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The observer would see me demonstrating distance perspective about half of the time. When I have had the time to prepare myself for a conversation with a student or admin I do an okay job of staying objective about the situation. The observer in a good situation would see that I have a handle of myself in the situation and seem very comfortable in the discussion subject. If, however, I haven't had the time to prepare myself, the observer will see a visibly frustrated Mr. Peterson trying to get across a point and not doing a great job of it. Body language will be all over the place from me trying to collect and also being frustrated. Definitely something that I need to work on when I don't have the time to collect.

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When thinking about self-immersed perspective I often think about conferences I have had with parents. For me, this brings up many connections from the book “Onward” and how the ideas in the book relate to how we perceive a situation. I think of tough conferences in particular as it is so very important for us as educators to have an understanding of another persons culture, values, socio-economic status, etc.. All of these factors play into how people view a similar situation.

In trying the fly on the wall exercise when thinking about previous conferences I have had with parents I found myself talking at the parents instead of simply having a conversation about their child. I feel as though I can work to incorporate the parents perspective more often in the conversation which will allow me to practice my own self-distanced perspective. I plan to practice the fly on the wall exercise in the future so I am able to form stronger relationships with parents which are built upon sharing ideas about their child so they are able to better achieve success.

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If someone were to observe me in a situation like this I know for a fact that they would be able to read how I am feeling or what my emotions are by my body language and facial expressions. I am a person who does not hide my emotions well and that is something that I need to work on. I think the observer would understand my feelings about the situation, but may not fully understand the whole situation by reading my body language and facial expressions. An example is I have been talking with a student about a concept or a behavior and they have asked me why I am frustrated or why I am making the face I am making. As an educator I need to be more aware of the faces I am making and the body language that I am showing my students. I do not want them to know when I am frustrated or upset with some of the decisions they are making. I not only need to work on this in my professional life, but in my personal life as well.

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If I had someone watching my interactions they would be able to tell if I was in flight or fight mode because normally I am fairly logical when having a discussion but when I'm upset and have not had time to take a deep breath, think about both sides of an issue or my feelings are hurt then most of what comes out of my mouth is pure emotion.  Things I wouldn't not normally say to someone would come out. I have had this happen and almost always by the time I calm down, which can be anywhere from 5 minutes to the next day, then I go back and apologize.  I have learned what makes me irritated and I have also learned who my back up plan people are. If the situation is with a student it might be having them go to another teachers room for a few minutes until both of us get our emotions identified and have calmed down. I also have a teacher who I go to and have them read my email or even sometimes give my speech. Then they are able to help me see things in a logical way because their emtions are not tied to the situation.

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This is something that I definitely need to work on, both professionally and personally. It is so easy to react to a situation right away rather than to take a step back, take a deep breath, and think about your feelings before reacting. I think that sometimes the quick reaction is because of how I have always been and sometimes it depends on the situation. For example, I know that I have come down on kids at times because of behavior when I was overly tired. I have come down on kids when they do the same behavior over and over again even though we had talked about it before. My patience was a little more thin at these points in time. I think that having distanced perspective is especially important at these times because my judgment is probably more cloudy at these times. Having a distanced perspective is something that I always try to work on and will continue to try and work on.

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When thinking about a self-immersed perspective, I have definitely had a couple situations where that has been my thinking. I think of a challenge last fall where a teacher wanted me to assess one of her students so she could get his report card done. I am a special education teacher and the student she wanted me to assess was on my caseload. As a new teacher, I immediately went to my mentor, who I trust greatly and asked if this is something that is my job. Obviously, I was more than happy to help out, but was still irritated by the situation. I was extremely frustrated because it was nearing the end of the quarter and I have to do assessments on my own students for progress reports. I already had a thousand things on my to-do list to get done before the quarter ended and she added another thing to my list that was technically her job. My mentor observed that I was stressed, annoyed and quite frankly an emotional wreck about the situation. I think my mentor understood the situation and how frustrating it can be when working with special education students in a general education classroom. As I gave some thought to the situation, I was able to reflect on how she may be feeling. Her and this student had a relationship, but not as strong as the relationship him and I had built. Her thought behind this was because him and I have a stronger bond, so she thought he may be more comfortable being assessed by me. After I put myself in her shoes, and used that self-distanced perspective, I was able to control my emotions and reaction to the situation. I need to do a better job of using that self-distanced thinking right away to understand where he or she might be coming from. 

