Wise guy, huh?

This blog post is a transcript of Episode 96 of my podcast/YouTube series. Because of that, it is not written to be grammatically/syntactically correct.

You can listen here and watch here.

Once upon a time, there were students who wanted a reputation for being smart, but weren't sure how to get it.

Some students said and did things that they thought made them seem smart, but really made them seem annoying.

Other students were too anxious to say or do much of anything, so it was difficult for them to have a reputation for being anything other than shy.

And then there were students who didn't really think about their reputation at all, but were unintentionally sabotaging it anyways.

I created this lesson for all of these students.

In this lesson, students learn how to identify the things that actually cause people to create a reputation for being smart, and how we can do them in moderation. And we practice self-awareness by discussing where we feel like we fall on the Reputation in Moderation scale.

This is lesson four of module one. Module one is all about the concept of reputation. Lesson three is a reputation for being smart, and it focuses on the things that we want to avoid. There's so much to talk about when it comes to a reputation for being smart, that I created two lessons about it. This one is four, which is where we talk about doing things in moderation. On the checklist for this module, this is covering 'correcting others even when it doesn't really matter', 'not initiating conversations'.

I have a chart that I created that I share with the students. This is the first lesson that we talk about this, and we end up using it for the next two lessons. so we use it for three lessons total. I call it 'Reputation in Moderation'. It looks like a bell curve, and it is numbered from zero to 10. The idea is that we want to be somewhere between a three and a seven on most things when it comes to our reputation. If we're below a three, we are probably not doing things enough to create a reputation for ourselves in that area. If we're above a seven, we're probably falling into annoying territory. This is interesting, even when we talk about having a reputation for being friendly, because a lot of students don't realize that doing certain things too much means you don't have a reputation for being friendly, you have a reputation for being annoying.

This week, we use the scale to talk about a reputation for being smart. Square students typically put importance on having a reputation for being smart. They typically are smart students, but they often don't do things that would show that. They don't speak up in class, they don't ask questions, they don't answer questions, they don't typically help other people if it's going to be in front of an audience, so square students, it is important to them to be seen as smart, but they're typically not doing things that would lead to that outcome.

For circle students, they don't usually really care whether they have a reputation for being smart. It's not something that's all that important to them. Circle students are the most common social type that does not have an awareness of the concept of reputation. That's why we start this whole module with: What is a reputation? Circle students, for the most part, just don't have a concept of that. That's not something that they're familiar with. They don't know how it applies to them. So everything we talk about in module one is an eye opener for circle students.

Triangle students often want to have a reputation for being smart. It is often something that's important to them. Not always, but I would say the majority of triangle students want to have a reputation for being smart. Triangle students tend to take most things too far, and so just like anything else, they tend to be students who are doing and saying things that they think are giving them a reputation for being smart without realizing that they are over the seven on that scale.

In addition to having conversations about everything in our lesson, we also do some self-awareness and the students talk about where they think they are on the scale. This is one of the times that I openly give students feedback if I have a different thought about where they are on the scale. They don't have to accept my feedback, but it's an opportunity for me to gauge what is their thought versus what is the thought of other people, and for me to see how intact their self-awareness is, how mature their self-awareness is.

So that's the Reputation in Moderation scale. I share the story of Goldilocks to explain this scale, the concept of things being just right. And again, we talk about how between a three and a seven is usually where we want to be on most things. It doesn't mean we have to be, and everybody's going to be somewhere different. Every time we talk about something, I start by saying where I think I am on the scale. On some things, I'm a three, and some things I'm a seven.

I do sometimes have students that will say they're a five across the board. No matter what we're talking about, they're five. And these are people pleasers, right? These are students who are trying to get it 'right'. There is no 'right'. It's just what is. And so I will give some insight to those students that nobody's a five on everything, and nobody's a five on most things. I would rather us be insightful and honest instead of right, because there is no way to be right on this.

The first poll question for this lesson is: Which one do you feel like most describes you right now? You think too much about what other people think? You think too much about yourself? Or I'm not sure? It's definitely a strong self awareness question coming right out of the gate. For those of you listening, reading, watching, which do you think most describes you?

This question tends to fall along the shape lines. Triangle students tend to focus a lot on themselves. They tend to focus on what they're doing, what they're saying. It's not in an intentionally selfish way, it's in a socially immature way. They will regularly have a reputation for being selfish, for being self-centered. But again, it's not because that's what they want, it's because they are socially and emotionally immature. A lot of the things that triangle students say and do focus around them and their wants.

