Porter

EDUCATION • PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

“This book can help teacher educators and their schools of education in a variety
of ways from its use as a course text to its potential to provide the springboard for
institutional reform.” —TED SIZER, founder and chair emeritus
of the Coalition of Essential Schools
“Reading this book is like having a really good friend sit down and tell you the truth. Relating to
In a world focused on youth, Susan Eva Porter’s book reminds us of the importance of

ADOLESCENTS
our own adulthood. With encouragement, insight, and humor, her wisdom guides all
of us who care about teenagers through the inevitable conflicts and joys of our work.
She helps us remember that adolescents need the adults in their lives to provide
boundaries, love, and support.” —TRAVIS BROWNLEY, head of school,
Marin Academy, San Rafael, California
“This is a book every new teacher should read.” —PETER THORP, chief of staff
of the California Charter Schools Association

RELATING TO ADOLESCENTS
“Susan Eva Porter’s keenly observed study of the adult-teenage dynamic in schools
is a welcome foray into a complex and misunderstood world. By openly acknowledg-
ing challenges that are rarely discussed in schools, she provides a useful guidebook
for teachers and administrators to confront these challenges. Whether the reader is a
novice teacher or seasoned administrator, her insights will shine light on the familiar
and encourage a fresh look at the practices of adults in a teenage world.”
—RACHEL FRIIS STETTLER, director,
The Winsor School, Boston, Massachusetts

Teaching teenagers can be very rewarding; it can also be very challenging. Relating
to Adolescents helps adults who work with teenagers understand what happens in
their dynamic students. From the “Five Things Teens Need from Grown-Ups” to the
“Seven Grown-Up Skills,” this book covers all aspects of the adult-teenager relation-
ship and provides educators with guidance and practical tips on how to increase their
effectiveness in working with teenagers in schools.

SUSAN EVA PORTER, Ph.D., has worked in and with schools for more than twenty years
as a teacher, clinician, and consultant.

Educators in a Teenage World

For orders and information please contact the publisher
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD EDUCATION
A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200
Lanham, Maryland 20706
1-800-462-6420 • fax 717-794-3803
SUSAN EVA PORT ER
www.rowmaneducation.com

RelatingtoAdolescentsPBK.indd 1 2/19/09 4:09:14 PM

R E L A T I N G T O
A D O L E S C E N T S

Educators in a Teenage World

Susan Eva Porter

Rowman & Littlefield Education

Lanham • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Education
A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowmaneducation.com

Estover Road
Plymouth PL6 7PY
United Kingdom

Copyright © 2009 by Susan Eva Porter

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.

This book was placed by the Educational Design Services LLC Literary Agency.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Porter, Susan Eva, 1963–
Relating to adolescents: educators in a teenage world / Susan Eva Porter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-60709-058-8 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-60709-059-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-60709-060-1 (e-book)
1. High school teaching—United States. 2. Middle school teaching—
United States. 3. Teenagers—Education—United States. 4. Teacher-student
relationships—United States. 5. Teenagers and adults—United States.
I. Title.
LB1737.U6P67 2009
373.1102—dc22
2008049251

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
 To Mum,
the first teacher I ever knew.
I hope you’re watching,
wherever you are.
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
1 The Phenomenon of Adolescence 1
2 Adults in the Hot Zone: Working in the Teenage World 19
3 The Seven Grown-Up Skills 39
4 The Five Things Teens Need from Grown-Ups 65
5 Do’s and Don’ts for Adults in the Teenage World 89
6 Five Guidelines for Administrators: The A-TEAM 127
7 The Eightfold Path of Adult Self-Care 157
Epilogue 187
Appendix 191
Bibliography and Resources 197
About the Author 199

v
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have known and befriended many teachers throughout my career. I

could not have written this book without their inspiration and support.
A few special educators and clinicians helped me stay focused along
the way, and to them I owe many thanks. Nell Branco, Travis Brownley,
Liz Katz, Sande Kiriluk, Rachel Stettler, Peter Thorp, and Jessica Tighe
served as wise and gentle readers. I want to extend special thanks to my
former professor, Ted Sizer, for giving this work his time and attention,
and for his very generous feedback. And to Michael Brosnan, of Inde-
pendent School magazine, whose careful reading and comments kept
me buoyed.
My beautiful sisters didn’t do much for me throughout this process,
but they’d kill me if I didn’t acknowledge them, so thanks to Jess, Cath,
and Juls. I love you guys.
Thanks, also, to all my friends who helped me grieve my mother’s
death while I was writing this book. I couldn’t have done it without you.

vii
 INTRODUCTION

Working with teenagers is one of the most rewarding jobs in the

world.1 Teenagers are energetic, fun, and idealistic; for those of us who
connect well with adolescents, working with them is incredibly satisfy-
ing. One thing that makes our work so compelling is that adolescence
is a time of great intensity. Teenagers have intense thoughts, intense
feelings, and intense relationships. There’s no denying that adolescence
is a dramatic stage of life, and those of us who work with teenagers get
swept up in this drama all the time. For the most part, this is what we
love about our work. However, occasionally the adolescent drama over-
whelms us, and we face incredible challenges in our relationships with
teenagers. This is what this book is about, the challenges we experience
in our relationships with teens and how we can make sense of them.
Specifically, this book is about the dynamic that occurs between
teenagers and adults in schools—or, the teenage world.2 In my two
decades working in schools, first as a teacher and then as a clinician
and consultant, I have come to believe that most of the persistent chal-
lenges educators face in their work with teens arise from this dynamic.
All teachers know their subject area, and they know how to teach, but
when it comes to knowing the subject of adolescence many teachers
are confused, and rightly so. Teenagers are confusing—they confuse
themselves sometimes—so it makes sense that we get confused at times

ix
x INTRODUCTION

when we deal with them. From hormone surges to fluctuations in brain

chemistry to shifting moods, teenagers go through a lot in a day, and
therefore it can be hard for them, and us, to keep pace with all the chal-
lenges they face.
The truth is teenagers baffled me when I began teaching high school
in my mid-twenties, despite the fact that I was practically a teenager
myself. I had an advanced degree in education and yet I often felt help-
less when faced with an issue that had more to do with adolescence
than with what I was trying to teach. Whenever my students did any-
thing typically teenaged, my well-constructed lesson plans went out the
window. True, most new teachers face this challenge, but I didn’t know
much more about adolescence as my experience in the classroom grew.
It wasn’t until I got training in clinical psychology and social work that I
started to get a handle on what was going on with my teenage students.
And even then it was hard, much harder than I could have imagined
when I began my career.
Even in graduate school, though, I didn’t learn anything about my re-
lationship with teenagers. I learned all of the important concepts, such
as about the developmental phases of adolescence, but I didn’t learn
about what was happening to me when I dealt with teenagers—and this
was what caused me so much confusion. Why did I get so worked up?
Why did I act just like them sometimes? Why did I feel so out of control
on occasion? I needed answers to these questions and I couldn’t find
them in any of my textbooks on adolescence. What I did know for sure
was that something significant happens in the dynamic between adults
and teenagers in schools. That I figured out by myself.
After I left the classroom and became a clinician in schools, I spent
a lot of time thinking about this issue and dealing with teachers who
struggled with their students in the same way I had. They were puzzled
by how to deal with certain aspects of their relationships with teens
and they needed guidance and support. As my work with the adults in
school communities grew, I realized I needed to think less about tradi-
tional adolescent development and more about the dynamic between
adults and teens if I wanted to be of service to my colleagues. Thus my
adventure began, and this book is the culmination of what I’ve learned
along the way.
My central premise is that adolescence is a profound, potent, and
often mysterious process that inevitably affects us in our work with teen-
INTRODUCTION xi

agers. This book is about the complex dynamic that is created when we
relate to our students who are in the midst of this adolescent process,
and how we can make sense of this dynamic. Those of us who work with
teens know that adolescence is a force to contend with; it’s a force we
honor, otherwise we wouldn’t teach. But it’s also a force that can take us
by surprise and put our best-laid plans to rest at a moment’s notice.
There’s something infectious about adolescence. It can seem almost
feverish. Teenage laughter, passion, and joie de vivre all conspire to
keep us engaged and connected. In this way, I think of adolescence as
catching, sort of like a virus, and the positive aspects of adolescence
keep us invested in and motivated by our work. Adolescent energy and
enthusiasm spread rapidly, and their attention-grabbing message rever-
berates through the halls of every middle and high school in the land.
“We are here! We are here! We are here!” goes the refrain, and we can’t
ignore it if we try.
Every day those of us who work in schools—teachers, coaches, princi-
pals, librarians, you name it—contend with the wonder and perplexity of
adolescence, and sometimes the effect it has on us is powerful. We must
be affected by adolescence in order to do our jobs well, though. Some-
times this effect feels good, as when teenagers inspire us with their en-
thusiasm or remind us by example of our own idealism. But sometimes
it doesn’t feel good, as when they frustrate us with their self-absorption
or make us impatient with their pettiness. These reactions are normal—
all of them, the positive and the negative alike—and naturally we have a
wide range of responses to our relationships with our students.
Our relationships with teenagers are complicated as a result, and
that’s exactly as it should be. We wouldn’t get far in the teenage world
if we didn’t engage, take risks, and get our feet wet in our relationships
with our students. Given this degree of investment, our relationships
with teens take effort to manage. We must work to establish healthy
connections to our students so they feel safe, cared for, and eager to
learn. This takes time and attention, and not a little patience, and still
the adolescent dynamo surprises us. Nevertheless, this is our job.
To do this job well, teenagers need us to behave like grown-ups. What
does this mean? Well, teenagers need us to practice certain skills that
allow us to keep our roles clear, to maintain the boundaries between us,
and to keep our cool when the energy of adolescence swirls around us.
Teenagers need us to be different than they are, and they need us to
xii INTRODUCTION

understand how they affect us, for better or worse. They need us to be
healthy, happy, and eager to engage, and they need us to have compas-
sion, for ourselves as much as for them. At the end of the day, teenagers
need us to be the best version of ourselves as possible. This is what I
mean by grown-up.
This book is part primer on adolescent psychology, part primer on
adult psychology, and full primer on how adults who work with teenag-
ers can deal with teenagers more effectively. I offer conceptual frame-
works that I hope will encourage adults to talk to one another about
their work with teens, especially the challenges. I contend that we all
face challenges because we all become affected by our teenage students,
and therefore we should recognize, acknowledge, and talk about our
challenges in an effort to apply best practices in our work.
I also hope that readers use this book as a springboard for contempla-
tion, reflection, and discussion about our relationships in the teenage
world. All of us need support in this work because, let’s face it, the fever
of adolescence can spread at hurricane force at times. I believe the bet-
ter we understand teenagers and how they operate, the more we protect
ourselves from getting blown off course. Also, when we understand our
challenges and ourselves, we are free to enjoy our work with teenagers.
And isn’t that the point?
I use case studies throughout the text to illustrate various aspects of
our relationships with teenagers. I have changed all identifying details
to protect the identity of the adults and students involved, and in some
cases I have created amalgams to highlight specific points. I encourage
readers to consider these examples with compassion and care. These
stories are our stories, and I suspect all of us will see ourselves in these
narratives to a greater or lesser degree. This is my wish; that we can ex-
amine our work with teenagers with humility and openness and, in the
recognition of our shared experience, emerge the better for it.
This book derives as much from my own experiences working with
adolescents as it does from my professional observations. I have faltered
many times in my relationships with teenagers—more times than I’d
like to admit—but each time, I learn something important about myself
and about them. Often the lessons aren’t clear at first, and sometimes
I don’t want to learn them, but there they are, waiting for me when I
recover my balance.
INTRODUCTION xiii

Finally, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the course of my career in

the teenage world, it’s that working with adolescents provides us with
endless opportunities to learn, not just to teach.

NOTES

1. I use the terms teenager and adolescent interchangeably throughout this book, and
in both cases I am referring to students from ten to eighteen years of age. True, ten- to
twelve-year-olds are not technically teenagers, but many of them have entered puberty
and thus have embarked on the process of adolescence. I use these terms to designate
students in grades 5–12, with the understanding that there is a huge developmental arc
that spans this range.
2. I use the terms teenage world and schools interchangeably; by teenage world I
specifically mean middle and high schools. There are many different configurations of
schools, so for my purposes the teenage world means schools that teach any subset of
grades 5–12.
 1

THE PHENOMENON
OF ADOLESCENCE

Why are teenagers so challenging at times, and why do they get un-
der our skins? In this chapter I explore how teenagers behave and
why they affect others, particularly the adults who work with them
in schools. Since the teenage brain is still developing, teens can’t
consistently control their impulses, exercise good judgment, or ac-
curately interpret cues from the external environment. Adults who
work with them must therefore understand how the phenomenon
of adolescence functions and guide teenagers as they navigate their
changing world.

ADOLESCENCE IS CATCHING

Teenagers affect those around them, especially each other. Observe a

group of teenagers in almost any situation and you will see this phenom-
enon at work: They pick up on each other’s cues, react to each other’s
moods, and influence each other’s ideas (not to mention their choices
in fashion, music, hairstyles, and so on). They are very hard to ignore,
which is partly how they affect adults.
In my twenty years of working with teenagers, I have come to think
of their almost uncanny ability to get under each other’s skins, and
under the skins of the adults around them, as being almost infectious.

1
2 CHAPTER 1

Teenagers are able to engage us, enrage us, charm us, and disarm us
almost instantaneously. This is an incredible skill, when you think about
it. Teenagers draw us into their world and change us in the process. This
is what I mean when I say adolescence is infectious, even catching. We
engage with teenagers and are affected in the process—and that’s how
it should be.
Given the nature of adolescence, sometimes its effect on us is posi-
tive, perhaps thrilling. Adolescence is a time of unbridled enthusiasm
and idealism, and often these phenomena infect us. But sometimes it
isn’t so thrilling. Adolescence is also a time of wild extremes and un-
certainty, and sometimes it throws us for a loop. When this happens,
we need help to make sense of the situation and to understand our role
in the dynamic with our teenage students. When we understand how
and why adolescence affects us, we can figure out what to do about
it, and this is what this book is about. It’s about the phenomenon of
adolescence and how it catches us, how it affects our relationships with
teenagers, and what we should do when this happens.

SEEKING UNDERSTANDING: LOOKING TO SCIENCE

My understanding of how adolescence catches us, and thus of the dy-

namic between students and teachers, has been greatly informed by
current research about the teenage brain. It is fair to say that this field
of inquiry is exploding, and almost every day researchers discover new
things about how the teenage brain functions. I believe many of these
discoveries can help us better understand why adolescence has an infec-
tious quality to it, and can guide us in our work with teens.

THE TEENAGE BRAIN: SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

Picture this: Three middle school girls are asked the following question.
Swimming with sharks: good idea or bad idea?
“Hmmmm . . .” replies the first girl. “Well . . . uhhhhh . . . I guess it
would be okay. (Pause) Like, maybe if you did it with someone who did
it before. Yeah. Hmmmmmm . . . (pause). That would be good.”
THE PHENOMENON OF ADOLESCENCE 3

“Yeah,” says the second girl, eyes darting back and forth, gauging the
reactions of her peers. “It would be a good idea if you went with some-
one who did it before. (Pause) And maybe if you were in a shark cage.”
“Yeah,” says the third girl, although with more hesitation than the
others. “I guess it would be fine, you know, a good idea. (Pause) Like,
if you were in a shark cage with someone who did it before. Yeah,
that’s okay.”
Swimming with sharks? Are they nuts? This was an actual conversa-
tion that took place between middle school girls and brain researchers.1
Furthermore, these girls were smart and well educated. So, what does
this interchange tell us about the teenage brain? A lot.

THE TEENAGE BRAIN: A WORK IN PROGRESS

Until recently, scientists believed that the human brain did most of its
developing early on and that little changed in the brain after the period
of explosive growth that occurs in early childhood. Of course, scientists
knew that the brain deteriorated in lots of ways, especially in old age, so
no one was saying that the brain didn’t change, per se. But as to what
happened in the teenage brain in terms of growth, it was assumed to be
a non-issue, and therefore of little scientific interest, so science pretty
much ignored it.
Advances in technology, in particular in machinery that maps and
studies the brain, have changed all that. Science is now paying lots of
attention to the teenage brain, and one of the most significant findings
is this: The brain is still under construction during adolescence. In fact,
the teenage brain is going through a veritable renaissance of growth,
almost on par with the initial childhood spurt.
So what does this have to do with swimming with sharks?
The above vignette illustrates a couple of things worth noting about
the teenage brain, some of which I’ll address later, but most importantly
it drives home the point that the teenage brain is really different than
the adult brain. Only an adult with impaired cognitive functioning could
get away with not knowing that swimming with sharks is a bad idea.
So why do these smart girls, when presented with an admittedly
dangerous scenario (they all understood the inherent danger involved,
otherwise they wouldn’t have qualified their statements the way they
4 CHAPTER 1

did), provide answers capable of sending chills up the adult spine?

Because—and we adults must not lose sight of this point—their brains
really are different than ours.

HOW THE TEENAGE BRAIN IS DIFFERENT

The biggest difference between teenage and adult brains is what’s hap-
pening in the front part of the brain, or the frontal lobes, particularly
in the prefrontal cortex. This part of the brain regulates executive func-
tioning, or those processes that help us reason, control our impulses,
formulate sound judgments, and make good decisions. The prefrontal
cortex most clearly distinguishes us from other animals and its develop-
ment is critical.
I like to think of this part of the brain as being like an orchestra; there
are many different players (i.e., cognitive functions) whose roles are
critical to the brain’s overall performance. Ideally, once the brain has
matured, the orchestra sounds pretty good; the various players can fol-
low the lead of the conductor and the output is pleasant to listen to.
On the other hand, what happens in the teenage brain sounds like a
bad rehearsal sometimes, or the tuning before the conductor has taken
the stage. Timing is off in the teenage brain and sometimes the string
section is following a different score. You get the picture.
So, the goal of brain development, and the hard work of adolescence,
is about bringing all the players into concert and producing a coherent
tune. And this takes time.

IT TAKES TIME FOR THE BRAIN TO MATURE

The field of education intuited the development of the teenage brain

long before neuroscience took interest. Teachers know a lot about ado-
lescent development, even if they know nothing about neuropsychology.
They know, for example, that you can’t expect a 7th grader to under-
stand nuance (or even to spell it) the same way a 12th grader can, and
that certain abstract concepts are best introduced after a certain age.
Teachers understand that even really bright students are limited in how
THE PHENOMENON OF ADOLESCENCE 5

quickly they can grasp certain ideas, and that as educators we must lead
and follow the adolescent brain in equal measure.
This new brain research suggests that the human brain continues to
develop much longer than even teachers suspected, perhaps somewhere
into the mid-twenties. In fact, scientists now believe that the capacity for
well-orchestrated executive functioning, especially in the areas of im-
pulse control and risk-taking, may not be fully formed until age twenty-
five. (Interestingly, the actuarial field has known this for a long time. This
is why in most states you can’t rent a car until you’re twenty-five.)
The takeaway from this is that we must be mindful always that the
brains of our teenage students are different than our own, and that
they’re changing rapidly. Regardless of how intelligent, on-the-ball, or
mature they seem at times, teenage brains have a long way to go.

BACK TO THE SHARKS

Let’s return to the girls with the sharks for a moment to explore two
functions of the teenage brain that are still under construction. This vi-
gnette reveals important things about how the teenage brain reasons and
how it is affected, or infected, shall we say, by the opinions of others.
Let’s start with the reasoning. We know the girls understand on some
level that swimming with sharks is dangerous, or at least not advisable,
because they offer qualifications to their responses, like using a shark
cage or being with someone who has done it before. But they still can’t
come up with the correct answer quickly, despite their intelligence.
Why? Because in responding to this question they are employing a com-
pletely different part of the brain than adults do, and paradoxically, it’s
the part associated with reasoning.
A brain that has experience and knowledge, and one that has mud-
dled its way through such a scenario before, can respond seemingly
instinctively to the shark question. But the teenage brain is grappling
with the answer, trying to reason out the various possibilities. It’s almost
as if the teenage brain has no muscle memory in this department, and
therefore it labors over such a task. Whereas the girls came up with the
right answer eventually, it took a while, and much longer than it would
for an adult brain.
6 CHAPTER 1

This may give us a clue as to why teenagers don’t always learn from
the experiences of others, much as we’d like them to. (Those adults who
rely on the “When I was a kid” refrain in conversations with teenagers,
please take note.)
The second thing about our shark girls is that their answers, facial
expressions, eye movements, and body language speak volumes about
their relationships to one another. While they are responding, and
specifically the two girls who must follow their peer, they are not only
reasoning their way through the problem but also trying desperately to
evaluate each other’s reactions.
We can only imagine the internal dialogue at this point: “What if I say
something stupid? What if I say the wrong thing? I want the others to
like me, so I can’t say something different and risk looking like an idiot.”
Translation into teenage girl speak: “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my
God,” or something along these lines.
Scientists have discovered that when younger teens, like the shark
girls, process emotions, they do not use the frontal cortex as adults do but
instead use the amygdala, the reptilian part of the brain that regulates
the “fight or flight” response. This means our shark girls are not only
straining to answer a question, they’re also getting emotionally activated
on a very primal level because, in this case, they are doing this mental
processing out loud, in front of their peers, and for them this is scary.
Science now reveals that for most girls this age, the prospect of social
exclusion or rejection is the most frightening, and therefore the most
threatening, thing that can happen. Period. For the shark girls it means
that being rejected or shunned, or simply being excluded (which could
happen if their responses are not met with approval by their peers), is
scarier than anything else that could happen to them, certainly scarier
than swimming with sharks, cage or no cage. This is what I mean when
I say adolescence is catching.

READING FACIAL EXPRESSIONS:

MY TEACHER HATES ME!

The amygdala also plays a role in how teens interpret facial expressions.
Rather than using the frontal cortex to make sense of someone’s expres-
sion, teens employ the amygdala and, as a result, often misinterpret what
THE PHENOMENON OF ADOLESCENCE 7

they see. Imagine that this misinterpretation is coupled with the fight or
flight response and you have the recipe for middle school drama. Maybe
our shark girls mistakenly see the signs of disdain or anger in the faces
of their peers, thus influencing their answers.
This may also account, in part, for adolescent self-absorption. When
the teenage amygdala has determined that an expression is hostile (or
anything else), the resulting emotional reaction is real. But this doesn’t
mean it’s an accurate read of the situation. To an outside observer, the
teen seems to be having an exaggerated or inappropriate response, or
both. Now try reasoning with that response. An adult understanding
of the situation emerges from a completely different place in the brain
than does the teen response, and trying to help a teen understand the
“objective” truth can be frustrating, if not futile.
Adults sometimes ask me whether I explain this process to my teen-
age students, presumably in an effort to help students deal with situa-
tions like this or even to prevent them. “Maybe if you told them what
was going on in their brains it would help,” they suggest. Ah, no.
The truth is, even if teens were interested in their neurological
plight on an intellectual level, which is certainly possible, an intellec-
tual understanding wouldn’t help them in the moment. To explain the
neurological processes involved in their psychological upset would be
as effective in resolving the situation as it would be to teach someone
to ride a bicycle by using a book. Their brains need practice, not just
explanations, and therefore practice over time is the only guaranteed
pathway to maturity.

RISKY BUSINESS: KEEPING A LID ON THE ID

This maturity comes at a price, however. To quote Mark Twain, “Good

judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judg-
ment.”2 The teenage brain cannot learn only from the experience of oth-
ers; it must hoe its own row, so to speak. It has to take risks. (Let’s hope
our shark girls never actually get the opportunity to swim with sharks!)
Of course, risk is a relative term here, and each teenage brain cal-
culates risk differently. Nevertheless, all teenagers need to challenge
themselves and their brains in order to discover their talents, interests,
and limits, and that means taking risks. As we shall see in the next
8 CHAPTER 1

chapter, this is a charged subject for adults, and it is in the area of

teenage risk that the phenomenon of adolescence can wreak the most
havoc in the adult-teen relationship.
One trend I have noticed over the course of my career is the increas-
ing hesitation on the part of adults, parents and teachers alike, to let
kids take risks. Teachers, of course, understand the need for teens to
take intellectual risks. This is at the core of good teaching and teachers
know that students get much more out of learning if there is some—but
not too much—risk involved. When it comes to physical and emotional
risks, however, it’s as though this culture has put a wet blanket over its
children, all in the name of safety, fairness, and being nice.
What science tells us now is that the brain learns, in part, by taking
risks, and while adults must stay involved and help the teenage brain
calculate these risks, teens must take risks on their own. And when they
take risks, teenagers will make mistakes, get hurt, occasionally hurt oth-
ers, and fail, all in the name of development.
This can be a terrifying prospect for adults who work with teens, yet
it is reality. Teens need to learn how to control their impulses, which
drive their risk-taking behaviors, and adults need to help them do this.
As Freud might say, teens need to put a lid on the id.3 When teenagers
can’t do this for themselves, adults must be the lid for them (more on
this later).
This is a big part of what makes dealing with teenagers so challeng-
ing. Ask any new teacher about classroom management and you’ll
get an idea about how challenging it can be. The stakes are high and
sometimes dangerous as the teen brain learns how to orchestrate its
desires, impulses, and thoughts, but all of this is necessary for healthy
development.

IMITATION: FLATTERY OR CHEMISTRY?

One hallmark of adolescence is the herd mentality, which explains why

nearly every student at the last school I worked at wore Ugg boots and
North Face jackets. We now know that the teenage brain learns through
imitation, and given the importance of peer relationships during adoles-
cence, this explains, in part, why the herd mentality often grips groups
of teens.
THE PHENOMENON OF ADOLESCENCE 9

A central psychological task of this stage of life is identity formation,

and affiliation to groups or causes is one way this plays out for teens.
Identity in adolescence is ever-shifting, too, so the average teen may
switch friendships, group affiliation, clothes and hairstyles, and even
speech patterns often in an effort to discover his or her “real” self.
This propensity for imitation makes the prospect of peer pressure and
influence very real, and whatever good judgment exists in the teen brain
may be trumped by bad judgment in a group of peers. The good news
is that teens don’t imitate just peers, although peers are often kept in
higher regard than adults. The teen brain is imitating and thus learning
from all kinds of sources, including adult teachers.
A small percentage of teens seem to have an immunity to herd
mentality and thus to peer pressure, which may have something to do
with how their brains function, possibly their amygdalas. These stu-
dents are rare, though, and they shouldn’t be confused with students
who imitate by being opposed to prevailing trends. Teens who present
themselves as countercultural are just as affected by their peers as
those who stay with the herd, perhaps even more so. But a few teenag-
ers really are different.
In my experience, students who naturally can resist the pressure to
conform to their peers don’t display the same moodiness or insecurity as
other teens do. I used to think this had to do exclusively with parenting,
but I’m not so sure it does. I once asked the father of such a student how
he managed to raise his even-keeled and independent daughter. “Don’t
ask me,” he said. “I have no idea where she came from.”
Someday I suspect scientists will figure out where kids like this come
from but until they do, and until they develop a pill to help the rest of
the herd, the group mentality of adolescence is here to stay.

FROM CROTCH TO PREFRONTAL CORTEX AND BACK

It used to be that adolescence was associated with one thing and one
thing only: hormones. This shift in focus from the crotch to the frontal
lobes is new, but research on the teenage brain doesn’t mean hormones
don’t play a big part of the phenomenon of adolescence. Hormones
change the body—transforming it from child to adult—fuel the sex drive,
and contribute to the moodiness that is so characteristic of adolescence.
10 CHAPTER 1

Thus hormones play a big role in how adults are affected by teenag-
ers, a topic I will address in the next chapter. So while science contin-
ues to discover new things about the teenage brain, there remain some
things we’ve known forever.

NAVIGATING TWO WORLDS: BARBIE DOLLS

TO CONDOMS

Given the massive changes taking place for teenagers, from the micro-
scopic ones happening in the brain to the macroscopic ones happening
in the body, it’s surprising teens function as well as they do. I often say
to adults that if we went through as many changes as teenagers do in the
course of a week, we’d feel crazy too.
The ultimate challenge teens must master in the face of all these
incremental changes is how to make the transition from childhood to
adulthood. This transition can take a decade or more to complete, so for
years adolescents are navigating two realities—or going back and forth
between Barbie dolls and condoms, as one astute teacher once put it.
Adolescents are at times worldly and naïve, knowledgeable and
ignorant, confident and scared. They are standing on ground that is
constantly shifting and often they are at a loss to know which world they
inhabit. Their moments of insight and triumph are followed without
fail by ones of confusion and chaos, and finding the center is often an
elusive goal.
But in the end this is their task: to discover who they are and who they
want to be, and for them the discoveries of science are meaningless. It
is our job to understand what they are going through and to help them
make sense of their journey.

THE DEVELOPMENTAL SPECTRUM

One way to do this is to understand that the journey of adolescence

unfolds and progresses over time and it can’t be rushed. As I stated
earlier, 7th graders and seniors are very different animals, and even a
thirteen-year-old genius does not fit in developmentally with a group of
12th graders. Teachers know this instinctively. To this end, most teach-
THE PHENOMENON OF ADOLESCENCE 11

ers have a preference for dealing with students at a certain stage on the
developmental spectrum. It is rare to find a teacher who likes to work
equally with all levels of adolescents (grades 5–12). Regardless of our
preferences, we should be aware of some of the major developmental
changes that occur throughout adolescence so that we can understand
where our students are coming from, where they’re going, and when
they’ve lost their way.
The following is a brief overview4 of four stages of adolescent devel-
opment:

1. Early Middle School (Grades 5 and 6)

2. Late Middle School (Grades 7 and 8)
3. Early High School (Grades 9 and 10)
4. Late High School (Grades 11 and 12)

We should all acquaint ourselves with this developmental spectrum

and be well versed in our area of concentration. Knowledge is power,
and therefore we need a lot of knowledge to deal with our teenage
students.

1. Early Middle School, Grades 5 and 6

Many kids, especially girls, start puberty5 during this time, although
some begin earlier or later. As their bodies change and grow, students
start to become more self-conscious and aware of their surroundings.
They also become more moody, and this is when teachers sense the
end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence in their students.
For the most part, though, students at this age are more childlike than
adolescent, and this is very true in terms of how they think.
Fifth and 6th graders are still concrete thinkers and they are just
beginning to develop the skills that will allow them to reason, organize,
and execute complex cognitive functions. Their executive function-
ing is not well developed at this stage and they need lots of oversight
when it comes to staying on task. Peers are important but kids are not
hyper-reactive to their classmates. In one sense, the herd is not fully
formed yet. The agony of peer pressure has not peaked at this stage
and students can actually tolerate differences a little better than they
will be able to in a few years time. Kids at this age feel very connected
12 CHAPTER 1

to and identify with their parents and teachers. The quest for separa-
tion has not yet begun in earnest.
Teachers who like this stage of development tend to prefer working
hands-on with students and place a high value on the close relation-
ship they can forge with students. They like working with kids, not
teens, and often the developmentally precocious student is a headache
for these teachers.

2. Late Middle School, Grades 7 and 8

I call late middle school the era of Drama and Trauma. Puberty has
begun for most students and mood swings, awkward gaits, orthodontia,
acne, and poor personal hygiene are the norm. It is during this time that
schools often mediate one of the first rights of passage of adolescence,
the school dance. The pain of self-consciousness and the herd mentality
can be studied in depth at such functions.
During the late middle school years, students make huge strides in
their capacity to reason, with many kids being able to grasp complex
subjects like algebra by the end of the 8th grade. They can think a little
bit outside the box as their capacity for abstraction begins, but executive
functioning is still limited in most kids. Social development and aware-
ness is all consuming during this phase, and even the nicest student may
turn into a backstabbing gossip or schoolyard bully with little provoca-
tion. This is normal, albeit undesirable from an adult perspective.
The fight or flight response is particularly active during this stage.
Social situations, especially those that involve inclusion and exclusion,
cause the brain to work overtime. Most students have trouble reading
social cues at this age and all kids feel left out or victimized at some point
during this period. This is why adults tend to place so much emphasis on
concepts like cooperation, fairness, and safety during this time, because
kids often feel left out, slighted, and socially unsafe.
Teachers who prefer this age group tend to like the energy, blossom-
ing intellect, and relatively uncomplicated social issues that prevail (by
less complicated, I mean most kids this age are not involved with sex or
drugs and are not driving cars yet). Generally, they like to be involved
in most aspects of their students’ experience. Teachers at this stage have
a profound impact on students, and students are usually willing to ac-
knowledge their affection for and dependence on their teachers.
THE PHENOMENON OF ADOLESCENCE 13

3. Early High School, Grades 9 and 10

By early high school, most students are well into puberty and iden-
tify themselves as adolescents, not as children. Some of the cattiness
of middle school has subsided by this time but the herd mentality
prevails. Teens in early high school remain very self-conscious and
preoccupied with what their peers think of them, and a social faux pas
can cause them great distress. Cognitively, they are entering a new
world, one where teachers expect them to think and reason less like
children and more like adults, and their brains have to keep pace with
these new demands.
This can be a difficult challenge, and teachers must remember that
it takes time for the teenage brain to coordinate all the tasks it needs to
accomplish. Many teens at the beginning of high school may not be able
to organize themselves or their work effectively and must be guided and
taught how to keep track of multiple and long-term assignments. The
leap from 8th to 9th grade is big in this regard, and the teenage brain
needs assistance to pull together the various pieces of the puzzle. Ninth
graders may have to be told again and again how to take notes, remem-
ber their assignments, and follow through with their work. This is not
teenage delinquency but rather the developing capacity for executive
functioning at work, and teens need help from their teachers to meet
the increased expectations placed on them.
As their cognitive world gets more complicated, so too does their so-
cial world. Self-awareness, self-absorption, and the importance of peer
relationships increase during this time, but most teenagers say they
feel better about themselves than they did in middle school. They are
still at the mercy of their peers, though, and as they begin to separate
from the opinions of adults, they increase the value they place on the
opinion of their peers. By the end of 10th grade, the search for identity
is in full force. I call this the Hamlet stage, wherein teens start to ask
themselves the essential questions about their life’s purpose and their
reason for being.
Teenagers at this stage tend to be idealistic, eager, fairly naïve, and
relatively innocent. In relation to 11th and 12th graders, they can seem
almost childlike. Teachers who like this stage of development tend to
enjoy helping students make the transition into more mature thinking
and watching them become aware of the larger world around them.
14 CHAPTER 1

4. Late High School, Grades 11 and 12

Most teenagers by late high school have bodies that function like
adult ones, even as their size and shape continue to change. Their brains
have developed and many teens at this stage can display almost adult-
like maturity periodically. Smart teens can think abstractly by this point
and can handle very complicated intellectual tasks.
By late high school, most teens enjoy a lessening of mood swings, and
when they get moody they have developed some skill and experience
to deal with their emotional ups and downs. They can see the world in
more than black and white terms. This doesn’t mean their inner experi-
ences don’t affect them, just that they have begun to develop the capac-
ity to recognize and regulate what’s going on inside.
Social relationships get both easier and more complicated during this
time. Most teens at this stage say they feel less pressured by friends
than they used to but the risks they take are higher. Whereas in middle
school the pressure might be to wear certain clothes, now the pressure
might be to have sex or to ride with someone who has been drinking.
Factors like alcohol, driving, and sex up the risk ante during this stage,
and the teenage brain sometimes displays appalling judgment relative to
its responsibilities and the expectations placed upon it.
Teachers who prefer this stage of development tend to like relating to
students as adults and not as children. Teachers like the fact that they
can converse with late high school students without a lot of distraction,
and they appreciate that by this age teenagers have a lot of control over
their impulses: They can sit still and focus on the task at hand. Students
prepare to launch into the “real” world during this time, and teachers
enjoy helping them get ready for this rite of passage. Bright students
in late high school can be very intellectually savvy and exciting to work
with, and they can see beyond their own horizons and appreciate the
perspective of others.
By the time teenagers graduate from high school, their brains have
developed into well-reasoning and semi-reliable entities and they are
ready to live without constant adult supervision and guidance, for the
most part. They are no longer in the constant grip of the adolescent
brain and they can function reasonably well in the adult world. Even the
most obstinate or oppositional teenage brain develops over time (excep-
THE PHENOMENON OF ADOLESCENCE 15

tions exist, of course), as the capacity for executive functioning, mood

regulation, and insight increases.

WHAT’S THE POINT: DO ADULTS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

If all this brain development is inevitable, do adults make a difference

in the lives of teenagers?
It would be a mistake to conclude from this new research on the teen-
age brain that teens are simply neurological events encased in changing
bodies. While it is true that certain aspects of neurological development
define the teenage experience, teenagers are more than the sum of their
cognitive parts, and therefore their developmental challenges should not
be viewed exclusively through the lens of neuroscience. To do so is to
reduce them to mere processes and functions, and we all know teens are
more than that. So, while science helps us to understand what’s going on
in the teen brain, it’s merely one way to understand adolescence.
While acknowledging the importance of science, we also must make
room for the importance of relationship, and specifically the relation-
ship between teens and adults in schools. One teacher, after hearing me
lecture about the teenage brain and sensing the inevitability of neuro-
logical development, asked, “Do we matter at all?”
This is a great question, perhaps the most important question I’ve
ever been asked. The answer, of course, is a resounding yes. Teachers
not only matter, they make all the difference in the world. The teenage
brain cannot grow in isolation; it needs to be challenged, cared for, dis-
ciplined, and taught. It needs everything from us, which is why it is so
important for us to understand the phenomenon of adolescence.
Teens need more from us than we, or they, can imagine, despite their
protests to the contrary (imagine our shark girls without the guidance of
adults). Teachers play a critical role in teenage development, and let’s
not forget it.

IT’S NOT MY JOB, OR IS IT?

It is so important for adults who work in the teenage world to under-

stand the ways in which teenagers affect us, because it is our job to help
16 CHAPTER 1

teenagers grow up, not just to learn math or science or French. I bet
not one teacher reading this book was questioned about this aspect of
the job during an interview. You probably were not asked about child
rearing or discipline or about the roles adults play in the lives of their
teenage students. And yet these may be the most critical aspects of our
work with teenagers, whether we understand them or not.
Knowing our subject area is only half of our job, and maybe not
even the most important half. We must also know the contents of our
teenage subjects—how their brains functions, how they affect each
other, and most importantly, how they affect us. Understanding these
things helps us immeasurably in our work. In fact, it makes the work
possible. If we don’t understand teenagers and our relationships with
them, we can’t really help them grow up and we aren’t really doing
our jobs.
Some teachers don’t think it should be our responsibility to help
teenagers grow up. This is what parents are for, they reason, and they
argue that to assume such responsibility is to overstep our bounds. I
understand this argument, and I’m not suggesting we assume parental
responsibilities with our students, but I am suggesting that it is our job
to get involved with our students beyond delivering our lesson plans.
Luckily, this happens naturally when teenagers get under our skins. The
truth is we can’t escape our relationship with students, and it is within
the context of these relationships that we help them grow up. So per-
haps the most important thing we can do to help our teenager students
is to recognize how they affect us.
This is why we matter so much—because we affect teenagers and
teenagers affect us—and this is what this book is about.

EXERCISES AND REFLECTIONS

To understand the phenomenon of adolescence, we must recognize the

ways teenagers affect each other and us. The following exercises are
designed to help us explore our relationship with our teenage students
and our work in the teenage world.
I suggest you consider each exercise on your own and then, if pos-
sible, share your thoughts with one or more colleagues. In my experi-
THE PHENOMENON OF ADOLESCENCE 17

ence, teachers can learn a lot from each other. I can guarantee that at
least one of your colleagues needs to hear what you have to say about
these issues, so please consider initiating a conversation with a fellow
educator as part of this process of exploration.

1. List three things you like about working with teenagers. Why? List
three things you don’t like. Why? Describe how you came to teach
adolescents.
2. The frontal lobe of the teenage brain is a work in progress. Cogni-
tive functions such as judgment, reasoning, impulse control, and
attention are not fully established until the mid-twenties. Describe
a situation with a student(s) that occurred recently in your class-
room (or at your school) that illustrates the lack of development of
one or more of these cognitive functions. What happened? What
was your reaction?
3. What are some of the major social trends among students at your
school? This could include fashion, political persuasions, clubs,
sports, etc. How do teens pressure each other at your school?
4. What standards of behavior have teenagers established for them-
selves and each other in your school community? What degree of
influence do adults have over teenagers at your school?
5. How are adults treated by teens in your school community? Do
you feel you get the respect you desire/deserve as an educator?
What balance exists between the adult and teenage worlds in your
school and who sets the tone?
6. A group of students is making noise in the hallway during a break
between classes. The group quickly gets loud and out of control.
You do not teach or know any of the students involved. How are
you expected to respond at your school? How do you respond?
7. You overhear a group of students bad-mouthing a fellow teacher.
What is your reaction? How are you expected to deal with a situa-
tion like this at your school?
8. Recall a time when you felt you lost control of a situation with
students. What happened? What aspect of the phenomenon of
adolescence affected you? In retrospect, does your response seem
appropriate, or can you think of a more effective response to the
situation?
18 CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Teenagers have a profound effect on those around them. Adults who

work in schools, or in the teenage world, should understand how the
phenomenon of adolescence operates in an effort to be effective in their
work with teenagers. Teenagers need adults to guide them as they make
sense of their changing worlds because their brains are still under con-
struction, therefore adults must recognize how they become affected in
their relationships with teens.

