In a recent article, I focused on an essential aspect of EI (emotional intelligence): being able to accurately identify one’s emotions.  This article addresses why and how to teach young people to attune to others’ emotional states.

Identifying and managing our own emotions is essential to our personal well-being and happiness. Accurately identifying others’ emotions is essential to our social well-being and happiness. The ability to pick up on others’ emotions helps us manage, communicate, and collaborate with them more effectively. Put simply, it enables us to get along better with people in general. The inability or non-conscious choice not to identify how people are feeling can easily lead to conflict and problems. When I was teaching middle school, I noticed this skill deficit in a number of my students. During my first year or two supervising the middle school cafeteria during lunch (I did this for eleven years), students who were the most challenging to manage were often those who didn’t accurately read other students’ emotions, or mine.

I remember when a particularly aggressive 7th grader who seemed to enjoy intimidating his peers, did not get the usual immediate compliance when he told a smaller boy to get out of his chair in the cafeteria: “Get outta my seat, runt.” It was obvious to me that the smaller boy, Sebastian, was paralyzed by fear and humiliation. When Sebastian didn’t move, Jason erupted.  “Who do you think you are, you scrawny little wimp!” he shouted as he started to push him out of his chair. Talking to Jason afterwards, it became clear that he had misinterpreted Sebastian’s fear, erroneously perceiving it as a challenge. As Goleman writes in Emotional Intelligence,  “Schoolyard bullies . . . often strike out in anger because they misinterpret neutral messages and expressions as hostile” (1995, p 271). I arranged for Jason to have lunch with me for the next week, during which I gave him some special tutoring in identifying feelings in others and self-control.

Because I worked on having a friendly (not buddy) relationship with students, some students misperceived me as being permissive. Therefore, sometimes when I addressed their inappropriate behavior, they would think I was “just kidding.”  I occasionally had to say to them something like, “Look at my face. Listen to my voice. Hear my words. I am not kidding. Stop playing hacky sack on the stairs. Now.”  While most students are pretty good at picking up on “the teacher look” (or voice), there are many who seem to be emotionally visually and hearing impaired. This unawareness of others’ feeling states can have a wide range of unfortunate and unintended consequences, from getting in trouble at school to damaging the important relationships in our lives.

What follows are some meetings, activities, and resources to help students gain insight into others’ feelings and learn to attune their behavior to them.

Class Meeting: You can use class meetings to introduce the topic of  “Identifying Emotions in Others.”  I encourage you to have the students sit in a circle and use a Kooshball, talking stick, or other device to designate the speaker.  I typically use the “Define, Personalize, Challenge” format for the discussion prompts.

Define: 

Today we’re going to discuss the importance of being able to identify emotions in others. I don’t think we have any terms that need to be defined, but we might need to consider whose feelings it would be important to identify and where it is important to identify emotions.

1)    Whose emotions would it be important to identify and why?

2)    Why would it be important to identify people’s feelings at home? At school?  At work? 

3)    Where else might it be useful to identify emotions?

Personalize:

1)    Let’s take the primary emotions: love, anger, fear, sadness, and joy. How would someone know when you are feeling those feelings?  What does your face look like?  What does your body (posture, gestures, etc.) look like?    (Take each of these emotions and have students discuss, show, and  model them). If you have a drama department at your school, see if you can get some students to come to class or create a video demonstrating facial expressions of various emotions.

2)    Can we always read someone’s emotions from their face or body language?

3)    Are there times you put on a “social mask,” so to speak and try to hide your feelings? Why? 

4)    When you are feeling _________, what kind of behavior do you want or need from others?

Challenge:

1)    How can we use what we’ve discussed today about identifying others’ emotions?

2)    How might what we discussed today benefit you?

Direct Instruction: You might want to show your students some examples of the primary facial expressions. I suggest you visit DataFace. Click on the "Emotions" tab, go to the bottom of the page, and click on "Emotion Expressions" at the bottom of the page and you will learn the general characteristics of each expression. 

Practice Identifying Facial Expressions

The Feeling Game:  For younger students or students who have a greater need for identifying emotions from facial expressions, there are several website dedicated to helping them. One is www.Do2Learn.com. Here children can practice identifying facial expressions and receive immediate feedback. 

