Episode 6: Lawrence

A teacher gets his button pushed when a student questions his authority.

Transcript

Lawrence is a seasoned teacher of middle and high school English. He has been teaching at this level for years, but he started out as a college instructor. As you might expect from someone with a PhD, he is quite knowledgeable. As you might not expect from someone with a PhD – sorry, doctors of philosophy! (of which I myself am one) – he is a really creative teacher, guiding his students through playful yet grounded activities that help them develop comprehension and writing skills.

On this particular day, Lawrence was upping the ante. The students had just finished reading Macbeth, and he was assigning the paper they had to write about the play. Normally, he left his students to their own devices when writing their papers. He liked giving them autonomy and actually disliked intervening in their writing process. But their thinking in their papers this year had been generally superficial. And Lawrence disliked superficial thinking and writing much more than he disliked getting directive.

He decided it was time for them to dig deeper.

So he told them to get out some paper (or open their computers) and write non-stop for two minutes. “But you can’t write just anything,” he told his students. “You have to write only questions. And the questions have to be about Macbeth. ‘Why am I doing this?’ does not count. ‘Does Macbeth have an anger management problem?’ does count.”

Lawrence wasn’t super sure about this pre-writing tactic. He had heard about it recently at a conference, but this would be the first time he had tried it. He hoped the students would trust him and just give it a go.

But he had to ask: “Before you start writing your questions, do you have any questions for me?”

Yes. One student most definitely did. “Actually, why are we doing this? Why can’t we just start our papers like we always do?” the student, whom we’ll call Edward, asked.

Oh no. Lawrence felt a shot of panic as he justified an exercise he wasn’t convinced about himself. “I want to help you think deeply about the play,” he answered a little lamely.

“Deep?” Edward repeated. “What is ‘deep’? My papers are plenty deep.” He looked around at his classmates, as if to say, “Am I right? Or am I right?”

“Besides,” Edward said to his teacher, “who are you to decide when I’m being ‘deep’ enough?”

Lawrence was stunned. By Edward’s laser-beam focus on Lawrence’s own doubt about the activity. And by another doubt, this one new and therefore especially unsettling, that maybe he didn’t know what “deep” was. That he wouldn’t be able to tell if the students’ thinking was “deep enough.” That maybe this activity was unnecessary, even stupid, just as he had suspected. That he should just let the students do what they wanted.

All this self-doubt and insecurity flashed through Lawrence in a fraction of a second. Then his anger arose to save him. “I guess that’s for me to know and for you to find out, Edward. Good luck with that,” Lawrence said.

This was a sarcastic and squashing thing to say. But it’s not what Lawrence wanted to say. What Lawrence wanted to say was “Oh, wait – did I get this wrong? Are you the teacher now? And you – the kid who writes some of the most superficial papers I’ve ever read – are now the expert on what counts as ‘deep’? Here – let me crown you king!”

Harsh, I know. But I repeat: that’s not what Lawrence said. It’s what he wanted to say. As a means of managing some complicated feelings. And, on this podcast, we’re all about feelings. Terrible feelings you would never want anyone to know you had. But you have them. And they’re pure gold.

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So. Students who question our authority. It’s like the world gets turned upside-down. Of course, we know that students must question us. We know that high schoolers – teenagers – can be turds sometimes. But the gall of some students, the entitlement, the supreme self-absorption, and, well, the precision with which they find our soft spots, can be breathtaking.

This story, simple as it seems, is actually quite complicated. At least, for my purposes. It’s complicated because there are at least three ways to talk about it. All of them really important. So I’m going to step us through all three.

The first way to talk about this story is in terms of pushed buttons. If you didn’t pick up on it already, Lawrence’s sudden rage, his sense of being stopped in his tracks, all suggest that Edward pushed a button in Lawrence. 

Pushed buttons are so interesting. Because they tell you something about your student and something about yourself. That button isn’t there by chance! That button is an accumulation of hurts and jabs and repeated experiences that you’ve built walls around in order to prevent more pokes. And when you run into someone who somehow picks up on your vulnerability and manages to get a good poke in, it’s like your psyche has exploded. Even if, like Lawrence, you can control your response to your button pusher, the feelings still swirl and steam.

