It's Just What We Call It

Did you know that there is a definition for a properly maintained yard?  According to the American Garden Club, an appropriate type of lawn was "a plot with a single type of grass with

no intruding weeds, kept mown at a height of an inch and a half, uniformly green, and neatly edged."  If you live in Tuscon, Arizona or some other arid place, this would be difficult to achieve, requiring an amount of water you may not have.  For you, a properly maintained yard might be filled with succulents and stones that allow for proper drainage.  

In some places, there are movements to have native lawns or natural lawns, which are more eco-friendly in that they require little watering or mowing, give home to local fauna, attract pollinators, and work with the natural landscape rather than against it. 

For those of you wondering if this blog has changed from education to lawn maintenance, hang with me for a minute.  The Gardening Club's definition is what most American accept, but that's only because we have been taught those standards by suburban cultural norms.  A weed is only a weed because we choose to call it that.  We could just as easily live in a world where a lawn would be considered more beautiful if it had a variety of color rather than a uniformity of green.  While there are objective standards for many things, there are also a variety of contexts in which success is only defined by what we call it.

Let's say a person is in line to ride a roller coaster.  As she nears the front of the line, her heart rate increases as adrenaline and cortisol rev up her muscles. Her pupils dilate, the moisture level on her skin increases, and she feels a tightening in her stomach.  From the symptoms I have described, you may think she is terrified of the upcoming ride.  Perhaps she is.  Or perhaps, she is very excited about the ride.  After all, the physiological symptoms are the same.  An outside observer, when looking only at the biometric data with no context, is unable to differentiate nervousness and excitement.  The difference, it seems, is what we call it.  We make that choice based on our appraisal of the likely outcome.  If we foresee a negative outcome, we call that array of symptoms nervousness.  If, however, we imagine a positive end, we call it excitement.  Helping our students with normal anxieties may be as simple as helping them reframe their predictions.  When a student is anxious about a test, a game, a play audition, or other similar scenarios, they naturally imagine the worst-case scenario.  This is normal and appropriate for our survival as a species because if we do not prepare for danger, we could actually be harmed.  But, it may be helpful to ask our students the next questions.  "Okay, what if the worst happens and you fail this test?  What's the result?  Will your parents stop loving you?  Will I?"  When they realize the answer to those questions is no, it may help them to stop catastrophizing the situation.  Or, you can ask them to imagine the full spectrum instead of just the worst side of it.  Ask them "What if you ace it?"  That may have the effect of helping them reappraise their feelings.  (Please note that I am not talking about anxiety disorders which obviously require medical attention.  I'm talking about the normal day-to-day things that make us nervous like giving a presentation in class.)

The same is true of other things we call stress.  During those especially busy weeks of the semester when it seems like every class is giving a test, students often believe we should take steps to minimize their stress.  I prefer to encourage them to hang in there, recognize it is temporary, and power through it.  When that week is over, I like to remind them that they aren't dead.  "Look what you didn't know you were capable of.  Next time, you'll know you can do it."  This is another one of those things we seem to recognize and find acceptable in sports but not in other places.  When an athlete has a particularly hard workout, we call it conditioning and respect it.  We use phrases like, "No pain. No gain."  When I leave my weightlifting class at the Y with jello arms and wobbly legs after Matt has challenged me, I don't blame him for the pain in my muscles and ask him to make it easier.  I thank him for the growth that he is causing in my muscles and mind.  The same should hold true in academic situations (and all other situations); we should recognize that growth only happens through stress and call it that.  Instead of saying, "This is a really stressful week," we can reappraise that feeling and recognize it is a week that will spur a lot of growth.

We don't have to ignore our feelings, but we also don't have to let them rule us.  We have come to view them as though they are the most real part of us, but they are chemical reactions causing electrical impulses.  As such, we can have some level of control over them.  Importantly, we can teach our students to recognize and manage them as well.