FIRES in Junior High Schools™

EXPERIENCE & FOUNDATION

This Morning, I Couldn't Find My Phone or My Car Keys

I started my day frantically looking for my phone and my car keys. I couldn't find either one, and almost immediately the conversation inside my head started: Where did I put them? How could I lose them again? What the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I keep track of anything?

I started searching faster. I checked places I had already checked. I became increasingly frustrated. I could feel it in my body. My thinking was narrowing, and somehow the harder I tried to find everything, the less effectively I seemed to be searching.

Then something changed. I noticed what was happening—not where my phone was or where my keys were.

I noticed me.

What was happening to me right now?

In only a few minutes, I had gone from losing two everyday objects to criticizing myself, becoming increasingly frustrated, searching more frantically, and functioning less effectively. My phone and keys were still missing, so the practical problem had not disappeared. But now I could notice something else:

What was my nervous system responding to right now?

That question changed the investigation. Instead of only asking where my keys were, I could also notice my frustration, the conversation inside my head, the tension in my body, the growing sense of urgency, and what was happening to my ability to think clearly.

Nobody had to tell me to calm down. I didn't have to immediately analyze why this was happening or find a strategy to fix myself. The first step was much simpler.

I noticed.

That is where FIRES begins.

The Mystery Begins With Us

There is another way to think about what happened that morning.

A mystery had opened.

Not Where are my keys? That was one mystery.

The more interesting one was:

What is happening with me right now?

Junior high students already live with versions of that mystery every day.

Why can I concentrate incredibly well sometimes and barely concentrate at all another time?
Why can I know how to do something and still have trouble doing it?
Why does something bother me so much today when yesterday it didn't?
Why can I handle frustration one time and lose it another?
Why do I feel comfortable with one group of people and completely different with another?
Why did something suddenly go much better than I expected?

FIRES does not begin by giving students answers to those questions.

It gives them a way to investigate.

The mystery is not there because something is wrong with the student.

The mystery is there because there is more to discover.

That idea can become a simple narrative thread throughout FIRES:

Notice → become curious → gather clues → look for connections → explore possibilities → discover more about yourself.

HELPS™ gives The Detective a way to gather wider clues.
RESET™ gives The Scientist a way to explore possibilities.
Discovery develops from what students begin learning about themselves.

The goal is not to solve a student once and for all.

It is to help students become increasingly interested in understanding themselves.

Now Imagine a Junior High Classroom

Imagine a seventh-grade classroom filling with students. One student cannot find an assignment they were certain was in their backpack. Another has a test next period. Someone had an argument at lunch. Someone stayed up half the night. Another student is excited about something that happened that morning. Someone else is irritated and has no idea why.

The teacher enters with experiences too. Perhaps the previous class was difficult, an upcoming meeting is on their mind, they slept poorly, or they are simply carrying the accumulated demands of the school day.

Before beginning the lesson, the teacher pauses and asks:

"How are you doing right now?"

The question is for the students, but it is also for the teacher. Students do not have to answer aloud. What they notice can remain private. There is no correct response, nothing they are required to disclose, and nothing they are required to fix.

The purpose is not for everyone to become calm or feel the same way before class begins.

The purpose is simply to notice.

For a moment, everyone can become aware of what they are bringing into the room. What am I feeling? What is happening in my body? Where is my attention? Am I interested, distracted, tired, restless, calm, irritated, excited, worried, hungry, uncomfortable, or still thinking about something that happened before class? What am I saying to myself?

Importantly, they are not looking only for problems. One student might notice, I'm going to fail this test. Another realizes, I'm exhausted. Someone else may recognize, I'm really interested in what we're doing today. Another may think, I handled something difficult at lunch better than I usually do. Someone may simply realize, I'm having a pretty good day.

Both difficult and successful experiences provide information. A difficult moment may help us become curious about what is making access harder. A successful moment may reveal something that is already helping.

Nothing necessarily has to happen next. Someone may notice their breathing and naturally take a breath. Another person may become aware of tension in their shoulders, noise in the room, excitement in their body, or simply that their mind is somewhere else.

Sometimes awareness itself is the beginning.

For a few moments, students and teacher have shifted from automatically experiencing what is happening to noticing themselves experiencing it. That small pause creates some space between having an experience and automatically reacting to it or deciding what it means.

Once we notice, curiosity becomes possible.

And once curiosity becomes possible, the investigation can begin.

What Is FIRES?

The FIRES Model™ is a nervous-system and whole-person framework designed to help people better understand how they function in everyday life. FIRES explores how our nervous system, current conditions, what is happening within us and around us, and other whole-person influences interact to affect how we feel, think, learn, communicate, behave, relate to others, and access our abilities.

In schools, FIRES is not designed only for students who are struggling, nor is it something adults learn so they can analyze or manage students. It can be learned and used by students, teachers, administrators, counselors, school psychologists, instructional aides, support staff, and other members of the school community.

Everyone brings a nervous system into school, and everyone's functioning can change across moments, situations, and conditions.

