Know Yourself, Know Your Students: How to use personality frameworks to humanize your classroom (part 4)

Using the personality frameworks in your classroom

Over the past two months, I’ve been writing and thinking a lot about the work I did to use these frameworks in my classroom and how it might be helpful to other teachers in theirs. 

But I’ve also been wondering how to talk about why…

Because, like, is this all about better classroom management? More productivity? Is this really just some form of manipulation to get what we want out of the children in our classroom and the people we work with?

 

Well, I guess it could be.

And I think that’s why when I worked out a title for this series, I landed on “to humanize your classroom”. Because therein lies my hope. For myself. For anyone who may read this. 

This isn’t a behavior management system. Frankly, those words are so creepy to me! Do we really want these kids to be managed? Do we want to manage our colleagues? Do we want to be managed by others?

In the immortal words of Alexis Rose, “Ew.”

But that’s not the work I see us doing here. Sure, this is a somewhat systematic approach. A labeling is taking place, which may make you a little itchy. My husband (who I think is a Rebel) immediately pushed back against the idea of everyone fitting into one of 4 groups (I see the irony. He didn’t.) But, he’s right, too. 

Resisting reductive labels on our students is humanizing. 

That said, I don’t see these frameworks as reductive. I don’t see this as simplifying labels that allow us to group and move on. 

I see these frameworks as tools for developing understanding, for seeing past conflict, and for creating empathetic communication. And I think the frameworks are really helpful because that’s really hard to do that without some guidance. 

Especially with a room of twenty or more fellow humans. 

So I move forward with sharing these ideas and sharing how I used them with a caveat. And that is, “Or don’t.”

Don’t follow my steps. Don’t obey strictly to these frameworks. Because it doesn’t really matter how it’s done. 

If you are showing up to your students as a human interacting with another human, you are already doing this work.

Ultimately I think that is what Gretchen Rubin and Dr. Robyn Jackson are teaching us here. Not how to manage and manipulate people so they do what we want more readily. But how to understand that there is always a good reason when they don’t. 

A good reason that isn’t because of a personal failure on their (or our) part.

That, really, it’s caused by a disconnect.

I’m putting my strategies out here, not to make you a good, better, or best teacher. Not to increase test scores. 

It just is. It’s just us remembering our humanness and how that often makes it tricky to spend all day with ourselves and other people and also get a bunch of stuff done. 

So with that in mind, here are my suggested steps. You can’t do it wrong. 

Steps you can take to better know yourself and your students

1. Use one of these frameworks on yourself. Take the Four Tendencies online quiz from Gretchen Rubin or reflect on your behaviors in terms of what motivates you to invest your time and energy in a task. Look back at posts 1 and 2 in the series to summarize the frameworks.

You may do this with some journaling or thoughtful reflection. What do you notice? What circumstances most often lead to your feelings of success or failure? What strategies do you tend to use to help reach your goals? Why do those seem to work for you? 

Possible example: “I want to have a full understanding of the expectations of a task and how I can effectively achieve them. I like a clear schedule and set rules. Negotiating or changing the plan along the way causes me stress and anxiety.” These could be signs that you are Mastery Driven.

2. Analyze your teaching methods, work, or personal relationships through that lens. What priorities are reflected there? What conflicts or alignments? What do you tend to ignore or avoid? Who do you connect with most? Who do you conflict with?

3. Reframe your thinking to reflect the tendency or Will Driver of those around you with whom you are having the most conflict. This is a really good experiment to try! Look closely at one student or colleague with whom you are struggling to connect. Repeat the practice from step 1, first looking at their patterns and where they might fit in the framework. Then analyze your interactions with that person and their behaviors. How are each of your tendencies or will-drivers creating a disconnect? 

Possible example: “My colleague might be an Obliger. They are looking for opportunities to check-in and collaborate on this task. They are sending me lots of correspondence and want to meet way too often. My inclination is to interpret their behavior as needy or incompetant. Can’t they just take care of it? Why do they need me to hold their hand?”