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As I thought about situations like that at school, I find that I am much more likely to respond in a more impulsive way with students rather than colleagues. If a situation were to arise where I react without a ton of thinking, it is most likely because of some sort of build up of negativity that has happened over time. For example, a student that continuously pushes my buttons and that particular interaction has just put me over the edge. Fortunately, in recent years, I have figured out (for the most part) how to take a deep breath, take a step back, and address the behaviors with the student in a calm way. We have started using a more restorative approach to discipline at my school and reframing how I think and talk about conflicts with students has really helped in this respect. Before I fully took on a restorative approach, a fly on the wall probably would have wondered “what’s her problem?” because I was letting multiple interactions (that the fly had not seen) influence my emotions in that moment. One thing I have to remind myself of is that my students are in a much different place than I am in terms of social and emotional development, and while I can have high expectations for them, they are still learning who they are, how to act, and what is appropriate.

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It is always good to be able to look at situations from different perspectives. I like the idea of the self-distanced perspective. You are able to take a step back and see the whole picture, not just the part that immediately surrounds you. We learn from experiences. If we could all have an observer watch many of our difficult situations and help us reflect on them. I feel we would grow and improve much faster as teachers. We could then have the opportunity for open conversations guided by someone not as emotionally attached to the situation. In my classroom last year I had a particular Kindergartener who responded to certain situations by screaming and shrieking. This did not happen every time the student came into my room, so it was hard to make sense of it and to anticipate when it would happen and create responses to it. This particular day, the observer would have seen the student walk into my room, follow the class but not sit at the carpet like the rest. As I moved into teaching, the student began to make low vocalization noises that escalated into higher pitched screams. You could conclude that the kindergartener had good lung strength and stamina and was probably a good singer and enjoyed singing. Even though she wasn’t singing at the time. It can also be concluded that the student was upset by something. Being able to remove the initial emotional response and thinking about what is being observed will help make calmer decisions that hopefully lead to situations like this being stopped before they escalate too far.

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As I reflect upon the phrase, ‘Fly on the Wall,’ I think about all of my favorite and not-so-favorite memories in the classroom. An incident that I would like to dive into reflecting upon today is a situation where I took things too personally:

It is the morning, and I have a Teacher’s Assistant come in for this hour to help one of my EL students during grammar. The TA is much older than I, and feels very passionate about grammar. The TA feels so much passion about grammar, she corrects my small mistakes in front of myself and my class. The TA’s behavior upsets me and makes me feel nervous about teaching grammar, thus making me even more conscious about my teaching. (It is my first year as a teacher!) As a result, I realized I took the self-immersed perspective and became fixed in my mindset about teaching grammar. (I am not good at this subject, I’ll never be as knowledgeable as this TA, the list goes on)...

As I look back at this situation, I now realize that the TA was just looking to support me and my teaching (although it didn’t feel like it at the time!) (Side note: I did sit down with the TA and we discussed better ways to communicate small errors). It is important to realize the difference and importance of perspective taking. I know now that self-immersed perspective means when we get caught up in the details of a stressful event, whereas self-distanced perspective means we take the self away from the event and analyze its roots. One of my favorite quotes from our textbook discusses how our reaction is everything: “Don’t take other people’s behavior personally. It is never about you” (Aguilar 208).

In short, I have a better understanding that when stressful situations arise, I should take the time to become curious about people’s dispositions and take on the growth mindset on the situation.

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Thinking about a conflict with some distance is definitely a helpful strategy.  I find this is easier to do with students than adults.  I guess because I expect a student to behave immaturely, when a conflict arises I’m able to step back and deal with it impersonally.  In the very rare instance that a conflict arises with an adult, I’ve noticed that I have to work harder to maintain that distance and not take the situation personally.  We expect adults to behave in mature ways, but it’s important to still keep that distance to remind myself that the other person has their own reasons for their choices that aren't’ a direct judgement on my choices.

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After reading that practice of visualizing yourself as the observer, it can impact how I could react in future situations. It made me think about in Onward, Aguliar talks about stepping back to assess your emotions correctly to be able to react in an appropriate manner. The situation I thought of was the past challenge of dealing with a difficult parent. If the observer was watching the situation, they would have seen a parent who was frustrated with distance learning and they were hearing different things from me than they were from their child. The observer would have seen a family where both the parents are working all day and coming home to their 11 year old asking if their work was done. Assuming that the child was telling the truth. They also would see a teacher trying hard to gain that perspective and see where the family was coming from. A teacher who was just checking in to make sure the child was okay and not worried about the work not being completed. Although the parent assumed the opposite that the teacher was calling just to get the work done. Reflecting on this situation from this perspective, helped me understand how the parent must've felt in that situation. I hope to find more successful ways that how I am actually feeling comes across correctly. That is the hard part with technology or even over the phone, it is truly complicated show the emotion and tone of your message correctly.

