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School As Professional Environment
Behavior 2.0
Succeeding in Different Environments

Purpose: to share classroom standards in such a way that students understand the need to help create a professional environment for learning.

Introduction

Today we want to get your help in evaluating what types of behaviors are appropriate in a school environment.

 The Problem with Posers

We’re not saying that we don’t want people to retain their identity and uniqueness. Nobody respects posers – those who play a part that’s not authentic in order to impress the group they're with at the moment. Do you know posers?

·         Among their wild friends they mock at authorities; but at home they wouldn’t dare talk back to their dad.

·         With their church friends, they act like they stand for conservative morals; but in the locker room they brag about their wild weekends.  

Nobody respects posers. They’re hypocrites. But on the other hand, while remaining true to ourselves, don’t we have to adjust the way we act in order to succeed in different environments?

Purpose-Driven Behavior: What It Takes to Succeed in Different Environments

Activity: Let’s put on the board some ways our behavior must change to succeed in different environments.

Discussion: How is “acting different in different environments” different from being a poser? (Wearing a football uniform at football practice isn’t saying I’m a conformist. It’s just saying I’m smart enough to know how to succeed at football. By dressing appropriately to work at Walmart, I’m not saying that’s the way I’d dress or act in my off time. It just says I’m smart enough to know how to succeed while working for Walmart and ensure I’ll come to the end of the week and get a paycheck rather than a dismissal slip.)

Illustration #1: Babies and toddlers often do embarrassing stuff because they think what they do in the privacy of their homes is appropriate in any setting. (Students and teachers may have some very funny and disgusting examples to share.) Toddlers might take off all clothes at a Wedding and run down the aisle screaming like Tarzan. Or grab at their mom’s breast while she’s speaking at a formal gathering. At some point, babies must grow up and learn that what’s appropriate at home doesn’t always work in other environments.

So we all start off with Behavior 1.0: a rather simplistic idea of what’s right and wrong that we think applies everywhere. But for the rest of our lives we’d better learn Behavior 2.0: the more complex ability to adapt our behavior in various environments.

I’ll give you an example from the real business world.

Illustration #2: Microsoft is one of the most successful businesses of our time.  Whenever you use computer operating systems like Windows or Vista; whenever you use word processing programs like “Microsoft Word,” that’s the Microsoft I’m speaking about. It was started by a group of young programmers who didn’t really care at all about how they dressed at the office. After all, their president, Bill Gates, was so young that he couldn’t rent a car when he flew out of town. They had long hair and wore t-shirts and blue jeans to the office. The culture of early Microsoft was, "it doesn't matter how you dress as long as you get your work done."

So one day some of the Microsoft folks were meeting with IBM, a much more formal business, about selling some of their software. The IBM representatives showed up in their coats and ties, while the Microsoft folks came in their sloppy attire. They had their meeting; but each team came away realizing that they needed to adapt their dress to the other business’ idea of what’s appropriate. So, when they arrived at their next meeting, the Microsoft team dressed up for the occasion, only to find that the IBM team came casual!

So it didn’t work out as they planned, but they showed each other that they cared enough to adapt to each other’s culture. It demonstrates something important about success in life – it’s fine to be unique, but you’ve got to consider how other people see things. If you can’t adapt to different environments you may never do that well in your future business. The school environment is a good way to learn this principle.

Purpose-Driven Schools

Discussion: What are some of the main purposes of school? (Possible answers they’ll come up with:

·         To equip and motivate students to become lifelong learners.

·         To give students the tools (reading, math, etc.) to be able to reason and figure things out for themselves.

·         To help students develop the character (diligence, follow-through, teamwork, etc.) to succeed in life.

·         To help students acquire the basic knowledge necessary to make democracy work. )

In light of these purposes, what are the behaviors that will help us make the most of these school years?

What behaviors do you think will help us succeed at these purposes? 

Activity: Write these privately (don’t put your name on it) in the following categories:

For Students

Appropriate attitudes

Appropriate behaviors

Appropriate dress

Appropriate language

For Teachers

Appropriate attitudes

Appropriate behaviors

Appropriate dress

Appropriate language

Formulating Policies 

(Take up their papers and read some of them to the class.) Obviously, we can’t all agree totally. But how do we make decisions if students and teachers disagree?

Example conflict: Sean can study fine when everyone’s talking at the same time. He thinks he should be allowed to talk to friends if he finishes an assignment early. Katie can’t concentrate at all when others are talking. She wants everyone to be quiet until everyone is finished with an assignment.

Discussion: Imagine that you’re the teacher. What policy should you set?  What should the consequences be if the policy is broken?

(I think you’ll find that most of the students want such policies to be enforced. When they give anonymous input, they often sound stricter than their teachers!)

Making This Class into a Professional Environment

(Explain to your class the standards/rules for this year. You may want to call some rules into question or add some because of the student input.)

Explanations

Why include the teachers in the students’ evaluation (appropriate attitudes, etc.)?

1) In a professional environment (like a well-run business), the leadership seeks constant ideas flowing from all levels of the organization. If we want to truly model a professional work environment, we want honest input from the students to continually improve both ourselves and the environments we foster.

2) This takes the lesson from being “a sermon from the teachers to the students” to being “our teachers’ honest attempt at improving the school.” That subtle shift can be the difference between this lesson being internalized and ignored.