A person lives in the artificially created environment. Big and small settlements, dwellings, furniture, equipment, practically, all surrounding material world is the reality, which forms and imfluence the person. The analysis of the environment allows looking at the processes of perception and the mechanisms explaining the behavior of people in the real world in a new way. The quality of the environment (space, materials, forms, light, etc.) influences both behavior and learning.
“Human society may itself prove the most serious stumbling block to the required new forms of environmental accommodation in which case man will then contrive”.
The prepared environment is the most important element of pedagogics. It cannot function as a system without it. The prepared environment gives the chance for a child to become free from the adult gradually. Therefore, the prepared environment should correspond to a child. It has a character of a call for action. It should teach a child toa social behavior concerning other children and considering their requirements. Children care for their own environments themselves. They gain the skills of independence from the adults. In social pedagogics a society and a social environment are considered to be, first of all, from the point of view of the process of the inclusion of a child in it and integration through the next social environment in society, as a whole.
Parents make the first public environment of the child. The personalities of parents play an essential role in the life of each person. At the same time, the feelings painting the relations of a child and parents are the special feelings, which are distinct from the other emotional communications. Parental love is one of the sources and a guarantee of a human welfare, as well as maintenance of physical and mental health.
Plomin (1993), in his book Nature, Nurture, and Psychology, defines nurture as one of the environmental factors, which influence the process of learning. Nurture is an external background factor. Character, undoubtedly, is formed in the course of human life. Both features of congenital temperament and external factors, such as mutual relations in a family, influence the formation of a child’s character. The general nurture concept is based on the struggle against the nature of a child. If a child is wicked, it is necessary to eradicate the malicious inclinations in him / her; if he / she is slovenly, it is necessary to accustom him / her to neatness and order; if he/ she is deceitful, it is necessary to punish him / her for each lie. There are attempts to bring different motives constraining nature, such as fear, shame, or pain into the child’s consciousness for the sake of upbringing of a good character.
The status defines the behavior of a person in society in the sense that, in certain situations, a personality behaves not simply how he / she would like, but according to the status, by analogy to how other people behave in similar situations. It is important that the surrounding people expect from the person a certain behavior in these situations. A person should play a certain role. Therefore, such an expected behavior caused by the status of a person is called a social role.
The assimilation of various social roles is the most important component of the process of socialization of the personality. However, the complexity is that, in society, there are statuses not only approved by it, but also such which contradict the public norms and values. Therefore, in the course of formation and development, a child can master both positive and negative social roles.
A member of a team is an important role, which is mastered by a child in the course of the development. A child acquires the roles of a team member in kindergarten and school, in sports section and children’s public organizations, in communication with contemporaries.
The development of the mechanism of a role behavior by a child provides him / her with a successful inclusiveness in the social relations as it gives him / her the chance to adapt for each situation new to him / her or a position throughout the whole subsequent life. This process of adaptation of the individual to the conditions of the social environment is called a social adaptation.
If there is no process of adaptation of a child to a group, he / she can be shy, uncertain, or non-initiative that can lead to serious personal deformation, and it can greately affect his / her academic scores. Some children suffer from autism.
“Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have deficits in understanding and effectively using social skills to interact and communicate with others. Studies have confirmed that children diagnosed with ASD often display a lack of eye contact and misunderstand social cues, such as body language, gestures, and facial expressions. They may become aggressive toward or withdraw from others, demonstrate self-injurious behaviors, and lose control altogether”.
A child suffering from autism cannot build a healthy relationship with other people, what is very important, being in a society. This violation may be so serious that can affect the relationship of a mother and a child at the beginning of a child’s life. It is important to know that a child with the given syndrome shows the affection towards the mother and other people who care for him/her. However, the way by means of which a child with autism expresses love and affection strongly differs from the ways of normal children. If a child communicates with other children and parents a little, doctors do not always can define the autism diagnosis. At the development of a child, his / her interaction with society becomes stranger. The features of behavior often concern a visual contact, a look, and a body position. It is usually difficult for a child with autism to establish any relationship with peers, and more often a child remains isolated from the society. A child does not express any interest in games or any kinds of activity in comparison with the contemporaries. Children with such frustration do not wish to play any games. In hard cases, children cannot notice the presence of the other people.