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This self-distanced perspective reminds me of Agular’s strategy of zooming out to get a new perspective. Both of these strategies remind us to stop, take a breath, and look at the problem from a distance. A situation that I could have used this on was when we were planning our lessons for distance learning last spring. Our principal said everyone’s lessons had to be the same. During the in-person school year, we were always teaching the same topics but had some flexibility on how the lessons would look. So, while we were planning, everyone was stressed and nervous about switching to distance learning. I was struggling with not teaching some fun lessons that I was excited to teach in the upcoming weeks. If observers had been watching our planning meeting, they would have seen eight teachers who care about their students and who were all struggling with the idea that we wouldn’t have school in person again. They would have seen teachers trying their best to create lessons that would easy for students and parents to do at home. The observer would understand that all teachers wished it was safe to still teach in-person, but were doing the best they can. Looking back, and using the self-distanced perspective, I should have taken a deep breath and realized we were all doing the best we can. Instead of focusing on the fun activities my kids were going to be missing out on, I should have put all my energy into creating easy to do at home lessons.

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When reflecting on this idea and current and past challenges, I realize that I do much better having a self-distanced perspective while in the work place than I do in my personal life. One thing that I reflected on in the past was something that happened between myself and a paraprofessional in my room. There was private information shared between her and I in a one on one setting that she shared with others in a negative/rumor type way. When I had a colleague tell me about this, at first I was very upset. Definitley in a self-immersed perspective. I had an initial reaction to have a meeting with her right away, and hash it out. I am glad that I didn't do that as I was hurt and angry and wouldn't have had a constructive conversation. I first went to a trusted colleague and talked about this situation. Seeking advice from this person. I was able to vent some of my frustrations and process some of my emotions. After that conversation I felt much more relaxed, and ended up having a quality conversation with my para about trust. So I think in that scenario, it worked out well for me to seek out that "fly on the wall" a trusted friend, before talking to the person that I had a challenging situation with. Since beginning this course, I have worked on not becoming so hurt or upset when challenges come up in my personal life. There have defenitely been moments where if there was a fly on the wall, they would not see the best reactions from me. But what I have done well is be more aware and reflective of my perspective during or quickly after a challenge with someone else. It has led to some great apologies and better understanding of one another after. I look to continue to move toward a self-distance mindset in my professional and personal life.

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Several quotes/lessons come to mind with the described scenario for this padlet post.  The first one that pops into my head is "Speak when you are angry and you'll give the best speech you'll ever regret." ~ Lawrence Peter.  I have learned through hard experience that when I'm in a stressful or emotional situation that I need to keep myself calm and grounded - rather than emotional and in a "fight or flight" mode. The other piece of advice that I try to adhere to in difficult situations is from Steven Covey when he said "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." In tense moments with a student or a parent or colleague it is important to be open and listening - not to find ways to argue and attack - but to understand. This helps in the most obvious of ways - to better understand the other person's perspective. It also signals a willingness to listen to the other person and helps to calm tension. I think the third thing a "fly" would observe is an attempt to problem solve. With students in particular I like to empower as much as possible and leave the solution in their hands. I offer to help, but respect the student by allowing them to fix things instead of railing over the top of them and imposing a "solution" (usually punitive).

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I really appreciate the idea of a new perspective, or a different angle. I am reminded of a disagreement with a coworker recently. I never really get in disagreements, I am known for being the calm and collected one on my team. This is mostly because I have always tried to practice the pause philosophy. Pause before you react or speak whenever possible. When I imagine the incident from another perspective, I imagine what would be evident is emotion. Emotion about so many other things that had nothing to do with the perceived incident. Looking back, all the feelings came form a totally unrelated situation, for both of us. In the moment, the situation felt so big and important, but looking back, it was all about emotion and feelings from an unrelated event. It makes me realize that sometimes emotions make the pause tricky and looking back with an awareness may help in future situations.