4. Adjust your thinking. Call upon yourself to eliminate any negative discourses about that person that may be lingering in the back of your mind. Replace those thoughts with compassionate understanding about what they may experience or perceive when they interact with you on a task.

Possible example: “As an Obliger, they want to work in community with me. They respect my input and want to create a quality product. They care a lot about the work we are doing. They care about me.”

5. Adjust your actions and words. Use your new perspective to build successful circumstances for your interactions with this person. What language can you use that is more likely to resonate with them? What conditions can you create that will be more meaningful to them? How can you support their understanding of your motivations as well?

Possible example: “We can create a schedule for checking-in and steps for completing our project. This way I won’t be overwhelmed or annoyed with their need for outer accountability and they will feel supported. I can also use language that affirms them and emphasizes that I value their contribution.”

6. Don’t demand perfection. This applies to yourself and the other person. Know that you won’t always align, but that is not because of a shortcoming in either of you. Allow for apologies and redos. 

7. Keep trying. Believe in the possibility to connect positively with this person and don’t give up on them when things go awry. 

Because there will be times when we are going to be at odds with students and coworkers whose motivations and priorities don’t match our own, it can be easy to slip into negative judgments. We know though that these judgments at best don’t serve anyone, and, at worst, promote damaging discourses, especially with our students.

We can develop a mindset based on the understanding that each of us has a genuine reason for our behaviors and that one is not more worthy than another.

We can come to understand ourselves and our students. 

When we create a space that attempts to connect to each individual, I believe we are honoring the humanity of each person in the room.

Know Yourself, Know Your Students: How to use personality frameworks to humanize your classroom (Part 3)

Reframe your thinking to humanize your classroom

For the past few months, I’ve been writing and reflecting on Gretchen Rubin’s 4 Tendencies and Dr. Robyn Jackson’s theory of Will-Drivers. I’ve been thinking about where my behaviors and habits of thinking fall in these frameworks, and the impact that has in my classroom. I have come to the conclusion that applying an intrapersonal understanding (one of myself) can help me understand my interactions with colleagues and students.

I’ve seen the impact on interpersonal understandings as a result of looking at my student and colleagues through the lens of these frameworks, too.

Behaviors that seem, on the surface, to reflect a lack of care or drive are really reflections of a different interpretation of expectations and motivations. 

Doing so helped eliminate mindsets that undermine equitable, compassionate perspectives of my students. Thoughts about a student being lazy, careless, or disrespectful are untrue assumptions based on a disconnection between my own expectations and motivations and the student’s. 

And making these judgements about students does not allow for their existence as full people in my classroom. 

As Dr. Jackson points out, we can’t purchase a script of what to say to each student based on their will-driver or tendency. Instead, in understanding a student in terms of how they respond to a circumstance, and in seeing that response as justified and reasonable, we humanize them. 

In developing an understanding of myself and my students, I create a space where we can all thrive.

Examine how your classroom reflects your motivations

Based on the 4 Tendencies and Will-Driver frameworks (see blog post 1 and 2 for more information on these) I recognize my behaviors and motivations align most with a Questioner tendency and a purpose-driven Will-Driver. 

Before I invest time and effort in a task, I want to know the why. I am happy to work out the how and when later, and I don’t mind going for it alone. I care most about things I see as purposeful. 

When something is expected of me that I do not see as worthy or meaningful, I will challenge, avoid, or argue. I don’t respond well to expectations that are not fully justified. I need to turn outer expectations into my own self-validated inner expectations.

I am not generally motivated by competition, prizes, or threats. I tend to see these as a manipulation and push back.

But that’s just me.

What about you?

What about your students? How do their responses reflect their motivations?

A student challenges an expectation with “Do I have to do this?” 

A student avoids an expectation by doing something, anything else. 

A student argues or refuses to participate.

