Yoga, Behavior Analysis, Coding, and Cursing (They’re Not Mutually Exclusive!)

(Warning: I swear a lot in this one. I’m usually pretty good about limiting my cursing. Writing an essay about bullshitting backfired on me once, but I stand by the validity of that essay. I believe the use of cursing in this blog post is not gratuitous, but rather adds to the intent of my content. Reader discretion is advised!)

An Evolving Outlook on Learning

I may have been an excellent student in the past, but I’m actually not the best learner. I’m good at knowing how to answer things, how to come up with an answer that sounds reasonable, even how to make an answer sound better than it is. Essentially, I’m good at bullshitting, which I believe is an important lifelong skill. (I wrote the essay on how the most valuable life skill I had learned in PE was “bullshitting”; it was not appreciated, but it’s still true.)

I’ve only recently become a better learner. A lot of the change has come from yoga, where there’s an emphasis on knowing oneself. You really can’t BS that. And this type of knowing isn’t just knowing how to answer.This is the kind of knowledge that comes from curiosity, vulnerability, and acceptance. My body and my mind change every day, and what to know about myself, I need to come to my mat with these qualities.

These are the qualities that I’ve tried to bring to learning to code. As a behavior analyst, I understand the importance of generalization, and also that it doesn’t simply happen, you need to plan for it. Part of my plan is a time and place. In addition to class, I have time slotted during my week to practice coding (much like I have yoga classes scheduled). Another part of the plan is coming to that place ready to learn. I approach the kitchen table in the morning much like I do my mat: I have my materials, quiet and comfort, and an open mind. Like I’ve tried different yoga classes, I also practice coding in more ways than just our class projects.

The motto of my undergraduate university is“Truth Unto Its Innermost Parts”. It’s interesting to me that I’m only beginning to understand how that relates to being a good learner.

Fucking Frustration (okay, that was a bit gratuitous)

Frustration was not exactly part of my plan when I started this bootcamp. For one thing, I’ve rarely had trouble as a student. But I have been frustrated, so let’s analyze that. I’ll analyze this from two perspectives: as a behavior analyst and as a yogi.

As a behavior analyst, to assess a situation, we look at the ABC’s: Antecedents, Behaviors, and Consequences. I’ve created an ABC table of some of my problematic coding behavior below

The antecedents all indicate that my behavior is escape/ avoidance maintained — escape from uncertainty, embarrassment, and fear. Because there are very few social consequences to my behavior, because I really try to not let it be observed. This tells me my behavior is likely automatically maintained. Essentially, the problem is in my head. I already have the adaptive behaviors — the appropriate responses to the antecedents — as I do them eventually as a consequence to my inappropriate behavior. The difficult part is… how do I skip the problem behavior?

Behavior analysts kinda suck at managing covert behaviors (we also actually suck at assessing our own behavior, but hey, I tried). However, some replacement covert behaviors are all the things I’ve learned in yoga. My yoga practice has taught me to observe how I respond when I fall, mess-up, or are otherwise confronted with difficulties on the mat. I have trained myself to respond with grace in that situation. And working by myself, I can also respond to frustration with grace. It’s really the expectation that I should “get it” right then and there and the belief that others “get it” when I don’t that lead to the frustration. I have learned not to compare myself to others on my mat. In retrospect, that took several months of practice and comparison still sneaks in once in a while. On my mat, I have learned that my best right now may be very different from my best yesterday or tomorrow, and that right now I’m always okay. That does not translate (or generalize, in behavior analytic terms) easily in life. But this is where I am (albeit, at the time of writing this I haven’t actually cried in class in weeks). A delayed consequence to all this is that I go to tutoring to help, figure out the problem at hand, and ultimately tell myself that it’s okay not to know, because I will know eventually, given practice. And now that I’ve analyzed it, I can approach it more mindfully next time around!