NOTES

1. Data presented by Abigail Baird, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology, Vassar

College, at Learning and the Brain Conference, Cambridge, MA, 2005. Conversation
reconstructed by author.
2. There is some debate about the attribution of this quote, however, many people
consider Mark Twain to be its author.
3. Freud used the term id to describe unconscious human drives, particularly sex
and aggression.
4. When I say this is a brief overview, I mean it. It’s brief, and therefore it should
not be considered comprehensive or authoritative. There are many books available for
educators on child and adolescent development, some of which I include in the refer-
ences section.
5. The term puberty describes the physical changes that take place during adoles-
cence.
 2

ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE:

WORKING IN THE TEENAGE WORLD

Adults who work in the teenage world are in a veritable hot zone of
the phenomenon of adolescence and there is no way to avoid get-
ting affected by it. In this chapter I use case studies to illustrate the
various ways this can happen, and to underscore that relationships
between adults and teenagers in schools are complicated, never
reciprocal, and provide valuable information to adults about their
own psychology.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION:

WORKING IN THE HOT ZONE

Most adults spend their days either with other adults or with their own
children. Not so with teachers. Teachers spend their days with interac-
tion limited to children and other people’s children, and many of these
children are teenagers. When you put it this way, the job of teaching
sounds almost crazy. Who would want to spend time with other people’s
teenagers? All day? Every day?
The next time you are with non-teacher adults, ask them if they
would willingly spend lots of time with other people’s teenagers. The
kindest response you will get is something along the lines of, “Oh, no. I

19
20 CHAPTER 2

could never do that, but thank goodness there are people like you in the
world.” It is more likely that your question will elicit eye rolling and a
response such as, “Are you kidding me? Not a chance. I can barely stand
my own teenagers.”
It is not, I repeat not, crazy to work with teenagers, and those of us
who love to teach know this. But the reaction of many adults to the pros-
pect of spending time with teens is evidence that the effect teenagers
have on others is real. Most adults want to avoid it at all cost. Thankfully,
teachers don’t, but we should be aware of what we’re getting into when
we agree to immerse ourselves in the teenage world.
If adolescence has an infectious quality to it, as I suggested in chap-
ter 1, then schools are the hot zones of the phenomenon. Adolescence
is in its most concentrated form in schools, especially the aspects
that involve herd mentality, imitation, peer pressure, and so on. As I
like to remind adults, school is a teenager’s whole life, as opposed to
just a place to go during the day. School is where teenagers socialize
with friends, fall in love, get their hearts broken, discover who they
are, connect to the world. School is where everything or practically
everything happens. As a result, the phenomenon of adolescence
permeates schools. Schools are veritable petri dishes swarming with
the adolescent fever.
This presents a challenge for those of us who work in schools. For
us, school is work, not life, or at least that’s what it’s supposed to be.
But to do our work we must enter a hot zone of feverish activity that
has little to do with us, except for the undeniable fact that it’s our job
to deal with it.

THE PARALLEL CURRICULUM

As I noted earlier, some of us resist the notion that it is our responsibility

to do anything more than teach and perform whatever other activities
we have agreed to contractually (go yearbook staff!). Why should we
worry about this other stuff, like how teenagers affect us? It’s not in our
job description. True that, as my students would say. But as any expe-
rienced teacher can attest, knowing one’s subject matter is not enough
when it comes to doing the job, and teaching content is only a small part
of what good educators do.
ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE 21

In order to be effective with teens, adults need to know all kinds of

things about the dynamic nature of adolescence, like how to calm down
the hysterical student who just had a fight with her best friend, how to
break up a fight in the hallway, or how to deal with the heartbreak of the
student who never gets picked as a lab partner. This is what I call the
parallel curriculum, and there’s one for students and adults alike.
For students, the parallel curriculum is the real work of adolescence.
It’s about growing up, discovering their voice, making sense of the
world, managing frustration, and accepting who they are. It is the work
of dealing with adolescence in its most florid state, and it can be brutal.
Given the developmental challenges on the teenage plate, it’s a wonder
they learn anything at all in the classroom.
For those who don’t remember adolescence and can’t recall the hor-
ror, let me remind you of how difficult it is to concentrate when you are
attracted to the person sitting next to you, or walk through a cafeteria
with perspiration stains on your shirt, or are left out of a social event.
Add to this the pain of making a mistake in front of your peers, which
is what teens risk every day in the classroom, and you can see how hard
this work really is.
What adults dismiss as petty annoyance, teenagers are held hostage
to, and their work, at times, is to simply survive the day. The parallel
curriculum is unavoidable. Teenagers can’t drop a course or advance to
the next level without going through all the phases of the curriculum,
many of them painful.
The parallel curriculum for adults begins with the recognition that
the parallel curriculum for students is real. It cannot be minimized, at
least not in the minds and brains of the teenagers themselves and there-
fore we shouldn’t minimize it either. We should take the phenomenon
of adolescence and the parallel curriculum seriously if we want to really
understand our students.
This is an awesome mandate—and who knew? How many of us were
advised of the parallel curriculum and this added responsibility before
entering the teaching profession? None that I know of. I know I wasn’t.
Lack of full disclosure notwithstanding, we must understand this re-
sponsibility if for no other reason than to do otherwise means to let our
colleagues and students down. The truth is someone has to help bring
down the fever of adolescence in schools because teenagers can’t do it
themselves. So, it’s up to the adults to do it, every single one of us.
22 CHAPTER 2

NOBODY IS IMMUNE

One common method of dealing with the vicissitudes of adolescence is

to deny its effect on us. I know of adults who believe they can slip in and
out of the teenage world every day and remain unmoved by the experi-
ence. Others imagine it is possible to pick and choose which aspects of
adolescence they deal with. I know this experience well. I have been
there myself.
Unfortunately, these methods of coping don’t work, but this doesn’t
stop most of us from employing them on occasion. I think denial is our
effort to imagine we have immunity to our teenage students; it is a com-
forting thought. But it’s a lie. None of us is immune.
What does this really mean, though? If none of us is immune from the
influence of our teenage students, then what does it look like when we
get affected, or infected, by them? Think of it this way: The phenom-
enon of adolescence has a viral quality to it and viruses penetrate bound-
aries. Viruses disregard the rules. They invade our space without our
knowledge or consent. Therefore, to be infected by adolescence means
to have our boundaries crossed and to have the teenage world enter our
own. It means being affected by the moods, energy, and general chaos
of the adolescent world. In sum, it means working with teenagers.

WHAT INFECTION LOOKS LIKE

Here’s an example I like to use to illustrate what infection looks like. But
before I continue, let me say that each of us reacts to teenagers differ-
ently. Every adult brings to the teaching profession his or her own set of
experiences and skills, and different resistances and vulnerabilities as a
result; therefore, one person’s heightened response is another person’s
indifference to the effect teenagers have on us.
Now, to the example. I was asked to consult with a middle school
where some troublesome behavior was occurring among a group of 7th
grade girls. The faculty and administration wanted advice on how to deal
with the situation, and so I met with all of the parties involved.
One girl was feeling very targeted by some classmates, a group con-
sidered the “mean” girls. She complained of being excluded and over-
hearing gossip about herself that included charges of sexual promiscuity.
ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE 23

She believed the “mean” girls were harassing her and, not surprisingly,
she wanted the harassment to stop.
The “mean” girls, meanwhile, were clear in their dislike of this girl.
This point was beyond dispute; they readily admitted they didn’t like
this girl. But beyond the admission that the “mean” girls didn’t like their
classmate, they didn’t admit to any of the other charges and no adult had
observed any of the bad behavior that was being reported by the victim
in question. This left the adults feeling helpless about how to right the
wrongs they believed were being perpetrated.
The adults tried the standard approaches of intervention: They talked
to the “perpetrators” and explained to them that their behavior was
wrong (even though they couldn’t really pinpoint the behavior); they
had a class discussion about bullying; and they even contacted all of the
parents in the 7th grade to inform them of the behavior.
Okay, so far we have a typical middle school scenario, one that plays
out daily in schools across the country. Except for one thing. Some of
the faculty in this case, all experienced, dedicated, thoughtful teachers,
were calling for an expulsion from school of the “mean” girls. Without
one shred of evidence of rule breaking or bad behavior, they wanted to
see these girls expelled from school. One teacher even said she thought
the girls should face legal charges of harassment.
Now, how is this an example of infection by adolescence? On the face
of it, the behavior in question among the girls was mild. In fact, I would
not have termed it bullying myself, however, that’s how the school
labeled it. To me it was typical unpleasant, middle school behavior (be-
lieve me, I have seen horrible bullying behavior and this was not it). All
of the kids involved were good kids, all of them.
What was happening among the students was a poignant example of
what happens in the misfiring, not-fully-developed teenage brain as it
tries to navigate social situations. True, feelings were getting hurt, peo-
ple were being excluded, and no one was winning congeniality awards,
not even the targeted girl, but the behavior was typical and mild (which
is not to say that it should have been ignored; something needed to be
done especially to support the girl who was being targeted).
However, what was happening among the adults was anything but
mild. It was seething. It was nasty. It was totally irrational. In a word, it
was adolescent. I heard middle-aged adults call for the public humili-
ation of twelve-year-old girls. I saw adults literally shake their fists at
24 CHAPTER 2

colleagues who disagreed with their view of the situation. I heard ru-
mors and gossip and witnessed backbiting comments, all in the name
of protecting students. Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, I heard
adults say things about students that were far worse than the alleged
comments that got the ball rolling in the first place.
This is what it looks like to get caught in the grip of the phenomenon
of adolescence, and in this case the grip was pretty tight. The adults in
question were behaving in the exact same way as their students; in fact
their behavior was much more problematic because presumably their
brains were fully developed. But before I shake my fist too strongly at
these teachers, let me underscore that this happens to all of us at times
in the teenage world. All of us.
What happened to these teachers was not their fault, per se, but it
was their responsibility to understand what was going on and to extri-
cate themselves from the situation. This is what all of us must do in our
work with teenagers. When we are drawn into the teenage drama, we
must recognize the drama for what it is and evaluate our role in the
play. This case illustrates that sometimes it’s hard to step back from a
feverish situation and make sense of the circumstances in the moment,
and sometimes we act before we think and render judgment too quickly.
This is how the teenage brain behaves, and when we’re immersed in the
teenage world sometimes our brains respond in kind.
How did this happen in this particular instance? How did these good
and well-intentioned teachers get so caught up in the situation?
First, all of the adults felt troubled by the alleged behavior. It was
clear the targeted student was in pain. Her emotional response to the
situation was typical for her age: She was weepy and sullen, even raw.
She broke down in front of a number of teachers, and so various adults
witnessed in person the pain she suffered. Remember, if you will, that
the threat of social exclusion is the scariest event for a girl this age, so
this experience was excruciating for the targeted girl. The teachers natu-
rally felt sympathy for her and responded to her subjective experience of
exclusion and pain, which was valid. But because of their strong feelings
of sympathy, they overlooked the broader situation, which had many
different story lines and which was equally valid.
Second, this was a school that prided itself on the behavior of its
students. The school saw itself as having only “good kids.” The margin
of error for student behavior was small as a result, so even run-of-the-
ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE 25

mill adolescent misbehavior stood out. For their part, teachers were
not used to dealing with the darker side of the adolescent psyche; they
tended to not see this as part of their job because, in their minds, their
students were “good.” This attitude is common. All schools want to
see themselves as having good kids, and for the most part all schools
do have good kids, just as this one did. But even good teenagers have
brains that misfire, and we must allow for this reality. More important,
we must allow for the reality that sometimes we get swept up in the
teenage drama, and when we do it’s harder for us to evaluate the situ-
ation on its merits.
Third, my guess is that many of the teachers involved gauged their
own performance in part on their students’ behavior, and therefore
when their students’ behavior didn’t conform to their expectations, they
saw this as a reflection of their worthiness as teachers. In their minds,
good students equaled good teachers, and vice versa, and therefore they
took “bad” student behavior personally. They also felt frustrated and
helpless, something we all fall prey to in our work, especially when we
see our students suffer and we can’t seem to fix the situation. The teach-
ers in this case experienced many of the same emotions the targeted
student felt, which is precisely my point. Once these feelings overtook
them, they viewed the situation personally and lost their perspective.
Fourth, on a personal level, a number of these teachers were quick
to identify themselves with the targeted student. They felt marginalized
in their lives for various reasons, and as a result, it took them longer to
separate their own experiences from those of their students, at least
in this case. Their personal vulnerabilities meshed well with what was
happening among the students, and therefore they identified with the
situation as it played out.
All of the teachers in this situation were committed to doing their
best but some of them were caught up in the heightened emotions of
the moment. They saw the situation through one student’s eyes and lost
sight of the larger perspective. Their impassioned responses stemmed
also from legitimate but unrelated experiences of their own, many of
which had roots reaching down to their own middle school experiences.
As these adults called for the excoriation and expulsion of the twelve-
year-old girls, they were exorcising their own demons.
This is how we can get caught up in the adolescent whirlwind. Cir-
cumstances conspire to create situations wherein we have difficulty
26 CHAPTER 2

separating our own inner experiences from the matter at hand. In this
case, the adults matched their students’ emotionality and drama, point
for point. They took sides, saw things as black or white, and had trouble
acknowledging the larger picture. A small flame, sparked by a few girls,
exploded into a conflagration among faculty that threatened to scorch
the earth. Ironically, in the midst of the turmoil, the adults lost sight of
the fact that their students, all of them, really were good kids, just as
they wanted them to be. But the brains of good teenagers are still under
construction and this sort of nasty behavior is one of the results.

ADOLESCENCE IS SORT OF LIKE A VIRUS

It would be easy to judge the above-mentioned teachers’ behavior as

being overwrought, but that would be a mistake. Their feelings and re-
actions to the situation were real, and yet those emotions threatened to
overtake the moment and cause everyone to lose sight of the students’
needs. A more helpful approach is to consider the situation in light of
the viral metaphor. In this case, the phenomenon of adolescence be-
haved sort of like a virus. The feverish intensity and contagious nature of
the adolescent drama infected the teachers. Given this particular school
and these particular adults, infection was inevitable. It’s worth repeating
that it wasn’t the adults’ fault they got so exercised in the moment, but
it was their responsibility to do something about it. It was their job to
contain the situation.
The thing I love about using the viral metaphor to explain the dy-
namics between teenagers and the adults who work with them is that it
normalizes the kinds of things that happen all the time in schools, and
it gets us off the hook from feeling guilty, and thus paralyzed, when we
make mistakes. If we work in the teenage world, we all are infected and
caught off guard at times by the adolescent fever, just like these adults
were. (For the record, not all of the adults involved in this case reacted
with such intensity. For some of them, this situation wasn’t charged, and
so they weren’t thrown off course. Nevertheless, they were in a hot zone
and still had to deal with the situation.)
The viral metaphor also provides a conceptual framework for what
happens in the moment. The simple act of identifying the process
can be a powerful form of containment. Adults who understand the
ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE 27

nature of adolescence, and how it affects adults and their particular

vulnerability to the teenage fever, are able to get perspective quickly,
which serves to reduce the fever immediately. Again, while none of
us is immune from being affected by our relationship with teenagers,
each of us is responsible for making sense of the dynamic and getting
ourselves back on track.
The adults in this scenario needed to look at their own reactions be-
fore they could be helpful to their students. They needed to figure out
what was pushing their buttons and determine how they were contrib-
uting to the situation. They needed to exercise the cognitive functions
that their students couldn’t yet employ (at least not on a regular basis),
namely impulse control, reasoning, empathy, and good judgment.
In essence, they needed to understand that they had been infected
by the feverish nature of adolescence; acknowledge that their personal
reactions were contributing to the situation and to the functioning of the
group as a whole; and take care of themselves.
This is the work of the parallel curriculum, and it can be difficult.

YOU’LL NEVER NEED THERAPY AGAIN

When I address new teachers about working with teenagers, I tell them
that their students can identify their vulnerabilities faster than the speed
of light. They can target their feelings of insecurity, weakness, and fear
almost instantly. This is what it means to be affected by the phenom-
enon of adolescence in the teenage world.
I give this talk only to adults who have had the chance to experience
what I’m talking about. Saying this to someone who hadn’t yet worked
with teenagers would be daunting, I think, and it could turn him or her
off teaching. But to adults with even a few weeks of experience working
with teens, these statements are met with nods of recognition.
These folks know that teenagers, especially groups of teens, push
buttons. I tell new teachers if they’re interested in getting in touch with
their deepest fears and phobias, teaching teens is the profession for
them. They’ll never again have to rely on a therapist to unearth their
“issues.” Their students will take care of that for them, free of charge.
(Of course, once these issues are unearthed they may need a therapist,
but that’s another matter.)
28 CHAPTER 2

New teachers sometimes ask me when they can expect to be finished

with all this business. The answer is never, really. As the previous ex-
ample illustrates teachers at any stage of development are drawn into
the teenage drama. As we grow into ourselves as professionals, we learn
how to manage the adolescent fever and our reactions to it better but we
never reach a point of completion. This is good news for all of us, though,
because it means we must stay engaged and aware in our relationships
with our students. As we do, we also continue to progress on our personal
learning curve long after we’ve mastered the pedagogical one.
The parallel curriculum for adults, then, has a developmental quality
to it, just like the one for students. New teachers have different vulner-
abilities than experienced teachers but, again, every adult is unique.
The following are more examples of how adults get affected in their
work with teenagers and what our own parallel curriculum consists of.

The Case of Alex

Alex was a relatively young, new teacher and a freshly minted Ph.D.
who hadn’t spent any time out of school herself. She was an instant hit in
the classroom, in part because she had lots of experience teaching from
her graduate school days. She was also conscientious, hard working, and
responsive, and parents and colleagues alike told the administration how
pleased they were with this new hire.
Alex was assigned to chaperone the first school dance and when she
asked her colleagues what to expect, she was given little guidance about
her role. As a result, when she was invited to dance by one of her stu-
dents she didn’t know what to do and so, caught off guard, she said yes.
Soon a group of students had circled around and were encouraging her
to continue dancing. The students were not making fun of Alex. They
saw her as young and cool and much more interesting than their other
teachers. Everyone was having a good time, Alex included.
That first chaperone experience was followed by the homecoming
dance, then the semi-formal, then the spring fling, and Alex was still
dancing. The students had designated songs that were hers and a ritual
developed around Alex and her participation in these events. It should
be noted that at no time did Alex receive any feedback or advice from
her fellow chaperones. The phenomenon of adolescence was left to
flourish on everyone’s watch, and Alex got caught in the crossfire.
ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE 29

For Alex, school dances started to be important. The first one left her
feeling validated and accepted, things she hadn’t felt during high school.
By paying attention to her, Alex’s students provided her with an experi-
ence she’d never had before, and so slowly, over the course of time, Alex
no longer participated in the dances as a chaperone. After a while, she
was there as a glorified student.
Alex had not set out to become the focus of attention at the dances.
Nor had she gone into teaching, at least not consciously, in an effort
to have reparative experiences. But that’s what happened. Alex’s situ-
ation is very common for new teachers, especially young teachers who
are closer in age to their students than to most of their colleagues. It
can feel intoxicating to receive so much attention, and when students
provide positive feedback about certain behaviors, we are vulnerable to
repeat these behaviors. If no one is there to help give direction in the
situation, young or inexperienced teachers are apt to absorb the drama,
just as Alex did.
In this situation, Alex needed the help of an experienced adult to
extricate her from the situation, and then to discuss with her how to
avoid similar dilemmas in the future. Alex’s popularity and appeal
were not going to wane just because she stopped dancing. In fact, now
that she had set a precedent, the pressure on her from students to join
in with them was probably going to increase. Alex was on a slippery
slope, and a seasoned adult within the community needed to help her
develop a strategy to stay connected to her students without putting
herself on the line.
Common signs of getting caught in the snare of adolescence are the
potent feelings adults experience at the hands of their students, like in-
toxication as a result of inclusion, or devastation as a result of exclusion.
There is nothing more powerful than being on the inside of a system
that values inclusion above all else, as was true in Alex’s case. On the
other hand, there is nothing worse than being made to feel invisible.
This is Dave’s story.

The Case of Dave

Dave had taught at the same school for decades and, for many years,
he was beloved by his students. He was elected to speak at graduation
twice and had the yearbook dedicated to him a number of times. He
30 CHAPTER 2

was very popular, and he loved it. But as he got older, Dave noticed a
change in his relationship to his students. Few clustered around his desk
after class anymore. Fewer still elected him to advise clubs or mentor
their independent projects. As time passed, Dave remained an effective
teacher in the classroom but he couldn’t help notice how outdated he
felt. While it was true that he was still liked by his students, his time as
the chosen one was over.
Dave took this change in status hard. It felt like he got kicked out of
the popular group, which is kind of what happened. Without a certain
type of recognition from his students, Dave felt deflated and depressed.
He’d never realized how much he depended on their approbation to
bolster his feelings of self-worth as a teacher and as a person, and with-
out it he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep teaching.
After years of being in the “in” crowd, Dave was feeling the effects of
exclusion. He’d been dumped and he knew it. Unfortunately for Dave,
the power of adolescent adoration had kept him going, so much so that
he’d never had to consider what other aspects of his job gave him mean-
ing and satisfaction. When he got the boot from his students, he felt
helpless and lost, just like teenagers do much of the time.
An astute administrator could have helped Dave deal with his dilem-
mas; he needed guidance from someone in a position to lend perspec-
tive to his situation. An experienced administrator could have antici-
pated his needs, as his scenario exemplifies a common challenge faced
by seasoned teachers, particularly the popular ones. Dave needed help
to deal with his changing role vis-à-vis his students as he grew older, and
he needed to find ways to stay invested in his work now that he wasn’t
the flavor of the month.
As it happened, neither Alex nor Dave got direct help from their
communities. Alex got lucky instead and gradually lost interest in the
attention her students gave her as she started to integrate more with her
colleagues, and dances then became a time to socialize with them and
not with students. As she affiliated more with colleagues, her students
saw her more as an adult than as one of them and they went searching
for another teacher to anoint.
But Dave didn’t fare so well. He became less interested in his teach-
ing as his students became less interested in him, and he basically pe-
tered out and felt bitter and unsupported at the end of his career. Dur-
ing his last few years of teaching, Dave simply divested himself. He went
through the motions but his spark as a teacher was gone. His students
ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE 31

weren’t harmed by his behavior, but they weren’t helped either, and the
school lost the efforts of a talented teacher long before he retired.

WHEN ADULTS LOOK TO TEENS TO GET

THEIR NEEDS MET

Looking to students for affirmation, like Alex and Dave did, is an oc-
cupational hazard of working in the teenage world. The thrill of being
included by teens can be positively intoxicating and, if left unchecked,
can wreak havoc.
I don’t know one teacher who doesn’t want to be liked by students,
so I believe all of us are at risk in this regard. The popularity that plays
such an important role among students often spills over into the adult
community, and Alex and Dave, for example, were highly susceptible
to its allure. Fortunately, no damage was done to students in either
scenario, despite the blurring of boundaries, particularly in Alex’s case.
(Although you could argue that Dave’s students were hurt because he
became less invested in his work as he approached retirement.) Some-
times, however, we aren’t so lucky and the allure of the situation takes
over, and when this happens both student and teacher alike may suffer
considerable harm.

The Case of Peter

Peter was not a popular teacher in the conventional sense. He did his
job well, though, and he was liked by his students. He stayed below the
radar screen, for the most part, until he met Jill, a senior in his English
seminar. Jill was drawn to Peter’s sense of humor and intellectual prow-
ess and Peter felt flattered. Jill wrote entries to him in her class journal
and Peter often wrote lengthy comments in response.
Peter began to look forward to Jill’s notes and felt excited when her
writing became more personal and confessional. Jill wrote of her hopes
and fears about college, her ambivalence about her boyfriend, and fi-
nally about her growing attachment to Peter. Peter responded in kind
and confessed that he, too, was growing attached.
Peter knew his growing feelings for Jill were not appropriate but he
also didn’t want to stop the flow of the attention he was getting. He
rationalized his behavior by reasoning that he didn’t want to hurt Jill
or make her feel awkward by pulling away. He convinced himself that
32 CHAPTER 2

his flirtation was harmless and that any change in his behavior would
be ill advised.
Then Jill’s mother found Jill’s journal, and Peter was out of a job.
I offer the example of Peter as a cautionary tale. Peter was not a pe-
dophile, he did not have a pattern of preying on his female students, and
he felt deeply sorry for his behavior. He was an ordinary teacher whose
vulnerabilities were no greater than any other adult’s. He got seduced
not by Jill, per se, but by the allure of the attention and affirmation he
received from her.
For the record, I believe it is always the adult’s responsibility to
contain circumstances like this. Jill could have come to class naked and
still it would have been Peter’s responsibility to contain the situation.
To suggest a child can seduce a teacher is to assign responsibility for
the situation to the child, which is never appropriate. Teachers can be
seduced, of course, but it is by our own vulnerabilities that we are se-
duced, not by our actual students. All of us have weaknesses and needs
that may emerge in the course of our work, and sometimes we don’t
even know they’re there. Peter didn’t know he had them and this is why
it’s so important for us to think about these things—not because we will
do exactly what Peter did, but because we will do something.
Peter was trying to get legitimate needs met in illegitimate ways. He
was lonely. He and his students were vulnerable because he wasn’t get-
ting his emotional needs met elsewhere, and this increased his suscepti-
bility to crossing over the line. Peter’s loneliness wasn’t caused by teach-
ing but it was exacerbated by it, and given the nature of his transgression
no other teacher could have seen it coming. He wasn’t like Alex, dancing
in public for everyone to see. When we start feeling lonely or isolated in
our work in the teenage world, as Peter did, we should talk to someone
about it immediately. Had Peter known to do this he could have saved
himself, his students, and his school a lot of heartache.

THEY DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOU

The heightened emotionality and drama of the teenage world throws

adults off balance and sometimes it gets us into trouble. Peter learned
this lesson the hard way, and fortunately his behavior didn’t transgress
a physical boundary. Peter was lucky that Jill’s mother intervened when
she did otherwise the scenario might have become very dangerous.
ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE 33

Sadly, Peter could have avoided this trouble if he’d understood the most
essential creed of the teenage world: They really don’t care about you.
It is compelling to think our students care about us as people but
the truth is, they don’t. Teachers always fight me on this point. They
offer countless examples of students asking them questions about their
personal lives, etc., as proof that their students are interested in them as
people. This is how I respond: The next time a student asks you some-
thing about yourself, assuming that it is not too personal or provocative,
respond truthfully. You might even throw in an inane tidbit or two about
your life. Then get out your stopwatch, start the timer, and see how long
it takes for your student’s eyes to glaze over as you respond.
The fact is, students are interested in us to the extent in which we are
interested in them. They lose interest in us quickly when our interest
shifts to ourselves, as you will witness if you conduct this experiment.
This is due, in part, to the natural self-absorption of the average teen
but also to the fact that it’s not their job to be interested in us. We don’t
really exist for them as people beyond the roles we play in their lives,
and that’s how it should be.
Peter might have responded differently to Jill if someone had ex-
plained this to him. (Admittedly, there are some teachers for whom
this caution isn’t sufficient. When teachers transgress boundaries
constantly and when those transgressions are egregious, that’s about
the teacher, not the phenomenon of adolescence. I will return to this
point in chapter 6.)
Alex, Dave, and Peter all got affected by the feverish attraction of
adolescence because they thought the situation was about them and not
their students. Alex wanted to believe she was as cool as her students
thought she was. She succumbed to the conceit that she was special
because she was more hip and fun than other teachers. Dave wanted to
believe he was the best teacher in the school. He believed his popular-
ity emanated from him and not from his students. Peter wanted to feel
special, important, and attractive. He thought his relationship with Jill
was appropriate and reciprocal.

THE MYTH OF RECIPROCITY

If we follow the point about our students’ disinterest in us to its logical

conclusion, we are left with the realization that there is no reciprocity in
34 CHAPTER 2

our relationships with students, and that reciprocity between students

and teachers is a myth. I sometimes get pushback on this point from
adults, so let me explain.
Some school communities and teaching philosophies deemphasize
the power differential between teacher and student. This is fine; there’s
nothing categorically wrong with this. But deemphasizing and denying
are different things. When the inherent differences between the roles
of adult and student are denied, everyone is affected and the adolescent
perspective can take over.
Adults are in charge in schools. Adults have the power to evaluate and
discipline students and these two responsibilities create an inevitable
and important power differential. Alex and Peter especially would have
done well to remember this during their respective interactions with
students. They could have used this as an antidote to resist the allure of
their respective situations.

THE GOOD NEWS:

ADOLESCENCE ISN’T DEADLY (USUALLY)

We all have to understand how we respond to the phenomenon of ado-

lescence because we all get affected by it, and our teenage students,
in one way or another. Our situation may look different than Alex’s or
Dave’s or Peter’s but that’s no reason to feel complacent. The good
news, however, is that the effects of adolescence aren’t deadly, usually.
Rarely does a teacher succumb completely to the infection.
So, we can be infected through our working in the teenage world
and the prognosis can be good, but only if we recognize what’s going on
and deal with the fever when it hits. The prognosis is not so good if we
ignore what’s going on and allow our fever to increase, like Peter did.

WHEN SCHOOLS GET AFFECTED BY ADOLESCENCE

The phenomenon of adolescence affects school communities as read-

ily as it does individual teachers. An affected community can be hard
to recognize from within because the resulting atmosphere can seem
normal if the effect is widespread. Therefore, all of us in the adult
community should be on the lookout for the following telltale signs of
school-wide infection.
ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE 35

First, chances are good that adolescence has a grip on the community
when adults gossip about other adults and/or students, for example,
when teachers use their lunch hour to discuss the social lives of students.
Also, when communication among adults is unclear, goes underground,
or is mostly negative, then school communities are at risk of behaving
just like their teenage students.
Second, when the popularity of teachers becomes a valuable cur-
rency, you’ve got trouble. Some teachers will always be better liked
than others; this is inevitable. But when cults of personality are left
unchecked, or when cult-like devotion to teachers is considered par for
the course, that’s a sure sign that the standards of adolescence and not
adulthood predominate within the school culture.
Third, when there is ongoing difficulty between faculty and administra-
tion, an adolescent attitude can be the cause. An “us vs. them” mentality
is very telling, as is an atmosphere where teachers routinely and/or openly
side with students without first trying to understand the administrative
position. Inevitably, when adults don’t support each other there’s a prob-
lem. This aspect of adolescent behavior is most potent when adults gossip
with students about other teachers, administrators, or school policies.
Fourth, when clear expectations for adult behavior are not estab-
lished and reinforced, the community is vulnerable. When adults do not
like or respect one another or the administration, or when they see their
connections to each other as unimportant, risk of starting to behave just
like teenagers is high.
Each school is different and therefore the phenomenon of adoles-
cence will play out differently within every community, just as it does
with individuals. But some things remain constant about infection and
are clear indicators that the adolescent mindset has taken over: a feel-
ing of chaos, a high degree of reactivity or impulsivity, poor judgment,
and inconsistent decision-making within the adult population. Evidence
of any of these things points to infection and should be addressed im-
mediately to provide containment. (See chapter 6 for a more detailed
discussion of community-wide responses to adolescence.)

THE EVEN BETTER NEWS

Working in the hot zone is challenging and it takes patience but, as

all teachers know, challenge and patience are essential for growth and
36 CHAPTER 2

mastery. Understanding ourselves is the mandate of the parallel cur-

riculum, and I believe this is a gift. Most professionals can survive with-
out ever having to explore themselves. Adults who work in the teenage
world cannot afford this luxury. It might seem like an inconvenience to
understand ourselves but we should never confuse convenience with
satisfaction. The satisfaction we get from recognizing our vulnerabilities
and fostering our strengths is the best course of treatment for working
in the teenage world, and the personal payoffs are huge, a point I will
return to in the next chapter.
When we understand how teenagers and their adolescent brains af-
fect us in our work we can better understand ourselves, and the knowl-
edge we gain in the process pays incalculable dividends in our work in
the teenage world. It also helps us survive when we get caught in the
teenage maelstrom.

EXERCISES AND REFLECTIONS

1. What were some of your biggest challenges as a middle and high

school student? (Academics? Social life? Athletics? Extracurricu-
lar activities?) In what areas of your life did you feel confident or
unconfident?
2. Consider a challenge you faced or one area in which you felt un-
confident as a teenager and consider how this might affect your
current work with students. Consider, also, how your experiences
of confidence might affect your work. (For example, if you were
very studious as a teen, you might favor such students.)
3. Why did you become a teacher? What expectations did you have
about the profession? Which expectations have been met and
which haven’t? How satisfied are you with your work?
4. What kinds of teachers did you have as a teenager? Did you have
any role models from your past that inform your current work with
teenagers?
5. Why do you choose to work with adolescents? What experience
did you have working with teens prior to becoming a teacher?
How much training did you receive in adolescent development,
group dynamics, or classroom management before you started
working in the teenage world? What preparation did you receive
ADULTS IN THE HOT ZONE 37

for dealing with the phenomenon of adolescence, and how well

does it serve you?
6. Consider a time when you felt affected by your students. This
might include situations in which you were swept up in their emo-
tions or drama, or felt reactive in a heated situation. What did you
do in the situation? Did you discuss the situation with a colleague
or seek support or guidance?
7. When have you transgressed a boundary with a student? Trans-
gression takes various forms, some of which were discussed
throughout this chapter. A transgression might take the following
forms: treating students differently or specially; sharing unneces-
sary or personal information with students; or ignoring troubling
behavior. (This may not seem like a boundary transgression but it
is. When teachers ignore student behavior it means students are
allowed to continue with their boundary transgressions.) What
happened when you transgressed the boundary? How did your
student react? How did other adults in your school community
react? What would you do differently in the future to prevent the
transgression?
8. Consider a situation in which a colleague got caught up in the
teenage firestorm. What happened? Why do you think they got
affected as they did? How was the situation handled? What would
you have done in this situation?
9. If Alex, Dave, or Peter were your colleagues and came to you for
advice, how would you respond to their situations? How do you
think you would respond if you were in their shoes?

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Adults who work in the teenage world exist in the hot zone of the phe-
nomenon of adolescence and invariably it affects them. This means
teenagers affect adults and adult behavior in schools, as the case studies
in this chapter suggest. Adults are vulnerable to the behavior of teenag-
ers for various reasons, such as when they look to get their own needs
met by the teenagers they work with. Adults can use their relationship
with teens to better understand themselves, which in turn helps them
be more effective in their work in the teenage world.
 3

THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS

Adults who work in the teenage world must practice seven grown-up
skills to deal effectively with the phenomenon of adolescence. When
we practice these skills our behavior is grown-up and when we don’t
practice them our behavior is grown-older. Throughout the chapter
I explore the distinctions between grown-up and grown-older be-
havior and suggest that we all should practice the seven grown-up
skills if we want to have healthy relationships with our students.

PROTECTING OURSELVES FROM THE PHENOMENON

OF ADOLESCENCE

Those of us who work in the hot zone of the teenage world can protect
ourselves from the affects of adolescence by practicing seven skills that
serve to distinguish our behavior from that of our teenage students.
When we practice the seven grown-up skills, as I call them, we behave
differently than teenagers do. We behave like grown-ups. When we
don’t practice these skills we behave more like teenagers themselves.
We behave like grown-olders, as I like to say.
The seven grown-up skills serve adults and our teenage students be-
cause these skills help us manage the developing teenage brain. Without
these skills, we are at the mercy of the teenage experience, which is not
where we want to be, believe me.
39
40 CHAPTER 3

The seven grown-up skills are:

1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Control/Self-Mastery
3. Good Judgment
4. The Ability to Deal with Conflict
5. Self-Transcendence, or the Ability to Get Over Yourself
6. The Ability to Maintain Boundaries
7. The Capacity for Life-Long Learning

The seven grown-up skills increase our ability to deal effectively with
our teenage students, and when we practice them we bounce back
quicker from mistakes, are better at our work, and are much happier at
our jobs than when we don’t.

WHAT IS A GROWN-UP?

Let’s pause for a moment to ask an important question: What is a grown-

up, anyway?1 Well, grown-up is a hard term to define. Grown-ups are
many things, really, and no two grown-ups look alike. Therefore I will
begin by considering what a grown-up is not.

WHAT A GROWN-UP IS NOT

It’s Not About Age

First, being grown-up is not about age. Age has something to do
with it, of course, as our understanding of brain development suggests.
Teenagers, for example, behave like grown-ups at times but that doesn’t
mean that they are grown-up, regardless of how mature they seem. And
while teenagers sometimes act like grown-ups, adults sometimes act like
teens, so age is no guarantee of being grown-up.

It’s Not a Destination

Second, being grown-up is not the end-point of a developmental
phase, it’s a process that continues throughout adulthood. Psychological
maturity does not occur in a linear fashion, nor does it proceed along a
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 41

clear trajectory. It unfolds differently for each of us, and there are ups
and downs along the way.

It’s Not Inevitable

Third, being grown-up is not inevitable. We have a choice about
whether we practice grown-up skills. Not everyone chooses to grow up.
Some folks just grow older.

BEING GROWN-UP IS A SKILL

Given this issue of intention, it is helpful to think of being grown-up as a

skill, or set of skills, that adults acquire through understanding, practice,
and patience. Growing up can be understood, then, as a process of ac-
quiring skills, and grown-up as the state of being in which adults exhibit
these skills, behaviors, and attitudes. According to this schema, the world
isn’t divided between adults who have reached a state of psychological
maturity and those who have not, but rather between adults who prac-
tice grown-up skills regularly and those who don’t. I think this is a more
generous distinction because it implies we can all act like grown-ups if
we want to, which is true, for the most part. It also keeps us accountable
in our work with teenagers because if being grown-up is about intention,
then there’s no excuse for us not to practice grown-up skills.

WHY GROWN-UP SKILLS MATTER

Grown-up skills distinguish adults from adolescents in the teenage world,

and therefore the practice of grown-up skills is critical to our success in
our work with teenagers, simply critical. If we didn’t need to be differ-
ent from our students, then older kids could just teach younger kids, or
smarter kids could teach less smart kids—students wouldn’t need adults
at all. But we know this wouldn’t work. Why? Because teenagers need
something more from us than just our content knowledge. Teenagers
need us to not only know more than they do, they need us to be more
than they are, and this is where the seven grown-up skills come into
play. These skills separate the adult wheat from the adolescent chaff, so
to speak, and when we practice and master these skills we ensure that
our world and the teenage world remain healthy and distinct.
42 CHAPTER 3

THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS

The following are explanations of each of the seven grown-up skills,

along with case studies of each skill being practiced, or not being prac-
ticed, as the case may be. Please note that the best way to make use of
these concepts is to try them on for size—see how they apply to your
own experience. The purpose of thinking about these skills is to improve
our work with students, and hopefully to understand ourselves better. I
therefore suggest you take time to reflect upon your own strengths and
challenges in relation to each skill, and consider how each skill comes
into play in your work in the teenage world.
Rest assured, we all face challenges with every skill at some point dur-
ing our careers. No one is perfect, and no one practices the grown-up
skills perfectly everyday. But we all must think about our behavior with
our students, and I believe the seven grown-up skills help us to clarify
our responsibilities in this important aspect of our work with teenagers.

Skill 1: Self-Awareness
The first grown-up skill is self-awareness. When we practice the skill
of self-awareness we step back and take an objective look at ourselves.
This capacity for reflection is the foundation of true psychological ma-
turity. Without this skill, we can’t receive or understand feedback or
criticism, or make use of it. The skill of self-awareness leads to psycho-
logical perspective and, by extension, to insight. Without it, we can’t see
beyond our own psychological trees, and this is a real liability for those
of us who work with teenagers.
The following are some questions we can ask ourselves to encourage
self-exploration and guide us to increased self-awareness:

1. How do we come across to others? How closely does our self-

perception match the perception others have of us?
2. What are our positive and negative traits? How do we accept feed-
back on these traits, especially the ones we don’t like?
3. Do we apply the same standards to ourselves as to others? Do we
let ourselves off the hook for behavior we expect others to exhibit?
Conversely, do we let others off the hook and demand more of
ourselves than is reasonable?
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 43

4. What drives our behavior? What are our primary motivations, es-
pecially in regards to our work?
5. What are our core values and beliefs?
6. How do we understand our internal dialogue, or the conversation
we have with ourselves in our head? What are some of the repeat-
ing narratives we tell ourselves, and are these narratives useful?
7. Can we identify when we are having strong feelings, and can we
identify what these feelings are?

The answers to these questions can help us understand who we are,

why we do what we do, and what really matters to us. The answers can
also help us in our work with teenagers. Remember, teenagers don’t
know who they are yet; they’re just beginning to ask themselves these
questions. The more facility we have with asking these questions the
more we can help teens in their own process of self-discovery, and this
will come in handy when they get caught up in their adolescent chaos,
as well as when this chaos affects us.

The Case of Heather

Heather, an experienced fine arts teacher, was like many of us in that
she didn’t know she should ask herself these questions, especially the
ones about feedback and how she came across to others. She frequently
made ill-advised comments to students that inevitably worked their
way back to her supervisor, and whenever she was asked to explain her
comments or her motivation for making them, she was unable to do so.
Heather did not practice the skill of self-awareness and subsequently
she didn’t understand herself or her behavior very well.
For example, once, in her sincere desire to inquire about a student’s
health, Heather asked her student publicly about her treatment
for anorexia. Her student felt humiliated by Heather’s inquiry, and
when she hesitated to respond to Heather’s request for information,
Heather continued along the same lines of questioning. Heather not
only didn’t understand what she was doing, she also didn’t understand
how her behavior affected her student, and naturally this came to her
supervisor’s attention.
Because she was bright, Heather could recall the specifics of what she
had said, but because she did not practice the skill of self-awareness,
44 CHAPTER 3

she was unable to understand her motivation for making her comments
or why someone else might perceive her comments differently than
she did. Heather’s interest in her student’s health was justified but her
method of inquiry indicated that she lacked a recognition of the sensitiv-
ity of the situation.
Over time, Heather was not able to make use of the feedback she
received from her supervisor and both of them became frustrated, but
for different reasons. Heather, for her part, made sure to never make
the same comment twice, but because she never understood why these
comments were inappropriate, she continued to make mistakes, saying
the wrong thing at the wrong time. Her supervisor, on the other hand,
felt an increasing disturbance at Heather’s lack of self-awareness in the
face of repeated incidents and conversations. Despite her best efforts,
one year Heather’s contract was not renewed and, sadly, she didn’t see
it coming. Without the ability to see herself as others saw her, Heather
was unable to understand what had happened.
Heather’s situation illustrates an important point about this grown-
up skill, and perhaps about all of them. Practicing grown-up skills is
not correlated with intelligence, for the most part. Ironically, intelli-
gence can hinder the practice of grown-up skills because smart people
can often think themselves right out of their problems (only to have
them resurface later, of course). This is what happened with Heather.
She was bright and well-educated but she was unaware of her own
psychological process.
Like Heather, all of us have our blindspots when it comes to under-
standing ourselves. We may have clear vision in one area only to be
clouded in another, which is why we need trusted colleagues and men-
tors to help us see ourselves objectively. This process can sting, but if
we start with the assumption that none of us is perfect, then hopefully
we can accept the need to regularly scrutinize ourselves. We always
have something more to learn about ourselves—we never conquer this
mountain—so we should embrace this process if we can.
Perhaps Heather didn’t embrace this process because she feared she
would learn something horrible about herself. Or maybe she didn’t want
to appear like she didn’t have all the answers. Many of us have these
fears, but we must resist them. Had Heather looked at herself she would
have discovered that her behavior was neither unethical nor unforgiv-
able, it was just consistent. Heather was no different than the rest of us,
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 45

specifics aside. We all have our lessons to learn, and we can’t have all the
answers. We’re just supposed to commit to the process of self-discovery
and keep showing up.
In the end, self-awareness is an essential skill for adults working with
teenagers to have because, like all of the other grown-up skills, it is
precisely what teenagers don’t have. Adolescents are just beginning to
develop self-awareness, and if we don’t practice it ourselves, we can’t
help our students develop this critical skill. (More on how to cultivate
self-awareness in chapter 7.)

