I was a special education teacher. Matter of fact, I taught Special Education for four-and-a-half years. I taught some non-verbal kiddos how to read, increased the diversity in their diets, taught them games and social skills, and–what I am most proud of–I helped kids out of diapers, who were well past the time to meet that milestone… And let me tell you, that is not always an easy task. It is always a rewarding task.
By carrot, I mean the motivation for doing something that is not preferred; for example, if you want to buy a beer, but you have no money, you might help a friend move. Moving is a total garbage activity, but he may pay you and buy you beer; if you know how to negotiate, you will get an unhealthy amount of pizza too.
BAM!
You had no money; now you have pizza, beer, and money, because you leveraged your time and effort.
Potty training is no different.
The kiddos usually don't know how to leverage their time and resources to get what they want and potty training is a major life-lesson in how the economy works.
Some kids are cheap; you offer them praise and a pat on the head you have a deuce loose from the caboose and it's bye-bye Mr. Stinky time.
Other kids are better negotiators: they hold off and use diapers long-past their time. They want it to be worth it.
One thing that must be understood: behavior is a currency. I do B and you give me R.
B = desired behavior
R = reward
R = reward
Lets say a kiddo refuses to sit on the toilet. Matter of fact, sitting on the toilet is very scary. She covers her ears, she cries, and basically acts like she is going to die, because this porcelain chair will leap at her and gobble her up and send her into the darkness with the Soviet Union, Jolt Soda, and Michael Jackson's legacy. We know this is BS. Toilets do not eat children. She does not know this fact.
Find the carrot! (Are you even paying attention?)
If she likes fish crackers–a favorite in the Special Ed circles– then model the behavior, B, and offer her a reward, R. In the afraid-of-the-toilet scenario B will begin as touching the toilet for about two seconds. It is OK to direct her arm to touch the toilet. Even making her touch it once or twice. When you do this, immediately reward her with a cracker, R, as if she did it on her own. Offer her the cracker and see what happens. She will touch the toilet.
---> Side note, clean the damn toilet.
Appropriate levels of short term exposure to stressful stimuli–especially when the harm is in her head–will rapidly produce a child who will take steps towards growth. She will touch the toilet. Then sit on the toilet with pants on. Then sit on the toilet with pants off. Each new and more sophisticated B requires an R.
In a period of four years–with the help of some pretty committed staff and parents–I trained nine children with Autism to get out of diapers and use the toilet. They cried. They protested. But they eventually learned, because I found their carrot and I offered their carrot to them, in exchange for the desired behavior.
It is OK to let them go through stress; kids, children, adults learn from stress. We grow through stress. Matter of fact, not a single person with strength, courage, and grit would have any of those features if it were not for exposure to stress.
This is where I go totally non sequitur and discuss liberals and their call for safe-spaces and trigger warnings, especially on college campuses. Essentially safe spaces are locations where controversial topics are not welcome. They are regulated and curtailed and silenced. These topics are typically right-wing or conservative ideas or controversial and insanely insensitive topics, like admitting you believe in only two genders (#Science). Basically, anything based on facts, truth, and analysis. Safe spaces vaccinate children from the truth. They pathologize behavior and prioritize feelings over facts.
"The dangers that these trends pose to scholarship and to the quality of American universities are significant," writes James Bennet from The Atlantic, "It prepares them poorly for professional life, which often demands intellectual engagement with people and ideas one might find uncongenial or wrong. The harm may be more immediate, too. A campus culture devoted to policing speech and punishing speakers is likely to engender patterns of thought that are surprisingly similar to those long identified by cognitive behavioral therapists as causes of depression and anxiety. The new protectiveness may be teaching students to think pathologically."
These teachers are not willing to find the kid's carrots.
The idea of education is to fan a flame, not to fill a vessel, as Socrates once stated.
Letting a child whine and cry and tantrum, because she doesn't want to get out of a diaper, is exactly what we would call bad parenting.
Letting students whine and cry and tantrum, because they don't like a topic or idea is exactly what we call bad teaching. It is toxic, divisive, and backward.
Because this safe-space culture is fueled by a certain ideology (rhymes with Neo-Farxism), it is intoxicating; as ideology tends to be.
Teachers like this won't find the carrot. They won't model the correct behavior, they won't allow appropriate levels of stress. So, our students don't grow up. They have no maturity. They have no grit. And when it comes to emotions, they are still in diapers; which is kind of interesting, because the ideology behind the safe-space is basically as good as what you would find in a diaper.
A good teacher would diligently inform their students about that subject and help them flush Mr. Stinky down the toilet. Into the darkness, right where it belongs.
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