You Can Be Incompetent or You Can Be an Asshole, But You Can’t Be Both

My best friend and colleague and I use this phrase to describe situations fairly regularly. It’s just so true. Early in our careers, a really bad manager taught us this — by being a demonstration of the latter. He managed a home for individuals with multiple disabilities and severe challenging behavior. Not only did he not know what he was doing, but he also shut the blinds when four of his staff and one of his most aggressive clients were in the middle of a restraint outside his office window.

My career working with educators, therapists, parents, and individuals with disabilities has taught me that soft skills and being a genuinely good person can make up for where you lack. And you’ll always lack something. There will always be a time when you’re not competent. One of the most invaluable soft skills is self-reflection.

This is how I see “teaching to the whole person” — it’s teaching the soft skills. And why are they important? Lots of people can learn a set of coding skills. Or math skills. Or facts about sharks. Or how to pass a GRE. But you’re not going to know everything. And without the ways to apply these skills to real life, with real other people, eventually you’re going to be the asshole (who is also incompetent). Teaching to the whole person not only makes you more tolerable to be around, they make you a better you.

My Project? I’ve Got This.

This is how I am most of the time. I’m fairly confident. Now that I’ve spilled my proverbial guts about crying about JS, I’ll let you know that I’m totally cool with our final checkpoint project.

I have very few qualms about our project. I’ve been working on it off-and-on since the beginning of the course. Since I started it with far less knowledge, it may be a bit of a mess to clean up. I’ll likely discover that I could’ve done it a much easier way and have to decide if I want to start over or power through. I also have a big personal commitment coming up. The planning and emotional energy may make working on my project a bit difficult.

However, this is a meaningful project — both because it challenges me to improve my skills and may actually hold value beyond this class. I also enjoy the work. Since it’s 99% CSS and HTML, I’m confident that I either have the knowledge to do it, or at least the knowledge to learn how to do it on my own. Also, I have my time planned — I’m not trying to work right after work or without eating. It’s amazing how powerful setting events can be.

Needing People

As a good student, I balked at group projects. I usually just wanted to get my own shit done. I was a bit of a know-it-all, especially before college. I was annoyed by those who were slower to understand or didn’t do their work. It’s a bit ironic that I ended up in the field of special education, because I did not start with that patience, grace, or recognition of others’ talents with my peers. The sports I played were tennis and track — I like being on a team, I’m just not actually that good at playing a sport that involves teamwork while I’m playing. Okay, my athletic prowess is not my forté. In college, I played rugby. I found the rugby team at a time when I really needed people. They stuck me out as a fullback, because they weren’t sure what else to do with me, but it didn’t much matter because I didn’t mind getting hit, and we’d all just drink afterwards anyway. Well, I was their sober ride for the first year. They were also a group of truly good people.

In my work, despite the fact that I like doing most of my work alone, I still need my people. In the early years, I needed someone to bitch with about getting beaten up (seriously, aggressive clients). In the latter years, I actually needed my friend and colleague to build social skills groups, staff training protocols, and ultimately a company.

I need people now. I wish we were working with classmates and collaborating more, overall. I know it’s difficult being 100% online. Part of me needs to know that other people are sometimes struggling, too (see my previous assessment of my inappropriate responses to frustration). More often, though, I just have a quick question. Or maybe I’d even find out that I could answer a quick question, which would help my confidence. But mostly, real people are in the real world. Nothing we do will be in a vacuum. There will be clients (I’m actually fairly certain they will be my forté), colleagues, and bosses. I’d like to have more practice now, to make sure that I’m developing good skills.

I think the difficulty in this collaboration will be the opposite of what it was when I was a child. I’m a bit concerned I’ll be the one dragging the group a bit. I hope to be able to figure out what I can offer — and that I can offer something — even if I’m not as technically up to speed as some. That will always be the case; I will always know less than someone else. But I’ll also always have something to offer. I’d like to practice that more now.

And just because I promised graphic content and cursing, and I mentioned rugby, I’ll share the lyrics to one of our rugby songs:

Shit damn fuck a damn fuck a damn damn. Some mother fucker just fucked my man. I’ll fuck the other fucker better than the mother fucker. Shit damn fuck a damn fuck a damn damn.

(Definitely gratuitous.)