The Rookery

On our schedule today, I simply wrote "discussion" in one of the time slots.  I knew what our starting point was going to be, but I did not want to dictate the subject.  But we needed to talk and talk we did.

Our Heron potluck on Friday was a wonderful time — but the trampolining in the pitch dark did get out of hand, damaging the trampoline and leaving students uncomfortable.  I felt like it was a good opportunity to talk to the kids about "group think," a phenomena that will become even more central to them in the years ahead.  

I opened by asking the students who were there and on the trampoline how many had felt uncomfortable at some point because of how many kids were on the tramp and how noisy/rowdy it was.  Many hands went up, hesitantly at first and then, as they looked around, more confidently.  I acknowledged that groups pose one of the most wonderful and challenging parts of being a human.  Often in groups, we do things that we would never do as an individual.

The conversation ranged on from that point and we talked about the trampoline and the difficulty of acting on their individual discomfort.  Many had wanted and/or tried to quiet things down and get down but, as one child said, "I felt like my voice was the quietest of everyone's."  I congratulated them on their individual good sense — but how to make acting on it easier?

One of the best ways I know is to have kids talk about their individual feelings as a group.  Learning that one is not alone in wanting to do the right thing is empowering.  Indeed, recent drug and alcohol campaigns at the highschool level have simply let kids know the very high percentage of kids who aren't doing drugs or binge drinking.

We also talked about language they can use to articulate unease with a situation.  Practicing this language is crucial if we actually want kids to use it in stressful and charged situations.  Of course, by this point, our conversation had broadened to include many other "group think" situations:  picking on someone, excluding someone, using inappropriate language, texting while driving, writing mean e-mails, being too rough in a jumpy hut, smoking…students had definitely struggled or seen their siblings struggle to do what they knew was right.

It's only one part of an ongoing conversation but it's a crucially important one to have as the Herons' worlds expand and they become paradoxically more independent and more intoxicated by the power of the group.