Circle students typically would be somewhere in the middle on this. They think about other people. Circle students have a reputation for being friendly, so they obviously think about other people. They don't tend to think about themselves to the point that it becomes an obstacle for them. I don't know that I've ever known a circle student that would be known as selfish.

Because a square student has anxiety, they over-focus on themselves. They are focused on what they say and what they do, because they are concerned about what other people will think about them. So while it seems like it's a concern about other people, they're focusing all their attention on themselves. It always comes back to being worried about how people will perceive them.

That's our first poll right out of the gate. Then I have several things for us to think about and to place ourselves on the scale over. The first one has to do with answering questions. I explain to the group that that could mean a couple different things. That could mean when you're in class at school, when you're in a group like at Starfish Social Club, when you're in a staff meeting at work. One version of answering questions is in a group environment where somebody is asking, anybody can answer. Another scenario is in a one-on-one situation where someone is directly asking you a question, like, "Hey, how are you? How was your day?" If we do not answer questions, if we're below a three on the scale, it is difficult to have a reputation for being smart. If you are in a class at school and you are not ever answering anything, even if the teacher directly asks you a question, it is really difficult to create a reputation for being smart. This tends to be the case for our square kids, they're not volunteering to answer questions, and sometimes they don't even answer one-on-one questions.

If we're going the other way and we're always answering questions, for example, if every time the teacher asks a question, your hand is shooting up (in Starfish, we don't have to raise our hands, so in Starfish, if every time I ask a question, you're jumping in with your thought), it can very quickly become annoying. It also takes an opportunity away from other people in the group to be able to contribute and participate. So this is a great example of something that seems like it would give us a reputation for being smart, but if we're doing it too much, it gives us a reputation for being annoying. There are times when it is okay to know the answer and to not say it. We can wait. We can let other people have a turn. That's okay.

We have a discussion about where all the students think they are on the scale. And as I mentioned, this is a great way for me to gauge their level of self-awareness. For the most part (I've been doing this for five plus years now), I think students tend to be pretty self-aware. Interestingly, triangle students tend to be quite self-aware. Square students also tend to be quite self-aware.

Triangle students tend to be aware of what their reputation is, but not why, and that's why these lessons are so important to triangle students. They might know they have a reputation for being annoying, but they don't know why until we start to uncover these things.

Square students tend to be much more aware of the concept of reputation and what their reputation is. They will, typically, have a good level of self-awareness and rate themselves a two or a three when it comes to answering questions.

Circle students don't have a high level of self-awareness usually, which doesn't harm them socially as much as it would a triangle kiddo. It does mean that they are just kind of floating through the social world, not knowing how to create the reputation that they want for themselves. And so that's the power of these lessons for circle students, is teaching them how to create the reputation they want for themselves.

The next question is: When it is your turn to talk, if you're telling a story, if you're answering a question, if you're asking a question, how long do you talk for? When it's your turn, how long do you take your turn? Again, this could mean that you're answering a question that somebody's asked you, you're answering a question in a class, you're telling a story. How long do you talk when it's your turn?

When our turns are short, like words or even no words, it's really difficult for people to think that we're smart when we don't say anything. We talked in the previous episode about initiating conversation. If somebody comes up to you and says, "Hey, did you go fishing over the weekend?" And you just answer with one word, either yes or no, if that's how you operate, it's difficult for you to create a reputation for being smart by answering in such short terms.

On the other end of this, over a seven are students who... Let me preface this by saying some of this is related to processing difficulties. Some of this is related to difficulties consolidating information. Some of our students, especially if they're telling a story, take a really long time because they don't know what's important. They think everything is important, which is an executive functioning difficulty. Also, some students don't know how to sequence a story so that it flows from beginning to end, so they may be telling you different parts and pieces of the story as they go, and so you're getting lost trying to follow where we're going with this. So there's underlying reasons why students who are above a seven may be above a seven. What I try to do when I have students who constantly take very long turns is figure out what those underlying reasons are, and then start to help them with that. It's actually more than social, that's executive functioning. Is it that this student thinks everything's important? Is it that they don't know how to sequence from beginning to end, first, second, third? Is it that they're completely unaware that there's even an unspoken time limit when we're taking a turn? Some students just truly don't realize that people don't expect us to talk for five minutes.

