Professional Development

Distrusting Oneself, Befriending
Criticism, and Taming the Mind andBreathMark Swanson
Kwansei Gakuin University, School of International Studies
College and university teachers in Japan face obstacles to professional development (PD).
In the absence of PD programs, teachers must rely on self-directed practices, including selfreflection, classroom observations, and academic conferences. However, busy schedules
and other factors may inhibit these practices. This may be particularly true for teachers
employed on temporary or part-time contracts, which often entail a high number of classes,
less or no research funding, and frequent job hunting. Furthermore, colleague collaborationand support may be undermined by school policies and hiring practices. In extreme cases,
schools knowingly place teachers in direct competition with each other for raises andcontract extensions. In addition to institutional challenges, internal factors may stifle PD,
namely teachers’ attitudes and psychological and behavioral tendencies. Having the propermind-set and maintaining one’s health is key for self-directed PD. This paper will suggest
three ways to further one’s own professional development: guarding against complacency,
seeking criticism, and managing stress effectively.

Guard Against Complacency

Complacency is defined as “uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s
achievements” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2016). Complacency that stems fromsatisfaction with one’s teaching may result in less effort to self-improve.
Complacency could even develop in spite of sub-standard teaching. So how canteachers accurately judge their own performance? Feedback from colleagues,
Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) surveys, and students’ test scores are threepossible methods. However, not all teachers participate in classroom observations,and SET surveys may be flawed, as will be shown later. Students’ performance,
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Distrusting Oneself, Befriending Criticism, OnCUE Journal, 9(4), pages 372-379

progress, and test scores may be misleading indicators of the effectiveness of one’s
teaching because they may be attributable to other courses or to independent
study. What is more, teachers may be predisposed to overestimate the effectivenessof their teaching. This latter point merits further attention here.
The degree to which people are capable of deceiving themselves may beunderestimated. The origins of self-deception, as with deception of others, canbe traced to natural selection. When competing for resources and mates, there isa selection advantage in inflating one’s worth (Varki & Brower, 2013). According
to evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers (2011), “self-deception evolves in theservice of deception – the better to fool others. …the self-deceived fails to give off
the cues that go with consciously mediated deception, thus escaping detection”(p. 4). In other words, it is easier for people to deceive others if they believe thelie themselves. He adds that self-deception is:a series of biasing procedures that affect every aspect of information acquisition
and analysis. It is systematic deformation of the truth at each stage of thepsychological process. …from its biased arrival, to its biased encoding, toorganizing it around false logic, to misremembering and then misrepresenting
it to others, the mind continually acts to distort information flow in favor of
the usual good goal of appearing better than one really is. (p. 139)
Numerous studies have revealed people’s tendency towards self-inflation and
the Better Than Average (BTA) effect. Most people believe themselves to be moretalented, competent, honorable, moral, compassionate, and sympathetic thanothers (Brown, 2011) and are particularly vulnerable to the BTA effect regarding
qualities and abilities that are important to them (Brown & Kobayashi, 2002).
Whether self-inflation occurs because it serves an emotional or psychologicalneed or Trivers’ evolutionary explanation alone suffices, it is a well-documented
phenomenon. People are susceptible and find it very difficult to objectively
monitor their own degree of self-deception. Therefore, as teachers we should be
humble about our capacity for objective self-assessment, and it may be advisable
to assume that every aspect of our teaching is less effective than we are prone
to believe. Furthermore, it would be wise to seek outside opinions, from as
many sources as possible, including classroom observations, discussions with373

Swansoncolleagues, and student feedback. These practices, accompanied by a healthy
dose of humility, might effectively combat unwitting self-deceit and bias.

