Own Our Behaviors.
From time to time, I find myself cruising down different rabbit holes on the internet. I enjoy learning new and interesting things, so it is a satisfying way for me to “do nothing.” This weekend I stumbled on a TedTalk that sparked a train of thought. Louise Evans, described as a Behavioral Coach, Corporate Trainer, and author, started off her talk with an explanation of an incident with her future daughter-in-law that could have gone awry. In short, she described an evening for the two of them where shortly after their arrival, she looked over at the young girl and caught her on her phone. In this moment, she wrestled with how to handle the situation. She then walked through five different ways in which she could approach her: from anger and disappointment to the realization that she had not even considered the interests of her daughter-in-law. In her hesitation while she considered how to respond, the daughter-in-law began to speak and revealed that she had been on her phone learning more about the restaurant they were in, the band that was playing, and making a social media post that she shared celebrating their wonderful evening. Louise Evans indicated that she really dodged a bullet. Her reaction could have damaged their relationship, which was the exact opposite of what she was going for in taking her out that evening.
The thought that this little scenario sparked for me was the idea that we have control over our behaviors. How we respond to a situation can escalate or de-escalate it in record time. In our classrooms, we will not always have control over the actions of others, but we do have control over our responses to these actions. I cannot tell you the number of times that I have watched teachers skillfully ignore some of the small annoyances in classrooms, and because they did not give them air, those fires quickly burned out.
I am not saying this is an easy thing to do. I am also not saying we just give in and watch our classrooms turn into the Hunger Games. What I am saying is that we know we have control over our behavior, and at the moment, as we are scanning through our classroom management rolodex in our brains for the best way to approach the situation, we want to be cognizant of how our response may impact the classroom and the learning environment.