We have a saying around my school. I am not sure when it began but it is something that I hear both students and teachers say. I will share it but first allow me to set the context.    

The typical scenario would be a teacher or student be moving through their day. Someone will say or do something that signals they are struggling with difficult thoughts, feelings or urges ( otherwise known as yucky stuff ). A distress signal shows up outside of them. It can take the form of a complaint, a disgruntled or downcast  look, low level muttering, a heated discussion ( insert  your favorite distress signal here ). Everyone can see it and hear it except the one who is in distress. That is because in that moment they are hooked.

Most of the time the invitation to the land of the unwanted yucky stuff is a hook ( Hooks are strong, unwanted feelings or urges that grab you and pulls your attention toward them and away from what you really want to be doing ). Hooks start out as outside experiences ( getting up late, a difficult class or conversation, a distressing phone call) that become uncomfortable inside-your-skin experiences. Being hooked means you have less flexibility. Inflexibility feels like you have less options and choices. We just call it feeling stuck since that is pretty much how it feels when this sort of thing happens.

Your mind is chewing on something that it just can’t let go of.

Everyone gets hooked. It goes with the territory of being human.

So the saying that has slowly gotten around when we see someone struggling is that they could use some “Flexing Up”. By this we mean that they could add some psychological flexibility to their struggle. Psychological flexibility is simply noticing what you are doing and then making moves toward who and what is important with the yucky stuff along for the ride.

The key word here is NOTICE. Being able to notice the feeling of the hook breaks the spell and is itself a very flexible thing to do. The hook will still be there and we then we can just notice it along with anything else, like who and what is important!

So inviting someone to “Flex up” or saying you or he or she could use some flexing up is something that will happen once you experience and learn the psychological flexibility point of view via the ACT Matrix. The shared language we use creates space for that to happen. Teachers and students have learned to do this with each other. They are learning to see everyday distress signals as opportunities to flex up and not take them so personally.

Of course, whoever is stuck can choose to stay that way. They could also flex up all on their own since that usually feels better than struggling with the yucky stuff.

We are discovering that adding some psychological flexibility to someone’s day is also a very prosocial thing to do. it is a gift that keep on giving.

Anytime is a great time to flex up!

Yesterday, my colleagues Barry Barbarasch, John Lestino and I had the honor of presenting at the annual New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education Conference.

The focus was presenting approaches to inclusive education for special needs students, alongside their peers. It was a great experience and we had a lot of fun.

Our workshop focused on how to do inclusion.

We presented the prosocial matrix point of view.

From my perspective, inclusion is for everyone.

For inclusion to be prosocial, everyone is invited to have a seat  at the table. This includes teachers, students, parents and especially, those who disagree or who are “different” from you. Everyone has a voice and everyone is a stakeholder.

Once we can sit down at the table, we can connect by asking important questions with respect.

Ask about who and what is important for each of us.

Ask about why we are here and what role each of us plays.

Ask about what shows up inside of each of us that gets in the way.

Ask about the things we do to move away from what is uncomfortable and

And collaborate about what we want to do to move toward acting inclusively.

We see and we are seen.

We hear and are heard.

And then we can sit down at the same table as often as we need to, and know that

We have a safe place to return to.

To agree and to diagree. To feel the same about some things

And different about other things.

Building a culture by acting inclusively. No quick fix.

One moment at a time.

What is school for?

Imagine that you could gather everyone in a school together and ask this question.

I think it is an important question and it almost never occurs to those of us in education and learning to ask it.

So what we decided to do this year was to gather teachers, students, administrators and specialists in our educational program together at the start of each day and ask ourselves what school is for.

We asked the question this way,

“What is our shared purpose?”

Everybody was encouraged to share (and someone always shared) and in this way we created our shared purposes each day. Sometimes the principal led the meeting. Sometimes a student or teacher.

We created shared purposes together and then noticed if we were able to do things to move toward our shared purposes or if we got bogged down with internal distractions or other obstacles.

The process was messy. At times it was uncomfortable. We did it anyway (even when we didn’t feel like it) because it was important. Our students discovered they had a voice in the process which helped them hang in there when they felt like giving up (giving up is something that happens from time to time) and for the most part they kept going.

We all kept talking and moving toward our purposes.

So we are learning about how to do this thing called school differently. We are reinventing along the way how we see and do learning.

One meeting at a time. Discovering things together.

Asking the question gets the process of shared purposes going. Returning to it each day reminds us we are in this together and we can figure out what school is for each of us.

You can try it out and if you want, let me know what you discover.

This furry little critter is a first class problem solver. He has the whole “I am hungry and need to do something to eat” thing figured out”

I think we big brained types can learn something from him.

We spend a lot of time in education giving kids problems to solve like math problems, multiple choice tests, and fill in the blanks and we spend a lot less time on everyday living kinds of problems; you know, the kinds of problems that don’t have neat answers, where there is usually more then one way to go, and you don’t really know how things will turn out.

So I just gave a webinar on how to use the Prosocial Matrix to get creative problem solving going with little and big people.

You can watch it below: