Gangs & Turfs in School

Culture of violence or culture of resistance?

Macheo Payne

Lincoln Child Center

2011

Lincoln Professional Training

Training Goals

1. Discuss aspects of gang and turf culture in schools

2. Clarify beliefs of staff; ideologies and paradigms

3. Set staff priorities for working with the situation

Lincoln Professional Training

Oakland’s LandscapeHistorical: Irish gangs built political power (fire & police)

Black Panther (political) Party, LA Crips & Bloods connection

And now…

Nortenos, Surrenos & Border Brothers: The Big 3

North side Oakland (NSO)

Bushrod Cold Gunnaz, Gaskill Maniacs, The 6

West Oakland (WSO)

Acorn, Ghost Town

East Oakland (ESO)

Lincoln Professional Training

Lincoln Professional Training

Lincoln Professional Training

Who Are They?Critical Resistance in Identity or Naïve?

If you see, act, treat and respond to them as gang members, they will see themselves, behave, respond as gang members.

Don’t over or under estimate your influence. Your influence is limited but carries higher leverage than you think.

Do NOT operate within the gang consciousness in order to be “up on it” or “aware” of gang culture. Don’t think like a cop (containment, enforcement, external material management, etc.)

Common mistakes of schools is to adopt a No Gang Culture (no hoodies, rags, colors, roseries, tags, symbols, etc.) and not provide any intervention to address the culture of gangs in the school with students and families.

IssuesCommunity: Gangs & Turfs

School: Collision of the Block vs. the Class

Interpersonal: Fonkin’ & Frontin’

Internal: Identity development

Lincoln Professional Training

Educational Ideology

People can work hard and achieve success.

Education is the goal?

Or

the ‘weapon’ to be used skillfully in the battle for social justice?

Math for what? Proper english for what?

If you don’t succeed, it’s your fault.

Lincoln Professional Training

Working With Black Boys

Why are they targeted for discipline?

In collaboration with the OUSD African-American Male Achievement Office

2011

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Reflection1. What is most important in your work?

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

2. Is there a student that you wish you never had to work with? (trick question)3. Magic wand question: What is the one thing

you would change about your work?

4. What do you absolutely love about your work?

Training Goals1. Explore critical beliefs2. Review culturally responsive relationship building 3. Review Applied Behavioral Analysis Strategies

Address Site Specific Goals:

1. Building relationships with students

2. Culturally responsive strategies for engaging students in the learning process

3. Dealing with misbehavior

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Visioning Activity•Imagine ALL of your clients performing academically at an optimal level.•Imagine them completing ALL behavioral goals and having full mastery of the material. •Envision

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Lincoln Monthly Training

Alignment

Rigorous Academic Learning

Environment

Prioritizing

Behavioral Health Needs

Effective teaching

Learning how to learn

Caring about learning

Academic success

Social development

Sustainable,

Adaptable,

Behavior

patterns

Paired Share1. Talk about your client

and share your reflections:

1. Who this client is2. Why they impacted you3. How you responded (what

was the impact)

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

The Gaps•The Achievement Gap (test scores, dropout rates, higher ed)

•The Discipline Gap (suspension and expulsion)

•The Wealth Gap (net worth, income, rates of poverty)

•The Health (mortality) Gap (life expectancy, excess death)

•The Prison Gap (incarceration rates, sentencing, profiling)

•The Employment Gap (unemployment and underemployment rate)

Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVmPKvhsNVk

Lincoln Monthly Training

Attribution of DisparitiesDominant public paradigms explaining disparities: “bad apples”

Defective culture (Bill Cosby, President Obama, & Co.) Individual faults (Bootstraps, agency, free will & choice)

Personal racism (isolated incidents, generally equal)

Overlooks policies and arrangements: “diseased tree”Structures (Competition rewards advantage. Privilege bestows advantage, social reproduction)Institutions (White supremacy, Brown v. Board, School to Prison) -Paul Hirshfield, Preparing for Prison: The Criminalization of School Discipline in the USACumulative causation (multisystemic inequity, doll test)

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Building Relationships1. Address your fear/distain of

students

2. Look at your judgement of parents and family structure & community

3. Look at your personal biases, prejudices, dislikes and pet peeves

4. Examine your motivations for being here

5. Commit or Quit

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Building Relationships1. Authentic Caring vs. Aesthetic Caring --Angela Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling

2. Know their parents & caregivers first and last name: community centered -Gloria Ladson-Billings, Dreamkeepers

3. Disclose mistakes or errors and apologize quickly

4. State your motivations for your actions, give real reasons. Do you believe? (Warriors) –Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of American Empire

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Culturally Responsive Strategies1. Be clear about who you are:

(race, class, gender, etc.) because it speaks more than what you say –Sharroky Hollie, Culturally Responsive

2. Be Student Centered: Their class or your class, their assignment or your assignment, their education or your education? Are you facilitator or Director of learning?

3. Cultural Consultation: Consult someone who is in the business of addressing a particular group

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Common Explanations for Misbehavior1. He just wants attention (essential for survival)

2. He just wants his own way (as he should)

3. He’s manipulating us (not exactly)

4. He’s making bad choices (developmentally appropriate)

5. His parents don’t provide enough structure (neither do rich parents)

6. He has a bad attitude (unmet need)

7. His brother was the same way (we have no control over our genes)

8. He’s testing limits (that’s necessary for growth)

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Applied Behavior Analysis“It’s the (environment) stupid.”

• The children are in constant interaction with their environment: The physical environment, the people, their thoughts, emotions, patterns habits, and physiological needs

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Applied Behavior AnalysisWhat is ABA?

• “A scientific approach for discovering environmental variables that reliably influence socially significant behavior and for developing a technology of behavior change that takes practical advantage of those discoveries.”

• Levels of understanding: description – prediction – control

• Exs. Criminal profiling, Disneyland, NASA, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, animal training, kids w/ autism.

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Applied Behavior AnalysisWhat is ABA’s perspective on behavior?

 

• All behavior has meaning – It is functional for the person. Our job is to understand what the function is.

• All behavior meets a need - Kids engage in negative behavior because it’s meeting a need of some kind for them – whether attention, escape etc.

• See behavior as communication – Teach kids how to communicate and get needs met more appropriately.

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Applied Behavior AnalysisABA works to change what?

Influence the persons behavior by controlling the environment.

What’s in your environment is everything from your thoughts to physical stimuli. Change to train and shape behavior – make it more likely positive behavior will occur and less likely negative behavior will occur.

Includes self-management of your environment. Physical setting, curriculum, schedule, how we teach, type and delivery of rewards and punishers.

“Behavior analysis is the design of environments that promote appropriate behavior.”

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Applied Behavior Analysis ABA attempts to make problem behaviors

what? 

• IRRELEVANT: Organize the environments to reduce likelihood that those conditions are encountered.

• INEFFICIENT: Efficiency is the result of the combined effects of:

(a)    Physical effort required for person to perform the behavior

(b)    # of times person must perform the behavior before he/she is reinforced (schedule of reinforcement)

(c)    Time delay between the first problem behavior and reinforcement.

• INEFFECTIVE: Problem behaviors should be ineffective ways of accessing reinforcers. You utilize this principle when putting a behavior “on extinction.”

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Applied Behavior Analysis What is a “positive behavior intervention”

I can use today?

 

Amazing power of positive reinforcement.

The matching law – what you reinforce most will occur most frequently. Ways to make it more powerful – handout.

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Applied Behavior Analysis Why is it so important to emphasize positive

interventions –

isn’t punishment effective?

 

Side effects of punishment:

- disrupted relationship

- lack of skill building

- models punishment which is not an intervention student will be able to use

- can make it more difficult to gain compliance the next time

- may create power struggle

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Applied Behavior AnalysisWhat are the different types of behavior?

• Physical movement: sitting still, tapping, looking, making noises

• Mental activity: engagement, focus, thinking, following along, etc.

• Emotional activity: annoyed, frustrated, upset, humorous, pleasant, flat affect, disengaged, etc.

• OR

• Internalized behaviors vs. Externalized behaviors

• Internalized: Quiet, disengaged, nonresponsive, depressed mood, head down, etc.

• Externalized: Talking, moving, engaging with others, actively communicating

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Applied Behavior AnalysisWhat do you want to reinforce?

• Sitting down in chair

• Having materials

• Asking appropriate clarifying questions

• Appropriate participation in class

• Supporting classmates

• Getting refocused

• Staying focused during a disruption

• Etc.

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

ABA: Reinforcement Rules1. Timing: Reinforce desired behaviors immediately

AND later

2. Frequency: Reinforce desired behaviors constantly

3. Enthusiasm: Be genuinely appreciative of the incremental steps

4. Eye Contact: Show your undivided attention when you reinforce

5. Describe: Name the desired behavior and why it is important

6. Anticipation: Hype up the reinforcers but don’t use as threat

7. Variety: Switch it up and tailor the reinforcer to the student

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

ABA: Reinforcement Rules1. Give students a moment to comply (saving

face)

2. Let them have the last word if they are complying (saving face)

3. Harass and hound them for their best academic effort

4. Discipline without punishment

CREATIVE REDIRECTION OF IMPULSE BEHAVIOR IS THE MOTHER OF ALL BEHAVIOR INTERVENTIONS

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Collaborative Problem Solving

1. Mutually beneficial

2. Plan A is adult will

3. Plan B is collaborative

-Ross Greene, The Explosive Child

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Expectations

1. No quick fix

2. Cumulative: It took a long time to get this way, it will take a while to change

3. Give the strategy time

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Empathy Activity

You should not present yourself to students everyday unless you can do the following.

Imagine the following: 1. Your teacher being afraid of you and as a result unable

to comfort you appropriately 2. Never feeling safe when you see the police even when

they are there to “help” 3. Any enthusiasm that you express being interpreted as

aggressive or even violent4. Passion or excitement that you express being cast as

sexually deviant5. People not getting on the elevator with you or getting

off as soon as you get on OR moving to the corner, grabbing purse and avoiding eye contact at all costs

6. People treat you as if you are going to steal something7. Not being allowed to be angry without being viewed as

dangerous

Lincoln/ AAMA Office Training

Keeping Your Cool

1. Cognitive reframing: This is NORMAL adolescent behavior. It’s only a problem because of the setting.

2. WE (the adults) are responsible for the culture, climate, and success of the institution.

3. Knowing that you are safe and secure

4. “Drop the rope”

5. “Be Prepared”: Rehearse your response to being offended, disrespected, insulted, escalated, attacked

Lincoln Professional Training

Keeping Your Cool

6. When in doubt: Do what’s right for student healing and learning first and always

7. Use the Principles of Care and Lincoln Values in EVERY situation

8. You are an Adult, you are an Adult, you are an Adult, you are an Adult

9. Meditate, deep breathing, slow it down, back it up, reassess.

- In order to deescalate, you have to control your physical response

- in order to increase your cognitive capacity (move away fro fight or flight impulse, low to no cognitive functioning)

- and THINK your way out of the cardboard box.

Lincoln Professional Training