Fight or flight?

[booklady]

What's your usual response to those situations you can confront or avoid?

I've been doing some reading on this topic recently, finding myself in a situation causing me extreme stress. The physiological responses are pretty interesting, as are the alternatve possibilitiies of the Relaxation Response.

[booklady]

Today is my last day of teaching -- ever. My m.o. has pretty much always been Flight.

In the last six months or so, I have discovered or at least found the words to define my inclinations, that I love teaching, and I hate fighting. It seems that there is way too much of the latter involved in the former. Always an argument, always a battle, even over the simplest of instructions and requests. Just too much stress for me, at this point in my life.

[gailkate]

Aw, BL, I'm sorry you're having such a stressful time. I thought you were happy to be in school and getting re-certified, but I guess the classroom itself isn't what you'd hoped for? Or is it the administrative hassles and politics?

Personally, when stress has laid me low, I've opted for flight. We've been brought up on the "tough it out" mentality, but the toll can be devastating. I prefer the "know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em" philosophy. Obviously, sometimes one has no choice because family depend on us, but otherwise toughing it out has to offer a better future or it's just banging your head with a brick.

This is the day the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

[doctork]

I think I'm closer to gk's philosophy. It doesn't have to be "fight or flight." sometimes you choose to hold'em and a lot of times it's better to fold'em.

If a situation isn't working out for you, then choose to go to another, better, situation. It's a big world out there, with lots of options. I'm sure you'll find one just right for you, so no point hanging out where's there's too much fighting' going on.

PS. If you have a tiny house, then you can move your house right along with you!

[joew]

I'd rather avoid conflict. In my case, that is not an actual flight, such as leaving a job or a situation. I just don't say or do anything that might meet opposition. (Some of you may have noticed that I'm a bit different on the internet.)

[doctork]

"Choose your battles" works too.

[Nomad-wino]

With each passing year I become more and more non-confrontational. Fighting takes more energy than I'm willing to expend, especially with people who see fighting as sport and are really good at it. I don't know how people can get so quick witted and use that wit to be hurtful. Booky, stress is a terrible thing; avoid it at all cost; life is too short to live it in stress.

Happiness is a choice!

I am a man of peace and a citizen of the world.
Mike

[liriodendron]

If I believed in toughing it out, I'd be a geologist instead of a librarian. Life is too short to be stressed and unhappy with what you are doing.

[brutus]

There comes a time when you just know it's prudent to walk away. Even if you found a new teaching position where things are, supposedly, better, I think the shine is off the penny for you and it will never be the same again.
You're a survivor, you will be just fine.

~B~

[booklady]

Thanks! I appreciate all the encouragement personally (so glad to know I'm not just a wimp), and just curiosity-wise it's interesting to see other opinions about hanging in and fighting it out vs. walking away. With my dislike of confrontation, I feel very comfortable with my decision.

I was struck today by some of the teachers smiling and telling me how happy they were for me that I was getting out of there. Another is retiring at the end of this year, and others in a year or two. One of the young guys, an advanced math teacher whom I had pegged for a stalwart and a teaching rock, interviewed yesterday for a job in finance, I learned.

[joew]

Something is very wrong if that's how teachers generally feel about their profession (and I'd assume that you've got a reasonably representative sample).

[Jane]

Teaching is just really hard. And when you are facing attitude from students and administration and the system, it's not worth it. I taught ninth graders one year, and it wasn't the kids who made me leave. Then I taught adults for eight years and mostly enjoyed it because I was on my own in the classroom, and no one was hanging over me.

I once cut out a Peanuts cartoon in which Charley Brown said, "No problem is so big or so complicated that it can't be run away from." I'm all for that.

You're find something that is right for you.

[doctork]

A sure sign you made the right decision - you feel great walking out the door and everyone else is smiling for you too.

I love to teach! But my teaching job is very flexible - I can cut to the chase and give a patient a blood pressure medicine prescription or I can spend 20 minutes teaching a patient how their heart works and why lower is better when it comes to BP. And I teach only about a patient's favorite subject - themselves! Medical students and residents are entirely different - highly motivated and intelligent adult learners - so teaching them is usually good too. "Doctor" comes from the Latin root "to teach" after all, while "physician" derives from the Greek root "to heal."

On very rare occasions I have ventured into conventional classroom teaching - career day at the kids' schools, or one time I foolishly volunteered for a whole semester of university freshman orientation, supposedly a group of freshman interested in health care careers. I won't do that again!