And then we, the teachers, are frustrated… defeated… angry… disappointed...

Because we’ve done the work. We’ve planned and prepared. We’ve put thought, time, and effort into creating and delivering a task. Our Tendency or Will-Driver has likely been met - that’s why the work got done on our end. 

When I plan lessons, it’s important that I am able to identify the task’s purpose as meaningful. For others it may be that it meets a district or school expectation, represents one’s professional goals (such as creating great edtech lessons or using representative literature, etc.), or was designed in community with other teachers. 

Although each of our classrooms is likely to reflect our own motivations and expectations, that won’t translate to all students or colleagues.

The work, then, is to come to an understanding of why and make adjustments to support communication and understanding.

Know Yourself, Know Your Students: How to use personality frameworks to humanize your classroom (Part 2)

What Drives My Motivation?: Exploring Dr. Robyn Jackson’s Will-Drivers Framework

In Angela Watson’s Truth for Teachers Episode 191, Angela and Dr. Robyn Jackson discuss the framework for identifying a student’s will-driver, and how teachers may use that framework to take steps to overcome issues with seemingly unmotivated, disinterested students. 

Dr. Jackson’s framework defines four types of will drivers: Purpose, Belonging, Mastery, and Autonomy, and a belief that each of us has a dominant will driver, a manner that most motivates and engages us.

To better understand the roles within this framework, we can consider what motivates each dominant will-driver to invest energy in a task:

• Mastery-driven kids want to know how to be successful or achieve mastery

• Belonging-driven kids want to know who this connects them to, or how this defines them

• Purpose-driven kids want to know why this is meaningful

• Autonomy kids want to know what they are being asked to do and what decisions they can make for themselves

Look closely at your students and how their responses embody their dominant will-driver

Dr. Jackson describes simple variations in language and delivery that can connect more effectively with a student’s dominant will-driver.

A belonging-driven student, for example, will feel seen and honored by a teacher who helps define who they are. Telling this student she is a hard worker or a good friend to a classmate in response to an action will affirm in them what they are striving to be. 

In the same interaction, a purpose-driven student will be motivated by confirmation that her actions were meaningful. To let this student know, “Your work here has helped you become a better reader” or “That classmate has a big smile on her face now. You've made her feel good,” you affirm them based on what they find most meaningful. You are supporting their understanding of the why.

When we look at our students and allow for some time to analyze their negative and positive reactions to various circumstances, we can start to pinpoint their will-driver. 

In my recent experience struggling to motivate a kindergarten student whose behavior was becoming increasingly defiant and disengaged, I applied Dr. Jackson’s framework. 

I noticed this student would push back at just about any directive, even where to play at recess (classes were assigned different sections of the playground during COVID for contact-tracing purposes). She would refuse to leave the room to go outside when I was certain that she really did want to play outside with her friends. She’d told me as much earlier when it was time to complete classwork!

This, and several other clues, led me to believe this student was Autonomy-driven. She wanted choices. 

I started reframing the way I spoke to her. “Giving her choices” was still defining what she would do on my terms. So instead of saying, “Your choices for where to sit are...” I said, “Where will you decide to sit?”

Instead of reprimanding, cajoling, or pleading with her to follow directions and do what I asked -requests that she flatly refused- I reminded her that everything she did was her decision. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t try, to force her to do anything, and that I was there to help her learn. The decision to do so was hers and hers alone.

We are still working through crafting a classroom in which her will-driver is honored whenever possible. As Dr. Jackson points out, autonomy-driven kids have it really hard in school because opportunities for genuine choice are rare, but these kids don’t want anarchy, they just want to know they have options.  

Armed with that understanding, I was able to reframe a negative discourse that had started to form in my mind about this student. Looking through the lens of a student’s will-driver helped dispel deficit-based assumptions about that student’s motivation, academic ability, or personality. 

And wouldn’t we want the same from others?

