Professor Feminita faced her Psychology 1 lecture class each Tuesday morning at 9 AM. She was always punctual, appropriately attired in a business suit, and well prepared. She was proud of her syllabi, and very good at public speaking. Sometimes she lectured, though more often she\u2019d lecture briefly and then engage with the class in dialogue. She was one of those professors that tolerated note taking on laptops, but expected the students\u2019 attention. If she discovered a student on Facebook or whatever else the students liked to do on laptops (or phones), she\u2019d ask the person to leave. If she kicked you out more than twice, you started to get in trouble with her rubric. She would, on the other hand, send the students off on a web search. They were free to Google away; not infrequently they were expected or asked to do just that. So Dana Feminita strolled the room, beaming engagement and awareness. The student population was diverse in the rural community college where she and her husband Julian taught. The faces that looked back at hers were varied, but the demographic was predominately Caucasian. The language they spoke was often inflected with the accent of the rural American south, Northern Virginia version. She loved to teach. Her students generally loved her teaching. As a result of all of this, and for so many other good reasons, her colleagues esteemed her. The students, at her insistence, called her Dana.<\/p>\n
Today, she was following up a reading assignment. She had assigned hunks of Thomas Harris\u2019 famous popular psychology classic, \u201cI\u2019m OK, You\u2019re OK.\u201d They had been talking about TA for the past few sessions in their overview of current and past trends in psychological thinking. Transactional Analysis was a past trend, but because of the Harris book, it was relatively easy for the students to get it.
\n\t\u201cGood morning!\u201d
\n\t(The students express that sentiment in a murmur.)
\n\t\u201cI hope you enjoyed the readings. I hope that most of you actually did the reading! We have learned a little bit about Eric Berne and his ideas in past lectures and discussions, but today I want to have a discussion about this famous little yellow book with the circles on the cover. You can\u2019t judge a book by its cover, certainly. Can anyone tell me what those circles represent?
\n\t(A few hands are casually displayed at half-mast.)
\n\t\u201cDon?\u201d
\n\t\u201cThe circles represent adults, children and parents.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThey do?\u201d
\n\t\u201cWell\u2026they don\u2019t represent the actual people. They represent the states of mind represented by those words.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ll take it. I want somebody to tell me Berne\u2019s term for those \u201cstates of mind.\u201d
\n\t(Several students speak the words: \u2018ego states.\u2019)
\n\t\u201cYes. \u2018Ego states.\u2019 Exactly. Now we know that Berne says the ego states are formed during childhood development and form patterns that can frame interactions throughout life. We learned that the ego states are similar to, parallel to, not identical to or completely harmonious with, Freud\u2019s concept, \u201cego,\u201d and we talked about how the term is misused by us, the lay public.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou have a big ego, Professor Feminita!\u201d
\n\t\u201cI most certainly do,\u201d she says, her warm laugh rising from her throat. \u201cThat\u2019s because I\u2019m OK, and you\u2019re not OK, Steve!\u201d
\n\t(Laughter.)
\n\t\u201cSo we have our inner child, our inner parent, and our inner adult. Can you give me an example of the kind of thinking that would represent the child from your own lives?\u201d
\n\t(No hands.)
\n\t\u201cLet me go first, then. I\u2019ll give you a very positive example. I like to garden. When I get out into the sunshine and the dirt, I feel glad. I enjoy the intimacy I have with the earth. I like getting dirty. That\u2019s a child state.\u201d
\n\t(Laughter and some hands.)
\n\t\u201cAshley, tell us!\u201d
\n\t\u201cWell\u2026 I am a music student. I lose myself when I play.\u201d
\n\t\u201cPerfect. Lovely. What do you play?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI play the flute.\u201d
\n\t\u201cDon again?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI got a speeding ticket. It really pissed me off.\u201d
\n\t(Laughter.)
\n\t\u201cExcellent, Don. You now turn us toward the equally fascinating dark side. I hope you weren\u2019t so upset that you cried.\u201d
\n\t(Laughter. Don waves the suggestion away with a flick of his wrist.)
\n\t\u201cI cried when my boss told me I was fired,\u201d a gangly fellow in the back of the room volunteered.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re all sorry for you.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI cried when my dog died,\u201d volunteered a soft-spoken woman right beside the spot where Dana stood. She said this so quietly, that Dana repeated it.
\n\t\u201cDid you hear what Kirsten said? She said she cried over a loss. Her dog died. Now that is more complicated. Grief, I think, is not childish. It\u2019s not just that you cry, it\u2019s that you cry because you are in a childish ego state. We mustn\u2019t think that every emotion is childish.
\n\t\u201cWhat about sex,\u201d said a lovely lad in the middle ground?
\n\t\u201cWhat about it?\u201d
\n\t(Huge laugh.)
\n\t\u201cThe book said, or maybe it was something I read about Berne\u2019s ideas in the Berne materials, something about intimacy being associated with the child ego state.\u201d
\n\t\u201cQuite true, that\u2019s part of it. Also, if you notice, when you blurted out the word \u2018sex,\u2019 you got a laugh for you spontaneity. That\u2019s the child. Wonderment, delight! You offer many many good examples. Let\u2019s think about the parent.\u201d
\n\t\u201cSo much easier!\u201d Don blurts out, still being spontaneous.
