IH AMT plenary day 2024

On 13th January 2024, I attended the plenary day of the International House Academic Managers and Trainers (AMT) conference, as I was the final presenter of the day. My talk is summarised here, in which I introduced my competency framework for language learning materials writing.

These are my notes from the other talks I attended on the day.

The wellbeing of educational leaders – Dr Kate Brierton

Kate’s website is www.campassionatecambridge.co.uk

‘A psychologist with a passion for compassion’ – if we could be more compassionate, we could all be healthier (a focus on health, rather than happiness)

Trying to bring more compassion into education

Kate’s challenge: set an intention to make one small change because of listening to Kate’s talk…and see how it goes. Mine is continuing to work on managing my physiology and particularly my breathing to manage my stress.

Small changes can make a big difference. No need to meditate for an hour every day!

What is compassion: Kate’s definition is from Professor Paul Gilbert.

Compassion is a sensitivity to suffering in self and others, combined with a commitment to alleviating that suffering in self and others.

It’s not an emotion. It is without harsh judgement, does not involve blame or shame, but it does involve taking responsibility. It isn’t weak and often it isn’t easy, but requires courage, strength and wisdom.

Compassion can go out to others, it can flow into you (how good are you at receiving it), and it can be sent to yourself. The last is the focus of the session today.

Do you accept yourself or reject yourself or parts of yourself?

Why can leadership be challenging?

1. We’re leading humans.

Humans like being in control. Our wellbeing is best when we are in control, but leaders have to take away some of that control and people don’t always respond well.

Humans are wired to be in social groups, but they are very complex. Just one person can upset the balance or dynamic.

Humans have tricky brains, with strong emotional responses, and easily become trapped in cycles of unhelpful thinking, behaviour and emotion.

2. You have to implement changes that might not agree with your values or make you feel uncomfortable.

This is called ethical labour:

Ever-increasing drive for efficiency in schools due to market-driven nature of educational systems.
Produces a huge strain on leaders and managers – trade-off is needed.

3. Social pressure to perform well.

The pressure or meritocracy in the 21st century – we’re not allowed to be average any more.

Anyone can achieve anything. Therefore our brains think if we don’t achieve highly, it’s our fault.

Kate referenced Alain de Botton’s ‘Status Anxiety’ – he thinks this might be one reason why we have so much anxiety and depression in the world now.

We’re supposed to be agile, positive, and so on, but if we don’t feel like this – it leads to self-criticism and negative emotion, and imposter syndrome.

If we can work on self-criticism, we can feel huge changes in our lives.

[There are lots of links related to mental health in ELT on this post from my blog, including ones about self-compassion and self talk.]

The things we say to ourselves are things we are highly unlikely to say to our friends.

But most people in the room we were in said if there was a big button to remove all self-criticism, they wouldn’t want to remove it.

[I stopped responding to Kate’s questions after a while, as they all assumed we have self-criticism which isn’t necessarily true. I think that I talked myself out of it a long time ago, and I’m happy that I did that. It doesn’t mean I never criticise myself, but it now happens so rarely that I don’t feel it particularly affects my life. The difference since I accepted myself is huge.]

Kate asked us to become more compassionate to ourselves, as she has seen it transform people’s lives. [This is how I feel!]

How to become more compassionate towards yourself

1. A different internal dialogue

Choose a different thing to say: you’re doing your best. I’m only human [this is what I say!]

But not: I am fantastic! (You might be sometimes, but you aren’t always!)

This is non-judgemental and encouraging and gives you realistic expectations. You forgive mistakes and begin again with the knowledge you’ve gained.

[I partly did this by banishing the word ‘should’ – every time I thought ‘You should do X’, I started to ask ‘Who says?’ I realised that these were restrictions I was placing on myself because I imagined other people would think that. I then decided that I would rephrase things as ‘I want to X’ or ‘If I can, I will X’ – that reduced a lot of the pressure I was giving myself in my internal dialogue.]

2. Validate your emotions

It is always OK to feel the way we feel – we have no control over it. Don’t be ashamed about how you feel. Practice moving through emotion so you learn to respond not react.

Notice the emotion, pause, and decide how to react.

3. Change your physiology

Aim for a calm environment, relax your body, breathe and smile. If you purposefully change your body, it can have a really beneficial effect on your mind.

