Fresh out of college, with a degree in special education, I was quite excited when I landed my first job as a teacher in an experimental program – a joint venture between New Mexico State University and the public schools.
The program was housed on the university campus. It was the only classroom and I was the only teacher of 13 children ages six to ten. We were observed by university students through a one-way mirror.
This was a “demonstration classroom” of how to use behavior modification and a “token economy.” The children received poker chips as rewards for completing assignments, participation, and good behavior. At the end of the day the chips were exchanged for prizes.
Misbehavior was “timed-out” in an isolated area of the classroom. They would stay in the time-out area for a short period until they could return and behave appropriately. In short, the techniques are based on the theory that change occurs by rewarding positive behavior and ignoring negative behavior.
One of the children taught me that theory and reality don’t always line up.
Benny was 7 years old, but looked like a stiff little old man. He never laughed, he didn’t play with the other children, and it seemed like his only goal was to see what he could get away with. He was a constant disruption, didn’t care about getting poker chips, and spent a lot of time in time-out.
I tried all the techniques I had learned and nothing worked. I could not motivate him to participate. It was really awful because while he was in time-out, he knocked things over, made a lot of noise and often tried to run away.
One day as I watched him tear up the time-out area for the twentieth time, it occurred to me that I was totally out of ideas. I had tried everything, all the right techniques, and nothing had worked.
I couldn’t keep him in the classroom any longer. It was too disruptive for the other children.
In those days, there was no law that said schools had to provide an education. If I didn’t keep Benny in the class, there was nowhere else for him to go. He would not be in school.
This was the moment of truth.
I walked into the time-out area and sat down on the floor next to him, totally at a loss for what to do or say. After a moment I started to cry, and then I just spoke from my heart.
I told Benny that I knew he thought I didn’t care about him. I told him I cared more about him than he would ever believe, that I had tried everything I knew to help him and I was totally out of ideas. I didn’t know what to do.
Here’s the amazing thing. Benny just looked at me, stunned. He watched me intently while I spoke. He never said a word. But in that moment he transformed from a stiff little old man into a little boy.
As we left the time-out area together, I noticed he had visibly softened. From that moment forward, Benny would do anything I asked. It was incredible. He became a model student. He loosened up and began to laugh and play with the other children. By the end of the year, he was caught up with his own age group and able to enter a regular classroom.
Benny taught me far more than I taught him.
Benny taught me that life’s not just a matter of “handing out the chips.” You can use the all the best techniques, but if you want to make a difference when it really counts, you need to act with your heart as well as your head. I learned that when the best techniques and tips don’t work, try getting real.
Theories are never intended to work all the time. Good theories always state the boundaries when you’ll have to look to another explanation for help. No good technique is atheoretical. If something consistently works, there is a reason, an explanation. That’s theory, and everyone has some.
Hi Bret, I am in complete agreement with your views on theory and techniques based on theory. The problem we can run into is when we use a “cookbook” approach and forget to bring who we are into the picture as well. As a young new teacher, armed with an arsenal of techniques, I was a bit over-reliant on my knowledge and not using my instincts enough. Learning to balance those is part of the journey of life. Much appreciation to you, Bret, for taking the time to comment and share your views.
And a bigger heart has no one!
Thanks, Jack. Nice to see you here!
Great stuff. Thanks for sharing, Jesse.
Thanks, MIcah!
The cliche “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is embodied in this blog post. Thanks so much for sharing and being so transparent about your experience. Techniques are great to pull out of our toolbox when leading or teaching, but the connection that makes those tools effective comes straight from the heart. As always, love your posts!
I’d say you captured the essence of my post. A seven-year old child taught me that it’s not just a cliche, it’s absolutely true. Thanks for further illuminating what I was trying to convey, John.
Very interesting read Jesse, I was taken back to my early school days as I was never great in those set extrinsic reward systems. Praise ability instead of praise for effort.
Suddenly Benny was rewarded intrinsically with love and feeling. He saw YOU cared and that was enough reward, straight to the heart. A special moment for you both I am sure.
There is a wonderful woman called Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist who wrote the book “Mindset the New Psychology of Success”. In it she deals with growth mindset and fixed mindsets and how they can affect so much in our lives from school to leadership. She goes into some detail as to the dangers of praise and positive labels and has done a lot of research on Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation and success.I will leave her words to do the explaining, but the book if you have not read it is well worth the read and her papers are all inspiring work.
Theories are just that, suppositions of ideas that we seemingly think or even seem to see work, the problems come when a fixed mindset takes these theories as fact. Never looking to the system or the rules of the system to see if it is all working as designed or if the rules make sence. The growth mindset however, can look beyond the parts (human) and to the system and the rules to search for the problem.
