The uncomfortable message.
A big part of my job working in education is mentoring and nurturing young people in order to get the best out of themselves. This intervention was about what young people can accomplish when they are pushed beyond their expected limits. As part of an extreme mentoring task I initiated a talk on individual weakness’s including such themes as attendance and punctuality.
This was quite hard to do as my class are very attentive and reliable in general.
This intervention was inspired by the film Whiplash. During this film a student encounters a teacher and mentor that pushes the protagonist to his limit. The mentor inflicts a brutal and sustained campaign of bullying and abuse against his young student. This physical and psychological approach culminates in the student in question fulfilling his potential but in a systematic and brutal way. At times it is uncomfortable to watch but ultimately rewarding as we watch the student almost go beyond his own abilities. Although in fleeting moments, we have all been pushed with an uncomfortable message, and in truth we can all recognise that this is the catalyst we have needed to go on and achieve greatness.
Reflective learning
As the instigator of this task, I felt very uncomfortable in delivering it.
I have a very good relationship with this particular student and had known him through the past few years of his educational journey. One perceived weakness of this student was his punctuality. A very attentive and diligent student in class but over recent weeks had been late by a few minutes to some lessons. All of this was exacerbated by Ryan being the class rep, a position where I want him to set a good example and command respect from his classmates. On this particular day Ryan was on time, the sun was shining and there were no real complaints. As you can see from the video, I found the opening part of the encounter very difficult. I did find that I was able to articulate my points when delivering in a more sterner manner. I felt more confident in speaking and knew that the students were hanging on my every word, deliberating internally if I was going to move onto them next. I realised after the event that this wasn’t a teaching style I wanted to pursue. As the film documented, this isn’t a sustained method of coaching that you can keep up. After a while the disciplinary and abusive approach loses it’s impact and you damage other routes of reliable and credible mentoring.
Ryan Day - student
“At the time I felt like a cornered rabbit and was trying to think about what I could say in order to de-flame the situation. To be fair, it did motivate me but in an uncomfortable form. I did think at the time that I can’t allow this to happen again. I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m letting myself down, so in some ways what Andy did worked. It made me think about what kind of motivation I need, and what I do in response to being pushed and provoked for my own development. I definitely produce some of my better work when I’m a bit under pressure”.
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