This checks a lot of my boxes. I'm not a trainer and therefore seldom need to give or take feedback, and have not experienced the extraordinary kinds of stunting measures that appear to pass for educational discipline in UK schools these days, but the lower levels of psychological warfare current in the 1950s and 1960s were nevertheless easily sufficient to leave scars that still affect me today: I'm still wary of feedback, let alone criticism. How different could things be if teachers and pupils experienced their mistakes and feedback (in both directions) as normal, healthy and positive things through which progress can be made.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts. This is a significant part of the struggle I face as a trainer, and I know that helping adults reframe their thinking around the whole learning process is an essential aspect of my job. Writing articles and working with skilled editors has helped me understand the value of honest feedback. The key is building trust and knowing that we are sitting on the same side of the table. Approaching feedback in the way you suggest as a gift changes everything. It all starts with relationship.
Feedback works best when you can trust the other person; when you are satisfied that they already value and respect you. If this relationship is in place, it allows you to hear some pretty difficult things. And what a gift that is. Some truths are very, very hard to hear. But they hold the key to meaningful improvement and growth.
You give excellent advice here, although if we want to keep kids from being traumatized by shame, we should also warn them that they need to seek private feedback from a trusted source before presenting themselves to the world at large. The world at large is as merciless as Simon Cowell in its feedback (except when it withholds feedback to be "nice", which is even more merciless in the long run). That's just how it is. So let's strongly encourage kids to seek gentle, private feedback so that they won't be surprised by harsh, public feedback.
It’s so true, feedback is hard to give and take. I think part of the problem is that we often buy into the perfectionistic fusion of “what I do” and “who I am” when we give positive feedback. For example we might say “you’re so clever” when a kid does well in an exam. The problem is once we’ve fused action and character we feel negative feedback about a piece of work, even if it is carefully worded, as an assault on our character. Personally I found the antidote to this was three years of relentless video feedback on my teaching. Painful but I saw myself being brilliant and stumbling around for words in an incoherent mess. It kind of broke the fusion!
In my high school classes, give a lot of care and attention to feedback. I always begin by reminding myself that feedback is almost always a subjective practice, and that my perspective is only that.
I treat feedback as both 'wound care' and relationship-building. Wound care in the sense that it requires extreme delicacy and reassurance. 'Let's heal that punctuation before it gets infected. This might pinch a little but you're doing great!' We must be gentle healers rather than mechanical fixers. Encouragement is the default setting.
Feedback is also a great opportunity to develop relationships. I like to ask a lot of questions in my feedback. 'I love your perspective on (i.e.) 'uncertainty and the future'. How do you think work will be different when you finish school?'. If consistent, then students will trust you more with their work, and express themselves more in their submissions.
There is also a point in a relationship that what started as encouragement can switch to discouragement. Kids need encouragement to get them up to a baseline creative confidence. However, if you what to maximize kids potential after that point, you need to start applying pressure. Making jokes or ridiculously exaggerated accusation of their action. It's fun and you want them to be slightly upset with you and eager to prove you wrong. This transition from encouragement to discouragement takes time and is challenging, but the results are worth it. Just keep the humor going though out the process.
Thanks for writing this Naomi. My day job is persuading business leaders to get feedback from their clients. It's a tough sell - but it works when I sit with them and come with the intent both in gathering and sharing the feedback that we want to make the business better, and make their teams perform better.
My memories of feedback in school are limited to avoiding anything that might be negative. Then, in a competitive, low-trust business environment, ignoring any discussion of my strengths/abilities and focusing on what I needed to do to improve, as anything in that column could be used as a metaphorical stick to beat me with. I've coached clients with a similar mindset and it's hard to change. Using "intent" as a way to frame the feedback, and inviting a self assessment "how did you think that went" so you can highlight potential blind spots, can help a lot.
I'm curious about how this is now done in schools: my kids are apparently NT and well supported, but they're nervous of getting things wrong. At primary level, I could see lots of focus on strengths and inviting peers to feedback to each other, which felt positive, but I'm not sure if they were given the tools to do this positively and effectively.
I think Toastmasters International has a brilliant way of teaching the value of feedback or evaluation. It's helped me appreciate it even if the lump in my throught is still there. I feel you! It's tough, yet so very helpful.
I think consensual feedback is critical for children. Most don't and won't ask because they don't care what you/authority figure think. They actually do things for internal motivation until the power hierarchy in educational systems kills that and switches them over to extrinsic motivation thus requiring an outsider to evaluate their ability.
We unschool and home learn but for our funding for therapies the ministry of education requires our therapists provide a report on the child. It's always struck me as the most odd thing for a therapist to report on how "well" a child is doing in therapy. Since the therapist is the one being paid, shouldn't the child report on the therapist? Shouldn't the child say what's helping and what feels wrong? But there is currently no way to provide feedback without fear of reprimand (the therapist dropping the client instead of trying to adapt, the therapist punishing the child, even subconsciously because the parent gives advice, which already happens when parents complain about how a teacher is treating their child in the school system). The feedback loop for children is so intertwined with power hierarchy, I wonder how it might change. People in power rarely give it up.