And the button pusher! How do they know? This is where pushed buttons can tell you something about your student. Button pushers know where to push because they’ve got something inside them that they can’t contain themselves. When we’ve got to offload some unbearable feelings, we – all of us – have pretty amazing radar as to how to get those feelings into someone else, especially when we know that someone else, have spent time with that someone else. Like a mother. Or a father. Or a teacher. 

So the first thing we’re going to have to do with Lawrence is wonder about this button of his. What is it? What is the vulnerability?

Another way to talk about this wonderful story is in terms of what I call “making the flip.” This move – making the flip – is one of the most effective strategies I know of to manage really bad emotions. The way you make the flip is to, first, become aware of your really bad emotions. Pay attention to them. And label them: anger, hurt, fear, frustration.

Once you’ve got some labels, you flip your perspective. You move from an internal gaze – looking at yourself and your own experience – to an outward gaze. You look at the person you’re in relationship with. And you wonder: Could this person be feeling the way I’m feeling right now?

If “yes,” start making guesses. Why might this person be feeling the way I’m feeling right now? In my experience, answers start coming immediately. It’s kind of miraculous, really.

If “no” – that is, if you don’t think the person you’re in relationship with could be feeling the way you’re feeling right now – then you might be re-living some bad old memories. Find someone to talk to. You deserve a reality check, help with distinguishing bad old memories from what’s happening right here right now.

Making the flip is a great technique to use when your button has been pushed, when someone does something and you are suddenly flooded with strong negative feelings. We’ll see what happens when Lawrence makes the flip. 

And, finally, the third way I want to talk about this story is in terms of resistance. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that Edward’s response to the activity Lawrence assigned – the freewrite where students could only ask questions about Macbeth – was an act of resistance. Right? Edward questioned the assignment, making it clear he didn’t want to do it. And he questioned Lawrence’s authority. At the very least, Edward was not being cooperative!

I’m guessing those of you listening have experienced resistance from your students before. And from other people as well! Stay tuned, because we are going to talk in just a few minutes about how to handle resistance.

And, let me just say: you’re a teacher. You might be driving home or taking a walk or making dinner as you listen to this. And you might be thinking, “Goodness! I’d better write all this stuff down – pushed buttons, doing some sort of what? somersault? And – oh my word, what was that last one?!?” Please don’t worry. We’re returning to all of these. And we will again in future podcasts. Not to mention the fact that the transcript of this podcast is posted as I speak on my Teaching through Emotions website. You can read it at your leisure some other time.

For now, just relax and enjoy listening to how another teacher works out his bad experience. There will be no quiz. 

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Now, Lawrence has a PhD. But that does not make him steel plated. The sass from Edward really bothered Lawrence. So much so that Lawrence brought this story to his Teacher Support Group.

As Lawrence told us, Edward often challenged him in class, questioning his knowledge and authority, seemingly accusing him of being wrong or not knowing what was right. To Lawrence, it was as if Edward had his radar out all the time for opportunities to question or contradict him. And this challenging behavior enraged Lawrence. “Who does he think he is?” Lawrence asked us. “I mean, who’s the one in the room with a PhD in English?”

These strong feelings really interested me. They pointed to the good possibility that Edward was pushing Lawrence’s button. But what was that button? What was the vulnerability?

It wasn’t hard for Lawrence to admit that he hates having his intelligence questioned. Like many teachers – and you know who you are – Lawrence feared the moment when he might have to say, “I don’t know” to his students. For him, being perceived as someone who didn’t know was about as scary as going face-to-face with his worst enemy.

So there was rage in Lawrence, and there was fear (which usually underlies rage) that he might appear to not know and, even worse, that he might actually not know, that he might actually be wrong.

There’s the vulnerability we’re looking for, of course. A very familiar one to many teachers: the fear of being caught either not knowing or actually being wrong. So shameful! Public exposure of our own hubris! An opportunity for the students to think, “Who does this teacher think he is?!?” 

I have a lot to say about not-knowing and how amazingly valuable it is. I actually think of not-knowing as a way of knowing that is worth actively cultivating if you’re a teacher (or a parent, or a therapist, or anyone who is in relationship with other people). And that is work I recommended to Lawrence. Because he’s responsible for his own button. He can’t keep blaming people for pushing it, right? He’d best just get rid of it. My hunch is – nay, my experience is – that becoming comfortable with not knowing makes that particular button – the one that activates your fear of not-knowing – disappear. 

