Every month I get to participate in a meeting with other guides and owners of Acton Academies in the Northeast. While the meetings are quite focused, there is always time for reflection on how things are going in the studio, with the opportunity for getting feedback. These sessions have been so valuable for me as we are currently in our infancy as an Acton Academy. Getting to talk with other owners, especially those who have been running their schools for 5+ years, has been both inspiring and reassuring.
Inspiring because I know that having a robust school with many learners and families fully embracing the Acton model is possible when we stick to the path. Reassuring because the growing pains of our small school are not unique at all. At my last meeting I asked for guidance on a few different real-life scenarios with the young learners in the studio, and the overall advice was something along the lines of “Have you tried stepping back?”.
One of the hardest things to do in an Acton Academy studio is to “step back”
Stepping back is this idea that when given the chance and the tools, children will figure things out. This pertains to conflict with a friend, a tough math problem, cleaning up a mess, or building a castle out of wooden blocks. That even when learners are frustrated or seemingly feeling defeated, when it looks like total chaos, children have an ability to work through their own baseline of logic and think creatively to come up with a solution. In the meeting with other Acton owners, they reiterated to me and to each other, that stepping back can be really hard, but it’s necessary to do even with such a small group. (It was also ironic that even in the answer to my question, their guidance was them actually stepping back).
I can speak from my own experience: stepping back has not always been my go-to.
As a mother and someone who has spent many of her adult years working with children and teens in some capacity, stepping back was actually quite a radical idea. I was much better at “jumping in”. I think Miss Cathy would say the same for her as well. Not that we wanted to be saviors, but we’ve always “jumped in” too soon or too often as a way to help children (or adults) keep the flow of curiosity or play or focus without getting stuck or derailed by a moment (or two or ten) of frustration.
It’s easy to notice when someone is about to be stuck or frustrated and come in with a solution before anyone even asks. I’ve taken pride in my ability to do that, I know Miss Cathy has too. And we are both actively working to unlearn and un-practice “jumping in”.
In David Emerald’s book The Power of TED, he outlines something called “The Drama Triangle”
A very basic three point relationship that people, even children, can find themselves in:
- Victim: Feels powerless and blames others or circumstances
- Persecutor: Blames or criticizes the victim, poses as a threat or challenge
- Rescuer: Tries to save the victim, enabling their dependency
And I realize, that this may feel extreme, especially when you’re thinking about young person asking for help. But let’s look at an example: let’s say there’s a hungry child at snack time who is having a hard time with her snack wrapper. She is hungry and now frustrated that she cannot open her snack. She becomes the victim in this scenario. The persecutor is the snack: it’s hard to open, therefore prolonging this child’s feeling of frustration and hunger. In this instance, if a guide saw the child struggling and “jumped in” offering to open the snack and solve the problem, that guide is acting as rescuer.
There are countless examples that you can probably take from your own life, even in the past week, where you played the role of victim
- traffic that made you late and frustrated
- being too tired to start the day which turned into your mood for the morning
- a boss sent a harsh email that made you feel upset for the remainder of the day
There are probably an equal amount of times you’ve played the role of the rescuer
- taking on more than your fair share at work in order to “help”
- saying “yes” to a friend when you didn’t really feel good about it
- searching for your child’s shoes out in the yard when they are frustrated that they can’t find their shoes
And there are likely a few instances where you acted as the persecutor as well.
None of the points in the Drama Triangle feel very good. And too much time spent in any one of those spots can turn a person into someone with a total victim mentality, a complete martyr, or a miserable tyrant.
So what does “jumping in” have to do with this Drama Triangle or a 5 year old falling victim to her snack?
At Acton, when guides jump in (or act as the rescuer); to open a snack, to resolve a conflict between friends, or to clean up a mess accidentally made by the learners, they are:
- perpetuating the Drama Triangle, enabling victimhood
- steamrolling over any opportunity for a learner or group of learners to feel frustration, face their obstacle, or experience some failure (all of which are good things)
- eliminating the possibility of the learners working out a creative solution
Jumping in is not what helps children to grow. Rescuing a child from frustration or failure is not what a guide does at an Acton Academy. Guides are not to be martyrs, they are to be what their name suggests; guides.
In his book, Emerald says that the Empowerment Dynamic is the optimal replacement for the Drama Triangle:
- Creator (instead of Victim): Takes responsibility and focuses on what they want to create or overcome
- Challenger (instead of Persecutor): Encourages growth by presenting obstacles as learning opportunities
- Coach (instead of Rescuer): Supports and helps the Creator discover solutions without rescuing them
If we take our snack example, and shift it into the Empowerment Dynamic, this is how it plays out:
- Hungry child is struggling to open her snack.
- She sees it as an opportunity to do something she’s not done before: figure out how to get the snack open on her own.
- The guide, knowing the child often struggles with opening the snack, has left out some easy-to-reach scissors for the learner to find at snack time.
- Without prompting or directing from the guide, the child sees the scissors and takes it upon herself to open her own snack, solving her own frustration and hunger.
In this case, an onlooking guide likely knows how to quickly intervene and solve the problem even before it plays out. But in stepping back, the learner is allowed to have this moment of working through the situation, using her resources, and solving her own dilemma. This helps to create resilience, an internal sense of pride, and a growing curiosity of “what else can I do?”.
Stepping back can often be the antidote to victim mentality and martyrdom
Of course in an instance of an emergency or injury, a guide jumps in. And this notion of stepping back does not mean discouraging learners from helping their friends in times of need. However, stepping back does encourage and foster the idea that children are highly capable at solving problems and coming up with creative solutions.
In stepping back a guide is leaving space for:
- failure- a necessary component to growth
- a child experiencing, expressing, and working through their feelings
- chaos which often works itself out into something smooth and better than what a guide could have planned for
- a learner sifting through and weighing out different options
- the utilization of resources and peers to make decisions and find solutions
- learning from past experiences
Stepping back leaves space for the guide to embrace an often uncomfortable feeling of not being in control. It also allows the guide to be surprised and reminded of the learners’ creativity and capabilities. Furthermore, a guide stepping back relieves them of having to save the day over and over and over again.
With the right tools and systems in place, a guide can step back and watch magic happen.
It’s important to note that stepping back does not mean that it’s a free-for-all in the studio. It does not mean that learners are allowed to do whatever they want whenever they want. It does not mean that when a learner asks for help they’re disregarded. Tools and systems are put in place so each learner has the resources they need to be able to make decisions and come to resolutions. Much like the premise of guides not answering questions, guides are only able to step back when they’re sure a learner can find a solution on their own.
And when guides have implemented different resources, from handy scissors, to step-by-step instructions, to an easy to read clock– they can step back and watch the learners grow in real time. Often, it takes a while for a learner to come to a solution. Much longer than it would have taken if a guide jumped in to offer help. But that’s okay- the learners have time. There is time for discovery, time for mulling over options, time for coming up with creative solutions.
As the guide steps back, the learners get more and more practice. And the more they practice, the better they get.
In the four short weeks we’ve been in session, we’re already seeing the learners grow.
So here’s to stepping back and watching these amazing learners step up.
-Janel