PBS: "All" means all

When I was in college and learning about the social foundations of education, I remember being surprised to learn that the word "all" meant different things to different historical / theoretical contributors. Sometimes "all" included landowning men, sometimes it included women, sometimes it included children and sometimes it include people with disabilities, but very rarely did it mean "all."

A few weeks ago I attended a train-the-trainer workshop to teach PBS strategies to families. As I reflect more on the tenets of PBS and begin to schedule our family workshops, I came back to a slide that a friend and I created when we were training new teachers how to set up their V.E. classrooms. We came to the conclusion that when implementing positive behavior support systems and philosophies, "all" should really mean "all."

the kids who raise their hand and the kids who yell out

the kids who bathe every night and the kids who need to

the kids who write with their pencil and the kids who throw their pencil

the kids who say “I love you!” and the kids who say “ $#@% you!”

the kids who use a tissue and the kids who wipe their snot on you

the kids you’d take home in a heartbeat and the kids you hope are absent

the kids with parents that support you and the kids with parents that challenge you

the kids who respond to your interventions and the kids that exhaust your bag of tricks

the kids who consistently get their meds and the kids who don’t


Our main purpose of posing the above statements was to encourage teachers to reflect upon the following question:


Am I providing a safe learning environment for all learners?