Communication in the classroom can be facilitative and non-facilitative. Facilitative communication refers to open communication (i.e., verbal responses) that encourages sharing and participation by the students in the class. Non-facilitative communication refers to closed communication (i.e., verbal responses) or communication that dominates interaction and discourages sharing and participation by the students. Facilitative communication fosters an environment of support, encouragement, closeness, mutual respect, and change. Students can meet changes and challenges more readily within a learning environment that promotes learning and growth. When communication is closed, the student can experience an unfriendly environment that may actually hinder learning and growth. Teachers can unintentionally create the latter learning environment without training in effective communication in the classroom. The alternative education classroom is particularly well suited to the application of facilitative communication as students in these classrooms often experience difficulty in the learning environment and in interpersonal relationships.

The importance of building effective helping relationships was discussed in session one and listening skills were emphasized in session two. In this session, further application of basic helping skills is presented. Using effective helping responses in the classroom is key to fostering an open and productive learning environment. The following review of facilitative responding in the classroom is designed to assist teachers in applying facilitative responding to their work with students.

Facilitative and Non-facilitative Responses

According to Wittmer and Clark (2002), facilitative responses are empathic, warm, caring, and person-centered, and foster a helping relationship. Within a context of an effective helping relationship, students' learning and cooperation is increased. Facilitative responses facilitate students to think more about their ideas, thoughts, and feelings. When students are attempting to make changes to attitudes, thoughts, and feelings and improve on behaviors, this type of supportive environment is essential. On the other hand, non-facilitative responses are practically non-effective and these ways of responding to students can substantially decrease the effectiveness of learning environments. Some verbal responses have less possibility to enhance helping relationships and facilitative communication. These verbal responses are not as likely to encourage participation in learning and growth by students.

At this stage in your training, it is important to think for a moment how you presently view communication with students. What characterizes the way you talk with students? How do you think students respond to this type of communication? What type of communication do you value? What type of communication should there be in the alternative education classroom?

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Non-facilitative Responses

It is important to note that there are many times that teachers do use the following responses effectively. Each type of response DOES have a place in classroom communication. There are times when reassurance and/or praise are helpful for a student. And certainly, there are times when advising and evaluating are a part of a teacher's role. Analyzing and interpreting students' ideas, thoughts, and feelings can also be helpful. However, when teachers rely on these verbal responses, they tend to deny feelings and they tend to place the teacher is a role of "expert" and do not encourage students to "own" their problem. Facilitative responses, on the other hand, empower students.

Reassuring and giving praise are responses that are usually intended to let the student know that the teacher believes in them and to inspire confidence. Instead these responses may indicate that 'you shouldn't feel as you do' or 'don't talk about it anymore.' For example, "You know, you're not that different from other students I've worked with" and "Things always look bad this time of year, but you will be okay" both sound positive-but these responses have the undesired effect of dismissing the students feelings, telling them not to be concerned, equating their feelings to those of others and worse yet, these responses are discouraging the student to continue sharing their concerns. Though educators have pushed giving praise for years, this kind of responding also can be problematic. Praise is linked to behavioral schools of thought. Those who use praise often do so as a means to "reinforce" students' behaviors. This approach is not altogether problematic, but when praise is used it tends to promote the idea that change is not within the individual-that it can be brought about by the teacher. It is important for teachers who use praise with their students to use it intentionally and not for empty congratulatory remarks or as merely a means of behavioral modification. Ultimately, reassurance and praise as verbal responses have good intent, but they are ineffective at bringing about growth in students compared to facilitative responses.

Analyzing and interpreting responses attempt to explain reasons for others' thoughts, feelings, and/or behavior. Examining the 'why' of a student's situation can be a tempting concept in an alternative education classroom because students' situations and resulting behavior can be difficult to understand. In each of the following examples, the teacher attempts to explain the student's behavior: "Don't you see that you see your teacher as your father. You're rebelling against authority." and "Your unhappiness stems from your problems at home." These responses usually amount to telling the student, "This is what you need to think or this is why you did what you did." It is usually much more effective to involve the student in this type of analysis and interpreting of how they feel, think, and behave. Be careful. Analyzing and interpreting responses come more easily than you might think. If you hear yourself making such remarks to students, be wary. And take a step back and invite them to participate in the "what" and "why" of their situation.

Advising and evaluating can be an important part of a teacher's responses. There are cautions when using advice and evaluation with students. First, it gives the impression that teachers know what is best for students, it takes ownership of the student's problem away from them, and they risk identifying the student's needs as equal to their own. For example, if the phrase, "If I were you…" rings through what you are saying, be aware. You might be giving them advice that is not valid for them-but for you. For example, "Don't let him get to you. Stand up for yourself." and "If you'd be better at doing your homework, your teacher wouldn't be upset with you."

