Slide 2
This should help to settle your lunch and improve your alertness!
THIS IS A LISTENING GAME called Mr. and Mrs. Wright and comes from Lesson 3, Following instructions in the PRIMARY program.
Have everyone stand well away from each other.
Tell them that you are going to read a story about Mr. and Mrs. Wright and that they will need to listen very carefully. When they hear you say the word "right" they will have to jump to the right.
When they hear you say "left" the will have to jump to the left. This game is a lot of fun, but each person’s success hinges on them concentrating, listening and remembering. It’s all about following directions to the letter!
The story …
This is a story about Mr. and Mrs WRIGHT. One evening they were baking cookies. Mrs. WRIGHT called from the kitchen, "Oh, no, there is no flour LEFT! You will need to go out to the store RIGHT away.“
"I can't believe you forgot to check the pantry," grumbled MR. WRIGHT. "You never get anything RIGHT!"
"Don't be difficult, dear," replied Mrs. WRIGHT. “You could have LEFT by now and been on your way. It will only take twenty minutes if you come RIGHT back.
Go to the Post Office up on the main road, and turn LEFT at the stop sign. Then go past the fruit shop we usually go to, and turn RIGHT, and there it will be on your LEFT," declared Mrs. WRIGHT as her husband LEFT the house.
Mr. WRIGHT found the store and asked the shop assistant where he could find the flour. The shop assistant pointed and said, "Go to Aisle four and turn LEFT. The flour and sugar will be on your LEFT.”
Mr. WRIGHT made his purchase and walked RIGHT out the door. He turned LEFT, but he couldn't remember where he had LEFT his car. Suddenly he remembered that he had driven Mrs. WRIGHT'S car and that his car was in the driveway at home RIGHT where he had LEFT it. He finally found the RIGHT car and put his things RIGHT inside. Eventually, a weary Mr. WRIGHT found his way home.
Mrs. WRIGHT had been waiting impatiently. "I thought you would be RIGHT back," she said. "I LEFT all the cookie ingredients on the kitchen counter, and the cats got into the milk. You'll just have to go RIGHT out again.“
Mr. WRIGHT sighed. He had no energy LEFT. "I am going RIGHT to bed," he said. "Anyway, I need to go on a diet, so I might as well start RIGHT now. Isn't that RIGHT, dear?”
Author unknown
May I get up close and personal with you?
That’s right, in the beginning TEACHING probably looked like a brilliant, or at least, an adequate career choice.
You liked kids.
And, you did reasonably well at school.
You got the right ATAR or whatever it was called back then, and slipped into teaching.
Suddenly, you had your degree.
Before you knew it you were teaching in a school!
Soon the years slipped away, and somehow you developed your own unique teaching style
So, let’s look at your own unique teaching style
Let’s be clear here – your management style is what others experience from you.
It’s not about your BEST INTENTIONS, or how you work on a good day, or about the style you wish you could work from.
It’s how others see you and experience you.
More to the point, it’s what students, staff and parents say about your style behind your back.
To do this let’s use the SOCIAL CONTROL WINDOW
The SOCIAL CONTROL WINDOW has more to do with our gut reactions, and how our emotions naturally tend to dance about.
This stuff is less rational and far more emotionally based!
As you can see, it generates four BASIC leadership styles.
Don’t despair, because most of us spend time in each of the quadrants. The length and intensity of our visits are ruled by our emotional states and other prevailing life forces.
Most of us can identify a quadrant we tend to ‘live in’, a quadrant we ‘default to’ when the going gets tough, and a quadrant that would be healthier for all to spend a lot more time in.
By the way, try not to be too judgmental.
Resist interpreting each quadrant as good or bad. They simply exist.
Try not to take the MORAL HIGHGROUND and think – “I know this stuff,” “I do this stuff.”
Treat the next few minutes as a time for personal reflection and growth.
There is room for improvement within all of us.
You’re in authority alright.
You feel that to lead you’ve got to be seen with the POWER. You must be clearly seen as the BOSS who has the final say. That’s right – ‘the buck stops with you!’
You come into the classroom and start off hard on the kids.
You demonstrate that you don’t back down or take prisoners!
You believe in the old saying, “Don’t give students an inch until Easter.” Not sure what happens after Easter?
You’re a good person, but this is how strength of leadership appears to you.
Sadly, you’re low on showing empathy, the very ingredient required to build relationship, loyalty and connection.
You demand high standards and your not afraid to get in the faces of student. Yes, you rely on aggressive and confrontational ways to achieve what you want.
