Early in my career during a hurtful experience, I became familiar with the adage, "a bull in the china shop. " The experience occurred when I worked in an architectural firm. One of my co-workers was a genteel man who took his work very seriously. I was a somewhat clumsy, talkative, naive young woman who was working in a professional office for the first time. I literally was a "bull in the china shop" due to my clumsy nature, inexperience, and loquaciousness. I was hurt when the man uttered the statement in an act of frustration, but I knew it to be true.
Fortunately I worked with a kind and caring crowd at the architectural firm, rather than chiding me for my ways they carefully mentored me and led me in ways that used my strengths and redirected my challenges. It was a very positive work experience, one which I carry forth into my teaching to this day still.
Yet recently the "bull in the china shop" phrase came back to me as I tried to navigate a delicate issue that required advocacy. The issue struck me like a knife. I was hurt, I was frustrated. I needed to speak up and act against this seemingly harsh and disrespectful event. What was I to do?
I started by contacting those in charge. I expected the situation would be remedied right away, but that did not happen. I used my own voice to speak up which created some change, but not the depth of change I desired or thought appropriate, and my words unexpectedly incited some anger too. I spoke up to others in charge, who also spoke up, but rather than the positive change desired, the issue seemed to grow larger and more uncomfortable and the "bull in the china shop" affect arose as crashes and clashes of hurt feelings, anger, finger pointing, and gossip occurred.
This kind of event seems to be a mainstay in the news today as multiple bodies of people try to solve problems big and small all over the globe which makes me wonder about the best protocols, process, and policies one may use to solve these problems.
As I think of this situation, I am reminded that when I first heard rumblings related to the issue, I feared speaking up because I feared a backlash, yet the backlash happened anyways and perhaps if I had spoken up earlier than later, the resulting cascade of emotion, time, and hurt would not have occurred. This is why it is so important to welcome feedback good and bad earlier than later--the more open we are to sharing our ideas, inviting critique, and working with others, the less likely there will be difficult responses and results to efforts embedded into our work.
For example, I want to re-look at how we schedule our collective time-on-task with students. I feel that we may lose capacity with some of our current scheduling processes--processes that were once a giant step forward from old ways of teaching and learning, but scheduling that I believe is now ready for another remake. I've proposed some ideas, but I know that I don't have the perspective or knowledge of all members of the collective service team, members that include special educators, therapists, English Learner (EL) teachers, guidance counselors, teaching assistants, and more. The only way we can move forward is to listen to everyone's perspectives and to think and work together with the common goal of helping every child learn in the best possible positive and productive ways.
So looking back at advocacy that resulted in challenge, I'm wondering what could have happened differently in this case--how could I have met the painful surprise with better words and acts to promote positive change in a timely manner.
This summer I'll be taking a course on this topic. I look forward to learning a lot and building my ability to advocate in ways that result in peaceful, promising success. Onward.
