Three Ways to Talk About Reality
2: We have a problem to address.
3: She won’t want to play with you.
Before we go further into the Protocol, let’s examine way our words portray the reality of events. The three distinctions matter.
All fields of study—metallurgy, marksmanship, meteorology—specify terminology for precision. Essential distinction and subtle nuance requires a name to learn for communication and competence. The same is true in early childhood education. We, too, need precision in the way we speak of things.
When people have to work together as they do in this Behavior Management Protocol, we have to have agreement about how to describe emotionally charged events. Casual ways of speaking can mask what we notice and sidetrack team discussions, especially when discussing sensitive behavioral difficulties. Before we begin, let’s establish some agreements about how we speak of things.
Seeing, Believing, Acting
We see things and interpret things differently because we have different life experiences and dispositions. We bring assumptions that change what we notice and mask what we miss. As you may have already realized, it is normal for human beings to believe one way and act in another. Let’s look at why this happens.
The ladder below illustrates the reflexive loop short-cut that commonly dissociates action from the reality of events.
We begin at the bottom: observable reality, and step upward toward the reality of what we do. Each rung up, described by Chris Argyris, tells a story of how one’s actions and beliefs become dissociated from the events themselves. Our beliefs become fixed and ignore contrary evidence.
A Lesson to Learn
If I fail to attend to where my beliefs come from, I am probably continuing my reflexive and comfortable habits. If I am asked why I am doing things this way, I probably could share my beliefs and opinions without recognizing, especially in times of stress, that my actions actually violate what I believe.
Disconnected Discourse
Commonly, the discussions we have about what to do about a difficult child consist of assumptions and conclusions that continue habits of blame and negativity. Discussions commonly go round and round, taking up valuable time, without making an effort to seek evidence to check on our current beliefs. It’s easy to become hurt or defensive when we have a disagreement that challenges our beliefs.
For example, the reality may be that controlling, negative, bossy adults cause the problem. Likewise, the reality may be that boredom leads to it. It’s worth finding out by referring to data or investigating tomorrow’s experience. According to Chris Argyris, it’s natural to assume our assumptions are the way things work. The way out is to return to observations to keep us from going astray.
Understanding & Action
In my experience, people discuss troubling behavior rather casually, without making an effort to attend to the distance between what they say and the reality of the event. Take the picture at the top of this page as an example. These comments, which one is very likely to hear, have distinguishable realities. The first is the fact, the next a step away from fact, and the third lies at a distance.
1: You put sand on her head.
2: We have a problem to address.
3: She won’t want to play with you.
Statement 1 refers to the physical reality. “You put sand on her head.” No meanings are added to the facts. No assumptions made.
Statement 2 refers to what most people have experienced when the flow of play is disrupted by discomfort. A group of people might agree that: “We have a problem to address.” We have a shared reality. Much more than a personal view, this precedence of agreement marks its merit for consideration and attentiveness.
Statement 3 is one person’s opinion alone, which may not have general agreement. “She won’t want to play with you.” We don’t know whether this is true or not. This conclusion is the personal reality of one person on the planet, an assumption without a precedence of agreement.
This distinction about ways comments vary in validity can be agreed upon ahead of time, too. With its own precedence of agreement, the group can more easily find its course and avoid the common distraction of exploring differences in beliefs. With three levels of inference at hand, it’s easier to return to the event itself, focus on finding agreement, and step toward action.
Three Levels of Inference
Physical Reality
What is directly observable to our senses, what we can see, hear, taste, touch, etc., is experienced as a fact. In relation to children, physical reality is observed actions—what a child does or says—including data we may have about it. Child pours sand on another child’s head. Child causes another child to cry an average of 2.5 times a week.
Socially-constructed Reality
After a small group of people discuss the different ways we consider those physical realities, they might conclude that the event under discussion has at least a few certainties that group can agree upon. The creation of these agreed, or at least acceptable, conclusions take on a kind of reality, because they are conclusions or shared ways of thinking for those who participated in that discussion that one time.
We can keep in mind that people who did not participate the discussion may assume their personal opinion remains true. That may have to be addressed, but this one group does agree, at least for the moment, that It’s hard to remove sand in your hair.