Schools necessarily pay attention to what people do. Is a student concentrating, completing assignments, remembering information, regulating emotions, participating, following expectations, and getting along with others? Is a teacher able to remain patient, flexible, organized, attentive, and responsive throughout a demanding day?

FIRES does not remove those questions. It adds another one before conclusions are made:

What is happening right now?

That question opens an investigation. FIRES is not about making excuses or eliminating responsibility. It is about developing greater understanding before deciding what an experience means and what might be useful next.

The Conversation Already Happening Inside Us

People are continuously experiencing and interpreting what is happening, often without consciously recognizing that they are doing so. My missing phone and keys quickly became What the hell is wrong with me? A student forgets an assignment and thinks, I'm so stupid. Someone cannot begin a math problem and thinks, I suck at math. A teacher loses patience and thinks, I should be better at this.

These thoughts can feel like facts because they happen so quickly. FIRES creates some space between having an experience and automatically reacting to it or deciding what it means.

Instead of immediately accepting the first conclusion, we can notice it:

That's what I'm telling myself right now.

Once we notice, we can become curious. What is happening? What else might be contributing? What might my nervous system be responding to right now?

The first explanation may contain useful information, but we do not have to end the investigation there.

A central FIRES principle is:

Self-blame closes the investigation.
Curiosity reopens it.

Looking in Both Directions

Human beings naturally notice difficulty. A student who cannot concentrate, forgets an assignment, becomes upset, or cannot get started is likely to notice that something went wrong. Adults notice it too.

FIRES encourages us to become curious about those experiences without turning them too quickly into conclusions about ability, motivation, character, or identity.

But the investigation should not stop with difficulty.

A student may suddenly become deeply engaged in a project, handle frustration differently, feel comfortable speaking in a particular group, concentrate for much longer than expected, help another student effectively, or discover an ability they did not realize they had.

Those experiences deserve curiosity too.

What was happening? What was different? What might already have been helping?

The same applies to adults. A teacher may notice that a normally difficult class felt unusually manageable, that patience came more easily, or that students became particularly engaged during a lesson.

FIRES is therefore not simply a way to understand what goes wrong.

It is a way to discover more about how we function.

That includes what makes access more difficult, what helps bring our abilities and strengths forward, and what we may already be doing successfully without recognizing it.

This provides the foundation for looking more closely at ability and access, the Five FIRES Domains™, and the everyday clues through which our nervous system may be communicating.

UNDERSTANDING FUNCTIONING

Ability and Access: One of the Central Mysteries

One of the central FIRES concepts for education is the distinction between ability and access. A person can possess an ability without having equal access to that ability at every moment or under every condition.

A student may understand mathematics but freeze during a timed test. A student may write successfully in one classroom but struggle to organize thoughts in another. Someone may participate comfortably with three classmates but rarely speak in a group of thirty. A student may regulate emotions effectively in the morning but have considerably more difficulty after hours of academic, social, physical, and sensory demands.

Adults experience this too. A teacher who is normally patient, flexible, and organized may find those abilities harder to access after poor sleep, several difficult interactions, constant interruptions, time pressure, and hours of noise.

The abilities have not necessarily disappeared.

Access has changed.

This matters because inconsistent performance can easily be interpreted as attitude, effort, motivation, or ability. FIRES encourages another question before reaching that conclusion:

If we know the ability is there, what might be affecting access to it right now?

For students, that can become a particularly powerful mystery:

I know I can do this.
So why is it harder right now?

The question also works in the other direction. Why was concentrating easier today? Why did a student who rarely speaks become highly engaged during this activity? Why did someone who thinks they are "not a leader" suddenly organize a group, communicate clearly, and confidently help classmates during a project they cared about?

Those experiences can provide information about what supports access. FIRES therefore helps us investigate both what may interfere with functioning and what helps abilities, interests, and strengths come forward.

The Five FIRES Domains™

Five Places to Look for Clues

As curiosity develops, we need places to look. FIRES organizes everyday experience through five interacting domains: Feelings, Interest, Restoration, Environment, and Sensory.

The domains do not tell us why something is happening.

They give us different places to look as we investigate.

❤️ Feelings includes emotional experiences such as frustration, anxiety, excitement, embarrassment, anger, disappointment, confidence, loneliness, enjoyment, or uncertainty.
🎯 Interest includes engagement, meaning, purpose, novelty, challenge, boredom, curiosity, and personal relevance.
😴 Restoration includes sleep, fatigue, breaks, accumulated demands, physical resources, and opportunities for the nervous system to restore.
🏠 Environment includes classroom structure, relationships, transitions, expectations, workload, peer dynamics, unpredictability, time pressure, and other conditions surrounding us.
🔊 Sensory includes what the nervous system receives from both outside and inside the body, including noise, lighting, temperature, crowds, smells, movement, physical discomfort, hunger, and other internal sensations.

The Five Domains do not operate independently. They continually interact with one another and with other whole-person influences such as health, development, relationships, previous experiences, responsibilities, culture, available resources, expectations, cumulative stress, and what may be happening outside school.

Consider a student who slept poorly, had an argument with a friend before school, skipped breakfast, is sitting in a noisy classroom, and is being asked to begin an assignment they find confusing and uninteresting. It would be difficult to identify one single factor that explains how that student functions during the next twenty minutes.