Open up your chest, lift your chin, breathe – the out breath is where you get the relaxation response, so this is where the focus should be to help your relax [this is something I’m working on now!]

4. Be curious

You’re open, non-judgemental, ask questions, and this helps you to learn and grow. How did that happen? What can I do differently next time? [I think this carries me through life!]

Kate and Christina Gkonou have written a book called Cultivating Teacher Wellbeing, starting with understanding your own minds, understanding those of others, and building a culture of compassion in your organisation [Amazon affiliate link / BEBC non-affiliate link].

Making connections: trauma-informed language teaching in challenging times – Orsolya Dunn

Orsi is an ESOL lecturer and teacher trainer in Scotland.

She started by asking us to finish this sentence: One thing that has made me smile today is… [being back with my IH family!]

This is an activity to focus on positive things at the start of a session, counteracting our negative biases.

What makes teaching so difficult?

Performance culture: standardisation, external accountability
Excessive workloads due to diverse learning needs
Efficiencies needed in all areas due to business focus
Cultural perception that teaching is unproblematic and straightforward (Brookfield, 2017)
Lack of training for challenges we face
Teaching ESOL in FE in the UK
Demographics have changed: now there are lots of refugees compared to settled populations in the past

Teachers are on the frontline of the global refugee crisis.
(Sowton, 2018)

What is trauma?

Reminders: Orsi is a teacher, not a psychologist. Not all of these trauma factors will affect all students equally. But trauma-informed teaching is good for everyone, not just trauma-impacted learners, because it is human-informed teaching.

Trauma and the brain

It changes the brain completely.

Trauma shatters the brain’s belief that the world is good.
(Brierton, 2022)

It makes your brain hyper-vigilant, leads to fear and alarm reactions, affects cognitive functions (memory, focussing attention), difficulty with self-regulation.

Trauma in the language classroom

All or nothing thinking: if I make one mistake, it’s not worth it
Rumination: constant negative thought
Poor self-concept
Fear and anxiety
Lack of trust
Difficulty with maintaining relationships
Extreme reactions
Avoidance behaviours
Poor concentration

(Alexander, 2019; Davidson, 2017; Palanac, 2019; Perry, 2016)

What can we do?

Bruce Perry (2006) says first and foremost what we need to help learners with is self-regulation: movement, rhythm, breathing. They need to recognise their responses.

Next they can relate to those feelings

After that they can access reason. They need safety and can be curious at that point.

Basic trauma-informed principles

Safety
Offer choice: agency and voice
Belonging and connection
Valuing of identities – giving opportunities to express who they are, and recognising that
Empowerment
Compassion
Recognition of strengths
Cultural sensitivity

We only need 7 minutes of real connection with another human being to start forming a new psychological pathway.

Basic trauma-informed strategies

Scaffolding
Predictability – this gives students control. If you know about changes, let students know in advance so they can feel in control.
Clear boundaries and expectations
Collaboration
Minimise triggers – they can be everywhere. Jessica Miniham wrote about thinking about students’ fear reactions like a soda can: we don’t know how many times it’s been shaken or what shook it. We need to see reactions in context. We don’t need to feel guilty about students’ fear reactions, but we need to observe and be compassionate and notice what triggers. Homes, health, work, family, journeys can all be triggering topics, especially for displaced students.
Don’t force personalisation. Students have need for others to bear witness, but some of them really don’t want to talk about themselves. Offer choice. The better the relationship you have with students, the more you can see this. You can also negotiate with students: what topics do you want to stay away from, what topics do you want us to skip. Tell them: you give as much as you want. Talk about yourself or somebody you know (third person personalisation).
Well-being topics in the syllabus e.g. stress, sleep, emotions and their connection to the body
Grounding activities. Orsi wasn’t a mindfulness person, but as she did more research she realised she needed to include those activities in her sessions to help learners regulate. Students are surprisingly open to these activities. She contextualises these activities as how she manages to stress, and there is a lot of buy in. These help to build learners’ psychological resilience. 5 minutes of mindfulness can be really helpful, and now her learners being activities to share with others. She likes the book Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness [Amazon affiliate link], which has a reminder that we think of students bringing their whole world into the classroom. We also do that too as teachers. We need to recognise how things make us feel in the classroom and why we react in the way we do. Compassionate, non-judgemental discovery can help us.