When a co-constructed meaning is established, it becomes normative for that particular group. It has an operational reality for that group of people who agreed to it. From that moment forward that group can interpret events with shared meaning and shared conclusions from it. Socially-constructed agreements are the foundation for teamwork. The team expects to hold onto a shared view until it is modified to become a new agreement, at any time, as more factors come into view.
Personal Reality
Fortunately, we all have our own judgments, opinions, and beliefs acquired from our life experience. Nothing wrong with that. Most people are more than willing to share those, almost automatically. She won’t want to play with you.
Opinions contain both richness and rigidity, but who really knows if one opinion is more valid than another? People are different. The problem is how to decide upon a mutual action when all that happens in a meeting is the sharing of opinions.
In a Nutshell
The three distinctions about language and reality work like this. A particular set of people might agree with the three sentences in the previous paragraph above. “Opinions contain both richness and rigidity… People are different… The problem is how to decide upon a mutual action…”
If they all nodded affirmatively to accept these statements, at least for now, that experience of quiet acceptance has taken on significance for everyone. It becomes, for the moment, a socially-constructed reality.
The become willing to accept that opinions and judgments are unreliable, for the purpose of the current work of deciding on a course of action.
Over time, with experience through application, the agreement becomes a norm. When people talk, they feel an obligation to avoid making a judgement, or at least preface their contributions with an awareness: ‘this is my opinion, but…’
Each member accepts a responsibility to try to follow agreements the group makes as it proceeds in it’s work. Agreement continues until anyone in the group wants to modify it because of events or new information. Agreements evolve and get better and better.
That’s it, but like everything, knowledge has to move to comprehension then to move to application.
Opportunity to Practice the Three Levels
I created a short video for people to try this out, 5′ 23″ of Cory at The Easel on Vimeo. Cory is painting using several new pieces of paper. We don’t really know what he is doing; we can’t see his intention, but we can talk about what we think is going on based on subtle clues.
This is a unique opportunity to look together at the physical reality of the images and sounds. We can see his movements. We can see each painting. We have a physical reality.
We also have our own thoughts and opinions about it. Those usually come to mind rather easily.
Can we work at finding ways to agree about what he is painting? Can we agree on a statement about his ability to write his name? Is there a phrasing about (1) what he is painting and (2)his writing ability that we all might accept?
I admit this is hard, but this kind of meaning-making happens all the time in the Behavior Management Protocol. I invite you to take the plunge. After all, those words above about kinds of reality remain forgettable until they take root in application to a shared, complex event.
I offer a PDF exercise sheet with boxes to record ideas.
It’s best when groups fill these in together after watching the video twice. Once to see the flow and share initial thoughts. That gives you a chance to watch again with those thoughts in mind.
Once you have experienced the problems of co-constructing agreement, I link a PDF key as an example of how a group might fill in the boxes.
Agreements for Action
The Behavior Management Protocol keeps returning the conversation to the Physical Reality as we discuss what to do. We build from facts. When we have agreement on what those facts mean (as far as we know), we establish a new base for further action. Instead of dreaming about an adventure, we are moving forward.
The agreements we have become actionable; we can take a coordinated step. That opportunity opens only when we have arrived at a Socially-constructed Reality, accepting for now that we usually change it as we go. We love our varied Personal Realities, but mostly we keep them to ourself; speaking them as truths doesn’t step us forward.
Changing and Growing Together
Children are learning; we are learning. The learning and changing can be beneficial in enhancing opportunities or it can be destructive in hardening habits that lessen opportunities. Regardless, learning is always present; people change.
Some children learn to behave in undesirable ways that can become entrenched. When adults add their entrenched ways to the mix, we get stuck. Both the managers and the child have to find a path to acting differently.
Cooperative Action Research
This Management Protocol is not the only path, of course. Many paths can lead to movement out of locked habits towards personal authenticity and integrity.
An Agenda that Works
I suggest this protocol because it has been well tested and proven to change behavior rapidly.
- It relies upon clarity of the physical reality of this one unique situation.
- The key actors who live with that child co-construct what to do.
- When that group has had input to creating the choices from the very beginning, they become a team.
- If one has a voice in the final decision on the action plan, one has buy-in to act in accord with the others.
- If the first plan doesn’t change what is happening in a satisfying direction, the group changes the plan.
Many topics ahead
Each step has its own page. You can download the Behavior Management Protocol Form now as a navigation guide and mental organizer or download it at the end after sampling each piece of the pie.