If a child has overcome the phase of adaptation and starts to show to people around the individual differences, which they reject as inappropriate to their representations and requirements, it can lead to the development of negativity, suspiciousness, aggression, and a high self-esteem. The positive inclusion of a child into a group, his / her integration promotes the formation of the feeling of solidarity.
Main Body
The Process of Positive Behavior Support.
According to Kumashiro (2004), social justice and equity are the most ancient social ideas and ideals; they pass through the whole history of mankind. The human nature is brightly expressed in the struggle for social justice and equity. As the justice and equity problems are inseparable from each other in public life, they are often confused, though each of these concepts has a special sense and content in the process of learning. Social justice and social equity are the objective qualities of social forms of public communications. Social communications represent a set of all relations of people as social beings (they include economic, political, ideological, family and moral relations), which they meet, making human history. Therefore, both social justice and social equity can take place in the most various spheres of public life, in particular, in the learning process.
In general, the majority of school teachers connect social stability and well-being of school staff with social equity. A low degree of the formed emotive level of political valuable orientation for social equity is observed among teachers, both having higher education and vocational trainings.
Only 23 % of teachers with a high level of income and 26% of teachers with a low level of income are ready to defend valuable social equity. Teachers with average income are guided by valuable social equity when teaching. A behavioral level of city teachers is formed twice weaker than among teachers living in the village.
It has been found out that diversity, which is characteristic feature of the learning process in Western Europe, is predetermined by the historical epochs, national features, and social conditions. The differences between the systems and models of environment deepen within independent countries.
A person simultaneously stays in a set of the systems that are superimposed on each other and interact. However, we say about the system “teacher — pupils”. The diversity of teachers is expressed, first of all, in more expressed freedom of actions (within the given system) in comparison with “diversity” among pupils. Teachers define what to learn and how to learn. “The teacher’s system” organizes school life: schedule, school events, etc. Pupils organize their activity in the given system only on the basis of the “diversity” organized by a teacher for them.
The diversity of teachers is subordinated to a variety of higher systems, which decide what to bring into the program. The given program defines that range of teacher’s activity in which he / she shows his / her own diversity. The system of pupil’s diversity is even lower in the given hierarchy. A range of pupil’s diversity in this system is established by the teacher, and it is narrower for the teacher (within interaction system “teacher — pupil”). The teacher decides himself / herself how to present this program, organizing and directing the activity of the controlled system.
Being a part of environment, the diversity of teachers, is a true asset for learning. A diversity of pedagogical education is multiplied and increases in all its displays. At the same time, pedagogical education develops fuller, finding out laws and general tendencies. The most important of them are: conditionality of pedagogical educational development by historical, political and social context; preservation of national traditions and customs in training of the teacher; influence of modern pedagogical ideas (integration, professionalism, diversity, etc.).
In order to understand the process of the positive behavior support, it is necessary to define what the positive emotional state and the negative emotional state mean.
The positive emotional state is a complete characteristic of a mental activity during a certain interval of time, differing by the slightly expressed positive emotions; it is a positive estimated attitude to the external circumstances, internal incentives and subjective experiences of a child.
The negative emotional condition is connected with an adverse effect on the process of activity and interactions of the individual with the environment. The negative emotional condition is a complete characteristic of mental activity of a child for a certain period of time, differing by the feeling of discomfort, trouble, or displeasure, conducting to the temporary disorder of activity. The negative emotional condition penetrates into the system of the relations and behavior of the individual; it is also accompanied by strong experiences.
Thus, Positive Behavior Support (PBS) is rather a new way of study of behavior:
“Positive behavior support is now being implemented in a variety of places including schools, early childhood, mental health, and child welfare settings, and in organizations that provide services to adults with developmental disabilities. Individuals of all ages can benefit from positive behavior support from the very young to old age. To learn more about positive behavior support, select the button below that best fits the community that you represent”.
