The One to One

Each semester, I meet with every student in my class for an hour per student. It's about 30 extra hours outside of teaching the class and (much like the singing exercise) I ask myself if I really have it in myself to keep doing it each semester. The one-to-one is a time when I ask students questions about who they really are, what drives them, what makes them come alive, and where their true purpose lies. It is also a time when I tell them what I have been thinking about the semester: my general observations and questions I have about their choices or non-choices as the case may be. I have gotten a reputation among the students for having the courage to say things that others do not say to them, but sometimes I forget the basic rule of invitation.

Peter Block in his book, "Community: The Structure of Belonging" (2009) states that "Invitation is the means through which hospitality is created. Invitation counters the conventional belief that change requires mandate or persuasion.  Invitation honors the the importance of choice, the necessary condition for accountability" (p.113).   When I forget to invite students into the one to one in a way that asks for their permission to share my thoughts and to ask them hard questions, I have not honored the importance of choice.

When I attended the Powers of Leadership Training created by Sharon Parks and Larry Daloz at the Whidbey Institute (http://www.whidbeyinstitute.org/conversation/id/dbd7b8/about), I learned about a way to invite students into these hard conversations that is both simple and effective.  When I sit down to do a one-to-one with a student, I ask "At what level would you like my feedback -- extremely gentle,  moderately gentle but with pushes here and there, or no holding back?"  Extremely gentle doesn't mean lying.  It means telling them things that are absolutely true, but in ways that put my relationship with the student first and the feedback second.  No holding back doesn't mean verbally being harsh, it means I dig deeper into their default first responses and I use gentle, but powerful phrases as "I wonder what life would be like if you let go of that thought?"

The one to one is an art and has taken a while to learn to do effectively, but it makes life in the case-in-point classroom so much more effective.  Through genuine invitation, challenge, and support my students and I learn to lean in to the discomfort of naming things publicly, questioning assumptions, and   building public powerful relationships that can effect change.