Skill 2: Self-Control/Self-Mastery
The second grown-up skill is self-control/self-mastery. When we prac-
tice self-control we do something that teenagers can’t when it comes
to their impulses: We can keep a lid on our id. When we practice self-
control we are able to monitor our thoughts, feelings, and desires and
not act upon them in a knee-jerk manner. When we practice the more
advanced skill of self-mastery, we are able to direct our energy and at-
tention with purpose and intention. The skill of self-control comes first
and, when practiced over time, the skill of self-mastery follows.
Self-control is an essential skill for us to practice because our relation-
ships with teenagers are most challenging when teenage impulses are
out of control. Imagine, for a moment, an unsupervised middle school
cafeteria at lunch time. The adolescent fever can spread quickly if it isn’t
contained, and when we don’t practice self-control we just add to the
epidemic. When we don’t have the skill to control our own impulses,
there’s little hope we can help teenagers rein themselves in.2

The Case of Rachelle

Rachelle sometimes had challenges in this regard. Rachelle was a
member of the math department and had a quick temper; like many
of us, when she was tired, she felt even less in control. Rachelle’s feel-
ings occasionally got the better of her and, when they did, she was at
their mercy.
Rachelle came from a family where the free expression of feelings
was encouraged. The behavior of some of her out-of-control teenage
students felt very familiar to her, and after a day in their midst she
46 CHAPTER 3

sometimes had trouble controlling herself. Unfortunately for Rachelle,

all-school assemblies were sometimes scheduled for the end of the day,
by which time she felt exhausted and depleted.
During a heated debate at one assembly, and after a long day in the
classroom, Rachelle challenged the person running the meeting. In
trying to make her point, she raised her voice and expressed opinions
that normally she would have kept to herself. Basically, she lost it, and
in the moment she wasn’t able to control herself. Just like many of her
teenage students, Rachelle felt relieved after blowing off steam, but only
momentarily. She quickly realized what she had done and felt ashamed
and regretful about her behavior.
While Rachelle didn’t practice self-control during the assembly, she
did practice self-awareness afterward, and as a result she went straight
to her principal’s office after the assembly to apologize for her behavior.
She also sent her colleagues an email of apology and arranged to address
the student body to express her regrets. Rachelle took what could have
been a volatile situation and brought it under control, and in so doing
practiced the self-control she hadn’t displayed in her initial moment of
vulnerability.
As I tell my teenage students, we all make mistakes; it’s how we deal
with our mistakes that’s important. Like Rachelle, we need to mop up
our mess as quickly as possible. Rachelle’s case provides a wonderful
example of how we should take responsibility for our missteps. Because
Rachelle took account of her actions, the rest of the community was able
to forgive and forget, although she never did. Rachelle remembered the
incident for a long time afterward, and the memory helped her manage
her feelings better as time passed. This is the practice of self-mastery,
and a sincere and well-placed apology can go a long way to righting the
wrongs we commit when we lapse in our self-control.

The Case of Mark

Mark’s lack of self-control looked different than Rachelle’s. For one
thing, Mark never lost his temper the way Rachelle did, in part because
he didn’t really have a temper to lose. Instead, Mark didn’t practice self-
control when it came to his speech, which posed as big a challenge.
Mark was well-known among students for his casual comments, par-
ticularly when it came to his personal life. Mark let slip details about his
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 47

love life, his problems with friends, his thoughts about his colleagues.
Mark made the classic mistake of thinking that his comments indicated
that he was mature and relatable, a mistake many of us make. His stu-
dents loved Mark’s comments because they invariably got him off the
task of teaching. His students learned that a well-placed question could
postpone the hard work of learning for long stretches at a time. And this
is what happened on occasion. Mark made off-the-cuff comments, his
students asked irrelevant questions, and another class got mired in the
muck because he didn’t understand the need to practice self-control.
As Mark’s situation illustrates, when we don’t practice the skill of
self-control we are ineffective in our work, in part because our behavior
matches our students’. Mark’s students responded to his episodes of lack
of self-control with lapses of their own, and then all bets were off. Soon,
everything was out of control. Good classroom management begins with
the skill of self-control, and Mark didn’t practice it consistently. Without
it, good teaching doesn’t occur consistently either.
Cases like Mark’s don’t usually come under the scrutiny of the entire
community, as Rachelle’s did. Mark’s behavior was mostly invisible to
the adult community, despite the fact that students talked about his
conduct to their other teachers on occasion. But what were Mark’s col-
leagues supposed to do about the situation? His transgressions really
couldn’t be verified, and teenagers say things about teachers all the
time, don’t they?
I will explore the issue of how adults can support one another in chap-
ter 5, but for now let me say that Mark needed lots of support from his
community, including receiving clear behavioral guidelines and having
trusted colleagues and administrators with whom he could discuss his
work. All of us need a place to turn where we can talk about our chal-
lenges, because we all encounter them. Even if we don’t chat about our
personal lives with students like Mark did, we do something; we have
some area in which we feel a lack of control, and this becomes a weak
spot in our work. Mark needed someone to advise him on the practice of
self-control and on his judgment calls when it came to his speech.

Skill 3: Good Judgment

The third grown-up skill is good judgment. Practicing good judgment
is a critical part of our responsibility in the teenage world. Teenagers are
48 CHAPTER 3

often hard-pressed to practice good judgment themselves because their

brains are still developing. They therefore need us to practice this skill
when they can’t, and to challenge their faulty teenage decision-making.
In the end, teenagers need to be surrounded by adults who can protect
them from themselves when necessary, and this is where our good judg-
ment comes into play.

The Case of Bill

Bill, a seasoned science teacher, couldn’t protect his students from
their own poor judgment because he didn’t have good judgment of his
own. Bill’s judgment, not to mention his skills of self-control and self-
awareness, was woefully underdeveloped, and this caused him to make
a big mess in the teenage world.
Bill routinely found himself attracted to his female students, particu-
larly the physically and intellectually precocious girls in his junior classes.
Adults in the teenage world must halt such attractions immediately, be-
fore they go anywhere. Bill didn’t. One year his crush was reciprocated
by Laura, a beautiful and brilliant sixteen-year-old, and Bill didn’t exert
good judgment in the relationship, let alone good impulse control.
Bill worked at a boarding school and had access to students around
the clock, so he could easily arrange meetings with Laura. This proxim-
ity fueled his desire, and during one late-night extra-help session, Bill
initiated a sexual relationship with Laura. Bill’s connection to Laura
lasted for more than a year, until after her graduation, and the only
person who knew about it was Bill’s wife Jessica, a fellow teacher. Her
collusion in the situation illustrates another form of poor judgment—
covering up for a colleague—one that may be easier to fall prey to than
Bill’s. Jessica remained the only other person to know about Bill and
Laura’s relationship until Laura spilled the beans years later, by which
point Bill was dead.
Had Bill’s behavior been discovered while it was occurring, he should
have been confronted immediately and his behavior should have been
reported to the appropriate authorities. The law is very clear about sex-
ual relationships between adults and minors; they’re not allowed under
any circumstances,3 and schools should respond swiftly and decisively
when they occur. But if we consider Bill’s attraction to his student, apart
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 49

from his poor judgment about acting upon it, we enter into a territory
many of us who work with teenagers occupy.
Adults sometimes become attracted to students. It happens. As I
stated earlier, though, we must never act on this attraction. But this
doesn’t mean we should ignore what’s happening. When we find our-
selves sexually attracted to a student, we must deal with it immediately,
which usually involves talking about it to a trusted and disinterested
third party (and by disinterested I mean someone who has the presence
of mind not to encourage our attraction). Dealing with our attraction in
this way displays very good judgment on our part, and should go a long
way to diffusing the situation.
Only a small number of us exercise poor judgment and lack of self-
control to the degree Bill did. But many, like Bill’s wife Jessica, have dif-
ficulty in the face of the poor judgment of others. Obviously Jessica had
her own reasons for keeping quiet about Bill’s behavior, reasons that
superseded her role as a fellow teacher, but many teachers get caught
in the grip of someone else’s grown-older behavior and exercise poor
judgment as a result. This was the case for Dawn.

The Case of Dawn

Dawn was a novice history teacher who was eager to do well. She was
assigned to travel in a van during a class field trip with Brent, her men-
tor and fellow history teacher, and she was horrified to note that Brent
sped, changed lanes erratically, and encouraged his students to spiral
out of control throughout the drive.
Dawn made a passing comment to Brent about this, only to have
him shrug off her concerns. Brent added something to the effect that
his behavior with students had come under the scrutiny of their de-
partment chair and that he was on a short leash. Brent added that he
was glad Dawn had joined the department because she seemed so cool
and understanding.
Dawn was unsure how to deal with the situation. She knew Brent’s
behavior was unacceptable but she worried about his reaction if she
expressed her concerns to their department chair. If Brent truly was on
a short leash, then Dawn feared this additional information would get
him into serious trouble. In addition, Brent, as her mentor, was helping
50 CHAPTER 3

Dawn navigate her first teaching job and he was being very helpful. So
she kept her concerns to herself.
As soon as we feel isolated as professionals, as Dawn did, this is a
sign we need help. Dawn needed help to sort through what was hap-
pening with Brent, and her students needed protection from Brent’s
unsafe behavior. Dawn knew someone needed to speak to Brent, but
she didn’t feel it was her responsibility. That’s understandable, and
possibly accurate, but it was her responsibility to talk to someone who
could intervene in the situation. Dawn had enough good judgment to
recognize that students were unsafe in Brent’s care, and she needed to
act on this impulse, not on her fear of getting Brent into trouble. No-
body could help Dawn until she sought help for herself. She needed a
trusted supervisor to help her sort through her feelings and deal with
Brent’s poor judgment.
Again, when we feel isolated, this is a sign we need help, and asking
for help is the best practice of good judgment there is.

Skill 4: Ability to Deal with Conflict

The fourth grown-up skill is the ability to deal productively with
conflict. Dawn’s poor judgment arose from her desire to avoid conflict,
something very common among teachers, in my experience. Teachers
are the good guys, we want to be liked by students and each other (which
is not a bad thing), and conflict among colleagues is often regarded as
unacceptable. But adults disagree all the time, and when we practice
this grown-up skill we learn how to manage conflict productively. This
doesn’t mean we have to like conflict, but we should learn how to deal
with it. More schools stagnate due to lack of open and mature disagree-
ment than any other reason, and when we don’t practice the skill of
dealing with conflict among ourselves, our students are left to navigate
their conflicting worlds on their own.
Every school wants to create a community in which people get along.
This is admirable, but we can get along even better when we know how
to confront our issues productively, and this is what this skill aims to pro-
mote. Had Dawn been able to talk to Brent directly, or to someone else
in a position to mediate the situation, both she and Brent would have
been better for it. True, there may have been some discomfort or even
hurt feelings along the way, but Dawn would have been able to tell her
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 51

truth, help a colleague who needed help, and Brent could have received
invaluable feedback about his performance. Not all easy, but all good.

The Case of Joanne

Joanne, like many of us, did not like conflict, with students or with
colleagues. Joanne worked for decades at a school that didn’t like con-
flict either, and therefore Joanne dealt with conflict only sporadically
because the school’s practices were in line with her own. Joanne felt
a lot of conflict internally, though—about her teaching, her standing
among her colleagues, her intelligence—in part because she’d never
learned to accept and master her own feelings, so when conflict arose at
work, which it invariably did, Joanne felt ill-equipped to deal with it.
One day Joanne was present during a heated discussion about a dis-
ciplinary issue that involved some of her students. Joanne had strong
feelings about the subject: She believed the students should be pun-
ished for their behavior, although, given her difficulty with conflict, she
didn’t want to be the one to punish them. She didn’t want to make her
students feel any discomfort, and she definitely didn’t want to be the
bad guy or risk feeling any discomfort herself. Joanne’s discomfort with
conflict was so extreme that when asked her opinion about possible
consequences for the students, she lied in an effort to avoid disagree-
ment. And not only did she lie, she went out of her way to agree with an
opinion she didn’t support.
Had it ended there, it might not have mattered much, except to
Joanne’s conscience. But Joanne was so exercised at dealing with
conflict in her own way that after the meeting she went straight to a
colleague and started to vent. In discussing the situation as they did,
Joanne and her colleague inadvertently set in motion a process that
threatened to undermine their colleagues and the outcome of the disci-
plinary process. As often happens in situations like this, frustration and
dissention spread around the community, which caused the situation to
escalate. Not surprisingly, this caused Joanne’s hope of avoiding conflict
to backfire, and the thing she feared most was at her doorstep when the
principal got involved.
In an effort to practice dealing with conflict, Joanne might have exam-
ined her own thoughts and feelings before reporting them to someone
else, and after sorting them through, she might have spoken to someone
52 CHAPTER 3

involved with the situation about her concerns. It’s not necessary that
we be experts in our practice, just that we stay engaged in the process of
communication and not subvert it, like Joanne unintentionally did.
We owe it to ourselves and to the community to share our opinion in
important situations, and Joanne was denying the community important
data by withholding her opinion. Had she understood the situation from
this perspective she may have been more willing to participate directly,
comfortable or not. Sadly, Joanne didn’t recognize that she was an es-
sential part of the group’s functioning, and that her opinion would have
strengthened the process, rather than threatened it.
Whereas dealing with conflict is an essential skill to master, comfort
with conflict doesn’t necessarily mark the grown-up. Some adults em-
brace conflict in the same way teenagers do, and within the teenage
world such behavior often gets rewarded by students and provides us
with a disincentive to exercise this skill. To this end, inciting or rejoic-
ing in conflict is just as destructive as avoiding it. When we practice this
grown-up skill we can tolerate conflict and resolve it, which is invaluable
for our students.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it’s essential for us to be able
to deal with conflict because teenagers, without fail, will go out of their
way to create conflict with us—it’s part of their parallel curriculum—and
therefore we must be able to tolerate the discomfort we feel when this
happens. If we don’t or can’t deal with conflict, then we will have a hard
time giving our students what they need, which sometimes is simply the
presence of an adult who can tolerate their chaos without succumbing to
it. We must be able to make sense of conflict with and among teenagers,
put clear guidelines in place about our expectations for their behavior,
and deal with situations when they get out of hand.

Skill 5: Self-Transcendence, or the Ability

to Get Over Yourself
The fifth grown-up skill is self-transcendence, or the ability to just get
over ourselves. Joanne had trouble doing this. She couldn’t see beyond
her own conflicted feelings to understand how her behavior affected her
colleagues or students. When we practice the skill of self-transcendence
we have the capacity to do this, and we help everyone within the com-
munity when we do.
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 53

Someone once said, “I may not mean much to you but I’m all I think
about.” This statement captures what most of us are thinking most of
the time, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But those of us who work
with teenagers must force ourselves beyond this position, at least when
we’re at work. We must transcend ourselves in order to be of service to
others. We must put the needs of others first.
There are two ways that adults who work in schools demonstrate the
skill of self-transcendence. The first is to understand the importance of
cooperation and collaboration. When we practice this skill we see our-
selves as part of a larger system that functions to support the growth of
students. The second is to understand that we can’t take everything per-
sonally. When we practice this skill we have the capacity to determine
when something is about us and when it’s not.

The Case of Frank

Frank, a committed physics teacher, had difficulty seeing himself as
part of the school community. He had his doctorate and taught at the
university level before teaching in high schools. He liked the autonomy
of the classroom, which is what drew him to teaching in the first place,
and he appreciated his bright and eager students. But Frank wanted to
be left alone at work. He was what I call a rogue teacher.
Frank didn’t participate in faculty meetings, avoided all non-compul-
sory school events, and didn’t want to serve as an advisor to students. He
couldn’t be swayed in his position despite the difficulties this created for
his colleagues, who had to pick up his slack from time to time. Luckily
for Frank, he was a competent instructor, but his lack of interest and
engagement beyond the classroom was problematic and his colleagues
thought he was selfish.
Frank failed to recognize that he existed in a community, and that
his role as a teacher of adolescents meant he had to get over his desire
to go it alone. Frank enjoyed instructing his students and he loved his
subject matter, but he thought this was enough. He didn’t understand
that his refusal to engage with his colleagues meant he was considering
his needs exclusively, often at the expense of the needs of others. In the
end, no one else mattered to Frank. He just couldn’t get over himself.
Frank’s attitude was fueled by what he considered to be the selfish-
ness of his students. Even though he enjoyed instructing them, he saw
54 CHAPTER 3

them for what they were: self-absorbed adolescents. His proximity to

students all day long did nothing to help his own self-absorption, a risk
we all face in our work. Frank didn’t appreciate that what was for them
an appropriate developmental phase was for him an indication of devel-
opmental arrest.
Frank’s attitude was apparent to everyone in the community, so in
a sense the entire community failed him when they didn’t give him
feedback about his behavior. Frank made it clear that he didn’t want to
interact with his colleagues, and so his colleagues treated him in kind,
thus missing an opportunity to help him integrate into their fold. While
ultimately it was Frank’s responsibility to connect with others, the com-
munity had a responsibility to connect to him too, and if his colleagues
and supervisors meant business, then they needed to give Frank some
guidance. This didn’t happen, though, and Frank was permitted to re-
main a rogue.
Frank’s situation is a difficult one because teachers often don’t feel
comfortable giving feedback to their colleagues. This raises the question
of responsibility, and of who’s responsible for intervening in such mat-
ters. Someone needed to help Frank. By the very nature of his challenge
he wasn’t going to be able to help himself, and yet this kind of problem
can be quite vexing for teachers in schools. Teachers aren’t usually each
others keepers, and yet in some cases we must be. Is Frank’s such a
case? It depends on the community, and all of us need to engage with
our communities to figure this out.

The Case of Anna

Frank’s inability to acknowledge his connection to his surroundings
stood in stark contrast to Anna’s. Anna, an experienced math teacher,
was involved with everything at school. She went out of her way to know
what was going on with her students, and she encouraged her students
to confide in her. Anna loved her students and, as a measure of that love,
she took all of their adolescent dramas to heart.
One day Anna’s class started to lose control. It was the first day of
spring and her students were eager for class to end. Anna repeatedly
asked them to settle down, but her requests turned into pleas as they
got more boisterous. Anna wanted to support her students’ enthusiasm
but she also wanted them to stay on task. Anna felt overwhelmed by the
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 55

situation, and also hurt. Wasn’t she the teacher who always accommo-
dated her students? Wasn’t she the one who always was there for them?
Didn’t she deserve better treatment than this?
Finally, after some students starting throwing spitballs, Anna shouted,
“How do you think this makes me feel?”
Anna’s response to the situation revealed the challenges she faced,
and her subsequent vulnerability when attempting to separate her
own experience from that of her students. Anna took their behavior
personally, and felt not only frustrated by the situation, as any teacher
would, but also wounded. As Anna discovered, teenagers can sniff out
vulnerability like hounds on the hunt. Her inability to transcend herself
and to not take the situation personally was palpable to her students,
which caused their behavior to escalate. Anna’s response to the situa-
tion communicated to her students the paradoxical truth that she was
simultaneously uncentered (and working her way to being unglued) and
completely self-focused, at least in the moment.
Many of us have been in Anna’s shoes, feeling frustrated and let down
by our students’ behavior. Anna’s students weren’t trying to wound her,
though; and even if they had been, Anna could have helped her situation
by seeing their behavior for what it was: adolescent acting out, which
was not really about her. This can be hard to remember when we’re
trapped in the midst of teenage acting out, however, but the most effec-
tive thing Anna could have done was remain centered, not self-focused,
which would have allowed her to take better control of the situation.
Teenagers are famous for their self-absorption, so those of us who
work with them can’t be. Whether self-absorption takes a classic form,
like Frank’s, or a more subtle form, like Anna’s, we must remember
our relative place in the teenage world. To this end, we must develop
the skill of self-transcendence—or more precisely, of just getting over
ourselves.

Skill 6: Ability to Maintain Boundaries

The sixth grown-up skill is the ability to maintain boundaries.
Frank’s boundaries with his students and colleagues were too rigid,
while Anna’s were too loose. So what’s an adult in the teenage world to
do? The crux of the boundary issue is this: Who’s in charge, the adult
or the teenager?
56 CHAPTER 3

When we practice our grown-up skills in the teenage world, we know

we are in charge and we don’t lose sight of this fact even in the face of
adversity. When we don’t practice grown-up skills, or when we are con-
fused by or uncomfortable setting boundaries, we lose sight of our role,
which is what happened with Gianna.

The Case of Gianna

Gianna was an experienced middle school science teacher who loved
her job and her students. She took pride in being cool and in having stu-
dents confide in her. But Gianna thought she had to accommodate her
students to maintain her popularity, and so when prompted she shared
her own personal information during class, which is exactly what her
students wanted her to do.
For example, during the 8th grade sexuality unit, Gianna disclosed her
own sexual experiences and history to her students, and embellished the
content of the curriculum with details from her own life. She believed
what her students told her, that such revelations put them at ease and
facilitated discussion about sensitive topics. Adding to her challenge, her
students constantly asked her personal questions, and the truth was she
didn’t know how to say no to them.
In addition to not maintaining boundaries, Gianna didn’t practice
impulse control, but her reasons for disclosing personal information
went beyond an inability to keep a lid on it. Gianna liked her students
enormously, and like many of us she wanted their attention and affirma-
tion. She wanted to relate to her students, and she mistook her practice
of sharing personal information about herself as being relational and
appropriate.
Gianna’s situation is not uncommon: Many of us feel compelled to
share personal information with students, and many students ask us to,
making it hard sometimes for us to know where to draw the line. This
was perhaps Gianna’s biggest challenge, and it’s one most of us face
at some point in our work with teenagers. When our students are the
people we deal with most, we can easily adopt their standards as our
own. But when we realize these standards conflict with our school’s,
it’s time to reexamine our behavior. When Gianna’s department chair
directed her to stop sharing personal information with students, Gianna
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 57

did, although not surprisingly she continued to feel challenged by her

students’ questions.
In order to avoid Gianna’s situation, we should be clear about what
our community expects from us when it comes to our relationships with
students, both inside and outside of the classroom. If we have questions
or are uncertain about these standards, we should ask before we pro-
ceed. Many of us operate under the assumption that we should know
all of this instinctively—that we shouldn’t have to ask, or that asking
indicates we aren’t fully prepared or qualified—but this isn’t the case.
We can’t possibly know everything all the time, and so we must ask for
help, and then, when we have the information we need, we can establish
and maintain appropriate boundaries with our students.

The Case of Rick

Rick had a much clearer sense of propriety than Gianna did, but he
felt very uncomfortable with the amount of power he wielded in his role
as teacher, and as a result he didn’t know how to maintain boundaries
with students. Rick believed passionately in equity and equality in the
classroom, and by extension he believed that no real distinction should
exist between teacher and student. No distinctions, no boundaries, or
something along these lines.
This played itself out when Rick insisted that his students call him
by his first name, which was not part of accepted practice within his
school culture, and he allowed his students to run the show, for the most
part. If students didn’t want to follow his lesson plan, they didn’t, and
Rick justified this behavior on the grounds that his students ultimately
knew what was best for them. Once, when he handed out a mid-term
assignment that met with resistance, Rick backed down instantly. He
acquiesced to his students’ desires to not do the assigned work, and he
measured his success as a teacher by the pleasure his students expressed
with his behavior.
Rick did not understand that adolescents are not the best judges of
their own needs. If they were, they wouldn’t need teachers. Because he
felt uncomfortable practicing grown-up skills, Rick abandoned his role
as teacher and, as a result, abdicated responsibility for what happened
in his classroom.
58 CHAPTER 3

Rick got feedback about his behavior from his colleagues when it
emerged that all his students received A’s. When pressed to defend
himself, Rick admitted that he had a hard time setting limits with his
students and that he didn’t know how to evaluate them properly. This
was not easy for Rick to admit, but he had supportive colleagues who
helped him examine his struggles and devise workable solutions, such
as observing the class of a veteran teacher who had excellent classroom
management skills. This proved helpful, as Rick was able to observe his
colleague interact authentically with students and maintain good bound-
aries at the same time; and he was amazed to discover that his fellow
teacher enjoyed enormous respect from his students, much more than
he himself enjoyed.

The Case of Dan

Dan’s challenge had more to do with his relationship with students
outside the classroom than within. Dan, like Rick and Gianna, saw his
students as peers, and as a result he wanted to cultivate their friendship.
Dan often talked to his students about their personal lives (he didn’t
have much of one himself), and he found ways to be with his students in
all kinds of activities. He joined them during lunch, at school events, and
elsewhere whenever he could. He gave out his cell phone number and
texted and emailed them frequently. He referred to them as his buddies
and considered his relationship with them to be reciprocal.
Gianna, Rick, and Dan were all challenged when it came to maintain-
ing boundaries, and they needed help to understand how to practice this
important skill. They also needed to recognize that they were always on
a learning curve, as we all are, and that receiving and incorporating sup-
port makes us stronger teachers and community members.

Skill 7: Life-Long Learning

The seventh and final grown-up skill is the ability to learn throughout
life. Life-long learning for our purposes means learning about one’s self,
understanding one’s personal psychology, and committing to this pro-
cess in perpetuity. It also includes the capacity to explore relationships
and pay attention to information about one’s self that emerges within
relationships, particularly relationships with teenagers.
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 59

This skill of perpetual self-discovery implies that we must be flexible,

humble, and willing to accept change. It also implies that we accept re-
sponsibility for our actions. Life-long learning requires that we embrace
our personal challenges and admit our mistakes, and that we be willing
to adapt ourselves and our behavior whenever circumstances demand.
Finally, life-long learning is closely related to the first grown-up skill
of self-awareness, and as such it brings us back full circle. Our need for
life-long learning underscores the fact that mastering grown-up skills is
a process that never ends.

Back to Dan
Let’s return to Dan and consider how this process of insight and sub-
sequent growth can occur. (Recall that Dan gave students his cell phone
number and ate lunch with them often.) When approached by a col-
league and questioned about how much time he spent with his students,
Dan was able to admit after some initial defensiveness that he didn’t
have much of a social life outside of work. He also admitted that he felt
intimidated by some of his colleagues (Dan was a relative novice and
young teacher) and that hanging out with his students at lunch provided
him with an excuse to avoid the faculty lounge. Dan, with the help of his
colleague, was able to see that his method for dealing with his problems
was neither appropriate nor effective. This insight didn’t cause Dan to
change overnight; however, it did set him on the right course.
Dan was able to make the changes he needed to make, like getting
some interests and friends of his own and developing confidence around
his colleagues, and thus avoid much bigger problems down the line.
Dan was able to recognize his need for help, his students’ need for him
to maintain good boundaries, and his colleagues’ need for him to join
the ranks of the grown-up.
Working with teens sheds light on every vulnerability, insecurity,
and unexamined complex we have. Just ask Dan. When we work with
teens we get feedback about ourselves every day and, if we’re wise, we
use this feedback to improve ourselves. When we work in the teenage
world, the grown-older’s burden is the grown-up’s opportunity for
psychological growth and insight. Practicing the seven grown-up skills
transforms us from good instructors into great educators because it
ensures we understand our role in our relationships with teenagers.
60 CHAPTER 3

We should keep this in mind when we feel tired or resistant or just

don’t want to make the effort.

NO ONE SAID THIS WOULD BE EASY

Each of the seven grown-up skills contributes something important to

our healthy functioning in the teenage world, and each combines to help
us take responsibility for ourselves and our actions in our work, but none
of them is necessarily easy to implement, at least not initially. Nor does
grown-up behavior come naturally; it has to be learned and practiced. In
some ways, we have as much to learn in the teenage world as teenagers
do, but unfortunately this part of the job doesn’t come with an instruc-
tion manual. We have to commit to learning this stuff mostly on our own,
or with the help of a good mentor, if we’re lucky. But when we undertake
thinking about our grown-up skill set and our practice of grown-up be-
havior, I can give you a money-back guarantee that our work as adults in
the teenage world becomes more fulfilling and effective.

DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO GROW UP?

Does everyone have to practice grown-up skills? Well, yes, those of us

who work in the teenage world have to. Of course, we all have a choice
about whether to develop grown-up skills, and many of us make the
choice not to develop them and not to grow up. For some adults this
choice doesn’t matter, at least not professionally. Who cares whether an
accountant or a mail carrier or an attorney is grown-up? Some adults
even are praised in our culture for not growing up, like some actors or
professional athletes. These adults can do their jobs without concern-
ing themselves with this stuff. But those of us who work with teenagers
can’t; we don’t have this luxury. Those of us who work in the teenage
world must practice grown-up skills if we want to be good at our jobs.
Here’s the thing about developing grown-up skills, though: It’s some-
thing everyone has to do for themselves. We can’t force anyone to do
it. And we have to want to do it ourselves; no one can compel us to de-
velop psychologically against our wishes. Every person must determine
for himself or herself how to navigate adulthood. That said, adults can
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 61

support each other along the way, and that’s one of the great benefits
of working in a school community. While the work of growing up is our
own, we needn’t and shouldn’t do it in isolation. Our colleagues should
be there for us, as we should be there for our colleagues, helping one
another to practice our grown-up skills.
So the real question follows, what’s so great about growing up? Why
should we want to do it?

GROWING UP IS WORTH IT

Working in the teenage world is incredibly challenging but I contend

that practicing the seven grown-up skills makes it easier, more fulfill-
ing, and hopefully more fun. When we practice these seven skills, we
get much more pleasure out of our work because we don’t get thrown
off balance by the chaos of adolescence. We are able to roll with the
punches, if you will, and in the process we do a much better job of
doing our job.
Take any of the above-mentioned cases and imagine that the teacher
in question had been able to practice the necessary grown-up skills
called for in the moment. Consider Anna, for example, who got so
frustrated by her class. Let’s imagine that Anna had been able to not
take the situation personally. Think how much better she would have
felt about herself in this scenario, not to mention how much better she
would have felt about her students.
Or let’s imagine, because nobody’s perfect, that Anna didn’t realize
what was happening to her until after the fact, but that she realized it
eventually. Think of how satisfied she would feel to be able to decon-
struct the scenario and recognize her role in it. Part of the reason Anna’s
students got so out of control is that they sensed Anna’s frustration with
them. Understanding this could help Anna manage and possibly prevent
future class meltdowns. This realization would be a tremendous boon to
any teacher, and for Anna it might have allowed her to forgive herself,
forgive her students (but not necessarily let them off the hook), and
maybe even take herself less seriously in the future. Doesn’t such an
outcome make the investment in our own growth worth it?
Or consider Joanne, who’s trouble with conflict caused her more
conflict in the long run. If Joanne learned to tolerate conflict and
62 CHAPTER 3

recognized that mature disagreement is healthy and not harmful, she

would be able to drop her cloak of fear and stop her self-defeating
behaviors. Imagine how empowered she would feel if she believed
her opinions were important, and that agreement for agreement’s sake
kept her stunted. The only person holding Joanne back was Joanne,
but with a little understanding and a little more practice, Joanne could
participate more fully and positively in the life of her community.
Wouldn’t that be worth it?
Finally, consider Heather, who had trouble looking at herself, espe-
cially following awkward comments to her students. Had Heather been
able to examine herself and take in feedback, she would have not only
kept her job, she also would have gained real satisfaction at being able to
do her job in increasingly more effective ways. Think of how wonderful
she would have felt knowing she could adapt to her environment, incor-
porate constructive criticism into her work, and have a positive impact
on the lives of her students.
We should commit ourselves to our own growth in the same way
we encourage our students to grow. When we do so we develop self-
assurance, self-confidence, competence, and resilience. If these rewards
aren’t enough to make growing up worth it, I don’t know what is.

EXERCISES AND REFLECTIONS

1. Which of the seven grown-up skills comes easily to you? Why?

Which of the skills is more challenging? Why?
2. In what aspects of your work are you most grown-up? In what
aspects are you more grown-older?
3. When you were a child, what did the term grown-up mean to you?
What constituted maturity? Who were your adult role models and
why did you admire them?
4. Consider a time when you behaved with students in a less than
grown-up manner. What were the circumstances? Why would you
consider your behavior to be grown-older?
5. When was the last time you dealt with conflict at work? What
were the circumstances, and how was the conflict resolved? How
comfortable are you with conflict, and how is conflict dealt with in
your school community?
THE SEVEN GROWN-UP SKILLS 63

6. Think about a colleague whose behavior you consider to be more

grown-older than grown-up. In your estimation, what makes his
or her behavior grown-older? How is his or her behavior prob-
lematic for students?
7. How would you rate your school culture in terms of grown-up
behavior? Who sets the tone for behavior? How are expectations
for adult behavior communicated?
8. Who do you admire at your school, and why? If you had to model
your behavior on anyone at work, who would it be and what be-
haviors would you emulate?
9. What advice would you give to a new colleague about your school
culture in terms of adult behavior? What should they know to be
successful? What are some of the unwritten rules in your com-
munity about adult behavior?
10. Select one or more of the case studies from this chapter and re-
spond to the following questions:
a. Can you imagine being in their shoes, and if not, why not?
b. If this were your colleague, what advice would you give them
about how to deal with the situation?
c. How should the school deal with the case in question?
d. Which transgressions seem most serious? Which seem not as
serious? Why?

CHAPTER SUMMARY

There are seven grown-up skills we should practice in order to be effec-

tive in our work with teenagers. These skills can be learned and mastered
by all adults, and it is incumbent upon those of us who work in the teen-
age world to understand why these skills matter. The seven grown-up
skills encompass the practices, attitudes, and behaviors that we should
employ to maintain boundaries in our relationships with teenagers and
to deal with the feverish and infectious aspects of adolescence.

NOTES

1. My understanding of being grown-up has been shaped by my work in schools and

my observations of adults and their interactions with students in the teenage world.
64 CHAPTER 3

This discussion of grown-up skills derives from this experience, and it is an important
qualifier. My list of what constitutes psychological maturity may differ from another’s
precisely because I’m interested primarily in the dynamic between adults and teens, not
just in adults themselves. The criteria for being grown-up should be understood in this
context, and with the understanding that when it comes to being a grown-up in a teen-
age world, context is everything.
2. As I wrote this, a story about a large riot in an L.A. high school came over the wires.
What started as a conflict between rival cliques turned into a school-wide brawl involv-
ing as many as 600 students. This is a prime example of how quickly the fever of adoles-
cence can spiral out of control, in this case primarily due to lack of impulse control.
3. The law prohibiting sex between adults and minors varies from region to region.
Teachers should acquaint themselves with the laws of their state and understand their
responsibilities as mandated reporters of such behavior. But knowing the law isn’t
enough. As educators we must hold ourselves to a standard of behavior that surpasses
the law. For instance, let’s say Laura had been eighteen and Bill twenty-three when
they got involved, not an inconceivable scenario. What then? Although the law may
not prohibit such a relationship, our ethical standard does, given the power differential
between teacher and student.
 4

THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS

NEED FROM GROWN-UPS

Teenagers need five basic things from us and each of these things
derives from an application of one or more of the seven grown-up
skills. Teenagers need us to differentiate between their needs and
their wants; to respond but not to react to them; to relate but not to
identify with them; to be friendly with them but not be their friends;
and to work in service of them, not of ourselves.

THE BOTTOM LINE: TEENAGERS NEED ADULTS

TO BE GROWN-UPS

I have worked with teenagers who face the most extraordinary chal-
lenges in life: Kids who live in extreme poverty or in drive-by shooting
zones, or whose families are refugees. I’ve worked with teens whose
parents are illiterate or don’t speak the dominant language. I’ve worked
with teens whose families were obliterated in the Holocaust and the
Killing Fields of Cambodia.
On the flip side, I’ve worked with teens who come from extreme
wealth and privilege, who want for literally nothing, whose parents own
their own planes, footballs teams, and islands in the Caribbean. I’ve
worked with kids who go to Bali just to learn to surf, have swimming

65
66 CHAPTER 4

pools on their roof decks, and own private art collections that are of
museum quality.
After spending my career working with adolescents on either end of
the privilege spectrum (and everywhere in between), I can say without
reservation that neither severe deprivation nor the buffering effects of
material privilege has a greater impact on whether they will succeed in
school or in life than does the presence of at least one consistent and
loving grown-up in their lives.1
Okay, so grown-ups are important. You get the point. But how are
they important specifically? And how are they important in the teen-
age world? In the previous chapter, I outlined the seven grown-up
skills we should practice to be effective with students in schools. In
this chapter, I address the fundamental things teenagers need in their
relationships with us, each of which requires us to practice one or
more of the seven skills.

FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS

Teenagers need five basic things from adults who work in the teenage
world. They need us to:

1. Distinguish between their needs and wants. This is Needs vs.

Wants.
2. Respond to them but not react with them. This is Responding vs.
Reacting.
3. Relate to them but not identify with them. This is Relating vs.
Identifying.
4. Be friendly with them but not be their friends. This is Friendly vs.
Friends.
5. Focus on their needs and not on our own. This is Other vs. Self.

The five things teenagers need from grown-ups constitute what is

most essential in our relationship with teens and exist independently of
the skills we must have in order to be good instructors, like knowledge
of subject matter and an understanding of pedagogy. Content knowl-
edge and pedagogy are critical components of good teaching, of course,
but they do not necessarily bear upon our dynamic with teens. Thus
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 67

the five things can be understood as a recipe for healthy interactions

between us and our students, with each need comprising an essential
ingredient of the relationship.

Need 1: Needs vs. Wants

The first thing teenagers need from adults is for us to understand the
difference between their needs and their wants, and for us to satisfy
their needs as opposed to their wants. This doesn’t mean we should
never satisfy their desires, of course, just that their needs come first and
it is our job to understand what these needs are. In order to identify and
prioritize teenage needs, we must practice the grown-up skills of good
judgment, maintaining boundaries, and dealing with conflict.
Teenagers want lots of things, from iPhones to staying up all night
to not doing their homework, but that doesn’t mean they need lots of
things. The teenage brain, with its developing capacity for impulse con-
trol and judgment, requires guidance. It requires help to satisfy its basic
needs on the one hand, and to not be held hostage to its desires on the
other. As we saw in the case of the shark girls from chapter 1, if teenag-
ers got everything they wanted, they might get eaten alive. To avoid this
fate, teens need us to protect them from shark-infested waters, or from
their unbridled and potentially harmful desires.
Striking a balance between giving teens what they need and what
they want is an art of sorts, one that we must practice every day in our
work with teenagers. As the saying goes, when you don’t get what you
want, you get character. I like to add, when you don’t get what you need,
you get into trouble. We are responsible for keeping adolescents out of
trouble in the teenage world, and for getting them back on track when
they falter, and to do this we must meet their basic needs. What’s the
difference between a teenage need and want?

Need
A need is something essential, something teenagers can’t live without,
and it has a direct bearing on student success in the teenage world. A
need is a sine qua non of the teenage experience at school. Most teenag-
ers have the same basic needs.
68 CHAPTER 4

Want
A want or a desire is something nonessential, something teenagers
can live without. A want does not have bearing on teenage success in
school, although it might feel like it does to the teenager in question.
Teenagers have myriad desires.

Distinguishing Teenage Needs from Wants: Three Essential Questions

We must use good judgment based on the above criteria to distin-
guish between teenage needs and wants. In some instances, this will
be an easy and straightforward process, and the distinction between
the two will be clear. In others, it won’t be clear at all, and it may take
time to determine what’s what. There are three questions we can ask
ourselves that will help us clarify the issue when we’re confused about
teenage needs and wants. They are:

1. Does the issue at hand support learning?

2. Is it safe?
3. Is it developmentally appropriate?

If the answer to all three questions is yes, then we’re probably dealing
with a teenage need, and if not a need then with a desire that doesn’t
conflict with a need (and which can be satisfied at our discretion). If the
answer to any of the above questions is no, then we’re probably deal-
ing with a teenage desire, one that we should meet only when our good
judgment allows.

The Three Requirements

The three essential questions point to three basic requirements teen-
agers have from their experience in school. These requirements are:

1. To learn
2. To be safe and to be dealt with fairly, and to be in an environment
where sound and well-reasoned discipline is practiced
3. To be understood in a developmentally appropriate manner
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 69

When these three basic requirements are met—when we can answer

yes to the three essential questions—then we’re meeting teenage needs
and doing our jobs in schools.

A Class on the Lawn

Imagine, for a moment, that twenty students ask if they can have class
outside on the lawn. It is a beautiful fall day, the school day is winding
down, and there’s half an hour left before dismissal. Our students start
to beg us to continue the class outside. What should we do? Well, it’s
hard to argue that having class on the lawn is a basic need (unless the
building is on fire, of course). Clearly the students want to go outside,
they don’t need to go outside. They are expressing a desire—that’s easy
to see—and maybe it’s a desire we can accommodate.
Let’s ask the three essential questions to clarify the issue. First, would
class on the lawn satisfy our students’ need to learn? This depends, and
it depends on the answers to the other essential questions. Would it be
safe to have class on the lawn, and can we maintain limits and discipline?
In other words, can we manage the situation under such circumstances?
Perhaps a strong teacher with a well-behaved class of seniors can pull
it off, but what about the same teacher with rambunctious 7th graders?
That’s another story.2
Second, would class on the lawn be developmentally appropriate, and
is this a reasonable desire to meet? Again, this depends on the students
and the specifics of the request. Seniors and 7th graders will have very
different experiences on the lawn, and their experiences will bear on
their ability to learn. If we factor in these developmental issues, then
we can make accommodations, like reducing the time outside for the
younger kids or creating structured activities to keep them busy. As
you see, it all depends on circumstances and the basic teenage require-
ments, which the three essential questions address.
This scenario illustrates why we must use good judgment to dis-
cern teenage needs from wants, and also how the skills of maintaining
boundaries and dealing with conflict come into play. Let’s say we deny
our students’ request to go outside, in part because we know we won’t
be able to maintain appropriate control of the group once we get there.
Here we use good judgment to evaluate our ability to practice our other
grown-up skills, namely, maintaining boundaries. But once we make this
70 CHAPTER 4

decision, we may have to deal with the conflict that arises from denying
our students’ request.
And so it goes. A simple student request plunges us into the compli-
cations of the teenage world, where our ability to discriminate between
teenage needs and wants is essential.

