How Teachers Use The Self Compass for Classroom Management

Before becoming a psychologist and doing thirty-five years of therapy, I was a K-12 teacher in science, speech, and drama. I learned fast that I needed more than mastery of my subject matter. I needed practical psychology for classroom management. Otherwise, the couple of unruly kids that showed up in every class would have ruled me!

Haven't you, too, run across the child or adolescent, or even college student, who is mouthy or defiant, who has a vested interest in sabotaging the learning experience. These students become defensive, irritable, and critical of the teacher who has much to teach them, if only they will listen.

Most teachers enter the profession because they love their subject matter and care about teaching. And it is very shocking to meet the first few students who are defensive about being taught, who are rude and demanding, or who act as though they know better than the teacher what should be going on. You try to give them an assignment and they argue or roll their eyes. You tell them to stop talking and pay attention and they tell you to shut-up. Or they expect you to drop everything you're doing to help them, and get mad if you don't. 

In worse case scenarios, they regularly  distract the whole class and make learning impossible.

I've sat in as a psychological consult to classes where the students, led by a few aggressive or narcissistic ringleaders, had the teacher running around in circles from beginning to end, begging them to behave to no avail. However, by implement a few Self Compass insights we can turn usually restore teacher dignity and inaugurate firm boundaries to the classroom that benefit everyone.

Likewise, I want to help you preserve your self-esteem, increase your classroom management skills, and enhance your enjoyment of teaching through the power of the Self Compass.

In brief, there are four universal compass points in every human personality, and students are no exception. Love and Assertion form one pair of compass points, while Weakness and Strength form the other.

When people have developed personality health, they integrate Love and Assertion. They show their caring openly, and when needed, assert themselves with diplomacy. They also integrate Strength with Weakness by showing a degree of confidence balanced by a degree of humility. When you teach students who have balanced Self Compasses you know why you chose this profession. Their politeness, curiosity, industry, and willingness to comply with your guidance is gratifying.

However, trouble comes for nurses when students are stuck on the Strength or Assertion compass points.

Strength-stuck controllers lack Love and Weakness compass points, so they are neither warm nor teachable. Instead, they are full of demands of what you should or shouldn't be doing. From their view, they are right, you are wrong, and that's that! So what do you do with a compulsively controlling student who keeps making demands on your time and energy, and finding fault no matter what you do?

• Recognize that perfectionist/judgmental students get worse when you kowtow to them and need their approval. 
• Show them from the start that you know your job by calmly performing it. 
• Listen to their complaints without raising your anxiety level. 
• Refuse to be rushed by their impatience. 
• Relax and breathe when you're around them. 
• Step back and objectively see the pattern in action. This will help you deal with the pattern without feeling frantic or picked apart. 
• Be in charge of your own self-esteem.
• Don't be afraid to have a private talk with them or their parents, suggesting ways they can contribute to a better learning environment for the class.
• When you walk out of their room, relax your shoulders and find something pleasant to focus on.

Oddly, it is your calm and professional demeanor that often quietens a student like this. They sense that their criticisms don't ruffle you and their infantile demandingness doesn't distract you. Once they have sensed these firm boundaries within the classroom, they feel emotionally secure and surrender to their temporary discomfort of having someone else in charge of their lives.

Now for aggressive students, who are chronically stuck on the Assertion compass point.

Your secret here is to predict the arguments they will start, the rude comments they will make, the mean glare they're going to give you. This is the power of the Self Compass, that it gives you X-ray vision into a student's motivation, and keeps you in charge of your reaction to them.

The hostile, antisocial, or verbally aggressive student is used to getting their way through attacking and intimidating others. But you are not in teaching to take a verbal beating from an obnoxious student. They are quite unnerved if you don't fear them or do everything to appease them.

• Don't be pushed into reaction behavior, where they pull your strings by escalating their aggression. Keep you breathing relaxed and your pulse rate normal. 
• Expect their challenges to your authority; predict their defiance.
• Keep the rules of engagement simple.
• Don't get into argumentative power struggles, which would reward their behavior by usurping your attention and showing your impotence.
• Keep your focus on what you are doing to provide competent teaching. 
• When they show anger in their voice and eyes, make full eye contact that shows you have no fear. 
• If they call you a name, take it in stride, so that they see this has no effect on you or your self worth.
• If they make threatening physical gestures, stop the class and take them to the principle for direct discussion of their behavior.
• Keep providing your high standard of teaching, but take an attitude of nonchalance toward their antics. 

