sixth unit of the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Course focuses on “Staff Fear or Anxiety.” And to get participants thinking about our human responses to fear or anxiety, the Instructor Guide asks trainers to have a volunteer “make a loud noise wen they hear/see [a] cue.” The Guide goes on to say that “you want this to be unexpected so as to surprise/startle the group.” After this event occurs, the instructor is able to focus participants on the fact that our responses to fear and anxiety are both “psychological” and “physiological.” When I teach this unit, I like to see how many different ways I can get participants to recognize this point. For instance, instead of having a participant make a loud noise, I like to tell participants that we will be having a pop-quiz. “Nothing to worry about,” I tell them, “but if you don’t score at least nine out of ten, I will ask you to stay a little after we end at 4:00, so I can bring you up to speed.” This, as you can imagine, gets p...

Among the messages featured in the CPI family of posters, the reminder not to “pick up the rope” is among the most-appreciated. The poster, which reads “Don’t Pick Up the Rope” features a boy holding a rope in a tug-of-war; he sports an intense look on his face. Unseen is the person on the other end of the rope, deciding whether or not to engage in the tug-of-war with this young man. Unit Five in the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention course really focuses in on this idea of avoiding “picking up the rope.” It’s easier said than done! Unfortunately, our clients (and even our colleagues) can put us in situations where we have a hard time leaving “the rope” on the ground. When a person is confronting us, demonstrating defensive-level behaviors, it is a challenge to keep our composure. However, this unit gives us some perspective and some helpful advice. First, this unit covers “precipitating factors,” defined by CPI as “factors that influence behavior.” I teach this topic with the...

The fourth unit in the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention course is based on “Verbal Intervention.” Among other things, this unit strives to teach participants the power of knowing the Verbal Escalation Continuum, a model that enables us to recognize the range of verbally “defensive” behaviors that clients may exhibit. If we can recognize the specific defensive behavior being exhibited, we can likely identify an appropriate response that can deescalate this person back into the stage of tension reduction. To teach this model, the unit begins with a three or more activities that require participants to model the behaviors of the different behaviors on this Verbal Escalation Continuum. For instance, “questioning” is one way that our clients respond when we make a request of them that they don’t like. They ask information-seeking questions and challenging questions…anything to keep from doing the thing that we need them to do. So, the unit has an activity that requires some particip...

The third unit of CPI’s Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Training is short, scheduled to be just 15 minutes. However, its focus is “Paraverbal Communication,” and if your organization requires humans to speak to other humans, then this unit is pretty important…so we need to make those 15 minutes count! During my work as a school administrator, paraverbal communication mistakes were the cause of office referrals more than anything else. Often, students made mistakes not in what they said, but in how they spoke with adults. Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t always the students whose paraverbals were negative. Often, adults push students who are already anxious or defensive by not paying attention to how they say things. They don’t realize that how they speak can be a tool to calm an individual in-crisis rather than being a weapon that escalates that person. As a result, we have to make sure our staff members internalize the messages of Unit 3! CPI defines paraverbal communication...

The second unit of CPI’s Nonviolent Crisis Intervention course is loaded with strategies and tools to help us interact with people demonstrating anxious or defensive behaviors. Because it is so full of good ideas, it is important for trainers of this unit to guide participants to talk about the strategies that are shared. This unit begins with three activities to help participants understand how their behaviors may be influencing the behaviors of those people in crisis. And while the activities themselves are going to leave some indelible imprints on the minds of participants, great conversation about the activities can help participants internalize how they will handle crises different in the future. To do this, my goal with the discussion I facilitate around these activities is to help people recognize that the three concepts taught in the three activities (promemics, kinesics, and haptics, respectively) can affect a person who is not “in crisis,” so they will undoubtedly a...

There is not a more important unit in the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Program than its first unit, which introduces the Crisis Development Model (CDM). Because it is so important to understanding the other nine units of the course, it is critical that instructors generate meaningful conversation, allowing participants to commit the CDM to memory. Because I am a believer that people think best “on their feet,” I like to kick this unit off by asking participants to silently respond to six questions written on chart paper around the room: What does it look like when a person is worried or anxious? What does it look like when a person is agitated or defensive? What does it look like when a person has engaged in “risky” behavior? How do I help a person who is worried or anxious? How do I help a person who is agitated or defensive? How do I help a person who has engaged in “risky” behavior? Since this is the beginning of the training, participants do not...

At around the age my 7 year-old daughter began to understand what a job was, I became a high school principal...and I was quite proud when she told others she, too, hoped to be a principal one day. When I moved from a mid-sized private school to become an assistant principal at a large public high school, my daughter’s career ambitions changed along with me; she now hoped to be an assistant principal, which I thought was absolutely adorable. However, as she proclaimed these career possibilities, I attempted to impress upon her that good principals (and assistant principals) are frequently good teachers first. And as I hoped, she eventually began informally sharing what her approach to classroom teaching would look like. First and foremost, if you have a child this age, I hope you “play” school every once in a while. Both boys and girls can enjoy it! By putting your child in charge of her or his own classroom, even if you are the only student, you get a firm grasp on what your child i...