The same student under different conditions may function very differently.

FIRES therefore encourages us to look more broadly at interactions, conditions, changes, and patterns over time rather than automatically searching for one cause.

The Five Domains give the investigation somewhere to begin.

The Nervous System Communicates Through Everyday Experiences

Experiences Are Clues, Not Conclusions

The nervous system does not usually provide us with a clear verbal explanation of what it is experiencing. A seventh-grade student is unlikely to walk into class and announce, "My nervous system is becoming overloaded."

Instead, what is happening may become visible through ordinary emotional, physical, behavioral, attentional, and self-talk experiences.

A student may think or say, I can't do this. This is stupid. I don't care. Leave me alone. I need to get out of here. Another student may put their head down, become unusually quiet, talk excessively, become restless, argue, avoid beginning an assignment, or repeatedly ask to leave the room. A student might notice tension, a headache, exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, or simply a sense that something does not feel right.

Adults have clues too. A teacher may notice increasing irritation, tension, exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, impatience, or a growing urge to respond more sharply than usual.

These experiences are not automatically evidence that something is wrong.

They are information.

Positive experiences can communicate information as well. Interest, enjoyment, comfort, confidence, connection, energy, sustained attention, curiosity, or a sense that something feels unexpectedly manageable may provide clues about conditions that are supporting the person.

FIRES treats these experiences as clues, not conclusions.

A clue does not automatically tell us what is happening. It gives us something worth noticing and possibly investigating.

Why Junior High?

Because Students Are Already Discovering Who They Are

Junior high may be an especially important time to learn this way of thinking. Students are experiencing substantial neurological, physical, emotional, social, and environmental changes while simultaneously being expected to become increasingly independent.

Academic demands increase. Peer relationships become more complicated. Identity becomes increasingly important. Students become more aware of differences between themselves and other people, and they begin developing explanations for those differences.

Why can everyone else start this assignment and I can't? Why do I get so upset? Why can't I concentrate? Why am I so tired? Why do I talk so much? Why am I so quiet? Why is this easy for everyone else?

Repeated experiences can gradually become conclusions about identity. "I couldn't concentrate" becomes "I'm stupid." "I couldn't get started" becomes "I'm lazy." "I lost control" becomes "I'm a bad kid." "I don't fit in" becomes "Something is wrong with me."

But junior high is also a period of discovering strengths, interests, relationships, preferences, and abilities. A student may begin recognizing, I'm actually good at explaining things to other people. I concentrate incredibly well when I'm interested. I feel more comfortable speaking in a smaller group. I'm good at helping people when they're upset. I didn't think I could do that.

FIRES gives students a way to become curious about both kinds of experiences without requiring either one to become an immediate conclusion about who they are.

The goal is not to provide students with an explanation for every experience.

It is to help them keep discovering themselves.

The mystery framing can make that idea concrete:

The student is not a problem adults are trying to solve. The student is becoming the investigator of their own experience.

What Am I Already Doing That Works?

When something becomes difficult, adults often move quickly toward solutions. What strategy should we teach? What accommodation should we provide? What intervention should we try?

Those questions may become useful, but FIRES asks another question too:

What am I already doing—or what is already present—that seems to help?

Sometimes the student already has part of the answer.

A student who concentrated unusually well may discover that they moved away from a distracting area before beginning. A student who completed a large assignment may realize that they naturally divided it into smaller pieces. Someone who handled frustration successfully may recognize that they asked for clarification before becoming overwhelmed. Another student may notice that they function better when they write things down, move periodically, work near a particular person, eat before beginning homework, or give themselves some time after arriving home before starting.

These may be strategies the student is already using without recognizing them as strategies. The helpful factor may also be something the student is not consciously doing. It may be a relationship, an environment, an interest, timing, predictability, available support, or another condition that helps bring greater access forward.

The same process applies to adults. A teacher may notice that a particularly demanding class went unusually well and discover that they prepared materials differently, gave clearer directions, changed the room arrangement, ate lunch instead of working through it, took a few quiet minutes between classes, or asked a colleague for help.

Instead of simply thinking, That went well today, FIRES invites curiosity:

What was different? What was present? What was I doing? What might already be helping?

This does not mean that every successful experience can be explained or deliberately recreated. It means that successful experiences deserve investigation rather than being taken for granted.

FIRES helps make the invisible visible. It helps people recognize supports, conditions, relationships, strengths, and strategies that may already be contributing to how they function.

These observations provide the foundation for learning how FIRES can be used more intentionally. Students and adults can begin gathering clues, comparing experiences, noticing connections, exploring possibilities, and gradually developing a more individualized understanding of how they function.

LEARNING AND USING FIRES

How Students Could Learn FIRES

Begin With the Mystery, Not the Model

Students do not need to begin by memorizing the Five FIRES Domains™ or listening to a lecture about nervous-system regulation. FIRES can begin with experiences they already recognize.

A teacher might ask:

"Think of something you know you can do, but sometimes—for some reason—you just can't seem to do it."

