Meeting Our Own Needs: Conscious Service

What does it mean to be "student-centered"? When is it okay to be "faculty-centered"? What is the difference between "selfish" and "taking care of your own needs"?

It's very in vogue to be student-centered these days. Would you ever argue against taking a "student-centered" approach to teaching? This is a very noble and effective idea: we need to understand who our students are, meet them where they are, and offer educational activities and guidance that actually makes sense for them, rather than focusing on a prescribed curriculum or whatever is easiest.

While I generally agree that it's a good idea to be "student-centered", I also argue that it's not only reasonable, but necessary to also be "faculty-centered". The ability to meet students' needs depends on also being able to meet our own needs.

The Value of Meeting Our Own Needs

Imagine you arrived in class with no sleep, not having eaten for 24 hours, and worried that a stalker was chasing you. How effective would your teaching be? Not very, I imagine. Without your physical needs (sleep and food) and safety needs addressed (no one threatening you), it would be difficult for you to pay attention to a lesson plan, assess students' learning, or simply be fully present in the moment.

In his seminal work, Abraham Maslow argued that humans have a hierarchy of needs (including physical, safety, mental, emotional, spiritual) and that the more basic needs (e.g. food, water, shelter) must be met before a human being can attend to more sophisticated needs (e.g. we must feel safe before we can be fully creative). (For more on this theory, how Maslow amended it over time and scholarly responses, you might read Koltko-Rivera's 2006 "Rediscovering the Later Version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Self-Transcendence and Opportunities for Theory, Research, and Unification" in the Review of General Psychology.)

When we meet our own needs as teachers in higher education, we can better meet the needs of our students, be better leaders, better colleagues, and better spouses, parents, friends, aunts, uncles, daughters, sons, etc, too!

A word about context here: often this sort of personal development advice puts quite a lot of pressure on us as individuals and can be criticized for ignoring context. I want to address this head on and make it clear that we also need to expect our institutions to help us meet our needs. While I can ensure that I have slept well and eaten, it is important that the institutions I teach at offer medical care and job security to help me feel safe. I can't be fully self-actualized (Maslow's term encompassing creative, spiritual development) if I am worried that I might not be able to pay for the root canal I need and debilitated by pain.

The need for safety is one of the many reasons why the current treatment of part-time/adjunct/contingent faculty is so egregious and damaging to student learning and success: a workforce that feels unsafe is not able to offer the optimal teaching and learning experience. A healthy, secure work environment benefits not only individual teachers, but also students and higher education institutions.

Conscious educators fight for better working conditions for all faculty, so that the true transformative value of higher education can be realized. We must all do what we can to take care of our own needs, expect more from our institutions, and uphold boundaries that create safe working conditions for our colleagues, too.

Meeting Our Shadows: Addressing Unmet Needs

The shadow remains one of the misunderstood aspects of Carl G. Jung's work: the shadow is the unowned, unintegrated part of ourselves, the parts we are afraid to examine, acknowledge, own, share, recognize and consciously act from. While this often means parts of ourselves that are culturally deemed "negative" (e.g. acting from self-interest), our shadow is really all of our unacknowledged parts, including those that can be beautiful and empowered, not just those we usually think of as unappealing or difficult. Often our shadow comprises parts of ourselves angling to get our needs met in unconscious ways.

During my shadow work so far, for example, I have had to face up to my power: at times this has meant uncomfortable, embarrassing insights into how I have been loud, controlling or overbearing in an attempt to exert power in places where I felt powerless. It has also meant acknowledging that I have tended to shy away from leadership because I was afraid of the responsibility that comes with true, earned power. To own these shadows aspects of myself has meant trying more often to be conscious of how I might exercise my leadership skills, without the need to control. Underneath the more aggressive tendencies was an inner child who, as the youngest in a family of strong personalities, often had to be loud, aggressive, and bold to be seen and heard. Becoming conscious has meant learning and trying to let go of these outworn, immature strategies.

Owning our shadows means consciously meeting our own needs so that our unconscious egos don't take the reins and get our needs met that don't serve us in the long run. For me, being domineering and controlling may have ensured that my immediate needs were met, but it didn't help my relationships or make me a sympathetic, benevolent leader that others could trust. While I'm still undoing these long-standing patterns, by staying mindful and present, I can more often feel when I'm tending to aggression, when compassionate assertiveness would be more appropriate. When I feel tight and loud, I know that there is an unconscious need to attend to!

In my teaching, this has meant shifting from solving students' problems for them in an attempt to be "nice", to being kind and empowering them to meet their own needs. For example, if a student emails to ask about the late policy, here are some options for how to reply:

Unconscious passive-aggressive: Inside your head screaming "read the F*&^ING syllabus" and typing "Dear X, I think you will find that this answer is in the syllabus which we all read together on the first day of class, if you'll remember."

Aggressive: "Dear X: please do not waste my time with questions that are answered in the syllabus".

Passive and Disempowering: "Dear X: late assignments are penalized at 10% per day."

Conscious, assertive, and empowering: "Dear X: Thank you for your question. The details of the late policy can be found in the syllabus. Most professors will include details of their late policy in the syllabus, so that's always a good place to start. Let me know if you have any specific questions after you review the policy."

While my example answer might need tweaking depending on the student, the class, and other aspects of the context, it is generally clear, direct, transparent, and supportive. It not only helps the student answer their question this time, but also helps empower them to find the answer on their own in future, rather than turning to the professor's email inbox for answers.

So What?

If you have ever said something in the heat of the moment that you later regretted, if you find yourself feeling resentful of others, and/or if you feel like you serve others and no one takes care of you, it might be time to consider questions such as the following:

• Which of my own needs am I not meeting? Have a look at Maslow's hierarchy and see which areas might need attention.

• When do I meet others' needs before meeting my own? What do I make this mean about myself? What is the value in this for me? What do I gain from this narrative about myself?

• What would it feel like if I met my own needs first?

• Where can I meet my own needs so that I can be more present for others?

• Where can I help others meet their own needs instead of doing it for them? Can I empower others instead of meeting their needs for them?

• What are my shadow aspects? What are the parts of myself I try to hide? (Your anger? Your beauty? Your creativity? Your power? Your joy? Your sadness?)

• What do you gain by not owning your shadow aspects? What do you lose?

• What would it feel like to fully acknowledge, own, and integrate your shadow aspects? What changes might this bring to your well-being, your teaching, your leadership, your relationships, your life?

You might consider some or all of the following actions:

• Working with a therapist to uncover unconscious needs and shadow aspects.

• Working with a coach to help you meet your own needs.

• Journalling on the above questions.

• Simply paying mindful attention to which needs are met and which are not.

• Experimenting with meeting your own needs before meeting others' needs.

• Advocating for your institution to help meet faculty needs (e.g. compensation, benefits, job security).

I'm glad you read this today. I'm here to help.

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