Feeling Flashcards: Go to www.mes-english.com/flashcard. Download feeling flashcards to help your elementary students practice. You might try using the Inside-Outside Circle structure, students swapping cards after each drill.

Create your own Feelings Match Game: This game can be used with any age group.

1. Materials:  Invite your students to bring in magazines from home. The more variety the better; news magazines, sports, health, music, etc. Cut out or have students cut out pictures of people (trying to avoid including the setting the picture was taken in) expressing a variety of emotions. Matte the pictures and laminate them, if possible. Then create a simple playing area by printing the following emotions on card stock and spreading them out on a table top for a small group, or on the floor in the center of a class meeting: Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Surprise, and Love.

2. Procedure: Individually (or in small groups) students discuss each facial expression and place it near the emotion they think it best fits. Older students might be encouraged to identify the secondary or tertiary emotion expressed. Then the class should share and discuss their answers. What is it about the facial expression that suggests that emotion? Is there any body language involved? What strength, on a scale of one to ten, is the person feeling this emotion?  Is there another name for that feeling?

Other Non-Verbal Messages:

Body Language

Direct Instruction:  Explain that only a small percentage of the messages we send when we interact with others is through the words we choose. Our facial expressions say a lot. So do our bodies – through posture and gestures. Demonstrate, or have students or another adult you’ve rehearsed with, show posture and gestures communicate messages by non-verbally showing:

            Sadness                             Fear

            Excitement                        Contentment

            Anger                                 Confidence

            Impatience                        Exhaustion

            Illness                                 Confusion

Acting 101:

As a large group, have students demonstrate, using only their facial expression

and gestures, the feelings or moods you call out. Call out each of the following (or

others) and give them some time to act out the emotion or mood:

·       Happy

·       Sad

·       Scared

·       Angry

·       Impatient

·       Proud

·       Worried

·       Frustrated

·       Puzzled

·       Thrilled

·       Exhausted

·       Etc.

Variation:  Give individual students cards with emotions listed on them. Have them act out the emotion for 10 seconds. (Tell the audience not to blurt out the emotion,) After the time is up or the actor is through, ask students, “What emotion ____ is expressing?” and “What gave it away.”

Variation 2: For younger students, give each student a set of index cards with the primary emotions – Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Surprise, and Love – one emotion per card. Act out an emotion for up to 10 seconds, then say, “What’s my emotion?” and have the students hold up the card with the emotion they think you are expressing. Again, ask them what gave it away.

Proximity:

Another aspect of non-verbal communication is proximity, the distance one person is from another during a conversation. You might hold a class meeting about proximity, in which you do some direct instruction as you go.

Class Meeting: “Proximity”

Define:

1. Explain that proximity is the distance between people in different situations.

2. Do different situations call for different proximity? Can you give some examples? (Their answers might include: friends are more comfortable being closer than acquaintances; people at a crowded concert of movie theater are more comfortable being close than people in a restaurant; girls are more comfortable being close than boys, except in contact sports; informal social conversation is comfortable at a greater distance than an intimate conversation between good friends or a couple.)

Personalize:

1. Have you ever been in a conversation where you felt uncomfortable because the person you were talking to was too close?  Too far away?  (You might bring up the close-talker segment of Seinfeld, if students remember the show.)

2. How might proximity affect the way you perceive someone’s emotions or intentions?

Challenge:

1. What do you think is a good rule of thumb is for conversational proximity? (In America and northern Europe, about an arm’s length is generally considered comfortable for friendly acquaintances. You might mention that in other cultures, closer or more distant proximity may be the norm. If you have students from other cultures, ask them to share their perceptions of proximity.)

Tone of Voice: 

Direct Instruction:  Explain how important tone of voice is to communication. Demonstrate this by using the same phrase and achieving several different meanings simply by changing your tone of voice. You might use the phrase, “I really love riding my brother’s bike to school in the rain.”  Say it:

1)    Sincerely

2)    Sarcastically

o      With the accent on “love.”

o      With the accent on “school.”

o      With the accent on ”in the rain.”

3)    Enthusiastically

o      With the accent on “really love.”

o      With the accent on “my brother’s.

o      With the accent on “in the rain.”

4)    As a question

5)    With no energy at all.