Students already know these experiences: concentrating, remembering something, beginning homework, falling asleep, taking a test, speaking in front of a class, dealing with a friend, playing a sport, handling frustration, handling frustration, or finding something they just had in their hand.

The teacher might then ask:

"What do you usually tell yourself when that happens?"

Students may recognize familiar internal responses: I'm stupid. I'm lazy. Why can't I just do this? I always screw things up.

Then the investigation can turn in another direction. Think of a time something went surprisingly well. What was different? What were you doing? What was happening around you? Was anything already helping?

A student may remember concentrating for a long time on something they cared about. Another may remember handling an argument differently than usual. Someone may realize that an assignment that normally feels overwhelming became manageable because they knew exactly how to begin. Another may recognize that they felt unusually comfortable participating with a particular group.

Students begin with their own experiences. They become curious and begin making discoveries before they are given terminology to describe what they are noticing.

FIRES teaching therefore begins with experience, invites curiosity and investigation, and then introduces language that helps students continue discovering.

What This Might Look Like in a Classroom

Jordan's Mystery

Imagine a student named Jordan who normally writes reasonably well but sits staring at a blank page during fifth period on Monday. Ten minutes pass and Jordan has not begun. It would be easy to conclude that Jordan is avoiding the assignment, lacks motivation, or needs to try harder.

A FIRES-informed teacher might instead say:

"You seem to be having a harder time getting started than usual. What's happening?"

Jordan answers, "I don't know."

That is an entirely acceptable answer.

The teacher does not need to solve Jordan's mystery.

The teacher does not need to interrogate Jordan or determine an immediate explanation. Perhaps Jordan slept poorly. Something upsetting happened during lunch. The room is noisier than usual. Jordan does not understand the first step. Several demands have accumulated throughout the day. Perhaps none of these is particularly important, or perhaps several are interacting.

Now consider Wednesday. Jordan receives another writing assignment and begins almost immediately.

That experience belongs in the investigation too.

Jordan slept better, lunch was uneventful, the room is quieter, and the teacher briefly clarified the first step. Jordan may also have done something that helps without consciously recognizing it—chosen a quieter seat, written down the first step, or organized materials before beginning.

None of these observations proves exactly what caused Monday's difficulty or Wednesday's success.

Both experiences become information.

Over time, Jordan may begin recognizing a pattern: Writing becomes much harder for me when I'm tired, already upset, and don't know how to begin. When I understand the first step and have less going on around me, starting is usually easier.

Jordan may also make another important discovery:

"I'm already doing some things that help."

That understanding provides considerably more useful information than simply concluding, "I'm bad at writing."

HELPS™ — The Detective

As students and adults become more familiar with FIRES, they can use HELPS™ — The Detective to widen the investigation.

The Detective metaphor is intentional.

A good detective does not decide what happened first and then search only for evidence that supports that conclusion. A detective gathers clues, considers different possibilities, looks for connections, and remains willing to revise an explanation when new information appears.

HELPS provides five areas to explore:

H — How am I feeling?
What am I experiencing emotionally?

E — Environment & Sensory
What is happening around me, and what is my nervous system taking in from outside and inside my body?

L — Level of Restoration
How rested, depleted, physically comfortable, or overloaded am I?

P — Purpose / Interest
How interested, connected, challenged, bored, or engaged am I?

S — Support
What support is available? What support am I already using? What might help?

HELPS can be used when something is difficult or when something is going particularly well. The Detective might become curious about clues that help explain why access became harder or clues that help identify what was supporting access.

Students and adults are not diagnosing themselves, and they are not trying to establish a cause from a single experience.

They are gathering information.

One clue may not mean very much. Over time, however, clues can be compared and connected. Repeated connections may begin revealing patterns, and those patterns can contribute to Discovery.

The purpose is not to force a conclusion but to gradually develop a more individualized understanding of how someone functions.

RESET™ — The Scientist

Once useful clues begin to emerge, FIRES moves from The Detective to The Scientist through RESET™.

The order matters.

FIRES does not begin with:

Here's the problem; here's the solution.

First we notice and investigate.

Then, when appropriate, The Scientist explores possibilities.

Sometimes RESET involves exploring something new. A student who repeatedly struggles to begin long assignments might explore whether identifying only the first step changes anything. Someone who notices that noise sometimes affects concentration might explore working in a different location and observe what happens.

At other times, The Detective has already uncovered something the person is doing successfully. If a student notices that starting is often easier after writing down the first step, The Scientist can explore whether that continues to help in other situations. If a student realizes that movement seems to help before certain tasks, they can become curious about when it helps and when it does not.

The student explores, observes, and learns.

Perhaps something helps; perhaps it does not. Perhaps it helps under some conditions but not others.

Every outcome can provide additional information.

RESET is not about finding a strategy that "fixes" a student.

It is about exploring possibilities and learning from what happens.

Greater understanding may also create greater choice. Students cannot control every condition, experience, or nervous-system response, but when they understand more about what is happening, they may have more possibilities for deciding what to do next.

FIRES Is Not Something We Do to Students

This distinction is essential.

