Event Details

Creating an environment that is an inclusive and safe place for learning is essential to our teacher/student dynamics. In this workshop we will experience, using games and discussions, the ways in which appeasement can be one of the most pervasive patterns we address in our lessons and classes. And we will see how choice and inhibition can be instrumental in supporting a sense of agency, countering the need to appease.

The most often misunderstood of the four stereotyped responses to a perception of threat (Fight, Flight, Freeze, Appease ) is to appease –  the focus of this workshop. We may be missing how often teachers and students use appeasement to “keep the peace”. Metabolically costly, appeasement obscures the ability to see all our options, until after the fact. 

In this workshop I will share ways to structure learning environments that consciously aim at leveling hierarchies, engaging students’ capacity to recognize their freedom of choice. Because access to choice is not equally shared, grappling with appeasement can build our empathy for the toll it takes, highlighting the need to teach tenderly, fostering more equity of resources for safety and agency.