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!

Growing pains: midwifery and mentoring

As usual, after sleeping on a post I find I begin to perceive issues from new perspectives. In the last post I talked about approaches which might help students find their direction in life.

I woke up this morning with several images/memories in my head... they began to coelesce...

In 2000, I went to Mexico to a Holisitic Education conference and met a Mexican woman who was a midwife. What was she doing at the conference I wondered? She told me that as a midwife she worked with parents 2 years before conception of the child and then with both parents and child to the age of 21 years. Needless to say I was blown away.

In contrast, I remembered a previous course enrolment session on the first day of school, sitting along a very long table, squished between lots of other teachers who were also doing what I was doing. Students queued in line to discuss with a counsellor possible year 11/12 courses for the current year prior to filling in their enrolment form. One boy sits down with his mother in front of me. He has no plan; no idea what he wants to do. How long can I spend with him? There are queues of students behind him. In a short 15 mins, somehow, I need to elicit his dreams, his talents, what he likes, what he thinks might be possible. But to every question he answers "I don't know." His mother shrugs desperately and says "I can't get anything else from him."

I, like her, feel totally helpless. The courses he chooses will dictate future opportunities. As I talk to him I feel my shoulders slumping and the energy drain out of me. I begin to realise that I am tuning into his supression of soul. This kid needs big help. Yes, where is that midwife? Where is that healer?

I remember the significant people who have been in my life; mentors and friends at critical times. People who have helped me move from states of blindness of possibilites to states of clarity, people who have helped me explore other parts of myself, people who have just been there.

I have started befriending/mentoring a Sudanese refugee lady as part of a pilot program at the Migrant Resource Centre and I am helping writing guidelines for the befriending program. In my research I discovered new residents really need 4 mentors: someone who has been through something similar (can identify with your past and with your movement from that past to this now), someone who you can talk to on a personal level, someone to link you to the community and lastly someone who can be a mentor in your career area.

It occurs to me that as we grow... transform through the development levels.... up the spiral of evolution ... we are new residents in that new place. Perhaps we need a midwife to see us properly birth into this new way of being. What had happened to this boy that I felt helpless to help? Was his birthing process stuck or supressed? What might be the role of mentors? How can we help students seek and recognize the mentors/midwives that they need at the right time? Because my experience in moving from A to B might just resonate with your experience, and then again may not.

Coincidentally, out of the blue, I just received an email from an ex-physics student who is now 27 and going through a bit of rethink about career and direction, wondering if I can help him in clarifying that process. I have had quite a few of these over the years. How many young people don't find mentors, or are too afraid to ask? What is it that makes an appropriate mentor? Why is it that a student comes back to their year 11/12 teacher... does this mean there are no other people taking up this role in the lives of these young people? What is the role of the community in this?

Yes, we continue to grow... just look at all the different development models .... depending on which ones you look at expect for new energy, new issues, new questions, new possibilities to perturb you to new awareness of being.

What are the implications for schools and teachers? What are the implications for the way we think about life long learning .... what skills, understanding and processes would empower students? Perhaps making transparent the role of significant others and building skills to create lasting relationships in their lives?

And my role of teacher has changed... from teacher of information, literacies and skills that might help students get a job.... to midwife of transformation...

So here I am teaching physics.... and discover in it all the wonderful contexts and questions that are just what are needed to perturb my students and support their transformation and development. And that is perhaps why my ex-students come back to me when they find themselves in states of transformation.

And the boy who had no idea what he wanted to do, could I help him? ... perhaps if he was in one of my classes for a year or two we could create a relationship where I would begin to see him and he would begin to see himself.

Helping students find their passion and direction

I have been recently asked how to help students, particularly those at risk, determine possible futures. Hmmmm. (scratches head....)

I have been working with youth at risk (16 – 20 years old) who attend our year 11/12 schools in Tasmania. I imagine that one approach is not going to work with every student. In our new curriculum here there is going to be greater emphasis on pathway planning…each student has a teacher who acts as a “coach” and employs coaching processes to help them set goals and plan towards them. But the biggest problem for some of our students is having no goal or sense of direction or passion to begin with…. And such coaching processes do not really address this vacuum.

Finding my passion

Rachel Flower, Dan Wallman's book The wisdom of passion : mapping your way to vitality and success focuses more on processes which help people get in tune with their inner wisdom or passion… so not a mental, scratch head “if I think hard enough about it, I’ll get the answer” sort of approach… but deeper, more contemplative… building up sense of self and emotional power… understanding and reading self.

I found that I could gradually build some mindfulness and breathing into my “at risk” classes, but these students are not the sort to embrace something different…. particularly techniques likely to help them the most. I couldn’t just say, “hey, lets do a visualisation”…. whereas in classes where students are eager to learn they seem to be willing to try anything, and I have found visualisations really powerful in helping them tune into inner directions and purposes.

So with my at risk students I spent my time building up self esteem, success, service experiences, self awareness and emotional awareness and control… helping them move to a new self which could believe that they had a future. I found the book Reclaiming Youth at Risk (Brendtro, Brokenleg, van Bockern) very helpful.