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When I read about his weeks reflection there was a very specific situation that came to mined. It was 5 years ago with a difficult parent and the first year of our new principal working in our building. The week before workshop my principal approached me stating that a parent, who I thought I had a good relationship with, did not want me working with their child this year because she didn't feel I had his best interests at heart. My first reaction was to become very defensive on many levels. I was concerned about the impression this was giving my new principal, angry at the parent for not talking to me about her concerns first, and hurt that someone would ever think that I wouldn't have their best interests of their child in the forefront. After sitting back from that moment and preparing for the meeting a few days later I was able to look at it through the parent's lens and slow my anger response. When we had the meeting I approached it through validating and hearing the concerns and then calmly explaining my side and validating the parents feelings. What could have turned into an awful situation form me personally and professionally boiled down to a misunderstanding in something I told the parent. After the meeting I continued to work with the family for 4 more years and the mom nominated me for a teacher of the year award. Even now as I sit back and reflect and consider the situation, I hope that someone would be able to look at the situation and see that slow to anger and quick to listen is the best response to the situation. I know that in the processing with my principal later and even in conversations we have had since then he is able to compliment my handling and calm demeanor with difficult parents. It surely wasn't easy but it was the first time in my career I was able to step out of the emotions and into the facts of the situation.

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One specific parent came to mind when I considered a difficult situation I have dealt with in the past. This parent consistently placed blame in unreasonable places and did not set any expectations for their child. Emails were often hurtful and I immediately viewed myself as the victim. A self-distance perspective allows me to see the situation differently and look beyond the initial feelings that arose. An outside observer would likely see a concerned parent attempting to support their child in whatever way possible. While realistically they could have gone about it differently, they were still leading with love. This perspective changes how I would have constructed and felt about my own responses to the parent. Time, along with a little perspective, allows you to view potentially stressful situations differently. There is a lot of power in pausing and interpreting your own emotions before choosing how to respond. 

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I do think that it is a beneficial practice to a self-distance perspective.  I have heard something similar to the concept before and I have tried to use it when I feel sorry for myself.  It is helpful to step back and view this from an outside perspective.  I sometimes imagine someone from outer space viewing the world and then my problems don’t seem so big.  One such situation happened a couple years ago.  I had a very difficult student the very last hour of the day in the fall trimester.  By this time of the day, the student was ready to be done for the day.  I felt like she didn’t even give me a chance to engage her in any critical thought.  On one September day, the weather outside was 97 degrees and humid.  There was no air conditioning in the high school so it was miserable.  The student was particularly in no mood to learn math.  She was very verbal about her intentions that day.  I kind of took it personally and much of her behavior really took a toll on me.  I look back on the time and when I view it from an outsider’s perspective, I can see that this student had far deeper issues than just having a problem learning from me.  If I were a fly on the wall in my classroom, I would want to follow this girl to see what other distractors are in her life.  I was wrong to take the issue personally and should have tried harder to get to the source of the classroom misbehavior.

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When reading the description above, I thought of the saying, 'Put yourself in their shoes'. Often, I find myself whether in a one on one conversation or during a team meeting staying quiet and being an active listener. I do not like conflict so if I disagree with someone, I try not to say anything unless I need to. Whenever an opinion is said or an idea is stated that I don't believe, I try to put myself in their shoes and see from their perspective. This gives me an understanding of the topic and can sometimes mend my thoughts to embrace it. No matter if I believe it or not, listening and trying to understand others is important in this career.

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Truthfully, unless someone is attacking my integrity I remain pretty calm and don't get upset. DUring team discussion about curriculum there are often strong opinions. I am accepting and flexible in most circumstances. I adapt to what I need to and typically don't have strong feelings one way or the other. I will stand up for myself if it is a question of integrity. If there was a conflict a friend would see me listen and adapt to the direction that is decided among the group. They would hear me being willing to be flexible and try the idea.

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When I am having a difficult conversation with someone a fly on the was would see me listening. They would hear me paraphrasing what the other person said. They would hear me ask if I am understanding them correctly or if there is anything else they would want me to know. They would hear me acknowledge their feelings. They would hear me ask for permission to share my perspective. They would hear me ask them wha their goal is or if they have any ideas on how we could fix the situation. The fly would understand that I care and that I am not judging, but trying to first meet the person where they are at and move the conversation from there,

