A conversation with a Grade 6 boy about anger

This has been a conversation that has been on my mind for a while, and I guess by writing about it, I will have the chance over time to reflect about its meaning.

It was my third day as an "art teacher" in a primary school - both new contexts for me. And I had seized the (very beautiful spring) day and decided to can my planned activity and do some "plein air" painting on the river foreshore. This was now the afternoon group and they were settling down, finding rocks to sit on, and solving the problem of the wind blowing away their paper.

But one boy, Mark, could not settle down. His back was to the glorious view. As I walked around helping everyone to get started, and meeting the demands for this or that, I would go back to Mark and make a suggestion that could orient him to the task. The third time, when I had settled enough to actually look at him, I realised that something was up. Ding dong, Sue, what took you so long!

"Something's up?" I asked, "This is not your normal self, is it?" He hummed and hahed, and then gradually the story came out. "I got really angry at lunch time, I yelled at some boys and I chased them around the oval." Mark was such a quiet and considerate boy that this really surprised me. I dug deeper, asking what had caused it. Yes the boys had said something unforgivable but what Mark was most concerned about was what he had done in response. "Are you feeling bad because you don't like who you are when you did that?" I asked. He nodded, relieved. "That's it, I don't like who I am when I am angry."

We were quietly talking, but there were other students who seemed to be quietly listening in. Usually they were very chatty. Someone else says "I get angry too, and I don't feel good about it." I nod and look back at Mark. "Do you get angry at other times and what do you do about it?" He tells me that things make him angry and when this happens he bangs his head on the table to try to make it stop. And when people upset him, he watches violent films and sees people getting shot up, imagines that is the person who hurt him, and then he begins to feel better.

The previous week I had blindfolded the students and took them outside, getting them to imagine the colour of the wind, the smells and the sounds etc, and to sit quietly and just see what images would emerge in their mind's eye. Mark had told me he saw eyes and drew a picture of an almost devil character with "evil" glowing red eyes. I now asked him what that picture was about. He said, "I think it was me. I don't like that person."

It reminded me of my husband when he was at primary school and I told Mark the story. That Roger had thrown a plate at his brother in anger and it smashed against the wall. It so frightened him that he had decided never to feel or express anger again. Mark and the others started talking. Was it really possible to stop feeling anger? We discussed if anger can be a good thing - gets things done, or things changed. What happens if you suppress it? What different strategies might people use to manage it well? "We need a process where at the end we resolve it so we can like ourselves again," I said.


I thought about it, and asked Mark whether he would like to draw a picture that could express his anger and if so what he would put in it. He said he would have a sword and he would be trying to kill his opponent who would be all black. "What sort of sword," I asked, "what sort of movies do you watch." He said he loved Star Wars. So I suggested he use a light sabre. "What colour will it be?" As he drew the picture I said to him, "You know, that light sabre could be more than just a tool for killing - it could emit a whole lot of light and perhaps it could help both you and your oppenent to be better people, to heal the situation." Mark changed from his dark chalks and started drawing in swirling colours of light wrapping himself and his opponent.

Later as we walked back to school, Mark said to me, "You know Sue that actually worked. When I started my picture I was angry and hated myself. Afterwards I actually liked myself again. I liked sending bright colours to my opponent and imagining them helping him to be a better person as well."

I guess there are a number of interesting facets to this story:

How important is it for me as a teacher to create situations which give students space to have such conversations and explorations? How much does my own ability to be "present" in the moment enable me to tune into what is needed?

To what extent are students of this age developing a sense of what "integrity" means to them? Are they creating an inner barometer that helps them find a sense of what is "home" - the quality of being that they aspire to have - the "highest thought"? How often is this a topic for conversation? How can we help students to name this, and "be at home" here?

Perhaps this is a combination of emotional literacy and spiritual literacy. Emotional literacy enables us to name our state with honesty; it gives us the tools to talk about our emotions and to understand the dynamics of relationships. Spiritual literacy helps us aspire to what is deeply human, living the "highest thought", experiencing compassion for self and others, enabling forgiveness and transformation.

It is conversations like this that remind me that I am not just teaching about things, or providing skills or tool-kits - I am a teacher of human beings, helping them (and myself) to find our deep humanity.

Exploring dialogue – part 1

One of the research projects that I am working on is looking at ways to improve online dialogue in a learning “community” of potential teachers or facilitators of adult learning. They are all distance learners, engaging with their facilitator and each other through email, forums and WebCT.

