District-Wide Implementation and Managing Rage

Real Talk For Real Teachers By Conscious Discipline

Every February, Conscious Discipline hosts the Advanced Institute, also known as CD2. CD2 is limited to 48 participants, and each participant presents a ten-minute session on how they’re implementing Conscious Discipline and the results they’ve seen. In this episode, you’ll listen in on CD2 presentations from Megan Duplain and Sarah Catherine Rhodes. Megan Duplain is the Director of Student Services in the Litchfield Elementary School District, which consists of 15 K-8 schools. All 15 schools are implementing Conscious Discipline, and Megan discusses their implementation process. Sarah Catherine Rhodes teaches in a blended preschool classroom in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she works with at-risk children and children with special needs. Sarah shares how she’s helped these children learn to understand and manage rage. Essential Takeaways • Conscious Discipline Action Team (CDAT) members don’t have to know everything about Conscious Discipline. They just need to be willing, committed, and open to learning and growing. • Get creative when sharing information with a large number of people. For example, Megan creates monthly voiceover PowerPoints on a power, skill, and structure. She shares these with school principals, who ask questions and discuss the information. The principals then share this PowerPoint with their faculty and staff, along with roleplaying and other activities. • Remember to celebrate! Megan’s district had a mid-year “Family Reunion” with 800 people in attendance, including teachers, maintenance, bus drivers, and more. • Strategies to help children with rage including reading stories and discussing why and how the characters feel rage, asking children where they feel rage in their body and what they can do to calm down, and simplifying the five steps to self-regulation. • For a child who was tearing down the Safe Place, Sarah created the Bug Crazy Zone. After spending time in the Bug Crazy Zone, the child is then able to transition to a structured Safe Place. Steps for Tomorrow • If you’re implementing at a school or district-wide level, some of your first steps include forming a CDAT, conducting a book study, and sending CDAT team members to a Summer Institute. • For a book study, consider focusing on one chapter per month. Later, you can choose a power/skill/structure to work on monthly. • If you teach children who experience rage, help them label the emotion. We often call it “the yucky feeling.” Talk to children about what triggers the yucky feeling, where they feel it in their body, and what they can do to calm down. Reading and discussing stories with characters who experience rage (like Sophie Rants and Raves) is helpful. Come up with a rage plan and practice it like a fire drill. Important Links • ConsciousDiscipline.com (https://consciousdiscipline.com/) • Conscious Discipline School Family (https://consciousdiscipline.com/methodology/school-family/) • Professional Development Opportunities (https://consciousdiscipline.com/professional-development/) • Shubert’s School (https://consciousdiscipline.com/free-resources/shubert/) Show Outline :20 What is Conscious Discipline? :45 About CD2, introduction of guests Megan Duplain and Sarah Catherine Rhodes 2:13 Background on Megan’s school district and family 4:15 Year 1 implementation plan in Megan’s district 6:57 Year 2 implementation plan in Megan’s district 10:00 Mid-year district-wide celebration 11:42 Background on Sarah Catherine Rhode’s classroom 12:40 Sarah’s students and rage 13:34 Using stories to learn about rage 17:00 Stories of how Conscious Discipline affected Sarah’s students 18:28 Other strategies Sarah uses to help students with rage 21:40 What’s Becky up to? 22:49 What’s Becky celebrating? THANK YOU FOR LISTENING There are many ways you could have spent this time today, but you chose to spend it with me and I am grateful. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with others via your favorite social media platforms.