FROM THE HEART

When I had my own classroom last year, I had a poster hanging on the wall just like the one below.  I really wanted my students to think about the power of their words before they came out of their mouth. At the beginning of the year, we squeezed a tube of toothpaste and then tried to put the toothpaste back into the tube as an illustration that you can never take back words once they have been spoken.  We weren't successful 100% of the time, but I heard snippets of conversations from time to time where students would ask or tell each other, "Is that inspiring?" "Was that helpful?"  It made me proud to know that some of my students really took that to heart.

This year, since stepping out of the classroom into a leadership position, I've really thought about the words that come out of my own mouth and the power they have.  I haven't been perfect, not even close.  There have been days where I've said the wrong thing, but I've owned it.  There have been days where the words I spoke were taken out of context or misconstrued.  Only I know the intent behind those conversations.  But, I've really been pondering the way teachers speak.  Last year, I had the amazing opportunity to meet Ron Clark and he made a comment that jumped off of the stage and has stuck with me.  I know I won't get it exactly right, but he spoke about how teachers are the world's worst at tearing each other apart.  He gave several examples that I could really relate to…"Look at her working late.  She's doing it for recognition." or "Dressing up for costumes is just a way to get attention.  There's not time for that."  

I thought back to the many, many days I ate lunch in teachers' lounges, attended professional developments, etc. and heard those very same comments about teachers who are in the trenches in all out warfare for their students.  I thought about the teachers who made the comments and the teachers whom the comments were about.  It broke my heart and continues to break my heart.  Teachers should be bound together by a code, much like the Navy Seals.  They never leave a man behind, and never talk bad about one of the team.  They do everything they can to make sure everyone comes out of a mission successful.  

As teachers, we need to band together and lift each other up every where and in everything that we do. We should be knocking on the doors of teachers in our building and asking if there is any help that is needed and asking for help ourselves.  

We have a greater mission than of ourselves.  Those little guys, and big ones too, who sit in the desks in our classrooms deserve a "team" of professionals that value each other, learn from each other, encourage each other.  That positive energy feeds into our students, who then take it to each other.  If teachers model positivity, just think about what our students would do. 

Being positive or negative is a choice.  One that we must make many times in a single day.  But we have the power to choose it ourselves.  So, if you choose to be positive, pull up a chair beside me at the lunch table and let's talk about how amazing your students are.  If you choose to be the negative nelly - about teachers or students - I'd really prefer that you sit somewhere else.

SHASTA LOOPER

The Teacher's Loop

BEDWORK 3: THANK YOU NOTE

Bedwork 3: Thank You Note

Here is my radio interview with Susan Knight of Calgary’s up!97.7 FM this week:

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, so this is the time when most people feel socially obligated to have warm fuzzies about their partner. Interestingly enough, research is now telling us that what we focus on grows, so you will have more of those warm fuzzies when you are paying attention to all the things that s/he does right rather than all the things that s/he is doingwrong.

Back in 1965, researchers studied and developed a concept now known as the Pygmalion Effect.[i] According to this phenomenon, a teacher who expects a certain student to do well in her class will give that student more feedback, smile at him more often, and nonverbally reinforce the expectation that this student will succeed. Often, these students go on to meet all expectations and rise to the top of their classes. It is, in essence, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Nearly two decades later, Doctors Eden and Ravid tested the concept of the Pygmalion Effect in their Israeli Defense Forces’ experiment.[ii] Members of the Israeli military were brought into a command combat course for training. Four days before the training began, the researchers told the instructors that they had assessed each trainee and given them a “regular,” “high” or “unknown” command potential (CP). The instructors were to study all the soldiers’ files and their accompanying CP scores before classes began.

Unbeknownst to the instructors, these command potentials were not based on testing done on the soldiers, but instead randomly assigned. Roughly a third of the soldiers fell into each category of command potential. Soldiers in all three command potential groups were then evenly distributed amongst the classes and instructors.

In as little as a week, researchers noticed a difference between soldiers who had been designated with a high command potential and the others. They were at the top of their class, having rapidly excelled past the others. By the end of the training period, not only had they outperformed the other soldiers in their coursework and exercises, but they also reported they had a much more positive attitude towards future training, and evaluated their instructors much higher than the other soldiers.

This experiment showed that people rise or fall to the level of expectation around them. Whether you realize it or not, you send out nonverbal messages of anticipation to your colleagues, friends, children and even your spouse. They respond to these messages in how they behave around you.

If you are constantly expecting, perceiving and thinking of your spouse’s failure, you are going to see it. You will miss all the times your spouse does well because you will subconsciously toss out any exception to the rule and look for instances that confirm your belief of him/her. More importantly, your spouse will fail because s/he is not getting the subliminal reassurances that you expect her/him to succeed.

The great news is the Pygmalion Effect works both negatively and positively. You can change your levels of expectation with your spouse. When you begin to focus on the positive aspects of your relationship, this allows her space to change and grow. It allows him to be appreciated for his efforts. It allows her to respond warmly to you. The fact you have shifted your attention to the successful encourages him to keep up the good work.

So here’s your Bedwork for the week: Catch your spouse doing three things right this week. It might be in the way that he parents the kids, the tireless effort she puts forth to keep all the schedules organized, the fact that he takes the garbage out or her refusal to let you leave without a hug and a kiss. Look for three things that you appreciate about your spouse and thenwrite him/her a thank you note for those things. Express your appreciation for all the little things you noticed this week. That will deepen the closeness between the two of you and get you well on your way to having a fabulous Valentine’s Day!

Want more Bedwork? Get my book The Essential Elements of Sex today.

ERYN-FAYE FRANS, Canada's Passion Coach ®

Eryn-Faye.com

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^[i] The original experiment was conducted in 1965, and the two researchers wrote a book on their findings in 1968 (updated in 1992). See Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1992). Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils’ Intellectual Development, 2nd ed. New York: Irvington Publishers, Inc.

[ii] Eden, D. (1992). “Leadership and Expectations: Pygmalion Effects and Other Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in Organizations.” Leadership Quarterly, 3(4): 271-305.