Strangely, aggressive students will intuitively know that you are one of the few people they can't intimidate. And they will behave better once they respect you.

The key to dealing with both controlling and aggressive students is to quickly recognize their rigid personalities, so you can disengage your emotions and deal with them firmly without feeling wounded. Keep a storehouse of the faces of positive students and gratifying moments in teaching. Keep your own Self Compass in good balance. And when you run across one of these troublesome types, handle it competently and let off steam in the faculty lounge!

How To Understand Antisocial Personality Rule-breakers

What thoughts go on inside the head of a person stuck in the Rule-breaker personality pattern, which in its severe form is known as the antisocial personality disorder?

Picture this young adolescent on a hot summer afternoon:

 

I aim the slingshot with precision and flick it. I watch the carefully selected stone arc perfectly, as if in slow motion, soaring through the air. Then the sound. Crash! The tinkling of glass from Mrs. Johnson’s garage window. I scurry away down the alley, chuckling and leaping. Oh, the ecstasy.

Later that afternoon Uncle Zack and I are on the sidewalk outside a convenience store. “Hey, Robbie,” he whispers. “Want to learn about the five-finger freebie?”

I nod, breathless.

“Okay. Here’s how it works. When we go into the store, go right to a display rack where there’s something you want. Pick up a different item and pretend you’re examining it carefully. While you’re doing that, grab the item you want with the other hand and slip it in your pocket. Replace the first item and find something real cheap to actually buy, and then take it to the counter.”

We enter the convenience store. I stroll over to the toy display. With one hand I pick up a miniature dinosaur and examine it carefully. With the other, I scoop up a yoyo and slip it into my pocket. I stroll over to the counter, select a package of gum, and hand it to the clerk. Buzzing with excitement, I smile appealingly as I pay for the gum.

It’s a snap.

Back in the car, Uncle Zack smiles triumphantly when I pull the yoyo out of my pocket. “Thatta boy, Robbie. That’s the five-finger freebie.”

Rule-breaker Self Compass

Rule-breakers are charming and sociable on the surface, but calculating underneath. Aggressively deceitful, you’re stuck on the Assertion compass point. You size up situations according to how you can personally profit by exploiting those around you. There is no sense of remorse.

 

You have learned to repress the Weakness compass point. You avoid empathy with other people’s pain and do not consider your own shortcomings. This lack of healthy weakness results in an undeveloped conscience. Likewise, you repress caring from the Love compass point. You mistrust others and shun feeling close to anyone, since loyalty and caring would inhibit your need to seduce and exploit.

The Rule-breaker pattern can be calculating, even cruel. This pattern shares with narcissists a sense of entitlement, but is more aggressive—streetwise, glib, and able to lie convincingly. 

The apostle Paul understood this pattern: “By smooth talk and glowing words they deceive innocent people” (Rom 16:18 NLT).

The Value of Healthy Guilt

To break the grip of the Rule-breaker pattern, it is vital that you learn to feel guilt as appropriate to the situation. Healthy guilt alerts you to the fact that you have exploited someone to your advantage. It tells you that you have used another person as a “thing” and dehumanized yourself in the process.

This helps you become aware when you are tempted to lie, shirk responsibility, or pull the wool over someone’s eyes. You stop and pray for God to help you see the situation from that person’s point of view. Empathize, letting yourself feel the discomfort of the potential consequences of your behavior.

Reversing roles with someone activates your social conscience. When you trade places with the dog you’re about to kick and anticipate the pain and fear you’ll inflict, you suddenly have the power not to kick the poor creature. There’s an inner shift—not to become a wimpy do-gooder, but to use your power constructively.

Buy a journal and write in it daily. Let your unconscious take you back in time. What are your memories of lying? Cheating? Do you recall feeling some remorse, tinged with excitement? How did the Rule-breaker pattern corrode your life, at the expense of healthy guilt? 

You can take comfort that many Biblical characters who came to be highly esteemed were originally Rule-breakers of some note. Jacob cheated his brother out of his birthright. Abraham lied to Pharoah about Sarah being his wife. Miriam hatched a plot against Moses, was struck with leprosy, but after she confessed wrongdoing, she was healed and restored.  