Need 2: Responding vs. Reacting

The second thing teenagers need is to be surrounded by adults who
can respond to them and not react with them. This need relates to the
practice of a number of grown-up skills including self-awareness, the
ability to tolerate conflict, and most importantly self-control and self-
mastery. Teenagers need us to be able to respond differently than they
do because they literally don’t have the brain power to control them-
selves at times. Teenagers need us to be their brakes, not their accelera-
tors, so to speak, as they careen about on the teenage journey.
For our purposes, responding is our ability to approach situations in a
reasoned manner, without reacting with a knee jerk. Reacting is just the
opposite: It is a knee jerk, and it’s often how the teenage brain operates.
Sometimes teenagers don’t respond because they simply can’t—they
only can react—which is why those of us who work with them must
respond to them and not react with them.

The Three-Second Delay

The three-second delay is a term I use to describe the differences
between responding and reacting, and between the teenage and adult
brains. The three-second delay is the period during which we pause,
step back, and consider our response to the situation. During this delay,
we use our prefrontal cortex to assess the situation and to determine an
appropriate course of action. In other words, we use impulse control.
When we react, on the other hand, we behave without thinking, or
by thinking like our students. When we react, we exercise no impulse
control and our brains function like teenage brains. Should we take the
three-second delay literally? No, actual response times are not impor-
tant, it’s what’s happening in the adult brain and the intention of the
response that matter.
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 71

For an example of the three-second delay, or lack thereof, let’s return

to the vignette from chapter 2 in which a group of teachers got caught
up in the frenzy surrounding a student who claimed she was being bul-
lied. The teachers immediately made the assumption that the student in
question had characterized the situation accurately. If the student said
she was being bullied, then she was being bullied, or so they reasoned.
The teachers involved did not investigate further, nor did they question
the other students or seek alternative explanations for the situation.
They took one student’s account at face value. In the end, they didn’t
employ the three-second delay: They reacted, they didn’t respond.
Now, let me be clear. I do not believe the student in question was
lying or overreacting. She believed she was being picked on and bul-
lied, and her feelings were genuine. What I am suggesting, and what
I believe to be true, is that the adults who were involved reacted
immediately to allegations without ever exploring other sides of the
story precisely because their student’s reaction was so heartfelt. They
reacted to the situation the same way she did, which was without the
three-second delay. The student, of course, couldn’t use this tech-
nique; she hadn’t developed the brain capacity to do so. But her teach-
ers presumably had, and yet they didn’t because they got swept up in
the teenage moment.
Had they employed the delay, which is what their students needed
them to do, they would have discovered that the situation was not as
clear-cut as they thought. While it was true that their student felt hurt,
and that some other students didn’t like her (and she didn’t like them),
there was an additional truth that got lost in the midst of the adult reac-
tion: The upset student was having a typical teenage reaction to a typical
teenage social situation. Her brain was reacting and not responding to
what was going on, and she needed help from the adults around her to
deal with this inner reality, not just the outer one.

Current Climate of Reactivity

In our current social climate, it can be difficult for us not to jump to
conclusions, like these teachers did, when certain allegations are made.
When terms like harassment or bullying are leveled against anyone in
schools, we are quick to react, sometimes too quick. Before I continue,
72 CHAPTER 4

let me state that I do not support bullying or harassment of any kind.

That said, I also don’t support adults jumping on bandwagons or jump-
ing to conclusions when it involves students.
Entire school communities and our society at large, really, are cur-
rently in the grip of this reactive stance when it comes to adolescent
behavior. When allegations of bullying or harassment are made, or when
students feel hurt, adults tend to react quickly and often without think-
ing. At times, we practice little self-control or self-awareness when we
suspect someone is being bullied because we fear that any hesitation on
our part will be perceived as being unsupportive of the “victim.” This
is an honest mistake given the current social climate, but it’s one we
should recognize for what it is: a knee-jerk reaction, when a disinter-
ested response is what we need in order to understand and resolve the
situation effectively.
We should resist our desire to react when it comes to disputes be-
tween our students, and instead we should respond with fairness, dispas-
sion, and even-mindedness. When we don’t, we risk confusing our own
emotional reactions with our students’, and then we end up responding
in kind. Of course, when bullying or harassment is occurring we must
intervene accordingly, but an appropriate response is never a reactive
one. The truth is, in situations where true bullying or harassment occur,
teenagers need our capacity to respond more than ever.

The Case of Lizzie

Lizzie’s case offers another example of reaction versus response,
albeit a less dramatic one. Lizzie was a popular teacher noted for her
empathy for students. One day Lizzie was approached by Angelica, a
student in her algebra class. Angelica was upset about a grade she re-
ceived on her mid-term exam, and as she spoke with Lizzie, she started
to cry. Angelica told Lizzie she feared telling her parents about her
grade because they had very high expectations for her (both of her par-
ents had done well in algebra, something they reminded her of at every
turn, or so it seemed to Angelica).
Despite her experience, Lizzie felt increasingly overwhelmed during
her conversation with Angelica. She started to see the world through An-
gelica’s eyes: disapproving parents, grim future, homelessness as a direct
result of a poor algebra grade (I’m only half-joking). Lizzie tried every
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 73

trick in the book to console Angelica, but when nothing seemed to work
she did the only thing she could think of: She raised Angelica’s grade.
This is what happens when we react and fail to respond: We throw
caution to the wind. Not surprisingly, when Lizzie acquiesced to Angel-
ica’s plea for mercy, Angelica felt better. But Lizzie’s reaction did not
solve the situation. In fact, it made it worse. When Lizzie finally came
to her senses and switched on her three-second delay, she realized what
she had done and had to clean up her mess.
This is what reactions are like; they’re messy and it’s our job to clean
them up. If Lizzie hadn’t cleaned up her own mess, somebody else
would have had to, most probably Angelica herself. And we should all
clean up our own mess. When we practice grown-up skills in the teen-
age world, especially the skill of self-control, we make our lives much
easier for ourselves, and we have a lot less mess to clean up at the end
of the day.
Every teacher I know has a tale to tell about reacting instead of re-
sponding. This may be the most common challenge we face in our work,
especially for new teachers. Teenagers are highly reactive, and because
we spend so much time with them it makes sense that we are reactive
at times too. When we are immersed in the teenage world, reacting can
start to feel natural, which is why it is so important for us to appreciate
the differences between responding and reacting, and to develop good
habits of response.

Need 3: Relating vs. Identifying

The third thing teenagers need is for us to relate to them, not to
identify with them. Lizzie, in her moment of reactivity, identified with
Angelica’s plight, so much so that she couldn’t see beyond Angelica’s
perspective to find a viable solution to the problem at hand. Because
Lizzie identified with Angelica, she missed the opportunity to relate to
her and help her solve her problem in an appropriate way. For example,
rather than getting caught up in Angelica’s emotion, Lizzie might have
engaged her in a conversation about her relationship with her parents
and their expectations, and even offered to help Angelica talk to her
parents about how she was doing in school.
The distinction between relating to and identifying with teenagers
is a critical aspect of the adult-teenager relationship. When we relate
74 CHAPTER 4

to teenagers, we connect to them but continue to see them as separate

from us; we don’t project our issues onto them. When we identify with
teenagers, on the other hand, we confuse their experiences with our
own, and as a result we see our ourselves in them, and vice versa.
When we relate to teenagers, we practice the grown-up skills of self-
awareness, self-control, good judgment, and good boundaries. When
we identify with teenagers, we blur the boundaries between our own
experience and theirs, and our grown-up skills get left by the wayside.

Empathy vs. Sympathy

One way to understand how relating to students differs from iden-
tifying with them is to consider the distinction between empathy and
sympathy. Although these terms don’t offer a perfect parallel, they come
close, and I find them useful when it comes to understanding what teen-
agers need from adults.
Sympathy is the “inclination to think or feel alike . . . [and] a mutual
or parallel susceptibility,”3 which is what occurred for Lizzie as she dealt
with Angelica. Lizzie started to feel the same way Angelica did, and she
reacted to the situation based on these sympathetic feelings. This idea of
a mutual or parallel susceptibility captures our vulnerability in the face
of teenage drama, as Lizzie’s reaction to Angelica demonstrates. All of
us are susceptible to teenagers in this way, and thus to getting swept up
in their world; and we know we are identifying with teenagers and not
relating to them when we start to think or feel the same way they do.
Empathy, in contrast, is the “action of understanding, being aware of,
being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts,
and experience of another.” Sounds similar, doesn’t it? Here’s the major
difference, though, and it’s subtle. Empathy suggests a response that
allows for the discrimination between self and other in the moment.
An empathic response remains at a remove. A sympathetic response
doesn’t, and during a sympathetic response we focus as much attention
on ourselves as on the other person, if not more.
When we relate to teenagers, we have empathy for them. When we
identify with teenagers, we have sympathy for them, if that. With empa-
thy, we keep our own perspective and vantage point; with sympathy we
don’t—we get a little too close for comfort and, when this happens, we
risk confusing our students’ problems with our own.
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 75

It’s Not About Age

You might think younger adults would be more susceptible than
older ones to identifying with teenagers, but this is not necessarily the
case. While there is a period during which young adults must develop
grown-up skills, age doesn’t make a difference after this initial adjust-
ment period is over. This is an important point to remember when we
consider the differences between relating to and identifying with teens.
It’s not about age.

The Case of Pam

Pam’s story illustrates this point. Pam was only a few years out of
nursing school when she got a position as the school nurse at a large
urban high school. Part of her job was to work closely with the school’s
peer leaders and direct them in their work with younger students. Pam
inherited a program that students perceived as accessible and casual;
her predecessor had deemphasized the boundary between herself and
her students. For someone without Pam’s grown-up skills and good
boundaries, an office complete with couches, cushions, and condoms
could have been a recipe for disaster. But Pam had no trouble with it.
She was professional, approachable, and her students loved her because
she related to them so well.
Some of Pam’s colleagues believed Pam’s skill at relating to her stu-
dents was a function of her age, but they were mistaken. Pam was effec-
tive in her work with teenagers precisely because she didn’t identify with
them, she related to them, a skill that had nothing to do with how old
she was. Pam could effectively separate her own experiences from those
of her students; she empathized with her students, which allowed her to
relate to their experiences and connect to them in a grown-up way.

The Case of Gianna Redux

Gianna’s story, from chapter 3, provides another example of the rela-
tive unimportance of age as it pertains to relating to versus identifying
with students. Gianna, an experienced teacher in her late thirties, was
unable to relate to the students in her sexuality class. Instead, she identi-
fied with them and as a result she didn’t maintain the boundaries that
should have existed between them.
76 CHAPTER 4

Because she identified with her students, and because they urged her
to self-disclose, Gianna assumed her students would benefit from hear-
ing about her own life story and sexual history, and that this would make
them feel comfortable and encourage discussion. This might have been
true had Gianna’s relationship with her audience been reciprocal, but
it wasn’t. Despite the encouragement she got from her students, many
of them felt uncomfortable when Gianna shared her story. They were
unable to relate to Gianna because she didn’t relate to them, at least not
until she got some assistance.
Gianna’s case underscores the need for adults to practice self-
awareness, good judgment, and maintain good boundaries in order to
relate to students and not to identify with them. Gianna’s situation also
underscores the need for administrators to be clear with teachers about
what they expect in terms of behavior. Gianna’s department chair even-
tually made it clear to Gianna, but this conversation came after the fact.
We, along with Gianna, need guidance and direction before we enter
the classroom, and possibly throughout the process. Especially when we
teach controversial or value-laden subjects, like sexuality, it’s helpful for
administrators to actively mentor teachers and for teachers to support
each other as challenges with boundaries arise in the classroom.

Need 4: Being Friendly vs. Being Friends

The fourth thing teenagers need from us is our ability to understand
the difference between being friendly with them and being their friend.
Gianna saw her students as peers, and she wanted to treat them as
equals. The relationship between us and teenagers can never be equal,
though, and being friendly vs. being friends addresses this reality.
A critical difference between being friendly and being friends is that
friendly is an attitude, it’s a stance. We can be friendly with anyone.
Friendship, on the other hand, is a relationship with implied expecta-
tions and presumed mutuality. We can’t be friends with everyone. More
importantly, friendship implies a degree of give-and-take that can’t exist
in a relationship in which there is a power differential, like there is in the
student-teacher relationship. Friendship between adults and teenagers
in schools, therefore, is categorically out of the question.
When we practice the grown-up skills of self-awareness, good judg-
ment, and an ability to maintain boundaries we ensure that our relation-
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 77

ships with teenagers remain friendly in the teenage world, and don’t
cross the line into friendship.

One Person’s Friendly Is Another Person’s Friend

A student once described to me his relationship with his favorite
teacher. He listed all the things he liked about his teacher and described
how much he enjoyed his class. He said he admired his teacher for all
kinds of reasons, and added that he wanted to become a teacher himself
because of the fine example his own teacher had set. Then he said his
teacher was one of his best friends.
Not a problem, as long as the teacher didn’t say the same thing. Students
have all kinds of reactions to their teachers, and one of them may be a de-
sire for their friendship. No harm was done when this student described
his teacher as a friend, but harm could have been done if the teacher had
responded in the same way. Luckily, the teacher in question understood
what was going on. He accepted his student’s feelings for him and made
certain to maintain the boundary between them. He was friendly with his
student and didn’t confuse being friendly with being a friend.
But let’s say he had. Let’s say this teacher had confused being friendly
with being friends and had treated his student accordingly. What could
happen then, and why would it be so bad?
To review, friendship implies reciprocity, something that does not
and cannot exist between teenagers and adults in the teenage world. As
adults, we have ultimate authority over teens at school, and this power is
a barrier to friendship. If we considered teenagers our friends, we would
never be able to exert our authority over them when we need to, which
is pretty much all day, every day. Imagine trying to exert authority over
your adult friends. It wouldn’t work, and if it did it would imply either
that the relationship wasn’t really a friendship, or that authority between
friends was shared depending on the circumstance. This is another rea-
son why friendship between adults and teenagers in schools can’t work:
There is never a circumstance during which teenagers have ultimate
authority over adults in schools, and if they do, something is wrong.

The Case of Tony

Tony was a young, inexperienced humanities teacher who supervised
the yearbook. Tony was lonely much of the time, so he looked forward
78 CHAPTER 4

to hanging out with students after school as they worked on the year-
book. Tony didn’t mind if deadlines caused the staff to stay late or work
on weekends; hanging out with his students was the extent of his social
life. In an effort to keep his students happy, Tony always bought food
and other incentives to keep them working, and to make them like him.
Tony didn’t see his behavior or feelings as problematic; he even bragged
to his colleagues about how close he was to his yearbook staff and that
they were his friends.
Okay, so what’s wrong with a lonely guy thinking his students are his
friends? Well, for starters, it was a complete misread of the situation.
None of Tony’s students saw him as a friend, they saw him for what he
was: a guy who tried to curry favor with them. Second, as a result, Tony
was quite ineffectual at his job, which was to guide and supervise his
students. The teenagers ran the show, and Tony could no more rein
them in than he could understand his own behavior. When things inevi-
tably got out of control, Tony was at a loss—he didn’t want to alienate
or anger his “friends” by setting limits.
In addition to his inability to do his job effectively, Tony made his
students feel uncomfortable. His need for their approval and attention
was palpable, and his students found it off-putting. Tony’s students ac-
cepted his food but rejected everything else he offered them because
they understood on some level how inappropriate his desire for their
friendship was. But let’s say one of them had accepted Tony’s offer of
friendship. What then?
When we cross the line and view teenagers as friends, the burden
on the teenager is huge. Teenagers are not capable of dealing with our
problems, and when we consider teenagers to be our friends we have a
problem. Teenagers have enough problems of their own, so they can’t
reasonably deal with our life circumstances. Teenagers aren’t develop-
mentally ready to take on our burdens and one of the things friends do
is share their burdens.
Tony shared his burden of loneliness with his students and, under-
standably, they couldn’t do anything about it: It wasn’t their responsibil-
ity. If a student had accepted Tony’s offer of friendship, he or she would
have been sucked into a chasm of unmet adult needs that would engulf
them both, and this could seriously compromise the teenager’s ability to
get his or her own needs met.
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 79

Chances are also good that such a student would suffer consequences
from his or her peers, most probably in the form of derision or exclu-
sion. Nobody likes a teacher’s pet, and when adults act like their stu-
dents’ friends, we set students up and do them a serious disservice when
it comes to the student’s peer relationships. When we think students are
our friends, we play favorites, another challenge in the teenage world.
Tony was not alone in feeling isolated in his work. Working with teen-
agers all day can be a very lonely enterprise. We can’t share ourselves
with teenagers the way they share themselves with us, and this can leave
us at a loss. But this is the reality of our work, and it can be very chal-
lenging at times. Most adults seek companionship at work, it’s natural.
But those of us who work in the teenage world can’t, at least not from
our students.
When we start to feel lonely, we should reach out to other adults and
talk about our experience. Chances are good they will have similar sto-
ries to share. Administrators should be on the lookout for teachers who
seem isolated or not integrated with their colleagues, and they should
pay close attention to new or young teachers who may not feel com-
fortable reaching out for help. There are many of us who share Tony’s
struggles with loneliness and lack of connection, and if our communities
are receptive to our plight, this will go a long way to solving the problem.
We need to make our communities sympathetic to hazards such as lone-
liness, otherwise we may look to students for companionship and start
playing favorites, which puts us, and them, in an untenable position.

Having Favorites vs. Playing Favorites

All adults who work with teenagers have favorites; it’s not just the
Tonys of the world. I repeat, all adults who work in the teenage world
have favorites, and this is important for us to admit (not to our students,
of course). Students are different and therefore we react to them differ-
ently. This is normal. But having favorites and playing favorites are also
different, and playing favorites can lead to trouble.
The slippery slope that runs from being friendly with students to being
their friends (or to acting like their friends, shall we say) begins with the
fact that adults have favorites. Adults who practice grown-up skills can
live with the reality that we have favorites, whereas grown-older adults
80 CHAPTER 4

give into the temptation to play favorites. Playing favorites is a temptation

because when we play favorites we are less interested in expressing favor-
itism than we are in being favored ourselves. Playing favorites, therefore,
is about being a favorite, not just about having one, and this is tempting
for all of us.

The Case of Doug

Playing favorites can take many forms. For Doug, it meant having a
particularly close relationship with the star players on his baseball team.
The year Doug’s team did well in their league, Doug became attached
to three of his best players, and they to him. Doug was rightfully proud
of their accomplishments, and he often singled his players out for atten-
tion and special treatment. He made sure he highlighted their achieve-
ments in public whenever he got the chance. Doug was determined that
the whole school would see just how great his players were.
Most of us are proud of our students’ accomplishments, and this is
how it started out for Doug. But things changed, and gradually Doug’s
interest in his players had more to do with meeting his own needs for at-
tention than it did with his pride as a coach. The more attention he gave,
the more attention he got, and this made the cycle hard to recognize
and break. Doug continued to publicly fete his players well beyond what
they deserved, and well beyond what his other players could tolerate.
Another danger of playing favorites is the inevitable effect it has on
the not favored student. Most teenagers are generous enough to accept
when their peers get recognition that is deserved. Most teenagers are
also smart enough to recognize when attention goes beyond what is
merited. This is what happened with Doug’s players, the unsung ones,
who came to realize that Doug wasn’t playing fair. They knew their
teammates were great, but also they knew they weren’t that great, and
this changed their opinion of Doug.

The Seduction of Being Favored

Being favored by teenagers is seductive. I’m not suggesting teenagers
themselves are seductive but the attention they give can be. Such atten-
tion can tempt almost any adult into cultivating relationships that extend
beyond the bounds of friendliness. Teenagers, in their desire to get
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 81

close to their favorite adults, may unwittingly encourage adults to treat

them differently, as Doug’s players did. Doug’s players fawned over him
in the same way he fawned over them, and while the relationship they
formed wasn’t one of equals, it was one of equal attention and intensity.
This kind of mutual admiration is hard to resist unless it is seen for what
it is, and resist it we must.
Doug could have untangled himself from his predicament by evaluat-
ing how much energy he was expending on each of his players’ behalf.
When we determine that some students are getting more from us than
others, we need to evaluate the situation.4 Doug didn’t need to back
off from his favored students as much as he needed to include other
students into his sphere of attention. Such a shift in emphasis would
have reduced the intensity of some of his attachments and increased
the intensity of others, thus balancing out his attention expenditure. As
all teachers know, we have only so much attention to give, and it’s our
duty to spread this attention among our students as evenly as possible.
When we focus on spending our attention evenly, this helps us avoid the
pitfalls of playing favorites and of joining in the teenage world.

Joining vs. Joining In

A wise teacher pointed out to me the distinction between joining
teenagers and joining in with teenagers.5 Joining implies behaving with
teenagers in a friendly, grown-up manner. Joining in implies behaving
with teens in an identified, friend-like, grown-older way. Doug joined in
and when he did, he shifted the focus from his players to himself, and
from their needs to his own.
When we understand the difference between joining and joining in
with teenagers, and when we resist the temptation to play favorites and
to be favored by teenagers, we can maintain the boundary between be-
ing friendly with students and being their friends. In the process, we’ll
be more effective educators and happier adults.

Need 5: Serving the Other vs. Serving the Self

All of the above teenage needs are connected to this final one, the
need for adults in the teenage world to work primarily in the service
of others and not of ourselves. This means teens need us to prioritize
82 CHAPTER 4

their needs over our own, at least when it comes to our work with them.
The grown-up skill of self-transcendence is of paramount importance
here, but the skills of good judgment, self-awareness, and self-control
are also important.

The Grown-Up Paradox

In order to put others first we must take care of ourselves, and this
is what I call the grown-up paradox. I use the term paradox because
taking care of ourselves and teenagers at the same time is hard to do,
especially for adults new to the teenage world. Teenage needs often
seem endless, and meeting them can be exhausting, and adult self-care
may go by the wayside in the face of teenage demands.
But we all must rise to the challenge of the grown-up paradox. If
we don’t, we risk one of two outcomes: Either we lose ourselves in the
needs of our students and become martyrs, or we focus too much on
ourselves and become narcissistic. Most adults in the teenage world
don’t get this out of balance, but it can happen if we’re not careful. I
will return to the issue of adult self-care in detail in chapter 7; for now,
it’s important that we understand our mandate to put others first while
maintaining a basic level of self-care in the process.

The Case of Sandy

Sandy had trouble with the grown-up paradox. Sandy was a language
arts teacher who always put her students first. She was professional and
kind, and devoted to her job to the exclusion of everything else, includ-
ing her health. During one long and snowy winter, Sandy contracted
a nasty infection that wouldn’t go away. Despite her illness, Sandy
thought it was her duty to continue to work even when she felt terrible
and, unfortunately for her, many of her colleagues didn’t understand the
severity of her situation.
Sandy never considered taking time off to heal. She didn’t value her
own health enough to understand that this would benefit her students
in the long run. Instead, she kept teaching until she could no longer
function, at which point she was forced to take several weeks off of
work to recover.
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 83

Teenagers need adults to model self-care. They learned the opposite

from Sandy, who instead modeled self-abnegation. Sandy’s behavior
was problematic because she didn’t understand that she was responsible
for attending to her own legitimate needs in addition to those of her
students—she thought her students were all that mattered, and para-
doxically she didn’t understand that her behavior was in fact discounting
their need (to have a healthy teacher). She also made the mistake of
thinking she was irreplaceable, a mistake many of us make in our work.
She believed that if she didn’t come to work, regardless of how sick she
was, her students would be left hanging. No doubt her absence would
have had an effect on them, but it wouldn’t have been detrimental if it
had been in the service of legitimate self-care.
Sandy had a hard time practicing the skill of self-transcendence.
Despite her dedication to her students, at heart she couldn’t tran-
scend her own need to feel irreplaceable. But beneath this sentiment,
Sandy really feared she was replaceable, and that if she took care of
her own needs she wouldn’t be needed in return. Sandy could have
used the support of an astute supervisor to let her know that she was
both replaceable, in that her students would survive a few days with-
out her, and irreplaceable, in that she was an important member of
the community. In making her daily work solely about her students,
Sandy lost sight of her own importance and her unique contributions
to her community.

The Critical Question: Who Does This Serve?

Sandy’s situation illustrates the delicate balance we must strike be-
tween taking care of ourselves and taking care of others. This is an end-
less challenge, so we must regularly examine our behavior and motives
to ensure we are acting in service of our students. One way to do this is
to ask ourselves the question, Who does this serve? when we consider
our actions. The answer should be: our students. If it isn’t, then we
must reexamine our behavior and intentions and determine how to get
ourselves back on track. When we take care of students in this way we
ultimately take care of ourselves, because what’s in our students’ best
interests is almost always in our own best interests too, and this is what
Sandy needed help to understand.
84 CHAPTER 4

The Case of LeAnn

LeAnn needed to ask herself this critical question, and she needed to
pay attention to the answer because her actions did not ultimately serve
her students. LeAnn was a veteran teacher with over thirty years of ex-
perience, and she was tired, perhaps even burned out. But LeAnn liked
teaching for lots of reasons (can you say summer?), and so she stayed in
the profession. But her heart wasn’t in it anymore and it showed.
Because she didn’t feel invested anymore, LeAnn didn’t do her best.
She didn’t revise her lesson plans regularly or think much about what
she was going to teach; she had the expertise and experience to just
show up and go through the motions. She also didn’t have the energy
to involve herself with her students outside the classroom. As a result,
she didn’t stay on campus after school despite the fact that she was con-
tractually required to do so. LeAnn left school when her last class was
finished, and departed by a back entrance in the hope that no one would
notice her departure. But people did notice—especially her students,
who couldn’t find her when they had questions or needed help.
LeAnn was so exhausted she could think only of herself. Tired as we
might get in the teenage world, none of us who works with adolescents
has this luxury. LeAnn’s idea of self-care, like leaving school early, made
sense on the surface, but ultimately her coping strategies didn’t serve
her or her students. LeAnn’s efforts never brought back her energy or
enthusiasm for work, and so everyone was left wanting. LeAnn needed
more than an early departure from work to solve her problems; she
needed to examine whether she wanted to do the hard work of teach-
ing anymore. If she did, then she needed to determine how she could
prioritize her students’ needs and serve them effectively without feeling
so depleted.
All of us have days when we prioritize our own needs but LeAnn did
this most days and, when this happens, it’s a sign we should rethink what
we’re doing. Perhaps LeAnn needed a sabbatical, or maybe she needed
to leave the profession altogether. It is not heretical for a teacher to
consider a career change, and it’s something administrators should talk
about as an option when they deal with someone like LeAnn, who just
didn’t have it in her anymore. Acknowledging our own burnout can be
one of the best ways we serve our students, who otherwise get the brunt
of our tired and depleted selves.
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 85

The Case of Grant

Unlike LeAnn, Grant was very invested in the welfare of his students.
He regularly met with every student outside of class as an expression of
this commitment, but he often engaged in conversations that went be-
yond the bounds of the teacher-student relationship. Admittedly, Grant
was a good listener, so students were quick to reveal themselves to him,
but he also was quick to disclose personal information back.
Grant openly shared details of his own struggles during high school,
which included dealing with undiagnosed attention deficit disorder
(ADD), and he developed a following of kids who faced similar chal-
lenges. Grant became the self-proclaimed campus expert on helping
kids with attention difficulties, and he considered his personal experi-
ence to be sufficient qualification for this role. This brought him into
conflict with the school’s learning specialist, among others, who was
troubled by Grant’s investment in labeling and helping students with
problems beyond his area of expertise, and by doing so without collabo-
rating with his colleagues.
Grant’s concerns for his students were legitimate, but had he asked
himself the question, Who does this serve?, his answer might have
surprised him. In the guise of serving others, and certainly with the
intention of doing so, Grant was dealing with his own issues as much as
anyone’s. Grant felt special in his self-designated role of expert, some-
thing he’d never felt in high school. He identified a lot with his strug-
gling students, but this identification often overrode his ability to help
them. What they needed from Grant was his help as a teacher, not as an
ADD expert, but this was hard for Grant to understand. His desire to
help was so strong that sometimes it clouded his judgment.

Beware Territoriality
How can we presume to understand Grant’s motives, and by exten-
sion to determine if they were in the service of his needs or those of his
students? The most important clue lies in his relationship with other
adults within the community. Grant didn’t work with his colleagues to
support his students. Grant established his territory with students and
became upset when others “trespassed.” For instance, this happened
once when a student talked with him about the work she was doing with
86 CHAPTER 4

the school’s learning specialist. Grant questioned the methods of his col-
league, leaving his student feeling confused about who she should listen
to. In his effort to support his student, he unintentionally undermined
her ability to trust her caregivers.
Grant needed to work with his colleagues, not against them; helping
students is a collaborative effort in schools, and when we get territorial
it’s a sign that we’re putting our own needs first, and not our students’.
When we treat students or their problems as private property, this is a
sign that students’ needs are getting trumped. Grant was fortunate to
have an assistant principal who helped him recognize that his method of
helping his students needed to be revised. Eventually Grant was able to
see that he needed to play a different role with students when it came
to their learning challenges, and that once his students got the help they
needed from the appropriate sources, he could still be a valuable sup-
port to them as an understanding teacher.

BACK TO THE BOTTOM LINE

Our job in the teenage world is to meet the needs of our students. This
is the bottom line. While our own situations will always inform how we
approach our students’ needs, as we saw in Grant’s case, the fact is we
must put our students first and figure out how to take care of ourselves
in the process. Teenagers need us to understand their needs, to respond
to their needs dispassionately, and to separate our own experiences
from theirs. This is perhaps the most important work we do in schools,
and without it teenagers are left alone and helpless. When we practice
grown-up skills, we guide teenagers and help them deal with the phe-
nomenon of adolescence and their developing teenage brains.

EXERCISES AND REFLECTIONS

1. Consider a situation with students in which you were torn between

meeting a need and a want. What was the need? What was the
want? How did you resolve the situation?
2. Consider a time when you reacted to a situation with students.
What happened? What aspects of the situation caused you to react
and not to respond? What could you have done differently?
THE FIVE THINGS TEENAGERS NEED FROM GROWN-UPS 87

3. Consider a time when a colleague reacted instead of responded to

a situation involving a student. What happened? How did the situ-
ation get resolved? How would the outcome of the situation have
differed if your colleague had responded instead of reacted?
4. What aspects of the teenage experience do you identify with?
How does this identification with your students affect your ability
to relate to them as a grown-up? (You may want to consider your
own adolescent experience as you think about this question, and
what aspects of your experience remind you of your current work
with teenagers.)
5. Who are your favorite students and why? How do you express your
favoritism? Which students do you dislike and why? (If you’re do-
ing this exercise with colleagues, I suggest you refrain from sharing
names of specific students. You can instead discuss the qualities
you like or dislike about the students in question.)
6. Consider a situation in which you played favorites with a student.
What happened? How did your behavior change with your favored
student? Consider a situation in which your behavior changed be-
cause of your dislike for a student. What happened?
7. When have you been singled out as a favorite by a student? How
did this feel? If you don’t think you’ve ever been favored, consider
a situation in which a colleague has been obviously favored. How
did you know your colleague was being favored and how did your
colleague respond?
8. What are your motives for teaching? What rewards or incentives
do you get from teaching? How might your motives interfere with
your ability to put the needs of your students ahead of your own?
9. When have you felt tired or disengaged from your work? What did
this look like? How did you deal with it? To whom did you turn for
support or guidance?

CHAPTER SUMMARY

It is the job of adults who work in the teenage world to attend to the
basic needs of students, and to do this we must practice grown-up
skills. Teenagers need adults to practice grown-up skills above all else,
and when we do this we rise to the challenge of putting our students’
88 CHAPTER 4

needs before our own. Teenagers need us to respond to them with

dispassion; to separate our own experiences from theirs; to relate to
them in a friendly way without confusing this with being their friend;
and to take care of ourselves so that our work can ultimately be in the
service of others.

NOTES

1. I don’t mean to suggest that issues such as poverty, abuse, or racism have no effect
on a child’s development; they do. My point is that the absence of a loving grown-up is
generally more detrimental to a child’s development than these other, clearly significant
variables.
2. I wouldn’t take my 7th graders outside during class to save my life, but that may
say more about my classroom management skills (or lawn management skills, as it were)
than anything else.
3. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2008.
4. There are always circumstances in which some students need more from us than
others. I’m not referring here to the situations that occur routinely in the course of our
teaching. I’m referring instead to those instances when our need for treating students
specially overrides the demands of the situation.
5. Thanks to E. J. Katz, who got this nugget in 2007 from the Stanley H. King Coun-
seling Institute for Independent Secondary Schools and passed it on to me.
 5

DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS

IN THE TEENAGE WORLD

Adults in the teenage world are responsible for maintaining bound-

aries in our relationships with students. The do’s and don’ts in this
chapter cover behavior that we should either practice or avoid to
keep these boundaries in place. We are also responsible for estab-
lishing a healthy school community, and as such we must be mindful
not only of our own behavior but also of how we support our col-
leagues and institutions as a whole.

THE DO’S AND DON’TS

Throughout this chapter, I propose fifteen guidelines for behavior that

we should either avoid (don’ts) or practice (do’s) in an effort to maintain
healthy relationships with teenagers. Some of these behaviors are very
specific and not open to interpretation (for instance, don’t have sex with
students), while others are more general and contextual (for example,
don’t lend personal things to students). Each behavior speaks to some
aspect of our relationships with our students, and all of them, when

89
90 CHAPTER 5

practiced in combination, keep us firmly in the grown-up camp in the

teenage world. The fifteen guidelines are:

Don’ts
1. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your principal to know
about
2. Don’t touch or have sex with students, and don’t talk with stu-
dents about sex
3. Don’t talk about personal business with students
4. Don’t communicate with students via personal email or phone,
text or instant message, Facebook, or at your home
5. Don’t lend or borrow personal things from students
6. Don’t spend time with students after hours
7. Don’t consume or discuss alcohol or drugs in the proximity of
students
8. Don’t talk with students about colleagues
9. Don’t keep student secrets
10. Don’t go beyond the scope of your role

Do’s
1. Do understand and follow school policies, procedures, and best
practices
2. Do seek assistance when you get overwhelmed in your relation-
ships with teenagers
3. Do establish strong ties with colleagues
4. Do support the grown-up team within the school community
5. Do get a life

IMAGINE YOURSELF ON THE WITNESS STAND

When I work with new teachers, I advise them to imagine themselves

on the witness stand, being cross-examined about their behavior involv-
ing students. I know it’s dramatic but all drama aside it’s a good way to
instill a sense of caution in those starting out in the profession. When
we work in the teenage world we must understand not only what we do
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 91

with students but also why we do it, and we should be able to provide
a rationale for all of our decisions. In other words, we should be able
to imagine ourselves on the witness stand, defending our actions and
ourselves in a reasonable manner.
The fact is the students we work with in middle and high school are
children—children—and therefore our behavior with them must be
beyond reproach, or pretty close to it most of the time. New teachers
need to know this and veteran teachers need to be reminded of it in or-
der to protect students and us. The reality is that regardless of our good
intentions, all of us make mistakes with students because at some point
all of us get knocked off balance by the phenomenon of adolescence.
Given that mistakes are inevitable, it’s good practice to think about our
behavior and its repercussions on a regular basis, and to have some clear
and specific guidelines that govern our actions.
This is what the do’s and don’ts are for; they are about what we should
and shouldn’t do in our work with teenagers in schools. Most of the
guidelines are plain common sense, although that doesn’t mean they’re
easy to follow. But follow them we should because when we do, we in-
crease our effectiveness in our work, maintain good boundaries between
our students and us, and avoid the witness stand altogether.

IT’S ALL ABOUT BOUNDARIES

I haven’t used the term boundaries much thus far because I think
it gets overused in the conversation about adult behavior in schools,
and subsequently I think it can be easily ignored, misunderstood, or
dismissed. But make no mistake, this is what we’re taking about here:
boundaries. Boundaries are what adults need to establish and main-
tain in schools, and boundaries are what students need to stay within.
Boundaries are what separate us from our students, and boundaries
are what protect us from behaving like grown-olders. Without bound-
aries, no one is safe in schools.
The do’s and don’ts can be understood, then, as guidelines or rules
that articulate these boundaries and help us to maintain healthy rela-
tionships with our students. While there are exceptions to most rules,
when we follow these guidelines we can rest assured that we are pro-
tecting our students and ourselves. Most of these rules don’t appear in
92 CHAPTER 5

any faculty handbook, although they probably should because everyone

pays the price when we don’t adhere to them.
As you read through the do’s and don’ts, I encourage you to consider
these guidelines from two perspectives. First, I invite you to think about
how each one pertains to you personally. You might ask yourself, How
does this directive apply to me?, or, Is this something I struggle with?
Second, I encourage you to consider how each guideline pertains to you
as a member of the grown-up community at your school. You might ask
yourself, What is my responsibility if a colleague is struggling to main-
tain one of these boundaries? What should I do and how can I support
my students, my colleagues, and the community in the process? Our job
is to foster a healthy community in the teenage world, not only to deal
with our individual students, and this means we must help each other
when we face challenges in our relationships with teenagers. It also im-
plies that our colleagues’ struggles are our own.
Administrators can help teachers enormously with the following
do’s and don’ts by being clear about what they expect from adults
within their community. Administrators should not assume teachers
have thought about these guidelines. Whereas it is the entire commu-
nity’s responsibility to consider these practices, it is the administrator’s
responsibility to make sure everyone understands what’s expected of
them. Sometimes it is as simple as reminding teachers that working
with teenagers is challenging, and that nobody is perfect. When ad-
ministrators create an atmosphere where adults can talk about their
challenges, this goes a long way to preventing problematic situations
from spiraling out of control.

DON’TS

The following don’ts are the ten things we should avoid in our relation-
ships with teenagers. Each don’t is concrete and fairly specific but at
the same time points to a larger mandate about maintaining a healthy
distance from our students. If you find yourself dismissing a particular
guideline because it seems too specific or because you don’t think it ap-
plies to you, I urge you to think about the issue in broader terms, until
it has some meaning for you personally. The more we relate each don’t
to our own experience, whether it is from a personal perspective or from
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 93

our vantage point as a member of the community, the more fruitful our
examination of our behavior will be, and by extension the more we will
contribute to a healthy school community.

1. Don’t Do Anything You Wouldn’t Want Your Principal

to Know About
We shouldn’t do anything we don’t want our principals to know about.
What goes around comes around in schools, so we should guide our be-
havior with the thought that everything we do can and will get back to
our supervisor, or to someone else. There are no secrets in the teenage
world, so we should behave accordingly. Whether it’s the image of the
witness stand or of our principal looming over our shoulder, it’s good to
have a way to remember that our behavior is transparent when we work
in schools.
Another way to think about this is to remember that our work in
schools is in the public domain. Unless we have the legal right to have
confidential conversations with students, as do the school nurse and
counselor in some jurisdictions,1 everything we say or do is up for scru-
tiny (and even when we do have the legal right to maintain confidenti-
ality, the other person in the conversation can say whatever they want
about us). Just keep in mind that our work and behavior in schools is
an open book, and this is how it should be. When we use this notion of
transparency as our guide, we are better teachers, better colleagues, and
more effective community members. Like all of the other don’ts, this
one is meant to improve our experience at work, and the experience of
everyone else around us.

2. Don’t Touch or Have Sex with Students, and Don’t Talk

to Students about Sex
This one is fairly obvious, isn’t it? Everyone knows about this one.
There’s not much more to say, is there?

When Children Are Targeted Sexually by Adults in Schools

Sadly, there is a lot to say about this guideline because apparently
adults target students sexually in schools more often than we might
94 CHAPTER 5

suspect, and certainly more often than we’d like to believe or admit. In
2004, the U.S. Department of Education commissioned a study to sur-
vey and synthesize the literature on the prevalence of “educator sexual
misconduct” in American schools.2 The results are disturbing. Accord-
ing to the data, upwards of 10 percent of American school children have
been targeted in a sexual manner by adults who work in schools. The
majority of students targeted are female (56–77 percent, depending
on the study) and the majority of offenders are male (57–90 percent,
depending on the study). In addition, male and female adults have
targeted students of the same gender at a lower but still significant rate
(15 percent male to male, 13 percent female to female). And of course,
adult women target male students, too. It’s all bad.
To make matters worse, the study claims that many offenders “are
those most celebrated in their profession.”3 This suggests that adults
who engage in sexual misconduct in schools might not arouse the sus-
picions of their colleagues. They might not be creepy or recognizably
disturbed, or be loners with poor social skills (although having these
attributes does not mean someone is an offender, by any means). A
colleague of a distinguished department chair who had a long-standing
affair with one of his female students, said of him, “He’s absolutely the
last guy I would suspect of something like this.”
So, while it might be tempting to say, “This doesn’t happen in my
school,” statistics tell a different story. However, the study also suggests
that the number of offenses is higher than the number of offenders,
meaning that most offenders are repeat offenders. Therefore, schools
don’t have to root out many adult offenders in order to tackle the prob-
lem, only a few, but these few must be dealt with firmly because they
leave a lot of destruction and pain in their wake.

