Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Crisis of Confidence

Some years ago I sat in the cafeteria of the school I was teaching in to listen to a person present information about brain research relative to teaching. I consciously remember very little about the presentation; the concept of brain research relative to teaching was new and foreign to me. I am still barely knowledgeable about brain research as it relates to the educative process. However, I came away with one important idea that day: the crisis of competence.

As I already stated, I do not suggest that I know much about the brain, but I recall that the crisis of competence created a reaction within the amygdala, a portion of the brain responsible for the creation and storage of emotional memories. The most important emotional memories may well be those associated with fear, resulting in fear behavior. It is our memories of the things we fear that promote our survival. Certainly, when we are young and mistakenly touch a pan that has been used for cooking and receive a burn, we remember that a pan that has been on the stove may be hot and that we should use caution. But the reality is that we now fear the hot pan and that emotional memory is stored and retrieved when needed to keep us from burning ourselves over and over again. It is a survival skill.

At this point it is important to address then what the individual perceives as necessary to his or her survival, for it is not only that which threatens our physical health that may be perceived as a threat to our survival, but our emotional health is also threatened from time to time and is also important to our survival. Another way of saying this is that we have to feel good about who we are. We have to have a good sense of self worth. Those who lack a strong sense of self worth become targets for ridicule and perhaps more, making their survival tenuous on a daily basis.

Accepting that the individual needs a strong sense of self worth to survive and that the amygdala stores memories of the things that create fear--cause to be concerned about one's survival, it is reasonable to establish that an individual's self-worth may be threatened from time to time, causing the amygdala to send an alert through the brain, calling for the individual to move into survival mode. Moving into survival mode generally means that the individual resorts back to the skills that are most comfortable and most protective. During a physical attack, the body bends more toward a fetal position, protecting vital organs, and the individual may look for ways to strike out in defense. During an emotional attack, the individual again bends inward and looks to strike out. The bending inward is seeking that which is most comforting and protective, providing the stance to launch the counter-attack. These emotional attacks create in the individual the crisis of competence: sensing that the self is under attack, the individual's confidence is challenged, perhaps weakened. Therefore, the individual seeks that which is more familiar, that in which he or she has greater confidence, so that he or she may return to security, to survival.

When the teacher encounters a crisis of confidence in the classroom, he or she resorts back to the most comfortable methods of teaching or of classroom management, which tend to be those methods that were used when the teachers were students, teaching as they had been taught. And this is where teaching often falters. What the skilled educator must do is create a high degree of confidence in his teaching methods so that even when experiencing a crisis of confidence, he or she can continue to pursue the method chosen rather than resort to survival mode.

More on confidence and the crisis of confidence to come later.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Posture of Conflict

When I speak of posture here, I mean more than a straight back and squared shoulders. Posture is the communication of an attitude or frame of mind, especially when one is involved in a conflict. Crossed arms communicate an unwillingness to listen and a resolve to have one's way. Rolling eyes communicates a disdain or disrespect for another person or for the other person's ideas. A loud sigh communicates a weariness with what another person may be saying, a message that one no longer has the patience for the other person or his ideas. In other words, posture is body language and we should make no mistake in recognizing that people hear what we say with our body sometimes better than what we say with words. For this reason, when one finds himself entering a conflict, he should be cautious and deliberate in his posture, if his intent is to find resolution.

As an educator, the conflicts I find myself involved with generally place me in the position of the professional, the one in charge. Consequently, my posture must be that of the professional, and I must assume a professional demeanor at all times. Without a doubt, there are times when I, too, want to scream profanities and yell louder than the other people, but screaming and yelling have never really resolved any conflicts. Certainly, there are conflicts that end when one party yells and screams, but this is not because the screamer has proved his point and won the conflict. It is more so because the other party has determined that the screamer has lost all contact with reality and that no resolution is possible; therefore, there is no reason to continue pursuing resolution. So, in spite of our desire to yell and scream, we have to remain calm and be the voice of reason.

A proper professional posture will communicate an openness and allow one to listen carefully to what is being said during the conflict. Through careful listening and through maintaining a calm, clear voice, the professional is then able to paraphrase what he has heard. This communicates to the person who is angry that he is indeed being heard, which often goes a long way toward resolving the conflict. But it all begins with the proper posture, with the proper body language.

Monday, June 28, 2010

The Origin of Conflict

In my last blog I alluded to the origins of conflict. I suggested that conflict arises from the fact that man is a social animal, that the conflict is a result of individual desires, ambitions, and space issues collide with those of other individuals. David Bohm, in his book On Dialogue, provides some discussion that supports this thinking (although I have to be careful because Bohm also identifies thought as the major culprit in creating conflict--more on that later, I hope).

