I’ve been preparing to travel to Singapore in a couple of weeks to present two days of workshops.  The company offered this opportunity to me last year, but I couldn’t imagine why they’d want to fly me across the world to speak to Asian teachers who work with Asian students–my “shtick” is so American.  One of the sessions is about dealing with the kind of overt behavior problems that most teachers face every day in American classrooms.  The Asian students I’ve worked with in the past came to a boarding school from Taiwan or Korea or Japan, and I can remember only one of them who was rude to a teacher or caused a disruption in the classroom.  But I also remember hours of counseling international students who felt overwhelmed by the pressure to excel–without exception–in all of their classes to the point that they had nervous breakdowns or even resorted to cheating.  I also believe that underneath our cultural biases, most human beings have far more in common than what we see on the surface.  People are people, kids are kids.  So, I said yes to this adventure.

But I couldn’t find the hook–whenever I prepare a new unit or transitional lesson for my classes, I wait for the click–an idea that makes all of the pieces fit.  Well, I found one for the workshops thanks to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink.  The idea behind Blink is that often our gut reactions–or what Gladwell calls our “adaptive unconscious”–are as accurate as or more accurate than well thought-out decisions where we examine all of the facts and carefully weigh the pros and cons.  That’s exactly what I was trying to get at when I wrote about student archetypes in The Ten Students You’ll Meet in Your Classroom.  Teachers need to develop instincts about how to deal with behavior problems that erupt in the classroom because the wrong move can extend a five-second interaction into a five-minute argument that will do permanent damage to the atmosphere of the class.

In making his case, Gladwell cites a number of studies that support the validity of trusting our instincts; however, in the second half of his book he cautions us to examine preconceptions and misconceptions that can cloud our judgment.  For many, many years I’ve done presentations on Transactional Analysis with both students and teachers to help them see why a simple verbal exchange can morph into an argument in a “blink”–there are trigger points embedded in our subconscious based on past experiences that can cause us to take offense or become frightened by a random comment from a casual acquaintance.  Like the kid who says, “No” when the teacher asks him to sit down.  An experienced teacher with strong instincts can get the boy to sit without disrupting the lesson.  A less perceptive teacher will take the “no” at face value and turn the interaction into a power play that will trigger past reactions to authority in both the teacher and the student.

It all just clicked, so I’m dusting off my passport and thinking about the beaches in Indonesia.  Thank you, Malcolm Gladwell.