Rick Lavoie Videos

Both of the videos by Rick Lavoie have influenced me greatly. After watching them, I have a new outlook toward several of my students who are special or labeled as LD. The most striking thing that I have realized is that the videos point to a much, much wider audience. What I mean by "audience " is that the same ideas and techniques are needed by many of my students that are not under that "label". Students that are "normal" would benefit from the ideas and techniques used by Rick Lavoie. The three things needed by us to work effectively with learning disabled children should also by used all the time by effective teachers.
The most important thing that I learned were that any negative reinforcement only stops the behavior for that moment. Postive reinforcement , by praise and reward, will succeed because it will change behavior. It is always easier to express the immediate negative response, rather than taking the time to come up with the correct one. The seven questionable behavioral practices illustrated by Lavoie pointed out some of my own miscues. Also the three reasons why students argue with a teacher are classic discriptions of misbehaviors in my classes. I have used the postive poker chip technique with very good results with some very severe ADD adults and students. The use of poker chips will always be on my mind when confronted with any LD person. As Lavoie states, we all must be a "Talent Scout" to be able to find out what talent or gift a student has.
The second video was also good in that it pointed out we must always be teaching "Social Skills". The environment that our students have experienced may be so different from normal that many skills, learned at an early age, have been lost or not even taught. We have difficulty teaching those skills because they are so natural to most of us. The LD student does not learn the same way as what we have been able to. What seems so normal to us is very strange to the LD student. It makes it very difficult for us to teach because we know it really well. The point about not be able to question things to be able to learn was totally new to me.
I hope we can view more videos like these. I feel that the hidden social skill education and the unwritten curriculum are one of the major education problems that we have today.