The Case of John

John was definitely a repeat offender, although most of his students
didn’t think of him this way, even the ones who were the target of his
groping. John was also arguably one of the most popular teachers at his
school. He had been at the school forever, and his students, past and
present, sang his praises. For years, nothing negative was said about
John. He was The Man. Even John’s colleagues didn’t say much about
him, although many were uncomfortable with his popularity and his
obvious need for it. But that didn’t mean anything, did it? Also, those
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 95

who felt uneasy about John had no proof to support their suspicions, so
until someone came forward to report bad behavior on his part, John’s
colleagues didn’t have much recourse.
John displayed a couple of characteristics that troubled his colleagues
but they weren’t traits that necessarily suggested he targeted students
in a sexual way. First, John was much more interested in students than
he was in adults. He spent time with students when he didn’t have to,
he preferred their company to that of other adults, and he allied himself
with students in any conflict that arose within the community. Students
loved John because he “had their back” and he was willing to fight for
them and their causes, often to the dismay of the other adults within
the community.
Second, John was famous for his charisma. Many teachers have cha-
risma but when charisma is the main feature of an adult’s personality, it
often spells trouble, which is what John’s colleagues sensed about him.
John’s following among students had a cult-like quality to it, which John
fostered, again to the dismay of his colleagues. John made sure he was
the most popular teacher in school, and he did so by granting favors to
some students and holding out the promise of favors to others. Students
felt special when John paid attention to them and, as a result, they were
willing to overlook his indiscretions.
Finally, John had access to students individually and off campus,
which gave him ample opportunity to grope his female students. John
coached the girls’ tennis team and during away games and even during
practice, with no other adults around, John could get physically close
to them without much scrutiny. His charisma masked it all, or rather it
protected him from disclosure for a long time.
Eventually, one brave young woman in her twenties, who was work-
ing through the emotional trauma she suffered literally at John’s hands,
spoke up and told her story. Soon former students from all eras of John’s
tenure came forward with similar tales of sexual misconduct, and it be-
came clear that John was a chronic offender who had been getting away
with bad behavior for years.
When John’s behavior finally came to light, the questions on every-
one’s mind were, “Why didn’t someone say something sooner? How
could this have happened right under our noses?”
John’s case illustrates one of the most insidious aspects of this kind of
behavior and one of the reasons such behavior often goes unreported:
Targeted students often fear they will be ostracized by their peers if
96 CHAPTER 5

they speak out and blow an adult’s cover. John was so influential with
students—his charisma was so compelling and he wielded so much
social power—that, given the nature of the teenage world, his victims
feared they would invite trouble by telling the truth and breaking rank
with their peers.
They were right. For as many students who spoke out against John’s
behavior, there were even more who came to his defense, supporting
him in his newfound role as victim. The students that suffered at John’s
hand were accused of lying and summarily castigated by their classmates.
Over the years, John had cultivated many allies and therefore he didn’t
have to surrender without a fight. His influence over students continued
to cause harm within the community long after his departure.
The good news is the vast majority of adults who work in schools don’t
behave the way John did. For most adults, “don’t have sex with students”
is a no-brainer. But when it comes to some other behaviors, like touch-
ing students in a nonsexual way, things aren’t so black and white.

Touching
For the most part, we should avoid touching students in any situation,
but this is sort of unrealistic for many of us. Why? Because some of us
are just “touchers,” if you know what I mean, and our touch is innocu-
ous. Or is it?

The Case of Roberto

Roberto, an English teacher and girls’ basketball coach, was an ebul-
lient guy with lots of experience. He worked hard to connect with his
students and it paid off: He was well respected and well liked by all of
them, or almost all of them. One day after basketball practice, Roberto
noticed that Caroline, a sophomore on the JV squad, was upset about
something. Roberto asked Caroline to stay after practice, and when he
asked her what was wrong, Caroline burst into tears. Without thinking
about it, Roberto put his arm around her in an effort to comfort her,
but immediately realized he had crossed the line. Caroline tensed up,
made a quick excuse about having to meet her mother, and ran out of
the gym, leaving Roberto feeling regretful and confused about what
had happened.
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 97

What Roberto didn’t know about Caroline, and what none of us

knows about our students for sure, is what touch means to them. As a
result, it’s not enough for us to be clear about our own intentions when
we touch students, we must also understand that students may not rec-
ognize our intentions for what they are, regardless of how well meaning.
Roberto’s motivation for touching Caroline was completely innocent,
and certainly it was not sexual, but he never considered how Caroline
might interpret his behavior. Caroline had a history of being sexually
targeted, and Roberto’s touch made her feel violated.
Caroline’s personal history aside, she might have interpreted Rober-
to’s touch in any number of ways, all of which would have been valid to
her, and this is what we must understand. When an adult is on the pro-
verbial witness stand, each side of the story will be weighed against the
other, and it’s hard for us to make a good case for touching a teenager
unless it’s in our job description.
So we should avoid touching our students, if possible. Of course, this
is a very gray area; it’s obvious that nonsexual touching is a far cry from
having sex with students, and therefore the guideline should be open
to interpretation. For example, a different student with different life
experiences than Caroline might have welcomed Roberto’s touch. But
Roberto didn’t touch another student, he touched Caroline and she did
have an issue with it, and that’s the problem.
Given that we never know where our students are coming from, a
good rule of thumb in determining what’s appropriate when it comes
to touch is to consider common practice within the school community.
Is touching students something adults routinely do? If so, under what
circumstances is touching students considered acceptable? Also, if you
are a touchy adult, ask yourself if you feel comfortable touching students
in front of other adults, and if other adults feel comfortable when you
do so. That said, even when we are comfortable with touch that doesn’t
mean our students are, but it’s a place to start as we think about how
to behave. In addition, if you are a “toucher,” consider how you would
justify your behavior to a student’s parent (the ultimate witness stand).
Finally, some practices of touch are commonplace and socially ac-
ceptable, like shaking hands or patting on the back. We should use our
best judgment here, and keep in mind that our behavior with students
should be uniform; what we do with one student we should be prepared
to do with all students. If you are a coach who likes to pat your athletes
98 CHAPTER 5

on the back, make sure you don’t single students out with your behavior,
and try to avoid patting bare skin (as when male athletes have their shirts
off or when swimmers are in their suits).

Talking with Students about Sex

The same rule of thumb applies when it comes to talking with our
students about sex. What’s common practice within the community?
Some of us in the teenage world are paid to talk with students about sex.
School nurses, health teachers, counselors, and biology teachers, even
some coaches, all might talk to students about sex during the course of
their work. Be that as it may, none of us should talk to students about
our own sex lives—that’s always inappropriate. The guideline to not talk
with students about sex applies to conversations that occur beyond the
requirements of the curriculum and/or involve the sharing of personal
and intimate details about either the adult’s or the student’s sex life.
As with the guideline to not touch students, this guideline can be
open to interpretation. Let’s say a student confesses something personal
to us, or shares intimate details without being prompted. How should
we deal with this? Or, what if a student talks about sexuality with us in
generalities? For example, what if they disclose something to us about
their orientation or general dating life? What’s appropriate, and where
do we draw the line?

Is It My Job?
One way to determine whether a discussion about sex is appropriate
is to ask ourselves the question, Is it my job to have this conversation?,
Am I getting paid to discuss this?, and Is this part of the curriculum?
Another good question is, Is this conversation necessary? If the answer
to any question is no, then chances are good you should picture yourself
on the witness stand and avoid the discussion altogether.

The Case of Audrey

Audrey needed to imagine herself on the witness stand because she
talked to her students about sex all the time, and she wasn’t getting paid
to do it. Audrey taught Spanish at a boarding school. She also dated a
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 99

fellow teacher and dispensed information about their intimate lives to

her students freely and frequently.
One afternoon, Audrey heard a knock at her dormitory apartment
door. Without thinking, she opened the door while still in her bathrobe.
A startled student, embarrassed to find Audrey looking disheveled in
the middle of the day, mumbled a few awkward words. Audrey blurted
out, “What do you want? I was having sex with my boyfriend and I want
to get back to it.”
Suffice to say, the student didn’t have a response.
Audrey’s behavior was less harmful to her students than John’s was;
however, her penchant for self-disclosure crossed a similar boundary.
What to Audrey seemed like edgy and mature self-revelation was noth-
ing more than verbal exhibitionism, and it made her students uncom-
fortable and embarrassed, as much as for her as for themselves. If noth-
ing else, Audrey’s disclosures made students dislike her; they thought
she was weird, a loser, and they stayed away from her, which is not what
she intended.
When adults cross a physical or sexual boundary with students, or
when we talk to students in sexually provocative ways, we undermine
everyone’s safety. Even when such behavior isn’t illegal (and of course,
much of it is), it is highly unethical. When this boundary is crossed in the
teenage world, we all must take responsibility for reestablishing safety
and trust with students.

3. Don’t Talk about Personal Business with Students

Audrey talked about her very personal business with students. Most
of us refrain from this type of self-disclosure, but there are many kinds
of personal business beyond the sexual realm that we shouldn’t discuss
with students. Students are at school to learn, not to learn about our per-
sonal lives, and therefore we must do our best to keep students focused
on themselves and their work, not on us. This guideline to not discuss
personal business helps us maintain a healthy distance from our students,
and keeps us on the grown-up side of things in the teenage world.

The Case of Bella

Bella crossed this boundary by sharing her personal business with
her students, often without knowing it. Bella was a middle-aged
100 CHAPTER 5

French teacher who felt at ease with her students. She liked the casual
banter they engaged in at the beginning of class, and occasionally she
joined in. She reported details about her life and marriage and some
of the difficulties she had with her son, who was the same age as her
students. Bella felt comfortable with her disclosures; she didn’t think
they were inappropriate, and because Bella never crossed the line like
Audrey did, she didn’t see a problem. Any of us might do the same
thing, and make a casual comment here and there without thinking or
reflecting on what’s being said.
Here was one of Bella’s mistakes, though, and we should all pay at-
tention. Teenagers do not want to know the intimate details of our lives.
Even when students shower us with attention and questions, the truth
is they don’t really want to know about our personal business, and fur-
thermore, they wouldn’t know how to deal with it if they did. Teenagers
want us to meet their needs and, difficult as this can be at times, this is
exactly what we’re supposed to do.

The Case of Georgia

Georgia was a new high school history teacher and girls’ lacrosse
coach and was the object of her students’ attention, like many young
teachers are. While she liked the affirmation, Georgia wasn’t prepared
for the scrutiny she got from her students. They constantly asked her
questions like, Where did you go to college? What are college parties
like? Do you have a boyfriend? Where do you live? What do you think
of the other teachers? Whereas Bella offered the details of her life freely
to her students, Georgia did not, but she also didn’t feel comfortable
setting limits all the time either.
For new teachers like Georgia, figuring out how much personal in-
formation to disclose can be difficult, and there are no absolute right or
wrongs, like there are when it comes to having sex with students. The
real challenge in situations like Georgia’s is to steer the focus of the
conversation away from us and back to our students (or to the lesson
plan or the practice or whatever). This is a skill we all must master, not
just the young and cool among us, although most of us will find that our
students express less interest in our personal lives as we age.
Georgia was at what I call “student peak interest level,” and therefore
she was forever trying to come up with appropriate responses to teenage
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 101

questions. She felt comfortable revealing some things, like where she
went to college (which was something students could find out for them-
selves anyway), but less comfortable revealing others, like the details of
her experiences at college. She also felt awkward holding a line with her
students at times, and with being selective about what she revealed and
what she withheld. When her students asked her why she responded to
some questions but not others, she didn’t have an answer, and that made
her feel disingenuous.
Georgia also feared that if she didn’t answer some of her students’
questions, they wouldn’t like her anymore. This wasn’t the case, but
Georgia didn’t know it, and therefore she felt torn. While she knew she
shouldn’t reveal too much about herself and risk crossing the line, she
also didn’t feel like she could reveal nothing about herself and risk being
perceived as withholding. Georgia wanted her students to stay inter-
ested in her but she didn’t want to let her guard down, and she didn’t
know how to accomplish this.

Students Aren’t Really Interested in the Details

I return to my earlier point that students aren’t really interested in
the details of our lives. Georgia’s situation may appear to contradict this
contention; however, we shall see that it doesn’t. Despite all the atten-
tion her students paid her, if we look beneath the surface of Georgia’s
situation another truth emerges, one that supports the thesis that teens
are not actually interested in us, regardless of whether they’re dealing
with a Bella or a Georgia. Georgia learned this lesson after a lacrosse
game one day.
As usual after the game, a group of girls surrounded Georgia, and on
this day they wanted to hear her opinion of the opposing team’s coach,
who was someone Georgia knew from college (and whom the girls
thought was attractive). Throwing her usual caution aside, Georgia told
the girls a story about herself and this other coach, and Georgia was
temporarily transported away from the present moment by her memo-
ries and thoughts. After a while, Georgia realized she had been caught
up in a personal reverie, and when she brought her focus back to her
students, she realized she had lost their attention.
Georgia’s interchange with her students demonstrates that teenagers
are interested in themselves more than in us. Teenagers are interested
102 CHAPTER 5

in us to the degree that we’re interested in them, and when Georgia’s

attention drifted away from her students, their attention drifted away
from her. Students don’t care about our personal lives if our attention
leaves them. This point is worth repeating: Teenagers aren’t really inter-
ested in us beyond our interest in them.
Teenagers want to bask in our attention and when they ask us ques-
tions about ourselves it is a way for them to keep the connection be-
tween us going, and to paradoxically keep the attention focused on
them. When we stray too far off the mark, as Georgia did, we make
the important discovery that our students lose interest in us when the
attention isn’t on them. Even the most fascinating among us, which by
teenage standards means those of us who are young or hip or cool, do
not hold our students’ interest long when we don’t keep our interest
focused on them.

Self-Revelation without Self-Disclosure

The good news is we don’t have to disclose anything personal to our
students to be accessible and connected to them. Most teachers want to
feel connected to students but many assume that self-disclosure is the
best way to do this. Luckily, it’s not. Instead, our general attitude and
demeanor, not specific self-disclosure, reveal what’s most important
about us as people.
To this end, students don’t need to know anything personal about us
to know that we care about them and support their efforts to learn. We
can reveal our kindness, integrity, quirkiness, and sense of humor with-
out disclosing a single detail of our private lives. So, those of us who fear
that students need to know details of our personal lives to stay interested
and connected to us can stop worrying. It doesn’t work that way.
Over time, Georgia learned that her students didn’t really want to
know all about her, they just wanted all of her attention. Once she
understood this, she felt much more comfortable setting limits. Every
teacher will develop a different technique for doing this; Georgia used
humor and deflection. When asked a direct question about college par-
ties, for example, Georgia responded in a light manner, “Are you guys
crazy? I’m not telling you anything!” She would also turn the conver-
sation back to her students, with phrases like, “When you’re old and
have graduated from college yourselves, I’ll tell you anything you want
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 103

to know. For now, though, let’s get back to work.” Georgia found she
could communicate warmth and connection to her students in these
simple statements, and that that’s all her students really wanted from
her anyway.

Things to Consider about Self-Disclosure

Each of us has to decide for ourselves how much personal business to
disclose to students. The following are some things to consider during
this decision-making process:

1. What are your school’s policies and guidelines on self-disclosure,

if any? What is accepted practice? If your inclination is to veer
beyond standard practice, consider having a conversation with a
mentor, supervisor, or the principal or head of school to deter-
mine what’s acceptable behavior and what’s not, and where your
personal style fits in.
2. Before you self-disclose, remember that information you share
with teenagers enters the public domain, and once it does you are
no longer the proprietor of that information; you can’t take it back.
Also, always assume the information you share will be heard by
other adults in the community, including parents. I can give you
a money-back guarantee on this one. As a school counselor, I had
countless conversations with students and parents that concerned
the details of teacher self-disclosure. I can therefore promise you
that the information we share with students circulates all over the
place.
3. How does disclosing your personal information serve students?
Does having this information further their learning goals, if at all?
4. How does sharing this personal information serve you? What is
your motivation for disclosing details of your personal life to stu-
dents? What do you hope to accomplish by sharing these details,
and how might you accomplish this without sharing details?
5. What are the advantages of self-disclosure in a specific situation?
Are there any disadvantages or risks to students if you don’t self-
disclose?
6. If you disclose vital personal information, consider informing
your supervisor. Then, when the information circulates within
104 CHAPTER 5

the community, your side of the story has already been told and
is on record.
7. Imagine yourself on the witness stand. What kind of case can you
make for your behavior? How would a jury of your peers view it?

The Case for Self-Disclosure, or Not

I believe there are times when adult self-disclosure can be helpful to
students but these times are rare. At best, self-disclosure is a distraction
for students or simply a turnoff. At worst, it can disrupt and even de-
stroy the relationship between our students and us. In the few instances
I know of where disclosure was helpful, the benefit had as much to do
with the adult’s attentiveness and caring as anything else, and not with
any self-disclosure, per se. Adults who share personal information with
students may strike a chord, but that chord can be struck as soundly
with compassion and empathy as it can with self-disclosure. So, when in
doubt, don’t say it.

The Case of Uma

Here is a case in point. Uma had dyslexia, so she had enormous com-
passion for her students with similar difficulties. As an English teacher,
Uma encountered many students who struggled to read and write due
to various learning styles, and she was always on the lookout for oppor-
tunities to support and encourage these students. By all accounts, she
was very successful at identifying and helping students who struggled.
One day after class, Uma was reviewing an essay with her student
Nick. Nick had been diagnosed recently with dyslexia, and while he was
relieved to know what was wrong with him he was still adjusting to this
new piece of information about himself. Uma could relate to what Nick
was going through, and she told him so. At first, Nick was surprised at
Uma’s disclosure. He also was a little unsettled that Uma told him some-
thing so personal about herself, and yet it made him feel good to know
that someone understood his plight.
While it might appear that Uma’s personal experience with dyslexia
helped Nick, I would argue that it was her ability to empathize and
connect to him that made all the difference. Uma wasn’t compassionate
because she was dyslexic; the two have nothing to do with one another.
Uma was compassionate because that’s who she was, but she sometimes
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 105

mistook her own dyslexia as the source of her authority, which it wasn’t.
Uma was able to relate to her students quite apart from her own per-
sonal experience, despite what she thought. While her dyslexia might
have informed her view of herself and her students, she didn’t need to
share her own story to be helpful and effective with them.
Uma’s motivations for helping Nick were laudable and appropriate,
and she had much help to offer. But once she talked about herself she
took the focus off Nick, where it needed to be. Uma had no intention of
taking the focus off her students; she just didn’t know that that’s what
self-disclosure does. Once she realized this and stopped sharing her
personal story, Uma became an even more effective supporter of her
students, and she helped her students immeasurably.
In the end, self-disclosure is a judgment call, and when you self-
disclose, be prepared to be judged.

4. Don’t Communicate with Students via Personal Email or

Phone, Text or Instant Messaging, Facebook, or at Home
Communicating with students has never been easier or more com-
plicated. The advent of digital technology gives students and teachers
access to each other twenty-four hours a day via email, text and instant
messaging, and cell phones. But just because we can communicate with
our students 24/7 doesn’t mean we should. Now more than ever, we
should be thoughtful about our boundaries in terms of time and access
to students, and carefully determine how and when we communicate
with students in after-hours situations.
I suggest we contemplate our practice around after-hours communi-
cation with students not only because it impinges upon our own time
but because such communication relaxes the boundary between us and
them, and unless our school specifically mandates this practice, it is usu-
ally unnecessary. Getting in touch may be easier than ever before but
that doesn’t mean it’s necessary or helpful.
The following are some suggestions about how to maintain boundar-
ies with students when it comes to communication:

1. Know School Policies: Familiarize yourself with school guidelines

about corresponding with students (and parents) after hours.
Find out whether you are required to check and answer emails or
106 CHAPTER 5

voicemails at night or on the weekend. If so, be clear about your

responsibility for returning messages. For example, if students
write emails at midnight saying they need extensions on their
work, must you take this into consideration? Are you allowed to
set your own guidelines when it comes to such communication? If
so, be very clear about your expectations for student behavior and
put them in writing. If your school doesn’t have specific require-
ments, make sure your personal policies meet with the approval
of a supervisor or principal. Finally, if no policies exist, consider
joining forces with your colleagues to set consistent guidelines.
Teachers can undermine each other’s efforts if their practices are
widely divergent.
2. Communication via Home Phone and Cell Phone: Some schools
don’t publish the home or cell phone numbers of employees; oth-
ers do, particularly boarding schools. Providing the community ac-
cess to this kind of information says a lot about school culture and
expectations for teacher behavior. There are no rights or wrongs
when it comes to this, however, make sure you understand your
school policies and follow them. If your school doesn’t make such
information public and does not expect you to be in touch with
students after hours, think carefully before you give students ac-
cess to this information; to do so widens the scope of your role and
may increase your liability.
3. Communication via Personal Email: Never communicate with
students via personal email accounts. Doing so is problematic for
a number of reasons. First, it suggests a level of familiarity and lack
of professionalism that is unadvisable. Second, it signals a degree
of accessibility that goes beyond the teacher-student relationship,
and certainly beyond the time boundaries of the school day and
year. There is no school business that can’t be handled on a work
email account, so stick to that.
4. Communication via Text and Instant Messages: Do not text mes-
sage or instant message (IM) students unless you are required to
do so. Like personal emailing, this type of communication invites a
degree of familiarity that is neither advisable nor in students’ best
interests. Texting and IMing feed the monster of instant gratifica-
tion. Learning impulse control is an essential part of adolescence,
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 107

and these methods of communication don’t serve that end. It’s fine
for teenagers to communicate with their peers this way, but not
with their teachers. The student-teacher relationship is and should
be different, and therefore it should be conducted via different
modes of communication.
5. Communication Online (via Facebook, MySpace, etc.): Many
students have personal websites or online profiles. Many adults
do too, which puts our students and us in the same virtual online
communities without the benefit of the boundaries that exist in
real-world school communities. Adults with personal information
online should assume students have access to this information.
For younger teachers, this might not seem like a big deal; teach-
ers who came of age with this kind of technology do not have the
same thoughts about privacy that older teachers do. Regardless of
age, though, adults should understand that students don’t see us as
being separate from our role as teachers, so it’s never helpful for
students to know too much about our personal lives.
6. Communication at Home: Except at boarding schools, where stu-
dents meet with teachers in their homes routinely, we should be
cautious about conducting any school business, like tutoring, within
our homes. We should be extremely cautious about conducting
any nonschool business with students from our homes. There are
exceptions to this guideline, of course—for instance, when we are
friends with a student’s family—but, by and large, students should
not be in teachers’ homes unless required by the school. If this
happens, teachers should let a supervisor or principal know what’s
going on. Also, before inviting students into our homes, we should
ask ourselves whether we would invite all students into our home.
If the answer is no, then chances are the invitation is not advisable
and should be reconsidered.

All of the above suggestions aim to help us establish and maintain

reasonable boundaries between our students and us, and between our
professional and private lives. When we maintain these boundaries and
communicate with students in a manner that is consistent with the ex-
pectations of the school culture, we reinforce our role as grown-ups in
the teenage world.
108 CHAPTER 5

The Case of Cameron

Cameron, an experienced social studies teacher, came up against
a literal boundary with his students. Cameron lived in the same
neighborhood as some of his students, as many teachers do. His
students knew where he lived and occasionally knocked on his door
as they walked by his house. Cameron always felt uncertain about
what to do when this happened and, once, his uncertainty led him
to invite students inside, where he offered them a drink of water.
Cameron quickly knew he had made a mistake when his students,
once indoors, commented on his photographs, books, furniture, CD
collection—just about everything. Cameron felt overwhelmed by this
scrutiny, and vowed never to react to a spontaneous visit by students
in the same way again.
Cameron’s situation is fairly benign, which is why I use it to illus-
trate the point about boundaries and communication with students.
Cameron did nothing egregious by letting his students into his home
for a drink of water but his gesture left a mark. First, it established
a precedent, which was awkward for Cameron to reverse. Second,
when news of the students’ visit got out, it made Cameron look like he
was playing favorites, which was not his intention. Were Cameron to
deny another group of students entrance to his home, he would have
a lot of explaining to do, and therefore he might have trouble refusing
the request. And this is exactly what happened. When another group
showed up, expecting to be invited in, they challenged Cameron and it
made everyone uncomfortable, and his behavior confused his students
when he held his ground.
In Cameron’s situation, a literal boundary was breached. In cases
that involve communication with students via the use of personal email,
phones, and Internet accounts, virtual boundaries are breached. Cam-
eron learned two important things from his experience. First, that his
knee-jerk reaction to invite his students inside cost him in the long
run, and second, that he could be just as hospitable and friendly in his
communication with students without crossing a line. The next time
students came to his door, he offered them glasses of water without of-
fering them entrance to his home. While he had to hold his ground with
this new precedent, Cameron communicated his willingness to engage
with his students without crossing an important boundary.
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 109

5. Don’t Lend or Borrow Personal Things from Students

Material transactions between adults and teenagers in schools should
be limited to what the curriculum calls for. When adults and teens lend
and borrow from each other, relationships get complicated. We should
therefore be cautious about what we give to students and, if possible, we
should never borrow things from students. I’m not talking about little
things, like pencils. I’m referring to the exchange of personal or valu-
able items that are not directly related to our work, and whose exchange
might serve to change the relationship between our students and us.
For example, we should never exchange money with students unless
the practice is directly related to a school activity, like the proverbial
bake sale, or is connected to the curriculum in some way. While there
are situations in which it is conceivable and appropriate that students in
financial need would approach teachers, there are almost no situations
in which it is appropriate for us to turn to students for money. So just
don’t do it. If and when we do spend money on students, we should
keep the receipts and get reimbursed by the school. Reimbursement
is a good guideline to follow in these situations: When the expense is
reimbursable, then the practice is probably acceptable.
When students need money and express this need, we should as-
sess the situation thoughtfully. Is the request a lighthearted plea to
purchase a soda from the vending machine, or a more serious request
to meet an immediate and essential need, like bus money for the trip
home? Obviously, these are very different kinds of requests. The first
kind should be refused categorically, but the second kind should be
considered carefully.
When a student’s safety is at issue or when a basic need is at stake,
like getting home from school, and when money is the issue, we must
respond. This doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that we should use
our own money to deal with the situation, but rather it means we must
figure out a solution to the problem, one that meets the student’s need
and maintains an appropriate boundary at the same time. An appropri-
ate first step is to confer with an administrator, and possibly hand over
the problem to him or her. In lieu of administrative support, another
option is to confer with the business office or the school’s financial of-
ficer to see whether money is available for such requests. If possible, we
should never respond to these requests in haste.
110 CHAPTER 5

The Case of Molly

This is what Molly did and her action had unexpected consequences.
Molly was at her desk grading papers at the end of the school day when
Finbar, a student in her geometry class, dropped by and told Molly he
lost his wallet and didn’t have money to get home. Without thinking,
Molly opened her purse and handed Finbar a ten-dollar bill, the small-
est denomination she had. Finbar thanked her, said he would pay her
back the next day, and left.
The next day, Molly expected Finbar to return the money, but he said
nothing. Molly didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up, and reasoned to
herself that ten dollars wasn’t anything to get upset about. When Finbar
hadn’t paid her back by the next week, Molly decided to say something,
and Finbar responded by saying he would definitely get the money to
Molly the following day, which he didn’t. Molly considered speaking
with Finbar again but decided against it. By this point, she realized she
had put both of them in an awkward position and she couldn’t see her
way out of it.
Despite her best efforts, Molly came to distrust Finbar. She knew
this was an unreasonable response, but she couldn’t help herself. She
was angry with him for not abiding by his word, and even angrier with
herself for getting herself into this mess and not knowing how to get out.
She resolved to never again respond so quickly to such a request.
In order to prevent such dilemmas in the future, Molly did some in-
vestigation. First, she asked an administrator if the school had an emer-
gency fund for such requests. It didn’t, but Molly’s inquiry prompted
the school to establish one. Next, Molly made sure she and her col-
leagues knew how to access this fund for future reference.

Gifts
The exchange of gifts between students and teachers is different than
the exchange of money, but it raises some of the same concerns. Many
schools place limits on the dollar amount of gifts teachers can accept,
particularly from parents.4 This makes sense for plenty of reasons, not
least of which is that it ensures we don’t get compromised in our ability
to evaluate students fairly. When it comes to presents from students,
though, the guidelines aren’t usually as clear-cut. We needn’t be too con-
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 111

cerned about receiving gifts that have no monetary value, like homemade
presents, but we should have a policy about accepting gifts that have a
price tag attached. That said, even gifts of little monetary value have
meaning attached to them, and this is why we need to pay attention.

The Case of Scott

Every morning before class, Scott, a French teacher, enjoyed a cup
of coffee in his department office. Scott was a popular teacher, and
once his students learned of his caffeine habit, a small group took turns
bringing him his morning fix. At first, Scott was touched and flattered
by this attention, and because he didn’t express anything other than
pleasure about his students’ behavior, the ritual continued. Scott soon
felt uncomfortable about what was happening, though, but the prospect
of confronting his students made him anxious, so he didn’t say anything
and continued to accept the daily offering.
While a daily cup of coffee might not seem like a gift, it is, and such
a scenario is loaded with problems. In Scott’s case, those problems in-
cluded creating the impression of favoritism and by extension, exclusion.
Although Scott didn’t seek out the arrangement, he tacitly approved it,
and thereby created a relationship with one group of students that he
didn’t have with another. Teenagers aren’t dumb and the students who
didn’t bring Scott coffee every morning knew they were not included in
a special arrangement, in part because the students who did bring the
coffee felt privileged, and it showed.
Scott created another problem by allowing this boundary to be
breached, which was that he set up his students to feel obligated to con-
tinue the behavior. Because Scott never confronted the practice, some
students felt pressure to keep it up, long after it served them to do so.
They felt they had to continue or risk a breakdown in their relationship
with him. Without ever intending to do so, Scott’s behavior gave the
impression that he could be bought, and in some ways he could. Our
relationship with students should be free of such conditions in order to
be effective, which is why we should be very careful when it comes to
crossing this particular boundary.
Scott fell into his situation innocently, and this could happen to any of
us. When his students brought him coffee, Scott might have nipped the
practice in the bud by saying something along the lines of “I appreciate
112 CHAPTER 5

your thoughtfulness, but you don’t need to bring me coffee in the morn-
ing. You can help me out, though, by getting to class on time!”
This response may sound forced and a little cheesy, but tone is ev-
erything, and each of us needs to develop our own style when it comes
to articulating boundaries with students. If we respond to students in
a way that is direct, kind, and warm they will get the message that we
want to stay connected to them, not cut them off. When students offer
us gifts, like Scott’s did, they are communicating to us that they want
our attention. We need to communicate back that they can have our at-
tention just by asking for it, they don’t need to give us gifts. Ultimately,
the goal of our response to students in these situations is to acknowledge
their effort, to be clear about our expectations for their behavior, and to
remain connected to them.

6. Don’t Spend Time with Students After Hours

We should not spend time with students beyond our contractual
obligations to do so. We do lots of things with or for students we aren’t
obliged to do, like attend school plays or athletic events, and this is par
for the course. This guideline addresses our contact with students that is
professionally unnecessary and extends beyond these bounds.
I once explained this guideline to a group of boarding school teach-
ers and was met with quizzical stares. At boarding school, where work
is life and life is work, it is hard to know what constitutes “after hours.”
But adults at boarding schools get time off, too, so even they should be
mindful of this boundary.

The Case of Brad

Brad was an AP chemistry teacher who often liked to socialize with his
favorite students off-campus and during the school day. Brad routinely
accompanied students to a mall near campus during his free periods and
at lunch, where they drank coffee and chatted. These meetings never
involved school business or, when they did, it was a conscious attempt
on Brad’s part to sanitize his intentions. Brad sought proximity to his
students because he was attracted to some of them, and he enjoyed the
company of those he wasn’t attracted to.
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 113

Brad’s routine stayed under the radar screen, however, because his
behavior was not dissimilar to that of some of his colleagues. At Brad’s
school, where space was at a premium, teachers sometimes had to
meet students off-campus, but always with the purpose of conducting
school business.
Brad occasionally saw students on the weekend too, sometimes meet-
ing up with them at athletic events or other school functions and then
extending the contact beyond the professional bounds. He sometimes
accompanied students to meals or parties, acting like their friend, not
like their teacher. Students didn’t include Brad in their activities because
they sought his companionship or because they particularly liked him.
They included him because they knew Brad gave them good grades in
exchange for their efforts and that made them feel special.
Crossing this boundary and spending time with students after
hours is extremely problematic, and should be avoided at all costs. I
can’t think of any long-term benefits of this kind of behavior, and the
potential hazards are legion. Brad’s behavior eventually got him into
trouble, not to mention that it caused his students to feel confused
and sometimes coerced. Also, those students who were not favored by
Brad felt both envy and relief, not to mention a diminished fondness
and respect for him.
If we find ourselves in a situation like Brad’s, where we’re spending all
of our free time with students or looking to them to meet our emotional
needs, something is amiss and we should seek help immediately. When
we observe a colleague struggling in this way, we should also seek help
and share our concerns with our colleague and/or a supervisor. Brad
needed the intervention of a trusted colleague to extricate him from the
situation, and maybe to protect him from himself until he understood
the ramifications of his behavior.

7. Don’t Consume or Discuss Alcohol or Drugs with Students

Brad didn’t drink with his students because he wasn’t a drinker, but
often he was around students when they were drinking. If it’s the case
that students are drinking and teachers are around; if teachers are drink-
ing and students are around; or if teachers and students are drinking
with each other, something is amiss, at least in the United States. The
114 CHAPTER 5

situation might differ in countries where the drinking age or cultural

customs support another practice, but American laws about underage
drinking are clear and necessitate a boundary that I trust is self-evident.
Perhaps it isn’t self-evident, though, because we live in a culture where
many parents support underage drinking, either tacitly or directly. We
compete against many different forces when it comes to illegal teen-
age behavior, nevertheless we must recognize our responsibilities and
remain steadfast in our practice.

The Case of Jared

Jared was a biology teacher in his thirties who liked to listen to live
music on occasion. Jared’s musical tastes sometimes overlapped with
those of his students, and more than once he ran into students at con-
certs. Jared liked to smoke marijuana at concerts, and—surprise—so
did some of his students, so when their worlds collided at concerts it
presented a real problem.
Jared had a couple of ethical dilemmas on his hands when he ran
into students at a concert one night when both he and they were in the
process of getting stoned. First, he had to deal with the fact that his stu-
dents knew about his behavior. Second, he had to deal with the fact that
he knew about his students’ behavior. Jared then wondered whether he
should tell someone at school about what had happened, but figured
this course of action would impugn his character as much as anything,
so he decided against it. He also wondered whether he should talk to
his students about what happened, but reasoned this would only confuse
the matter. He simply didn’t know what to do. In the end, he decided to
leave the concert and tell no one.
There are no easy solutions to a situation like Jared’s, other than for
us to remember that in our students’ eyes we are always teachers and
role models first. For this reason, we are sometimes held to a higher
standard than other adults, which should inform our decisions about
personal behavior in public. I don’t necessarily believe we should be
held to a higher standard, but sometimes we are, which is why this
guideline is important. As long as we are teachers, we should do our best
to stay within the bounds of the law. As far as Jared was concerned, he
decided never to smoke marijuana in public again. For him, this was an
acceptable restriction to his practice.
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 115

8. Don’t Talk with Students about Colleagues

Those of us who work in the teenage world are part of Team Grown-
Up, and as such it is our job to support our teammates, the other adults
at school. One way we can support the team is to avoid talking with stu-
dents about our colleagues, even when students broach the topic.

The Case of Dominique

Dominique, a middle school social studies and homeroom teacher,
relished her rapport with students. She was friendly and accessible,
and she prided herself on her ability to relate to kids. Occasionally,
Dominique’s former students dropped by her classroom to check in
and chat, and sometimes the conversation turned to other teachers. One
day, two students stopped in and starting complaining about their new
homeroom teacher, a woman they clearly didn’t like.
The students catalogued their current teacher’s failings, and Domi-
nique offered what she thought was support, which is to say she com-
miserated with their plight. This is exactly what her students wanted to
hear, and before Dominique knew what had hit her, the conversation
became a bitch session at Dominique’s colleague’s expense. By the
end of the discussion, not only had Dominique listened to her students
trashing her colleague; she had also given them the impression that she
agreed with them because she hadn’t redirected the conversation.
Dominique’s collusion in the discussion with her students was made
possible by two of Dominique’s vulnerabilities, one skill-based and the
other personality-based. First, Dominique didn’t know how to respond
to her students’ complaints and so she just allowed them to continue.
She literally didn’t know how to steer the conversation around without
seeming to be unsupportive. Rather than ask the students if they needed
her assistance, or if she could help them specifically, Dominique let
them complain thinking this was the best course of action, when in fact
it was merely the path of least resistance.
Second, despite her success as a teacher, Dominique often felt in-
secure about herself as a professional, so she was relieved to hear that
one of her colleagues wasn’t perfect either. The truth was, Dominique
allowed the conversation with her students to continue because it made
her feel better. She wasn’t as interested in hearing about the failings of
116 CHAPTER 5

a fellow teacher as she was about feeling better about herself, and her
students’ complaints served this end. Many of us share Dominique’s
vulnerability, and frankly it can be hard to get the kind of recognition
we deserve when we spend most of our time with our students. But we
need to look elsewhere for reassurance, as Dominique discovered soon
after her students left her office.
Dominique’s students reported to their peers that Dominique was
supportive of their view of the new teacher and this information inevita-
bly trickled into the adult world, kicking Dominique in the metaphoric
backside. Dominique got caught in a situation that many of us face,
which is what to do with teenage gossip.

When Students Have Problems with Teachers

Dominique’s students were just gossiping and blowing off steam, but
what if their complaints had been legitimate? Shouldn’t we talk with stu-
dents about our colleagues then? When we hear troubling information
about colleagues we shouldn’t keep it to ourselves, but we should be
prudent about how and with whom we share this information. Ideally,
we should share this information with an administrator and we should
leave investigation of the facts to them.
When we must conduct an investigation ourselves, I recommend we
speak to only one student at a time (given the tendency of such conver-
sations to get inflamed when more than one student is involved), and fo-
cus the conversation on information gathering and/or problem solving,
not on assigning blame or finger pointing. We should be careful during
such discussions to remain neutral and not to share our opinions. We
can remain supportive of students without agreeing or siding with them
and, until we have the whole story, and even after we have the whole
story, we must be careful not to pit ourselves against our colleagues.
As adults who work in the teenage world soon discover, talking with
students about other adults is tricky business. We must be prudent
when we find ourselves in this situation, and under no circumstances
should we initiate such conversations unless what we have to say about
our colleagues is both positive and professional. Dominique might have
shifted the course of her conversation with her students by saying some-
thing like, “You sound pretty frustrated. Is this something serious, or are
you just venting? If it’s serious, then let’s figure out how I can help you.
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 117

If it’s not serious, then let’s not talk about Mrs. X anymore. Perhaps you
can tell me about some of the other stuff that’s going on with you. I’d
really like to hear about . . .”

9. Don’t Keep Student Secrets

In a sense, Dominique was keeping secrets when she allowed her
students to complain about their teacher. Dominique also gave her stu-
dents the impression that she was interested in their gossip because she
didn’t help them define a specific problem (and there wasn’t one, re-
ally), and because she didn’t redirect the conversation. Had she invited
her students to identify an actual problem, rather than allowing them
just to complain, Dominique would have communicated something
entirely different, and she wouldn’t have led them to believe that she
agreed with their complaints, something she never intended to convey.
Students often want to confide in us, just as Dominique’s students
did, and many such confessions are harmless. But some are not, and
therefore we must be careful not to agree to keep students’ secrets or
make promises to do so.

Dominique Again
Let’s return to Dominique. One day, Becky, a homeroom student,
came to Dominique in tears. Becky was very upset and it took Domi-
nique a while to calm her down. Once Becky stopped crying, Domi-
nique asked her what was wrong. Becky started to tear up again and
asked, “Can you keep a secret?” Dominique, caught up in Becky’s emo-
tional plea, told her that, yes, she could keep her secret.
Becky told Dominique she had just witnessed a fellow student cut-
ting her arms with a razor blade in the girls’ bathroom. Becky described
a pretty graphic scene, and immediately Dominique knew she had to
respond to the situation and thus break her promise. When Dominique
explained this to Becky, Becky became agitated and angry. Becky
pleaded with Dominique, arguing that she was the only other student in
the bathroom and that the student who was cutting would know Becky
had tattled on her.
Fortunately, Dominique understood her responsibility in the situ-
ation. She began by assuring Becky that she wasn’t tattling, and that
118 CHAPTER 5

she had done the right thing by telling an adult what was going on. She
told Becky that it was her, Dominique’s, responsibility to get help for
the student in the bathroom, and that she was going to do that now.
She also led Becky to the nurse’s office, where Becky could calm down
and where Dominique could consult with her colleague about how to
proceed. When they arrived at the nurse’s, Dominique thanked Becky
for being courageous and for doing the right thing, and she told her she
would check in with her later to make sure she was okay.
Students often confuse their desire for safety and compassion with a
request for confidentiality and, as a result, they ask us to keep secrets
when what they really want is our support or help. We should keep this
in mind when a student asks us to keep a secret. When this happens, we
should attempt to see beyond the request and determine how to help
them without agreeing to keep their secrets.
When we make a mistake, though, we should acknowledge it as soon
as possible (if not directly, then by way of explaining what we must
do to deal with the situation, as Dominique did), and usually students
will respond well. Students know we’re in charge and they know we
are responsible for helping them when they’re in trouble. When they
share volatile information with us, as Becky did with Dominique, they
understand on some level that we can’t keep their secret, which is why
they confide in us in the first place. Becky needed Dominique to take
charge of the situation, but Becky didn’t want to feel like a gossip or
snitch, which is why she asked for Dominique to keep her secret in the
first place. Luckily, Dominique didn’t keep Becky’s secret. Instead, she
executed her duty to keep her students safe, and she made sure both
students got the help they needed.

10. Don’t Go Beyond the Scope of Your Role

Dominique couldn’t help her students by herself, however; she
needed some assistance. Dominique was not a school nurse or a mental
health counselor, and given Becky’s description of the problem, one or
both of these people needed to intervene in the situation. In this case,
Dominique consulted with the nurse and the counselor and let them
deal with the student in question. Had Dominique decided to go it
alone, she would have extended herself beyond the scope of her role
and could have made the situation worse. This guideline to stay within
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 119

the scope of our roles is for situations like Dominique’s, and it serves to
protect our students, our schools, and us.