Seek Criticism

It is normal to want to feel good, and self-deception is useful to this end. Anotherway would be to avoid criticism. Teachers who shun classroom observations
and student feedback are much less likely to encounter criticism. While nobody
enjoys criticism, one hallmark of a professional is that they put their craft ahead of
personal feelings. As teachers we can depersonalize criticism by keeping in mind
that it is usually the idea or pedagogic practice, not ourselves, being critiqued.
Moreover, finding ways to improve one’s teaching can be professionally andpersonally rewarding.
Classroom observations normally include three phases: a pre-observation
meeting to explain about the upcoming lessons, observation of each other’s
lessons, and a post-observation meeting to discuss and share opinions (Russell,2013). Classroom observations can serve many useful purposes. Firstly, observers
can acquire lesson ideas and classroom management techniques. Secondly,
teachers being observed can receive helpful feedback. Thirdly, teachers canobtain valuable insights by experiencing classes from the students’ perspective.
Lastly, it promotes self-reflection on one’s teaching and even the departmentwide curriculum. For teachers not comfortable with being observed, the postobservation discussions could be arranged to focus on what the observer haslearned rather than on making critiques (Russell, 2013).
The standard university SET surveys seem to have little, if any, value forteachers (Burden, 2014). One problem with SET surveys is that the five-point
Likert scale ratings typically employed lack specificity, leaving teachers unsure
how to make positive changes to their classes (Burden, 2014). Another drawback
is that teachers who receive positive marks may view the results as a “vote ofconfidence” in their current practices, perhaps undercutting self-reflection(Burden, 2014). Furthermore, SET survey results are often returned to teachers
after it is no longer possible to respond accordingly to the specific needs ofthose classes (Burden, 2014). Therefore, it would be more useful for teachers374

Distrusting Oneself, Befriending Criticism, OnCUE Journal, 9(4), pages 372-379

to administer their own surveys, designed to elicit as much specific, qualitative
feedback as possible, earlier in the semester. Wording is an important aspect ofsuch surveys. For example, a poorly worded survey question may ask students:
Can you think of any ways to improve this course (or activity)? Instead, a better
alternative would be: List two or three ideas you have for making this course (oractivity) more useful for student learning. I also recommend the Stop, Start, andContinue approach, in which students list four things they want the teacher tostop doing, four things to start doing, and four things to continue doing (Burden,
2014). In my experience, students’ remarks often directly lead to changes in myteaching. For example, a student commented that my voice was often difficult tohear from the back of the classroom. I may have never discovered this without
surveys, as Japanese students do not always speak up for their needs.
Aside from providing little valuable feedback to teachers, SET survey results
should be considered with caution. Firstly, many teachers view SET surveys
as being partly a “popularity contest”, in which teachers may be rewarded formaking classes fun, while those who provide difficult, yet academically beneficial
activities, may be punished for being “too hard” (Burden, 2011). Secondly,
students may generally be poor at judging the appropriateness of academic
activities. For example, many Japanese students have misconceptions about whatstudy abroad content courses will entail, believing that student presentations,debates, and pair and group discussions are commonplace, while long lecturesand heavy reading and writing are atypical (Shrader, 2013). Thirdly, due to thehalo effect, a predilection to either like or dislike everything about a person(Kahneman, 2011), an arbitrary characteristic, such as a teacher’s physicalappearance, may bias students’ evaluations of their teaching. Lastly, evaluations
may be biased by how individual students happen to be feeling that day or aboutthat day’s lesson, as well as the comparative effectiveness of other teachers whoseclasses students attend.
For the above reasons, teachers should not be too discouraged by low
marks or overly satisfied with high ones. Instead, it would be better to focus on
obtaining detailed feedback that can be used to improve one’s classes. My firstsemester of university-level teaching in Japan was out of touch with my students’375

Swanson

EFL abilities and academic needs and did not adequately challenge them. In spiteof my sub-standard teaching, I received excellent evaluations. I attribute this inpart to my effort to make the classes fun. I took little comfort in the results andknew that I needed to significantly improve my teaching.