Know Yourself, Know Your Students: How to use personality frameworks to humanize your classroom (Part 1)

Know Yourself, Know Your Students: How to use personality frameworks to humanize your classroom

During the many at-home, entertainment-seeking hours of COVID distancing and digital schooling, my daughter and I became quite versed in the world of Buzzfeed personality quizzes. And while you may say it is not of great value to know which Golden Girl I am or which Disney character I should have as a roommate (and you’d probably be right), these quizzes did lead me to an interesting revelation. 

In answering quiz questions, I was called on to think for a moment about what personal qualities I most value, what I most fear, or what quality people respect most about me.These seemingly mindless interviews asked me to do some light self-exploration. (Even if it did only result in telling me that my inner celebrity is Lil Nas X.)

I started wondering about intrapersonal understandings that might matter a bit more and could have a more meaningful impact on my professional and personal relationships. 

I asked myself what would happen if I developed a better understanding of my own motivation or response to expectations?

How can an increased intrapersonal intelligence help me to interact more positively with others? 

Throughout this month I will share my experience with developing my own intrapersonal intelligence using a few popular frameworks, their application in creating positive interactions with colleagues and administration, and their use in building relationships with students.

The Four Tendencies Framework: How do I respond to expectations?

In our various roles as teacher, coworker, parent, partner, etc., we constantly encounter and respond to expectations in the form of inner expectations. Examples such as setting personal goals to read more, eat healthily, maintain an exercise routine, and stay organized. We also face outer expectations, such as deadlines, student achievement reports, email requests, assigned professional development trainings, and more.

Our students, too, face a daily torrent of expectations. Parents, teachers, even friends, pile on the outer expectations and, even at a young age, kids have expectations for themselves. 

Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Framework helps identify the manner in which you instinctively respond to these inner and outer expectations. In doing so, you can create circumstances that ensure success in achieving your goals.

The four tendencies, as defined by Gretchen Rubin, are Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, and Rebel.  

She summarizes each of the four tendencies in a nutshell: 

• Upholders want to know what should be done.

• Questioners want justifications.

• Obligers need accountability.

• Rebels want freedom to do something their own way.

“When we can see other people’s perspectives, we understand why, from their point of view, their actions make sense,” she explains on her website.

Reflect on the chemistry between your tendency and that of those around you

Defining your tendency can give you insight into your interactions with colleagues.

Upon reflection, I’ve realized how my Questioner tendency was misinterpreted by my former administration. As rules and regulations, scopes and sequences, and testing programs were becoming more and more prominent and strictly policed at my school, I was becoming increasingly critical of the practices. 

I wanted to understand why.

As a Questioner, I’d spent most of my career defining my professional philosophy in terms of what I saw as valuable. 

The lack of clarity and expectation for compliance was unacceptable to me. From an administrative perspective, I seemed simply disagreeable and obstinate. 

Had we communicated about the expectations with a reciprocal understanding of each other’s values, maybe we could have come to a respectful understanding. Instead we each fell into the destructive cycle of villainizing the other. Because we were dwelling only on the faults interpreted by the other’s actions, I saw a leader who was unyielding and close-minded, and she saw a teacher who was antagonistic and troublesome. 

We didn’t look upon each other’s behavior with compassion. 

Troubling interactions such as these occur in our classrooms, too.

                                         

Reflect on the role your tendency plays in your teaching style and classroom interactions

What do we see in children when they fail to meet our expectations? How do we sometimes sum up their behaviors in simplified, and likely inaccurate, terms like lazy, inconsiderate, or careless?

So often assumptions like this dehumanize the students in our classroom. 

Gretchen Rubin would say that, in reality, we are failing to grasp a different perspective on how someone sees the world.

For example, an Obliger may see daily reading logs or homework checks as accountability support and respond positively to a teacher’s praise or reward for completion, while in the eyes of a Rebel, this practice may be restricting and burdensome. 

