Emotional Management

Emotional Training

Today was officially the last day of the Spring term and, as the students finished yesterday, we were able to use the day as a planning and INSET day.  However there was also offered a day long training session on emotional management, which I decided to do.  This was initially fed to us as a behaviour management training day, which, given the nature of the school and my classes, would obviously have been highly beneficial and appreciated.  What we got instead was a whole lot better though!  The lady delivering the session, Paula, first off trained as a speech and language therapist, before branching out into anger management.  To introduce the training she first of all asked us to 'check in' saying how we were feeling and who we were, before setting us the task of writing down as many different feelings as we could in 3 minutes.  She then explained that she believes that there are only 8 core emotions - these are like the primary colours in that they are the basis of all other emotions (see diagram below) - for instance when we are feeling excited this is usually happiness and empowerment mixed with a little bit of fear (hence the butterflies...).

The 'Core Feelings'

Brene Brown - TEDx on Vulnerability

From these 8 core feeling we are able to find many other emotions, but at the root of all of them we come back to these.  The things we talked about touched on a bit of what Brene Brown talks about in her TEDx Talk (see video below).  The idea was that you need to be in touch with your emotions and have a handle on them and your own self-esteem before you are able to connect with others on an empathetic level.  As Brown talks about in her video, people who are wholehearted embrace their vulnerability and are willing to accept that they are not in control of everything.  (By the way, if you get a chance - WATCH THE VIDEO - she's funny and direct and yet has some really good stuff to say, particularly where she talks about raising children as imperfect and yet worthy of love and belonging!)

Managing our emotions

Following on from this introduction Paula asked us to think about how we manage our emotions when we are at home or at work.  At home I find it very easy to keep a check on my emotions - if I am stressed or annoyed I go for a swim or a run, if I'm upset I read sad stories and watch sad films so that I can cry without feeling too sorry for myself, if I'm hurt I let the people who have hurt me know and try to reconcile it.  But it is so so so much more difficult to do this in the classroom, because you are the teacher and you are the adult.  And I'd be lying if I didn't say that I get annoyed and upset in school, I most definitely do, but when I'm there I try to bottle it up and then deal with it when I get home.  And this in itself is so unhealthy!

Dealing with ANGER

Continuing on the dealing with emotions theme Paula talked us through the aggressive and passive aggressive responses to anger - she asked us to consider our upbringing and what our parents were like and how this impacted us.  My Dad was brought up in a very abusive home and as a result he was often quite aggressive and quick to anger with us, and although he was nowhere near as bad as his Dad was, he was still terrifying when he was in a bad mood and you were never sure whether or not you were going to come under his wrath.  As for my Mum, she demanded perfection.  And I don't blame her, especially now I'm older and can understand it more, but at the time I hated her for it.  I was constantly disappointed in myself and didn't feel like anything I could do was good enough.  And these things and the way life was for me when I was younger have impacted into who I am now, and even what I am like as a teacher, and that in itself is a scary thought!

It also explains a lot about our kids.  Children mimic their parents' behaviour - either that or they take the other extreme.  The home lives of some of our kids are dreadful - one of the girls in my form came in the other morning at 7:30am and asked if she could have a nap at the back of the room until school started.  I didn't question it at the time, but later on took her out of one of her lessons to chat about it and she explained that her Mum had been up all night drinking and doing drugs and having shouted arguments with her boyfriend and because of this she hadn't been able to sleep at home so she'd come in early to have a sleep.  In the same vein, we have a lot of kids who come in early to take advantage of the free breakfast and the fact that in the winter the heating is on at school and some of them don't have heating at home.  All these things compound to make children who are so vulnerable and yet have had to toughen themselves up well ahead of their time and become hardened shells impervious to any emotions.

The Bucket

Another thing that we were asked to consider was the idea that self esteem is like a bucket with holes in it.  As a child we expect others to fill this bucket with things such as trust, respect, love, appreciation, understanding, caring and believing.  And yet as adults it is our job to be able to fill this bucket ourselves, knowing ourselves well enough to keep it full enough.  I definitely think this is accurate - as an adult I am most low not when I think someone else doesn't believe in me or value me, but when I doubt myself and my abilities. No longer do I rely on others, but instead I rely on my own emotional stability.  The only thing I do struggle to reconcile with what Paula was speaking to us about is the idea of depression.  Knowing firsthand what depression can do to someone, from watching my Mum sink deep into it while I was in my mid-teens, I don't see how the bucket concept is at all helpful in pulling yourself out.  It is such a complex illness with so many variables, and even though many people want to be better and want to feel happier with their lives, it just isn't possible!

Questions to ask yourself

The last thing that we talked about was questions to ask myself when I start to feel angry/hurt/scared/ashamed etc.

1 - If I wasn't in the situation what would I see?

2 - Will this matter in 3 months time?

3 - Exactly what am I feeling?

4 - Can we agree to disagree?

5 - What might be triggering me right now?

6 - Is this really directed at me?

7 - Can I talk this through with a friend, or write it down, before I respond?

Question 6 I think is a key one to consider when working with teenagers.  So often I have let myself get upset by a student who has been acting out or has been particularly disruptive, but when I think about it later I know that it hasn't been directed at me, that the way they have acted is often as the result of their inability to cope with and understand the way they are feeling or how this is affecting them.

To this end Paula suggested that the way we portray our emotions to the students we are working with, and also the way that we communicate with our students will directly impact on how they respond to us.

Transactional Analysis

This concept is best explained by transactional analysis (Eric Berne) - this is the idea that we have three possible roles that we can take : Parent, Adult and Child.  And that communication between teachers and students is often like that of parent-child, thus telling our students that the behaviour and attitude we expect in response is that of a child. And yet we are frustrated by this immaturity on their behalf when this happens.  Berne suggested that instead we should consider a more adult-adult communication.  By treating our kids like they are adults we are suggesting to them that they should be responding as adults and so developing their emotional maturity and giving them the skills to be able to deal with situations as adults.

I have noticed this in particular with the kids I worked with in New Zealand.  I developed very quick and comfortable relationships with these kids because I took the time to get to know them as adults and not as children, and I think at times I forget this with some of the students I teach now.  I need to be more proactive at getting to know more of the students who are particularly difficult in lessons and finding connections to them that are not just on the adult-child level!

Why this matters and what is going to change...

I feel like I've gone into an awful lot of depth about this, but I've found it extremely useful training and have really enjoyed the chance to get more to grips with how emotions work and why our kids may be behaving the way they do.  In particular it reminds me of the talks we had from Margaret Ross back when I was in my Summer Institute training before I started Teach First.  A lot of the concepts discussed were very similar (if worded slightly differently) and I would love to be able to study this more in depth - perhaps as my dissertation topic for my Masters degree!!!