Get attached to the unattached

Like most teachers I've taught a range of children from a range of backgrounds. Some rich, some poor, some dirty, some clean, some happy and sadly, some sad. But without a shadow of a doubt the most challenging are those that haven't formed the appropriate bond with parents and primary care givers. Those that suffer from what we know as attachment disorder. The overwhelming and at times overriding breakdown of positive and long lasting meaningful relationships. This normally effects homelife but unsurprisingly all to often impacts on classroom behaviour.

So how does this look in class? Anything from silence, to downright violence. Many children and adults for that matter that suffer from attachment disorder would find it difficult to tell you what is 'wrong' if 'wrong' is even an appropriate way to phrase it. I've struggled with this, challenged my own pedagogy and read at length about ways to adapt my own teaching to help and come up with three steps I've taken that have brought some success. 

Number 1. Hand shakes, I shake hands with every child as soon as they walk through the door, every single day no matter if they are clean or grubby, wet or sweaty we shake hands and wish eachother a good morning. Out of my current crop of 32, 3 knew how to shake hands on day 1. Now they line up eager with anticipation to grasp my relatively gorilla like paw (I'm 6:4 they are about 5 foot.) For many of these children they've never thought anyone would want to shake their hands or at least it just never occurred to them and sadly I've heard detractors of others doing this joking about needing hand sanitizer after doing it. This kind of emphasises the point, the idea of a seperation between child and adult, educator and pupil. Sadly an increasing number of children are seen as an add on to life rather than a purpose to it. Treat them as the most important thing in the whole world, just for that one moment, ask what they had for breakfast, check in as to how they slept. Show them that discussing printing with your TA or nipping off to grab a tea quickly can wait, it doesn't really matter to a child who may have never been hugged. 

Number 2. Build in talking but more importantly listening. Last week I was sat on a table with two children that had been in the same class for four years. One the daughter of a vicar, one the son of a church organiser. Neither knew the other was religious. Why? Because we are too scared to embrace conversation sometimes and two scared to encourage a sinple chat (whilst doing work), we are too concerned someone will walk in and overhear me asking 'so what's the best bit of Sunday school?' and question what I'm doing. We've lost to a degree the soul of working with children, we are too apprehensive of becoming part of their lives and allowing them to be part of ours. Plonk yourself down next to a child you've not engaged with enough, open a fresh pack of colouring pencils and let them in for just ten minutes. Find the time. It's possible. It is. Because nothing is more important. For too long I've obsessessed over making sure everything's taught in exactly the right way and ignored making sure everyONE is taught in exactly the right way. For some children learning which Greek philosophers are significant today is totally irrelevant compared to you saying that you love their drawing or their trainers are really cool. If they don't feel you care about them you'll never understand them and you'll struggle to help them learn. I am still what I consider a strict teacher but I've never had so many children simply want to spend time with me as the bond is now so strong. 

3. Be the sanctuary. I was recently being spoken to by an ed psych. Incidentally his name was Dr Xavier, I couldn't get a surname I was too wrapped up in Xmen puns to ask. But anyway, he was utterly on point. He knew his stuff inside, outside and anyother way his mutant students could go. I plucked up my courage and asked him, 'it's all well and good helping those with attachment disorder that have been removed from the home, but what about those still in it who are still living it?' He very simply answered, 'be their sanctuary'. Show them that there is light in what may be a pretty awful existence, nurture the flame of humanity that still flickers somewhere, ignore the snotty nose, the grubby top and let them just be them. With a world obsessed with data, acknowledge that sometimes just being in school each day is a great achievement. I hate the ultra cool trying too hard clichès that float around education these days (especially twitter) but it is sadly true when we say, for some of these children school may be the best time of their life, the only constant, their port in a storm. 

It's easy to forget this till you're faced with a 9 year old who won't cry anymore because they learnt at 9 months nothing ever changes when they do.