How do you establish relationships with those hard-to-reach students? It starts with understanding them!
In this short video, Michael Grinder, the pioneer of nonverbal communication, introduces the analogy of common household pets (cats and dogs) to help you better understand and connect with those hard-to-reach students.
These strategies are from his book “A Cat in the Doghouse.”
Modified Transcript:
Hi, I’m Michael Grinder.
You probably know me, if you know me at all, as connected with this book called “ENVoY,” which is about preserving relationships when managing. The question is, how do you establish relationships?
So, we have a three-part series for you.
It’s called “Dog and Cat Students: How to Use Non-Verbals to Identify Them.” It’s taken from our book called “The Cat in the Doghouse.”
Now, if I may, whether you’ve taught for one year or if you’ve taught for many years, an easy way to understand your students’ personalities is to take your knowledge of household pets and bring it into the classroom.
Try to figure out which students are your little dogs:
- They are really happy,
- They really want to get along with you
- They wag their tail; they’re happy to see you
- They want to say goodbye before they go at the end of the day.
And then you have what we’re going to call our cats. Our cats are not the same, they’re very independent, and they don’t like high dependency on the teacher at all.
Why do we have this three-part series called “Dog and Cat Students”?
It’s because you have to be the veterinarian in your classroom. You’ve got to figure out how to treat your little creatures, whether they be lower grades or high school — when sometimes they’re taller than you are — and how to get along.
If you understand both the dog and the cat, you can create a very safe classroom. We’re going to pretend it’s a humane society.
Great, laughter. Please, please, please. It’s serious, and you’ve got to be the veterinarian.
And if I may, please understand “dog” and “cat” is not a description of an actual human being. It’s a style that they operate from. This means that sometimes with your dogs, you have to be a dog, and with your cats, you have to be a cat.
Michael Grinder, welcome to a three-part series: “Dog and Cat Students.”
See Part 2 here: https://michaelgrinder.com/how-to-spot-a-dog-student-in-the-classroom/
See Part 3 here: https://michaelgrinder.com/how-to-pinpoint-a-cat-student/