Posted for CSTP blogger KIM:

In one of my previous lives, I really was a Russian language prisoner-of-war interrogator. Forget everything you ever learned in the movies about interrogating POW’s; it’s really nothing like that. Interrogation involves the art and skill of reading body language and using basic psychology to get the information we need. Two “techniques” are Fear Up and Fear Down. Simply translated, this means that I either build up their fear or dispel it to achieve the desired effect of cooperation.

At the outset, 9th graders might seem a little different than your basic Soviet soldiers, but really, they’re all just teenagers or young adults who aren’t quite in as much control of their lives as they would like to be.

Because the word “interrogation” has negative connotations, it might seem out of place in the public school classroom. Why would there be a need to interrogate or question an adolescent?

I
have found that asking questions always elicits a more positive
response than demanding or accusing, which appear confrontational and
can exacerbate already dark moods. Often when a kid is behaving badly,
I will take her out in the hall and simply ask, “Are you okay?” In
those three words lies the implication that I care more about the
student than the behavior. Nine times out of ten, I will find that
something happened earlier in this kid’s life, that the anger is not
directed at me, but at an incident outside of their control, like a
fight with a parent or a romantic breakup. This gives us a starting
point to talk it out.

It
almost always ends with the student apologizing and me giving a
reassuring hug or pat on the back because no real harm was done. I
can’t imagine have the same satisfactory result if I were to build up
their anxiety rather than dispelling it.