6)    Any other way you can change the meaning.

Discuss all the variations of meaning that can come from the same 12 words. You might have students try it with a partner, using the phrase, “I really like watching news on TV.” 

Ask a few talented actors to demonstrate the different meanings they can achieve through tone of voice alone.

These activities are fun for most children and adolescents, they build positive relationships between you and the young people you spend time with, and they improve relationships among the kids themselves.  While these benefits are important, if the discussions and activities above are not integrated into the classroom, family, or group on an ongoing and intentional basis, their full potential will not become reality.  Think about how emotional and social intelligence can become an ongoing theme in your classroom, organization, or home.  Discussions, curriculum, and projects can almost always be based on or integrate a human emotional dimension.  Over time, taking feelings into consideration in every interaction becomes a habit. And all the benefits that accompany being a considerate person, ranging from an increased sense of self-worth to improved human relationships, become a reality. 

Author and international educational consultant Jonathan Erwin has been a secondary English teacher, staff development specialist, college professor, and director of a federally funded character education program.  His first book, The Classroom of Choice (ASCD 2004) focuses on appealing to students' intrinsic motivation to learn and behave responsibly.  His more recent book, Inspiring the Best in Students (ASCD 2011), explains why and how to integrate Social-Emotional skills into the curriculum. He lives in Western New York with his wife Holly and three children: Nate, Liam, and Laena. You may contact Jon via e-mail (jon@inspiringmotivation.com) or find more information on his website:  www.inspiringmotivation.com

This article is a follow-up to “What is Social-Emotional Learning and Why Does It Matter,” (which defines SEL and explains the research-based benefits) and “Social-Emotional Learning: Be Emotionally Literate” (which explains how to teach students the prerequisite foundational knowledge.)  This article focuses on why and how to teach young people to identify their emotions.

Self-regulation, or self-control, is receiving a great deal of attention as of late.  On page 1 of the recent best-seller, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, Baumeister and Teirney state: “However you define success — a happy family, good friends, a satisfying career, robust health financial security, the freedom to pursue your passions — it tends to be accompanied by a couple of qualities: . . . intelligence and self-control.”  The authors state that while researchers still haven’t learned how to permanently increase intelligence, they have discovered how to improve self-control.  One of the greatest obstacles to self-control is an inability to effectively manage emotions. As we all know, it is hard to be the person we want to be when we are highly frustrated, extremely angry, or overwhelmed by sadness.  To effectively manage our emotions, we first need to identify them accurately.

Accurately identifying our emotions helps us choose effective thoughts and actions in a variety of situations. Misidentification of our emotions, on the other hand, leads to problems.  For example, T.J., a normally well-behaved fourth-grade student in Flint, MI, recently had been getting into frequent arguments and fights on the playground during recess. He’d been assigned both lunch detention and after-school detention, and was recently suspended from school for three days for starting a fight.

After three sessions with the school counselor, Mrs. Jackson, who was trying to discover the root of T.J.’s sudden violent streak, he blurted out that his dad had been recently incarcerated and that he was “just mad” at everyone. His arguing and fighting were his way of expressing what he had identified as anger. In a subsequent counseling session, Mrs. Jackson helped T.J. realize, that yes, he was angry -  at the system that put his dad in prison and at his dad for dealing drugs. But underlying the anger were deeper emotions: betrayal, loss, and loneliness. (T.J. had been living with his dad and his girlfriend, but now he was living with his maternal grandmother, a person he hardly knew.) Those are pretty complicated emotions for a 9 or 10-year-old boy to process. He couldn’t accurately identify what he felt; he just knew it was bad. It was less complicated to assign the pain a label he could understand and act on – anger -  than to analyze his feelings and try to find other ways to soothe himself. T.J. was referred to weekly counseling sessions and by gaining a better understanding of his feelings and learning cognitive and behavioral strategies to manage them, his violent outbursts gradually disappeared. 

Fortunately, most students don’t have to deal with the kind of emotional trauma that T.J. did, but all students experience emotions that can negatively impact their behavior, both in and outside of school, if they don’t have the knowledge and skills to regulate them.  What follows are some ways to help young people understand and identify the complex emotions that are part of their daily lives.

