I learned for myself the importance of creating safety in the classroom.
For most of the 1970s I was the Training Officer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Early in that decade Lab management had laid off the Training department. Soon after they realized that they still needed a training fuction, just one that was effective.
When I interviewed with them, I described the programs I had done at Western Electric and what made them work. They decided to take a chance with me and it became my job to rebuild the training function.
I felt some pressure. I had only two years’ work experience and no formal education in the field. I hired people with more experience so I could learn from them. One member of my staff, a man who was considerably older, gave me some advice. In every class, he said, there is always a wise guy who wants to challenge your authority early on. To gain the respect of the group, he said, you need to put this guy in his place.
I was not fully comfortable with this suggestion but wondered if it might not be true. I decided to test it out. Not too long afterward I was beginning with a group and, just as my colleague had said, one man belittled a point being made by another man. I was concerned about the tone being set in the group and tested out my colleague’s approach: I gave a stinging rebuke to the man who had belittled the other participant.
I was taken aback by what happened next. The man I had attacked visibly shriveled up in front of me. His body seemed to shrink and he retreated to someplace deep inside himself, a place I could never reach. Everyone else laughed nervously, but they too quickly distanced themselves from me. I had gained their respect as someone who could hold his own, but I lost them because they no longer felt safe with me leading the group. I lost the opportunity to create the safe learning environment with that group.
In that moment I made a vow to myself that I would never — ever! — put down someone in one of my groups again. And I never did. No matter how antagonistic the challenger, I always treated each questions or statement as a serious initiative and accorded it respect. I wanted to show the group that every statement, every questions, and every person would be treated with respect. The times when I was challenged were moments when I could display this to everyone. And it succeeded — no group ever shrank away from me again.