The Case of Brian

Brian was a math teacher who often conversed with parents in his
capacity as student advisor. Brian felt it was part of his job to listen to
parents’ complaints and, because he was a good listener, sometimes he
heard about their private woes. During one such conversation, Brian
suspected the mother of one his students was depressed. When he ques-
tioned her about her mood, the woman agreed she felt down, at which
point Brian suggested she seek help.
Had Brian stopped there, things would have been fine. But he
took things a step further, and recommended names of doctors and
specific counseling centers to his student’s parent. Brian’s wife was a
psychiatrist and he knew a lot about counseling, and because he knew
a lot, he assumed he should share this knowledge with this parent. But
even if he had been a psychiatrist himself, it wasn’t Brian’s place to
give advice in this situation. In this conversation, Brian was serving in
his capacity as a teacher, not as a doctor, and he needed to stick to his
prescribed role. We get ourselves in trouble when we go beyond the
limits of our roles, even when it seems like a reasonable thing to do, as
it did to Brian at the time.
Because we are in positions of authority as teachers, people some-
times think we should know everything, and that we should have
answers to every problem. Brian was tempted to go beyond his role
as teacher because the parent he dealt with was very vocal about her
problems, and because she looked to Brian for help. Brian wanted to
be helpful, as we all would in this situation, and so he shared what he
knew; however, what he shared extended him beyond the bounds of his
expertise. Brian understood his error when his principal explained to
him that by dispensing such advice he had placed himself, the school,
and the parent at risk.
The next time a parent asked for advice, Brian knew not to extend
himself so far. Instead, he suggested the parent call the school nurse
or a senior administrator for guidance. Initially, Brian feared that if he
didn’t have an answer to a problem he wouldn’t be doing his job, but
over time he realized that he could be just as effective by making the
120 CHAPTER 5

appropriate in-house referral. In fact, Brian found that by sticking to his

role as teacher he could be much more effective in his work. By stick-
ing to his area of expertise, Brian felt more confident and competent
as a result, and he no longer felt like he needed to have the answers to
everyone’s problems.
It is our job to stick to our roles and execute them well and we should
feel confident that this is enough.

DO’S

The following do’s are five things adults should do to support healthy
relationships among each other and outside of the teenage world.

1. Do Understand and Follow School Policies, Procedures,

and Best Practices
This guideline is as straightforward as it gets. We should make sure
we understand what our community expects from us and abide by the
rules. Playing by the rules is the best way to maintain appropriate re-
lationships with our students, and it’s also a great way to support other
adults. When we follow the rules, we ensure that our community re-
mains healthy and strong.

The Case of James

James, an English teacher, took a pretty relaxed approach to his
school’s policy about punctuality, and so he arrived late to class on a
regular basis. Even when his department head reprimanded him for his
tardiness, James continued to arrive to class five, ten, or even fifteen
minutes late. Needless to say, most of James’s students loved his casual
attitude about attendance, and most of them took advantage of James’s
laissez-faire attitude by being late themselves. What James didn’t antici-
pate, though, was that his behavior had repercussions beyond his class-
room, and that his attitude affected lots of people, not just the students
in his class.
For instance, on more than one occasion other teachers had to deal
with James’s students when they roamed the halls before James arrived
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 121

to class. This did not endear James to his colleagues, nor did they like it
when their students grumbled when they started their classes on time.
James’s neglectful attitude set a precedent, and some students wanted
all their teachers to be as lax with them as James was.
Following the rules is how we pledge our allegiance to our school
community, and it is essential to our success in our work. The grown-up
community is our most important ally in our work in schools, and with-
out it, we have difficulty keeping our relationships with students healthy
and manageable. When James finally got the message that his behavior
was not acceptable, everyone was better for it.

2. Do Seek Assistance When You Need Help

All of us can get caught up in the frenzy of the teenage world at
some point, and we all make mistakes. There are no exceptions. We
should therefore seek help when we face challenges in our relation-
ships with teenagers. This means we should identify people within
our community whom we trust and who can assist us, and confide in
them when problems arise. Hopefully, one of these people will be a
senior administrator: the principal, assistant principal, dean of faculty,
or department chair. If none of these people seems appropriate, then
we should confide in a trusted colleague. But we must confide in
someone. We should talk about what’s going on, get someone else’s
perspective on the situation, and get help if necessary. We should
never act like cowboys and go it alone.

The Case of Cole

This is what happened to Cole and it backfired. Cole tried everything
to settle down his physics class. Nothing worked. As his students got
more out of control, so did he, and finally he lost his temper and left
the classroom, slamming the door behind him. He went to the faculty
room to calm down but told no one what had happened. But a student
did, and the next morning Cole was called into the principal’s office to
explain his behavior. Had Cole told someone about the situation imme-
diately, chances are good he would have had assistance and guidance
from Team Grown-Up. As it was, he now had to explain his behavior
and defend himself, which made the situation worse.
122 CHAPTER 5

Warning Signs
The following are some warning signs we should heed when it comes
to our experience in the teenage world, and we should seek help imme-
diately when one of these signs arises.
Feelings of Loneliness or Isolation. We should reach out imme-
diately when we start to feel lonely or isolated in our work. This is more
of a challenge for introverts, like Cole, but we should do it regardless of
how awkward or uncomfortable it feels. When we feel lonely or isolated,
we are at greater risk for looking to students for support and cutting
ourselves off further from the adult community.
Feelings of Frustration or Anger. We should also seek help when
we feel frustrated or angry, and certainly if we feel these emotions for
extended periods of time. Dealing with teenagers can be crazy making,
so we must make sure we don’t harbor these feelings for long. Frustra-
tion and anger generally indicate we need to process what’s happening
in our work, and that we could benefit from the support and counsel
of someone who can commiserate with us and help us see through the
mire. This is what Cole needed, and a consultation with colleagues
probably would have helped him resolve his situation quickly.
Unanswered Questions. We should be wary of thinking we must
have all the answers, especially when it comes to dealing with teenagers.
No one has all the answers, which is why we should work together to
help each other with our challenges. When we have questions about a
particular situation, or about teenage psychology, or boundaries—any-
thing—we should seek help. This is what we advise our students to do
when they don’t have all the answers, and we should expect nothing less
of ourselves.
The Need to Confess. When we’ve done something that doesn’t
sit right with our conscience, we should talk about it; we should confess.
I use the term confess loosely here, and I don’t mean to suggest that
teachers should feel duty-bound to share every fleeting thought or ac-
tion with their colleagues. I do believe, however, that there are times
when we hold information we shouldn’t, and when this happens we
should unburden ourselves to a trusted colleague or administrator. Our
need to confess indicates we need some help with something, so we
should seek it out promptly.
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 123

3. Do Develop Strong Ties with Colleagues

One of Cole’s challenges was that he didn’t have strong ties with any
of his colleagues. He was introverted and quiet and he liked to keep to
himself. He liked a number of his colleagues, though he just didn’t seek
them out, but he soon realized how much he needed their support when
things got messy in the teenage world.
Teachers are the best support for other teachers when it comes to
dealing with teenagers. All of Cole’s colleagues could have commiser-
ated with his situation if he’d let them, and some of them would have
been able to help him brush off the dirt and get back on the horse. Cole
would have felt much less isolated and ashamed about his behavior if
he’d discussed it with his comrades, and discussing it would have quickly
led to a solution.
It’s unrealistic to think we can be close to all our colleagues but we
can establish strong working relationships with most of them. We should
aim to be friendly with all adults within the community, and we should
consider all colleagues our allies. This may not be easy to do at times,
but it is the best way for us to help ourselves deal with the pressures
and challenges of our work. When we feel as though we exist in a com-
munity, one in which all adults help each other, we reduce our load
exponentially and everyone is happier and healthier for it.

4. Do Support the Grown-Up Team

This do is closely related to the previous one. Giving and seeking
help is what it means to support the Grown-Up Team. Without a
doubt, someone would have lent Cole a helping hand if he’d sought
help. Most of us are more than willing to help a colleague in times
of need. This supportive attitude strengthens schools and makes our
work more satisfying.
We must remember that we’re members of the Grown-Up Team
first, even when we dislike or disagree with our colleagues or with school
politics. Even a rogue teacher is a member of the Grown-Up Team and
trouble is just around the corner if we forget this. Dealing with teenag-
ers takes patience and the aid of the community. We must therefore
seek and lend support whenever it is needed, and to whomever is in
124 CHAPTER 5

need. Such an attitude of professional hospitality serves everyone, and it

boosts the effectiveness of everyone in the teenage world.

5. Do Get a Life
Work is only one aspect of life, but sometimes the teenage world and
our relationships with teenagers overwhelm us and make us think oth-
erwise. It is our responsibility to cultivate a meaningful life outside of
work, even when we feel like we don’t have the time or energy to do so.
In fact, it’s precisely when we don’t feel like we have time or energy that
we most need a life outside work. Outside attachments and interests
give us perspective and make us better teachers.
So, just get a life: Take a break. Go to the movies. Play an instrument.
Exercise. Fall in love. Raise a family. Get a hobby. Listen to music.
Sing in a choir. Join a team. Volunteer. Play with your kids. Rake the
leaves. Sleep in on the weekend. Run with your dog. Read a book. Talk
to a friend. Write some poetry. Build some furniture. Participate in lo-
cal politics. Read the paper. Watch the sunset. Turn off the computer.
Write a letter. Travel in the summer. Eat a great meal. Take a risk.
Forget about work.
Get a life!

EXERCISES AND REFLECTIONS

1. Which of the don’ts are easy for you maintain and why? Which are
not and why?
2. Consider a time when you transgressed boundaries of one of
the don’ts. What happened? How did you resolve the situation?
What kind of support did you seek, if any, in the aftermath of the
incident(s)?
3. Consider a time when a colleague transgressed a don’t boundary.
How did you discover this transgression? How was the situation
resolved, and did you play a part in resolving the situation? If not,
how might you have assisted your colleague, the student, or your
school in resolving the situation?
4. Are there any school guidelines you don’t agree with? If so,
why? Would you add any guidelines to the list, and if so, what
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD 125

are they? What is your rationale for your additions, and how do
your additions serve to maintain boundaries between adults and
teenagers?
5. Are any of the do’s and don’ts transgressed regularly in your
school community? Are there any guidelines in your community
that are missing from this list, and if so, what are they and how
do they serve your community?
6. Discuss the do’s and don’ts with some colleagues and priori-
tize the list, from most to least important. Which are the most
important for your community and why? Which are the least
important and why?
7. What is the process for dealing with transgressions at your
school? How do you think adult transgressions should be dealt
with? What consequences should adults receive when they vio-
late boundaries and who in your community should deal with
adults in these situations?
8. Consider the case of Jared, who ran into his students at a concert.
How do you think Jared should have responded? What would you
have done if you’d run into Jared at the concert?
9. Who are the colleagues you like, trust, and feel close to profes-
sionally or personally? Consider a time you sought support from
a colleague. Why did you seek support? How did your colleague
respond? Consider a time when a colleague sought your help.
What happened and how did you support your colleague?
10. How do you cultivate a life for yourself outside work? What ac-
tivities do you engage in to get your mind off work? How would
you rate your ability to put your work aside and enjoy other
things? How would your partner/spouse, family, or friends rate
your ability to put your work aside?

CHAPTER SUMMARY

There are a few key behavioral guidelines adults should follow in the
teenage world to make sure that the boundaries between students and
adults remain strong and well articulated. The do’s and don’ts in this
chapter cover aspects of our relationships with our students and with
each other, and when we follow all of them, we support a healthy school
126 CHAPTER 5

community. It is our job to make sure we understand the limits in our

relationships with students, and work to keep our relationships with our
colleagues strong.

NOTES

1. Laws about confidentiality vary from state to state, and laws pertaining to minors
vary depending on the age of the child. For instance, school personnel may have to re-
port what is told to them by a twelve-year-old where they might not have to report the
confessions of a seventeen-year-old. All adults employed in schools should be aware of
the laws in their state and school district and follow the prescribed mandates.
2. U.S. Department of Education, Office of the Under Secretary, Educator Sexual
Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, Washington, D.C., 2004.
3. Ibid, p. 22.
4. Some schools have gone to great lengths to prevent parents from lavishing gifts on
their children’s teachers. While teachers might welcome such attention by parents in the
short run, in most cases teachers soon realize that expensive or valuable gifts come with
a heavy price. For example, one teacher received a beautiful and valuable antique fabric
from the parents of an underachieving 10th grade boy. At first, the teacher felt pleased
and flattered, but these sentiments soon turned to frustration when she realized these
parents now expected her to deal with the motivational and disciplinary issues that they
were unwilling to tackle with their son. After accepting the gift, the teacher felt hesitant
about discussing with the parents their relationship with their son and the expectations
the school had for the parents to help their son achieve in school.
 6

FIVE GUIDELINES FOR

ADMINISTRATORS: THE A-TEAM

Administrators are ultimately responsible for the health of the

school community and for the behavior of the adults who work with
teenagers. Administrators should work in teams to manage the phe-
nomenon of adolescence and to help adults in the community un-
derstand how the teenage brain operates. There are five guidelines
to help administrative teams with this task: assistance, transparency,
education, assessment, and management. Together they form the
A-TEAM, and they serve as a framework for thinking about and
managing adults in the teenage world.

HELPING ADULTS IN THE TEENAGE WORLD

Everyone who works in the teenage world faces challenges in their re-
lationships with teenagers, and ultimately administrators are responsible
for helping adults deal with these challenges. Some challenges are seri-
ous while others are not so serious, but we should acknowledge and deal
with all of them in some manner, regardless of degree. When we don’t
deal with them, or when our mistakes are repeated or egregious, all of us
in the school community are vulnerable, especially administrators.
Throughout this chapter, I address some of the issues administrators
must deal with in their role as supervisors of adults in the teenage world,

127
128 CHAPTER 6

and provide guidelines to increase adult resilience and reduce admin-

istrator vulnerability to the viral aspects of adolescence. This chapter
can help anyone who works with teens but especially those administra-
tors who set the course for the entire school community and who have
jurisdiction over adults who work with students. This group includes
principals and heads of school, deans of faculty, vice or assistant princi-
pals, division heads, and so on. Administrative titles and responsibilities
vary from school to school but, specifics aside, most administrators are
in the business of helping adults deal with teenagers, and this chapter
is for them.

THE FIVE GUIDELINES: THE A-TEAM

The five guidelines that support administrators in their role as supervi-

sors of adults in the teenage world are: (1) Assistance, (2) Transparency,
(3) Education, (4) Assessment, and (5) Management. Together they
form the A-TEAM. This acronym suggests that administrative work is
about teamwork and that administrative teams lead the way in schools.
Thus, the A-TEAM is a set of guidelines and an actual team of people
that uses these guidelines to help adults manage their relationships with
teenagers and practice grown-up skills in schools.
In the previous chapter, I outlined specific do’s and don’ts adults
should practice in their work with teenagers. In this chapter, I stay away
from absolutes because I believe almost every situation that involves
adults, teenagers, and the fever of adolescence is complicated from an
administrative standpoint, and often problems that occur between adults
and teenagers have multiple solutions. In addition, these solutions may
not be obvious except in cases of illegality or extreme negligence. There-
fore, in lieu of do’s and don’ts, I offer guidelines to help administrators
think critically about their work managing the phenomenon of adoles-
cence and the adults who work in the teenage world.

Guideline 1: Assistance
The first guideline for administrators is Assistance, which means giv-
ing help and getting help whenever possible. The teenage world is a
complicated place, and leading a community of adolescents should not
be attempted in isolation. Administrators need more support than any
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 129

other adults within a school community, and therefore the A-TEAM

starts with assistance.
The truth is being an administrator is a lonely job. Experienced ad-
ministrators understand this. They recognize that nobody within the
school community cares about their problems. In this way, being an
administrator is sort of like being a parent: It is a thankless role with
lots of responsibility and very little glory. Fortunate administrators have
one or two people with whom they share responsibility, just like parents
do; unfortunate ones go it alone. Given this reality, the first guideline
for administrators who work in the teenage world must be assistance.
Without it, the job is even harder than it needs to be.

The Polarizing Nature of Adolescence

One of the reasons administrators need assistance is because the phe-
nomenon of adolescence often polarizes the community when it infects
adults, and this can affect how the entire school functions. How does
this happen? Well, teenagers frequently experience the world in black
and white and therefore their thoughts and feelings can be extreme.
Teenagers live in a world that teeters between good and bad, heroic and
villainous, victimized and perpetrating—all day long. Adults often get
pulled into this world of extremes because teenagers project their inner
worlds onto the outer landscape, and adults are part of that landscape.
As a result, adults are cast as players in the teenage drama simply by
doing their jobs, and often they get pitted against one another inadver-
tently in the process. This is polarization, or splitting.
Adults, then, can be the bad guys or the villains in the teenage drama,
but they also can be the good guys. This can split the community, for
instance when teachers are good guys and administrators are bad guys.
Even when the fever of adolescence is high and teenagers are behav-
ing at their worst, it can be difficult for adults to see how they’re being
affected by what’s happening. The phenomenon of adolescence reveals
itself sometimes only when symptoms arise, like when communities
become polarized, for example, by which point it’s hard for adults to
extract themselves from the drama. This is when administrative exper-
tise is crucial. Administrators must help adults see what’s happening
beneath the surface of the teenage play and return the community to a
healthy equilibrium.
130 CHAPTER 6

This may be the biggest challenge administrators face when it comes

to dealing with teenagers and the adults who work with them. Adminis-
trators must understand the dynamics of adolescence and help teachers
make sense of what’s going on when they get carried away. This is al-
most impossible to do in isolation precisely because much of adolescent
behavior is unconscious, therefore administrators must assist each other
in making sense of what’s happening if they hope to avoid getting car-
ried away by it themselves. Without assistance, administrators can get
caught up in the same frenzy that other adults do, and when this hap-
pens, the whole community is at risk.

A-TEAM Membership
The A-TEAM’s job is to provide members with support and guidance
with issues related to adolescent psychology and development, or with
the viral nature of adolescence. The A-TEAM should be comprised
primarily of administrators and select faculty, and ideally it should have
a core group of permanent members, although it’s helpful to keep an
open mind about membership. In the long run, it’s important to balance
stability with flexibility to ensure a healthy group dynamic.
The A-TEAM should also include at least one person who has exper-
tise in adolescent psychology and school systems. It’s not enough to have
an expert in just one of these fields. It’s important that the A-TEAM
gets perspective from someone who understands both adolescence and
schools, and thus how adolescents behave in schools. This might be the
school nurse, counselor, or someone else with similar expertise. This
person does not necessarily have to be member of the school commu-
nity. Outsiders can lend invaluable support when the adolescent bug
affects the whole community, if for no other reason than they can lend
perspective. Administrators should therefore consider retaining an out-
side consultant as a permanent member of the A-TEAM, or for those
times when the adolescent infection runs wild.
In addition, it’s important to include the parent perspective on the
A-TEAM, although this doesn’t mean parents themselves should be
included on the team. When the phenomenon of adolescence is in full
force, it affects parents too, and this means schools sometimes deal with
fallout from the parent community. Anticipating parental reaction helps
administrators manage this constituency effectively. In my experience,
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 131

parents are extremely grateful when schools acknowledge their perspec-

tive in difficult situations that involve their teenage children.

A-TEAM Meeting Schedule

The A-TEAM should meet regularly to discuss issues as they arise,
but also to conduct ongoing assessments of all aspects of community
functioning. Meeting once per week is probably sufficient, and more
frequently and as needed during a crisis. In order to be effective the A-
TEAM should not be an ad hoc committee for several reasons. First, the
work of the A-TEAM should not be bound to crisis. In order to perform
assessments and the other duties needed within the community, the A-
TEAM should have a regular and ongoing agenda.
Second, the team needs to function as a group in times of calm to
be successful in times of distress; if the team meets only during crisis,
a sufficient level of trust and familiarity will not be in place for the ef-
fective functioning of the group. Finally, an established meeting time,
place, and agenda (all of which can shift, of course) establishes within
the community an awareness of and an appreciation for the issues that
concern the A-TEAM.

Trust and Honesty

In order to give and receive assistance, administrators should trust
one another and develop methods of communication that serve to keep
the contagious aspects of adolescence at bay. To this end, administrators
should be honest with each other at all times without fear of retribu-
tion or hostility, or of hurting one another’s feelings, even when such
honestly is unpleasant. Good administrators have tough skins without
being tough characters, and they recognize the value of feedback and
constructive criticism from the A-TEAM.

Importance of Feedback
Effective administrators don’t care where they get helpful feedback,
only that they get it. They look to sources both above and below them
in the chain of command for information and guidance because they
feel secure in their positions and roles. When administrators can’t do
132 CHAPTER 6

this—when they feel insecure about their position or threatened by

others—this indicates that the A-TEAM needs some reinforcement and
probably more assistance. In addition, administrators should be pre-
pared to hear feedback that implicates them in any of the problems in
their community. The drama of the teenage world affects everyone, in-
cluding administrators, so when it comes to dealing with problems that
involve teenage craziness, administrators should be prepared to discover
that they’ve been affected by this craziness themselves.

Considering the Parallel Curriculum

The most important task for members of the A-TEAM is to help each
other understand the demands of the parallel curriculum. The parallel
curriculum, you will recall, is the set of skills apart from the academic
curriculum that teenagers must learn throughout adolescence in order
to grow up. This curriculum exists apart from classroom learning but is
inextricably tied to what happens throughout the school day. The paral-
lel curriculum is Adolescent Development 101, and a good A-TEAM
must understand the implications of the parallel curriculum in order to
effectively deliver the academic curriculum. The A-TEAM must also
be cognizant of and appreciate the parallel curriculum for adults in the
teenage world. This refers to the practice of the seven grown-up skills,
among other things.

The Case of School A

School A was a suburban, coed, 7–12 independent school. The school
had a strong administrative team, whose membership included the
class deans, division heads, the school’s CFO, development director,
and leaders of all the school’s programs. The team met weekly and
worked together to set school policies and manage procedures. School
A’s administrative team functioned effectively running the day-to-day
operations of the school, but it needed something different to manage
the situation when a group of School B students was killed in a car crash
after attending a party hosted by a School A student.
Frank, the head of School A, received a phone call early one Sunday
morning informing him that four students from School B had been
killed the night before when their car swerved off the road. As the de-
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 133

tails of the accident emerged, it became clear that many of the students
in the School B crash were close with School A students, and it didn’t
take long for Frank’s phone to start ringing off the hook with calls from
all members of his school community. Frank was informed by multiple
sources that groups of School A students were gathering at both the
site of the crash and at School B. As he gathered details about how the
situation was unfolding, Frank knew he needed assistance to handle the
situation. He needed the A-TEAM.
Frank’s first call was to the school psychologist. Frank told him what
had happened and they discussed the many possible responses the
school needed to consider to deal with the situation. Frank then called
a meeting of the A-TEAM, which included the division heads, all of the
administrators who dealt directly with students, the school’s public rela-
tions director, the psychologist, and the school’s health team, a nurse
and a physician’s assistant. The A-TEAM convened at the school and set
about the task of evaluating and managing the situation.
There were many things Frank and the A-TEAM needed to figure
out, but the most important was how to manage the brewing hysteria of
the student body. The death of a teenager is a tragedy, and when death
strikes close to home school communities are presented with a delicate
and important task. The A-TEAM needed to determine how to shep-
herd their community through the next few days and weeks of shock,
and then how to help their students make sense of the tragedy as the
real work of grieving began. And they needed assistance to do this.
Frank understood almost immediately that the A-TEAM needed to
expand its membership in order to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.
The team decided to contact a local mental health expert whom the
school contracted for just such emergencies. The team recognized
that it needed an objective outsider to help them deal with the situa-
tion because the tragedy hit so close to home; many adults within the
community felt personally affected by the situation and they needed
personal assistance. The outside expert, then, could lend support and
guidance, and she could also lend credibility and help facilitate meet-
ings with parents. The inclusion of this expert reassured the community
that they were not isolated by this event and that they had the best help
available to them.
The A-TEAM then consulted with the parent’s association to arrange
meetings to help parents support their children through the tragedy.
134 CHAPTER 6

The team also called a full faculty meeting before school reconvened
and with the help of the outside expert, they discussed how faculty could
support students throughout the first school day. During this meeting,
faculty were coached not only on how to support students but also on
signs of trouble that needed the attention of the A-TEAM. Subsequent
meetings were scheduled with the full faculty at this time, and smaller
groups of faculty were asked to report to their division heads and deans
throughout the next few days. The team also convened meetings with
different constituencies of students, keeping in mind the developmental
differences and needs of each age level.
As the aftermath of the tragedy unfolded, the A-TEAM continued to
gather data from the community about what it needed. The team mem-
bers stayed in close touch with each other throughout the first week,
and several times the group altered plans or created new ones based on
the information it received from the community. They also met in sub-
groups to discuss particular challenges, and they met with an expanded
membership when the situation called for it.
The case of School A provides a good example of how the A-TEAM
functions to deal with crisis. But it also provides an example of the criti-
cal role assistance plays in managing the teenage world. Throughout the
crisis, the A-TEAM continuously evaluated its need for consultation,
reconfiguration, and support, and its composition shifted when neces-
sary to meet the needs of the developing situation.

Guideline 2: Transparency
The second guideline for administrators and the A-TEAM is Trans-
parency. Administrators should aim for transparency in most aspects of
their work as it relates to dealing with teenagers—and the more trans-
parency the better. Transparency is especially important when it comes
to communication and, for our purposes, transparency has as much to
do with the process of communication as it does with the contents of
the communication itself. People are happy when they feel like they’re
in the loop, or when they understand how the loop works.
This guideline is less about sharing details or vetting decisions than it
is about creating a process whereby relevant information is shared with
the school community in a predictable manner. Haphazard or inconsis-
tent communication can be the undoing of administrators in the teenage
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 135

world because teenagers are haphazard and inconsistent themselves. To

this end, teenagers and the adults who work with them need clarity and
predictability if they are to stay on track, and so transparency is key to
administrative effectiveness and success.

Transparency about Grown-Up Behavior

The most important thing administrators should be transparent
about with adults is expectations for grown-up behavior. This can be a
challenge, though, as many administrators shy away from this difficult
topic because adults often resent being told how to behave. As a result,
important conversations about grown-up behavior sometimes don’t take
place; when they don’t, confusion ensues and small mistakes morph into
large ones as the fever of adolescence spreads.
The following list of questions and tips about grown-up behavior is
meant to help administrators consider how to be transparent in their
work with adults in the teenage world:

1. What are the accepted norms for grown-up behavior in your

community?
2. How are these behaviors codified and communicated to adults?
3. How does the stated code of conduct serve to guide behavior
within the adult community? Do adults follow this code?
4. How does the community discuss grown-up behavior? How are
transgressions discussed?
5. What are the consequences for transgressions? Who is responsible
for meting out consequences?
6. What is your comfort level in dealing with adults and their behav-
ior? If you need help with this aspect of your work, where do you
seek support?

Keep in mind that:

7. Expectations about grown-up behavior should be clear.

8. Expectations should be communicated and reinforced each year.
9. Administrators should be able to talk to adults about their behavior
with comfort and confidence.
136 CHAPTER 6

Transparency in Hiring
The hiring process is the best place to establish transparency about ex-
pectations for grown-up behavior. This is an opportunity for administrators
to determine a candidate’s fit for the job and to discuss cultural norms for
behavior. This is also the time for administrators to frontload the specifics
of their management style. As one principal put it, “I tell new faculty what
I expect in the first interview. They can’t say they haven’t been warned.”
In addition, the hiring process is an opportunity for administrators
to determine how skilled candidates are at being grown-up. Not ev-
erything about someone’s character is revealed during an interview, of
course, but a lot is, and administrators should consider asking questions
that target a candidate’s specific attitudes about the teenage world and
adolescent development.
For example, it is helpful to give candidates vignettes that involve
typical situations in the teenage world, like managing unruly groups of
students and other disciplinary issues. Also, administrators should aim to
discover how potential employees deal with adolescent resistance, and
how they respond to not being liked by teens. Administrators might also
consider asking questions that shed light on how well candidates deal with
colleagues and whether they ally primarily with students or fellow adults.
In addition, administrators might explore how “teachable” candidates
are in regard to these issues, particularly if candidates are young or new
to the profession. Finally, administrators should consider asking ques-
tions that encourage candidates to reflect on feedback, especially how
they respond to giving or receiving negative feedback.

Transparency in Evaluation
The evaluation process is the next obvious place for transparency
about grown-up behavior. This is also a good time to mentor adults who
are struggling with their roles as grown-ups. If administrators are clear
that the issue of grown-up behavior is part of the evaluation process,
then adults are more likely to receive feedback and talk about transgres-
sions and challenges without feeling defensive.

Transparency: A Parallel Process

The process of administrative transparency is what I call a parallel
process—it runs parallel to a process that teachers employ with students
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 137

in the teenage world. Teachers must be transparent with their students

to some degree. They must be clear and consistent and they must es-
tablish and follow through with consequences in order to be effective in
their work. Administrators should do the same with teachers. As teach-
ers manage students, so administrators manage teachers in a parallel
process of transparency.
I don’t mean to suggest that teachers are like teenagers or that ad-
ministrators should treat teachers like teenagers. Rather, when admin-
istrators are clear with teachers about what’s expected of them in terms
of grown-up behavior, and when these expectations are consistent, this
models appropriate behavior and sets the boundaries within which
adults conduct their business in schools. This, in turn, models how
teachers should deal with their students, which is the parallel process.

The Case of School C

School C was a large, urban public high school with a very dedicated
faculty. The faculty and administration enjoyed a good relationship, for
the most part, but the relationship was put to the test when one of the
school’s most popular seniors was expelled for drinking on campus.
Joan, the principal, was informed one Saturday night that a senior had
been caught drinking at a school dance. This was the third infraction
in a three-strike system for this student, and it was clear to Joan that
expulsion was the most appropriate consequence. By her authority as
principal, Joan summarily expelled the student. When news of the ex-
pulsion reached the faculty on Monday morning, some of them became
incensed by what they considered to be a hasty decision on Joan’s part.
Students, too, joined a rallying cry to protest what they considered to be
an unjust decision, and Joan was quickly put on the defensive.
In making her decision, which she saw as pro forma given the
student’s track record, Joan had not considered the bigger picture of
the teenage world, and how elements of both the student and the adult
populations might get affected by the vacuum created by the loss of a
popular student. Students felt stunned and upset that a key figure in
their world seemed to disappear overnight, and faculty felt left out of
a decision that had reverberations throughout most of the school. Al-
though Joan had acted within the purview of her role, she had not been
transparent about her actions, and her lack of transparency created a
number of challenges for her.
138 CHAPTER 6

In an effort to be transparent, Joan might have considered convening

a meeting of the A-TEAM when she learned about the student’s plight.
The purpose of this meeting would not necessarily have been to consult
about the student in question, but rather about how to handle the pos-
sible reactions the adult and student bodies would have to the student’s
expulsion.1 Joan needed assistance to be transparent, and that’s where
the A-TEAM could have helped her. Again, transparency is not about
vetting or seeking approval for decisions. It’s about explaining to the
community why or how decisions are made (when the sharing of this
information is legal, ethical, and appropriate) and about helping the
community deal with the consequences of those decisions.
For example, Joan needed help from the A-TEAM to manage the stu-
dent response to the situation—the students were angry and upset—and
she needed to find ways to help faculty feel included and supported in
a decision that didn’t, in fact, include them (at least not in terms of the
actual decision-making process). Faculty members felt left out and they
needed help and reassurance to understand that Joan had acted appro-
priately. Explaining this to them might not have been enough, though.
Some faculty just needed the opportunity to air their views. Joan might
have considered calling a faculty meeting before expelling the student,
or certainly before word of the expulsion leaked out.
Faculty members also were angry that they had to deal with their
students’ anger, and Joan needed to help them be transparent and ap-
propriate in their dealings with students. She could have helped faculty
anticipate the needs of their students, and helped them figure out ways
to manage the collective student reaction. This approach would have
made faculty feel included and relevant, and it would have helped them
feel confident about Joan’s process.

Guideline 3: Education
The third guideline for administrators is Education. Teachers need to
be educated about the teenage world, adolescent psychology and devel-
opment, and expectations for grown-up behavior, among other topics.
Very few teachers understand these things at the beginning of their
careers (and sometimes they never do), and yet such an understanding
is critical to their success with students. Most teachers learn through
trial and error, which is not a very effective way to learn. Administrators
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 139

can make their own lives and the lives of their employees a lot easier if
they dedicate some time to educating the adult community about these
essential concepts.

Creating a Conceptual Framework

My purpose in writing this book is to offer a conceptual framework
that helps adults understand the dynamics that occur between adults
and teenagers in schools. My goal is to help school communities think
about these issues critically and to create professional atmospheres
that encourage openness, discussion, and compassion. In my experi-
ence, school communities are strengthened when adults are given
license to discuss this aspect of their work. But adults must be sup-
ported by the school administration to this end; this effort must be
initiated from the top.
A good place to start this process is with new faculty. Faculty ori-
entation can be the perfect time to introduce newcomers to what the
school community expects when it comes to this aspect of the work. It
also signals to the community that talking about these issues is essential
to the health and functioning of adults. One way to acculturate adults
to thinking about their work is to conduct regular seminars for new
faculty throughout their first year or two of service. Administrators and
veteran faculty can facilitate these seminars to help newcomers figure
out their grown-up roles within the community. Faculty seem to learn
best when they use their own experiences as a guide, but vignettes and
case studies can also be helpful tools for exploration and instruction.
The most important point for administrators to convey to newcomers
(and to everyone else) is that the dynamic between adults and teens is
complex and that adults inevitably face challenges in their work with
teens. When administrators underscore this point—that everyone is
challenged—it liberates adults to discuss their work. I believe that using
metaphors like the virus of adolescence to describe the relationship be-
tween teenagers and adults helps adults identify some of the challenges
inherent in this dynamic, and also to understand that solving problems
and discussing transgressions should be a routine and expected part
of professional development. This conceptual framework encourages
adults to discuss their work without feeling overburdened by self-
consciousness, guilt, shame, or embarrassment.
140 CHAPTER 6

Education about Adolescent Development

Administrators should also consider educating adults specifically
about adolescent development, including recent developments in brain
research and the connection to learning. This can be done in all sorts
of ways, from in-service programs to external professional development
opportunities. It is in the best interests of everyone working in schools
to be conversant with this information, and it’s the administrator’s re-
sponsibility to help adults understand how and why this information is
important and how it can serve them in their work.

Guideline 4: Assessment
The fourth guideline for administrators is Assessment. Administrators
must be able to assess adult behavior and evaluate how adults function
in relation to adolescents in the teenage world. While my contention is
that all adults make mistakes in their relationships with students due to
the unpredictable nature of adolescence, I do not mean to suggest that
all adult transgressions should be forgiven on this account. Sometimes
adult behavior crosses lines that must never be crossed, and therefore
administrators must assess the adults within their communities and
clearly define unacceptable behavior.

When It’s Not about Adolescence

The phenomenon of adolescence affects everyone in the teenage
world, and many adults behave in ways that are regrettable as a result.
It is the job of administrators to figure out whether adult transgressions
are the result of the fever of adolescence or of something inherent in the
adult, and the challenge of assessment lies herein. In some instances,
the chaos of adolescence is not the cause of transgressions between
adults and students, and it is the responsibility of administrators to de-
termine when this is the case and to respond accordingly.
The following are some adult personality traits that spell trouble in
schools. When problems arise with adults who exhibit any of the follow-
ing traits, chances are good the problems have little to do with the teen-
age world and everything to do with the adults themselves. That said,
adults who possess any of the following characteristics aren’t necessarily
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 141

bad or ineffective teachers, but they are at greater risk than other adults
for getting themselves and their schools into trouble when it comes to
their relationship with teenagers.

Inflexible and Defensive Adults

Administrators should be wary of adults who are inflexible or defen-
sive in their approach to their work and within the school community.
Savvy adults may defend these traits with assertions of personal integrity
and high standards but there’s a problem when standards can’t be chal-
lenged. When adults make mistakes and refuse to examine or change
their behavior as a result, this is a very big red flag.
Most adults get defensive on occasion, and this is usually fine. But
most adults are able to back off from defensive positions when neces-
sary. Adults who don’t or can’t back down, or who continue to defend
their behavior in the face of well-reasoned opposition, are acting like
petulant teenagers, and this is not fine. Administrators must therefore
be able to assess the difference between positions that are inflexible or
defensive and those that are merely strong-willed.
Inflexible and defensive adults are at great risk in their work with
teenagers because the virus of adolescence adapts to its host environ-
ments. This means that adults must adapt themselves if they are to
outrun and survive infection. When adults can’t or won’t change, they
become increasingly susceptible to behaving like teenagers themselves,
and they tend to infect others as they leave destruction in their wake.
Adults who are inflexible or defensive also tend to be insecure and un-
imaginative, and these are also liabilities in the teenage world. Ideally,
adults who work with teens should be emotionally adept and agile and
should not fear challenge or change.

Charismatic Adults
Charisma is another personality trait administrators should be on the
lookout for in the adult population. Charisma is a “special magnetic
charm or appeal” and a “personal magic of leadership arousing special
popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure.”2 As the definition
suggests, charisma is not just a personality trait, it is also the effect such
a trait has on others. Charisma can be thus understood as a dynamic
142 CHAPTER 6

process that occurs between magnetic adults and teenagers within the
school community. Many adults have appealing personalities and this is
a huge asset to their work with teenagers. But charisma implies a degree
of influence or sway over others that go beyond this threshold, which is
why it can be problematic.
Charismatic adults differ from run-of-the-mill congenial adults in
that charismatic adults are often invested in or benefit from the influ-
ence they have over others, especially teenagers. There are exceptions,
of course, but charismatic adults in the teenage world are at high risk
for being influenced by teenagers because teenagers love charisma.
Teenagers want to be charmed and magnetized and, consequently,
charismatic personalities often galvanize them. This gives adults with
charisma tremendous psychological power over their students, which is
another reason why this trait can be problematic.
In addition, people with lots of charisma often don’t develop other
parts of their characters. This means immature charismatic personalities
tend to be shallow and one-dimensional, which is a tremendous disad-
vantage in their work. These adults are at the mercy of teenagers with-
out even knowing it. When they are adored and fixated on by students,
undeveloped charismatic adults don’t have the psychological where-
withal to maintain boundaries, and in most cases they don’t want to.
They enjoy the adulation and attention they receive from students, and
if charisma is all they have going for them, such attention feels natural.
Charismatic adults who are drawn to work in schools are often
psychological adolescents themselves. They become the Peter Pans
of the community, the puers aeternus, or the eternal boys.3 Immature
charismatic personalities need and court attention from students, and
they don’t rest until they get it. Administrators can determine the
potential for trouble with charismatic personalities by assessing how
well such adults integrate into the adult population and function as
part of a team. Charismatic adults with well-developed personalities
can work alongside their colleagues without using their charisma to
exert control, and they can tolerate not being the center of attention.
They also can ally with adults against students when necessary and
not feel threatened.
It’s important to note that there’s nothing wrong with charisma per
se. Charisma is a wonderful trait, but when charisma is the defining fea-
ture of an adult personality, trouble is usually around the corner in the
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 143

teenage world, and sometimes it is hard to see because of the blinding

effect of the charisma itself.

Student-Focused Adults
Charismatic adults with underdeveloped personalities often forge
strong ties with students. Rarely do these adults form strong ties with
other adults, though, in part because other adults don’t have much in
common with them. This is another red flag administrators should be on
the lookout for: adults who are primarily student-focused.
Adults who are focused mostly on students have little interest in
the adult community within schools. They prefer to deal only with
students and they display little understanding of the value of the adult
community. Student-focused adults generally do not form friendships
with colleagues or participate in adult-only activities at school, and they
don’t volunteer for leadership roles within the adult community. Their
sole interest in working in schools is to connect with students, which is
another red flag.
I know plenty of good, effective teachers who don’t like many of
their colleagues and who would prefer to focus solely on teaching.
However, these adults recognize the need to participate within the
adult community and they don’t shirk their responsibilities. Student-
focused adults are more extreme than this, and their isolation and
immaturity place them at high risk in their work with students. When
adults don’t value the adult community in schools, they are in effect
putting all of their emotional eggs in the student basket, and this can
be hazardous. These adults are at much higher risk for committing
transgressions than other adults, if for no other reason than they don’t
get support from colleagues.
Student-focused adults are also at greater risk than other adults for
crossing physical boundaries with students. Sexual predators usually fit
into this category, although not always. Most student-focused adults do
not engage in physical relationships with students, however they often
form relationships that have amorphous emotional and psychological
boundaries. Such adults tend to be uncommunicative with other adults
or secretive about their work, and they are proprietary in their relation-
ships with students. These are important indicators for administrators
to pay attention to.
144 CHAPTER 6

Adults with No Life

Teaching is an all-consuming job, and many adults who work in the
teenage world complain of not having a life. This is normal, and when
adults complain it’s a good sign because it means they want to have a life
beyond their work. But some adults don’t want a life, or they don’t know
how to create a life for themselves, and this is a problem.
It can be difficult to assess whether adults have lives outside work,
and it is inappropriate for administrators to inquire about this directly.
The problem reveals itself over time, however, often when adults spend
all their time at work or expect the community to meet their emotional
needs. Ironically, or perhaps understandably, such adults may become
the backbone of school communities because they give all their atten-
tion and energy to their work, and on the surface this seems like a good
thing. Usually, though, this “dedication” comes at a price, whether this
price is burnout or identification with students or simple neediness.
School communities commonly praise and reward the efforts of
adults with no life, which naturally makes the problem worse. What’s
wrong with sacrificing everything for work? Well, for starters such
adults aren’t technically sacrificing anything because they’ve got noth-
ing to give up. Second, they set a bad example for everyone else, and
adults who do have lives outside work are sometimes held to impossible
standards because of their no-life colleagues. Adults with no life often
feel self-righteous satisfaction at their ability to do more, give more, and
participate more than others within the community, and this eventually
becomes everyone’s problem. When it becomes clear that adults use
work as a substitute for life, administrators should take heed.
The biggest concern administrators should have about no-life adults
is the degree to which such adults look to the school community, and
specifically to students, to satisfy their emotional needs. Well-rounded
adults get their emotional needs met in various ways and from various
sources, and they understand that work is not the place to get most of
these needs met. Some of their needs will be met at work, of course,
but not all of them, and certainly not intimate emotional needs. Adults
who don’t get their emotional needs met elsewhere will naturally look
to their work to satisfy these needs. This is not surprising—in fact it
makes sense—nevertheless this is a huge problem when one’s work
involves children.
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 145

Adults with no life may seek mirroring, intimacy, a sense of reciproc-

ity, and an experience of companionship from students. These adults
are at high risk for forming unhealthy attachments to students and to
the school itself, which renders them vulnerable and resistant to change.
When work is where the heart is, it is difficult for adults to gain perspec-
tive. It is hard for anyone to be impartial and disinterested when per-
sonal stakes are so high, and yet impartiality and disinterest are critical
skills for adults to have in the teenage world. These skills provide some
immunity to the workings of the teenage brain, and they help adults to
welcome growth and weather necessary change.
When administrators assess that adults don’t have lives outside work,
it goes without saying that this should not be capitalized on. Administra-
tors should resist the temptation to let such adults work around the clock
or do all the dirty work. These adults should be encouraged to carve out
time for themselves, or at the very least they should be directed to spend
some of their energy on activities that don’t involve just students. The
more these adults focus their emotional energy on students, the bigger
the problem is in the long run, so if nothing else administrators would
do well to find roles for them that provide a balance of duties.