In the context of this question, I bring up an interesting point to the students. We talk about interrupting. In typical, traditional social skills, people are taught not to interrupt. People are taught that interrupting is rude. In my version of social skills, sometimes we need to interrupt people, sometimes we should interrupt people. And if we are frequently being interrupted, that's a social clue that we need to pay attention to, because it typically means we've been talking for too long, and people are tired. They want a turn, they just want us to stop talking, they want to leave, whatever the case may be. So I think interrupting has its place. I don't think it's inappropriate. And I also think it's important for my students to realize that, if they're being interrupted regularly, there's a reason for it that we need to think about, we need to consider.

Then the students talk about where they think they are on the scale when it comes to how long of a turn they take. One thing that I've done before is, you could even use a timer, but I had these little chatter teeth. I got them for a different reason and I realized they were awesome for this. I would wind them up and have somebody start answering a question or telling a story, and when they stopped chattering, that was the end of their turn. It really helped some of the students to be able to learn how to be more concise with the things they say.

For me personally, for some reason, everything to me is a story. When somebody asks me a question, everything is a story. Last night I was texting with someone and he asked me about something and I was like, "Oh, it's a story!" And I actually took a screenshot of a Facebook post I had made about it, because I was like, it's easier for me to just show you this Facebook post I made about it than for me to tell you the story. But I feel like everything is a story, and so I have to be mindful. Sometimes I will say, if somebody asks me about something, I will say, "Do you want a short answer, or do you want the story version?" I recognize that not everybody wants to hear the whole story if they're asking me a question. It's an important thing to know.

The third topic that we talk about is correcting other people. This is a really interesting one. Square kids for sure do not correct other people unless they absolutely have to. Circle students typically don't. Sometimes it's because they weren't really paying attention. Sometimes they think it's rude or disrespectful to do so. Circle students tend to not be bothered by much, so sometimes it's something that just doesn't really bother them. Triangle students tend to overcorrect other people. Even in the context of Starfish Social Club, what I notice sometimes is once we start learning some things and we've got some lessons under our belt, now we're correcting all the other students. So now we know, we've been there three times, we know some things, and now we're correcting other students.

There are times that we should correct other people. The examples I give for this are: If somebody's calling you the wrong name. Even for me, unless it's a legal document, there's nowhere that I go by Stephanie unless it's a legal document. That is my legal name. It is not the name that I go by. Everything tied to Starfish Social Club is under Steph. My email is under Steph. In my personal world, I go by Steph. On LinkedIn, I go by Steph. Even the board of directors that I'm on, I go by Steph. Anything that isn't legal, I typically go by Steph. That's how I refer to myself. I will correct people when they refer to me as Stephanie, because that's not how I refer to myself. And especially if somebody's emailing with me, it's in my email that I go by Steph. That's probably only been in the last five years or so, so there are some families and students that have been with me for eight years-ish, and they called me Stephanie when they first started. I think I went by Miss Stephanie when I first started, and so I don't correct that, because that's what I used to go by. But in the last five or six years, I go by Steph. Students can call me Miss Steph if they want to, I don't care.

Even sometimes, people will call siblings by the wrong names. Sometimes, if you have a name that's a little bit different, people might call you what they think your name is, even though it's not your name. So that's an instance where it's important to correct somebody else, if they're calling you the wrong name. If you get the wrong order, whether it's food or something you bought on Amazon or anywhere where you're making a purchase and the order is wrong, that's an important time to correct somebody.

We don't correct people by being rude about it. We're not disrespectful about it at all. I will just respectfully say, "Hey, I go by Steph", and then I'll answer whatever the question is, or continue the conversation. "Oh, I ordered the the sweet potatoes instead of the fries," whatever the case may be. Another time is if somebody's learning something new and they do it incorrectly, and we're there to help them. It's appropriate to correct somebody if we're there to help them.

If we're below a three, if we just always let things go, it's hard to have a reputation for being smart. Especially things like, if other people notice someone's calling us the wrong name and we're just not saying anything about it. Obviously, if we're over a seven, we're correcting everything. We very quickly get a reputation for being rude, bossy, selfish.