FIRES is not an adult system for examining children and asking:

"Let's figure out what's wrong with Jordan."

The goal is for Jordan gradually to become the investigator:

"Let me learn more about how I function."

At first, adults may help by modeling curiosity, providing language, noticing changes, and creating opportunities for reflection. A teacher may ask, "What's happening right now?" or "Was anything different today?" A counselor may help a student use HELPS™ to look more widely for clues. A school psychologist may help identify patterns across situations.

But the long-term goal is not for adults to continually ask the FIRES questions for students.

Students increasingly begin asking themselves what they are noticing, what feels different, what is difficult, what is going well, what might be contributing, when a pattern does or does not occur, what they are already doing that helps, and what might be worth exploring.

The movement is from adults interpreting students toward students increasingly understanding themselves.

FIRES therefore is not something adults do to students. It is something students gradually learn to use for themselves.

The long-term goal is not greater adult control. It is greater student awareness, understanding, agency, curiosity, and Discovery.

Teachers and Staff Experience FIRES Too

FIRES becomes considerably more powerful when teachers and staff experience and use it themselves rather than simply being trained to deliver it to students.

Imagine beginning a staff experience with the same type of question we might ask students:

"Think of something you know you can normally do well, but sometimes—for some reason—you just can't access it as easily."

A teacher might think about patience. An administrator might think about decision-making. An instructional aide might think about concentration. A counselor might think about being fully present after several emotionally demanding conversations.

Then the same investigation begins. What do I notice? What was happening? What was different? What was difficult? What went well? What might have affected access? What was already helping?

Teachers and staff experience FIRES before being asked to introduce it to students. They develop their own understanding, begin using it personally, model curiosity in their interactions, and then learn how to introduce and teach FIRES in developmentally appropriate ways.

This is intentionally different from workplace settings in which a manager may share or model FIRES without having a formal teaching role. In schools, teaching is part of the educator's role, so teachers may explicitly help students learn the framework.

A teacher who notices increasing irritation late in the day can become curious before automatically acting from that irritation. An instructional aide may recognize that sustained noise is affecting concentration. A counselor may notice depletion after several demanding conversations. An administrator may discover that decision-making becomes more difficult when interruptions, time pressure, and competing responsibilities accumulate.

Adults can also investigate what is going well. A teacher may notice that a difficult class felt unusually manageable and become curious about what was different.

Students are learning about themselves while the adults around them are learning about themselves.

FIRES Within the School Community

A school is highly interconnected. Students affect teachers, teachers affect students, students affect one another, and adults throughout the school affect the environments in which learning takes place.

A student may arrive in class already affected by something that happened in the hallway. A teacher's increasing frustration can change the atmosphere of a classroom. A difficult transition can influence the first several minutes of the next period. Noise, schedule changes, relationships, workload, uncertainty, sensory conditions, and accumulated demands may affect different people in different ways.

The same interconnection can support functioning. A teacher notices that students are confused and clarifies the first step. An instructional aide recognizes that a student is becoming overwhelmed and quietly provides support. A student helps another student understand an assignment. A counselor helps someone recognize a pattern. An administrator changes a process that has been creating unnecessary difficulty for several classrooms.

FIRES helps make these interactions more visible without assuming that every difficulty belongs inside an individual student.

Sometimes the useful question is:

"What's happening with this student?"

Sometimes:

"What's happening between people?"

Sometimes:

"What's happening in this environment?"

And sometimes:

"What's happening with us?"

The same curiosity can be applied when something works exceptionally well. A classroom that repeatedly functions effectively, a transition that has become smoother, or a group of students who work particularly well together may contain useful information about conditions and supports that are already working.

As FIRES becomes more familiar across classrooms and roles, it can begin to provide a shared language for understanding how people and environments interact throughout the school day.

FIRES ACROSS THE SCHOOL

FIRES as a Whole-School Framework

As FIRES becomes familiar across a school, it can provide a shared language for understanding functioning without assuming that every difficulty begins and ends with an individual student.

Students can become curious about their own functioning. Teachers can examine what is happening within a classroom. Counselors, school psychologists, instructional aides, administrators, and other staff can look more broadly at relationships, transitions, expectations, workload, sensory conditions, available supports, school practices, and other factors that influence how people function throughout the day.

If only one teacher understands concepts such as ability and access or clues rather than conclusions, a student may encounter curiosity during one period and immediate judgment during the next. When more people understand the framework, those concepts can gradually become part of a shared school language.

This does not mean every experience becomes a FIRES discussion or that everyone responds to situations in exactly the same way.

It means that another question becomes available before conclusions are made:

What is happening here?

Sometimes the investigation leads primarily to an individual student. Sometimes it leads to a relationship, classroom condition, transition, schedule, support, or broader school practice. Often several levels are interacting.

FIRES does not determine where the answer should be found before the investigation begins.

FIRES Across the Curriculum

FIRES does not have to live only in advisory, counseling, health, or a separate social-emotional lesson. The same curiosity students use to investigate themselves can become part of how they learn throughout the school day.

The purpose is not to turn every academic subject into a FIRES lesson. Teachers continue teaching English, history, science, mathematics, art, music, physical education, and other subjects.