The spiritual grace Jesus Christ offers meets us all in our trespasses and empowers personality transformation. 

For more, read: 

The Self Compass: Charting Your Personality in Christ

The Self Compass Helps Nurses Cope with Troublesome Patients

I've trained many therapists in Compass Therapy who naively assumed that people come to counseling to hear advice, and show appreciation when receiving it.

Wrong!

 
Therapy clients sometimes don't like hearing the truth about their part in the problems they are experiencing. They can quickly become defensive, irritable, and critical of the therapist who has much to teach them, if only they will listen.

Nursing is much the same, in that most nurses enter the profession because they care about helping people. And it is very shocking to meet the first few patients who are defensive about receiving nursing care, who are rude and incessantly demanding, and who act as though they know better than the nurse about how to get well. You try to give them their medication and they argue with you. Or you try to draw blood and they snap at you. Or they expect you to drop everything you're doing and focus exclusively on their needs at the moment, and get mad if you don't.

Have you encountered these personality patterns in your nursing career? If so, I want to help you preserve your self-esteem and longevity in nursing through the power of the Self Compass.

In brief, there are four universal compass points in every human personality, and patients are no exception. Love and Assertion form one pair of compass points, while Weakness and Strength form the other.

When people have developed personality health, they integrate Love and Assertion. They show their caring openly, and when needed, assert themselves with diplomacy. They also integrate Strength with Weakness by showing a degree of confidence balanced by a degree of humility. When you nurse patients like this, you know why you chose this profession. Their politeness, appreciation, and willingness to comply with your guidance is gratifying.

However, trouble comes for nurses when patients are stuck on the Strength or Assertion compass points.

Strength-stuck controllers lack Love and Weakness compass points, so they are neither warm nor teachable. Instead, they are full of demands of what you should or shouldn't be doing. From their view, they are right, you are wrong, and that's that! So what do you do with a compulsively controlling patient who keeps making demands on your time and energy, and finding fault no matter what you do?

• Recognize that perfectionist/judgmental patients get worse when you kowtow to them and need their approval. 
• Show them from the start that you know your job by calmly performing it. 
• Listen to their complaints without raising your anxiety level. 
• Refuse to be rushed by their impatience. 
• Relax and breathe when you're around them. 
• Step back and objectively see the pattern in action. This will help you deal with the pattern without feeling frantic or picked apart. 
• Be in charge of your own self-esteem.
• When you walk out of their room, relax your shoulders and find something pleasant to focus on.

Oddly, it is your calm and professional demeanor that often quietens a patient like this. They sense that their criticisms don't ruffle you and their infantile demandingness doesn't distract you. Once they have sensed these firm boundaries within the nursing care, they feel emotionally secure and surrender to their temporary discomfort of having someone else in charge of their lives.

Now for aggressive patients, who are chronically stuck on the Assertion compass point.

Your secret here is to predict the arguments they will start, the rude comments they will make, the mean glare they're going to give you. This is the power of the Self Compass, that it gives you X-ray vision into a patient's motivation, and keeps you in charge of your reaction to them.

The hostile, antisocial, or verbally aggressive patient is used to getting their way through blaming and attacking others. But you are not in nursing to take a verbal beating from an obnoxious patient. They are quite unnerved if you don't fear them and do everything to appease them.

• Again, don't be pushed into reaction behavior, where they pull your strings by escalating their aggression. 
• Keep the rule of engagement simple. 
• Keep your focus on what you are doing to provide competent treatment. 
• When they show anger in their voice and eyes, make full eye contact that shows you have no fear. 
• If they call you a name, take it in stride. 
• If they make threatening physical gestures, call for assistance.
• Keep providing your high standard of care, but take an attitude of nonchalance toward their antics. 

Strangely, aggressive patients will intuitively know that you are one of the few people they can't intimidate. And they will behave better once they respect you.

The key to dealing with both controlling and aggressive patients is to quickly recognize their rigid personalities, so you can disengage your emotions and deal with them firmly without feeling wounded. Keep a storehouse of the faces of positive patients and gratifying moments in nursing care. Keep your own Self Compass in good balance. And when you run across one of these troublesome types, handle it competently and let off steam in the break room!