The Head was a Military Man

Excerpt from "12 Action Steps to a Coaching Classroom" on Amazon by Martin Richards.

I was visiting a College in Sweden, the students were 16 - 19 years old. The Headteacher, an ex-military man, was proudly taking me on a guided tour of his place of work when we came across three older boys huddled together, watching a video and laughing.

I’ll pause here to ask you to reflect for a moment on two questions before you read the story:

1. What do you think will happen?
2. What do you believe about the Head and those three boys?

The boys saw the Head approaching and stiffened. One of the boys hurriedly tried to hide the mini video player in a locker.

“What are you doing?”, the Head asked in a strong, commanding voice.

“Nothing!” the boys replied in unison.

“What message are you sending to the younger ones?” the Head asked, indicating the other students who were filling the hallway on their way to their next lessons.

The boys lowered their heads.

“You are seniors. I expect better of you,” the Head continued.

The boys offered explanations and excuses, all of which the Head waved away.

“Put it away. And show me how you want to be.”

The boys brightened and, making profuse promises that it will never happen again, went back to putting books in their bags.

I asked the Head where he had learned to do that.

“In the military,” he said. “No need to embarrass them more than they had embarrassed themselves. They needed a way to make it right with me.”

Notes

The Head could have punished the boys for doing wrong, but he knew that there was a lesson for them to learn from this misdemeanour.

He started the conversation where the problem was showing up, at the Behaviour level, “What message are you sending to the younger ones?” and then shifted up to a higher level, “You are seniors. I expect better of you,” the Identity level. He then brought the conversation down to a more practical level “... show me how you want to be”, so the boys could make new choices about their behaviour.

Embedded in the conversation were the Head’s beliefs and values. And that was the message the boys needed to hear.

The Head showed that he believed in the boys wanting to be proper grown-ups; they had just lost their way for a moment, as teenagers do. He gave them the opportunity to use their creativity to find a way to show how they really wanted to be and relied on their wholeness and so he did not need to ‘fix’ them through punishment.