As I noted earlier, on Thursday, I was struck by the unfamiliar feeling of panic, not knowing what I was going to do with a class for the last day of the week. I’d finished the curriculum not just one day early, as I’d thought, but two days early — and I had nothing planned and nothing up my sleeve for Friday.
After posting to that effect, several folks in my personal learning network (PLN) chimed in with suggestions, ranging from “show a movie” (which happened to be the most popular suggestion) to various activity ideas. I was really thankful for all of the suggestions. Even though I didn’t go with any of them, they did help in two clear ways:
- They reminded me that I was alone. The funk that I was in appears to be common amongst teachers, even veterans! That was comforting in and of itself.
- They got me actually thinking about a solution, rather than simply dwelling on the problem that I was facing. (The most helpfulk of these was: “You know that you’re precariously close to sounding like you’re whining, right?”)
So, what did I end up doing? I ran with a classic of SocialPsych: breaking a social norm.
I introduced the topic of social norms (technically, folkways) with the image above, and the question: “Guys, where can you go?” They shouted out guesses for awhile, with me just asking “Why?” after each until they eventually figured it out. The diagram depicts a series of four urinals wherein two are occupied. The American norm requires that the next guy use only urinal A. From here, we went through the folkways of elevators, restaraunts, and buses. When I felt that they had the idea and were in the proper mindset, I asked, “So, who wants to try and break a social norm?”
I’d run around during recess[1], making arrangements with my Social Science colleagues that if one of the Intro to Psych students walked into the class, they were to completely ignore the student. Psych students were sent to the Social Science classrooms[2] with strict instructions to walk in, sit down at an empty seat and stay there for two-minutes — all without ever saying anything to anyone or in any way interacting with any students in the room or the teacher.
Other students were sent to the Student Center, Library, or dining Commons with similar instructions: sit as near as possible to students there that they don’t know, and stay for two-minutes without saying or doing anything to interact with the students. (The Psych students wanted to know if they could take their iPads or cellphones so they have something to do. I said No, and we talked about that as a social defense mechanism later in the class.)
Some students opted to not attempt to break a social norm, which I respected.
When the class was re-assembled in the classroom, we had a great discussion about the reactions of other students — but I focused the lesson on their own psychological experience of breaking the folkway.
I think the class went great![3] This is one to remember for the future — though I hope to never be in this sort of jam again.
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Earlier in the day, I was busy with a 7–8am prayer meeting with my Kairos team leaders, then busy serving as Eucharistic Minister from 8–9 at Friday Morning Liturgy, which was followed immediately by teaching AP Psych. ↩
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The Intro to Psych students did not know that I’d made pre-arrangements with the teachers; students thought their walking in was as much a surprise to the teacher as to the students in the class. ↩
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I’d love to hear from the students (somehow) how they liked the lesson — and whether the larger lesson about understanding the mechanisms of social control stuck. ↩