There are many ways to address student challenge, depending on the student, the study, the situation. As I wrote in When the Student Fights Back, the first thing to do is to seek your own calm. If the student is in motion, angry or lashing out, you are best off balancing them with a quiet calm. As much as possible, allow the student to act, to move, to be the storm. This is an opportunity to watch the movement, to see what this matter is about. Listen. Observe. Seek stillness.
If you have already become engaged, disengage. Conflict occurs when two forces oppose each other. If you stop providing one side of this opposition, the dynamic of the conflict will change, and the nature of what is beneath the conflict will become clearer.
Your duty is to act in the student’s best interest, not to be part of the challenge the student has invoked. If you are not yet able to see the situation without emotion, take a moment away.
To remove yourself from the equation, you must step back from whatever is apparently being contested, whether it is physical or emotional or other. How? Seek to protect no territory, to hold no position. If there is nothing for the student to push against, the conflict changes into something else.
This is not the same as giving in or letting the student win. Seeing that difference is essential. You do not surrender to the challenge, but refuse to engage. Step out of the field of battle. Decline to act in the drama.
If you were engaged and have now disengaged, if you have transitioned from conflict to non-opposition, give your student some time to notice that you are no longer fighting back. You can simply say so; if your tone is sincere and open, this can change the dynamic quickly. Once you are no longer supporting the challenge, you will have more flexibility on where to go next, because you are no longer committing force to the conflict. Now you can look and decide what is best for the student’s learning.
Once in this place, you may wish to bring the student into the process. If the challenge is loud, seek to convert the noise into useful discussion. You can be direct: invite the student to talk about what is going on, to tell you what they see. If you can truly listen, this can be very powerful. Listening can convert the challenge to a different issue, provide perspective, and put you and the student on the same side. It is also a good way to find out what the student sees.
Be careful that you do not fall into conflict’s quieter cousin, intractability. Do not confuse lack of volume with lack of conflict. Simply letting the student talk while maintaining your certainty is not listening, it is simply not talking. Your student can likely tell the difference.
You may be surprised at what the student says; trust yourself enough to listen well.
If instead the challenge is quiet, suppressed or hidden, it may be best to draw it out into the open. Do not ignore a passive challenge simply because you are not sure how to handle it — ignore it because that is what is best for the student and the situation. Passive, quiet challenge is not the same as no-challenge, and while social pressure can entice you to pretend is is, you are a teacher and must look beyond what is easy. It is perfectly acceptable to bring an issue into the open even when you are not sure what to do with it next. Bringing out an issue, opening it up for discussion, and declining to bring it to conclusion is a fine way to teach, to open up important questions, without bringing them to answer too soon.
If you feel the need to regain standing with your student in this conflict, remember that reacting to conflict with force is likely to tangle the situation further. If you assert dominance over your student now, what will you do next time you are challenged? What will you do if the student wins this contest? Can you change the rules later? Keep your options open by not simplifying this conflict any more than you need to. Keep your options open by refusing to engage until you understand better. You can always re-open the challenge later, on your terms, if you decide it is in the student’s or the school’s best interest.
Remember that when a student suddenly challenges, the conflict is almost never what it seems to be. There are likely hidden issues. Levels of conflict. Below challenge is often fear. What is the fear? Look deeper.
There are times when it is in the teaching’s interest to let the student fight, when it is that very struggle the student needs to better learn what you are teaching them. Is this one of those times?
When possible, keep the conflict within the scope of your teaching. That is, include this issue, this challenge, this drama, whatever it is, in the study. Take the attitude that this conflict is not external to the study, and you will keep it in view rather than push it into hiding. The teacher who does not allow challenge to their teaching is missing a great range possibility for deep teaching.
As always, watch closely. The student’s actions and tone will tell you a great deal. See where the student is now, watch as they move to another place. What is the path of the change? What does it imply for the larger scope of the student’s learning?
Completely aside, these are almost exactly the same tactics I use to defuse situations with criminals. Very effective, but takes some practice.
Something else (hmmmm- I’m re-reading these. That’s good.) Challenges only become challenges when they are seen as such. You can turn aside many challenges by treating them as thoughtful questions or insights; you can address the thought process that led to the challenge: “Fantastic! You’re thinking for yourself! Explain your steps…” instead of addressing the challenge itself; you can even invite the student to teach you the thing they wish to challenge with (which forces self-analysis _and_ gives a model for continuing to learn.
Rory
There are many ways to transform challenge. These are some approaches that I have seen work very well. Thank you.
Every student communication comes with multiple levels of meaning, intended and unintended, and a challenge is communication. You as teacher can choose to respond to whichever level you feel best serves the student’s needs, provided that you stay clear-headed and emotionally disengaged, which is often hard work. As you say, it takes practice.
My first thought on reading your first reply was that your mandate with criminals is quite different than a teacher’s; your mandate is to control, while mandate of teachers is to teach. My next thought was that you cannot help but teach as you create an understanding of your authority with those you oversee, and teachers cannot help but be faced with issues of authority when they teach.
Food for thought.
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