A teacher with a Questioner tendency may take care to ensure expectations are meaningful, but has that meaning been clearly expressed to the student Questioners in the class? If not, you may find these students fail to meet your expectations, unless they can derive meaning themselves.

By reflecting on your own tendency, you can more clearly see how you craft expectations in your classroom based on your priorities, and how that may be at odds with some of your students.

By observing your students’ behaviors and understanding their tendencies, you may be able to reframe your thinking of their behavior and create circumstances that allow them to meet your and their own goals.

Disrupting the "Behind" Discourse

Like stepping onto an old, dusty trail, COVID-19 and virtual learning has stirred up some of the discourses in education and children’s learning that had settled into well-worn paths. Conversations about roles and respect (or lack of) for teachers, purpose, and benefit (or harm) of standardized testing, and grade-level achievement are swirling in the air. 

I have lots and lots of thoughts on all of these - but today I’d like to tackle the final item on the list.

Among teachers, parents, administration, and politicians the winds of social media carry shouts of:

“Because of virtual schooling students are behind.”

“My child will not be prepared for the grade level work next year.”

“Virtual schooling is failing our children because they are not meeting grade-level standards.”

Behind.

As Alfie Kohn has put it, our education system thrives on a “compulsion to compare”. Are we performing better, worse, or as good as other countries, states, counties, classrooms? Is my child better or worse than the rest?

And, of course, to do this, to compare universally and stack up our values side by side in a neat bar graph, we need a quick and easy, albeit expensive, tool to provide a number.

We must need standardized testing. 

And if we have standardized tests, we need standardized teaching based on specific grade-level standards, lists of exactly what to teach. One list that defines what every child of a given age window should be able to learn. If she does, she’s “on track”. If she doesn’t, she’s behind. 

This discourse has been widely accepted and decisions in education as a whole, in schools, counties, and classrooms, and for individual children in K-12 have been made based on this discourse as infallible truth.

It is not.

School building closures and virtual schooling in the wake of COVID19 has provided an opportunity to disrupt this discourse. 

Beginning with the question: What do you mean: behind?

behind  /bih-hahynd/ preposition 1: at or toward the rear of  2: not keeping up with, later than, after 3: in the state of making less progress than  noun 4: the buttocks

I can assume we don’t mean “the buttocks” but have to include it because I am an elementary teacher and enjoy the same humor as my students. And of course, one’s test score does not accurately depict progress, only status, so we cannot assume a child is behind due to “making less progress than”. Any teacher could tell you of a student who has made a great deal of progress in any number of valuable ways that is not reflected in a score marked as below grade level.

Instead, let’s apply the definition of “not keeping up with” in terms of grade-level expectations.

In this way, the discourse surrounding much of virtual learning in the wake of COVID19 is based on the concern that students will be behind grade-level standards, thus failing to be successful in upcoming years of school. 

The word behind can only describe our students’ achievement in terms of their acquisition of the standards created for each grade level. But what about that discourse? What about the faults there? 

Every child aged 5 can, should, and will learn the following list of items within the confines of one year of school.

The current discourse says: teach everyone based on the standards, then go back and reteach, review, and modify for those that don’t get it. In other words, give them something you already know is inappropriate and then give them extra work until they get it, if they ever do. And based on this format, they generally don’t. And all the damage that happens on the way is likely to make any progress moot.

Instead of thinking of the standards as a list of what to teach, I’m inviting us to reframe our thinking by appointing the standards instead as a list of goals to reach. 

A subtle difference, but here is how it helps me: 

• Begin by learning each student as an individual, what she knows, what skills she has, and what she is ready to learn

• Start there!

• Work your way onward, one step at a time

As we move into plans for next year in a (hope, hope, hope) post-COVID world, or at least in one where school buildings are safely and consistently open, let’s disrupt the idea of anyone being “behind”. 

We don’t have to move the finish line, lowering expectations or forcing failure. 

We have to move the starting line. 

