Building connection, communication, confidence in education #1

Teenagers are wonderfully complex beings. Maybe you work with them as an educator, or maybe you are growing some of your own at home! Regardless of where your teen interactions take place, one thing is clear: teens have a lot going on! Their changing neurology - growing and pruning synaptic pathways like an overzealous gardener - can feel like a very unstable foundation for a lot of teens to rely upon. What they think, feel and see is constantly adapting to the world that is changing around them. The people, the technology, the media, it's endless! And in response, the stories they tell themselves can become a tangled web of fact and fiction. It becomes like their own personalised map of their world.

Why do we all perceive situations differently?

Think about it. Even if you were to walk the same path with another person, you would still notice different things and make meaning of them according to your own thinking or experiences. This concept is illustrated beautifully through the ancient parable of The Blind Men and the Elephant. Villagers have heard of an elephant but none have seen or experienced one before it is brought to the village that day. The blind men in the village are also keen to experience this 'strange creature', so are brought to the elephant to help them imagine what it is like. Each is experiencing the same elephant, but one touches its trunk and thinks an elephant is like a rough cylindrical creature. Another feels the ears and imagines it's like a big fan. Another touches the side of the elephant and imagines it to be like a big rough wall. Each man's perception is true according to their experience, but is only a part of the overall picture. This is not only the case in ancient stories.

Imagine that a small group of people are asked to create a map of your school. Different people will focus on things that are relevant to them and might not even notice other aspects. When students are asked to create a map of the world, they will generally put their home or most familiar part of the world at the centre of the map and may miss continents or significant land mass simply because these areas are not a part of their experience. They create a map, but the map is not the same of the territory that it represents.

The map is not the territory.

I wonder if you can recognise this in the way you make sense of your experience of your own world? Once you know this concept, it has the potential to impact your own awareness on a significant level. But more than that. It's a game changer in building connections with others. You have your map. They have their map. You might well have been experiencing different parts of the elephant or accessing your own unique perspective. Knowing this can completely shift the way you communicate and connect with others.

How can knowing this help in communicating with teenagers (or anyone)?

This knowledge is particularly powerful in helping to build awareness, understanding and empathy. It helps us listen for longer - for greater understanding - before jumping to solutions.

There are three main steps to consider: 1. create awareness around your own map; 2. get curious about the other person's map; and 3. learn to listen for longer.

1. Creating awareness around your own map. Did you know that our bodies are taking in approximately 11 million bits of information per second? Through our eyes, our skin, our hearing, smell and taste we are constantly being fed information. Only a small chunk of this information makes it through to our conscious awareness, so our brains are constantly having to filter out what is essential and what can be deleted, distorted or generalised. Our brains do this on autopilot most of the time - can you imagine how overwhelming it would be if it didn't? - but once you know this information it's hard not to get curious about it. Maybe it is automatically selecting information confirming certain beliefs that you have. Maybe those beliefs have also been on autopilot since you were a child, passed down to you from generations before you. Beliefs around money or time or work or power. Maybe they are limiting you in certain ways. You can choose to allow the autopilot to run its course, or you can start to question what your mind is choosing to prioritise. It's up to you. Do you want to get curious about your map? What about the other person's map?
2. Get curious about the other person's map. Once you know that the person who you are communicating with may be bringing a completely different perspective to the conversation, you can start to get really curious about how that perspective is impacting their thinking, feeling and behaviour. You might start to recognise patterns in how they think about or express their perspective. Maybe you can step back and see that you also have patterns in the way you respond to them too! This is their map and like you, they have built up their own understanding of a particular situation through their own autopilot filtering. So if they have a belief that they are not good enough or that people are judging them, then their brain will keep finding ways to confirm this belief until the belief is challenged or changed. At this point, your job is to listen, not to try to change them.
3. Learn to listen for longer. You cannot change someone else's belief or map - only they can do this - but you can support someone to make changes if they want to. You can help them build a greater awareness of how they are thinking and getting curious about their own autopilot. First you must listen without judgement. Sound difficult? It is! Listen and then listen for longer before you ask anything. Acknowledge what you have heard before even thinking about trying to move the conversation forward. Then you can try some simple questions that could help them recognise that there might be other ways of perceiving this situation: 'Is there another way to think about that?' or 'What if that were only one piece of the puzzle?' or 'What other possibilities are there?' The key thing to remember is that no one's map is right or wrong, but everyone's map can shift or change if they so desire.

Next time you are having a conversation with a teenager, consider the way that their map of the world is forming, but also how your own map might be impacting the way you perceive the situation too. You are also constantly evolving, following the pace of your own curiosity.

As always, remember that your personal growth has a professional impact. So what impact do you want to have today and how can these steps help you on your journey?

Keep curious!

Nicole Glisson

AWE - Empowered Educators, Thriving Students.

Griffin A. Adolescent Neurological Development and Implications for Health and Well-Being. Healthcare (Basel). 2017 Sep 29;5(4):62. doi: 10.3390/healthcare5040062. PMID: 28961184; PMCID: PMC5746696.