One thing I have noticed over the years is that, generally speaking, the more difficulty a kid is having in school, the more his or her world shrinks around them. For instance, for a long time now behavioral difficulties get shoveled over to special education specialists. There is a logic to this, but one net result is that the pool of children and adults that the kid is exposed to daily gets reduced, interactions become more stilted.

Simplifying the world for a person in trouble is a two-edged sword. Things become more manageable, but the live-giving complexity of genuine and mutual relationships are compromised.

This is one of the reasons that we work very hard at maintaining a very diverse student body- diverse, that is, in terms of ability, experiences, and expectations. The range is a head-scratcher sometimes: a few brilliant students, some kids wild as puppies, others clearly on the autistic spectrum, others still struggling with post-traumatic syndromes, a few others utterly alienated from school, and of course, kids swept up in a family's emotional chaos. A small school with all this variety must return to a basic principal, that of basic needs. And the most basic need is to

speak and be heard, act and be consequential.

Too often it is second of these that is ignored. Schools and special programs all have "groups", and therapists, who excel at facilitating a "talking" arena. But where can a teenager really act, really stretch out and flex their power and direct their energy? Invariably, for the person having trouble, the situation is recognized intuitively: they do crazy things. Action is reserved and approved for kids who get the rules. The rest is pathologized.

At this school, kids do things that effect everybody. That is the virtue of a small community, your own fingerprints are everywhere, and the feedback is instant and natural, whether you want it or not.

This is where self-awareness training comes in. All that feedback is pretty stormy; mindfulness and self-awareness slows the game down, it cuts the reactivity. When a young person can manage much of the input (as it were), the stress of everyday life becomes an experience of efficacy.

Where adults come in is the role of managing the "arena" so mistakes don't get out of hand, but otherwise practicing in themselves being genuine and spontaneous with their charges. Too often, adult control is projected into all the interactions between adult and student. This will drive away the kids who are already rightly questioning the usefulness of adults.