What struck me when I read the interview transcripts about how they engaged with the online forums were their very different perspectives on the value of them and their own role. For example, one had a preoccupation with saying the right thing but would wait so long in trying to ensure she would say things well that she found that most other posts had covered what she wanted to say. Another was more interested in coming to know the others through their personal stories, rather than reading the academic postings – her interest was in building friendships and connections. One was impatient with “chit-chat” and posted because it was part of the assessment – not because of any intrinsic value – “what does it do for me!” One person described how they enjoyed seeing the way the conversation was going and looked again and again, particularly after just posting themselves. One said that when doing the essay he would go back and read the more academic posts and see how it might help him.

Hmmm, I thought – interesting – perhaps reflecting a range of learning styles. Can learning styles be an interpretative lens that shapes our expectations and state of preparedness for learning and engaging with others?

Towards the end I came across one respondent who said something quite different.

“As I read the postings I ask myself what I might write that can contribute to the whole.”

I wondered then whether he was the first person who actually saw the online discussion as something more than a utility for himself. Is it only possible to be truly in “community” when we see ourselves as part of a whole?

When we bring an intent to “contribute to the whole” we no longer have to express ourselves “completely” (being right, covering every angle, repeating things other’s might have said to show we know it too). Rather, we are tuning into what the group needs to grow in understanding – whether it is providing resonant thoughts that enrich current insights, helping others to tease out their thinking, throwing in alternative perspectives and ways of knowing, seeking out evidence, discerning patterns and eliciting essences, model-making, visioning and imagining implications of ideas, reflecting on the way the dialogue might be shaped by our own lenses and assumptions...etc. Dialogue becomes less a debate, or one-upmanship, and more an exploration.

David Bohm suggests a method for dialogue which is agenda-less – in that you get together with the purpose to explore something richly and deeply, rather than to solve something or share information. Participants become conscious of their ways of thinking as they engage in the conversation, and through this witnessing of self find these conversations move from the surface into deep investigation of underpinning assumptions, and habitual and cultural lenses that shape the meaning we make.

How can we be more aware of how we "think" and "be" in our everyday dialogues?

For more of my thinking on dialogue see the chapter in my thesis - The dialogical classroom

Being in a state to see beauty

Yesterday, I went to the Hobart International Buskers' Festival ready to be entertained. There was an aerial performer - Theaker von Ziarno - who shinnied up a length of sheeting, muscles rippling in her back - and then it was pure magic. I found myself catching myself at one stage when I moved from being entertained (by the clever and difficult poses) into tuning into and riding the wave of beauty and aesthetic forms. Time slowed and colours became more vivid. Each fluttering of the sheets in the wind created new nuances of aesthetic. I was mesmerized by the changing form in the lines of her body, by the negative spaces, and the interaction between her and the trees and sky behind.

I no longer was there to be entertained, I had become a student of beauty and it had awoken something in my soul. I am not sure what the people next to me could see.

One of the educational projects I am working on at the moment is helping a university lecturer birth and write a book on "Gratitude in Education". Her thesis is that many students and teachers do not bring a state of preparedness to their learning experiences - rather it is a state of complaint. She has been exploring how gratitude, as the opposite of complaint, can assist us to be prepared for learning.

It is not about having to feel gratitude when it is impossible to do so, but recognising that a preferred state of being is one where we feel aligned - there is an inner integrity. It is a lot easier to feel grateful when in this state - so "gratitude" becomes a lighthouse letting us know how far we have moved from that inner state of connectedness - our highest thought. She sees "gratitude practice" requiring a high order of self-reflectivity - of being able to recognise and name the state you are in and being aware of how you can shift your state - what you need to do to enter into a state of preparedness.

So now I am reflecting on how my preparedness to view the busking show put me into certain expectations - to be entertained - and this limited how I saw, interpreted and valued the performer. Yet something in me clicked and shifted of itself into a state where I could actually see beauty. In doing so I entered a state of connection and attunement - one where I felt profoundly grateful for being alive. How much of this shift was due to me (and my own history of spiritual practice) and how much did the act itself act as that switch? How can I deliberately bring these ideas in what I do with my students... helping them to be turned on and to turn themselves on to see things from different spaces and different states?

Is this part of emotional and spiritual literacy?

At the end of her performance Theaker asked us that if we could not give money to at least give thanks and a smile. She talked about developing a giving community culture where we feel comfortable about expressing our thanks and we seek to acknowledge in another something that we have benefited from.

Thank you Theaker for switching me onto a state of preparedness to see beauty!