The Likelihood of Change

The above-mentioned character traits are difficult to deal with be-
cause they are often intractable and therefore impervious to change.
Once a charismatic, always a charismatic, as I like to say. When an
undeveloped charismatic—or an adult who is defensive or inflexible
or student-focused or doesn’t have a life—resists change, chances
are good they aren’t capable of it. At best, these character traits can
be shifted over time and with a great deal of effort (not to mention
psychotherapy), and administrators must assess whether such an in-
vestment is worth it. At worst, these traits rear their ugly heads again
and again and create untold problems, leaving administrators feeling
frustrated and exhausted.
When any of these red flags appear more than once, or when admin-
istrators find themselves dealing with adult mistakes again and again as a
result of these traits, they should consider counseling such adults out of
the community or not renewing their contracts. Not all adults are suited
146 CHAPTER 6

to work with teenagers, and adults with the above characteristics may
be among this group. Removing such adults from the community can be
problematic, however, because often their transgressions are not illegal
or unethical, they’re just about bad judgment. Administrators should
keep clear and consistent records that document all conversations,
plans of action, follow-through, and so on with problematic adults. If
left unchecked, such adults can remain in school communities for years
due to the absence of protocols to deal with them or a paper trail that
documents behavior.
Adults with these traits hamper everyone’s ability to deal with the
challenges of working with teens, because these traits leave them with
little resistance to the fever of adolescence. The truth is when the fever
infects one adult, all adults are affected in one way or another, and so
high-risk adults (or low-immunity adults, if you will) place a big burden
on the community and make a lot of mess along the way.
So, who has to clean up the mess these adults make in the teenage
world? That’s right, the lonely administrator. Therefore, it’s critical for
the A-TEAM to assess how adults function within the community and
ensure that adults who work closely with teenagers are healthy and
effective. The A-TEAM should discuss its concerns about particular
teachers in a confidential manner and consider strategies to support the
adult in question. It is not necessary to institute a system to assess every
adult, just a protocol to assess problematic situations as they arise. When
it becomes clear via this process that an adult is struggling to maintain
grown-up behavior, the A-TEAM should monitor the situation closely
and make it clear to the adult in question that they have concerns.

The Case of John Revisited

Let’s return to the case of John for a moment, the teacher in chapter
5 whose relationships with students was on his colleagues’ radar screen
for years. Everyone within the adult community had mild reservations
about John but nobody expressed their concerns, at least not in a direct
way. Even members of the A-TEAM felt uneasy about him and his
popularity, but nothing was done. Should the A-TEAM have responded
to something as amorphous as uneasiness? The A-TEAM’s job was to
assess the situation. Is a feeling of uneasiness part of an accurate assess-
ment? Yes and no.
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 147

First, a lot of people had a hunch that something was wrong with
John, in part because he delighted in his popularity to such a degree.
John was a classic undeveloped charismatic personality; that was clear
for everyone to see. This fact should have put him on an active radar
screen, but of course this information didn’t necessarily mean he was
crossing a sexual boundary. Nevertheless, it was important information
and it formed the beginning of an assessment. The A-TEAM’s first step
should have been to pay attention, and John’s need to be popular and his
huge following among students was worth paying attention to.
Second, the school did have some harder information about John,
although it had fallen through the cracks because of inattention. The A-
TEAM was aware that John often spent time and attention on students
that was extraneous to his duties. In his capacity as coach, he often
stayed late to coach particular students, and this behavior was noticed
by members of the athletic department. He also spent lots of his own
money during away matches, and although he sought reimbursement,
it was clear that his practice of spending money on his students did not
match the behavior of his colleagues.
Of course, these clues do not necessarily spell trouble in all cases,
but in John’s case they were important pieces of the assessment
puzzle, and the A-TEAM might have been able to intervene had they
followed up with him on these aspects of his behavior. This is where
the A-TEAM must strike a balance, though, and until clear evidence
is discovered, it must refrain from judging prematurely. It is the
A-TEAM’s job to assess, not to jump to conclusions, and in John’s case
the initial assessment should have been to monitor and continue to as-
sess the high-risk situation.

Situational Risk Factors

There are times when all adults are at risk of being overwhelmed in
their work with teenagers. Starting a new job or career, marital difficul-
ties, a death in the family, divorce, and simple loneliness can affect a
teacher’s ability to do his or her job well. Administrators should be on
the lookout for adults who face these situational risk factors, and offer
help in the form of mentoring, counseling, time off, or even sabbatical
as a means of keeping effective teachers on board. Adults dealing with
significant stressors need support and guidance, and at the very least
148 CHAPTER 6

they need to know that someone at work cares about their struggles. Ad-
ministrators should let adults know how to reach out for help and what
resources exist to support them during their times of need.

Guideline 5: Management
The final guideline for administrators is Management. Administra-
tors are responsible for managing the school community as a whole and
for setting the tone of school culture (and for cleaning up the mess).
To this end, administrative management is critical to the development
and maintenance of a healthy school environment. This final guideline
addresses the management of the teenage world when the infectious
aspects of adolescence infect large segments of the population or the
school community as a whole.

The Forest and the Trees

Administrators are responsible for understanding and managing the
big picture, or the forest, of the teenage world. Teachers and other adult
staff are responsible for tending to the particular trees. An administra-
tor’s capacity for understanding the big picture is perhaps the single
most important skill he or she possesses in dealing with adolescent
culture. This skill includes the ability to understand adolescent psychol-
ogy, the recognition of the psychological rhythms of the school year (for
example, seniors sometimes act out as they approach graduation), and
the ability to extract meaning from seemingly random teenage and adult
behavior. Seeing the forest of the teenage world in this manner allows
administrators to assess their school culture and manage it effectively,
and to get it back on track when it inevitably goes awry.
The following examples describe what the teenage world looks like
when the phenomenon of adolescence reverberates among large por-
tions of the culture. They are the cultural symptoms, if you will, that
administrators should look for in the process of managing the commu-
nity. While I present the following symptoms as separate entities, they
often overlap or coexist, and thus they should be understood as concep-
tual guides to the imbalanced community rather than as actual entities.
Unbridled adolescence is messy if nothing else, therefore the following
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 149

categories are offered as ways to bring some order to the mess caused
by widespread contagion.

Culture of Personality
When adult popularity becomes important, or when adults value pop-
ularity as much as teenagers do, the community has a problem. Some
adults will always be popular with students, but a culture of personality
goes beyond this. In a culture of personality, the adult culture mimics
the teenage one, wherein celebrities are created and select adults are
valued in extreme ways. In a culture of personality, specific adults are
worshipped and idolized, although they’re not necessarily respected.
Such adults commonly develop followings of students, and even of par-
ents and other colleagues, and they do nothing to dissuade their follow-
ers from keeping them on a pedestal. In fact, such adults cultivate their
cult-like followings and resist all attempts to change.
Fissures can emerge within the adult community in cultures of
personality, often along popularity lines. Because not everyone can be
popular, the phenomenon of extreme popularity necessitates the exis-
tence of not-so-popular adults, and this can be very damaging to the
adult community. For every star created among the faculty there exists
someone who is not a star, and non-star adults lose among the student
community while their star colleagues gain, at least when their worth is
measured by teenage standards. Categories of inclusion and exclusion,
cool and not cool, and favored and not favored pervade the adult com-
munity in the culture of personality.
Adults are judged and valued by teenage standards in cultures of
personality. It might seem that teenage standards are the only standards
in the teenage world but this isn’t the case. Teenagers recognize adult
standards too. In fact, teenagers tend to judge adults by teenage stan-
dards only when adults permit this to happen. Cultures of personality
therefore emerge as a direct result of adult behavior, not of teenage
standards. Mature adults do not seek or need teenage adulation and
they can moderate the effects of popularity as a result. Immature adults
can’t do this.
Cultures of personality are commonplace in communities that have
many needy and charismatic adults on staff. When the number or
150 CHAPTER 6

influence of such adults reaches a critical mass, communities embrace

the notions that adults must be popular to be effective; that entertain-
ment value is more important than content value in the classroom
and beyond; and that the practice of cultivating and playing favorites
is acceptable and essential to adult success. In such cases, adolescent
standards pervade the community and adult standards are eclipsed.
Cultures of personality can be challenging to manage because they
have an almost cult-like quality to them and it’s common knowledge that
cults are hard to crack. When adults seek glory in the attention of teen-
agers, administrators are up against a powerful force. Managing such
adults, let alone the damage they leave in their wakes, can be a full-time
job, and the amount of time administrators spend managing adult mess
should serve as an indication of how compromised the community is.

Culture of Us vs. Them

Popular adults with cult-like followings often create us vs. them
cultures within the teenage world, where us stands for adults and
them stands for administration. An us vs. them culture is expected in
the teenage world, of course, but only between students, or between
students and adults, not among the adult community itself. The us
vs. them culture should never connote a division among adults them-
selves; when it does, something’s wrong. When adults stand in united
or unyielding opposition to one another or the administration, one of
two things is going on: the adults are behaving in grown-older ways, or
the administration is ineffectual or overwhelmed, or both. In any case,
the administration must manage the situation if it hopes to bring the
community back into balance.
One way to get the community back on track is to help adults deal
with their conflict productively. Effective administrators recognize that
conflict has its place within the adult community. In fact, a certain
amount of discord is to be expected, given the power differential be-
tween administrators and faculty. Faculty and administration may be at
odds over things like salary, benefits, schedules, workload; any of these
factors can create tension, and this tension is predictable.
Adults should be encouraged to deal with tension and disagreements
openly, respectfully, and without fear of recrimination. Communities
that deal with conflict in this way are healthy, and trust and respect pre-
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 151

vail. Productive conflict inevitably strengthens a community; it doesn’t

polarize or split it. In fact, it is essential because it reinforces both the
adult community and the boundary that exists between the adult and
teenage worlds. When conflict is aired and managed effectively, admin-
istrators reduce the likelihood that adults will break ranks and create a
culture of us vs. them.
When adults don’t stand united within the teenage world they create
confusion for students and headaches for themselves. The biggest dan-
ger in us vs. them cultures occurs when adults join forces against each
other or the administration and bring students along for the ride. When
oppositional adults include students in their machinations, they not only
divide the community, they make it psychologically unsafe for students.
Such adult behavior communicates to students that they must take sides,
often against adults they trust, and that the workings of the adult commu-
nity should concern them. Adults who do this to students are as negligent
as parents who force their children to choose sides in parental conflict.
It’s a rotten thing to do to kids, whether at school or at home.
Us vs. them cultures also emerge when there are many student-
focused adults in the community. Student-focused adults identify with
teenagers, and therefore they identify with typical adolescent struggles,
like separation and individuation.4 Student-focused adults also don’t ac-
knowledge an allegiance to the adult community. In extreme cases, they
don’t even see themselves as adults at all, and therefore they are apt to
view teenage struggles as their own, and vice versa. When this confusion
about roles prevails, adults join with students in the inevitable clashes
that occur in the teenage world. Unfortunately, they not only join in
these clashes, they often incite them, and then they devote their energy
to fighting losing battles.
It’s normal for teenage communities to split and clash, and when this
happens adults should help teenagers make sense of the situation; this
is their proper role. When adults stop participating from the sidelines
and get into the ring, however, they are behaving like teenagers and the
healthy functioning of the community is jeopardized.

Culture of Gossip
Gossip is widespread in the teenage world. It is hard to avoid, at least
it is hard to avoid student gossip. Adult gossip should be avoided at all
152 CHAPTER 6

cost, on the other hand, but it tends to flourish in communities where

adults are student-focused and/or don’t have lives of their own. Gossip
may also flourish when adults don’t feel like their voices are heard by
the administration, or that their opinions don’t matter.
Adult gossip can have a slippery-slope quality to it, and in many
schools there exists among the adult community something I refer to
as gossip creep. Gossip creep is the predictable increase in gossip that
occurs when boundaries around language and sharing information are
relaxed or ignored over time. Gossip creep occurs for reasons as be-
nign as boredom, laziness, or inattentiveness on the part of adults; its
impetus is rarely malicious. Adults may gossip about students because
it’s easy, and because students are what adults have in common in the
teenage world. Adults may gossip about other adults or their supervi-
sors because it’s a way to let off steam or to deal with unacknowledged
or persistent frustration.
Gossip is also mindless, for the most part. Gossip is the antithesis
of authentic conversation and connection. Adults in schools work hard
and they’re busy, which means they don’t necessarily have time to con-
nect with their colleagues in meaningful ways. Gossip, then, becomes
a shortcut to a sense of shared experience, or it replaces shared experi-
ence altogether, and when this happens it is an indication that the adult
community needs to find more purposeful ways to connect.
Gossip is most destructive when it occurs between adults and stu-
dents, regardless of the subject. It is a sure sign that teenage standards
prevail when this happens, and adults need to understand how damag-
ing such behavior is. At best, it communicates to students that adults
enjoy the same petty pleasures that they do. At worst, it communicates
that adults can’t be trusted.
Administrators should be aware that it takes only one influential and
gossiping adult to send the message to students that this is what adults
do. The effect of such behavior is an overall reduction in the level of
trust for adults within the student community, and it breeds fear in
students that they too might become the subject of gossip. Even when
adults gossip with students only about other adults, it is extremely de-
structive, and such behavior undermines all adult efforts to establish
trust and safety within the community.
Gossip is commonly used as a tool to support us vs. them cultures and
cultures of personalities. Gossip is the communication method of choice
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 153

for adults who can’t connect to students in other ways, and it’s what
some adults use as a substitute for authenticity in relationships. Adults
who engage in gossip incorrectly believe that this form of discourse
increases intimacy, but of course it doesn’t. Gossip is a barrier to true
communication, and therefore cultures of gossip tend to foster connec-
tions that are shallow and insubstantial.
One step that administrators can take in dealing with gossip is to
make sure they never do it themselves. This sounds obvious but admin-
istrators must remember that they set the tone for the entire commu-
nity. When adults trust that administrators will not gossip, then gossip
among faculty will seem unwarranted and out of place. If administrators
communicate to faculty that their opinions are important and will be
respectfully heard, then most adults will not feel the need to gossip.
Some adults will always gossip, of course, but as their numbers reduce,
their behavior sticks out within the community, and this is what admin-
istrators should aim for. Cultures shift slowly, and one sign that a shift
has taken hold is when problematic behavior stands out and is seen as
problematic by a majority of adults.

Culture of Capitulation
A culture of capitulation exists in the teenage world when disci-
pline is lax or inconsistent and adults don’t hold their ground with
students. This culture is one in which compromise reigns—but not
the good kind of compromise—and everything is up for grabs. Stu-
dents and their parents can negotiate virtually anything in a culture of
capitulation: rules, limits, and boundaries, even grades. Adults don’t
understand or perform their duties as grown-ups well in this culture,
and they take the phrase “student-centered” too literally. As a result,
teenagers basically run the show.
Cultures of capitulation arise when adults feel ambivalent about
holding the line with teenagers, and when their default position is to
befriend teens and credit them with maturity they don’t possess. These
cultures flourish when adults pay more attention to what teenagers want
than to what they need, and when adults expect teens to regulate and
manage their own behavior without grown-up guidance.
The reason I call this phenomenon capitulation is because teenag-
ers often yearn to be in charge of everything, and they welcome the
154 CHAPTER 6

opportunity to negotiate things on their own terms. This desire is not

inherently bad, of course; in fact, it’s developmentally appropriate. But
when adults confuse the teenage desire to spread their wings with the
ability to fly, adults have surrendered their responsibilities, and every-
one suffers. Adults must remember that if teenagers could manage
themselves on their own they wouldn’t need to be in school. But they
can’t, and so they are in school.
The culture of capitulation, more than the other cultures, is a product
of the times. Relationships between teenagers and adults have changed
over the past few generations and this is most evident in places where
teens and adults exist side by side, namely, in schools. Today’s genera-
tion of adults working with teens has a much more familiar relationship
with teenagers than was common a few decades ago—and this has its
advantages—but difficulties arise when this is taken to the extreme.
There’s nothing wrong with adults and teenagers relating to one another
in familiar or informal ways, but it becomes problematic when adults
no longer understand their roles with teens and when teens bear more
responsibility for themselves than they can handle.
Adults in cultures of capitulation usually have a greater need than
other adults to be liked by teenagers. In such cultures, adults prioritize
harmony and find the inevitable discord within the teenage world diffi-
cult to tolerate. Teenagers need to learn to deal with conflict and aggres-
sion, and cultures of capitulation develop when adults can’t accept that
teenage behavior is sometimes deplorable. These cultures often have
codes of conduct that run counter to the developmental ability of most
adolescents, and they may prize behavior that is, frankly, impossible for
teenagers to meet. Ironically, cultures of capitulation often have the
most aggressive anti-bullying, anti-harassment, anti-everything policies
precisely because adults don’t hold the line in day-to-day matters and
don’t understand how normal teenagers behave.
Basically, adults within cultures of capitulation do not attend to the
developmental needs of teenagers. Instead, they cater to their own
need to feel good about themselves, and they indulge their desire for
teenagers to appear mature, happy, and to get along with each other at
all cost.
Administrators can combat the culture of capitulation by helping
adults understand their roles and responsibilities when it comes to stu-
dent behavior, discipline, and the general tone of the school. Adminis-
FIVE GUIDELINES FOR ADMINISTRATORS 155

trators must also help adults deal with parents who might capitalize on
adult weakness or inexperience when it comes to dealing with teenag-
ers. For example, administrators should support adults when it comes
to grading, classroom management, and other issues that might cause
conflict with parents. This doesn’t mean administrators should support
faculty without question, but they should support faculty in a process of
following school guidelines and adhering to school policies.

AN ADMINISTRATOR’S JOB IS NEVER DONE

Administrators have the most complicated and important job in schools,

in part because adolescence can be so insidious and unpredictable. Mis-
takes happen all the time, and when they do the A-TEAM should assist
each other, assess the problem, educate the community about what’s
going on, be transparent about the course of action needed, and man-
age the situation. This is challenging and never-ending work, but it gets
easier once the A-TEAM is in place and the community understands
the challenges adults face in their relationships with teenagers. When
administrators do their jobs well, teenagers and adults remain healthy,
and when problems arise, as they inevitably do, they get identified and
resolved quickly.

EXERCISES AND REFLECTIONS

1. Who is on your A-TEAM, and to whom do you turn for support in

your work? What do you do if/when you feel isolated?
2. How do you communicate your decisions and your decision-
making process with your school community? What kinds of feed-
back do you get about your style?
3. How well versed is your faculty about adolescent development,
their roles as grown-ups, and so on? How would you rate the ma-
turity level of the adults at your school?
4. Consider a time when you had to deal with a problem with a fac-
ulty member. What about the adult’s personality contributed to
the situation, and how did you deal with this? How did the phe-
nomenon of adolescence contribute to the situation, and how did
you deal with this?
156 CHAPTER 6

5. Consider a time when your adult community behaved more like

teenagers than like adults. What symptoms did the community
have, and how did you identify and deal with them?
6. What is the hardest aspect of your job, and why? Where do you get
support for doing this part of your job?
7. What do you like most about working with and supervising adults?
What do you like least?

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Administrators must help adults who work with teenagers understand

how to manage their relationships with adolescents. Administrators
should work together as a team to understand how the school commu-
nity and individual adults react to the viral aspects of adolescence and
keep the entire community healthy when infection pervades the popula-
tion. The five guidelines for the A-TEAM help administrators manage
adults in schools and assist them in thinking creatively about how ado-
lescent psychology manifests within school environments.

NOTES

1. Every school handles discipline differently. At School C, adults handled discipline

exclusively (School C did not have a disciplinary committee that included student mem-
bers, as some schools do), and the principal dealt with situations that involved third
strikes or possible expulsion from the school.
2. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2008).
3. Women can be just as immature as men, of course, although more often than not
charismatic men gain higher profiles within the teenage world than charismatic women
do, at least in coed schools. In my experience, charismatic women who wield psychologi-
cal sway over students are less common in coed schools because pathological charisma
comes down to one thing, power, and in coed communities power is not shared equally
by men and women. So, women are more likely to act like Peter Pan (who is quite an-
drogynous, really) in all girls’ schools.
4. Part of the parallel curriculum for teenagers during adolescence is separation and
individuation. During this phase of development, teens need to discover who they are,
independent of their parents and other adult authority figures (i.e., teachers). During
this psychological process, teenagers may exhibit oppositional, resistant, or just plain
disagreeable behavior as they struggle to figure out who they are. This process is normal
and over time, as teens learn who they are and gain confidence in themselves, their need
to oppose and resist adults wanes.
 7

THE EIGHTFOLD PATH

OF ADULT SELF-CARE

The Eightfold Path of Adult Self-Care is a set of practices that helps

those of us who work with teenagers attend to our own needs. Self-
care is critical because our relationships with adolescents in the
teenage world are challenging. It is not enough for us to take care
of just our students; we must also care for ourselves if we want to be
effective in our work with teenagers.

WHAT THE BUDDHA TAUGHT

The Buddha taught his followers that life is suffering, and that we suf-
fer because we desire. He said that we can ease our suffering, and he
offered a set of practices called the Noble Eightfold Path as a method
for doing so. These Buddhist teachings are known as the Four Noble
Truths, and I believe they have something to offer us in our work with
teenagers. Let me explain.
First, the truth is that working with teenagers is challenging. Suffering
may be too strong a word for it but let’s face it, sometimes our work in
the teenage world is really hard. Second, another truth is that our work
is hard because we desire to do well, we want our work to mean some-
thing, and we want to be effective. One way we can be effective is to

157
158 CHAPTER 7

take care of ourselves, and to this end, I offer an eightfold path of adult
self-care specifically for those of us who work with teenagers.
I have liberally adapted the major concepts of Buddha’s Eightfold
Path for this purpose, but by doing so I do not mean to suggest that
this method of self-care is philosophical or religious in nature. The
Buddhist template merely lends itself well to adaptation. That said,
what Buddhism offers beyond adaptation is the notion that self-care
and psychological well-being come from intention. We must cultivate
healthy habits—they don’t just happen—and that’s what the Eightfold
Path is about.

THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE

When we follow the practices on the eightfold path, we contribute to

our own well-being and promote the health of everyone within our
school community.
The practices on the eightfold path of adult self-care are:

1. Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

While some of the practices on the eightfold path are reminiscent of

the seven grown-up skills (chapter 3), they differ principally in that they
help us attend to our own needs, not just to the needs of our teenager
students.

PRACTICE 1: RIGHT VIEW

The first thing we must do to take care of ourselves is see things as they
are. We must adopt a right view of the situation, as Buddha taught.
What does this mean in the teenage world?
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 159

Acknowledge the Power of Adolescence

First, we should acknowledge that the phenomenon of adolescence
is real and that sometimes it has an infectious quality to it, and that no
one is immune from getting swept up in the teenage fever. On the other
hand, we should also feel confident that we can handle the adolescent
dynamo when it hits and emerge better and stronger for it. Becoming af-
fected in our relationships with teenagers is an important crucible in our
work, and our work is a whole lot easier when we understand this point.

Cultivate Self-Awareness
Second, we should cultivate self-awareness and understand our vul-
nerabilities and challenges in our work with teenagers. It is not enough
to understand the general principles of how adolescents behave. We
must understand what happens to us personally when we get swept up
in the adolescent drama. Some of us may consider case studies from
previous chapters, and say to ourselves, “Well, that would never happen
to me. I don’t have to worry about that.” And we may be right. But we
all have to worry about something, and that’s the point.

Adolescent Experiences: Middle and High School

A good place to start this practice of self-awareness is to reflect upon
our own experiences during adolescence. We all survived the teenage
world ourselves, and therefore we all have significant experience dealing
with the challenges of adolescence. This personal history informs our
present work with students and can provide us with clues about how
we might be affected in our relationships with teenagers. The follow-
ing questions are intended to help us develop self-awareness and think
about our vulnerabilities in our relationship with teenagers:

1. What did you like about middle and high school? What did you
dislike about your school experiences?
2. What kind of student were you? Where did you excel academi-
cally? In what areas were you challenged?
3. What kinds of recognition did you receive from your teachers or the
school community? What role did you play within the community?
160 CHAPTER 7

4. In general, what kind of relationships did you have with your

teachers? Who were your favorite teachers, and why? Which
teachers did you dislike, and why?
5. How well did your school community suit your learning style and
needs?
6. If you had to do it all over again (assuming you had the power and
ability to determine these things for yourself), what would you al-
ter about your school experiences, and why? What would you want
to remain the same, and why?

Recognizing Assumptions
These questions should help us recognize some of our assumptions
about our students and our work. The truth is school has a profound
impact on all adolescents—from the quality of the education to the
interaction with teachers to the food in the cafeteria—school is a huge
deal. When we return to school as teachers, we bring with us the imprint
of our own adolescent experiences and this affects us in every aspect of
our professional work.

The Case of Barb

Barb, an experienced language arts teacher, spent her teenage years
being the “good girl.” She always did her work, helped her classmates
with their homework, and was often the teacher’s pet. She learned what
her teachers wanted from her and went out of her way to give it to them.
What she didn’t learn, at least not as well, was how to get her own needs
met and derive satisfaction from achieving goals she set for herself.
Barb never felt confident about her own desires or feelings, which
is why she always worked so hard to please others. She also resented
anyone who appeared to have an easy time of it, so she had difficulty
in her relationships at work. Barb resented some of her colleagues and
even her students, especially the “popular” ones, as she labeled them,
because they didn’t seem to work as hard as she did.
Like many of us who haven’t fully examined our own experiences,
Barb couldn’t separate her past from her present, which not only
caused her to suffer, it also increased her susceptibility to getting caught
off guard in the teenage world. As soon as Barb started to work with
teenagers, she slipped right back into her old patterns—only, things
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 161

had changed; Barb was no longer a student. She no longer could be a

teacher’s pet, for instance, and therefore she didn’t know how to get
what she needed from her surroundings.
This is how Barb brought her own adolescent experiences into her
work, and this is why she was vulnerable in her relationships. As long
as she remained unaware of how she was projecting her own internal
experiences onto the external world, Barb created the same scenario for
herself again and again, and her difficulties continued.

The Point of Vulnerability

We all bring our own psychological stuff to our work in the teenage
world, and this stuff serves as our point of vulnerability. The point of
vulnerability is different for everyone. For Barb, it was her desire to
please others and ignore her own needs. When our points of vulner-
ability come into contact with the drama of the teenage world we can
lose perspective, stop practicing grown-up skills and start behaving like
grown-olders, which is what happened with Barb.
When we are aware of our vulnerabilities we can identify problems
as they arise and recover quickly. Barb could have taken care of herself
if she’d understood this, but her ignorance of how and why she got
frustrated in her relationships kept her vulnerable and miserable in her
work. One of the things Barb needed to understand was how her own
experiences during adolescence, especially her experience with her
peers, created challenges for her in her work.

Peer Relationships
Not only did all of us go to school during adolescence, we all had to
contend with our peers, and the impact of these relationships may cause
challenges in our dynamic with teenagers. Our answers to the following
questions can help us determine how our own adolescent experiences
influence how we think about our work in the teenage world:

1. What social group, if any, did you belong to during middle and
high school, and how did your affiliation with this group serve or
not serve you?
2. How important were cliques in your school? How were you per-
sonally included or excluded from various social groups?
162 CHAPTER 7

3. Who were your closest friends? What did you expect from your
friendships? Who were the people you did not get along with, and
why?
4. What kind of intimate/romantic relationships did you have during
adolescence?
5. In what social situations did you feel confident? In what situations
did you feel unconfident? Why?
6. How were you influenced by your friends and peers? How did you
influence them? In what kinds of situations were you a leader? In
what kinds of situations were you a follower?

Relationship to Authority
Another area we should explore to cultivate a right view is our rela-
tionship to authority, both in terms of what we thought as teenagers and
what we think currently. Consider the following questions from past and
present perspectives to get an idea of how your attitudes about authority
inform your work:

1. How do teachers and administrators get along with each other in

your school community? Under what circumstances does an us vs.
them mentality arise within the adult environment?
2. How well do teenagers and adults get along?
3. How much trust and respect does each group afford one an-
other?
4. In what circumstances do you feel empowered within your com-
munity? In what circumstances do you feel disempowered? Why?
5. How much autonomy do you have in your work? How satisfied are
you with the autonomy you have? Would you like more, less?
6. How are decisions made within your community? How active a
role do you play in decision making? How satisfied are you with
the decision making process that exists?
7. In general, what do you think of authority? How well do you get
along with your supervisors?

Recognizing Projections
The reason it is important to think about these questions, which on
the surface may seem unrelated to our work, is that all of us understand
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 163

our present situations based on our past experiences. It follows, then,

that we bring to our current work various prejudices, beliefs, and ideas
about what adolescence is like, or what it should be like, based on these
personal experiences. This is projection.
Teachers need to think about projection because when we work in
schools our past experiences get triggered all the time by our present
environment. All adults project their past onto their present but most
adults don’t work in places that serve as constant reminders of their own
past. It is only those who work in schools who work in the same place
where they spent their formative years, so we need to think about how
we project our formative experiences onto our work.
When we return to schools as professionals, we must be careful not to
slip into the patterns we established during our own adolescence. Again,
this may seem self-evident but attorneys, doctors—all other profession-
als, for that matter—don’t work in surroundings that evoke their own
adolescent experiences and memories on a daily basis. Those of us who
work with teenagers do, and therefore we have to unlearn as much as
we learn about our working environment in order to practice grown-up
skills and be successful.

The Case of Jefferson

This was a critical issue for Jefferson, a middle-aged teacher who was
oppositional by nature and described himself as a perpetual adolescent.
Jefferson didn’t have any interest in exploring his adolescent experiences
because he was reliving them at work. For Jefferson, this meant bucking
authority at every opportunity, which is developmentally appropriate
for teenagers to do, but not adults. Jefferson took pride in his ability to
ruffle the feathers of the powers that be, and he made sure never to ally
with the administration if he could help it. When he did have to toe the
line, Jefferson made certain his students knew that he was still on their
side, and that he was still a rebel.
Jefferson liked working in schools because he was still living in the
teenage world, at least in his own mind. Jefferson hadn’t done the
psychological work necessary to separate his past from his present, and
because he was surrounded by teenagers every day he thought he could
get away with it, or rather, he didn’t think about it at all. Jefferson was
completely unapologetic about his behavior and, more to the point,
completely unreflective.
164 CHAPTER 7

Jefferson didn’t realize that he was a patsy, though, because he was so

committed to remaining a teenager himself. Jefferson’s students knew
he would always do their bidding, which is how he got manipulated by
them; this was his personal point of vulnerability. For example, when
his students were upset with the administration for enforcing rules
or consequences, Jefferson lead the rallying cry. Jefferson was the de
facto student representative on the faculty, which would have been ap-
propriate if he had actually represented their interests. But he didn’t,
of course, because he couldn’t. Jefferson never really represented his
students’ best interests because he only knew how to represent his own,
therefore his students were patsies too.
Jefferson shared a vulnerability with many adults who work in the
teenage world, which is he really liked the teenage world, so much so
that he never wanted to leave it. Jefferson wasn’t satisfied being im-
mersed in this world throughout the day; he wanted to be in it always.
Most of us who work in schools do so, in part, because we liked being
in school ourselves. It’s rare to find a teacher who truly hated being in
school. So those of us who choose to work in schools may be motivated
by a desire to return to our pleasant past experiences. This was Jeffer-
son’s motivation, although he didn’t know it, and that was his challenge.
When this is one of our motives for working in the teenage world we
must acknowledge it, and we must recognize that working in school is
different than being in school, a distinction Jefferson needed to make.
Jefferson also needed the assistance of someone who could help him
make this distinction, and who could encourage him to enjoy his work
but at the same time differentiate himself from his teenage students.
Because Jefferson had been teaching for years, it would take him time
and support to understand a suitable role for himself in the teenage
world, and thus to care for himself appropriately. Jefferson needed to be
convinced that membership in the grown-up world has its advantages,
and that practicing grown-up skills would allow him to manage the teen-
age world more effectively than while we was still identified with it.

Career Expectations and Satisfaction

Jefferson didn’t know how to care for himself, and he also didn’t know
how to gauge his expectations for his career, which is part of self-care.
Jefferson got a lot of satisfaction from his job, though, but for reasons
that left him and his students vulnerable. Had he examined himself and
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 165

considered what he expected and wanted, Jefferson might have dis-

covered that teaching wasn’t the profession for him. Or he might have
discovered the opposite: He might have realized that he could practice
grown-up skills and enjoy teaching at the same time. Either way, by
practicing right view, Jefferson could have determined if he was headed
in the right direction, which is essential for self-care.
Because career expectations and satisfaction are important aspects
of right view, we owe it to ourselves to determine whether we are in
the right place, professionally speaking. To this end, I suggest we take
stock of our professional situation every few years and ask ourselves the
following questions to determine if our experiences at work match the
expectations we have for our career:

1. How much satisfaction do you get from your work? Are there
other things you want to do professionally? If so, what plans are
you making to satisfy these ambitions?
2. Do you routinely establish and achieve professional goals? What
expectations do you have for your work and how do these translate
into concrete and definite plans for your professional future? Who
in your work community has a stake in your professional success
and supports your professional goals?
3. If you had to do your career path over again, what would you do
differently? If there are things you would do differently, how does
this inform the professional path you are now on?
4. What did you expect when you first starting working in the teenage
world? Which expectations have been met? Which haven’t?
5. How well does your current school community support your pro-
fessional goals? Is this community a good fit for you? If not, what
steps do you take to support yourself within the community, and
have you considered joining another school community that is
more personally and professionally compatible?
6. Is being an adult in the teenage world the right profession for you?
Why or why not?

The Professional Satisfaction Pie

When I speak to new teachers, I use a pie chart to help them think
about their professional goals and satisfaction. I explain that we need to
satisfy about seven out of ten pieces of the professional satisfaction pie
166 CHAPTER 7

in order to continue to feel good about what we’re doing. We must de-
termine which seven slices are important to us—everyone’s satisfaction
chart is different—and which are essential for our career satisfaction.
This process of discrimination inevitably implies compromise—we can’t
always get what we want—but we must get enough of what we want or
we risk feeling embittered and dissatisfied in our work.
I recommend adults create such a chart and refer to it annually as
part of a professional and personal review. Such a review is part of the
practice of right view and helps us determine what we need to maintain
our self-care. The following is a list of possible slices for the professional
satisfaction pie:

1. Salary, Benefits
2. Work Schedule, Work Load
3. School Philosophy/Mission—Personal Compatibility with Com-
munity Values
4. Collegial Relationships, Relationship with Administration
5. Relationship with Students and Parents
6. Potential for Professional Growth, Professional Development
Opportunities
7. Social Status
8. Professional Status
9. Degree of Professional Collaboration/Autonomy
10. Compatibility of Career with Personal Goals and Aspirations

Everyone will have different ingredients in their pie, but all of us

must get a certain degree of satisfaction from our work in order to do
our jobs well. If we can determine what we must have in order to feel
satisfied, then we can chart and measure our progress, which is part of
the practice of self-care.

No Job Is Perfect
No job is perfect and no job can meet all our needs, but the right job
should meet enough of them to keep us going. When we adopt a right
view of our professional situation, using something like the professional
satisfaction pie to keep track of our needs, we should maintain a sense
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 167

Figure 7.1.

of joy and satisfaction in our work. On the other hand, we must also be
realistic about what we expect from any job, and prioritize those things
that are most important to ensure good self-care.

Burnout
In my experience, teachers don’t talk much about burnout. I’m not
sure why. Maybe it’s because we think teaching is such an honorable
profession and therefore to talk about burnout dishonors our work. Or
maybe we think our students couldn’t live without us, so taking time off
or leaving the profession isn’t an option. Or maybe we fear disappoint-
ing our colleagues, or even ourselves, if we admit to feeling burned
out. Whatever the reason, I think adults who work in schools should be
encouraged to talk about burnout without fear of recrimination from the
community. Recognizing when we feel depleted by our work is part of
the practice of right view, so we shouldn’t neglect this important topic.
There are four warning signs of burnout that adults should keep
in mind, and when we experience any of them, we should consider
whether burnout is the cause:

1. Loss of energy or enthusiasm for work, feelings of depression sur-

rounding work. When we feel these things for extended periods
of time, and when these feelings don’t correspond to specific or
obvious stressors, then burnout may be a factor.
168 CHAPTER 7

2. Negativity. If we aren’t naturally negative people, or even if we

are, and we find ourselves being overridingly negative about work,
burnout might be the cause. Sometimes teenagers can be very
negative and we can pick this up, but we should be able to recover
when we’re removed from the situation, or when we get a break
from work. But when nothing about work seems positive to us,
something is wrong.
3. Not invested in relationships. Ideally, we should feel invigorated
and challenged by our relationships at work. Teaching is one of
the most relational professions around, so when we start divesting
from our relationships, or when we feel too depleted to give any-
thing of ourselves in our relationships, we should pay attention.
4. Excess stress or worry about work. Another sign of burnout is un-
remitting stress or anxiety. When we don’t recover from routine
work stressors, like grading exams or other consuming duties,
burnout might be the cause.

When we experience any of the above symptoms it’s time to pay atten-
tion and practice self-care. When routine self-care doesn’t improve our
situation, and when we can’t identify other causes for our symptoms,
then it’s time to consider whether we are burned out. In such cases, we
should find someone to talk to about our circumstances, and hopefully
we can share our concerns with someone at work. When schools and
administrators think proactively about burnout problems get identified
early, and measures can be taken to support teachers in getting help.
When this happens, teachers are less likely to leave the profession or,
if they do, chances are greater they will return in a few years feeling
refreshed and enthusiastic.
When we engage in all of the above practices, like examining how our
past influences our present; recognizing our vulnerabilities in our work;
understanding what it is we really want from work, we practice right
view, and this is good self-care.

PRACTICE 2: RIGHT INTENTION

The second practice of the eightfold path is right intention, which is

sometimes interpreted by Buddhists as right thought. For our purposes,
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 169

right intention is the practice of attending to our thoughts and moods

throughout the day. This practice helps us to be purposeful and not re-
active in our thinking. When we are intentional about our mental states,
we determine our experiences to a great degree, which is an important
element of self-care.

Teenagers Are All Over the Map

Why is it important to be intentional about our mental states? Be-
cause teenage thoughts and emotions are all over the map, and they
spread like wildfire. When we catch the mood of teenagers we can get
entangled in their world. To take care of ourselves, then, we should
understand not only how to track our own thoughts and moods but also
how to separate our internal processes from those of our students.

