Taking ourselves too seriously
“Self command is the main elegance”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the greatest lessons I learned while serving as a correctional officer in two prisons was not to take myself too seriously or I would become the target of the inmates’ daily game of seeing whose “buttons” they could push to cause an officer to lose emotional control, or their “professional poise” in one way or another. It became a game, a bet, to see how long it would take to cause the officer to explode with anger. The inmates hardly ever meant much of what they said, and did not care that much about the stuff they did, it was all about pushing buttons and just good entertainment for people in their daily situation. Working in this type of environment is like a daily “psychological war” game and it can cause you a lot of frustration and anger, and begin to cause you to come to work with a vendetta to get back at the person, or people for exploiting your emotions like this on a regular basis. One crude, but poignant example of this is the lesson all correctional officers learn about answering their house floor phone and that is that you never answer that phone without looking at the receiver first! Why?, because one of the “games” inmates like to play is with the phone receiver because it rings all day and night as officers communicate back and forth from different parts of the prison and they pick up the phone quickly and put it to their ear and talk, etc. However, what inmates like to do from time to time for a laugh, is to sneak and smear human excrement on the receiver and when the office picks up the phone without looking at it first and puts it to their ear, well, you can imagine the rest. I remember seeing this happen to a woman officer one day that the inmates did not particularly like and what a scene that was! To this day I still never answer any phone without looking at it first! Thus, while in this example, I would have lost my poise as did my colleague that day, the point is that what made her the target of such a crass prank was that she was one that took herself too seriously (for the inmates anyway), and they wanted to find a way to push her buttons.
In general, it follows that if those of us in leadership or positions of authority, working in a high risk environment begin to take ourselves too seriously, it can cause us to become a target to those who love to provoke you out of your comfort zone. My staff and I used to fight this psychological war everyday at the Teen Center also where I was the Director (as I referred to earlier in the book). The kids would love to do this “button pushing”, as I call it, as a kind of soft way of rebelling or defying authority from a place where the provoker is relatively on safe ground since he or she is really not doing anything too serious other than just playing with your mind too see how far they can go and learn what makes you tick and where your anger buttons are, etc. And believe me, most of the time, it is a planned event and the “innocent” by-standers are usually part of the plot and have talked the one provoker into the act that they all believe will get the desired result of anger that they can all laugh at later.
After dealing with this in the prisons, school campuses and at the Teen Center, I learned that it doesn’t hurt to lighten up, loosen up and be able to laugh at yourself once in awhile and not be so serious 100% of the time even though you might be in a tough daily environment like a Teen Center working with at-risk youth or a classroom with student gang members who love to push your buttons. I remember back in Junior High School a few of my friends and I decided to give a “pay back” to our teacher as she always seemed to be “picking” on one of us (Of course the truth is we were always disrupting the class). On this particular day, I was chosen to be the “provoker” by placing a thumb tack on the stool she always sat on when she was addressing the class. The excitement and anticipation for those of us in “the know” was just too much fun and things got out of hand when the climatic moment came and she sat on her stool only to jump right back out of it with an awkwardness and disfigured face that none of us could maintain our poise to and we were somehow implicated as having something to do with it? I am sure you get “the point” (pun intended) by this story and what I am discussing here, that when we take ourselves too seriously and don’t seem to possess the ability to have a little levity in our learning environment (which this teacher clearly did not have) sometimes others will take it into their own hands to break the monotonous monotone of seriousness. One thing about us “Latinos/Chicanos” is that we love to “cap” (slang for making fun of) and play “practical jokes” and if a teacher has a room full of us she can expect that a lot of capping and practical jokes will take place. If she can learn to “take it”, or better yet, learn how to “cap” back, without crossing the line, it goes a long way with Latino students in developing rapport, respect and receptiveness of instruction.
The wise thing to do when one finds themselves the victim of “capping” is to respond with poise and laughter, or at least a smile (Not in the case of the thumb tack incident of course, that went way beyond capping), which will signal to the one capping (and everyone else watching) that you can “take it”. Believe it or not, with most Latino youths, this goes a long way in building rapport and earning their respect, especially if you are quick witted and know how to “come back” in a way that makes the others go, “ooohhhhhh” and make the person who capped on you laugh while their face turns red! Having “poise” or practicing the principle of poise was not something we learned in “teachers’ school”. However, as we know, our education did not end when we graduated but really began the day we entered the real world of the daily class room and developing poise is a skill we need and can still acquire. Thus, I suggest that understanding and learning to develop our poise will help us encounter and overcome some of the daily battles we will most likely encounter in working with “at-risk” or defiant and disobedient youth.
The word poise is defined as; a counterweight, regulating power, balance, equilibrium, self-possession and composure. It is a kind of inner tranquility, that some have suggested is one of the best ways to manifest one’s true power and authority or command of the situation. This is important to understand because while the class room is ideally a place of learning, it is often a place of a subtle and sometimes not so subtle battle for control and power. And thus, the teacher needs a strategy that will produce a win for them and a win for the students. Thinking “win-win” is vital on the “psychological battlefield” because if all we concern ourselves with is winning for ourselves, we can miss the other opportunity that exists which is the conversion of our “competition” while at the same time establishing our control and power in the class room.
How is this done? One way is through the exercising of our poise as a “counterweight” or balance to the disruptive, rude and defiant behavior meant to intimidate us and render us powerless as an authority figure in our own domain. As I stated, this is a battle that must be won by the teacher, yet, there is more to winning than just squelching and defeating your competition, which is within the power of the teacher to do and usually the instinctive reaction of power in the classroom. I suggest that a choice to respond with tranquility and poise during times of being the subject of laughter is a powerful demonstration of control and power that can not only give others a sense of security and peacefulness, but also serve to win over their hearts as they witness a better way of handling disrespect, discourteousness and discomfort.
“Remember that there is always a limit to self-indulgence, but none to self-restraint.”- Mahatma Gandhi
