Inservice 34

Shifting Your Focus

PURPOSE

Have you ever bought a car and then suddenly found that everyone seems to have the same car in the same color? You begin seeing that car everywhere. Who opened the factory gates and released all these cars? No gates were opened. These cars were already there. You just never noticed them until your focus shifted.

We’ve all had days when everything seemed to go wrong. Why is it that when one thing goes wrong, there is often a chain reaction? Often it’s because the one thing that went wrong put you into a negative emotional state. While in that state, you began attracting other negative events. Scary, isn’t it? The flip side is that when you act from a positive emotional state and choose to focus on what’s positive around you, you begin noticing and experiencing more positive events in your life. And yes, this definitely holds true in the classroom.

One of the jobs of a leader is to help keep the people he or she is leading focused on what is positive in the work environment, because that’s what increases productivity. Isn’t it true that the most positive teachers in your school can find good in almost any student? And isn’t it true that the most negative teachers can’t seem to find much good in even the most positive and well-behaved students? Again, they truly believe that you give them the “worst kids in the school.”

INSERVICE

Begin the inservice with the following activity:

Tell your teachers to look around the room for thirty seconds and try to spot as many objects as they can that are circular or curved. Examples might include a globe, a paperweight, the cap on a beverage bottle, or the face of a clock or watch. Give them thirty seconds to do this and then have them close their eyes. Say, Keeping your eyes closed, try to remember as many objects as you can that are angular, square, or rectangular. You will see that at first, most cannot think of even one object. Even those who can think of some are struggling to come up with more than two or three. Now have them open their eyes and look around the room. They will quickly realize that there are many more angles and lines than circles or curves. The desk, the walls, the door, the tiles on the floor, books, boxes, signs—lines are everywhere. Ask them what happened. Why were they struggling to remember even one object with lines or angles?

The answer is, of course, that they were not focusing on those. Mission accomplished. You just helped them prove to themselves that we all tend to “see” only the things on which we focus. In other words, what we focus on becomes our reality. Ask them to relate this to their own lives. Share the example of buying a car. Discuss the familiar experience of the “bad day” chain of events.

When a glass contains liquid that is midway between the top and bottom, is the glass half empty or half full? Allow teachers to answer this and to discuss it as it relates to their lives. Provide a few examples of glass-half-full people versus glass-half-empty people:

1. An accident occurs as you are driving home from work. A glass-half-full person might think, “Wow! That was lucky. Had I left work just a minute earlier, it could have been me in that accident.” A glass-half-empty person might say, “You might know this had to happen right in front of me. Had I left work just a little earlier, I would have been ahead of this accident and this awful traffic.”
2. Teachers find out that they are receiving a small raise in pay. A glass-half-full person will be grateful for the extra income. A glass-half-empty person will focus on the fact that it is too little, too late and that the amount of the raise is actually insulting.
3. A principal conducts an inservice where he shares a simple new way to make learning more fun and interesting for the students. A glass-half-full person will take the idea and run with it. A glass-half-empty person will see the new idea as yet more work. (If this example makes a few people in this particular inservice uncomfortable, that’s okay. These people just might need to feel uncomfortable.)

The third example just provided you with a segue into the next part of the inservice, where teachers will now describe how a glass-half-full teacher might handle situations differently.

1. Two students are off task during one of the lesson’s activities. Describe how a glass-half-full teacher might handle this. Describe how a glass-half-empty teacher might handle this.__________________________________
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2. A student confides in his teacher that So-and-So is picking on him. What does the glass-half-full teacher do? The glass-half-empty teacher?______________
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3. A teacher receives his or her teacher report cards from the students. There are several comments from students mentioning that they don’t feel that the teacher allows them enough opportunities to play games and have fun. How does a glass-half-full teacher handle this? A glass-half-empty teacher?______________________________________________
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Add one or more of your own examples here.

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Now ask, Do you think students would prefer to be in the classroom of a glass-half-empty teacher or a glass-half-full teacher? Discuss why students respond much more favorably to positive teachers. Your positive teachers will run with this discussion. Your negative teachers, however, are going to feel quite uncomfortable. Again, this is a good thing.

IMPLEMENTATION

Thank the teachers for their participation and responses. Reiterate that what we focus on does tend to become our reality. Be clear: you are not asking them to ignore negative situations that have to be addressed in the classroom. (See Inservice 7, “Learn to Ignore More,” for more information on the kinds of behaviors that should and should not be ignored.)

Finally, say, This week, we will all make an effort to shift our focus. Even the most positive of us can become more positive. By the end of the week, I’d like for everyone to send me a list titled “Twenty-Five Reasons I’m Proud of My Students.” Make sure that you get the students’ permission to share each item on your list, because these lists are going to go up in the hallway at the end of the week. Thanks, and have fun creating your lists!