\n\t\u201cLet\u2019s hear it.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou\u2019re right in front of us being the parent. Or my parent will say, \u2018don\u2019t forget to put the milk away\u2019 to my loony roommate.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes. On the edge of too much info, but that\u2019s parental. I, by the way, disclaim any parental role regarding all of you. I prefer to facilitate. I prefer andragogy to pedagogy. We are all on the path.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou\u2019re much farther down it than we are.\u201d
\n\t(Laughter, muted.)
\n\t\u201cAnybody else care to offer an example of the adult state? Yes Linda?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI yelled at my lover when he was late for our date.\u201d
\n\t\u201cHow did he respond to that, Linda?\u201d
\n\t\u201cHe looked at the floor.\u201d
\n\t\u201cKeep that in mind. That\u2019s where were going with this. The adult ego state is the prized goal of our development, supposedly. According to TA. Let\u2019s be adults. How is that? What\u2019s that like?\u201d
\n\t\u201cNot as much fun.\u201d
\n\t(Laughter.)
\n\t\u201cPerhaps not. Objective. Unemotional. Balanced.\u201d
\n\t\u201cLike Fox News?\u201d
\n\t(Laughter.)
\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t go there with you, but that\u2019s interesting, John. I think Fox is certainly on the parental side, as would be any political candidate. So, no. Not Fox News. Nor any other news channel. Though the seeking and evaluating of information is high-level adult state. Next, having given the adult short shrift, I want to ask you to name the four types of interactions that Harris mentions.<\/p>\n
In short order, lapsing into the pedagogical trope of having the students spit information back, the four stinkers are enumerated:
\n1.\tI\u2019m OK, You\u2019re OK.
\n2.\tI\u2019m OK, You\u2019re not OK.
\n3.\tI\u2019m not OK, You\u2019re OK.
\n4.\tNeither of us is OK.
\n(She writes these on a whiteboard.)
\n\t\u201cSo what does Harris claim to be the most common interaction?\u201d
\n\t\u201cThe title one! I\u2019m OK, you\u2019re OK!\u201d
\n\t\u201cWrong, Shelley. Did you read the material?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m not OK, but you\u2019re OK.\u201d
\n\t\u201cBingo! Why?\u201d
\n\t\u201cMaybe because we\u2026\u201d
\n\t\u201cGo on, Mr. Jefferson\u2026\u201d
\n\t\u201c\u2026because we spend so much time as children, as learners. Feeling like we don\u2019t have all the answers.\u201d
\n\t\u201cVery well put, sir. Harris actually posits that it is the position of the abused to feel that nobody is \u201cOK,\u201d or that they are OK, but others are not. These might become pathological positions.\u201d
\n\t\u201cIsn\u2019t it true that sometimes it is an adult analysis to determine that someone is not OK. That you are, in fact, right, and someone else is in the wrong?\u201d
\n\t(Now the students begin to debate among themselves, to really thrash out the issues that swirl around those games people play. The title of the Berne book does indeed come up, and also the Joe South song. Dana leans back and let them have at it. She has done well with getting this little flame fanned into this roaring fire, this rich debate.)
\n\t\u201cI love that old song!\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes!\u201d
\n\t\u201cTo hell with hate.\u201d
\n\t\u201cMeditate.\u201d
\n\t\u201cMake each other cry.\u201d
\n\t\u201cCovered up with flowers.\u201d
\n\t\u201cRight, right! It\u2019s all right there in that song. We go through our lives interacting as we have learned to do, oblivious to the scripting, playing the same damn games over and over, until it\u2019s all over. Period round dot.\u201d
\n\t\u201cShanna, I love that telling of it. You are so straight up with that. It\u2019s like, we\u2019re going to get ourselves back to actually listening to each other, and being adult about it. We\u2019re going to stop using the coded words, like don\u2019t, can\u2019t, won\u2019t, shouldn\u2019t\u2026\u201d
\n\t\u201cThere you go.\u201d<\/p>\n
It turned out that in the transactions that lie ahead with Julian, Dana would sometimes think back on this spirited classroom conversation. She would reflect on the childish enthusiasm her husband formed about that blogger. She would remain the adult, avoiding the scolding. Not consistently. She was a passionate human. She lost it a few times, for sure. The way it all turned out, with its deplorable, pathological tragedy, she groped her way back to the little circles on the cover of that book, tracing the ways she might keep her head above water and not drown. Not everyone was so lucky. Some were engulfed and consumed in the third degree games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Professor Feminita faced her Psychology 1 lecture class each Tuesday morning at 9 AM. She was always punctual, appropriately attired in a business suit, and well prepared. She was proud of her syllabi, and very good at public speaking. Sometimes she lectured, though more often she\u2019d lecture briefly and then engage with the class in dialogue. She was one of those professors that tolerated note taking on laptops, but expected the students\u2019 attention. If she discovered a student on Facebook or whatever else the students liked to do on laptops (or phones), she\u2019d ask the person to leave. If she kicked you out more than twice, you started to get in trouble with her rubric. She would, on the other hand, send the students off on a web search. They were free to Google away; not infrequently they were expected or asked to do just that. So Dana Feminita strolled the room, beaming engagement and awareness. The student population was diverse in the rural community college where she and her husband Julian taught. The faces that looked back at hers were varied, but the demographic was predominately Caucasian. The language they spoke was often inflected with the accent of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapters","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}