BLOG POSTING #28, February 7, 2009

THE POWER OF WORDS

When attending UCLA, I found myself in the depressing position of substituting for the great Bill Walton. The problem was, Bill rarely came out of the game. Consequently, I played less than three minutes per game.  As I looked down the bench at the other substitutes, I was confident I was a better basketball player than almost all of them. (My career after UCLA later proved that.) But Coach Wooden’s system allowed only seven players to play during the important part of the game. The others, like me, practiced and then watched, hoping to get in for a few minutes at the end.

One day, I decided to do something about that, so I got an appointment with Coach Wooden in his office. There, I explained my frustration and he listened intently. To my surprise, he listened with empathy. While I spoke, I heard things like, “Mmm,” “Oh,” and “Yes.” When I had gotten it all out of my system, he said, “Swen, I hear what you’re saying and I’m sure it’s frustrating for you. I told you when I recruited you, I thought you would someday go professional, and I still believe that.  You have made great strides toward that. But, I’m committed to this way of substituting and that won’t change. So what do you think you should do? What are your options?”

Those last two questions set me back in my chair. I had not anticipated Coach Wooden putting the whole thing back on me. I was expecting him to give me a recipe for how I can get into the lineup. Instead, the solution to the problem was mine. “My options?” I asked. Coach just sat there waiting. I thought and couldn’t come up with anything. The only option I could think of was the one I came in with; put me in the game and give me a chance. But, that one was now an impossibility. What he was asking me to do was come up with a plan for how I could make the best of the situation.

“Swen, Bill’s a pretty good player, isn’t he?” I agreed. “But you know something, if you had not been here working against him, he wouldn’t have improved as much as he did. You are strong, skilled, and capable, and you’re getting better by the practice. Bill has a challenge on his hands and I’m sure he’s thinking, ‘I better keep improving or Swen’s going to catch up.’”

That’s when Coach Wooden assisted me in coming up with the answer.  I was an important part of the team and I was needed to make Bill better.  That’s all I needed.

The above story is covered in a book I co-wrote with Ronald Gallimore, You Haven’t Taught Until They Have Learned. We wrote the book to get our hands around Coach Wooden’s teaching methodology so we could share that with teachers. Later, as I began thinking about the story, I became aware of the power of words. 

What a teacher says to a student can either empower that student toward self-initiated behavior, or quench it. The goal of teaching is to create independent and creative thinkers that produce original ideas of value. For a teacher, there are only two tools to make that happen: Example and Language. For this article, we will leave “example” for another day, but focus on carefully choosing what we say to help students feel free to openly express themselves, plan to resolve their own challenges, show skill in making good choices, and develop the freedom to take risks.  

Following are five specific things he carefully chose to say in our meeting—things that encouraged, rather than discouraged me. You might be able to come up with more.

ONE: A RESPECT FOR THE FEELINGS OF STUDENTS (“Mmm,” “Oh,”  “Yes,  and “I hear what you’re saying.” )
Coach Wooden could have tried to get my feet back on the ground by telling me Bill was a much better player than I was. That would have been the end of that story because I would have gotten the message, my feelings were not important to him. But, instead, he listened with intense interest, trying to gather all I had to say and reading between the lines to my feelings. Simple utterances of “Mmm,” “Oh,” and “Yes” conveyed to me, not only was he listening,  I was being heard. 

TWO: IDENTIFY WITH THE FEELINGS OF STUDENTS (“I’m sure it’s frustrating for you.”)
It would have been a mistake for Coach Wooden to make an attempt to quench my frustration. I was frustrated and that was that. Nothing he could have said would have changed that. Instead, he identified with my feelings and, although he didn’t’ say it, I concluded he must have felt the same way at some point in his own life. In a moment, we were on common ground.

THREE: RECOGNIZE EFFORT AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS (“I told you when I recruited you, I thought you would someday go professional, and I still believe that. You have made great strides toward that. If you had not been here working against him, he wouldn’t have improved as much as he did. You are strong, skilled, and capable, and you’re getting better by the practice. Bill has a challenge on his hands and I’m sure he’s thinking, ‘I better keep improving or Swen’s going to catch up.’”By reminding me he believed in my talent and ability, Coach Wooden, implicitly, told me he recognized the effort and progress I had made. Again, we were on common ground.

FOUR: HONESTLY DEFINE THE SITUATION (“But, I’m committed to this way of substituting and that won’t change.”)
Now on common ground with me, Coach Wooden continued his honesty. In essence, he told me, it is what it is. He could have made promises, with more work and time, I had a chance to break into the lineup. He could have told me, because of Bill’s frail knees, I was probably going to get my chance. But he didn’t. Instead he focused on things the way they were and, frankly, I appreciated that. But the next question was, what now?

FIVE: ASSIST STUDENTS WITH PROBLEM SOLVING (“So what do you think you should do? What are your options?”)
At this point, Coach Wooden already knew the solution to my problem. There was only one: Focus on my own improvement for the purpose of helping Bill Walton continue to improve. Under the circumstances, that was what I could do for the team and for myself. But, instead, he empowered me to come up with the answer myself, through something educators call, “assisted learning.” Everything Coach has said to me to that point, helped me come up with the answer. He respected my feelings, identified with them, recognized my effort and accomplishment, and honestly defined the situation. I was in the presence of someone that I felt safe with. At the same time, I knew I was in the presence of someone that only left me one option. He helped me solve my own problem. But, the weird thing is—the problem I ended up with, was not the one I came in with.

CONCLUSION:
I’m going to make a motion everyone of us dismiss the following statement as nonsense, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Words can hurt badly. But, there is good news; words can heal and empower students to take charge of their own lives. This is something they will need all their lives and, to our delight, it can be something they begin to learn from teachers that understand the power of words.

Oh, by the way, Coach Wooden was as wise with his words on the court as off.