The Plan B Classroom 245school isn’t contributing to explosions that occur else-
where. Lots of things can happen at school to fuel explo-
sions outside of school: being teased by other children,
feeling socially isolated or rejected, feeling frustrated and
embarrassed over struggles on certain academic tasks, be-
ing misunderstood by the teacher. And homework can
extend school frustrations well after the bell rings at the
end of the school day. So schools aren’t off the hook for
helping, even if they don’t see the child at his worst.
Of course, there are lots of kids who do explode at
school. You may recall that Casey, one of the children you
read about in Chapter 4, had a pattern of running out of
the classroom when he became frustrated by a challenging
academic task or difficult interaction with a peer. When he
wasn’t running out of the room, he was exploding in the
room, turning red, crying, screaming, crumpling paper,
breaking pencils, falling on the floor, and refusing to work.
Danny, another of the children you read about in Chapter
4, was also capable of the occasional explosion at school.
On one particularly memorable day, the teacher desig-
nated him to hand out doughnuts to his classmates after
recess. Following recess, he hurried back to the classroom
to hand out the doughnuts, but a parent-aide was already
in the room and insisted on being the doughnut distribu-
tor. Danny attempted to explain to the parent that he had
been assigned the task of giving out the doughnuts, but
the parent would not be deterred. The shift in cognitive