To Hammer A Screw: How having the right tools can transform your outcomes

This article is an excerpt from the book Our Tools They Deserve

and has been modified specifically for publication by ClearerThinking.org

Key Takeaways

🧠 ‘Bad’ behavior often stems from a lack of the best tools, rather than bad intent.

🧰 We default to familiar tools, even if they don’t work.

🛠️ The right tools can transform how we handle conflict.

🌬️ A 4-step practice helps: breathe → feel → need → act.

“What happened?” I asked, immediately on high alert.

Jasmine had been in my summer program and, like many of our students, had a rather extensive disciplinary history. The principal had asked if we’d enroll her in our summer program after she was in a fight on the last day of school. She had beaten up two girls—at the same time. Apparently, she’d been suspended every year since middle school for fighting and showed no sign of slowing down. Instead of punishing her with the usual disciplinary response, the principal had called us because she was looking for ways to help Jasmine be successful.

The day Jasmine arrived at our program, she was true to form: she rapidly proceeded to pick a fight with one of the smaller boys. I came across them just in time to prevent it from escalating. That was our formal introduction.

“Well,” the principal began, “we had a whole Jasmine-intervention plan for today since it was the first day of school. The plan was that as soon as we saw a crowd start to gather, we’d rush in quickly. One of us would grab Jasmine high, and one would grab her low. Another would pull the other student away.”

I had a feeling she was shaking her head in exasperation.

“Sure enough,” she continued, “tensions started to rise, and a crowd started to form. I looked up to see Jasmine moving at full speed toward the middle of the crowd. So I signaled to everyone to get in there and break it up before it began. But we were too slow. We tried to get close enough to grab her, but the crowd closed in too fast.” I heard a small laugh escape her lips, and I silently wondered if she was on the verge of losing it.

“This is where things get strange,” she said, openly chuckling at this point. “By the time we got into the middle of the crowd, Jasmine was there. She was standing between two girls who looked like they were squared off to fight each other, but she had them both doing breathing exercises. She de-escalated the fight!.”

Now I was laughing out loud, mostly because over the summer I watched Jasmine practicing self-regulation and other vital skills in preparation for this very moment.

“What, exactly, happened this summer?” the principal asked, sounding completely befuddled.

There was nothing wrong with Jasmine. She was not an evil person. She was not mean spirited, and she was not particularly angry or violent by nature. Clearly that was how she had been behaving, but it was not who she was. Her behavior stemmed from a lack of the tools necessary to successfully navigate the challenges she encountered.

How can I be absolutely confident about stating Jasmine’s problem was related to her lack of tools? Because for nearly two decades, my team has witnessed many students do what Jasmine did: arrive without tools, behaving one way, and later leave with new tools, behaving another way. Why? Because the reality is this: people can consistently be relied upon to use the most optimal tool in their toolbox to address whatever circumstance they face.

If you ever see a person trying to hammer a screw into a piece of wood with a wrench, the most accurate assessment isn’t that they’re a bad or dumb person. It’s that they lack a screwdriver or fluency with using one. Cure that, and watch as they—without prompting, without cajoling, without threatening, without punishing—switch to screwing in the screw with a screwdriver. That children begin life lacking knowledge about tools or the skills with which to use them is not their fault; that they remain that way is ours.

My team spent the summer teaching Jasmine specific tools. Initially, the tools we taught her were about accountability, responsibility, self-regulation, metacognition, active listening, and empathy, and then ultimately around belonging, connection, and reparation.

Full of pride and joy, I explained to the principal: “Jasmine is just using the tools we taught her.”

“Thank you for telling Jasmine to stop fighting! I never imagined that would work,” the principal said.

“Actually, we don’t tell students to stop fighting. Never have; likely never will. There’s nothing wrong with the skill of fighting. It’s just a tool. But like any tool, it matters when and where you use it. We simply taught her other tools and made this request: when confronted with situations at school, self-regulate first, and then choose whichever tool you believe to be most appropriate to the situation. If it’s fighting, so be it. There will be consequences, but so be it. If fighting isn’t the best tool, however, then pick whichever one is, and use it.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“I know it sounds strange,” I continued. “But it sounds like you’re seeing the results for yourself. As to more details about what happened this summer? Ask Jasmine. I’m guessing she can’t wait to share.”

