Making the Flip 1

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This simple emotional move can transform terrible feelings into attuned, effective teaching.

A friend of mine was suffering.

She's a teacher. And this year she has a student who bugs her. The student is "pushy, interrupts, does not listen, and acts self-absorbed." My friend -- let's call her Helen -- has been teaching this student -- let's call him Derek -- for almost a month. On the morning of her suffering her buttons were so pushed that she was actually dreading going to work.

"I've got to calm down about this student," Helen said out loud to herself as she drove her kids to school. "This is a lousy way to start the year. I can't let Derek sabotage me and my class. But I can't stop fretting over it! I simply cannot stand this kid!"

From the back seat, Helen's daughter piped up. "Have you talked to Betsy?"

Seriously: I love this child. But now I love her even more.

Here's what Helen wrote to me:

Brilliant!  Of course: channel Betsy.  My student and I are fitting in a way I have not fit with a student in many years.

What Helen means, of course, is that her student is somehow managing to push her buttons because of his own emotions and needs. The "fit" allows him to communicate with Helen directly but unconsciously. Her complaining in the car on the way to school was a discharge of her own feelings; when she "made the flip" thanks to her daughter and began wondering what Derek might be feeling, she made some good guesses and, importantly, began feeling compassion instead of aversion.

He likely is not pushy, but nervous, and he likely interrupts because he is scared and vulnerable.

It is difficult to feel angry at someone you see as nervous, scared, and vulnerable. It is easy (or easier) to understand the dynamic between yourself and another person when you separate their experience from your experience and honor both.

Once I started thinking about this in terms of why we were fitting so well, then it was very easy to come up with theories about what was likely going on with him, and also why I was responding in the way I was.  I was interpreting his anxiety as criticism of my teaching. The fact that he was contacting all kinds of OTHER people about his sense of things (other teachers, my department chair) and not me, his instructor, only made it worse.

A "pushy" student who goes over his teacher's head to get what he wants -- thereby making his own teacher feel exposed, criticized, and unsafe -- is offering up a lot of valuable information about himself. Helen guessed he was feeling nervous, scared, and vulnerable; is it possible that, when Derek feels this way, he goes on the attack and blames others before they can blame him? Would that account for the surprisingly strong feelings of dread, defensiveness, and uncertainty in Helen? Is he inducing these feelings in her as a means of disowning them himself and (unconsciously) letting her know how terrible he is feeling?

By the way, this trick of implanting in other people one's own emotions is called projection. It is an amazingly common phenomenon in classrooms. Students do it (as Derek seems to have). And teachers do it (just wait until my next post!).

What's certain is that Derek succeeded in drawing Helen's attention to himself and prompted her, through her own intense discomfort, to make some guesses about what he was feeling and why. Once she had made those guesses, she met with Derek to have a little talk.

Here's more or less what Helen said to Derek:

Obviously, this is not your first history class. And you are a very good student. But I'm not teaching this class in the way you're used to. Right? I'm bringing in all this weird theory and original documents you've never heard of! I bet you're feeling a little thrown off by this unfamiliar approach.

Derek's response? "Yes!! Yes yes yes!!!"

The rest of the meeting, and a few more since then, was devoted to brainstorming about what Derek can do to adjust to and succeed in Helen's difficult and stimulating course. Helen reports just two weeks after her revelation in the car that her attitude towards Derek and his class has completely reversed. She's having a great time.

The key to Helen's work with Derek was this: she made the flip. She toggled from discharging her own feelings to wondering about her student's. Flipping from discharging to wondering is perhaps the single most important emotional move a teacher can make with a difficult student. It certainly made a world of difference for Helen -- and for Derek.

How can you make the flip? What phrase or question can remind you to switch between your perspective and your student's? Write it down. Keep it in a drawer or purse or pants pocket. Pull it out when you're having terrible feelings. Make the flip.

And let me know how it works!