And you won't either Booky, you won't have to unless something unusual changes in the right direction for you. I think you will find something else (like Goldilocks) not too big, not too small, but Just Right.

[jspnrvr]

Think of it as a Search and Rescue Flight; you just don't have to look too hard for the Survivor!

[jspnrvr]

And I agree with what doc said;we have parallels. When it comes to patients, teaching is a very large part of what I do. And I have to overcome potential barriers of age, culture, (low, or poor) education and language. And in working with new hires in my preceptor or orientation role it can also be challenging; this last group I had everyone coming in was coming off a night shift every morning. And I'm supposed to keep their attention! With my clothes on!

I don't know if you were aware or remember but a few years ago I was all set up to start teaching in a local nursing program at Indian River State; was hired, investigated, credentialed, the whole bit. Took it right to the point of a planning/orientation meeting with the person who would be my immediate supervisor. When I met her, all the alarms went off and I bailed. It was a big disappointment, but I know I'm better off. You are as well.

You can hold your head up, booky. Look the world in the eye and keep on walkin', to whatever is waiting down the road.

[rogesgallery]

We live in a culture wherein our heros and idols are predominantly distinguished by their violence and lack of emotion toward the loser. We are indoctrinated to the struggle from earliest childhood to old age—it is ingrained in most of our elemental reference system. Look at our political system today—it is more about the struggle than what is good policy for the country. We take our basic philosophy from the Greeks and Romans, who achieved nothing without the cruelest methods of back-stabbing violence.

The ability to surrender gracefully when the situation recommends it, is honorable, if not culturally acceptable. Fight or flight is a real reaction to adverse situations but I don’t think this (quitting teaching or any other intra-social situation) is a question of fight or flight— it is a question of intelligent analysis for mental survival.

In true situations of flight or flight I personally have nothing against either depending on the situation. If there is imminent danger to me or others in a situation—say involving a gun—I'll go for the gun. If the danger is questionable and there is route for retreat, I will—without regret or loss of self esteem.

I have in the past been guilty of confusing fight or flight/physical survival with intelligent analysis/mental survival and have spent just enough time at introspection to lack confidence in my ability to make rational decisions in the future. Damn, ain't life a challenge.

[rogesgallery]

By the way, great discussion. It is refreshing to read all of your differing intelligent approaches to this subject.

[doctork]

I try not to confuse fight-to-the-death politics with real life - which can be quite different as demonstrated in the discussion above.

Congress and the generals are big on "Let's you and him fight" but those actually in the trenches or paying the bills - well not so much.

[booklady]

And while standing up to disobedient and disrepectful teenagers may not seem like a legitimate "fight," when one is in the classroom or school corridor faced with emotional and volitional confrontation, moment after moment after day after day, it can cause many of the same physiological responses.

[gailkate]

I think so, too, Bl. Those adrenal glands don't know whether it's a charging wild boar, a teenager, or a hostile department head. In fact, they're all wild boars.

And rog, I think you're a little hard on the Greeks and Romans. Remember the Golden Age of Greece? The poets, mathematicians, and philosophers? the revolutionary birth of democracy? Roman roads and bridges that lasted more than a thousand years? Of course, it's true they could be cruel, and there was that Nero guy....

[booklady]

But we are certainly not fighting about it, are we gk?

[rogesgallery]

Mar 30, 2013 9:37:10 GMT -5 gailkate said:

I think so, too, Bl. Those adrenal glands don't know whether it's a charging wild boar, a teenager, or a hostile department head. In fact, they're all wild boars.

And rog, I think you're a little hard on the Greeks and Romans. Remember the Golden Age of Greece? The poets, mathematicians, and philosophers? the revolutionary birth of democracy? Roman roads and bridges that lasted more than a thousand years? Of course, it's true they could be cruel, and there was that Nero guy....

The Golden age of Greece was only golden because 80% of the population were slaves. Aristotle himself made his fortune as a soldier. Do you know how a soldier made a fortune in those days. "They could be cruel?" We're not talking stepping on ants here.

"They could be cruel"...That 'is' Funny Gail.

Then there was Plato—the single most influential teacher of Alexander the Great...sweet guy Alex. A little cruel but what the heck At least they taught us how to extrapolate real population estimates from the number of dead.