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Do we care for our carers? Carol Hall of the University of Nottingham thinks not.in 1988 she published a wonderful book Human Relations in education, co-authored by her husband, Eric Hall (Routledge, 1988). That book dealt thoroughly with issues such as teacher self-esteem, communication skills, group dynamics, stress and relaxation as well as pastoral care and classroom skills. Highly recommended. Now, ten years later, she revisits the issue and finds that not allot has changed. a 1997 research survey of principals and teachers in the U.K. came up with the following amazing statistic: 96% of principals said that they felt they were using their teachers gifts fully; but 98% of the teachers replied that they felt totally undervalued in their schools. Somehow or other the message was not getting across from teachers to management: we appreciate you. the point being made here was that we teachers, and our managers, are not very good at exercising our skills in "emotional literacy" within the confines of our workplace. Emotional literacy is our ability to read and respond appropriately to the feelings of others. Most teachers are extremely good at practising these skills with pupils. But we rarely tell each other how good we are as teachers. And most principals would be astonished if a staff-member told them what a fine job they were doing. praise is something that we distribute lavishly among our pupils: not so much among our peers and even less within the school organisation.
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Carol Hall asks us all to be a bit braver with each other. To do this we need to fine-tune our interpersonal skills. A theory which has gained considerable currency in the US is that effective interpersonal skills are related to personal fitness. Another research study was done on a group of US principals, each of whom was rated high on interpersonal skills. It was noted that all performed well for the first three days of the week. but as the week wore on, by Friday the fit were much better and more effective than their colleagues who were not so fit. the unfit could not sustain the high levels of functioning required for the entire week. The study concluded that physical fitness is very important to maintain interpersonal stamina. This is true also for our pupils - mind, body and soul. In his book Further Along the Road Less
Travelled, Scott Beck describes how the US Army was very interested to find out what it
was that made well-developed, fully-actualised successful people. They studied the most
successful members of the entire US Army. They found they had risen to the top because of
their natural abilities. They were good at relationships and good at everything. In one of
several Questionnaires which they were given, the subjects were asked to write down their
top three priorities. they were given one hour to complete this task and were not allowed
to confer. All twelve came up with the same answer: |
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