Facilitative Responses

Using effective helping responses takes thought and practice. In the section that follows, an overview of facilitative responses is given with examples. Effective helping responses have two primary purposes. They are (1) to foster open communication and (2) to foster change and/or problem solving. Feeling focus and empathizing-Go beyond the words to the feelings that are behind the words. Empathizing means "putting yourself in another person's "shoes." Clarifying and summarizing-Help students "hear back" their responses. Clarifying is a response to help understand the speaker's point of view better. These responses can come in the form of questions. They also can come in the form of statements that summarize the content that was heard and to determine whether or not the helper's understanding of the content is correct. Questions-Invite the students to share thoughts, ideas, & feelings. There is an "art" to effective questioning-not asking too many/or too few-using open rather than closed questions to encourage talking. Feedback and Confrontation-Give students honest & helpful feedback. Feedback is defined as providing straightforward information to the student about their thoughts, feelings, or actions. Feedback should always be given in an honest and constructive manner. Confrontation usually refers to stating incongruence in a student's thoughts, feelings, and actions. Directing-Help students generate options for their current thoughts, feelings, and actions. Giving students suggestions can be helpful. Steps can be taken to involve the student in generating these options, but often giving a "nudge" is warranted.

Activity 1. This activity gives you an opportunity to examine your current level of facilitative responding. You might think of this as a "pre-test." Using your knowledge of facilitative responses, try to generate a facilitative response for each of the following student statements. Try to use each of the facilitative responses that have been introduced at least one time. Practice using several different types of responses for each item. Then, in a small group, compare your facilitative responses with your peers. Discuss each practice response. Evaluate your ability to use facilitative versus non-facilitative responses. Spend some time discussing the use of facilitative responses in the classroom.

Items:
"I work slower than most people, and all the teachers at my other school gave me extra time."
"You don't understand me or my problems."
"When I graduate, I'm just going to get a job. Why do I need to learn this?"
"But they were ganging up on me. They were kicking me and making fun of me. So, I
got mad."
"No matter how hard I study-I go 'blank' when I see the test."

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Feeling Focus

Feeling focus responses can be difficult to learn. We are often not socialized to make such empathic responses. Responding in this way depends on an ability to be sensitive not only to words and behaviors, but also the feelings that are behind them. Empathizing means reflecting back the feelings to the student in a non-threatening and facilitative way. You might question the importance of responding to students' feelings in the classroom-teachers are after all, busy with teaching student academic material. Is there time for feelings? Or more importantly, is there time to ignore feelings? Feelings are easily categorized by those that are (1) positive and those that are (2) negative. Choosing appropriate feeling words can be more difficult than it seems. Effective helpers realize that they can distort the feelings of others because their own values and perceptions affect our understanding. Gazda (1995) suggests the following helpful guidelines for selecting feeling words.

1. Identify the general category/mood-positive or negative.
2. Identify the specific kind of feeling-unhappy, fearful, elated, etc.
3. Decide on the intensity of the feeling-high, moderate, or low.
4. Verbalize (or write) the word that would be meaningful to the student-in the student's vocabulary range.

Finally, it is important that you examine the extent to which you are comfortable with feelings. Not all of us are comfortable dealing with the feelings of others (or ourselves, sometimes). In particular, many experience discomfort when negative feelings are expressed. Take time to reflect on your comfort level with different kinds of emotions and your ability to work with students who express difficult emotions. The most important part of a helping relationship is being able to effectively respond to others' feelings. It takes practice! It does not come easily to most people. So, let us practice.

Activity 2. This exercise will help you to build a list of feeling words you can use to describe feelings to students. It also will sharpen your analysis of students' feelings. There are often many feeling words that can be used to describe a student's feelings. First, try to list as many feeling words as you can. Start with some basic feeling words such as happy, sad, and mad. To help you generate many feeling words, try thinking of intensity of feelings such as mad-annoyed, angry, and furious. This list should help you with the second activity. For each student response, try writing several words to describe how the student is feeling.

Clarifying and Summarizing

Responses that summarize content OR clarify the most salient parts of content of the speaker's statements are helpful when there is a question about whether you understand what was stated. A clarification response is a way of asking whether or not your understanding of the statement is accurate. It is a way for the student to "hear back" what they have stated. And it is a way for the listener to "state back" what they believe they heard. For example, "I think I heard you say that you are confused about the rules and need more time to get accustomed to our school. Did I hear correctly?" Clarification responses usually use "new" words in an effort to restate, reframe, and clear up the student's words. Summarizations usually use similar language as the student but get to the "heart" of what the student is saying or makes a longer statement shorter and easier to understand. It "hits the highlights" so to speak. The following are additional clarification statements you can use…"If I hear you right, you are telling me…, you seem to be saying that….or if I am following you, you're saying…" Clarification and summarization can be important responses to use in the classroom because they guard against misunderstandings between the teacher and the student.