FIRES provides another way of looking.

📚 English — The Mystery of Characters

English classes already ask students to become investigators of people.

What might a character be feeling? What seems important to them? What conditions surround them? What relationships are affecting them? Why might the same character respond differently in different situations?

Students can gather clues from the text before reaching conclusions.

What does the author actually tell us? What are we inferring? What don't we know?

A character who appears lazy, difficult, selfish, frightened, impulsive, brave, withdrawn, or angry may become more complicated as additional information appears.

The goal is not to diagnose the character.

It is to remain curious long enough to see more of the story.

And occasionally the investigation can turn gently back toward the student:

Have I ever surprised myself by responding differently under different conditions?

Students do not have to answer publicly.

The mystery of a character can become one way of practicing curiosity about human beings—including ourselves.

🏛️ History — People, Decisions, and Context

History also involves mysteries of human behavior.

Why did a person make a particular decision? Why did a group respond the way it did? What pressures, relationships, resources, expectations, cultural conditions, dangers, opportunities, and limitations surrounded them?

Historical investigation requires an important discipline that fits naturally with FIRES:

Evidence is not the same as assumption.

Students can ask what evidence actually exists, what can reasonably be inferred, and what remains unknown.

FIRES should not be used to retrospectively diagnose historical figures or claim that we know what someone's nervous system was experiencing.

Instead, it encourages a wider investigation:

What was happening around this person? What choices seemed available? What might we understand differently when we consider the conditions of the time?

That same habit of looking beyond a single action toward the larger context can become useful when students think about people in their own lives.

🔬 Science — The Mystery of Evidence

Science gives students another kind of investigation.

Something is noticed.
A question develops.
Information is gathered.
A possibility is explored.
Something happens.
The result is observed.
And what we thought before may change.

That process has a natural relationship to RESET™ — The Scientist.

An unexpected result does not automatically mean the investigation failed.

It may mean we learned something.

That idea can eventually become useful outside the science classroom as well.

A student may think, I thought this would help me concentrate, but it didn't.

The Scientist does not need to respond:

I failed.

The Scientist can ask:

What happened? What did I learn? What might I explore next?

➗ Mathematics — Finding Another Way In

Mathematics provides a particularly clear example of the difference between ability and Access.

A student may understand an idea but struggle with one representation, explanation, or approach. Another representation may make the same idea easier to reach.

That does not mean every mathematical difficulty is an Access issue. Students still need instruction, practice, effort, feedback, and opportunities to develop skills.

But when a student clearly demonstrates understanding under some conditions and struggles under others, curiosity becomes useful:

What helps me get access to what I know?

Sometimes another way into the problem reveals ability that was difficult to see through the first approach.

🎨 Art and 🎵 Music — Different Experiences, Different Nervous Systems
Art and music make individual differences especially visible.

The same music may energize one student, settle another, distract someone else, and barely register for another. One student may become deeply absorbed while drawing or creating, while another may feel more engaged through sound, rhythm, movement, performance, or another form of expression.

Feelings, Interest, Sensory experience, attention, creativity, and expression may all become part of what students notice.

There does not have to be one correct response.

Different people can experience the same thing differently.

That itself is something worth discovering.

🏃 Physical Education and Health — The Mystery of the Body

Physical education and health provide opportunities to notice movement, energy, Restoration, sensory experience, competition, frustration, teamwork, physical signals, and changing performance.

A student may notice that movement seems to affect attention afterward. Another may discover that competition changes how their body feels. Someone may notice fatigue earlier than usual, become more aware of hunger or thirst, or recognize that a particular activity leaves them feeling different afterward.

Students do not need to be told what movement is supposed to do for them.

They can notice:

What happens for me?

The body becomes another source of information.

Bringing the Investigation Back Together
Across a single school day, students may investigate characters in English, people and context in history, evidence in science, problems in mathematics, experience in art and music, and the body in physical education.

The subject matter changes.

The habit of curiosity can remain.

And occasionally the investigation can return to the student:

What am I discovering about me?

In this way, FIRES does not need to compete with the academic curriculum.

Curiosity can become part of the culture of learning itself.

Learning From What Is Working

Schools naturally pay attention when something is not working. A student is struggling academically, behavior becomes difficult, a classroom is having problems, a transition repeatedly breaks down, or a particular expectation is not being met.

Those situations appropriately receive attention.

FIRES encourages schools to become curious about successful functioning as well.

Why does a student who struggles in several settings function particularly well in one classroom? Why does one difficult transition go smoothly with a particular structure? Why has a student who rarely participates become deeply engaged in one activity? Why does one group work exceptionally well together? Why does a normally demanding class feel different on certain days?

These questions are not intended to produce quick conclusions.

They invite investigation.

Perhaps expectations are clearer. The environment may be quieter. A relationship may be particularly supportive. The student may be more interested. The first step may be easier to understand. The timing may be different. The student may already be using a strategy that helps.

Sometimes several conditions are interacting.

Successful experiences contain clues.

Understanding what is already working may be just as useful as understanding what happens when things become difficult.

