That which you focus on gets larger

Solution-focus works starts with the following very simple statement "That which you focus on gets larger."

In graduate school, one of my most outstanding professors, Dr. Bill Goodwin (we all still miss you!), proposed a similar idea as the "Yellow Volkswagen Theory". Everyday yellow Volkswagen Beetles drive by you and you never notice.  A friend says, "Hey, there's one of those yellow Volkswagens!" and points one out as is passes.  From then on, you see them everywhere, as if no one in town had one until that day and now just about every-other-person in town owns one. When you bring something out of your subconscious and into your conscious mind  you will begin to see it every where.  Some call this a "self-fulfilling prophecy."  The key to Solution-focused practices in your work is simply shifting you focus to looking for those yellow Beetles: what works.  In my work as a supervisor, this small shift has a profound affect on the way Early Childhood Teachers see their classroom, families, children and colleagues.

Current practices in Early Childhood Education (ECE) often seek out and isolate the "problem", whatever it may be.  Once identified, the problem is dissected until we have uncovered every small part of the problem, sometimes even tying in things that aren't part of the problem. Let's use a familiar example of this: child in a classroom is biting peers during the school day.  In typical practices, we watch this child and look for every instance that they bite, we do this with the intent of finding precipitating behaviors.  We believe that by uncovering these precursors, or triggers, we can intervene and prevent the biting. However, more often then not we find the biting occurs more frequently. We then find no clear pattern to the biting because everything seems to cause this: transitions, peer play, desires, hunger, frustration, happiness, and so on. The biting continues and we can't stop it because the classroom is full of perceived triggers.  This i because we are looking for the problem: biting. If that which we focus on gets larger then when we look for biting we'll see it more and it'll happen more, as we are unintentionally reinforcing the occurrence of the behavior by looking for it.

So what if we apply the Solution-focused the same principle in a different way? What happens when instead of looking for biting, we look for  what the child, and the other children, are doing when the are not biting? When we uncover what makes a child successful, in this case not biting, we then can approach this child from a strengths-based perspective. We can verbally illustrate to the child, ourselves, colleagues and parents the successful experiences in the classroom. And when and if the biting happens again, we now have uncovered the child's successes as a key to changing behavior.

I leave you here to work on this: Look for one, just one, "problem area" in your work (and honestly, it doesn't matter what your work is).  Challenge yourself to remove the problem from your thinking and ask "when I (or this) is successful, it looks like this ____________".

Stay tuned for the next blog post which will involve: Real-life classroom stories of success when focusing on solutions

Where it all began

One’s life is a journey of many kinds.  Professionally, I have journeyed as a teacher, a mentor and a supervisor; these paths overlapping and over-laying one another time and time again.  This blog is an illustration, my interpretation if you will, of my own professional journey as a supervisor and mentor to Early Childhood Educators.  It is not just the journey I wish to document, but to provide a place for me to reflect and tease out meaning so that it might be a teaching tool for all who spend time here.  This blog is a place for real-world scenarios and reflection; a place to challenge myself and those who care to learn, taking lessons in the process.  

As an Early Childhood teacher for nine years, I had a similar journey to most others, but also different in that all of our paths are our own. The first year: BRUTAL; the second: slightly-less brutal and the subsequent ones had their challenges, but inevitably got easier with time as I reflected, learned and taught. I was lucky to find a constructivist teacher training program which was rooted in deep dialog and self-reflection. I was even luckier to continue with this program and supervisors that cultivated in me talents I never knew I had, and presented me with grand opportunities. I owe a debt of gratitude to Boulder Journey School, all of the staff, particularly A, A, & E for never giving up on me (even when I was a complete brat).

Now, in my fourth year as a supervisor of 17 teaching staff, I have had a journey that has taken me to unexpected places.  Once again, the first year: BRUTAL; the second: very-slightly-less brutal; but the third was just as hard as the second and the fourth was shaping up to be the same.  Until I found myself in a very unlikely class: Solution-focused Supervision and Management.  This 8 hours changed my professional life.  

This blog is about my redefined bath of supervision using what I’m calling Solution-focused Early Childhood Education.

Here I will share techniques, successes, struggles, questions and thoughts about my application of Solution-focused work in the Early Childhood setting.  When I first began applying these techniques in December of 2011, I had no idea that changes that were to come, and so quickly.  For those that use and embrace these ideas: even the smallest adaptations to your practice, whether a teacher or administrator, will astound you.  

Please follow me on this journey and dare yourself to take these risks with me.  I promise, and I’m not one for empty promises: You will be a better person and practitioner without hardly trying at all.

And, before closing my first post, I must say: I owe a debt of gratitude that I can never fully express to those teachers that worked with me in my four years as an administrator.  I would never have become the person I am today, had they not been my “guinea pigs” and opened themselves up to take these risks with me.  Thank you one and all!