Commentary #13 (last one for this semester Due Monday 12/5): Please read and

reflect upon the attached article on SCARF and discuss how these 5 aspects might
impact your students heading into and during the holiday season.

Status - Students who come from unstable homes may be affected by any or all of
the five aspects discussed in the article. A student who enjoys higher peer status at
school and possibly a respectful status from the adults at school may conversely
experience terrible treatment at home. At home they may be treated inferiorly or
even as less than human, treatment that can lead to anger and lashing out.
Students who expect this to be their reality for the next several weeks with no way
to escape to school may act angrily and defiant towards teachers and other
students leading up to vacation.

Certainty At school there is a great deal of schedule and certainty. Students can
generally predict how their day will flow, from class to class, interactions with peers
and teachers; even the lunch menu is planned for an entire month with very few
alterations. Even students, who act out, misbehave, and push boundaries, have a
certainty of the response from authority. The rules and consequences are written
and published and available to them. At home this may not be the case. Students
may be punished for breaking rules they dont know about, or rules that change
from moment to moment. There may be little or no certainty in their home lives,
just one more thing to cause anxiety, depression, and acting out.

Autonomy The article discusses the relationship between autonomy and choice.
Granted there isnt a lot of choice available to students in the school setting on a
daily basis as their schedules are set and organized at the beginning of the
semester. However, the act of holding students accountable for their behaviors and
choices is in itself a type of autonomy. The students make their choices, whether to
bring their materials to class or not, whether to participate or not and the
consequences of their choices are predictable. In addition to having choices at
school that they may not have at home, students are EXPECTED to become more
autonomous and make good choices as they mature through school. These
expectations serve to empower students and teach them how to be citizens. When
the students spend extended amounts of time in their dysfunctional home
environments their ability to make good choices and to act independently can
become diminished.

Relatedness The connection that students have to their family members is not
always a stable, healthy connection. When students come to school the adults and
peers with whom they interact may not even know what kind of home life they
have. Being at school may be their only opportunity to interact normally with other
people who dont judge them. Time at school may be the only time where they are
validated and are treated with compassion. It may be the only time that their ideas
and interests may be listened to. The anticipation of 2 weeks of being ignored,
berated, and diminished is certainly an understandable reason for a change in
behavior that can affect classroom dynamics and academic achievement.

Fairness Fairness would be the aspect that ties all the others together. For
students with unhealthy home environments, the lack of status as people that they
face there is unfair. The lack of certainty for proper treatment, love, food, shelter,
and security is unfair. The lack of choice is unfair. The lack of connectedness and
acceptance by the people who are supposed to love and care for them above
anyone else is unfair. I have a MINIMUM of 20% of my students who have been
dealt an unfair hand in life. Ive barely been teaching for a year and already Ive
experienced students who have parents in jail, suicides in the family, homelessness,
drugs, foster care, broken and mixed families, depression, cutting, physical, mental,
and sexual abuse, truancy, severe health concerns, PTSDthe list continues like a
made-for-TV movie depicting all the possibilities that could exist in a student
population.

It breaks my heart to see students wandering the hall after school who dont want
to go home, even though they just spent the day complaining about being trapped
at school. It breaks my heart to hear the same students talking about always being
hungry or tired and wondering if its because theyre typical teens or because they
dont have food or a safe place to sleep at night. I cant fix it. I cant take them
home. I cant buy them gifts for Christmas. All I can do is be compassionate and
strict at school, give them expectations in my classroom. I can respect them as
people (even if they have unappealing behaviors) and I can be a safe place for them
to exist.