• Class Meeting or Family Discussion:  Here are questions that teachers, counselors, and parents can ask to generate a discussion to help young people gain insight into the world of emotions.  I follow the define, personalize, challenge format that I learned in my training with The William Glasser Institute. This format helps young people understand terminology, make connections to their own lives, and think about concepts more critically.

Define:

1.     How would you define the word emotion?

2.     Can you list some emotions? (Brainstorm a list and write it down.  For younger children, keep the list fairly basic, focusing on the primary emotions: love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness, and fear. With older kids (intermediate school-age students and higher), list and define, if necessary, a few more complex emotions. (See the Emotions ‘R’ Us chart below)

3.     How do you know you are feeling ____?

4.     What are some situations when someone might feel _____?

Personalize:

1.     Ask participants to fill in the blank.  One of my favorite emotions is _______.

2.     An emotion I really don’t like to feel is ______.

3.     How do you feel physically when you feel _____?

4.     Do you know someone who is extremely emotional?  (Note: Be certain to say, “No one in this group and no names.”) How do you know he or she is emotional?

5.     What do you do when you are feeling ______?  Does that help you or hurt you?

     Challenge:

1.     What do you think is the purpose of emotions or feelings?

2.     What are the benefits of emotions?  What might be the negative impact?

3.     Is it possible to make a mistake in identifying an emotion?  Give an example.

4.     How can we use our emotions in ways that help us?  (Ideally someone will say that we should use them as signals that things are going well or not. Emotions should help us choose to do something responsible that will result in improving a situation or in our feeling better. For example, if I were feeling angry, taking a walk or talking to a good friend would help me feel better. Of if I am frustrated, I could ask someone for help.)

5.     What is something responsible you can do (or think to yourself) the next time you are feeling ____?

• Emotional Graffiti: This activity is designed for middle and high school-aged kids. People who work with younger children should go directly to the Emotions and Me Graffiti activity that follows.

1.     Attach chart paper to the walls around the room, as equally distributed as possible, with enough room between posters to accommodate small groups of students gathered around each. Write a primary emotion at the top of each piece of chart paper: Anger, Sadness, Joy, Fear, and Love (or Attachment).

2.     Put students in cooperative groups of 3 – 5. Give each group a marker or two and assign each group to stand by a poster.

3.     Explain to them that when you say, “Begin” that they are to brainstorm as many related emotions as they can. (Give a couple of examples:  Joy – happiness, contentment, excitement; Sadness – grief, depression, etc.).

4.     After 2 – 3 minutes at one poster, have the groups rotate clockwise to the next poster.

5.     Repeat until every group has been to every poster.

6.     Have students bring the posters to the front of the room and process what they have listed. In some cases, you may need to help them correct their examples.

7.     End by displaying a poster of the Emotions ‘R’ Us Chart, discussing any important emotions that students omitted from their list. You may want to leave this poster on the wall to refer to throughout the year.

• Emotions and Me Graffiti:

​1)    Attach chart paper to the walls around the room, as equally distributed as possible, with enough room between posters to accommodate small groups of kids gathered around each. Write an emotion at the top of each piece of chart paper. For younger students, only use the primary emotions: Anger, Sadness, Joy, Fear, and Love (or Attachment). For older students include a few secondary emotions.

2)    Put kids in cooperative groups of 3 – 5. Give each group a marker or two and assign each group to stand by a poster.

3)    Explain to them that when you say, “Begin” that they are to brainstorm school appropriate situations when they have experienced these (or related) emotions.

4)    After 2 – 3 minutes at one poster, have the groups rotate clockwise to the next poster.

5)    Repeat until every group has been to every poster.

6)    Have students bring the posters to the front of the room and process what they have listed. In some cases, you may need to help them correct their examples.

Variation: To provide more privacy, have students write their examples on sticky notes first and then place them on the appropriate posters.

• Emotional Continuum:  Another way to help students integrate their understanding of emotions is to have them rank emotions based on certain criteria: for example, from strongest to weakest. After getting students in groups of 3 or 4, give them a continuum sheet like the one below.

