Collaborative & Proactive Solutions

At Revere High School we use Dr. Ross Greene’s Collaborative and Proactive Solutions approach for understanding student behavior. This model holds that the reason some students respond maladaptively to problems and frustrations is that they’re lacking the skills - especially in the realms of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, emotion regulation, and problem solving -- to respond adaptively. We believe that the best way to reduce concerning behaviors is by solving the problems that are causing those behaviors. The problem solving should be collaborative (something that’s being done with the student rather than to them) and proactive (rather than reactive).   There are two tenants to this model: Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems.  

• Lagging Skills: The reason some kids respond maladaptively to problems and frustrations is that they’re lacking the skills -- especially in the realms of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, emotion regulation, and problem solving -- to respond adaptively.  The adult mindset shift required to see students responding poorly to problems and frustrations as a result of lagging skills and not lagging motivation pushes us to understand why motivational strategies -- rewarding and punishing -- may not make things better.

• Unsolved Problems: The best way to reduce concerning behaviors is by solving the problems that are causing those behaviors. Challenging behaviors communicate difficulty meeting expectations.  Educators need to identify the specific expectations a kid is having difficulty meeting, referred to as unsolved problems, and to help kids solve those problems. Because unsolved problems tend to be highly predictable, the problem-solving can be proactive most of the time. The adult mindset shift required to see unsolved problems as the cause of concerning behavior pushes us to reduce the behaviors by solving the problems that are causing them.