What is the BBARS of Excellence Framework?

The Brain- and Body-Aligned Responsive Systems (BBARS) of Excellence is a framework that takes historically fragmented initiatives and combines them into one approach that supports the wellness, resilience, and success of the whole child as well as the adults who support that child. Leveraging the power of the human design, educators learn mindsets, approaches, and skills that support the functional and academic success of students. BBARS of Excellence is a best practice framework that moves educators away from behavior management and toward skill building and connection that not only sets students up for success but also fosters the educators’ passion for teaching.

Let’s begin by unpacking the name of the framework:

· Brain- and Body-Aligned: This framework is based upon educational neuroscience, which is the practice of taking what we know from the latest developments in neuroscience and making that information available to people like you and me who are not neuroscientists. We will explore this field in more detail in Chapter 3, but for now it’s important to know that neuroscience has gifted us with understanding how the human brain and body respond differently to stress than to ease. And how when our stress reactions within our brains and bodies are activated, we are less able to learn or even function well within a school setting. When we understand this, we can leverage it to support our students in ways that we can control to limit their experiences of stress in school. Despite all our best efforts, however, we can’t eliminate stress for our students (and we will discuss why elimination of all stress is actually unhealthy), but in understanding the human design, we can learn how to effectively support our students through their stress reactions. So, brain- and body-aligned means that the approaches and strategies within this framework are in alignment with how our human brains and bodies work. The BBARS of Excellence framework works with the human design instead of fighting against it, the way many of our historic approaches to working with students have done. Working with the human design helps both educators and students flourish.

· Responsive: Being responsive means being action-oriented and dynamic in nature. Responsiveness is intentional, mindful action based upon a situation that requires a need to be met. This is the opposite of reactive. Being reactive means having an automatic sensation, emotion, thought, feeling, or behavior that results from an activator, or a cause. When I am stressed, I automatically react with tense muscles, negative or anxious thinking, and, ultimately, controlling behavior. Due to much introspective work, I have learned that when I experience those muscle sensations and anxious thoughts, they are clues that I need to pause before I react with controlling behavior. In that pause, I regulate. I take some deep belly breaths with a long exhale. I get perspective. Then I respond with an intentional behavior that best serves the situation. That is my goal anyway. And because I am human, I mess up this responsive process frequently. And then I have the opportunity to make repairs, if necessary, to model a growth mindset and learn from my mistakes. Due to my intentionality, I have set a new path, creating new habits of responsive behaviors when stress reactions arise within me. And that is what the BBARS of Excellence framework teaches educators to do. Development of this skill is a core component to the framework. With this skill in focus, both internal stressors such as negative thinking and external stressors such as student behavioral challenges are met with mindful, responsive support that meets the needs of the student from their physiological roots.

· Systems: Through systems, humans integrate fragmented ideas and functions. From the way the human brain and body are designed to the way our society functions, systems create structure. Due to the complexity of school systems, ideas, strategies, and approaches for growth are often presented in fragmented ways that fail to find a place within the system. Having talked with teachers across generations, I have heard often about the frequency with which initiatives are brought forth, worked on, and then dropped a year or two later. Is there growth when this happens? Yes, maybe a little. Does this pattern typically breed resentment and opposition that outweighs that growth? Often. What is needed is a systemic approach to supporting the professional development of educators and the growth of schools as whole systems. The BBARS of Excellence framework does just that. Proven, effective research and evidence is integrated into the framework to be introduced with intention in incremental ways. Educators and schools inevitably have varying degrees of strength in each of the five areas of competence within the framework. One educator may begin with improving upon how they build relationships with students while another educator focuses first on how to integrate collaborative processes for responding to behavioral challenges. In this way, the framework is responsive to the needs of each individual educator, and each school. This individual autonomy within the framework increases engagement. Each of us can feel independently guided, knowing that whichever aspect of the framework we choose supports the rest of the framework in a systemic way. Because of the systemic nature of the framework, we can keep focused on our jobs without having to constantly reorient ourselves.

· Excellence: Within much of Western culture, particularly U.S. culture, there is a focus on excelling—to do the best and to be the best. Traditional, achievement-focused success is often equated with high test scores and grades in school, goals scored and competitions won in extracurricular endeavors, and promotions and salaries earned in jobs. Traditional success is often fraught with messages to push ourselves beyond our capacity, which often leads to a lack of balance, poor mental and physical wellness, and burnout. Excellence, in the traditional success framework, is achieved through competitiveness at all costs that can lead to the sacrificing of relationships and integrity. And due to inequitable systems, the fields of play in the traditional success framework are often not level or inclusive. The BBARS of Excellence framework supports a reenvisioned success, characterized by progress toward goals using a growth mindset. Individuals are encouraged to work within their capacity and regulate as needed. The environment of reenvisioned success includes all diverse individuals within the system, which leads to creative solutions. This experience fosters balance and is integrated with wellness and joy, which in turn, fosters a greater capacity to meet goals and achieve desired outcomes. I have frequently found that tuning into oneself and taking care of oneself, part of this reenvisioned success, is perceived as “failure to work hard,” but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. With the hard work on the path of reenvisioned success, we allow ourselves and our students a greater capacity to succeed. Reenvisioned success broadens the scope of success to include not only the academic but also social, emotional, behavioral, and wellness—functional—success.