by Dr Brigitta Bogdanov
Students who say they fit in but they are wrong....
I would suggest that there may be 2 issues going on here. These students may actually feel detached from the group, but didn't want to appear that way, so overestimated how many friends or allies they have. These students may have a problem with self-esteem. The more likely option though is that the student in this quadrant is a potential bully. These students will have an exaggerated view of how much people like them, so rate everyone as friends, but in fact the rest of the class is quite cautious of that person. For this quadrant, the plans would need to incorporate some sort of social skills aspect, as well as bullying education. But it is also important to find out why the person is being a bully.....if in fact they are. If bullying has been identified then restorative practices would be useful.
Students who say they don't fit in and they are right....
These are the student who youhave to be careful with, as they may not fit in with that particular class, but they have a great number of connections outside of school. However if they have no connections at all, that is when there may be issues. These students may not know how to act socially, and may not know how to create social connections. For this quadrant, activities around group work, and building connections will be important. Additionally activities around building resilience will be useful. This is particularly the case for students who may not have friends within their class, but are quite connected elsewhere. Resilience will allow them to get through their class time, until they are able to get back to their environment where they feel safe.
Students who say they don't fit in, but are wrong...
These students will have an issue with their self esteem, but also with trust. Therefore, it will be important for their plans to consider these aspects. The student's behaviour will be positive, otherwise other students would not have rated them as a friend. But for some reason the student has decided that they are not able to rate anyone as a friend or an ally. They may feel that they are not worthy of being friends with others, and therefore do not rate others as their friends, or
they may not feel that they can trust others to be their friends. The other possibility is that they do not understand how to form close connections. Therefore working on overall connectedness with this quadrant will also be important.