So we have a discussion about that in the group, and I give an example. The reputation and moderation scale, I print it and I laminate it, and I say, "On this scale, let's pretend that I spelled the word 'moderation' wrong. Does it matter? Would you correct me? Would you point out that I spelled the word moderation wrong?" Some of our students, mostly triangles, possibly also circles, will do things like point out when a teacher has made a mistake, point out when somebody has said something that might not be accurate or true, even going up to the whiteboard or smart board or whatever, and pointing out when something isn't accurate or isn't true. So I ask, "Does it matter?" We take a poll. So this side of the room, if you think yes, it matters that I misspelled moderation. and this side of the room, if you think it doesn't matter, and then this side of the room, if you're not sure. On Zoom, I do the poll on zoom so everybody can answer.

Bottom line, it doesn't matter. What I say is: As long as you can understand what's being said, spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes don't matter. Unless you're an editor, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, things like that don't matter. People's opinions are not things that we correct. That's another lesson that we have, we don't correct people's opinions. We can correct facts if we want to. We talk about that in the preceding lesson. In lesson three, we talk about facts. The important part about this concept is, there are times when we should correct other people, but not all the time, and not over things that don't matter. We want to be between that three and that seven. And so again, all the students get to look at the scale and think about where they think they are when it comes to a three or a seven.

One thing you could even do, I actually haven't done this, I just thought about this right now, is for your students that you notice are below a three, you can intentionally start calling them the wrong name. I would do it in this lesson and encouraging and reminding them that they can correct you, and then maybe even doing it over the next couple of weeks just to reinforce that concept. I'm going to start doing that!
The next one is asking for help. We have a lesson about asking for help. It is at the end of module three, so quite a ways away from this lesson, but it's a whole lesson on asking for help. In this lesson, it's just where are you on the scale when it comes to asking for help?

A really important concept here is that triangle students, and square students especially, think that it makes them look not smart if they ask for help, and so they don't want to ask for help. Triangle students want to be independent. They want to do things on their own. Square students just don't want that attention of asking for help.

We talk about how nobody knows everything, and nobody wants to be around people who think they know everything, so asking for help actually makes us seem smart, because we're admitting that we don't know everything. So instead of it being something that we avoid, it should be something we lean into, at least up to the point of a three, because nobody wants to be around somebody who thinks they know everything. And again, we get to look at the scale and think about where we are on the scale.

And then we have another poll: Is it okay for you to have a different opinion than someone else?
I talked on one of the previous episodes about how this is a topic of conversation when we talk about apologizing. That lesson is a few lessons after this one. We talk about this because the next concept in this lesson is telling people what we think or sharing our opinion.

If we don't ever engage in discussions and conversations and share our opinions, even on just social conversations, what movies we like, what food we like, what pets we have. If we're never doing that, it's hard to have a reputation for being smart if people don't know anything about us. But if we're always sharing our opinions on everything, even when it might hurt someone's feelings, even when no one asked for your opinion, or even when it goes against what everybody else is talking about, that's when we can very quickly cross the line over into being annoying.

I give the example of, let's say all of you were having a conversation about pizza, and you all say that pepperoni is your favorite type of pizza. I don't eat pepperoni. So would there be a reason for me to come into your group and say, "Oh yeah, pepperoni is dumb. I hate it. I don't ever eat it,"? I can absolutely say that, but there's no reason for me to. Nobody asked me for my opinion. My opinion is different than everybody else's in the group. There's just no reason for that. If somebody asked me, that's absolutely different. This is how we go over a seven when it comes to sharing our opinion. It's always okay to have an opinion. It's always okay for our opinion to be different. It just doesn't mean that we always have to share our opinion. Sometimes we can just keep it to ourselves. Sometimes we can practice using our filter and keep it in our brain.

I have had students ask me before, "Isn't it lying if I don't tell somebody the truth about what I think?" What I share is, in my opinion, because this is a matter of opinion, it's not lying if you're choosing not to say something. You're not hurting anybody. Nobody asked you for your opinion. You have your opinion, you're just choosing not to share it. If you say something that's not true, that's lying. But if you're just choosing not to share your opinion on something, that's just a social choice that you're making. It shows that you're being respectful of yourself, your reputation, and the people around you, because not everything that we think needs to be said. It's okay to think something and not say it, especially when it comes to opinions. So that's the end of this lesson, which is lesson four in module one, the second part of having a reputation for being smart.

We go to our random number generator. It says 32, so that is our very final lesson. Thirty-two would be module four, and the last lesson in module four. Module four is all about relationships, and the last lesson in module four is the most important relationship that there is. And actually, I'm going to leave it right there. I'm going to leave you on a little bit of a cliffhanger. So come back next week and we'll talk about the most important relationship there is and how I teach this lesson to my students. I'll see you then!