TM4T Stress Armoury 46 - Avoiding binary decisions

Stress in teaching can often arise due to regarding situations in a simplistic way: typically one involving a binary choice.

Example

So, the choice is simple: either I teach 'General Studies' - whatever that is - to bottom set Year 10 next year or basically I get the sack.

In fact, of course, life is rarely ever that simple.

Example

... I could contact the Union and get advice on whether the school can change my contract like this

... Of course I could just hand my notice in, and apply for jobs nearer home

... I might like General Studies of course; maybe I should find out a bit more about it

... I could apologise, say 'of course I'll teach General Studies' but ask if I can share it with someone else so I can still teach some A Level classes

... I might give General Studies a try till half-term, then leave at Xmas if I can't hack it.

... I wonder if there are any part-time options available. Three days a week would be a life changer.

...This may be a good time to look at going back to college... I'll see what the options are.

Education, of course, is seething with binary interpretations: students either 'pass' or 'fail'; they say they 'can't do Maths but their friend can' and so on. As teachers, we try to avoid this binary thinking in relation to our students (everyone can do maths, but some can do it better than others...) but we tend to accept - sometimes even seek - yes/no, black-or-white interpretations of situations in our own lives.

This is invariably a stress-maker.  Sometimes, of course, the opposite applies, and it is the plethora of choices that causes us stress, and sometimes it is logical to whittle down our options to just-two.  In general, though, these are not particularly stressful choices anyway (so many possible holiday destinations that I can't make up my mind...). In general the stress lies in narrow, unpleasant choices: the proverbial rock and a hard place.

The good news is that these binary choices are almost always interpretations; life simply does not involve simple two-option decisions.  If you are faced with this situation then your best friend is a good old blank sheet of paper (or a new Word document for all you teckies).  Make a list: think creatively and list down as many possible approaches you could take to your problem; as many options as you can.  Apply brainstorming rules: this means you don't  rule anything out at this stage, as being 'unlikely to work' or 'too expensive' or 'even worse' or so on. Just write down all the possibilities. Then - and only then - do some decision making.

The intention here is that you bludgeon your knee-jerk brain into accepting that you're not restricted to two options, you aren't trapped between a rock and a hard place, and that you do have control and choice.  Of course, it isn't a case of 'yes you are' or 'no you're not', or of 'you don't have control' or 'you do have control'. These are binary: the truth lies somewhere-in-between.