AT SCHOOL HOW WE SEE LIBRARY

Emotions are messy! And how we see that messiness flows on to what we do and how we feel about our work. Our viewpoint has enormous power to help us or hinder us so, when it turns out to be ineffective and causing us stress, can we shift perspective?

Picturing the Line can help our stress levels, by revealing the link between emotions and behaviour and opening more possibilities for what could help. The Jungle Framework is a way to understand what’s going in difficult situations then brainstorm the possibilities for what to do.

PERSPECTIVE then POSSIBILITIES.

It’s hard to know what’s going on with a student’s emotions because these happen under the surface. It’s complicated for anyone to put their feelings into words and this is even more difficult for children and teenagers. Yet there will be clues we can use to imagine a gauge in our minds.

With a squiggle and a Line, the gauge integrates concepts like the link between emotions and behaviour, the fight response of survival instinct and the complicated steps of Self-Control (to know the line, how to settle and move on). It’s a way to anticipate how someone’s coping and can be interpreted like an emotional budget, to consider how much reserve they have left to get through their school day.

Overload is an unpleasant experience for students, but it comes about when their emotional bundle gets bigger than they can manage and tips them over the Line. If we recognise the factors that go into overload (e.g. anxiety, frustration, embarrassment and noise), we have a chance to reduce them. When we find factors that help settle a student’s emotional bundle (e.g. connect and collect success, time and space, or noise cancelling headphones), we have the chance to do more of those.

Fight behaviour is a sign of actual overload, while Avoidance and Controlling behaviours are signs of a student trying to prevent overload. It’s an attempt to solve their problems by avoiding them or controlling them, none of which work. I want to give these students credit that they are TRYING TO COPE, BUT… They’re using methods that seem like a good idea, but actually backfire and make matters worse. What they really need instead, is for someone to help them experience that whatever happens, we’ll manage.

When emotions get too big for students to handle, they cross the Line and instinct says, if in doubt, come out fighting. They enter the Jungle, where whoever does it best wins, and sometimes we feel like we’re swinging through the trees with them!

Recognising the Jungle can take the power out of it. When they argue, insult or yell, and even if they go ballistic, we can beware the traps and stay out. Jungle behaviour is a signal that they’re not coping and they don’t know how to manage. It’s not ok, but they’ll keep doing it until we support them to learn a better way.

Self-control is hard and, if students knew how to do it, they wouldn’t enter the Jungle in the first place. The predictable sequence of a Rule-Consequence-Fresh Start (R-C-FS) provides a scaffold for Self-Control, as well as teaching them what’s OK (and what’s Not OK) in society.

In sport (and in life), a good referee applies the R-C-FS whenever a rule is broken. It’s the fair way to get past misdeeds and keeps the game running smoothly. The ref doesn’t use a lot of words and their persona stays calm and matter-of-fact, no matter what. Their authority depends on not crossing that Line, so a clever ref stays out of the Jungle.

You have expertise in supporting students to learn, so you’re well-practised at working out what they find hard, then scaffolding them to collect success through graduated steps along the way. This approach can also help students who struggle with the other areas that flow on to impact their learning.

Is it emotions and behaviour that they find hard? Or is there more to this? Beneath their frustration, anxiety or disengagement, it might be that they find it hard to concentrate and organise (i.e. executive function), to make sense of people (i.e. social skills) or understand the nuanced details of language. It’s hard to be motivated if experience has taught them they can’t succeed.

Once you notice what a student finds hard, you can explore ways to scaffold it for them to succeed. Even a small achievement can be a turning point for them to start believing that success is possible and difficult things are worth a try

You meet students at a time in their lives when you can’t influence their past but you can change their future. Feel good about what you do, because even small changes can alter the trajectory for a student, and the adult they’ll become.

Burnout is a risk, because you care, so take notice of your own emotional budget too. Be realistic about what you can influence and what you can’t and find ways to accept the factors that aren’t up to you. You can decide where to spend or invest your precious emotional reserve.

As you process your perspective and translate it into action, anticipate how this might challenge the mental models of your school community and how you might address the challenges that arise. You might do it alone or discuss it with colleagues, or perhaps you’ll start a HOW WE SEE group to brainstorm ideas. Whether it’s at an individual level with your students, or more broadly across your school culture, I hope you’re finding possibilities that are worth a try.