This checks a lot of my boxes. I'm not a trainer and therefore seldom need to give or take feedback, and have not experienced the extraordinary kinds of stunting measures that appear to pass for educational discipline in UK schools these days, but the lower levels of psychological warfare current in the 1950s and 1960s were nevertheless easily sufficient to leave scars that still affect me today: I'm still wary of feedback, let alone criticism. How different could things be if teachers and pupils experienced their mistakes and feedback (in both directions) as normal, healthy and positive things through which progress can be made.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts. This is a significant part of the struggle I face as a trainer, and I know that helping adults reframe their thinking around the whole learning process is an essential aspect of my job. Writing articles and working with skilled editors has helped me understand the value of honest feedback. The key is building trust and knowing that we are sitting on the same side of the table. Approaching feedback in the way you suggest as a gift changes everything. It all starts with relationship.
Feedback works best when you can trust the other person; when you are satisfied that they already value and respect you. If this relationship is in place, it allows you to hear some pretty difficult things. And what a gift that is. Some truths are very, very hard to hear. But they hold the key to meaningful improvement and growth.
You give excellent advice here, although if we want to keep kids from being traumatized by shame, we should also warn them that they need to seek private feedback from a trusted source before presenting themselves to the world at large. The world at large is as merciless as Simon Cowell in its feedback (except when it withholds feedback to be "nice", which is even more merciless in the long run). That's just how it is. So let's strongly encourage kids to seek gentle, private feedback so that they won't be surprised by harsh, public feedback.
It’s so true, feedback is hard to give and take. I think part of the problem is that we often buy into the perfectionistic fusion of “what I do” and “who I am” when we give positive feedback. For example we might say “you’re so clever” when a kid does well in an exam. The problem is once we’ve fused action and character we feel negative feedback about a piece of work, even if it is carefully worded, as an assault on our character. Personally I found the antidote to this was three years of relentless video feedback on my teaching. Painful but I saw myself being brilliant and stumbling around for words in an incoherent mess. It kind of broke the fusion!
In my high school classes, give a lot of care and attention to feedback. I always begin by reminding myself that feedback is almost always a subjective practice, and that my perspective is only that.
I treat feedback as both 'wound care' and relationship-building. Wound care in the sense that it requires extreme delicacy and reassurance. 'Let's heal that punctuation before it gets infected. This might pinch a little but you're doing great!' We must be gentle healers rather than mechanical fixers. Encouragement is the default setting.
Feedback is also a great opportunity to develop relationships. I like to ask a lot of questions in my feedback. 'I love your perspective on (i.e.) 'uncertainty and the future'. How do you think work will be different when you finish school?'. If consistent, then students will trust you more with their work, and express themselves more in their submissions.
Using humor is a fun way to give kids feedback.
There is also a point in a relationship that what started as encouragement can switch to discouragement. Kids need encouragement to get them up to a baseline creative confidence. However, if you what to maximize kids potential after that point, you need to start applying pressure. Making jokes or ridiculously exaggerated accusation of their action. It's fun and you want them to be slightly upset with you and eager to prove you wrong. This transition from encouragement to discouragement takes time and is challenging, but the results are worth it. Just keep the humor going though out the process.
I love the idea of allowing children to ask for feedback if they want it.
Stunningly on target! Thank you.
Thanks for writing this Naomi. My day job is persuading business leaders to get feedback from their clients. It's a tough sell - but it works when I sit with them and come with the intent both in gathering and sharing the feedback that we want to make the business better, and make their teams perform better.
My memories of feedback in school are limited to avoiding anything that might be negative. Then, in a competitive, low-trust business environment, ignoring any discussion of my strengths/abilities and focusing on what I needed to do to improve, as anything in that column could be used as a metaphorical stick to beat me with. I've coached clients with a similar mindset and it's hard to change. Using "intent" as a way to frame the feedback, and inviting a self assessment "how did you think that went" so you can highlight potential blind spots, can help a lot.
I'm curious about how this is now done in schools: my kids are apparently NT and well supported, but they're nervous of getting things wrong. At primary level, I could see lots of focus on strengths and inviting peers to feedback to each other, which felt positive, but I'm not sure if they were given the tools to do this positively and effectively.
I think Toastmasters International has a brilliant way of teaching the value of feedback or evaluation. It's helped me appreciate it even if the lump in my throught is still there. I feel you! It's tough, yet so very helpful.
I think consensual feedback is critical for children. Most don't and won't ask because they don't care what you/authority figure think. They actually do things for internal motivation until the power hierarchy in educational systems kills that and switches them over to extrinsic motivation thus requiring an outsider to evaluate their ability.
We unschool and home learn but for our funding for therapies the ministry of education requires our therapists provide a report on the child. It's always struck me as the most odd thing for a therapist to report on how "well" a child is doing in therapy. Since the therapist is the one being paid, shouldn't the child report on the therapist? Shouldn't the child say what's helping and what feels wrong? But there is currently no way to provide feedback without fear of reprimand (the therapist dropping the client instead of trying to adapt, the therapist punishing the child, even subconsciously because the parent gives advice, which already happens when parents complain about how a teacher is treating their child in the school system). The feedback loop for children is so intertwined with power hierarchy, I wonder how it might change. People in power rarely give it up.