So we’ve identified Lawrence’s button. Now it’s time to make the flip.

In the group, I asked Lawrence, “Is it possible that Edward himself felt enraged and afraid of not-knowing when you told the class to do this freewrite?”

“Oh, wow,” Lawrence said. “Yes.”

Turns out Edward challenged Lawrence a lot, but he was also an eager and hard-working student. He took great care with his schoolwork and, though he excelled at math and science, he took English really seriously too. 

“But,” Lawrence told us, “he’s most comfortable when there are rules he can follow. Like figuring out the meter of a poem, or looking for similes, or writing an outline for a 5-paragraph essay.”

Like not spending two minutes free associating.

“I think,” said Lawrence, “that Edward was afraid to do the freewrite I asked the class to do. He didn’t think he’d do it ‘right’ and really didn’t want to find that out.”

“And, apparently,” one of the teachers said, “he was really pissed that you were going to make him do something he suspected he’d be terrible at.” 

“So he treated you in a way that made you feel his insecurity for him,” I said.

A beautiful fit. You a student? Who’s being told to do something you know you can’t do? And who can’t stand being put in that position? Turn it around on your teacher. Better him than you – that is, better that he feel stupid than that you feel stupid. That’s how desperate Edward was to continue feeling competent in English class. That’s what emboldened an otherwise earnest student to challenge his teacher so disrespectfully.

In the classroom, Lawrence fell victim to this defensive move by his student. In the Teacher Support Group, Lawrence successfully made the flip. And can I tell you? The rage he was feeling even in the support group meeting instantly turned into compassion. Exit rage. Enter understanding. Enter compassion.

OK but what now? So Lawrence suddenly understood that Edward was probably feeling angry because he was afraid he couldn’t do or didn’t know how to do what was being asked of him. That’s an excellent guess as to why Edward acted out. But it can’t end there. Edward still had to deepen his thinking about Macbeth. What was Lawrence to do?

Here’s what I suggested (for those of you who are keeping track, this is the third way I’m thinking about this story): go with the resistance. Do some aikido with the resistance.

Aikido, for those of you who are not martial artists, is a type of martial art. And that’s about the extent of what I know about it.

Just kidding!

I know one more thing: Aikido is, apparently, characterized by the technique of using your opponent’s energy and momentum against them (and for you). I looked it up on the web, and here’s what Wikipedia says about aikido: it’s an art that “practitioners…use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury.” Kind of a lovely philosophy. More appropriate for the classroom than, say, karate – if you’re ever going to do a martial art in the classroom, that is.

And I do recommend doing aikido in the classroom! Figuratively, of course. The way I think about it is like putting your arm around a resistant student, looking at the world from their perspective, and kind of pulling them gently in the direction you need them to go.

Here’s a really simple example: You got a squirrely kid in your classroom, squirrely in the sense that he simply cannot sit still. Not doing aikido means yelling at the student to sit down and get to work. Doing aikido is suggesting the student go in a corner and do 100 jumping jacks. Like, “I get it: you’re restless. You’ve got extra energy. Let some of that energy out! Go do what you need to do for a minute. Let’s see if that helps.”

So I equate doing aikido with what I call “going with the resistance,” and this example explains why. Fighting a squirrely student’s squirrely behavior only increases the squirreliness. It increases the resistant behavior, the behavior that keeps the student from getting down to academic business. Doing aikido with the resistant behavior means figuring out what need the behavior expresses or points to and endorsing the student’s attempt to satisfy that need. “You have to move? OK then. Go move for a bit.” Going with the resistance ultimately makes the resistance unnecessary because, to paraphrase Wikipedia, you’re working with your attacker to keep them safe while getting them back on a peaceful and productive track.

So: How would Lawrence go with Edward’s resistance? How would he do aikido with Edward?

We talked about it in the group. If a student is coming at you with an accusatory question, why not take it seriously? Grab it and give it back to the students? Use Edward’s momentum to get the valuable work done?

Like saying, “You just asked two questions, Edward. One being ‘What is deep?’ The other being ‘How do you know what’s deep?’ Two very different questions. Which would you like to think about first?”

As a teacher, I happen to love questions like “What is ‘deep’?” I could imagine being thrilled that a student asked this question, as it would give me the opening I needed to get them to think about depth in their writing rather than relying on me to tell them. So much more effective.