You micromanage students by closely supervising them and finding ways to control them from afar - and, you do this for their benefit.
When you are provoked you feel yourself getting steamed up quickly.
A little voice in your head tends to say, “How many bloody times do I have to tell him?” ‘What’s wrong with her this time?” “Well, if he refuses to learn the easy way, I’ll show him what the hard way looks like” “I’ll get my pound of flesh – or revenge.”
Then suddenly, you trot out an emotionally confronting phrase or two that graduate into threats.
You’re frequently overheard saying; “you must,” “you will,” “you won’t,” “I want,” “I want it,” “I want it now,” “how many times do I have to ask,” “if you make me ask one more time...” and “don’t you dare!”
When things go wrong (just as they do for all of us), your attention is on what went wrong, finding the culprit and finding a way to let them feel your disapproval.
You regularly hear yourself saying; “whose fault was that?” “who’s to blame?” or “what’s the right punishment?”
You take on the role of detective, judge and executioner.
Rarely, does the consequence concern how others, or relationships, may have been affected, and how those who may have caused the trouble might make things better again.
Sadly, those who manage students exclusively from this quadrant draw from a very limited tool box; shouting, intimidating, ranting, threatening, demanding, constantly reprimanding, punishing and pulling back on the limited amount of emotion usually offered by sulking and huffing about and eye rolling at the student.
The use of these tools will make some kids nervy, and motivate others to be confrontational, oppositional and highly reactive.
And, as students become more savvy, there is usually a point where they begin to seek fabulous entertainment from a mum or dad’s predictable and emotionally charged reactions - the punitive buttons are so much fun to push!
That’s right, despite your supposed power and your rants, they’ve sussed you out and work around you when they have to or want to.
And, when human beings feel unsafe, threatened or too challenged it’s human nature to fight back – some will do it meekly, and others hotly – and a few will become highly anxious an nervy about this punitive style of management.
Will’s story…
And, Will’s maths teacher…
Let’s stay in the PUNITIVE quadrant, because there’s a lot to be learnt on our visit.
I have a mild mannered and serious minded client, called Dan.
Today he’s 23 years of age
He’s a beautiful young man – always has been - and I’d be proud to call him my son.
However, when he was 17 all hell broke loose for Dan, a teacher, his family and his school.
Something – right out of character occurred.
Dan’s phone rang in class. It had never happened before.
Mark to tell Dan’s story…..
I want to share a video with you – don’t blink as it only runs for just 3 minutes or so.
I've got 2 questions for you. They’re on the screen
Could you spend a 5 minutes exchanging ideas about the two questions on screen with those at your table?
Allow for discussion at tables.
So what was Dan thinking?
Well, Dan’s prefrontal cortex – that frontal lobe - isn't yet fully developed.
The frontal lobes are one of the last areas of the brain to develop in ALL human beings.
It is responsible for things like organising, planning, forming strategies, reasoning and controlling impulses – AND - it is not fully developed in boys until close to 30 years of age – this is much, much, much later than was understood just a handful of years ago.
For girls, the frontal lobe maturation is earlier, around 23 to 24 years of age. This is the sort of completion that girls win against us boys!
In calm situations, Dan, like most kids and adolescents, can rationalise as well as an adult.
But stress, pressure, tension and anxiety…..well, they steal what we call “HOT COGNITION" – it creates what’s called the ADRENALIN BRAIN.
And, when the brain is adrenalized it’s rapid, logical decision-making capacity simply disappears.
The brain’s bits simply stop talking to one another, but fight and flight work really well.
In this quadrant you are unavailable to give students the consistent care, coaching and guidance needed.
When you look around your classroom you see too many kids, with too many problems. Yeah, there’s too many with too many executive functioning problems. It’s hard enough being in charge of your own executive functioning, let alone helping a class of others!
And, you know what some of your students are doing!
They are playing mindless games on their laptops , texting, listening to their iPods or watching a screen hidden under their desk, but you? You turn a blind eye.
They’re not interested in you, so why should you be committed to them?
As for your interaction with colleagues, well, you choose to be almost equally aloof. However, you have aligned yourself with a few on staff who share your neglectful point of view, and together you fuel each other’s dissatisfaction for the school, for teaching and for other staff members. You see them as an elite group of colleagues, but the truth is they are insidiously destructive and poisonous to your wellbeing and future.
There may be reasons motivating your neglectful style.
You may have walked into this school and realised, all too late, that it’s filled with wayward students. Now, in order to survive, you’ve learnt that by appearing neglectful, chilled, easy going you’re less likely to enter into conflict with them.
