Recognizing our Needs

I recently engaged in the futile exercise of trying to have a rational debate with someone on Twitter.  (I know, folly, right?)  The topic, if you can believe it, was the need for faculty meetings.  Perhaps, it is because my colleagues are fabulous people who I enjoy spending time with.  It could be because I'm single and want to be with people.  Maybe, I'm just weird.  Whatever the cause, I think faculty meetings are important and valuable uses of time.  While I don't believe in meetings just for the sake of meetings or the time-suck that is announcing things that could have been handled in email form, I totally believe in the value of a group discussion among people who teach different things.  There is wisdom that comes from differing perspectives.  The person I was arguing with online could only see that they could be "doing something else with that time."

Every summer, I volunteer at a weeklong camp, during which I have no contact with anyone except the camp folk and the photo desk lady at WalMart.  When we return home, we have a dinner with our families.  Stories are shared, the camp video is screened, and acknowledgments for years of service are given.  In recent years, some of the staff have balked at staying for the dinner after having been gone from home all week.  Again, I may be strange; but for me, camp wouldn't end properly without the dinner.  If I just drove straight home from the campground, I wouldn't have any emotional boundary between camp and not-camp.  Our directors are open to condensing the format, but last year, one of them said, "We will have something because you have a psychological need for it."

Analyzing these two events and other events in church and school life, it occurs to me that we are really bad at recognizing our own needs.  We tend to be short-sighted and want-focused.  The guy on Twitter who doesn't like faculty meetings can only see that hour and how many papers he could grade how he could go home an hour earlier if he weren't in a meeting.  He doesn't recognize that these conversations bring him perspectives he wouldn't otherwise have and, therefore lead him to better understand his students and improve his craft.  (To be fair, I know nothing about his school and whether or not their meetings are helpful or not.)

If we, as adults who have lived long enough to have had the experience of not getting what we want and being glad for it later, are bad at recognizing our needs, how much more might our students need help in analyzing their own needs vs. wants and short-term vs. long-term benefits and costs.  As with most things, doing this requires active reflection, a skill that requires training.

We have many opportunities with students to guide their thinking.  Some of it comes up in the material we teach.  Some may be done by modeling our own reflection process.  Some can be done in reflection at the end of a project or through a blog assignment.  Most of our opportunities, however, are unplanned moments.  When a student is frustrated by not getting something they want (the role they wanted in a play, becoming a starter on the basketball team, not getting the grade they were hoping for, etc.), we have the responsibility to help them process beyond the current moment while sympathizing with them in the moment.  If you remember being a teenager, every emotion feels like the whole world hinges on it.  As adults, we know that isn't true.  We can show them that it is okay to feel sad about something and then ask them questions that will help them put it in a larger perspective.  Be aware enough of your surroundings to take advantage of those moments, and your teaching will go beyond curriculum.