How Does DiSC Empower Your Work in Schools?
Contributed by Jolin Sui, a teacher, para-educator, presenter, and keen learner of DiSC
Have you ever had this experience? You find it is very easy to speak with one person about a given topic, but realize it is challenging to communicate with another person about the same thing. You must have wondered why their responses are so different.
Before getting to know the DiSC method, this problem has puzzled me and probably many people. However, learning DiSC has helped me understand other people tremendously.
What is the DiSC method? How does it help us?
DiSC is a set of tools to help us understand the characteristics of human behavior. It can be roughly divided into four categories: Dominance, Influence, Compliance, and Steadiness. DiSC explains that we all have these four characteristics, but the ratio differs from person to person.
The behavioral characteristics represented by DiSC are not good or bad; it only means different behavioral styles. DiSC can be learned and adjusted.
By learning DiSC theory and tools, we can know both ourselves and other people better. A key benefit is that we learn a new perspective on the differences between people. These differences do not need to be a source of conflict but rather an opportunity for cooperation and synergy.
Brief examples using DiSC in the workplace:
#1 Understanding the characteristics of student behavior and resolving an embarrassing moment
For example, in a fifth-grade math class, the homeroom teacher asked a Korean student, Kevin, to show his math process in front of the whole class. Kevin's math was outstanding. It shouldn’t be a challenge for him to share what he knew with everyone, but he just held the whiteboard marker in front of the whiteboard. He hesitated, doing nothing. The classmates were waiting for him to say something. After some time, many students became impatient and urged him to hurry up. The homeroom teacher encouraged him as well, but he still didn’t say a word.
Fortunately, the homeroom teacher understood DiSC. He understood Kevin's behavioral characteristics. Kevin's behavioral characteristics belonged to Compliance. He pursued perfection, and he was worried about what the students would think of him. He worried too much, which made him hesitate. At this time, the homeroom teacher said to him: "It's okay, I know you can do it, and you can explain it well. How about you sit down and make a simple plan? When you are ready, you can show us your work this afternoon." Kevin felt relief after hearing this. The homeroom teacher gave him more time and was willing to wait for him to be ready to share. Then, after preparing, he would feel more confident to share his work.
Sure enough, in the afternoon, the homeroom teacher invited Kevin to give everyone a math demonstration. At this time, he gladly picked up the whiteboard marker and confidently showed it to his classmates on the whiteboard. After he finished the demonstration, the teachers and students applauded unanimously. At this time, Kevin's confidence in completing the challenge was revealed, and the students also enjoyed the comfortable learning environment created by their DiSC trained homeroom teacher.
#2 Understanding a teacher’s personality and making teamwork more efficient
Homeroom teachers in international schools are generally foreigners, along with a local teaching assistant in the class to help manage the teaching work.
This year, Mike, the new homeroom teacher is working with Rachel who is his teaching assistant. Mike is a typical Dominance style in DiSC; he likes to arrange all the work for the people around him. Usually, he makes all the decisions. This semester, the work he assigned to Rachel was to grade all the spelling and math homework of the students in his class and for other classes. As these assignments are updated every day, Rachel found that she spends much of her daily work grading students' assignments.
She had very little time to communicate with students and missed many opportunities to assist in their development. This made Rachel very anxious. However, she has passion, enthusiasm and is dedicated to helping children in their learning and growth.
Rachel believed Mike was unwilling to listen to her thoughts because his personality was to control and manage everything. He seemed very reluctant to modify his teaching plan. At this time, Rachel, who had already studied DiSC, reported this to the grade leader and requested a meeting to invite Mike and the grade leader to attend.
At the meeting, Rachel frankly articulated her thoughts. She expressed her willingness to renegotiate the division of labor with Mike and work together to achieve better the academic goals of supporting students' learning. Through this candid conversation, Mike told Rachel that he appreciated her honesty and enthusiasm. It helped him know Rachel; he was happy to support Rachel when he understood Rachel's ideas better. From then on, they managed their class together in a more productive manner.
Using DiSC to empower
Learning DiSC tools has repeatedly been proven to improve communication and collaboration skills at work, especially when working in an international school community. These tools will help you expand your knowledge and understanding of people and provide an excellent platform for improved interpersonal relationships.