Bohm begins with the premise that everyone has basic opinions and assumptions. The term "basic" suggests, in Bohm's words, that these opinions and assumptions are "about the meaning of life; about your own self-interest, your country's interest, or your religious interest; about what you really think is important." (There's that word "think" again.) The reader may wish to revisit an earlier posting that I made regarding opinion. Bohm goes on to say that when these assumptions are challenged or attacked that we step up to defend them, because "a person identifies himself with them. They are tied up with his investment in self-interest."

We can, therefore, determine that conflict occurs when a person's self-interests and beliefs, upon which is founded the individual's identity, are threatened. Our beliefs, opinions, and assumptions may be ill-founded, completely wrong, but we are offended when it is brought to our attention that we may be wrong. There is a connection between our opinions and assumptions and our self-worth. If our opinions and assumptions are wrong, then we are at fault, and that can't be a good thing.

The reality is that we are bound to be wrong about some things. Therefore, what we have to do is remove the personal attachment to the ideas, to the thoughts, so that we might better assess the value of the thoughts, allowing us to communicate more openly, without taking a defensive stance and allowing an emotional attachment to prevent our resolving the conflict.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The First Rule of Conflict Resolution

I have recently been dealing with the stumblings of a colleague with regard to his manner of dealing with conflict. The circumstances of the conflict are irrelevant, as they always are. Allow me to explain. Conflict is bound to happen. I think it has something to do with man being a social animal. The conflict, from my perspective, occurs because the autonomy of the individual--I guess you could say the individual's solitude or oneness or ego--anyway, the individual with personal desires and personal ambitions and personal space issues comes in contact with other individuals, all with similar desires, ambitions, and space issues. The group of individuals actually benefit from being in contact with each other, but their personal desires and such are now bumping against the personal desires of others. That is what causes conflict and, consequently leads to the first rule of conflict resolution:

Don't make the conflict personal.

We have to recognize that the conflict is made up of a matter of circumstances that seem to be at odds. Therefore, the best way to resolve the conflict is to examine the circumstances and to consider how they might best be resolved. However, the conflict becomes more complicated when the persons involved choose to make the conflict a matter of personal pride, personal dignity, personal hurt. One can always tell when this happens because people begin to make accusations: "But you said...;" "You have never liked me;" "I was forced to act..." The people involved in the conflict want to blame somebody. They want to absolve themselves of all responsibility. They want to win and that means somebody else has to lose.

Conflicts are not sporting events, although sporting events are made of conflict. Indeed, if most people stopped thinking about their personal gain or loss before the conflict occurs, there would be less conflict. People would then base their actions on the integrity of the moment, on the more mutually beneficial way to act.

A good practice in training one's self to deal with conflict in line with the first rule of conflict resolution is to practice writing and talking without using personal pronouns or names. This practice gives communication an academic tone, and an academic tone is more objective, open to hearing the facts before passing judgment. In contrast, when people make a conflict personal, they pass judgment before considering the facts. The conflict is made complicated by personal prejudice.

Practice the first rule of conflict resolution. Don't make it personal

Friday, June 4, 2010

The Insanity of American High Schools

I apologize that I am not interested in accuracy, but I recall that Albert Einstein once said that if we continue to do as we have always done but expect different results, then we are insane. That, ladies and gentlemen, defines the problem with American high schools clearly.

Schools never did look to engage students in learning. Education has always been something that is done to the student. Schools discourage curiosity, questioning, thinking. Schools reward unquestioning conformity and mindless parroting. Our best and brightest are the ones who conform the most and think the least.

All efforts to educate students in the traditional American high school result in making students dependent on teachers for their learning, in allowing students to remain immature and prejudice in their thinking, in upholding all that stands in contrast to learning. And we do this with pride!

Something has got to change!

We have enabled our students to be ugly in their thinking and repulsive in their learning. People take pride in not reading. A colleague of mine--an English teacher, by God!--once admitted to me that he had read only one book in his entire life. How in name of humanity can a person go through life without knowing the joy of reading?

Some of the greatest books I have ever read have transformed my thinking, have inspired me to make a difference in my living, have made me proud of my humanity. Most importantly, my reading has made me independent of my teachers. I am not dependent on them for my learning, and that is a testimony to the good that my teachers have done. They did not want me to be dependent on them. The mark of a great teacher is that he or she becomes increasingly unnecessary. For a teacher to believe that no learning occurs without his or her being present is the ultimate self-indulgence and self-pride.

I am so very frustrated with stupid people and their damn pride in their stupidity. And I am more so frustrated with our schools' contributing to the stupidity.

When will it all end?