And we have to give students the time, the support, and the confidence to reach achievable goals. We can’t expect all 1st graders to start the year at the same place. 

Guys, we never should have been! 

We can’t spend time forcing students to fail by delivering instruction directed to the same place and then scramble to undo the damage with the intervention plans, computerized practice, and pull-out or small group instruction for those who are behind and ahead.

And just as they won’t all start at the same place, they won’t all end at the same place either! I certainly don’t expect anyone to call it quits when we reach the “finish line” as defined by the standard. It is simply a mile marker along the way. 

I have a vision of breaking all of the standards out of their grade level boxes and stringing them along a trail like the signs that punctuate a marathon:

“Keep going!”

“You are awesome!”

“You’re doing great!”

“We love you!”

We celebrate each spot along the journey as an achievement. 

And we keep on running. 

Be Readers Together

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read the books in the Harry Potter series. For years I listened to the audiobooks on my morning runs (before I discovered podcasts... eh hem, Harry Potter-themed podcasts). 

I’ve lost count of the number of children I’ve brought into the world of Harry Potter through the audiobooks, too. I’ve seen legions of them pass through my classroom doors, many wearing round glasses and a eyeliner-penciled lightning scar on their forehead on the way out.

Each reader brought a different response to the story, to the characters, to the voices actualized to perfection by Jim Dale. 

But one student’s response will stay with me. 

Always. ⚡

Susan had been working her way through the series via the audiobooks for the better half of a calendar year. She’d started midyear as a third grader in my multi-age homeroom class. By early spring of her fourth grade year, she was reaching the end of book 6. 

Spoiler alert: If you don’t yet know what happens atop the Astronomy Tower at the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, stop NOW! Walk away. Read Harry Potter. Then come back. I’ll wait.

When I sat down at my conferencing table on the quiet, sunny Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the hum of readers around the room that would suggest that devastating and shocking things were about to happen within the pages of a beloved book. (See what I did there? Some of you will. If not, perhaps it’s time for a reread?)

Susan was sitting cross-legged on a dilapidated bean bag with the book in her lap about ten feet away. She didn’t have her headphones on that day, and Jim Dale’s voice could be heard just over my shoulder. I’d just finished up a conference with another student when I heard, “Severus… please…”

Many years and multiple readings since I first heard those words, and my stomach still drops on cue. 

I looked over my shoulder. Watching. Observing a moment of pure book love. 

I knew this moment. The shock. Disbelief. Despair. Feeling in that minute as lost, alone, and helpless as Harry himself. Susan wasn’t sitting on the classroom floor. She was atop the astronomy tower.  

This is what our greatest stories do, isn’t it? They bring us joy, excitement, and love alongside our characters. And they are absolutely devastating. 

I wanted to leap across the room, hit pause on the iPad, and knock the book from her hands. Instead, I walked over and sat down next to her. We listened side by side as Harry’s last and greatest protectors fell. Together a few tears escaped. 

We didn’t discuss the book that day. I didn't track her progress or discuss word choice. This wasn’t a “check for understanding” moment or even an instructional moment. 

This was a “being a reader” moment.

Teachers, we know this about stories. That’s why we spend our days sharing books with kids, giving them the tools to unlock the magic. 

We know the depth of emotions we’ve endured at the hands of our favorite stories. That’s why our bookshelves are stocked and our online shopping carts are always full. 

Our favorite teacher educators know this, too. Penny Kittle and Donalyn Miller. Colby Sharp and Kylene Beers. To become readers, kids need books. They need books that fit them. Inspire them, make them laugh, make them cry, make them want to turn the page again and again.

We know it because that’s how we became readers. 

What this story reminds me of, though, is how important it is to keep my reading life healthy and abundant. There is another level to the craft of building a reader, of building a relationship with a reader, and that is the moment of shared experience.

When you, too, can say, “I felt that way, too!”

So keep buying the books (local and independent, if you please). And keep reading them. Then hand them to the kids. 

Be readers together.