The Case of Marissa

Marissa’s story is a prime example of how we can lose our bearings in
the midst of teenage emotion. One day after class, Marissa, a fine arts
teacher, was approached by a posse of 8th grade girls. One of the girls
was clearly upset—her face was red and she had been crying—and the
other five girls were there to lend support.
When Marissa asked them what was wrong, all six answered in unison,
creating a conversational maelstrom. Each girl tried to out-shout the oth-
ers in an attempt to get Marissa’s attention, and therefore it took a while
for Marissa to understand what was going on. But it didn’t take long for
her to feel what was going on—Marissa caught on to that instantly.
The girls were upset, Marissa discovered, because one of their
friends, who they didn’t want to name initially, had developed an eating
disorder, or so they believed. The girls reported to Marissa that their
friend ate only lettuce at lunch and was getting too thin. As the girls
continued, they became increasingly upset and agitated, and a few more
of them began to cry. Finally, one of them blurted out, “I’m sooooo wor-
ried about her! My mom is a psychiatrist and she thinks so-and-so has a
huge problem and that her parents are in denial. I think so too because
I know her parents and they can’t deal with anything.”
As Marissa listened to the story, she became more and more agitated
herself. She knew how pernicious eating disorders can be, and she also
170 CHAPTER 7

knew that there were already a number of girls in the 8th grade who
had been identified as having eating disorders. She felt the rising panic
of the group of girls and began to feel helpless, as if she were in their
emotional grasp. Marissa also felt uncertain about how to calm the girls
down, and was therefore relieved when Claire, a fellow teacher, entered
the room.
Claire joined the conversation at Marissa’s request and instantly felt
the tsunami of hysteria-ladened information flood around her. Claire,
too, became increasingly upset in response, especially because she
taught the student in question (whose name had been inadvertently
blurted out) and hadn’t seen any of this coming. She asked the girls a
series of questions about their suspicions and soon became convinced
that her student was in dire circumstances. She even started to tear up
a bit as the girls spoke about their friend.
Now both Marissa and Claire felt helpless and panicked, and neither
knew what to do. Because they had been so affected by their students’
emotions and thought processes, it was as if they had lost track of their
own—and they had, to a degree. Amid the drama created by the group,
Marissa and Claire summarily agreed with the girls’ assessment of the
situation and also agreed, at the girls’ urging, to speak with their friend
about her problem. With the high pitch of teenage emotion ringing in
their ears, Marissa and Claire overrode their own cognitive processes
and summoned the identified student, whom they now feared was tee-
tering on the precipice of life.
Without pausing to reflect on what was happening, Marissa and
Claire approached the student in question and shared their concerns.
They described to her the conversation they had had with her friends,
assured her they would help (without any plan in mind), and looked for
her reaction. Not surprisingly, instead of diffusing the situation, they
merely amped it up, and in the process they had unwittingly served as
vectors for the adolescent virus. Now they had seven hysterical students
on their hands, and no solution to the problem in sight.
Suffice to say, Marissa and Claire did not practice right intention
during their conversations with their students. While they experienced
various emotions and thoughts during the discussions, their reactions
weren’t entirely their own. This is not to suggest that their experiences
were wrong, or that they should have been unaffected by what was be-
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 171

ing reported. No, their feelings were genuine, but they were inflamed—
they had been trampled by the powerful force of the adolescent herd.
In order to take care of themselves, and thus to take care of their
students and the problem at hand, Marissa and Claire needed to remain
clear about their own mental processes and how these differed from
their students’ experience. If what teenagers need from adults is their
ability to respond and to not react, then what we need from ourselves is
the ability to practice right intention.
By keeping track of our own thoughts and feelings, and by weighing
them against our students’ perspectives, we see through the chaos of
the moment and bring order to the teenage situation. Had Marissa and
Claire practiced right intention, they would have recognized that their
own thoughts and feelings got lost in the fever pitch of their students’
reactions, and until they got in touch with their own adult responses
they couldn’t intervene effectively.
For what it’s worth, Marissa and Claire were both very competent
and thoughtful teachers, and neither was prone to overreaction. They
were, however, susceptible to the power of teenage feelings, as we all
are, and neither had thought much about how to take care of themselves
when faced with such an onslaught of emotion. This increased the prob-
ability that they might dismiss their own adult reactions when faced
with a surge of teenage near-hysteria, which is exactly what happened.
Because they took their students’ reactions to the situation at face value
and didn’t check in with themselves—or with each other—about what
was going on in their own minds, they not only got themselves into an
emotional tizzy, but they spread that tizzy around.
At the end of the day, not only did Marissa and Claire have a mess
to clean up, they were also emotionally strung out and exhausted. What
could they have done differently in this situation? How could they have
taken better care of themselves and their students in the moment? And
what would have constituted right intention?

Questions to Stay on Track

I encourage adults to consider the following questions when faced
with charged situations in the teenage world. These questions should
help us stay in touch with our own thoughts and feelings and proceed
172 CHAPTER 7

based on our own perspective, not on what we’re picking up from a

febrile teenage world:

1. Is this an emergency situation? If so, what needs to be done to

contain the situation, and what other adults in the community
should be informed and/or can help?
This question invites its corollary, which is, what constitutes
an emergency? Does the situation involve loss of blood and/or
consciousness? If so, then the situation is probably serious. If not,
adults probably have some time to respond.1
2. If this is not an emergency, what can be done to deescalate the
emotional reactions of the parties involved? Is the situation com-
pounded by multiple reactions? Would the situation be contained
more effectively if individuals were dealt with separately rather
than as a group?
3. What additional information must be gathered to comprehensively
assess the situation? How should the assessment proceed, and who
should carry out the assessment?
4. How well do adult and teenage reactions match in this situation?
(If they are identical or closely allied, chances are good the adults
involved may have lost some of their perspective.) How would the
adult emotional response and plan of action differ if this scenario
was stripped of its teenage emotional and cognitive content? In
other words, how might the adult reaction change if just the “facts”
were presented?
5. How effectively do adult responses serve to manage the situation?
What is the nature of the aftermath? Is there evidence of an adult
emotional “hangover”?
6. What could be done differently in this situation, and how could
adult reactions, when practiced with right intention, inform the
assessment and plan of action?

Know Thyself
When we practice right intention, we consider these questions and
manage to check in with our own thoughts and feelings as situations in
the teenage world unfold. When we get caught up in the wildfire like
Marissa and Claire did, right intention allows us to turn down the flame
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 173

and bring a measure of rationality and calm to the fore. It enables us to

take care of ourselves because we check in with ourselves, differentiate
our experiences from those of our students, and get out of the teenage
fire as quickly as possible. This reduces our exposure to the feverish
aspects of adolescence and keeps us healthy in the long run.

PRACTICE 3: RIGHT SPEECH

The practice of right speech means pretty much what it says. This prac-
tice addresses how we speak in the teenage world, a place where speech
can be vicious, and encourages us to be mindful of what we say and how
we say it. Teenagers have a tendency to hear everything, especially when
it’s spoken by adults, and we shouldn’t lose sight of this fact. (This is
not to suggest that teenagers listen to everything that’s said, or that they
heed what is said—that’s another story. But they definitely hear what
is said.) The practice of right speech helps us stay clear about our role
with teenagers, and this helps us maintain the boundaries between us
and them that ensure our well-being.

Talking about Students

Here’s an unavoidable truth about the teenage world: Many, if not all
of us, talk about our students on occasion, and I don’t mean we discuss
how well our students are doing in class. This is a natural tendency—one
we should acknowledge. All adults talk about work, and because we
work with students, sometimes we talk about them. But beware: This
can be very risky business, as Benecio learned the hard way.

The Case of Benecio

Benecio, a young science teacher, was chaperoning a field trip when
he found himself engaged in a conversation with a colleague. His col-
league asked Benecio his opinion of some students in his class and
without thinking Benecio gave an uncensored answer. What Benecio
didn’t realize, much to his regret and embarrassment, was that he and
his colleague were in ear shot of a student, who promptly reported the
details of the conversation to her classmates. Had Benecio remembered
174 CHAPTER 7

to practice right speech, he could have avoided a huge mess, which he

spent weeks mopping up.
Benecio did not intend to gossip about his students, and he didn’t, re-
ally. He just said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But sometimes our
speech about students does get gossipy, and this can be very hazardous
for everyone within the community.

The Case of Rafael

Rafael was a popular coach and teacher who often bantered playfully
with his male athletes on the soccer field. At times, this banter was of
the locker room variety, and sometimes it involved students who weren’t
present, specifically female students. Rafael never initiated these con-
versations but neither did he guide his athletes away from such topics.
Rafael was known among students as someone who had a high tolerance
for inappropriate language, which is why they felt comfortable including
him in their conversations, both on and off the field.
One day, Joe, a senior on the soccer team, emailed Rafael an inap-
propriate comment about a female classmate. Without thinking, Rafael
answered the email in the lax manner he used on the field. While Joe
thought Rafael’s response was hilarious, Joe’s father didn’t. Joe inad-
vertently left his email open and within hours the evidence of Rafael’s
wrong speech was in the principal’s office.
Rafael’s transgression got him into a lot of trouble, but the truth is,
despite his poor judgment, Rafael wasn’t a spiteful guy. He was just
careless about his speech and he got caught. Any of us could have made
the same mistake Rafael made, in one form or another, which is why we
all should examine how we talk about students.

Student-Free Zones
Of course, sometimes it is important for us to talk about students.
Before these conversations take place, however, we should ensure that
we are in student-free zones, where students or other adults cannot
overhear conversations. In addition, I suggest we ask ourselves before
these conversations take place, What’s the purpose of the discussion?
Who does it serve, us or our student? If the conversation doesn’t serve
students, chances are good it won’t serve us in the long run, either. If
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 175

we must engage in non-work-related conversations about students, I

suggest we do it after hours, off school grounds, and in a private place.
In addition, we should never assume, even under these circumstances,
that the contents of the conversation will remain private.
When we practice right speech we care for ourselves and create safe
environments for our students, and we stay out of trouble.

PRACTICE 4: RIGHT ACTION

Right action is the practice of behaviors that keep us physically and

emotionally healthy. Right action covers our basic needs, those things
we shouldn’t live without but often do because of the demands of our
work in the teenage world.

Basic Physical Needs: Good Food, Sleep, Exercise

All of us who work in the teenage world should take care of our basic
physical needs like sleeping, exercising, and eating well. This sounds
simple but many of us don’t do it for a variety of reasons. We must
attend to our basic needs if we want to create communities that are
productive and conducive to learning, but this takes time, a precious
commodity in schools. Many of us wager we can catch up on lost sleep
and exercise on the weekend and during the summer, but this is a
costly gamble. We must keep pace with teenage energy levels, and this
requires a prudent and quotidian routine of self-care. If nothing else,
we should give ourselves permission to prioritize our basic needs. If we
don’t, nobody else will. We should also be prepared to defend our right
to take care of ourselves.

The Case of Beth

Beth, an experienced debate coach, had to do just that, but it wasn’t
comfortable or easy at times. Beth took a brisk walk around the school’s
athletic fields every day in an effort to get a little exercise and to clear
her mind. Beth was vigilant about meeting her work commitments but
she also was committed to taking a much-needed break during the
176 CHAPTER 7

school day. She was an exemplary employee and chalked up much of

her success to her practice of right action.
Beth’s behavior came under the scrutiny of her colleagues because it
was out in the open and, as a result, she was often forced to defend her-
self, or rather, she was forced to suffer the comments that can abound in
tight communities. Why did she get to take a break when her colleagues
were slaving away? Why were her needs so important that she was al-
lowed to attend to them every day?
Because Beth worked in a community where many adults had trouble
advocating for themselves and their legitimate needs, her behavior was
sometimes misunderstood as selfish. But it wasn’t selfish, it was her
practice of right action, and it was something many of her colleagues
needed to practice for themselves. In order for them to feel such be-
havior was acceptable, Beth and her colleagues needed the leadership
of administrators who understood the importance of right action and
proactive self-care.

Basic Emotional Needs: Love, Connection, Community

Those of us who work in schools are sometimes prone to sacrificing
our emotional needs for our work, or of trying to get our emotional
needs met at work rather than outside of work. This is especially true at
boarding schools, although it needn’t be, but it is an occupational hazard
in day schools as well. When our work community is our only commu-
nity, we’re not practicing right action.
Schools are places where feelings of connection, community, and
affection are natural, particularly among students, and where everyone
is encouraged to cheer for the home team, so to speak. As a result,
many of us develop powerful feelings of attachment to our students,
colleagues, and institutions. This is normal, even desired, really, be-
cause it means we are connected and committed to our work. But it’s
not sufficient, at least not in terms of meeting our basic emotional
needs. We also need to experience love, connection, and community
beyond the confines of work, otherwise we risk looking to work to sat-
isfy things it can’t and simply shouldn’t satisfy. As teachers, we invari-
ably receive lots of attention and affection from our students, but we
mustn’t forget to get these needs met elsewhere too. Kellon didn’t do
this and he paid a big price for it.
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 177

The Case of Kellon

Kellon worked in schools his whole career. He loved schools and he
loved the people in them. Kellon was satisfied spending his free time
going to athletic events, attending student plays and concerts, and chap-
eroning student clubs. Some of this was expected, if not required of him,
and all of it was appreciated by his principal, who was happy to have
someone as well liked and capable as Kellon in attendance. Further-
more, it made Kellon and his students happy. Wasn’t that enough?
Not in the summer it wasn’t, when Kellon was prone to depression
and forced to feel the void in his life, a void created and simultaneously
filled by his dedication to his work. As Kellon approached retirement,
his stress increased. He had spent years investing in a relationship with
a community that couldn’t pay dividends in the long run, and he didn’t
realize it until it was too late. When we don’t get our needs for love and
intimacy met, chances are good we’ll feel depressed and stressed out,
much like Kellon did.

Stress: The New Cultural Currency

Kellon was stressed, but not in a way we usually think about stress
in schools. Nevertheless, his stress was real and he couldn’t deal with
it. Stress has become one of the most important cultural currencies in
many schools. At high-performing schools and among high-performing
teenagers, stress is expected, even bragged about. This is true among
adult populations too, and it’s becoming a serious problem. While
emotions such as anger and depression are rarely acknowledged, stress
is often considered de rigueur. In some communities, when adults and
students aren’t stressed out, something fishy is going on. Think about
it: When was the last time you heard a colleague talk about feeling
relaxed at work?
Stress is not a categorically bad thing, of course, but excessive or
unremitting stress is. Our bodies can handle lots of stress—bodies are
designed to manage stress, and we need stress to perform well—but our
bodies also need to relax regularly and to recover from bouts of stressful
activity. Without periods of regular relaxation, the body and mind grow
weary, and performance drops. Beth knew this instinctively: She used
her daily walks to relax her mind and to burn off the stressful energy that
178 CHAPTER 7

had accumulated in her body throughout the school day. Unfortunately,

many adults don’t manage their stress as effectively as Beth did and, as
a result, they return home at the end of the day feeling exhausted.
Managing stress is a fairly straightforward proposition from a physio-
logical standpoint, but acknowledging that it should be done and working
it into the workday routine is another matter. We find all kinds of excuses
to not take care of ourselves in this way, even passing up opportunities
when they present themselves during the work day.

The Case of Josh

Josh was a third-year teacher who felt overwhelmed by his duties and
was unable to seize the moment when it came to relaxing on occasion
during the school day. Josh feared if he let his guard down for even a
moment, he wouldn’t complete all his tasks, and he worried that his
performance wasn’t good enough as it was. Josh also felt he needed to
impress his colleagues, even if that meant working himself ragged. Josh
refused to relax regardless of the circumstance, even when those around
him were doing so.
Not surprisingly, Josh was not a happy camper: He felt irritated much
of the time and was unable to replenish his energy or enthusiasm, even
after a vacation break. Because he couldn’t manage his stress, Josh put
his effectiveness and his future as a teacher at risk. But how was Josh
supposed to squeeze in relaxation time at work? Good question, one
that many schools are seriously addressing now that stress is pervading
the culture.

Relaxation Tips
In order to relieve stress and to relax, the body needs to activate its
relaxation response.2 The relaxation response is the physiological antith-
esis of the fight-or-flight or stress response, and the two systems cannot
be engaged at the same time. Once the relaxation response kicks in,
stress is relieved, so it’s important to know how to activate this physi-
ological stress-buster. Learning how to relax is a crucial part of right
action, and all of us should create routines for stress reduction we can
use throughout the school day.
Many schools are now taking the issue of stress and relaxation very se-
riously, and some teachers are introducing relaxation exercises into their
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 179

daily practice with students. Schools are also looking to organizations

like the Benson-Henry Institute (B-HI) of Mind Body Medicine for
guidance in developing school-wide stress-reduction initiatives. These
initiatives introduce all members of the community to relaxation tech-
niques, but the B-HI in particular believes that adults must adopt these
practices first, before we can use them effectively with our students.
Researchers at the B-HI understand that we can’t teach what we haven’t
mastered, so when they work with schools they focus on the adults first,
not the students. This is an example of right action in practice. (See the
appendix for stress reduction and relaxation exercises.)

PRACTICE 5: RIGHT LIVELIHOOD

The practice of right livelihood is a given for adults who work in the
teenage world. Teaching is a noble profession and we should feel proud
of what we do. Taking pride in our work and feeling invested are im-
portant for self-care and allow us to weather the ups and downs of the
teenage world. I think most of us do feel proud of what we do, but not
everyone in this culture values teaching the way they should, which be-
came clear to me one day on my way to work.
I was running late one morning, so I hopped into a cab and blurted
out the directions to my school. The cab driver, a recent immigrant from
Vietnam, asked, “Are you a teacher?” And while technically I wasn’t—I
was a school counselor at the time—I said yes in an effort to simplify the
conversation and because I had been a teacher at various points along
the way. Apparently I gave the right answer, though, because my driver
spent the next ten minutes in a veritable reverie about teachers. I had
never heard anyone speak of teachers in such hallowed terms before. It
was amazing and it made me feel great.
What was most amazing, however, was that I realized that for all
the rhetoric in mainstream American culture about the importance of
teachers, I had never heard anything like this before. My cab driver was
in awe of teachers, and he meant every word of it. He gushed when he
talked about how important teachers were in his country, and in what
high esteem they are held. He got so into it that he almost didn’t let me
pay for my cab ride.
I often wonder why Americans don’t value teachers the way my cab
driver did, and what teachers can do about it. Teachers don’t rank in
180 CHAPTER 7

cultures where money is an important indicator of success, and as a re-

sult those of us who teach may not believe our work is valued. Teachers
are among the lowest paid white-collar professionals, and the ceiling on
potential earnings is relatively low, even for the best and the brightest.
Our culture doesn’t put its money where its mouth is when it comes
to education, and that sends us a very powerful message about its per-
ceived worth.
In cultures where wisdom is valued over money—or where wisdom is
valued period, even apart from money—teachers are held in very high
regard, and this goes a long way to compensate for the salary gap, in my
opinion. I can testify after my short cab ride how great it feels to be seen
as professionally relevant, and this feeling contributes to self-care.

Find a Mentor
Because our culture doesn’t give teachers the recognition we deserve,
we must find it for ourselves. To this end, I suggest we find mentors
within the profession, colleagues we admire and to whom we can turn
for support. The purpose of a mentor, apart from providing practical
help, is to serve as a role model, and perhaps even as a hero when neces-
sary. Everyone needs someone to look up to, especially those of us who
serve as role models all day long. I believe when we admire someone in
our profession we are more likely to value our own work, and this is an
important aspect of the practice of right livelihood.
Administrators can help this effort by establishing mentoring pro-
grams in their schools. Ideally, these programs should have a broad
focus, and should extend beyond mentoring only new teachers. Mid
and late career teachers need support and mentoring too, albeit of a
different nature. Not only do such programs support the adults who
receive mentoring, they also provide opportunities for master teach-
ers to help their colleagues, and to create roles for themselves that
extend beyond the classroom. Sometimes it’s not enough to be valued
by teenagers. A good mentoring program allows veteran teachers, and
those with specific talents, to be valued within their communities in a
different way. A good mentoring program is like a wisdom bank, with
community members making deposits or withdrawals depending on
their circumstances and need.
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 181

PRACTICE 6: RIGHT EFFORT

The practice of right effort is critical to those of us who teach, a profession

that breeds workaholism on one end of the performance scale and com-
placency on the other. Knowing how to strike a balance between the two
extremes is perhaps the most fundamental and yet profound skill for us to
practice in our quest for self-care, and this is what right effort is all about.

Workaholism
One of the worst occupational hazards of teaching is workaholism,
which often results in us feeling bitter, burned out, and ineffective. Un-
fortunately many school communities reward workaholism, and high-
performing schools fairly breed it among students and adults alike. In
fact, workaholism has become so common in certain schools, especially
in schools with high performing parents, that it’s considered the gold
standard of achievement. Any effort that falls short of the workaholic
threshold is considered unacceptable in these communities, and this
makes workaholism very hard to combat.
One sure sign we are out of balance when it comes to right effort is
when we get preoccupied with work. We must have regular down time
in order to be effective and to take care of ourselves, and those of us who
work all the time pay the price eventually. Unfortunately, workaholism
tends to persist; it doesn’t just go away by itself.
I once heard the following exchange take place between a veteran
teacher and a newcomer at a faculty retreat. It was clear that the new-
comer, who felt overwhelmed in his job, was looking for guidance about
how to balance his life and hoped that he wouldn’t feel overwhelmed
forever. In effect, he was looking for advice on right effort. The exchange
went like this:

New teacher: What do you do in your free time?

Veteran teacher: Work.
New teacher: What do you do for fun?
Veteran teacher: Work.
New teacher: What do you do on the weekend?
Veteran teacher: Work.
182 CHAPTER 7

Needless to say, the new teacher didn’t get any helpful insights on
how to balance his life, although he learned a lot about his new school
culture because his colleague was one of the most respected and re-
vered members of the faculty.

Beware Martyrdom
Workaholics risk becoming martyrs if they’re not careful, although
not all martyrs are workaholics, by any means. Martyr in this case refers
to someone who suffers in the extreme; while all teachers suffer at some
point in their work, there’s suffering and then there’s suffering, a self-
inflicted wound that is the defining feature of the martyr.

The Case of Dolores

Dolores was a classic workaholic martyr. She gave everything to her
work, and during her two decades teaching she sacrificed all she had for
her job and her students. She taught more classes than was required by
her department, served on every possible committee, volunteered for ev-
ery thankless job available, and even agreed to proctor afterschool events
when she didn’t have to. Dolores did it all. Then she felt miserable.
When anyone suggested to Dolores that she did too much, she gave
a weak smile and said she was happy with her lot. She said she wanted
to work this hard. She said the school needed her to do what she did.
Dolores convinced herself that if she didn’t pick up the slack, the school
would collapse. So, she kept on working herself to the bone and com-
plaining about it.
Dolores confused right effort with endless effort, which are very
different things. She didn’t know the first thing about right effort, and
because she was a martyr she didn’t care. Dolores’s purpose in life was
to suffer and complain, and by this measure she was a success. But
she took awful care of herself and in the process she alienated her col-
leagues and students.
Dolores was not alone in wanting to give her best effort at work.
Most of us do. Most of us avoid Dolores’s fate, however, because
we simply tire out. Those of us who do succumb to excessive effort
should get help to manage our duties. True, Dolores was a martyr, but
she wasn’t born a martyr, which means chances were good she could
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 183

unlearn her behavior, provided she got some encouragement from a

supervisor. Sometimes those of us who are like Dolores need someone
in authority to intervene and tell us that we can’t do something, not
simply that we shouldn’t.

The Case of Raymond

Raymond’s problem was that he couldn’t summon up the effort to do
anything; he was the professional opposite of Dolores. Raymond had
years of experience under his belt and his performance was adequate,
but he stayed in cruise control most of the time. He didn’t invest in im-
proving his curriculum or lesson plans because he didn’t see the point.
Although he was interested in his subject matter, he wasn’t interested
enough to learn more about it, plus he worked at a school with lots of
chaos, so it was easy for him to neglect his work and get away with it.
Raymond’s lack of right effort was a disservice to himself and his
students, and it demonstrated that he didn’t practice self-care very well.
Right effort is as much about pushing oneself as it is about not pushing
oneself over the edge—although Raymond didn’t want to push himself
at all. As a result, he took little pride in what he did and never felt a
sense of accomplishment. Apart from the fact that pride and accom-
plishment are things we try to instill in our students—and so we should
model it—Raymond let himself down. He was a smart, educated profes-
sional who just didn’t care anymore. Something was wrong, and his lack
of right effort was the indicator.
Chances are good Raymond’s lack of care was masking something
more serious, maybe burnout or even depression. When we feel like
Raymond did, it’s an indication that we need much more self-care, and
perhaps the help of a mentor. When administrators notice a decline in
teacher effort, they should support teachers to identify a cause and get
the help they need.
Teenagers experience enough martyrdom and complacency in their
own lives; the last thing they need is to be surrounded by adults who feel
the same way. Instead, right effort is what teenagers need to see, and
right effort is what we need to practice in order to take care of ourselves.
It takes time to master, though, and success is hard to gauge. That said,
when we practice right effort we should feel invigorated by work and
refreshed by leisure, and we should feel satisfied a lot of the time.
184 CHAPTER 7

PRACTICES 7 AND 8: RIGHT MINDFULNESS

AND RIGHT CONCENTRATION

The final practices for adult self-care in the teenage world are right
mindfulness and right concentration, which when combined mean posi-
tive thinking. When we think positively about our work, we promote our
well-being and resilience. Trite as it may sound, positivity pays great
dividends in the teenage world, where adolescent negativity and cyni-
cism run rampant.

The Power of Positive Thinking

When we practice self-care we tend to feel positive, and when we feel
positive when tend to care for ourselves better. When we are positive
in our outlook and speech, we create environments that foster positiv-
ity in others. While it might be too optimistic to think our positivity can
make our students positive, a positive attitude helps. When I suggest a
positive attitude as part of self-care for adults, I don’t mean to suggest
that we should ignore our problems or pretend to feel something that
we don’t. Instead, I believe we have a right to feel good a lot of the time,
so if we don’t we should commit ourselves to figuring out what’s wrong.
The clarion call to positivity is not about putting a good face on things,
although this helps at times. It’s about claiming our right to feel good
and taking ourselves and our problems seriously when we don’t.
When we practice good self-care in the teenage world, we tend to
like ourselves and our teenage students, feel good about what we do and
how we live, and enjoy our work. The practices of right mindfulness and
right concentration remind us that we have a right, even a responsibility,
to feel good about what we do. When we don’t feel good, something’s
wrong. So positivity, then, is as much a gauge of how well we’re taking
care of ourselves as it is a state of mind. If we don’t feel generally happy
about our work, it’s time to raise the ante of self-care.

THE ADMINISTRATOR’S ROLE

ON THE EIGHTFOLD PATH

Most of us who work in the teenage world are smart, competent, and
hardworking, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need help to reach our po-
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH OF ADULT SELF-CARE 185

tential, and to take care of ourselves along the way. The administrator’s
role in the eightfold path is that of companion and guide. Administra-
tors are our companions because they share our burdens in the teenage
world, and they are also our guides because it is their job to lead us in
our quest to be healthy and effective professionals. I encourage admin-
istrators to think about how they can support adults to this end, and to
consider ways to establish and promote self-care initiatives for all faculty
and staff, using the eightfold path as a reference point.

EXERCISES AND REFLECTIONS

1. How would you rate your ability to take care of yourself, in and
outside of work?
2. What specific practices of self-care do you engage in regularly?
3. What happened the last time you neglected to take care of your-
self? How did you deal with the situation and how did you get
yourself back into balance?
4. How would you rate your community’s attitude toward self-care?
What does your school do to promote adult self-care? What mes-
sages do you receive about self-care and do any of them contradict
one another?
5. How do you model self-care to students, and how and when do you
talk to them about self-care?
6. How satisfied are you with your work and your school community?
How would you rate your relationships with colleagues? What
would you change about these things if you could?
7. What advice would you give to a newcomer to your community
about taking care of themselves, and what does your advice say
about your school culture?

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Those of us who work in the teenage world must take care of ourselves
in order to do our jobs effectively. The eightfold path to self-care is a
set of practices that promote self-awareness and self-care for adults, and
ideally each practice brings us increased satisfaction in our work with
teenagers.
186 CHAPTER 7

NOTES

1. I use the threshold of blood and loss of consciousness to determine emergen-

cies but obviously emergencies come in all forms, and therefore my criteria shouldn’t
be taken literally. I use these criteria as a shorthand way to gauge the seriousness of a
situation in the teenage world, where not-so-serious situations tend to gain momentum
quickly. What can feel like an emergency to a teenager is often not an emergency from
an adult perspective, and adult judgment must prevail in order to bring balance to an
out-of-balance situation.
2. Dr. Herbert Benson, a pioneer in mind-body medicine and the study of stress,
coined the term relaxation response. Benson is the founder of the Benson-Henry In-
stitute for Mind Body Medicine (Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, www.mbmi.
org) and the author of The Relaxation Response. He is an associate professor at Harvard
Medical School and has done extensive work to bring relaxation techniques to students
and teachers in schools.
 Epilogue

THE CASE OF NATALIE

Natalie’s 12th grade English class was filled with bright and eager stu-
dents. Sam wasn’t one of them. Sam was a surly, often oppositional stu-
dent, and he didn’t perform well most of the time. Natalie could see that
Sam had some talent—occasionally he handed in a very good essay—but
it was clear that he wasn’t interested in doing well in her class.
Natalie met with all of her students in one-on-one conferences at
least once a month. She really enjoyed this part of her work because it
gave her the chance to get to know her students better and give them
individual help. Natalie dreaded her conferences with Sam, though. He
hardly ever talked, and Natalie had to use every trick in the book to get
him to participate. Natalie stayed focused during her sessions with Sam
because, well, she was a professional, but she got little satisfaction out of
it. Sam remained obstinate and grumpy no matter what Natalie did.
During one of their conferences, Natalie challenged Sam about an
opinion he had expressed in a recent essay. She asked Sam how he had
formulated this particular opinion, and why he had chosen to write
about it. After Natalie asked her question, Sam slammed some papers
onto the table and shouted, “It’s none of your business! Can’t you just
leave me alone?!” Sam then stood up, gathered his things, and walked
out of the classroom.

187
188 EPILOGUE

Natalie sat there for a few moments. She knew Sam was difficult but
not this difficult. After she composed herself, she went in search of him
and discovered him by his locker. When she approached him, Sam again
told her to leave him alone.
“What’s going on, Sam?” Natalie said. “We need to talk. I’m sorry if I
said something to offend you, but your behavior is unacceptable. Let’s
go back to the classroom and finish our session and later we can discuss
what happened.”
“No!” shouted Sam, and he ran down the hallway, leaving Natalie
stunned and angry. Natalie’s next conversation was with Don, the assis-
tant principal, who agreed that Sam needed to face some consequences
for his behavior. Don said he would summon Sam to his office and keep
Natalie posted.
Natalie was surprised to see Sam in class the next day. He was his
same unpleasant self, but Natalie felt encouraged that he showed up at
all. Later that day, Don reported to Natalie that he’d given Sam a deten-
tion for his behavior, so Natalie decided to wait until his next conference
before saying anything to him.
When Sam showed up for the conference, he acted as though noth-
ing had happened. Natalie took her cue from him and stayed focused
on their work. As long as he showed up, Natalie took this as a good sign.
During this conference, however, Sam was a little more forthcoming
and cooperative when Natalie tried to engage him about his work. It was
still difficult from Natalie’s perspective but it was something.
Throughout the remainder of the year, Natalie and Sam continued
to meet during their conference time. There were no more outbursts
on Sam’s part, but he didn’t improve much as a student, either. Natalie
stayed as focused and positive as possible, and she treated Sam like she
treated her other students.
The year came and went. Sam graduated. Natalie wasn’t even sure
what his plans for college were. He didn’t say goodbye.
About a year later, Natalie received an email from Sam. He told her
what he was doing, that he liked school (she was sort of surprised to
learn he had even gone to college), and how much he appreciated all
she’d done for him. Sam told Natalie that he had been going through
a very tough time during his senior year. He’d hated himself and life,
and he hated it when anyone paid attention to him, as Natalie had. He
THE CASE OF NATALIE 189

apologized for his behavior. He hadn’t meant to be so rude, he said, but

sometimes he just got upset and didn’t know how to deal with it.
At the end of the note, Sam told Natalie that having her as his English
teacher was one of the high points of his senior year. He admitted that
she had irritated him at the time, but after he graduated, he realized
Natalie was the one person who really cared about him at school; she
was the one person who didn’t give up on him. Even though he didn’t
appreciate it then, Sam said he was grateful Natalie didn’t hold his be-
havior against him, and that she cared enough to stay engaged with him
despite his attempts to push her away.
We really do matter.
 Appendix

RELAXATION EXERCISES

Practicing relaxation and stress reduction exercises throughout the

school day is an excellent form of self-care. The goal of any relaxation
protocol is to calm the heart rate, quiet the mind, and refresh the
spirit. This can be done in countless ways; what’s important is that we
find a way that works for us and then work our method into our daily
schedules.
The following are two kinds of relaxation exercises. The first is called
a “mini,” and it can be done in just a minute or two at any point through-
out the day. The second group of exercises are longer and can be used
with students. I suggest we practice our own method of relaxation be-
fore introducing these exercises to students. Our success in passing this
information along to students is greatly enhanced when we’ve mastered
some of these methods first.
The following relaxation exercises are reprinted with permission of
the Benson-Henry Institute of Mind Body Medicine, Massachusetts
General Hospital.* Whereas these relaxation protocols can be used as
standalone exercises, I urge interested readers to refer to The Relaxation
Response, by Dr. Herbert Benson, for a more comprehensive under-
standing of stress and mind-body relaxation.

191
192 APPENDIX

MINI RELAXATION EXERCISES (1–2 MINUTES)

Mini relaxation exercises, or “minis,” are focused techniques, which

help reduce anxiety and tension immediately.
Ways to do a “mini”:

1. Count very slowly to yourself from ten down to zero, one number
for each breath. Thus, with the first complete inhalation and exha-
lation, you say ten to yourself; with the next, nine, and so on. If you
start feeling light-headed or dizzy, slow down the counting. When
you get to zero, see how you are feeling. If you are feeling better,
great! If not, try doing it again.
2. As you inhale, say to yourself one, two, three, four, as you exhale,
say to yourself four, three, two, one. Do this several times.
3. After each inhalation, pause for a few seconds; after you exhale,
pause again for a few seconds. Do this for several breaths.

Good times to do a “mini”:

• while stuck in traffic

• when put on hold during an important phone call
• while waiting in your doctor’s waiting room
• when someone says something that bothers you
• at all red lights
• when waiting for a phone call
• in the dentist’s chair
• when you feel overwhelmed by what you need to accomplish
• while standing in line
• when in pain

Remember, the only time minis don’t work is when you forget to do
them!

LONGER RELAXATION EXERCISES (ABOUT 12 MINUTES)

These longer exercises should be read aloud to students, other adults,

or into a tape recorder for your own use. I recommend introducing such
RELAXATION EXERCISES 193

exercises to students as part of a unit on health or stress reduction, or as

part of the physical education or athletics curriculum. Students gener-
ally need a context for understanding this kind of thing, or at least high
school students do (in my experience, younger students are receptive
even without a lot of context). Older students are more amenable once
they grasp the benefits of relaxation. Of course, any teacher can use
these exercises in any setting but students often need to be prepped.
As in all aspects of learning, repetition is key, so I suggest we set aside
regular times to do this with our students. They won’t gain much benefit
if they practice this sporadically, although even a little relaxation is bet-
ter than nothing. Once students are established in the longer protocols,
then they are ready for “minis.” We need to teach our bodies and minds
how to relax before we can effectively use these shorter, albeit very ef-
fective exercises throughout the day.

Exercise 1
Note: If you read this out loud, pause often and keep a steady tone
without becoming monotone. Be aware that you might pick up your
pace as you near the end of the exercise.
Before we begin this relaxation, think of a place where you feel com-
fortable, relaxed, safe, and at ease. It can be inside or outdoors, maybe
a room in your home or a mansion, or on a beach or a mountain. This
can be a place you’ve visited, or seen a picture of, or it can be a place
you invent right now. [Pause.] Whatever place you think of, where it’s
comfortable for you, is fine.
If you choose, you can put your head down on your desk, and gently
close your eyes. If you prefer, you might look down at your hands in
your lap or at a spot on the floor. If you need to open your eyes, you
can open them at any time. This is a rest, a short vacation, for your body
and your mind. If you don’t want to participate, that’s fine, but please
sit quietly and don’t disturb those who are participating.
Now that you have your relaxing place in your mind, settle in, and
you’ll spend the next few minutes listening to the sound of my voice. If
other noises interfere, you can notice them, and then just let them go,
and return to the sound of my voice.
Now, become aware of your breath, breathing in slow, easy breaths.
Feel how your breath moves down into your belly. Breathe in a feeling
194 APPENDIX

of quiet and calm. Let your breath help release any tension or stress.
Breathe in peace; breathe out tension and anxiety. Let the relaxation
get deeper, easier; don’t force your breath. Just feel the rhythm of your
breathing. [Pause.] As you let go of any negative thoughts, putting them
aside for now, feel how your body relaxes.
And now, think of relaxing, warm light, like the sun, passing down
over you, down from the top of your head. Down from your head,
warming and relaxing your eyes, and your cheeks, down to your jaw.
The warm light is moving down your neck, warming and releasing any
tension in your neck, warming down your shoulders, releasing tension
in your shoulders, as you continue to breathe in a feeling of calm and
peace, and breathe out tension.
The warmth relaxes down your shoulders, moving down your arms,
allowing tension to release off your fingertips.
[Slowly.] The warm light moves down your upper back, to your lower
back, down your legs, to your toes, where tension is released and washed
away to the floor, leaving you relaxed and calm.
Now, as you continue to breathe gently and calmly, in easy, comfort-
able breaths, become aware again, of being in your special place. [Pause.]
Notice what you see around you, [pause] if there are any sounds you
hear, or any familiar smells. If you’re indoors, you might notice any de-
tails about the space you’re in; the way the light falls. Outside, you might
notice if there’s a breeze, or the temperature of the air around you.
Whatever you need is here, because you’ve created this place. If you
want to sit down and rest, there might be a soft chair if you’re inside, or
a hammock if you’re outdoors. Whatever is most comfortable for you.
[Pause.] Whatever you see, or hear, or touch or smell is fine, as you
relax, and allow yourself to rest in the comfort of this place. [Pause.]
As you think of yourself in this place, appreciate the comfort here, how
safe it is, breathing in a sense of calm and peace, breathing out tension.
And know that you can return, that you can go to this place, your place,
whenever you need to relax, or feel comfortable and quiet. Whenever
you need a rest from the day, you can see yourself in this place, and give
yourself a moment of quiet and relaxation.
Now, gently become aware of your breath, and notice how rested
your body feels. [Pause.] Become aware of your feet on the floor, of
sitting. Think of this room you’re sitting in before opening your eyes.
Before opening your eyes, notice any sounds in the room around you.
RELAXATION EXERCISES 195

You might stretch your fingers, hands, and feet. Now, slowly open your
eyes, and return to the room, feeling relaxed and contented. Feeling
refreshed and alert, with a sense of accomplishment in what you have
just experienced.

Exercise 2: Breath Focus and Word/Phrase

Focus Relaxation Response
Note: You may choose to use music as a background with this exercise.
This relaxation takes approximately twelve minutes, through it can be
longer or shorter depending upon how long you pause between sections.
The indicated pause times are suggestions only.
This is a breath-focused exercise. Now, please get comfortable and if
it feels right for you, close your eyes. If you are not comfortable closing
your eyes, look down at your hands or at your desktop.
[Pause for five seconds.]
With your eyes closed, turn your attention to your breathing. Re-
laxed breathing is deep and slow. Bring your attention to the way you
breathe.
[Pause for five seconds.]
When we are breathing in a relaxed way, our stomach rises with each
breath in, and falls slightly with each breath out. So, focus for a moment
on your breathing.
[Pause for ten seconds.]
Now, notice the cool air entering your nostrils. See if you can follow
the breath down into your lungs.
[Pause for ten seconds.]
Now, notice the warm air as it leaves your body.
[Pause for ten seconds.]
Become aware of how the muscles in your body are affected by your
breath. Notice the muscles across your back moving with each breath.
[Pause for ten seconds.]
Notice the muscles along your arms and through your stomach. Try to
become aware of all the muscle groups affected by your breathing.
[Pause for ten seconds.]
Now imagine that you are breathing in peace with each breath.
[Pause for five seconds.]
Imagine that you are breathing out tension and anxiety.
196 APPENDIX

[Pause for five seconds.]

Breathe in peace. Breathe out tension and anxiety.
[Pause for twenty seconds.]
If thoughts intrude on your mind, just notice, and then let them go.
Bring your mind back to your breathing.
[Pause for ten seconds.]
Another way to keep your mind focused is by using a word or phrase,
and repeating that word or phrase in rhythm with your breathing. You
can choose a word that gives you a feeling of relaxation. Some people
choose a word like peace, or calm, or maybe ocean, which brings an im-
age of the beauty of the ocean. Some people use a phrase such as “I am
calm and quiet” or “I am strong and stable.” Others like to use the name
of a person who helps them feel relaxed, or even a piece of a prayer if
they are religious. Choose whatever feels right for you.
[Pause for ten seconds.]
Now that you have your word or phrase or name, simply use it as a
focus, repeating it in rhythm with your breathing. Take your time.
[Pause for twenty seconds.]If you lose your focus, just bring your
mind back to your focus word or phrase or name.
[Pause for twenty seconds. As this type of focused relaxation becomes
more familiar for your students, you can increase the time up to several
minutes.]
You can use your breath focus and your word focus techniques at any
time during the day when you want to relax.
[Pause for ten seconds.]
Now I’m going to count from five to one. When I reach one, you’ll
bring your attention back to the room, refreshed and alert. At five, you
feel how relaxed you’ve become. At four, you begin to bring your aware-
ness to your body, and how it feels to be sitting in your chair. At three,
you become aware of the sounds around you, you can feel the energy
returning to your body, but you will carry the peacefulness of this mo-
ment with you through your day. At two, you feel the energy returning
to your body, and at one, eyes open, wide awake.

NOTE

*For further information, please contact Marilyn Wilcher, senior director (617-643-6035,
mwilcher@partners.org) or Rana Chudnofsky (617-643-6068, rchudnofsky@partners.org).
 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES

Baird, A. A., & Fuglesang, J. (2004). The Emergence of Consequential Thought: Evi-
dence from Neuroscience. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 359,
1797–1804.
Benson, H., & Klipper, M. (2000). The Relaxation Response. New York: Harper
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Blos, P. (1967). The Second Individuation Process of Adolescence. Psychoanalytic
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Conkle, A. (2007). Decisions, Decisions [electronic version]. Observer, Association for
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Freud, S., & Strachey, J. (1962). The Ego and the Id (The Standard Edition of the Com-
plete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud). New York: W. W. Norton.
Merriam-Webster. (2008). Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
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Neuroscience.
Strauch, B. (2004). The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries about the Teenage
Brain Tell Us about Our Kids. New York: Doubleday.
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Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, Washington, D.C.

RESOURCES

1. Relaxation and Stress Reduction in Schools:

Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine. www.mbmi.org

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198 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES

2. Workshop on Counseling for Independent School Educators:

Stanley H. King Counseling Institute for Independent Secondary Schools. www.

shkingcounseling.org

3. Annual Conference on the Brain and Learning:

Learning and the Brain, National Conference on Learning and the Brain for Par-
ents, Teachers, Administrators, Clinicians and Adult Trainers. www.edupr.com

4. Books on Adolescent Development for Educators:

Daniels, D., & Meece, J. (2007). Child and Adolescent Development for Educa-
tors, 3rd Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Defrates-Densch, N. (2007). Cases in Child and Adolescent Development for
Teachers. New York: McGraw-Hill.
McCormick, C., & Pressley, M. (2006). Child and Adolescent Development for
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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Susan Eva Porter began her teaching career at Phillips Exeter Acad-
emy, where she started the academy’s health education program. She
has since worked at public and private day schools on the East and West
Coasts. She received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University and
has graduate degrees in education, clinical social work, and clinical psy-
chology. Susan served on the adjunct faculty at the Smith College School
for Social Work, and is currently in private practice as an educational
and clinical consultant to schools and individuals in San Francisco.

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