When you work in the “protocol” business, you hear that word a lot. However, when I hear the word protocol, I get excited! A few years ago, a colleague made us buttons that recognized us as a “Certified Protocologist.” I wore my button with pride! But unfortunately, not everyone appreciates protocols like I do. In most organizations that use protocols to accomplish work, you will run into people with “protocol fatigue.” These people may have trouble recognizing protocols as “tools” to help solve problems more efficiently and effectively and may instead recognize them as “new” and “different,” something that isn’t so appealing to some because it requires new material to be learned and retained. These people are going to exist, so how do we use new and exciting protocols without pushing our fatigued colleagues further into the mud? First and foremost, I encourage you to avoid using the word “protocol,” when you do so. Once, as I worked with a group of teachers, I needed them to engag...

This post is for January 8. To understand why that matters, I hope you will read my post from January 1. You can find it by clicking here: https://goo.gl/fi3gyz If you are an educator, it is highly likely that you have “set some limits” responding to escalating misbehavior in the classroom. For instance, if “Johnny” refused to do his work, you may have helped him understand that he would have to eat his lunch with you - working on the assignment - if he couldn’t use class time to do so. Clarifying a consequence so another individual has an opportunity to choose to comply (or not) is setting a limit...and if you’re like me, you have learned a thing or two about setting limits as your career has progressed. There have been times when a student’s misbehavior or non-compliance has caused me to dedicate my time before or after school to enforcing a consequence. Similarly, I have found myself spending time before or after school with colleagues who have failed to do their work independent...

This post is for January 7. To understand why, I hope you will read my post from January 1. To do so, please click here:  https://goo.gl/fi3gyz If you’ve ever been to a concert, you know the feeling. Almost always, the time the concert is supposed to begin and the time it actually begins is very different. This may lead to some frustration, but rockstars get away with it...because they are rockstars! I am not a rockstar. Sometimes, I like to act like I’m a rockstar. In fact, as a teacher, I went a few years with a class policy that required students to clap as I entered the room to begin class. It was ingenious. No matter what conversations the students were having before class began, the bell would ring and they would stop talking, choosing instead to applaud wildly as I jumped around the room like Stephen Colbert beginning his show. ...but alas, I am not actually a rockstar. Consequently, when I facilitate a training or a meeting of any sort, I start on time. When meetings ...

This post is for January 6. To understand why that matters, I hope you will read my post from January 1. You can find it by clicking here: Inspiration and Serendipity  At a recent training, we went around the room and allowed each individual to identify her or his “core value.” This topic is one that I love, particularly because one of my most embarrassing interview moments came with this topic. After teaching for 8 years, I interviewed for an administrative position...and when I was asked to identify a core value, I froze like an alligator in the arctic. I never had given my core values much thought! From there on out, not only did I have a core value at the ready, I made sure the students I taught could identify one as well. Cleverly, because I taught high school English, I used my core values lesson as an opportunity to show students how to turn adjectives into abstract nouns. However, in my instruction of this concept, I never neglected to share my interview faux pas. I wri...

This post is for January 5. To understand why that matters, I hope you will read my post from January 1. You can find it by clicking here: January 1 In a preview of the Netflix Series American Vandal, Polygon’s Julia Alexander calls the show “juvenile,” a word that was also used by a friend of mine when I told her the show’s premise. However, in the same sentence of her review, Alexander also calls this mockumentary “serious” and “mature.” She then uses her forum to proclaim the show’s brilliance. ...and for so many reasons, I agree. I agree as an adult thinker who is capable of seeing the brilliance of a show built on satire; I also agree as a non-judgmental guy who appreciates a show that challenges the psychology that causes humans to presume guilt and to close-mindedly accept things at face value. But more importantly, I agree with the brilliance of this show as an educator who has spent years surrounded by teenage humans. If you haven’t seen the show, I could proba...

This post is for January 4. To understand why, I hope you will read my post from January 1. To do so, please click here: January 1 Each day, as adults, we make countless decisions that have a variety of consequences. Whether you are an educator (which many of my readers are), a stay-at-home dad or mom, or a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, you have decisions to make...and most of our decisions affect others. In fact, Dr. Joel Hoomans, a writer for the Leading Edge Journal, claimed in a 2015 article that we make 35,000 decisions a day, and most of them - even what and when we choose to eat - can have an effect on others! Last week, I had a chance to attend the Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Training offered by the Crisis Prevention Institute. While this training covers dozens of topics, one of my favorite new understandings was derived from the “Decision-Making Matrix” introduced in the program. This matrix is a nine-square grid that asks decision-makers to consider the “severi...

One of my favorite protocols provided by the National School Reform Faculty in its Critical Friends Group New Coaches’ training is the “Success-Analysis Protocol.” In schools, I have typically used this protocol at the end of a semester or school year to encourage self-reflection among teachers and to open the eyes of teachers to the things their colleagues are most proud of. In Western Civilization culture, “bragging” is often frowned upon, so we are unlikely to do it unless we are surrounded by close friends or family. This protocol, however, makes bragging okay! The protocol first asks participants to identify a success from a given period of time (i.e. first semester, this school year, in the past 5 years), whatever the facilitator has chosen that to be. Participants are then given time to jot down as many details about that success. What was it? Who did it affect? Why was this success so meaningful to you? Then, in groups of four, a rotation begins. A first “presenter” shares hi...