1. The assignment is to fill in the continuum with emotions (using the primary emotions) from weakest on the left end to strongest on the right. You might give students with higher abilities one emotion to start with, tell them they can place it anywhere on the continuum they want, and to and refer to their Graffiti poster or the poster based on Emotions ‘R’ Us Chart to fill in the others. Or you might give lower ability students all four emotions and ask them to arrange the emotions on the continuum. In either case, it is important that they discuss among themselves why they chose to put the emotions in the order they did.

2. Have them present their final product to the class along with their rationale.

Variations:  You might want to give students a continuum with additional spaces included to place more subtle emotions. You also might choose other criteria for the continuum: least pleasant to most, least destructive to most; easiest to self-regulate when experiencing to most difficult; most frequently experienced in school to least, etc.

The activities I have described will not, in and of themselves, transform all children or adolescents into emotional Einsteins, but they will provide children with a common language that can be used in an ongoing attempt to help them understand and identify their feelings, a first step toward regulating them.  Regularly including the subject of emotions in formal and informal discussions will help them remain aware of the importance of feelings and help them as they continuously navigate the world of emotions, one that gets more and more complex as they enter adulthood. In addition, it is important as adults to talk about our own feelings, how we identify them, how they affect us, and how we successfully regulate them in responsible ways. This will do double duty: showing kids that teachers, parents, counselors, etc. are human, too; and providing them with ideas they might use when they are in the throes of strong feelings.

by Jon Erwin

Author and international educational consultant Jonathan Erwin has been a secondary English teacher, staff development specialist, college professor, and director of a federally funded character education program.  His first book, The Classroom of Choice (ASCD 2004) focuses on appealing to students' intrinsic motivation to learn and behave responsibly.  His more recent book, Inspiring the Best in Students (ASCD 2011), explains why and how to integrate Social-Emotional skills into the curriculum. He lives in Western New York with his wife Holly and three children: Nate, Liam, and Laena. You may contact Jon via e-mail (jon@inspiringmotivation.com) or find more information on his website:  www.inspiringmotivation.com

Telling students, “Be respectful!” or “Be responsible!” and expecting them to immediately comply is as ludicrous as telling them, “Be literate!” and expecting them to instantly read; or “Be athletic!” and expecting them to promptly become strong and well-coordinated.  As everyone knows, in order to “be literate” one must learn some basic information and master some fundamental skills: understanding that words and letters in English are written and read from left to right; understanding letters; having phonemic awareness; being able to blend sounds; etc. And, of course, “being athletic” requires the development of fine and gross motor skills, eye-hand coordination, strength training, cardio conditioning, and so on.  Similarly, principles such as respect, responsibility, self-control, and empathy need to be taught directly and systematically. 

Some might argue that students should be learning these things at home. Many are.  We can support those wonderful parents at school by extending and encouraging those character traits.  Many other students, however, come to school with only a vague idea about the meaning of “responsibility’ or ‘respect.” Other than perhaps sensing that they’re supposed to be those things, they have little understanding what these values look like in action. Further complicating the issue is the fact that these principles mean different things in different contexts: home, school, on the bus, etc. If we truly want kids to be responsible – the focus of this article -  we need to intentionally teach the skills and sub-skills necessary to becoming “responsible.” For example, one component in taking responsibility is understanding that all behavior – every word and every action -  is chosen. Human beings have free will. Consequently, we are ultimately responsible for the words and actions we use.  We can’t blame our irresponsible behavior on other people or things. (Well, I guess we could, but that just wouldn’t be “responsible,” would it?)

What follows is an approach to teaching some fundamental concepts that are the foundation of personal responsibility.

Teaching Students the Foundational Principles

 Goal:  Students will demonstrate an understanding that:

1.     Every human being experiences multiple influences.

2.     Every human being experiences adversity.

3.     Human beings have free will:

a.     We have an internal center of control and

b.     We have the ability to choose our behavior despite our circumstantial influences and challenges.

4.     Every choice has a consequence: positive, negative, or neutral.

Group Discussion:  Influence

I like to ask students what kinds of influences they experience.  It’s fun to talk about TV commercials.  What commercials do you like?  Dislike?  What are commercials trying to do? (“Right. Get us to buy stuff.  To influence us.”)  What does “influence” mean?  What other people, organizations, media, or things influence or try to influence us? (Students might mention family, friends, genetics, music, movies, sports stars, celebrities, pop culture, ethnicity, age, physical and mental health, gender, and more).  Finally, ask why it is important to be aware of the influences in our lives. 