Manage Stress

Teaching involves constant interactions with students of an unpredictable, andat times, antagonistic nature and requires the teacher to juggle various thoughts
simultaneously: Is there a way to explain this point more clearly? Do students
understand what I just said? How should I respond to those off-task students
over there? For these as well as other reasons, including personal circumstances
beyond the classroom, teaching can be stressful. Doctor David Lewis, directorof the independent research company Mindlab International, says, “When stressarises unexpectedly and is especially overwhelming, rational thinking tends to be
replaced by impulsive and often faulty decision making” (quoted in Hunter, 2015).
Additionally, chronic stress undermines the immune system and leads to illness(Salleh, 2008), increasing the likelihood of teacher absenteeism and possibly evenburnout. Among university teachers in Japan, females and young lecturers are
particularly vulnerable to poor mental health due to stress, and a lack of effective
coping strategies are a contributing factor (Kataoka, Ozawa, Tomotake, Tanioka,& King, 2014). There are numerous ways to cope with stress, but two techniquesthat are shown to be effective are proper breathing and meditation.
Doctor James Gordon, founder and director of the Center for Mind-Body
Medicine, points out that “[s]low, deep breathing is probably the single bestanti-stress medicine we have”. He adds that “[w]hen you bring air down into thelower portion of the lungs, where oxygen exchange is most efficient, everythingchanges. Heart rate slows, blood pressure decreases, muscles relax, anxiety eases
and the mind calms” (quoted in Krucoff, 2000). To test whether or not one’s
breathing is shallow, Gordon advises his patients to take a deep breath and notice
if it was the chest or belly that expanded more during inhalation. If it was thechest, the breathing is shallow. Doctor Anthony Komaroff of Harvard Medical
School advises taking deep breaths by letting the air come through the nose376

Distrusting Oneself, Befriending Criticism, OnCUE Journal, 9(4), pages 372-379

into the lower belly until the abdomen fully expands, then breathing out slowly
through the mouth or nose (Komaroff, 2014). He also notes that deep breathing
does not come naturally and must be practiced. However, there are mobile
phone applications that may help. One such, Breathing Zone, utilizes a breath
analyzer to measure rate of breathing and includes soothing background sounds
and animation features (Breathing Zone, 2014).
The importance of proper breathing has long been appreciated in Eastern
philosophical and religious traditions, including Yoga and Zen Buddhism. Zen
Master Somei Tsuji advocated slow breathing and instructed Zen practitioners
to allow for a minute per breath (Takada, 2009). In Zen meditation, it iscommon to sit on a cushion with erect posture and count the incoming andoutgoing breaths while breathing through the nose (Kapleau, 1989). As random
thoughts arise, “do not dally with them and do not try to expel them, but merely
concentrate all your energy on counting the inhalations and exhalations of yourbreath” (Kapleau, 1989, p. 39). Zen meditation helps to train the mind to focus
on the present moment rather than to constantly worry about the future or dwellon the past. People may spend nearly half their waking hours lost in thought
about something unrelated to what they are presently doing, and this mindwandering contributes to unhappiness (Bradt, 2010).
For people who are new to meditation, I recommend the free mobile phone
application called Headspace, conceived by Andy Puddicombe, a meditationand mindfulness expert who trained as a Buddhist monk in Tibet. Headspaceprovides ten free sessions of guided meditation, as well as short animations
to illuminate salient points. It promotes anxiety and stress management,
improved powers of concentration, and creativity, and may even help strengtheninterpersonal relationships (Headspace, 2016).

Conclusion

Professional development often requires a deliberate and concerted effort. It is all
too easy to become complacent and fall into comfortable habits. Luckily, manyteachers find themselves surrounded by colleagues with a wealth of experienceand differing educational and social backgrounds, from whom much can be377

Swansonlearned. Actively seek them out. Furthermore, teachers can utilize student
feedback to improve pedagogic practice, if aversion to criticism is not allowed tostunt progress before it can begin. Lastly, practicing healthy habits for the bodyand mind will make it easier to focus on and enjoy one’s work and avoid burnout.
If teachers have the right mind-set and are proactive, professional development
through self-improvement can become a reality.

References

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Author bio

Mark Swanson is a lecturer in the School of International Studies at Kwansei
Gakuin University. His research interests include teachers’ professional development,
critical thinking, and student motivation. swansonmark21@gmail.com
Received: August 25, 2015
Accepted: March 22, 2016379