In the final QLC all the teachers were present. Jake started the meeting by discussing how his own needs as a teacher influenced his perception of challenging student behaviours. In his example, Jake first outlined an experience where he indirectly requested empathy from several of his students. In this situation, Jake’s class was working both inside and directly outside of the classroom, with Jake going between both areas. When he went outside he saw a small group of students skateboarding and joking around. He approached them and said:
Guys, it’s important for me that when you’re outside the class that you are sensible and back in time, because for me, I’m worried if you’re distracted out there or skating around, it will look bad on me … and they responded, yeah, we get that.
Jake mentioned that the students’ response showed more understanding than previous encounters he had had with them. He then reflected on some of his own underlying reasons for feeling stressed when interacting with students who did not seem interested in being in class:
I get stressed out when I see kids disengaged in my classes … I take responsibility for their learning … it’s about me being successful as an educator … that’s a really important need of mine … if they’re not getting results or not engaging in class, I see that as a reflection of myself, which isn’t necessarily good, but it’s what I do.
After Jake expressed this, Peter nodded his head and went onto say, “I feel that too, and if I’m totally honest, one of my needs is to be judged positively by my peers.” During this conversation, Jake and Peter shared a similar viewpoint and acknowledged how their own needs as individuals and as teachers contributed to how they felt interacting with certain students. This led Peter to share an experience of how he sometimes had to manage a student who made a lot of noise during class. Peter recalled how he had approached this student who was talking while he was giving out instructions to the class and said to him:
Look, I’m feeling frustrated about the noise and my need to manage it, and I don’t feel like I’m doing that really well. To me it’s really important we get these instructions
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done and I can do it pretty quickly. Would you be willing to manage yourself for one minute?
The student thought about it for a moment and then said yes. Following on from this example, Peter mentioned that he had been trying hard to keep judgements out of his
interactions and was mindful that what he said did not come across as a judgement. So he had told the group that his next step was to keep practicing his skills with NVC and link it with the student key competencies. Peter said that he had already done one inquiry with NVC and was considering doing a second loop, where he could refine making it more visible to the students.
In regards to Michael, while he remarked that he still ‘got wound up’ when interacting with his colleague Stephanie, he did mention that their relationship had improved:
The relationship has improved a lot and we get on much better now … there is much less tension now when we speak … I am able to become more aware of what is not going well with the dialogue and how I may be contributing to it, and this process is quicker and more frequent than before.
During the course of the QLC meetings, Michael was able to shift from a habitual and reactionary response of defensiveness when confronted with judgements from Stephanie towards a more understanding response based on regulating his own emotions and providing empathy. In turn, this helped to facilitate a better interpersonal connection between the two colleagues.
In terms of Sarah, she reflected on moments during the past week where she could have used NVC during her teaching practice. Sarah recalled a situation where a student was being noisier than she wanted during class and as a response, she scowled at him. In retrospect, when she thought about the situation and having already spoken with the student several times before, she told the group that she would have preferred to have said:
In your practice exam you said that you needed to work harder to get through this exam. I feel a bit confused because I thought that you might find this helpful, and I’m wondering if you’re wanting to learn about this or have you given up on this one? … If this is not helpful, what could we do that helps to meet your needs?
In commenting on using NVC as reflective tool, Sarah remarked that she is self-monitoring more on whether she is communicating in a judgemental way with her students:
For me, it’s helping to understand judgements … that they can be both negative and positive … NVC language has helped me to work through that and examine that
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through observation … Whether I say ‘you’re noisy’, as opposed to making a direct observation.
Sarah then concluded by saying how she thought that some of the other teachers in her school would benefit using this approach and said that she intended organise a slot in the next staff meeting for the group members (excluding Peter who worked in another school) to explain the principles of NVC and talk about their experiences to the other teachers in order to find out if they were interested in forming a group on their own within the school.
The meeting then concluded with each member, including myself, sharing their gratitude for the aspects of the group that had enriched their lives in some way. This idea, which is often used within an NVC framework, was initiated by me as a way to celebrate and share the successes within the group. The results of this part have been included in the next section, as they closely align with the teachers’ overall perceptions of NVC.
Summary and personal reflections
Upon reflection after the group had finished, I noticed that the teachers were bringing all the different aspects of NVC together (observations, feelings, needs, requests, and
empathy) and integrating them to various degrees to solve hypothetical cases, as well as real- life experiences. While there were instances where they had mixed up feelings and needs, projected their own needs onto others, and chosen not to empathise, their ability to
theoretically grasp the concepts of NVC and transfer them to practice was impressive. This was all despite only having had a total of between four to seven hours within the group (this includes times of absence). Following the final meeting, the exit interviews were scheduled with all the teachers later that week. I now present these in detail.