Benny was lucky to have a teacher that could look deeper into the system to find an answer.
I love that you saw through the fault of the system and the rules to see that it was not the part (Benny) that had the problem, but it was the system that he was in, and the rules that were the problem.
Great post and a great example of looking within yourself and leading within. As always you lead us all to a better day and a brighter future. I might be so bold to suggest that Micah Yost looks into Carol Dweck’s book for some of his educational questions, I found it inspiring.
As usual you hit the nail on the head Jesse, a great reminder of looking within for strength and leadership.
Thanks for the post.
Hi Simon,
As always, your insightful comments are most appreciated. I am somewhat familiar with the current work on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and am aware of the work of Carol Dweck but have not read her book. Your description of growth and fixed mindsets sounds interesting, and I will definitely check it out. Thanks for the recommendation. You might enjoy this 3 minute video of my friend and colleague Susan Fowler speaking about this very topic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0sCCOflIU0&feature=relmfu There is much to be said on this topic. Thanks, Simon, for adding to the conversation.
What a wonderful story and a great reminder. Thanks Jesse.
i appreciate your kind comments, Joan.
Brett and Jesse-
I’m still interested by the underlying educational question here. Any thoughts on how we might teach more effectively? Jesse, do you ever wish you would have learned in a different manner? Do you feel like you where prepared for the job? I believe it is John Maxwell who said that “no leader is ever born in the classroom” (forgive me if I have that quote wrong). It seems another take away here for those that teach in any capacity is to spend some time “in the field” and not just in the books.
Micah Yost
@GroupThrive
Hi Micah,
You raise some interesting questions. How can we best teach leadership? In my opinion, once they have learned the theory and techniques, we need to help them integrate their head-center and their heart-center. Not only is the knowledge important, but it’s also important to know who you are.
I don’t know if my experience was avoidable. I had had a good education, and I had spent time in the field as a student teacher. It might have been helpful to have a course in self-knowledge, but ultimately, the best school for me was the school of life – getting out there on my own and doing it, knowing that I would make mistakes along the way, and looking to learn from them.
Your comment that “no leader is ever born in the classroom” reminds me of a wise statement by Henry Mintzburg: “Leadership can not be taught in the sense that a person can sit in a classroom and walk away a leader any more than one can read a leadership book every week and call themselves a leader. It is possible, however, to teach principles, to lay the groundwork for a way of thinking and to create awareness of traits and characteristics. But until a person combines all of that with their own thinking and character, making it a part of who they are, they are not a leader. And that simply takes time and practice. There is no short-cut to leadership.”
Your thoughts?
Hi Jesse,
This post is so good it hurts. Thank you.
You make me think about vulnerability that draws rather than drives. The lesson I take is vulnerability that expresses compassion for others rather than self-pity is powerful.
Best to you,
Dan
Thanks so much Dan, for your kind comments as well as your framing of the lesson. I think it’s true that vulnerability expressed from a desire for connection is incredibly powerful, and we remain disconnected when absorbed in self-pity. Thanks for drawing out that nugget of wisdom. My experience with Benny was powerful, but the full learning is being revealed now in these comments. Grateful for your thoughts about the lesson.
Simon Harvey-
I look forward to exploring more of Carol Dwecks’s work. My wife studied psych at KU and has referenced that work recently I believe. I wrote a blog post the other day on adding value through leadership and admitted that I envy those of you that have education in the field so Psychology. I have a lot to learn from this field, so thanks for giving me some places to start!
Jesse,
I completely agree with your assessment of education and leadership. I was reading Seth’s blog the other day on defining leadership. He simply wrote that “leaders lead and writers write”. I think there is a lot to be learned in leadership education that can be taken from the more developed liberal arts areas. We have writing labs in school, so why not leadership labs? I think case study and roll playing are great ways to bring leadership education into the classroom. I started my undergraduate degree in education, and I would have loved to have read this post during my atypical growth and development class. Simply presenting the situation without your response as a case study provides great learning opportunities without ever leaving the classroom. And by case study I simply meaning asking the question, “what would you do”? I agree that students of leadership can’t fully become leaders without actually practicing leadership. At the same time, I think we take the easy way out when we define leadership as something you can only learn by doing. Reading, study, case study, observations, mentoring, and practice are all important to becoming a better leader in my view.
Your thoughts about case studies are well taken. They are a powerful teaching vehicle. And I love you point about using the liberal arts as a learning device. There are wonderful “case studies” in literature and history.
I don’t agree with Seth’s statement “leaders lead and writers write.” Some leaders write quite well – consider Martin Luther King, Jr. Being able to communicate is a hallmark of great leadership. On the other hand, I do agree that many people who only write about leadership and who have not experienced it in the trenches are often not realistic.
I appreciate your thoughts, Micah. Thanks for forwarding the conversation.
