Born Trainer

The following took place while I was monitoring an exam at some private academy in Cairo.

Peer Pressure
She was writing on the desk with her pen! Instead of telling her not to do so, I looked elsewhere in the class and said in a voice that everyone could hear “Please everyone write on the sheet of paper, please no one write on his/her clothes or desk!” Of course the whole class burst into laughter and the girl quickly covered up what she was writing on the desk out of embarrassment. I still did not look at her as if she was not the one doing so. But she knew herself of course. This method proved effective. It worked much better than would been the case have I went to her and instructed her not to write on her desk. Using peer pressure to force a student to do something has always proven to be highly effective. It is a powerful tool one may use to solve many problems that often arise during class or during exam monitoring as in this case.

Position
I walked till the end of the class, with slow steady steps, and stood there at the back, looking at students from the end of the class. This change of position inside the class shifts the power structure and refreshes your control over different areas of the class. It also makes change which again provides you with more control. In addition, now you can see the students while they cannot see you, this means still more power. Moving to the end of the class gives you more power by changing your position relative to students in class. After some time in your position at the back, you may like to return once again to the front of the class. This will once more change the power structure and make your presence lively and active. This back and forth movement every now and then helps keep students on their feet. It also helps prevent stagnation by keeping the streams of silent communication and power wide open.

Friendly
He was a bit tall, actually taller than all the other students in class. He wanted to sit at the back, second row from the back. My supervisor did not allow him to do so and insisted he sit at the front row during the exam. He tried to resist, but she insisted. I believe she has been teaching that class and probably she knows that guy, he might be a kind of trouble maker or not so good in his studies. She did not want him to cheat. She then left me with them in the class. This guy was the first I talked to. I reckoned he is of the rebel kind of students or the type that does not study well and leads a more careless presence in class. I went near him and talked, in a friendly way. This gesture kind of indicated to the whole class that “hey, look, I’m doing communication with even the toughest and most careless of you and I’m making him talk back to me, and not argue, we’re on a friendly basis with one another.” This established a lot of initial power for me in class. It made me in control. The common reasoning of students now became “if that colleague of ours who is most careless and likes to go against authority is on friendly terms with the instructor then we better treat that instructor as such and not mess up with him.” It was a very cool thing for me to do and helped a lot during exam time.

More Friendly
Moreover, while distributing the exam papers on them, I greeted one of them at the back “how are you?” something which he did not expect. The reason why I greeted that person at the back in particular was that I felt he could be of the type that would like to cheat and perhaps make some trouble. I thought it would be good to establish communication with him at first and be on the more powerful side of it. He did not expect my greeting, which was exclusive to him from among all students in class, and he was a bit taken back by it. He replied it back of course. But it gave me power, not only over him but over the rest of the class as well. It later helped, among other things, to keep control of the class in a very smooth way without using loud voice, shouting or any kind of verbal threats to students.

Eye Contact
Using low voice tone can also be a good tool. Silent eye contact may even prove more powerful at some times, specially when the student is well exercised and well prepared with an arsenal of ready words and canned arguments to strike back at you with.

Silent Commands
My eyes and ears caught him in the mid of a cheating attempt from the student sitting in front of him. I could have shouted at him, threatened or just told him to stop doing so but I did not utter a single word. I wanted him to change his place but still I did not verbally tell him so. Had I ordered him to change his place with my words he would have definitely argued back with a bunch of words trying to argue that he was not trying to cheat. He would have obeyed my order at the end, after me arguing back and insisting, but it would have wasted a lot of energy and disturbed the peaceful atmosphere of the class, not to mention making me, as well as himself, not feel at ease. So, what I did was just come close to him, look him fixedly but gently in the eyes then tap with my hand, with my palms open, on the desk next to him indicating with a non-verbal sign that he should move to that place and sit there. He could not utter a word of course, because I did not, so what will he be replying to in the first place? He found himself unable to do anything but comply to my non-verbal yet clear order for him to change his place. Non verbal communication is another powerful tool at the disposal of the instructor. By breaking the fixed patterns of verbal communication which many students are used to and are very skillful in arguing with you are able to have the upper hand and for ever silence their never-ending argumentative energy.

Illogical
One good way of countering the argumentative energy in the more daring type of students is by using non-argumentative replies to them. For instance, when one student asked me, in an insisting tone, to allow him to leave the room as he has “finished doing his exam already,” I could have just told him “No,” or argued with him that half the exam time has not passed yet or used any strong argument against him but he would most probably have replied back with his own strong arguments against mine, as he is probably well ‘trained’ in that from having long argued with authority figures mainly being his instructors. What I told him was, again something unexpected to him and completely dis-powering, “You want to go and leave me here by myself? Stay with me to keep me company.” This sentence of course is void of any logic. It has no logic in it at all. Actually, its illogicallity is what gives it power, as now he is dis-powered and will not be able to reply. Of course I said it in a half joking way, not that I laughed or anything, but I mean it was obviously not a real or valid reasons to keep him in class. Yet indeed he was unable to reply to that one. And he yielded unable to reply back to me and just stayed in class. Sometimes power is best acquired using softer means.

Instructing
Although the strategies listed above were used in an exam settings, they can be equally applied during class time while instructing.