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As an elementary art educator within my building I have been a “team” of one my entire career. Yes our district has many art teachers so I am not totally alone, but on a daily basis I am alone, the only art teacher. At my building there are two PhyEd teachers, two Music teachers and one (myself) Art teacher. At times this can be an amazing gift and at other times it can be very lonely. On the one hand when there are meetings set aside to “work with your team” I never have to worry about disagreements or awkwardness amongst the team- LOL, it’s just ME!  But when it comes to having my voice heard in large group and all staff meetings and discussions, I am oftentimes overlooked because I have only one “voice”, no one else is there to help back up my cause. I can get heated and frustrated when I feel like I need to defend my subject matter and the importance of art. It may look like I am being selfish and speaking for myself and what I want. When really I am advocating for the rights of my students. I need to remember to be mindful of what my actions look like. I need to work on remaining calm and having strong (maybe even tangible) evidence to support my cause. I will continue to be a team of one for the foreseeable future. This does not mean I need to act alone, I can do my homework, provide research and facts calmly instead of simply acting on impulse. I can see how these reactions can come off as selfish and not in the best interest of the students.

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I tend not to put myself out there too much when we have building wide or team wide discussions about changes to schedules, classes, etc. However, when I do offer up an idea I feel like I can get pretty defensive quickly when people nitpick my idea or just ignore what was said. I think back to last school year our team was trying to figure out how to hold kids more accountable. I ended up sharing an idea of having a google spreadsheet that we all could see and modify to track student work. Another teacher thought using Infinite Campus would be better. A fly on the wall would have probably seen poor body language on my behalf. Instead of understanding that this teacher was just suggesting something comfortable to him, just like Google sheets is comfortable to me, I took it as a slight to my idea and got defensive. Being close minded to other ideas would make me look like a poor team member to a bystander.

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I had some very tenuous conversations with colleagues early in 2020. If a friend had watched me go and talk in person to the people who had sent the incendiary emails, I'm sure my body language might have given away how frustrated I was, even though I kept my words measured and in control. Internally I wanted to say all sorts of retaliatory/accusatory words, but I knew that wasn't productive and was able to be self-distanced enough to know that.  If you had been observing me, I hope you would have noticed that my main concern was that assumptions were acted upon in a schoolwide setting, without any checking on the veracity of the assumptions. Honestly, it is still hard for me to think about the events without stress/my pulse speeding up a bit. It was one of the worst professional situations in my life.  I hope that a situation like that never arises again. If it does, I will certainly aim to implement self-distanced analysis prior to having tough conversations.

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When a parent defends their child and denies that their child has did nothing wrong. I think my first thought is nobody is perfect including your child. When I step back from the situation, I am able to hear it from their perspective in that this is their child. By defending their child they think they are helping them. What I need to do is continue to build a relationship with both the student and parent. Take time to share the great things this student is doing so they begin to understand we both have the intent of helping this child.

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I feel that what I teach isn't valued by others. I have been a single department in a school where there are 2-9 people in each department. It has been a struggle for me. Recently there was a vote to have our district move from 6 periods a day to 7. This opened the door for departments to relook at their classes offered and add new, rework, take out, etc. I decided that it was important to work with other departments to come up with classes that show how two different subject matters work together in the "real world". Example: biology and art. I worked with a biology teacher and we came up with the idea of a taxidermy class. This was a great idea however, the admin said it was too expensive to have us team teach the class and long story short I pretty much was pushed out of teaching the class that I worked hard to build.
The observer would be observing me: reading emails, talking directly to admin (keeping my cool, but leaving angry) working many hours with the biology teacher, and when schedules came out crying on the drive home out of frustration, exhaustion, and anger because what I feared would happen, happened. Looking back at this, I now know that I can't change minds that are already made up . I understand that often times schools hands are tied when it comes to funding classrooms. I think that in the future I'll continue to try, but step back and look at it from the admins perspective. What they want to do vs. what they can do and not take it personally.

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When parents send a negative email or if they are unhappy or frustrated with something I think my first natural response is to want to defend myself. I think about all that I have to balance and that it is not just their own student in the classroom that I need to focus on but all of them. If I can move to a distanced perspective I am going to be more understanding that the parent wants what is best for their child and it is their job to look out for their child. I also understand that often times emails come across way differently (more dramatic) than a conversation in person.

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When parents send an email that shows frustration, those are always difficult for me because I can't hear the "tone" or read the facial expressions. When I get an email like that, I seldom respond immediately.  The observer would see me read, reread, reread, and reread the email trying to find the "voice" in the email.  The observer would understand that I am trying to find the different angles this email is coming from.  Then, if it is not an emergency situation, I would sit on it for a few hours/day if possible.  Then I pick up the phone and call the parent.  If possible, I like to schedule a face to face conference and hopefully solve the situation.  I have found that talking with parents solves situations much quicker than "firing off an email".