How Does FIRES Fit With Social and Emotional Learning?

FIRES extends well beyond traditional Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) while incorporating many of the areas SEL addresses.

Emotional awareness, self-management, relationships, social awareness, and decision-making are important parts of student functioning. FIRES considers those experiences alongside interest, restoration, sensory experiences, environmental conditions, nervous-system regulation, whole-person influences, available supports, current demands, and changes in access to abilities.

The difference is not that FIRES rejects social-emotional learning.

Social and emotional functioning is part of a much larger picture.

FIRES helps students and adults investigate how different parts of that picture may interact across situations and over time. They learn to notice experiences, become curious, gather clues, recognize connections and patterns, identify what may already be working, explore possibilities, and learn from what happens.

FIRES can therefore complement SEL while providing a broader framework for understanding how social, emotional, cognitive, physical, environmental, sensory, restorative, motivational, relational, and other whole-person experiences may interact with functioning.

Is FIRES a Behavior-Management Program?

No. FIRES does not begin with the goal of making students comply.

Behavior can provide important information, but behavior is only one part of the investigation. A student's behavior may ultimately require a boundary, consequence, repair of harm, additional support, development of a skill, a change in conditions, or some combination of these.

Understanding what may have contributed to behavior does not mean that expectations, responsibility, or consequences disappear.

If a student responds angrily to another student, for example, FIRES does not mean the behavior is automatically acceptable because the student was overloaded. The behavior and its effects still matter. FIRES adds another part to the conversation:

What was happening, what can we learn from it, and what might help the student respond differently in the future?

Understanding and accountability can exist together.

Does FIRES Lower Expectations?

No. FIRES does not assume that difficulty means expectations should automatically be lowered.

The distinction between ability and access can actually help educators maintain meaningful expectations while becoming more curious about what may be affecting a student's ability to meet them.

Challenge, effort, frustration, uncertainty, mistakes, and discomfort are normal parts of learning and development. FIRES is not designed to remove every difficult experience.

Sometimes a change in the environment may help. Sometimes clearer instructions are needed. Sometimes additional support is appropriate. Sometimes a student needs practice, persistence, greater tolerance for manageable frustration, or development of a new skill.

The question is not simply:

How can we make this easier?

It is:

What is happening, what can we learn from it, and what response would be useful?

FIRES does not predetermine the answer.

Is FIRES Only for Students With Diagnoses?

No. FIRES is not organized around diagnoses.

Students with ADHD, autism, anxiety, learning disabilities, medical conditions, or other diagnoses may find the framework useful, but so may students without any diagnosis.

A diagnosis can provide important information about a person, but it does not explain everything about that person or everything affecting their functioning in a particular situation. Two students with the same diagnosis may respond very differently to the same classroom, assignment, relationship, sensory environment, or demand. The same student may also function very differently from one situation to another.

FIRES begins with the person's experience and asks what can be discovered from it. Diagnostic information may become one part of a much larger whole-person picture.

Does FIRES Replace Counseling, Special Education, or Other Services?

No. FIRES is designed to complement, not replace, appropriate educational assessment, IEP and 504 processes, special education, school psychology, counseling, mental-health services, medical care, crisis procedures, and other professional supports.

Sometimes becoming more curious about what is happening will reveal that additional support is needed. A teacher may recognize that something extends beyond the classroom. A student may identify an experience they want help understanding. A pattern may suggest the need for educational assessment, family collaboration, counseling, medical consultation, or another form of support.

Recognizing that need is not a failure of FIRES.

It is one possible outcome of understanding the situation more clearly.

Privacy, Choice, and Appropriate Boundaries

FIRES should not require students to publicly disclose private emotional, family, medical, or personal information.

A classroom question such as "How are you doing right now?" is an invitation to awareness, not a demand for disclosure. A student's answer may remain entirely private.

Students can learn FIRES through ordinary experiences, hypothetical situations, private reflection, voluntary discussion, and developmentally appropriate activities. Teachers do not need to become therapists or investigate areas that belong within counseling, medical care, family relationships, or other professional settings.

The same principle applies to adults. FIRES invites awareness and curiosity; it does not require people to explain themselves to others.

Awareness can be private; support can still be practical.

What Could FIRES Look Like Across a Junior High School?

FIRES does not need to become another full academic course. Core concepts can initially be introduced through brief, developmentally appropriate experiences for students and parallel experiences for teachers and staff. As the language becomes familiar, FIRES can gradually become part of ordinary school life rather than something requiring a separate lesson every time it is used.

A teacher might occasionally begin class with, "How are you doing right now?"

A student struggling to begin an assignment might hear, "Something seems harder today. What are you noticing?"

A counselor might use HELPS™ — The Detective to help a student look more widely for clues.

After an unexpectedly successful experience, someone might ask, "What was different? What might already have been helping?"

A student-support team might broaden a conversation from Why isn't this student doing the work? toward questions about when access is easier or harder, what patterns have been noticed, what is already helping, and what has not yet been considered.

Teachers and staff can ask the same kinds of questions about themselves and their environments.

None of these interactions needs to be lengthy.