This ‘soulless neglectful zone’ simply allows you to survive!
If questioned about the behaviour of your kids you’d reply;
“What can I do given the backgrounds these kids come from?”
Or, “What do you expect, we have too many students with too many special needs. And, that’s why our NAPLAN results are the most depressed in Australia.”
To be fair, sometimes those in the neglectful quadrant are struggling with poor health, relationship breakdowns, divorce, depression, death or illness win the family, awful property settlements, alcohol abuse and substance addictions. Perhaps they’re overwhelmed by impossible financial pressures. These really can take an incredible toll.
Perhaps you have a personality where it is difficult for you to seek out a student, show a little affection, give them time, sit and talk, exchange thoughts and even laugh with them.
These moments are GOLD. They’re priceless. They’re precious and build protective elements within relationship that can be banked away as credit, and used later when needed. But, you’re too far gone to even see this.
I know what you’re thinking at this point.
Yes, you’ve jumped to the moral high ground and believe there’s no way you could possibly fit into the neglectful quadrant.
Not so - we’ve all been here from time to time.
Well, what about at school the other day.
Remember, 13 year old Brad. He’s not a bad kid, but his immaturity and poor concentration means he’s still relying on you to be his frontal lobe a lot of the time.
But, working within the neglectful quadrant you didn’t say anything as he was falling behind.
You kept your head down, worked in silence, and wrote copious notes on the board for everyone to copy AND keep copying. You weren’t motivated to be practical or tactical. You could have said:
“Hey, Brad, do you know what do next?”
“Let me give you a kick start.”
“I like you way too much to let you fall behind – there’s another way we can do this.”
You could have chosen to sit with him for a few moments, and then pull out a big gun. You could have offered Brad a random incentive to get him over the hump. At least it would be an attempt to get him onside; catching students doing well, and commenting on it, is always the best way to get the behaviours we want. But, it’s the last thing a tired, jaded and disenfranchised educator living in the neglectful quadrant will choose to do.
When we’re in this neglectful zone we quickly discount being a skilful model and doubt the value of positive seed planting.
We forget to encourage and set a few achievable goals with students. We forget to chase them and celebrate them.
There is no judgement here.
I’m simply developing a ‘mindfulness’ around the choices available to us as we manage students. AS you’re beginning to see, it’s not all about their tricky behaviours!
When we live this neglectful zone we ignore the wonderful breakthroughs in neuro-science.
We choose to ignore that the brain is an amazing dynamic organ, one that can over time rearrange itself and make awesome compensations, even for kids and teens doing it tough.
We choose to ignore that we are part of a miracle – that, what we say and do in class on a day to day basis has a direct influence on how our students’ brains develop.
Let’s keep 13 year old Brad in mind.
He's typical of many students exhibiting those ‘tricky behaviours’ – you know; they’re rarely ready, rarely prepared, usually late and constantly muddled. They seem to live in a fog and are constantly reacting.
At this point, we have to seriously consider ‘Contingency strategies’ or ‘social or token reinforcement systems’ for GROUPS or for INDIVIDUALS to keep them on track and moving in positive directions.
Just look at John Hattie’s research results! (gesture to screen)
God bless him! Hattie finally burst the bubble that well constructed Token Economy systems improve student engagement, cooperation, persistence and achievement. That’s now an empirically established fact.
Why are they so powerful?
In part it’s the novelty, part of it is the chasing of a goal, getting caught up in positivity, and finally the achievement.
As mentioned earlier today, the design is where a teacher earmarks a set of specific behaviours desired.
As the student, or the group, display the targeted behaviour there’s a tangible recognition in the form of a symbol or token.
Designs most likely to improve outcomes are where the focus is on language that coaches, skills and guides students to success.
Designs least likely to improve outcomes are where the focus is on speed, competition and the humiliation of those who can’t keep up.
One example of a token reinforcement system used widely by primary and middle school educators around the world is Class Dojo. It has great value for individuals like Brad, but is also useful to set a cooperative classroom tone.
Here are a few ideas around ‘token reinforcement systems’
CLICK
LUCKY DIPS
During lessons students are handed a small post-it note by the teacher as a way of acknowledging praising them for something they have done well. The student writes their name on it and inserts it into the lucky dip box.
This is a fabulous motivator for kids of all ages.
STAR CHARTS
Attach the star chart, or similar, to a student’s desk or a group of student’s desks. Use this idea to encourage kids to show kindness, improved organisation, better listening, a tidy table, working co-operatively and so on.