The Fist: After students have discussed influences, "The Fist" helps them understand the concept of the internal center of control. You begin "The Fist" by explaining that they are going to participate in an activity that makes some important points about behavior. Next, pair students up. It’s best if they are working with someone who is not a close buddy. After they have a partner, tell them they have 5 seconds to decide who is Partner A and who is Partner B. Next, explain to them that you are going to give them all a job, and that it is important that they all do their best at accomplishing the job you’re going to give them. You might mention that it doesn’t require a great deal of effort or skill, that it doesn’t hurt, and that it only lasts a minute. Then ask for a commitment that they will do the best they can to accomplish their task.

Next, explain the tasks as follows:

Partner A: When I say “Go!” your job is to make a fist and keep it closed for one minute, no matter what. Don’t use it on anyone. Just keep it closed. Any questions?

Partner B:  Your job when I say “Go!” is to persuade your partner to open his or her fist, using any means at your disposal, EXCEPT you can’t touch your partner AND you can’t touch your partner with anything. (That second part is for the young loophole finders: “I didn’t touch my partner. The point of my pencil did!”)   Use your creative persuasive abilities. Think about what you do to get your parents or your brothers and sisters to do what you want. Any questions?

After you say, “Go,” you might want to move around the class, monitoring behavior and listening for the kinds of strategies the students employ. After one minute, say “Stop.” Next, ask how many Partner B’s were successful in getting their partner to open his or her hand. A few hands might go up. Bring to their attention the low number of hands raised. Ask what strategies worked, and start recording a list. After you record the list of the strategies that were successful, ask the students to tell you the strategies that they tried. You will see many of the following persuasive strategies, or attempts to influence:

Asking                                                            Nagging

Reasoning                                                    Yelling

Telling                                                            Threatening

Rewarding (Bribing)                                    Lying

Appealing to the relationship                    Verbally attacking

Negotiating                                                   Punishing

Tricking                                                         Humiliating

Reverse psychology                                  Physical Intimidation

Guilting (shaming)                                      Physical Force

After developing the list, ask the students, “What can we say about people and behavior based on this activity?”  If this question is too open-ended, you might follow it up by asking, “Can your partner MAKE you open your fist?” or “Whose behavior can you control? What connections can you make between your partner’s attempts to influence you and the other influences (and adversity) we experience in life. With some discussion, you should be able to get consensus that:

1) People and other influences do not make us behave. If individual students opened their fist, it is only because they chose to open it. (Even if someone physically overpowers us, their influence is only temporary.)

2) Therefore, we choose our behavior, even in the face of strong influences or adversity.

This activity will take students a long way toward understanding that they are in control of their behavior and that they are responsible for their choices. I recommend you follow "The Fist" with the following class meeting.

The “Have-to” Discussion:  I have learned that even "The Fist" activity does not convince all students that they choose their behaviors. There are two main reasons for this. First, many students believe that they are constantly being told what to do and what not to do at school and at home. Secondly, if we have something or someone to blame for our choices, we are free from taking responsibility for our behavior. I have used the following class meeting many times to help students understand that all behaviors are chosen and that all behaviors have consequences: positive, negative, or neutral.

Ask students to turn to a neighbor and discuss all the things during a typical week that they “HAVE” to do, both at school and at home. After a few minutes, ask each student share one thing that they discussed with their partner, while you list the things they mention on the board, the overhead, or on a flip chart. The list will include things like:

Taking a shower                                    Feeding the dog

Sleeping                                                  Eating

Taking out the garbage                         Mowing the lawn

Watching little sister                              Breathing

Going to the bathroom                          Playing video games

Going to softball practice                      Doing homework

Next, tell them that you are going to challenge their list. You might go right down the list and ask, for example, “Do you really HAVE to take a shower?”  The students will respond with a loud, choral “YES!” and some giggles, but there are usually a couple students who will say “No.”  “Isn’t that interesting,” you might say, “if we really HAVE to take a shower, then everyone would have said ‘Yes.’  Is it possible to go a week and NOT take a shower?  Do you think anyone has ever done that?”  Some students will see the point and agree. If not, you might explain that in medieval Europe it was considered unhealthy to bathe too frequently. Bathing as infrequently (by modern standards) as once a week was considered far too often. You’ll get some “Yuck’s” and some “Ewwww’s,” but persevere!