And, let’s face it: Edward’s question, “How do you know what’s deep?” is a pretty darned good one. How do I know? Wait – Do I know? Who does know? How can anyone know? leading to an important discussion of how to evaluate student writing, a discussion students really need to have since, at the very least, they need to be able to evaluate their own writing. And wouldn’t it be nice if they could evaluate each other’s writing effectively? What a burden that would lift off an English teacher’s shoulders!

Doing aikido made sense to Lawrence. He realized he didn’t need to fight his students when they asked challenging questions. He didn’t need to take those questions personally – that is, he didn’t need to hear them as criticisms or as accusations. He could, as he put it, “swing around” and look at the world through his students’ eyes and take seriously what they saw. Nothing to do with him. But really accurate information about them. 

Lawrence ended this Teacher Support Group feeling really excited. Again, he’s a really great teacher. And he jumped at the opportunity to turn a painful button into a means of connecting with his student. For any teacher, it’s a win-win: You lose the button and you gain connection with students whose resistance can be turned into momentum. A good day’s work.

Recently, I saw Lawrence and mentioned this podcast episode to him. He told me about other students he has had since Edward that also attempted to push this very same button. “But I just decided to work with them,” he said. “Why not draw these students out rather than shutting them down? They’re engaged; they have thoughts, even if they are not the same as mine. The class always benefits from the discussions we have.”

Not only that. Lawrence told me that he’d had some communication from one of his most oppositional students (who graduated several years ago) who told him, “You are the one who taught me to think critically.” How? By shutting her down when she challenged him? No. By drawing her out. By going with her resistance. By giving her what she needed: respect, curiosity, space to be and think and, importantly, to change.

Lawrence said: “I used to think, ‘This student is such a bother to have in class.’ Now I think, ‘Thank god that student was in my class!’”

Now that’s emotional alchemy. Right? Turning rage and fear into pure instructional gold.

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What a reversal!! I mean, the realization Lawrence made – that Edward and students like Edward were acting out their own insecurities, not Lawrence’s – actually changed Lawrence’s teaching. Forever. How did that happen? Let us review.

The first great move Lawrence made was to bring this story to his TSG. The second great move Lawrence made was to be open and honest. He was super honest about how pissed he was at Edward. He was super honest about his insecurity about being thought stupid. He was game to make the flip: to leave his own feelings for a second and wonder about Edward’s. And, once we worked through all this, he got it immediately: how to do aikido with Edward rather than block him.

This was great work.

Great work despite the fact that it involved vulnerability. Actually, Lawrence’s great work rested on vulnerability. He couldn’t have done it without vulnerability. Yet where in a teacher’s daily life does vulnerability fit in? If you’re one of those teachers whose pulse races at the thought of saying, “I don’t know” to your students – and I’m guessing there are more of us out there than not – then where does your vulnerability go?

Oooph. I highly recommend Teacher Support Groups. Not only do you get sympathy from peers who care about you but you get to make this kind of transformation in your teaching and in your relationships. You get to settle into a safe space every week with people who have your back; you get to tell your truth; and you get to turn that truth into a plan that gives you what you want professionally more than anything else: successful, satisfying teaching.

Geez! I really love this story! It’s so rich. It illustrates pushed buttons, making the flip – two experiences that are closely connected – and doing aikido, or going with the resistance, working with your oppositional students, rather than fighting them. And the ending, which I did not make up, I swear – the ending gives the best evidence ever that the moves Lawrence made worked!!! It’s hard to contain my excitement!!!!

But I must. Because it’s time for today’s axiom. It’s not “don’t take it personally,” though it could be. It’s not “make the flip,” though it could be. It’s not “get thee into a Teacher Support Group,” though it could be. No. It’s this: 

There’s always a good reason for every behavior. When you are tempted to come down on a student (or a colleague or a spouse or son or daughter) for bad behavior, for behavior that blows your mind or pushes your button or explodes your psyche, STOP. Go internal. Feel your feelings. Label them. Then wonder if your student (or colleague, spouse, son, or daughter) might be feeling the same way. If “yes” (and that’s very often the answer), wonder why. When you’ve come up with an answer that makes sense to you, act on it with the compassion that understanding tends to open up. Your action can be any number of things, not just doing aikido. We’ll surely be hearing about other effective options with each podcast episode. So stay tuned.