Trauma and its institutional implications

Training needs to be provided on trauma-informed approaches
Ecological approach to trauma, across all areas not just in the classroom
Trauma-informed disciplinary policies: compassionate policies, not just punishing reactions. Drive to understand why things happen and how we can help
Nurturing a culture of staff wellbeing
Minimising internet-base solutions – making personal connections, connection is soothing, face-to-face teaching wherever possible
More physically safe learning spaces

Trauma-informed physical environments

Are directions to exits clear and available?
Does it foster a sense of belonging or does it other the student?

Restorative learning spaces

White and beige are institutional colours, which you see in hospitals, lawyers, interrogation rooms.
Furniture needs to be moveable. Students can make a choice about where they can sit. Can they see exits?
Remove overhanging objects.
Let learners put their artwork on the walls to foster a sense of belonging. But avoid too much visual clutter and complexity.
Re-examine art in the room and what the symbolic significance of those images is.

Red, yellow and orange can be problematic. Our reactions to the environment is a whole science which you can learn more about if you’re interested.
Plants and animals reduce stress, even if it’s only a picture.

Trauma and language teachers

You can’t pour from an empty cup
Vicarious trauma – feeling overwhelmed by another person’s trauma
Emotion labour – nobody asks you if you’re thinking about your work when you’re cooking dinner, and people don’t necessarily care, but this is very real labour and tiring
Higher levels of stress – foreign language anxiety, high energy methodologies, complex intercultural demands
Boundaries – both us and our institutions need to allow us to set clear boundaries
Signposting/referrals – make use of anything that can help
Peer support – we’re very good for each other. If you share enough and connect with your peers, you can forge emotion capital and grow as a person. It’s OK to show vulnerabilities
Self-care activities

Here are 11 activities you can do to look after yourself:

Do an audit: which of these do you do? Which don’t you do? Which could you do?

We MUST look after our wellbeing.

Your best is enough.

Your day will never be enough and you’ll never get to the end of the ticky boxes. And that’s OK.

Join the dots: get the full picture – Jennifer Holden

Jenny is talking to us about making connections. How can we make connections and get them working in our favour?

Jenny showed lots of the connections made at the conference. But why are connections so fundamental to life?

To be a great leader, you need to be able to see patterns and discern order in chaos and complexity. This quote is attributed to ChatGPT, as is the one below 🙂

Can pattern-spotting skills be learnt? Are they innate? Is it just a question of experience?

We can develop these skills, and once we have them they can be turned into intuition and it gets better.

Learning to spot connections / patterns

Practice pattern spotting everyday: for example by playing Only Connect [Jenny had made a version of this for us!]

Once you can start making connections, you can start thinking about consequences.

Love creates Love. That helps us with connections, teacher retention, student retention. Emotional intelligence needs to underpin everything we do.

What non-social connections do you observe in your school? For example, students complaining about the lack of vending machines after the pandemic. Poor internet connections causing problems.

Here are some connections Jenny has thought of, demonstrating how messy our jobs as managers are:

Jenny showed us the McKinsey 7S model as a way to help join the dots and help us analyse and improve organisations.

All of these areas need to be aligned for an organisation to be successful. You can use it as a way of framing your thoughts about your organisation.

How can we strengthen our awareness of connections?

Jenny suggests the use of simile.

This conference is like…
My job is like…
My school is like…
A problem I’m dealing with at work right now is like…

That can help us to understand what is salient to us.

Embrace opposing thoughts

Top tips for being sh*t at your role 🙂

Thinking about the opposite can help you realise what you should do. It also helps you to get different perspectives on things. And it makes people laugh!

Other ways to see the bigger picture

Truth is related to our own perspective. This means we need to value other perspectives. Otherwise it is liked the parable of the blind people touching an elephant to find out what it is and drawing lots of different conclusions:

MWBA: management by walking about. Estelle Helouin’s question: what have you learnt that I don’t know about?
Go on a customer/teacher/admin staff walk around your school. See it from their perspective.
Ask the right questions
Use focus groups
Reflect on past experiences
Experience the best: go to places where you can experience what you’re aiming for
Work-shadowing
Speak to a critical friend
Raise awareness of the importance of connections with others e.g. You said…We did…

AI can only see existing patterns. It’s up to our human brains to connect new ones. But we also need to be aware of our own limitations and notice problems with our own pattern recognition.

Try things out beyond what you’re used to. New art, new podcasts, people in different industries. A narrow perspective limits your learning.

She left us with a new word: