Unconditional Positive Regard
I just read Don Ledingham’s post about Unconditional Positive Regard – the way in which he treats every young person he comes in contact with. He explains :
…getting really angry and just wanting kids who misbehaved to be removed from my class. I can’t exactly remember when my attitude changed but I do know that when I shifted from a “conditional” approach to an “unconditional” approach that the response I got from children was incredibly different and the impact that I had a teacher was transformed.
On reading this I was struck. I am not ashamed to say that am a teacher with conditional positive regard. But only on the inside. You see, when with pupils I will always treat them with respect, I always listen, I always basically try my best so as to do the best for them. I know this without a doubt. But as Don says how a teacher he knew used to call a pupil a ‘moron’, well never would I say that to a pupils face but I know that I do have similar thoughts about certain pupils.
You see although my outer actions will always treat everyone with the same type of unconditional positive regard (I think this has something to do with how I was brought up), on the inside I often regard pupil’s as right “so and so’s” (as my Dad puts it).
And this is what I think Don is missing from his post because I believe it is only human to do so. For 3 short terms I have tried with a certain pupil (yes you have heard it all before) and although I have repeatedly been consistent, fair, followed discipline procedures that I have been instructed to, given the pupil individual support during class-time, avoided confrontation etc etc etc, he has been continually and very blatantly disrespectful to me. I don’t really like this boy, I think he is a rather nasty teenager and he does not seems to respond well to Unconditional Positive Regard. “Yeh, yeh Miss. Whatever…” I do honestly think, and this is very unfortunate, that for some pupils Don’s approach does not work. I think that if I was a stern looking middle age man with a bark in my voice this boy would behave differently. But maybe that is only experience.
So when Don says
“And what if people don’t treat kids with unconditional positive regard?” – Then they are in the wrong job!
I would put in an extra word: “try”. I totally don’t condone teachers that just blank kids, pick on them on just slag them off in the staffroom. That seriously bugs me as it is just uncalled for. But for a teacher to dispair and be pretty close to giving up but somehow to just keep going then I think that is essential.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
You said in your post that the pupil says : Yeh, yeh Miss. Whatever…”
Do you realise there is still respect there if he still says Miss? I can remember seeing graffiti at my old high school which mentioned the headteacher doing some rude things. But, it still had his proper title i.e. Mr ??? etc.
The pupil in your case may seem nasty, may sound like he doesn’t care, but from what you’ve said, it sounds like there is still some form of respect there.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Hi Krysia
Without doubt the most influence period of study for me was the MEd module ‘Interpersonal skills and consultancy in education’ with Alison Closs of Moray House. We worked with Carl Rogers’ core conditions, from where we get ‘unconditional positive regard’ (copied from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rogers.htm#core_conditions):
Realness in the facilitator of learning – the most basic attitude is realness or genuineness. When the facilitator is a real person, being what she is, entering into a relationship with the learner without presenting a front or a façade, she is much more likely to be effective.
Prizing, acceptance, trust – it is a caring for the learner, but a non-possessive caring. It is an acceptance of this other individual as a separate person, having worth in her own right. It is a basic trust – a belief that this other person is somehow fundamentally trustworthy.
Empathic understanding – when the teacher has the ability to understand the student’s reactions from the inside, has a sensitive awareness of the way the process of education and learning seems to the student, then again the likelihood of significant learning is increased. Students feel deeply appreciative when they are simply understood – not evaluated, not judged, simply understood from their own point of view, not the teacher’s.
It’s about these core conditions being intrinsic in a teacher, not merely that they have the ability to mimic them. I feel very fortunate to have been exposed to the work of Carl Rogers – check out Rogers, C. and Freiberg, H. J. (1993) Freedom to Learn (3rd edn.), New York: Merrill. It transformed my teaching, however this was done within a Masters and would never have occurred through awareness raising INSET; I needed time to think it all through (I’ve got a copy of the assignment somewhere if you’d like a look!)
Speak to you soon.
April 15th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Am I the stern looking middle aged man with a bark in his voice?
Keep trying – it is worth it.