Micah, thanks for the reply, my education in the fields of Psychology and brain science are mainly self taught. I believe we all have a lot to learn, all learn in slightly different ways but all only a lifetime to do it in. For me education comes in many forms, it and leadership are systems within systems. They all interact, and results come from quality of interaction. Writing and leadership go together as left an right, they may be opposite but they rely on each other. We all have different perspectives and so have different ways of leadership writing and living. Better stop here as I am now hogging Jesses’ Blog.
Sorry Jesse but you always get my brain going. I like the video with Susan, love those eye opening research moments that are so simple yet so effective at showing how our brains work. And of course Susan puts the point well, have to look into her more now.
Of course she got my attention and made me think of another interesting book called “Game-Frame- Using Strategy Success” by Aaron Dignan, that goes into our love of games and how we are motivated by them. Why teens can go for hours playing xbox etc but then struggle with HW. He points out some very interesting points about what drives us and how chemical release in the brain affects behavior etc. Also some interesting research by Kent Berridge of U MI into what he terms “liking and wanting”.
Anyway your point is well put and drives home how important it is to look beyond the obvious and norms. Your post put me right there as Benny suddenly saw that someone cared about him, and not whether he could complete the work.
Thanks again Jesse,
Simon
Hi Simon, I’m delighted when my blog stimulates people’s thinking and engenders conversation among them. It’s one of my main goals. So feel free to hog away! 🙂 In fact, my favorite part of the writing process is reading and responding to the comments. They almost always offer additional perspective, as yours certainly has. I’m also glad you “got” Benny’s “ah-ha” – that someone really cared about him. I don’t think he had experienced much of that in his short life, so he was unable to recognize it when it was there all along. I think my genuine grief at my inability to reach Benny pushed him to look beyond his own mental model of the world.
Jesse,
I wonder, when did you see Benny as a person? What happens when we fail to “See the People”? From my experience, when I fail to see the person I focus on the “problem”; that, in turns hinders my ability to see the solution.
On the simple side, it seems to me your story powerfully illustrates the big idea of leadership which is to have influence; first with myself, then with others. For me, your story also illustrates the development reality of leadership; we pay attention and learn to change unproductive behavior our influence expands and can free others to change, too.
I’m forwarding this to my three daughters for their work with our grand children.
Thank you.
Hi Steve, I understand what you are saying about failing to see the person and focusing on the problem. My experience in that regard is the same as yours.
In this particular situation,here’s the strange thing: I did see Benny as a person all along. I was totally devoted to those children – all of them. Benny just couldn’t believe it. I think the “token economy” structure didn’t help because you’re supposed to reward desirable behavior and ignore undesirable behavior. This method was not aligned with my natural way of being, and Benny probably sensed I wasn’t being real. I think the transformative moment was when I broke the rules of the behavior modification methodology. And it was spontaneous. Interestingly, after that experience, I went back to the token economy approach. Benny was fine with it. He usually got more tokens than anyone for the rest of the year and I never had to send him to time-out again.
I really appreciate your well stated views on how this story illustrates the big idea of leadership. Many thanks for illuminating that point. Oh, and Steve, I have one more thing I want to say – a father with three daughters is a lucky man! 🙂
Interesting points from Steve, and I wanted to ask if Benny ended up joining the token system, so thanks for answering that for me. I am guessing that his collecting them was directly related at you. It would have been interesting to see what would have happend if you changed teachers, if he would return to not being interested in the token system or not.
One point that I was confused about was if the theory that change occurs by rewarding positive behavior and ignoring negative behavior; surely putting them in time out is not ignoring negative behavior but punishing them ? I was just scratching my head there.
You changed your behavior, that changed an environment to a more conducive one for Benny to change his behavior. Environment influences behavior and behavior influences environment. As Steve says Leadership is about influencing. You looked within to see if there was more, and there was.
If we look we will find.
I’m not sure if collecting the tokens was totally related to pleasing me. Benny also seemed genuinely proud of his tokens and I think they tangibly demonstrated to him his success. But I don’t think he was motivated by the external reward of exchanging them for goodies at the end of the day. Back to your point about extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
As for whether time-out is a punishment, a behaviorist would argue with you that when done right, it’s moving the child to a neutral space where they have the personal space and time to regain control. I think a lot of parents these days mistakenly use the term “time-out” when they send their child to their room. If they send them there in anger, then it is obviously not neutral and is a punishment.
Jesse Lyn,
You proved that most of us simply need to be loved and know that someone else cares what happens to us. How grateful you must be to have had Benny in your class.
Thank you for sharing such a heart-wrenching story. I’ll always remember the effect you had on Benny by showing your compassion.