I found meditating on each of my students important in seeing their energy blocks and being able to specifically create opportunities for them that might help create better flow... and thus open them up for learning. This meditative practice was essential in helping me see them deeply, rather than their very annoying behaviours and remind me of being fully present with them in the moment... it required great attention and energy, but enabled me to tune into those turning moments... moments where their souls seem to listen and the words we say and our actions resonate at a deep level.

Many of these students were stuck in lower development stages because of awful things that had happened in their lives, so helping them heal and move on was a critical part of helping them get any sense of possibilities of who they were and where they were going.

If students are willing to try visualisations I have found Shakta Gwain's Creative Visualisations very useful, particularly one's which help students go to a special place and ask guidance of a wise old person, or are given gifts which they can interpret using dream symbology. Another one I have found successful is Three Wishes and also one's involving journeys.

For me, planning for the future is more than career planning; it is about understanding the relationships around oneself and how that might be your teacher. It is about recognizing issues to work on as well as talents and passions to pursue... it is really about whole of life, whole of self.

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Aligning my actions with what I value

Many years ago, working with a mixed ability pastoral care group (1 hour per week) I developed a “thinking” approach based on working out “what I really value”. This was really powerful in helping students test whether their chosen career really aligned with what they valued and often it didn’t… particularly if they had been influenced by media and peer pressure. The process went like this:

1. whole class brainstorm about what they value in the following categories, writing up heaps of possibilities

• physical (eg. To be healthy, to be co-ordinated, to be full of energy)
• emotional ( eg. to be loved, to be in control of emotions)
• mental (eg. think logically, understand why things are…)
• spiritual/ idealistic (eg to feel connected to something bigger, to be free, to have a sense of purpose)
• Interpersonal ( eg. to get on well with my family, to have a meaningful relationship)
• Social/ecosystem/cosmos (eg. to be recognised by society, help save the planet)

(Doing this with the whole class enables to students to break out of their own perceptions and worldviews and see other possibilities, which they might not get if in one-to-one teacher interviews. The category approach helps delineate and other categories could be used just as well…. Often students hadn’t thought before about many of these.)

2. Choose from the lists 10 things you value (or create something new) and put in order from 1 to 10

3. Make a list of how you spend your time… but put into activities which consist of "things I value", and then "things that I don’t". Some things might not appear to have immediate value (like washing up the dishes) but when you reflect on it you might find aspects of it that you do value (when washing up, my sister drys and we actually have a good relaxing chat and a laugh.) Evaluate, and ask yourself are you doing now things that are congruent with what you value? How might you change this now? What sort of activities incorporate what you value? How do you feel when you are doing something you value? What proportion of your time is spent on things you value?

4. Homework: Practice doing things you value and be aware of how this makes you feel. Try new activities and see…. Can you come up with some criteria? Can you increase the proportion of what you value in your life? How does this affect your energy and your sense of purpose?

5. How might what you value change and grow over time? Is it static? Now under the headings career, recreation, relationships and life goals - write down what you think you might value in the short term (2 to 5 years) and long term (5 to 10 years). What types of careers might match what you value? (eg. a career where I am being creative … a career which helps someone or something... a career which is physical….) Does it matter if what you value changes or if your career changes?


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Mapping Preferred Futures

Another approach I have used with some success (this time a thinking/dreaming one) is using time lines where students firstly do a past line – from birth up until this moment… putting on it key aspects of their life, changes in self or circumstances, using symbols, pictures or words…. (eg I have seen some students put in bombs to represent D-day (divorce day)). Often very powerful stuff comes out of doing just this as students for the first time might see patterns emerging… experiences which reinforce a particular view of the world. (eg one girl wrote at different ages… my uncle left me, I moved and left my best friend, my parents divorced and father left me… when seeing this she said to me she felt afraid to commit to anything or anyone because she will be let down. She realised it was a defensive mechanism. A major revelation for her and helped her move into a more optimistic future.)

Once having done the past students then look into the future from this point on…. Draw three lines (or curves) – preferred, probable and possible. Now for each of these students should write down or draw key events they can imagine happening… try to see it occurring in their heads… see a little story, vision themselves into possibilities.

The possible line is a really important one for students to use their imaginations and break out of expected possibilities…. (They often see it as impossible!) They can have more than one of these possible lines. I have seen students write on their probable lines - get job, get married, have children…. While on the possible one – travel the world, be an explorer…. Etc. so the trick is to ask them how they can put their impossible dreams into their preferred future… something otherwise they might not dare.

(It is a real concern when students truncate the probable line because of expectation of suicide and life not worth living…. Which has occurred a couple of times with my classes.)

This technique is being used in Future Studies approaches with whole communities.

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Who am I?

Another approach is using the enneagram and numerology … which are good to use with students who have had the more traditional “what am I going to be when I grow up?” activities all through highschool and are absolutely sick of them, and possibly don’t believe that they really do have a future or see where they fit into this world. It is a little different, slightly weird and exciting, and therefore attractive, and provides good reflective opportunities to ask is this like me or not…. Tying in with notions of temperaments. Here is a site for coaches wishing to use the enneagram.