That year, with the principal’s full support, Jasmine didn’t only share about her summer; she went on to start a peer mediation team at her school. She was the team president and brought me in to co-lead training for a group of her classmates. The more they conducted peer mediations, the more practice she and her classmates received with their new tools.

Jasmine and her classmates led the peer mediation work throughout her senior year by pulling disruptive students out of class, navigating the conflict, and then sending the students back to class. Each mediation they led was an opportunity for them, as students, to build their fluency with the tools we taught them while protecting the learning environment for the other students. As a vital feature of this approach, having students work with students in these situations meant that teachers weren’t being asked to stop providing instruction; teachers were able to keep teaching while students kept learning.

The circumstances surrounding Jasmine’s life didn’t radically shift, but the tools she had fluency with did. As a result, she was never suspended again. She never fought at school again. By the end of the year, despite all odds and given her previous behavioral and academic records, she graduated.

Tools We Deserve

There are two aspects to Jasmine’s story that are instructive to all of us -- whether you’re a high schooler or an adult, whether you’re dealing with a difficult conversation at work, managing stress at home, or trying to improve your relationships.

First, it helps to get aware of the tools that you’re currently using and the future those tools are creating. Each of us, when confronted with challenges, reaches into our personal toolbox and begins using the tools that are both available and with which we are most proficient -- regardless of whether or not that tool has any real chance of being effective. We have the tools we have. The more cognizant we are of this, the more agency we have to both seek out new tools and to practice acquiring more fluency with them; we can use our tools instead of our tools using us.

One of the first tools for doing this that I teach my students is a metacognition/self-regulation practice derived from Marshall Rossenberg’s work on non-violent communication. Metacognition describes the capacity for both awareness of what you’re thinking and regulation of what you’re thinking. Self-Regulation describes the capacity for experiencing triggering circumstances while still managing your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors — maintaining homeostasis. Practicing these two tools has four steps:

Awareness: Observe Breath -- First we invite participants to notice their own breathing by taking a deep breath. We invite them to get present with themselves and whatever they’re experiencing in the moment, whether physical or emotional. Breathe in and out.

Acknowledgment: Identify Feelings -- Next, we invite participants to identify and label the physical or emotional experience they’re having in the moment. Are they feeling happy, sad, mad, glad, tired, thirsty, hot, cold, frustrated, or sore? Are they experiencing another physical or emotional feeling in the moment? The practice of noticing and being able to assign a label to one’s internal environment is a major step in the direction of regulating that internal environment.

If you struggle with this, you might find it useful to consult a feelings wheel, like this one by Geoffrey Roberts:

Acknowledgment: Identify Needs -- This step is to identify and label what met and unmet need the feeling from the previous step might be pointing to. Examples when needs are not met: “I’m feeling tired. I need a nap.” “I’m feeling thirsty. I need a drink.” “I’m feeling confused. I need understanding.” Examples when needs are met: “I’m feeling happy. My need for kindness has been met.” “I’m feeling grateful. My need for generosity has been met.”

If you struggle with this, you might find it useful to consult this chart of common human needs:

Aligned Action: Declare Commitment -- Finally, in this step, the participants identify a specific SMART action that they could take in the moment that would move them in the direction of meeting the unmet need or honoring the met need. Again, any step—no matter how small—is still a step. Participants commit to an action that is:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Results-focused
Time-bound

that they allow themselves to expect of themselves. In keeping with the examples in number two above:

Maybe you need calm, so you commit to taking one minute to just breathe.
Maybe you feel overwhelmed, so you commit to spending 5 minutes on organizing the tasks and actions you need to take to reach your goals.
Maybe you feel embarrassed after interrupting someone too many times, so you commit to controlling that impulse by practicing a pause for three seconds before speaking.

Once practiced, metacognition and self-regulation make it easier to slow down in the moment to notice which tool is currently being used and identify whether or not it is meeting my present need. If it is, excellent. This is what Jasmine did for the rest of the school year: she used her new tools.

If your current tool is not meeting your current need, you either need to use a different tool that you already have or learn a new tool for your toolbox. Being with people as they explore this work and develop new tools is one of my favorite aspects of this work. For Jasmine and for all of us.

AJ Crabill is intensely focused on maximizing the potential of our nation's children, whether through his student outcomes-focused work with school boards or his student leadership-focused work with school buildings.