Ask, “Why do we feel like we HAVE to shower every day?”  They will say something like, “If you don’t you’ll smell bad!”  “Right!  There is a CONSEQUENCE that we want to avoid, but we don’t HAVE to shower, right?”

Most will concur. Cross “Take a shower” off the list and move on.

You will meet less and less resistance as you go through the list. For each item, ask “Is it possible for a person NOT to do it?  Has anyone ever NOT done it?”  If even one person has ever chosen not to do it, then it is a choice, not a compulsory behavior. Make sure you discuss the consequences of both doing and not doing the activities listed. A few items will survive your inquiry and remain on the list, involuntary physical responses like breathing (If you hold your breath long enough, you pass out and naturally begin breathing.), sleeping (Even with all the caffeine you can consume, your body will eventually take over.), and eliminating. Even eating is a choice. The consequences of not eating are dire, but that is still a choice some make (fasting, hunger strikes, dieting, etc.)

You may be treading on dangerous ground when you discuss that following rules, doing household chores, and doing homework are choices. You don’t want to encourage students to make irresponsible choices, nor do you want angry phone calls from home the day after the class meeting. It is important to address the question, “So why does it SEEM like we HAVE to listen to our parents, follow rules, do homework, etc.”  One reason, of course, is that doing these things is better than the negative consequences associated with not doing them. A question I’ve learned to ask is “So, if all of our behavior is a choice, why do we choose to listen to our parents, teachers, and coaches?”  Many reasons will come out, but one that I try to emphasize is that we trust them and know that they have our best interests in mind.

I also like to extend the class meeting by asking, “Which feels better, to think ‘I HAVE to do something’ or ‘I CHOOSE to do something”?   Almost unanimously, students will tell you that it feels better to know that they are in control and not being controlled. I say “almost unanimously” because there are some students that, no matter how many activities you do or class meetings you have, will choose not to accept the belief that they choose all of their behavior. They would prefer to think that they are controlled. That way, they don’t have to take that logical next step: that they are responsible for their behavior. You might use their resistance to bring home your point: “See, if I could make Jonathan behave the way I wanted, he would agree.”  Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get 100 percent buy-in. We all learn at different rates, and this is a difficult lesson for many, especially those who are accustomed to a highly structured, controlling environment. After this meeting, you might want to post the two main points of the discussion in the classroom:

• All behavior is chosen. That is, we have free will and an internal locus of control. Therefore, all behavior is chosen.
• Despite the influences and adversity we experience, we are responsible for our choices.

I am confident that you will find these activities and discussions both effective and engaging.  I just used them recently with a group of 15 students in an alternative high school in Dearborn, Michigan. At the end of the day, they were sharing things like, “If kids in our school knew this stuff, there wouldn’t be near as much drama!” and “What I learned today is that I don’t need to let anyone or anything keep me from my dreams.” (This student wants to be an electrical engineer).  Each of these statements was greeted with enthusiastic agreement. 

Once students understand these basic concepts, we can build on their understanding of responsibility by discussing different kinds of responsibility and different situations in which responsibility is important. 

In future articles, I will discuss how to build on these foundational concepts.  For example, I will explain some ways to help young people:

• understand emotions in themselves and others
• how to regulate their emotions
• understand why they behave the way they do
• what they have in common with others and how they are different
• to gain empathy
• to listen

by Jon Erwin

Author and international educational consultant Jonathan Erwin has been a secondary English teacher, staff development specialist, college professor, and director of a federally funded character education program.  His first book, The Classroom of Choice (ASCD 2004) focuses on appealing to students' intrinsic motivation to learn and behave responsibly.  His more recent book, Inspiring the Best in Students (ASCD 2011), explains why and how to integrate Social-Emotional skills into the curriculum. He lives in Western New York with his wife Holly and three children: Nate, Liam, and Laena. You may contact Jon via e-mail (jon@inspiringmotivation.com) or find more information on his website:  www.inspiringmotivation.com