It includes some approaches promoting improvement of difficult behavior:
- Training to communication skills;
- Active change of the environment in which a child lives and studies;
- Respect of family values and culture;
- Work with due regard to strengths;
- The use of cooperation within teams.
School should take measures for the support of the positive atmosphere, supply of the conditions for the successful academic and social growth of a child. It also occupies the key role in the encouragement of the pro-social behavior by means of the effective support of the positive changes and opportunities for social and emotional development. Such a development can help the students in mastering of the necessary skills for the further adult life, such as the control over emotions, care for the others, positive mutual relations, responsibility for own deeds and actions, constructive and ethical approach to the salvation of difficult situations, etc. All these factors promote the prevention of the negative behavior and, as a consequence, the measures of the disciplinary impact.
However, the creation of the positive climate is impossible without the pupils. The provision of the variety of possibilities of the joint activity with not indifferent adults reduces the risk of a negative behavior. The following directions of work are necessary: the provision of a child with the possibility to express own opinions, remarks, and suggestions, to participate in school initiatives; the education of leaders, stimulation of the curricular and extracurricular achievements by means of the correcting feedback and creation of the all-school system of the positive behavior support. Such measures in the combination with the integrated consultative program of the prevention of the pedagogical intrusion allow children to acquire the experience and skills necessary for the further success in study and life.
“Schoolwide positive behavior support plans are designed to promote a positive school climate that supports universal supports for all students, such as character development training. Additional supports, such as conflict resolution and social skills training are taught to fifteen percent of students requiring secondary intervention support. Wrap around and team building offers supports to students with chronic problems”.
The process of PBS has four main steps:
1. To form a joint team;
2. To fulfil the assessment of functional behavior (FBA) by a careful gathering of the information about the situation surrounding a child, starting mechanisms, and the results of a child’s behavior;
3. To develop the plan of positive behavior support, using the strategy that was logically connected with the assessment of functional behavior;
4. To control the implementation of the PBS plan with the use of the automated tools.
1. The formation of a joint team includes the following key peculiarities:
– the work directed at the achievement of consensus;
– perception of the conflict as normal and productive phenomenon;
– honest discussion of the priorities based on a mutual respect;
– open discussion of ideas;
– recognition of the efficiency of a group work unlike the individual one;
– respect of the role of a family.
2. Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA).
FBA takes into consideration the concept “challenging behavior.” It includes the following situations:
- A child can do harm to the surrounding people;
- A child can do harm to himself / herself;
- A child can do a financial damage.
- A PBS plan.
“The behavior support plan represents the culmination of the assessment process. Typically developed in connection with person-centered planning, the behavior support plan is the team’s action plan outlining the specific steps to be used to promote the child’s success and participation in daily activities and routines. In order to be most effective, behavior support plans should be both carefully developed and clearly written using plain language, incorporate the values of the family and support team, identify any prerequisite resources and training needs for implementation, and include individual components that are both easy to use and easy to remember”.
A Positive Behavior Support plan includes the following strategies of the interference for the neutralization of the surrounding events and starting mechanisms:
- To change the environment:
- A physical environment;
- Interpersonal relationship.
- To raise the predictability and help in the regime and transfer.
- To increase the possibilities of choice;
- To help to adapt for a school;
- To change the behavioral line from the reactive to the proactive one:
- To teach the behavioral expectations in any kind of environment;
- To strengthen the positive behavior on the constant basis.
Moreover, this point also includes the alternative behavior. A child is taught to this behavior by a team. This behavior carries out the same function, as a difficult behavior, but, unlike the latter one, it does not bear any danger or destruction. The purpose of this behavior is to help a child to choose socially acceptable alternative behavior by means of which a child can achieve the same objectives as at the difficult behavior.
“The school-wide PBIS process emphasizes the creation of systems that support the adoption and durable implementation of evidence-based practices and procedures, and fit within on-going school reform efforts. An interactive approach that includes opportunities to correct and improve four key elements is used in school-wide PBIS focusing on: 1) Outcomes, 2) Data, 3) Practices, and 4) Systems. The diagram below illustrates how these key elements work together to build a sustainable system”.