Connie
Thanks, Connie. That’s the lesson I learned as well. I’m so glad my story about Benny touched you. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Jesse
I always have lots to say to behaviorists 🙂 And yes, you have a very good point re the time out. Many parents and teachers seem to use it as a punishment. Just ask the kids what they think time out is. We can think what we like, behaviorists can make assumptions, but if the child looks at “time out” as a punishment then that is what it is to begin with.
Thanks for all the input, very helpful and though provoking.
Thank you, Simon, for an enjoyable conversation.
Great story, Jesse, with an important lesson.
That’s why I included this post in my weekly selection of top leadership posts from the independent business blogs.
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2011/07/20/72011-a-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx
Thanks, Wally. I’m honored!
Hi Jesse. Appreciate you. Wonderful thoughts here.
Tips can only take you so far when educating and leading others. Human behavior teaches us that every person is multi-dimensional as are the lessons we take from each scenario we experience. I’ve watched a lot of really talented leaders fail because they didn’t mesh their heart and mind in a way that felt either/both personally and professionally meaningful. When you combine these two “metrics” – the real magic is allowed to unfold – sometimes this can even transform a person/people’s lives. Thank you for sharing with us.
Hi Meghan, I so appreciate your further illumination of what I was trying to convey. It’s the “mesh” that matters and as you say, is often transformative. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment.
Beautiful post, Jesse.
Too often, we get caught up in the process and outcome, forgetting the very real power of personal connection with others. I am constantly amazed by the barriers that can be broken through simply by getting ‘real’, as you write in your post, and connecting from the heart. When we allow others to ‘see’ us for who we are, when we take the time to ‘see’ others for who they really are, and when we are willing to risk transparent vulnerability in the process, amazing things can happen, as you discovered with Benny.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful story. Your heart and humility really shine through in this post!
Thanks for your lovely comments, Sharon, and thanks for seeing Benny and seeing me.
Great post as usual Jesse. I am a strong believer that when all else fails, make yourself vulnerable and you will be surprised by the result. Too often we put ourselves under enormous pressure and don’t reach out to be assisted by saying “I don’t know”.
Well said, Thabo. I agree it’s amazing what assistance can appear when we let go of the notion that we’re supposed to have all of the answers.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful story and the insight that it gave you! A lot of us need to take heed of this lesson!
Most of us believe that keeping up a facade of indifference and detachment will give us more credibility and that people will be impressed by it. And the sad part it is that this often turns out to be true. It is necessary to maintain a veneer of ‘professionalism’, ‘a business-like approach’ to be taken seriously. But I feel that theres nothing wrong with letting that mask slip a little once in a while, when you really need to get something done. Showing people how much something means to you will let them know that you’re human…as real as them. And that is something that will help them relate to you and, therefore, help you get across your point.
– Sindoora (http://www.beyondhorizons.in)
It is paradoxical that we assume an attitude of “professionalism” because we believe it will make us more effective but that ultimately we become true professionals when we connect with our humanness. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Sindoora.
I absolutely LOVE this post, Jesse! I’ve never seen this one before until you shared the link last night. I’m so happy I caught it in my feed! : )
This is such a beautiful example of what it means to lead from within in the moment. And yes, it is very true. Theory and reality are often two very different things. Theory can provide us with a framework of ideas. They can even provide us with examples. Yet real life just doesn’t like to stay so tidily within the confining limits of textbooks and theory. As you clearly show here.
I love how you tossed all that you knew out the window in that moment. Positioned yourself down at his level and let your heart guide your words and actions. That is what touched this little boy. Not authority. Not rules and order. Your heartfelt honesty and love in wanting to understand him. 🙂
Thanks for sharing it.
~Samantha
Thanks for deepening the message I was trying to communicate, Samantha. I would sum it up as: “Learn as much as you can, and then toss it out the window and be real.”
Dear Jesse,
Incredible work. A teacher of special education who did marvelous work on strategy building and turnaround. I often wonder Jesse children of special need indeed teaches us more than a normal people do. I got into your blog while searching for Shared Vision and then i realized the it is more than what i taught and thought off.
I am academician as well as mother of a Autistic child, can you guide me what best i can do for my 13 year old Autistic child who is good with computers. Total i may be writing out of context here but i realized getting to know you as a special educationist would help me to help my son. I need to know “How can my son be developed”
A word on this will make lots of difference to my son Anton.
Hi Anitha, I’m delighted you looked through my blog posts and found this one. I think of Benny and the other children I worked with often, and what I learned from them. It was an important time in my life. It’s been many years since I worked in this field and much has changed since then. A lot of great work has been done to support parents and children with autism. I suggest you check out the blog of my colleague Susan Gurry who has continued to do great work with autism: http://www.autismthought.com
Best wishes to you and Anton.