The goal is not to turn every moment into an investigation. It is to make awareness and curiosity available when they are useful.

Discovery, an Evolving FIRES Game Plan, and THRIVE

As students continue noticing their experiences, gathering clues, comparing situations, recognizing patterns, and exploring what helps, individual observations can gradually develop into something more useful:

Discovery.

A student may begin understanding when certain abilities are easier or harder to access, what conditions tend to increase load, what supports are useful, what they are already doing successfully, and what may be worth exploring next.

These discoveries are not limited to difficulties. Students may also discover interests, strengths, environments in which they feel more comfortable, relationships that support them, and conditions under which abilities they did not recognize become more available.

Over time, those discoveries can contribute to an evolving FIRES game plan.

The game plan is not a fixed prescription or a list of generic strategies. It grows and changes as the student learns more about themselves and as their circumstances change.

Something that helps in seventh grade may need to change later. Something that works in one classroom may not work in another. A support that is useful when someone is exhausted may not be needed when they are well restored.

The purpose is continued Discovery rather than finding one permanent answer.

In FIRES, THRIVE does not mean becoming a perfectly regulated student, always paying attention, always getting good grades, never becoming upset, or never having a difficult day.

It means becoming more fully who you already are as you develop greater understanding of yourself, your nervous system, your abilities, what affects your access to them, and the conditions and supports that help more of you become available.

For a school, thriving does not mean creating perfectly regulated classrooms or eliminating challenge, conflict, frustration, or mistakes.

It means developing a community with greater capacity to notice, understand, support, learn, adapt, and help people discover the conditions under which they can function more fully.

The Larger Educational Goal

Helping Students Keep the Mystery Open

At the beginning of this paper, I described frantically searching for my phone and car keys. Within minutes, an ordinary problem had become frustration, self-criticism, increasing urgency, and reduced access to clear thinking.

Then I noticed.

That did not immediately solve the problem.

It did something else first:

It changed what I could see.

The same possibility exists in a junior high classroom.

At first, the teacher may ask:

"How are you doing right now?"

Students may simply notice:

I'm tired. I'm irritated. I'm excited. I'm worried. I'm interested. I'm distracted. I'm doing pretty well. I don't know.

Over time, they may become more curious about what they notice. They begin gathering clues, recognizing connections, discovering patterns, identifying what makes access more difficult, and noticing what is already supporting them.

Eventually, perhaps the teacher does not always need to ask the question.

The student begins asking it.

Sometimes the experience may be:

Something is difficult right now. I wonder what's happening.

At other times:

Something is going really well. I wonder what's helping.

Both provide clues.

Both can contribute to Discovery.

The goal of FIRES in schools is not a perfectly regulated student, teacher, classroom, or school. Schools are filled with challenge, effort, excitement, disappointment, conflict, relationships, noise, learning, mistakes, successes, transitions, frustration, Discovery, and change.

The goal is greater awareness of ourselves and one another, greater curiosity about what influences functioning, greater understanding of the conditions that make access easier or harder, and more possibilities for responding to what we discover.

Over time, students can move away from automatically stopping at a judgment about themselves and toward asking:

What is happening?
What am I noticing?
What might be contributing?
What is already helping?
What could I explore?
What am I discovering about myself?

The mystery does not need to be solved once and for all.

Students change. Conditions change. What they are carrying changes. What supports them may change too.

The goal is for students to have a way to keep investigating.

FIRES does not tell young people who they are.

It gives them a way to keep discovering who they are.

The FIRES Journey

The full FIRES Journey provides the larger architecture within which the noticing, investigation, exploration, and Discovery described throughout this paper occur:

Notice → Strength → Impact → HELPS™ — The Detective → Record / Compare / Connect → RESET™ — The Scientist → DISCOVERY → Evolving FIRES Game Plan → THRIVE

For junior-high students, the Journey can also be understood as the unfolding of a personal investigation:

Something catches my attention.
I notice it.
I gather clues.
I compare what happens across different moments.
I explore possibilities.
I begin discovering more about myself.

The Journey is not intended to be a rigid sequence that students or adults must consciously perform every time something happens.

It provides an organizing framework for moving from awareness toward greater understanding, exploration, Discovery, support, and an evolving understanding of what helps each person function more fully.

FIRES Model™
FIRES is an educational and self-understanding framework. In school settings, it is intended to complement, not replace, appropriate educational assessment, individualized supports, IEP and 504 processes, special education, mental-health services, medical care, or established school safety and crisis procedures.

About the Author

Dr. Jay Fortman, Ph.D.
Educational Psychologist • School Psychologist • Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist • Educator
Developer of the FIRES Model™
Author of ADHD and the Whole Family and co-author of Between Two People

For more than 50 years, Dr. Jay has helped children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families better understand themselves with greater awareness, more compassion, and less shame. Through his work in schools, private practice, university teaching, and professional workshops, he has developed a practical, whole-person approach to understanding how people think, feel, and function in everyday life.

📍 Santa Barbara & Ojai, California

📩 jayfiresmodel@gmail.com

🌐 www.drjayfiresmodel.com — Upcoming