I hate math.
I hate reading.
I hate art.
I hate essays.
I hate tests.
If you are a teacher, chances are you have heard one of the thoughts above.
What was your response?
Did you punish the student?
Did you tell them they were being disrespectful?
Did you ignore them?
Why?
Let’s get curious about why we respond in these ways. Take a moment and think about a time in your childhood when you expressed hating something. Maybe it was one of the above but maybe not. Maybe you hated taking out the garbage, or grocery shopping or folding laundry or raking leaves or… well you get the point. Dig into how you felt. Now imagine yourself expressing that feeling to an adult. Who would you have said something to? Anyone? If not, why not? Who told you that? If so, why?
Let’s dig into what it means to be “disrespectful”. This is something that many people think is universal, but in fact it is very much culture based. Here is an example. In Western cultures, children are taught that it is disrespectful not to make eye contact with adults when they are speaking to you. Looking away will get you chastised or punished. Yet in many Eastern cultures, specifically Japanese culture, children are taught to divert their eyes from an adult’s gaze as a sign of respect- especially when the adult is upset with them. Making eye contact will get you chastised or punished.
Now let’s look at “American culture”. We don’t actually have one universally American culture. Our population came from many different places. It continues to come from many different places. Each person who came here, regardless of how long ago, brought with them a culture. Then we married people from other cultural backgrounds and had children, generation after generation. As this happens, our family cultures get mixed up. With that our understanding of what is and isn’t respectful or disrespectful shifts. With that, we change what we teach our children about how to behave.
So now let’s take a look at social and emotional skills. The focus is very much on SEL these days. So many curricula. So many programs. The real power of SEL, though, lies in moments like this. These students are expressing their emotions- emotions about a subject or assignment- not about us as people. If we react defensively by taking offense or telling them they are being disrespectful, we miss an opportunity to both teach SEL and to discover the keys to help this student learn.
What if, instead of lashing out or punishing the student, we became curious? What if we became curious within ourselves about why this mere expression of an emotional reaction toward a subject or assignment makes us feel personally attacked? What if we became curious about why that student hates whatever it is they hate? What could we gain from that?
First we could gain insight into our own unconscious bias. Second, we could interrupt that instinctual response and turn it into something productive. We could ask the student why they hate that. If the student trusts us, which they are more likely to if we haven’t lashed out at them for expressing themselves, they just might reveal some information that would make it easier for us to teach them. Having that information might just give us the tools to help them gain competency and disrupt the loop of avoidance leading to lack of competency leading to avoidance and on and on. Lastly, by demonstrating the process of self-reflection, honoring someone else’s emotional expression, and being willing to listen to them, we are literally teaching them the most important social and emotional lesson of all. A lesson that cannot be taught through any contrived exercise, class discussion, book reading, art project, program or curriculum.
Meredith Kaunitz has been educating professionally for almost 30 years. Her very popular Infant & Toddler Enrichment Program was developed in partnership with the South Bowie Community Center. ¡Canta! Songs to Learn Spanish is a CD she developed to help young kids learn Spanish by listening to music with their family. More recently, she developed a curriculum for a Japanese language program that has earned 5-stars from over 700 students. In her current position as Chief Education Officer of Art Play Learn, her mission is to increase equity through and in education by applying what we already know to be true and by seeking out more answers to important questions about learning, social structure and psychology.
I hate reading.
I hate art.
I hate essays.
I hate tests.
If you are a teacher, chances are you have heard one of the thoughts above.
What was your response?
Did you punish the student?
Did you tell them they were being disrespectful?
Did you ignore them?
Why?
Let’s get curious about why we respond in these ways. Take a moment and think about a time in your childhood when you expressed hating something. Maybe it was one of the above but maybe not. Maybe you hated taking out the garbage, or grocery shopping or folding laundry or raking leaves or… well you get the point. Dig into how you felt. Now imagine yourself expressing that feeling to an adult. Who would you have said something to? Anyone? If not, why not? Who told you that? If so, why?
Let’s dig into what it means to be “disrespectful”. This is something that many people think is universal, but in fact it is very much culture based. Here is an example. In Western cultures, children are taught that it is disrespectful not to make eye contact with adults when they are speaking to you. Looking away will get you chastised or punished. Yet in many Eastern cultures, specifically Japanese culture, children are taught to divert their eyes from an adult’s gaze as a sign of respect- especially when the adult is upset with them. Making eye contact will get you chastised or punished.
Now let’s look at “American culture”. We don’t actually have one universally American culture. Our population came from many different places. It continues to come from many different places. Each person who came here, regardless of how long ago, brought with them a culture. Then we married people from other cultural backgrounds and had children, generation after generation. As this happens, our family cultures get mixed up. With that our understanding of what is and isn’t respectful or disrespectful shifts. With that, we change what we teach our children about how to behave.
So now let’s take a look at social and emotional skills. The focus is very much on SEL these days. So many curricula. So many programs. The real power of SEL, though, lies in moments like this. These students are expressing their emotions- emotions about a subject or assignment- not about us as people. If we react defensively by taking offense or telling them they are being disrespectful, we miss an opportunity to both teach SEL and to discover the keys to help this student learn.
What if, instead of lashing out or punishing the student, we became curious? What if we became curious within ourselves about why this mere expression of an emotional reaction toward a subject or assignment makes us feel personally attacked? What if we became curious about why that student hates whatever it is they hate? What could we gain from that?
First we could gain insight into our own unconscious bias. Second, we could interrupt that instinctual response and turn it into something productive. We could ask the student why they hate that. If the student trusts us, which they are more likely to if we haven’t lashed out at them for expressing themselves, they just might reveal some information that would make it easier for us to teach them. Having that information might just give us the tools to help them gain competency and disrupt the loop of avoidance leading to lack of competency leading to avoidance and on and on. Lastly, by demonstrating the process of self-reflection, honoring someone else’s emotional expression, and being willing to listen to them, we are literally teaching them the most important social and emotional lesson of all. A lesson that cannot be taught through any contrived exercise, class discussion, book reading, art project, program or curriculum.
Meredith Kaunitz has been educating professionally for almost 30 years. Her very popular Infant & Toddler Enrichment Program was developed in partnership with the South Bowie Community Center. ¡Canta! Songs to Learn Spanish is a CD she developed to help young kids learn Spanish by listening to music with their family. More recently, she developed a curriculum for a Japanese language program that has earned 5-stars from over 700 students. In her current position as Chief Education Officer of Art Play Learn, her mission is to increase equity through and in education by applying what we already know to be true and by seeking out more answers to important questions about learning, social structure and psychology.