Questions

Teachers use questions. They ask questions as a general way of communicating. You have probably already received instruction in ways to use questions in the classroom. Questions are used somewhat differently from a helping perspective than they are from a didactic perspective. Using questions effectively also is considered important to the helping process. However, using questions can be problematic. That is, helpers often ask TOO MANY questions. We do not need to use the "detective" type of questions nearly as much as the "explorer" type of questions. In the school environment, we often resort to becoming a "detective" and risk overlooking the benefits of taking a more "explorer" stance with our students. It is in the latter exchange that students tend to change and grow more. Open questions are inviting, that is, they indicate that you are interested in hearing MORE from the student. These questions usually begin with "what and how." Closed questions indicate that you are interested in hearing LESS from the student. These questions usually begin with "did, do, are, or is." Closed questions can be answered with a mere "yes" or "no." "Why" questions are closed questions that need special mention here. "Why" questions can be off-putting. Students are required to explain their behavior over and over. Often they have difficulty understanding their own behavior and grow weary of trying to explain it. These questions are perceived as "blaming" and should be avoided. Generate your own list of effective questions. Think of the way each question would be perceived by students.

Here are some examples:
What do you like best about yourself?
What do you think is the best way to handle this?
How do you think you'll feel if you do that?
How would you describe yourself 5 years from now?
How will you be different if this problem is solved?

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Feedback and Confrontation

Providing constructive feedback in the form of honest, facilitative responses about students' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can be a powerful tool for change. Confrontation involves informing students of discrepancy between things they say about themselves and what they do. Confrontation is helpful for students to examine their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This type of challenge should always be taken on within the context of a caring helping relationship. Giving students feedback and confronting them is unproductive, even harmful, if they do not trust you and your relationship with them. Gazda (1995) suggests some general guidelines to make feedback and/or confrontation more comfortable:

1. Establish a relationship of mutual caring and trust.
2. Begin confrontation with positive feedback.
3. Generalize the discussion instead of focus on the individual.
4. Phrase the confrontation as "tentative" by using words such as "sometimes" and "perhaps."
5. Use humor (sparingly and appropriately).
6. Consider the spirit in which the responses are made-avoid being punitive or hurtful.
7. Live in such as way as to make your feedback seem valuable to others.

Directing

When the helping relationship is established, it is often appropriate to be directive. That is, to ask the student to try something different. Directing is intended to explore and challenge. It is important to involve the student in attempts to direct the process of helping. Problem solving approaches that are discussed in the next unit in this module are consistent with the directing responses. Directing responses should not focus on what the student "ought" to do. These types of responses are unhelpful for most people. They are particularly unhelpful for students who have had a host of people try to direct their behavior over time and/or for those who are determined to not have their behavior directed. Rather, a directive response should focus on how useful being instructed in "how to" do something can be. Advice, instruction, information, opinion, and suggestion are all forms of directing (Ivey & Ivey, 1999). Directing responses should be clear, concrete, and focused on solutions. These responses should be co-constructed with the student. These responses also should be used only when appropriate and should not take the place of empowering the student to arrive at his or her own conclusions.

Summary

The following two activities are intended to integrate the use of facilitative responses discussed in this session:

Activity 3. This activity repeats the pre-test activity from earlier in the session. During this activity, however, you will be asked to write a facilitative response from each group (i.e., feeling focus, clarification, question, and directing. When you are finished, go over your responses with a peer. How did you do? What kinds of responses are most difficult to you? What responses come more naturally to you? Which of the responses do you think are most helpful in classroom verbal interactions? Be aware that your answers to each of these process questions indicate your preference for the style of communication you will use in the classroom. Be willing to challenge your thoughts about your preferred style of communication and to discuss it with your colleague.

For each of the following student responses, write a feeling focus, clarification, question, confrontation, and a directing response.

"I work slower than most people, and all the teachers at my other school gave me extra time."
"You don't understand me or my problems."
"When I graduate, I'm just going to get a job. Why do I need to learn this?"
"But they were ganging up on me. They were kicking me and making fun of me. So, I got mad."
"No matter how hard I study-I go 'blank' when I see the test."

Activity 4. Activity 4 is a role-play situation similar to the activity in session 2 on attending skills. This activity takes time to be done well. Make sure each person gets adequate time in each role. Also, spend some time processing the outcome of the role-play when you are finished. You might want to address some of the same process questions used in Activity 3. This activity should help you to evaluate your ability to apply facilitative responses in your classroom. Watch for the use of non-facilitative responses. Finally, try to determine how well you integrate use of the facilitative responses.

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