Funny story: When we were kids one of my siblings started a "brave club." The club only had 2 members... said sibling who served as president, and our youngest sibling who served as, well, the rest of the club membership. My sibling who served as president wanted to do brave things, but I guess needed a reason to do them, so the purpose of the club was to provide a forum where she was tasked/assigned (by the youngest sibling) to attempt feats or bravery. The only one I remember is walking along the top of the wall that ran along one side of our yard. My sibling probably would have loved this sort of an assignment.
In a big picture sense, I love the idea of a classroom community where a wide range of student personalities/abilities/etc could feel so safe that they could take on something like this. I would love it if every student felt this seen and supported in their learning environment. But I have to say my scope of practice radar is going off over here. For some students (I'm specifically thinking of a number of neurodivergent students who I know very well) I have some concerns that without good guardrails in place type of assignment could easily creep out of the scope of practice for teachers. So you would need to have some very clear guardrails and training for what kind of guiding questions teachers could/should use, etc. and how to facilitate this process. (As an aside and for context, I am certified in Equine Facilitated Learning and one of the things that was drilled into us in our training was that we are NOT Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy certified and that therefore there's a level of processing/questions/etc and line in the sand that we SHOULD NOT cross because t we are simply not trained or qualified to enter that psychological territory with a client and could do damage/cause trauma as a result. I would apply the same logic here to teachers.)
> Teachers and students realize their greatest fear is that they are living inauthentic lives to prop up a failing system of people who placed intolerable burdens on them because THOSE people refuse to actually face their fears. So they launch a revolution.
Getting other people to share their fears is only safe if I have already conquered mine (where they overlap)
Otherwise, I will get triggered and either dismiss or exacerbate their fears.
And last I checked, teachers, school leaders, and parents were not in a particularly relaxed frame of mind (which is probably why kids are anxious in the first place).
How do we give them something we do not already have?
Funnily enough, my obsession over the last few years has been developing "group reflective practices" where the facilitator invites the group to "learn alongside them" as they work through a series of deliberative and meditative exercises.
I have seen some strongly positive results, but it is an open question how transferrable and scalable that is. I have however determined that this is highly disruptive to traditional hierarchical organizations...
Funny story: When we were kids one of my siblings started a "brave club." The club only had 2 members... said sibling who served as president, and our youngest sibling who served as, well, the rest of the club membership. My sibling who served as president wanted to do brave things, but I guess needed a reason to do them, so the purpose of the club was to provide a forum where she was tasked/assigned (by the youngest sibling) to attempt feats or bravery. The only one I remember is walking along the top of the wall that ran along one side of our yard. My sibling probably would have loved this sort of an assignment.
In a big picture sense, I love the idea of a classroom community where a wide range of student personalities/abilities/etc could feel so safe that they could take on something like this. I would love it if every student felt this seen and supported in their learning environment. But I have to say my scope of practice radar is going off over here. For some students (I'm specifically thinking of a number of neurodivergent students who I know very well) I have some concerns that without good guardrails in place type of assignment could easily creep out of the scope of practice for teachers. So you would need to have some very clear guardrails and training for what kind of guiding questions teachers could/should use, etc. and how to facilitate this process. (As an aside and for context, I am certified in Equine Facilitated Learning and one of the things that was drilled into us in our training was that we are NOT Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy certified and that therefore there's a level of processing/questions/etc and line in the sand that we SHOULD NOT cross because t we are simply not trained or qualified to enter that psychological territory with a client and could do damage/cause trauma as a result. I would apply the same logic here to teachers.)
The inverse "How this might go wrong."
Kids will only share "socially acceptable" fears that they hope won't trigger their peers or teachers.
Thus, we end up with psychology theater that makes teachers feel like they are solving the problem,
but actually teaches kids to totally distrust anyone who claims they want to help,
and bury their actual fears even deeper inside.
[Why yes, I am still slightly bitter about religion, thanks for asking]
Yes. I've seen this exact form of psychological theater happen with a middle schooler before.
How this might go horribly right:
> Teachers and students realize their greatest fear is that they are living inauthentic lives to prop up a failing system of people who placed intolerable burdens on them because THOSE people refuse to actually face their fears. So they launch a revolution.
Thanks for tackling this!
How this might go wrong:
Getting other people to share their fears is only safe if I have already conquered mine (where they overlap)
Otherwise, I will get triggered and either dismiss or exacerbate their fears.
And last I checked, teachers, school leaders, and parents were not in a particularly relaxed frame of mind (which is probably why kids are anxious in the first place).
How do we give them something we do not already have?
To this point, it'd be useful to have examples of fear-reducing techniques (there should be oodles to choose from, right?) which have been
(a) shown to work in kids specifically and/or
(b) shown to work even when the facilitator themself is an anxious person.
Funnily enough, my obsession over the last few years has been developing "group reflective practices" where the facilitator invites the group to "learn alongside them" as they work through a series of deliberative and meditative exercises.
I have seen some strongly positive results, but it is an open question how transferrable and scalable that is. I have however determined that this is highly disruptive to traditional hierarchical organizations...