Back to school: where it’s good to be Crazy
It’s the time of year where parents universally celebrate the back to school season. Though I yet have to experience that joy as a parent, I instead experience the immense joy of teaching to hundreds of students in private universities who inexplicably feel like my own children (I'm not too old either.. enjoying my 30's).
My favourite part of teaching, is the moment before I actually start teaching. In a new class, I love observing how students walk in and choose or take their seats. This brief moment tells me a lot about the batch I’m about to teach, and the "in-group" dynamics of the students. This little psychological observation has always worked for me to cut deeper into my class content, and get closer to my students. I’ll breakdown a class into general three main groups, "The Overachievers", "The Invisibles", and the "Introverts" to explain how I do this :
The Overachievers
This is the must-have-in-every-classroom group, a handful of extroverted students, mostly girls with maybe a couple of boys, who enter the class with amazing overflowing energy heading straight for the front seats, wide-eyed and awake, always on time, stick by rules, do whatever it takes to get the best grades, extremely competitive, would die if the professor is cross or disappointed in their work. They are not always vast in number, and usually have a closely knit friendship among them. These are great kids to have, I say that because I used to be one (I confess). Yet now, I find this specific group of overachievers the least intriguing for me as a teacher. Shocked? Well, these brilliant kids have the drive to climb mountains, corporate ladders and grasp the course completely. For these kids, my objective is different. I was one of them, I therefore try to correct some of the faults they might have, which I myself fell prey to in their time. Some of the similar misjudgments are such as micro-controlling other team members, lacking trust in colleagues outside the "inner circle", not stepping into others’ shoes, or believing to always know better. In fact, teaching humility to a bunch of brilliant students, to be humble to other teammates is in itself a challange. An example : one of the smartest girls in the class, a leading Overachiever, came to me clearly distressed by working with an Invisible (second group below) whom I intentionally assigned to her group. Her reason was, she feared the quality of the project will be hampered by her perceived apathy of the Invisible. Her heart is in the right place, this was a first time challenge for her to try to recognise any specific potential in her teammate from another planet, to grow that little potential to the advantage of the project. To do this, meant to get to know him a little better to attribute the appropriate task for him, to provide support rather than supervision. Not easy finding synergies when you don’t get along.
The Overachievers contribute a great deal in the class by clever participation or sharing their knowledge, I encourage them to reach new levels of critical thought on academic subject matter and also on an individual level. Their contributions are excellent to initiate debate without fear of "right" or "wrong" answers from the Invisibles and Introverts.
The Invisibles
A multiple of groups that usually head for the middle to back seats of the hall. Though they come in more than one group, they have a cross linked friendships with other fellow Invisibles. I call them Invisibles not because I don’t see them or they don’t count – far from that – but because it seems they wish they had one of those Harry Potter invisible cloaks seconds before I direct questions to them – "no, no, no, not me !", or worse, when I separate them from their buddies in group projects. Some of these students may come across as unmotivated, lazy, marking time. What I learnt, is they are infact extremely brilliant and might be unaware of their capacity.
On the first session of my courses, I begin by asking a traditional question to all students : what do they aspires to do after university ? One of the Invisibles honestly answered : "No idea. I don’t know if I’m actually good at anything, so maybe just a 9-5 job without huge responsibilities". It’s really at this point that I recognise the challenge we have as teachers to instill a dose of self-exploration within our course to inspire a light, any light at all for their careers. This specific student later surprised me more than anyone else with the extremely intelligent contributions he made in his class - when prompted. In fact, I intentionally removed him from his comfort zone from fellow Invisibles and placed him with the Overachiever girls (same episode as above). Oh lordy, he was NOT happy neither. Turns out there’s a long feud between the two groups – no surprise there considering their dynamics. This was an excellent opportunity to use their protests against my team shuffle to address the most invaluable practical lesson : conflict management and overlooking personal differences to deliver non-average collective quality outcomes. The results were astounding. I’m not sure if the Overachievers and our Invisible resolved their personal conflict or became best friends, but something tells me they will be speaking to one another a little more than they did before. Lesson to me as a teacher : keep digging for potential beyond the thick Invisible cloak !
The Introvert
Now these aren’t many in number, often less than three. They enter the class and head to any empty corner seats. Thier aim is not to be far from me, they would happily take a front row – but corner seat. Their aim is to be alone and as away as possible from all the other students. They are often silent, respectful, productive, prefer to work independently, do not speak unless spoken to hence they do not initiate participation yet would answer questions as briefly and precisely as possible if asked. They embody most characteristics of introverts, and maybe even autism. The corner students are some of my favourite. Is it because they do not cause a racket ? No, I love some creative racket in class. They are my favourite, because they are full of urprises, and because they are an interesting challenge for me to integrate them into the class, within their capacity. In one of my courses, my traditional question of what they’d like to do after finishing uni, one of the corner students confidently answered without hesitation : "I want to change people’s daily lives". I stopped there for a second and asked him, "hopefully in a good way ?", he replied "bien s?r". I asked again, "How do you intend to change people’s daily lives ?", his answer : "with technology". To the point. Goal oriented.
Right then, while some students snickered, I addressed the class honestly "Do you want me to know what I think of his plan? I think he’s crazy", then I turned to him saying, "and being crazy is the best compliment I can personally give you, because something tells me you know exactly what you’re doing, and being crazy gives you the unique vision of seeing what many other do not see. A little grain de folie is a great thing to have . When you reach your objective and positively change people’s lives, I’d proudly say I was your teacher". Now, I wasn’t trying to be Steve Jobs or give a "stay hungry stay foolish" speech. It was clear our Introvert was eyeing something bigger than just "doing" something after school. He was looking at the human effect, the human outcome of his work – changing people’s lives. Being crazy should be recognised as a valuable merit in a world of complacent ordinary.
This student later came to me separately in the middle of the course to speak to me about his immense difficulty in working in a team. It wasn’t about conflict at all, here is was sheer difficulty working in any team that wasn’t made up of only him. It is not easy to confess one’s insecurities or weakness, I do hope whatever coaching or advice I had given him resounded not only for his project, but for his future.
Our friend who wants to positively change people’s daily lives taught students that physical silence hardly equates to silence of the mind. Our minds and what makes them tick, and the impact of teachers – positive or negative – are larger than I had imagined. Maybe even more than the students themselves recognise.
Probably by now you can tell I’m extremely excited to meet and teach new students and new subjects. These kids teach me just as much as I teach them. I look forward to the many courses that I shall be conducting again this year in Brest and in Paris.
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About the author:
Taiseer Khalil is the founder of Open Borders, a consultancy assisting French micro start-ups in establishing international brand notoriety and export strategies. She also lectures at the Brest Business School, the High Institute for Communications and Advertising in Paris, and the American Business School of Paris. Taiseer studied in China, South Africa and received her double Masters degree in International Business from France and Ireland. Some of her international marketing & negotiation experiences in renewable energy business development were published for the academic book “Business Negotiation†(2014) by Professor Ga?lle Moal-Ulvoas (De Boeck publishing), faculty dean at the Brest Business School, France. You can contact Taiseer at info@open-b.com or visit her website www.open-b.com
Photo: A2ua.com