The Toxicity Triangle :
what makes a school culture toxic?
A year ago, my children and I built a fire pit in our backyard. We leveled the ground, considered materials, gauged safety concerns and broke ground. The endeavor took time. We toiled under the weight of rocks and we collected river stones. We marveled at the condition of the soil and we collaborated in our fascination at the transformation taking place.
Before long, we were ready to build a fire.
My children have always appreciated sitting around a campfire, but until this moment they had always done so as consumers. On this occasion, though, they were participants, suddenly engaged and curious about the nature of fire. They knew the what and the why, but now it was time for the how. See, my kids are 11, 10 and 8 and their curiosity about how fire happens has been piqued, so naturally, I found myself explaining the “Fire Triangle.”
For a fire to exist, I explained, there must be three elements: heat, fuel, and oxygen. Remove one of the three elements and the fire will go out.
As we looked into the flames, I listened in awe as my kids discussed how the fire triangle differs from a “recipe.”
A pancake, after all, can be made in many different ways, with a variety of ingredients, they mused…remove one ingredient and it can still be called a pancake (albeit a crummy one).
In schools, we use the metaphor “putting out fires” at times to describe the small and frustrating troubles and concerns that bubble up throughout the day. As I considered this phrase around the campfire, my mind began to wander.
School culture, like a fire, catches and grows, I thought. Like flames on a log, there is a contagious nature to the conditions that make for a good, effective “flame” in schools, too.
Yet sometimes, the flame of dynamic school culture is extinguished. Sometimes it dies out. Sometimes, the culture is toxic. If then, we agree that there can be toxic elements in a school culture, could there be toxic elements of the culture that, if removed, would extinguish the toxicity?
Was toxic culture more like a recipe or more like the fire triangle?
Firefighting is based upon the fire triangle with the goal of eliminating one of the required elements in the fire triangle. So what would “Toxic Culture Fighters” do?
I returned to school the following Monday and decided to ask my 7th Grade students. I often ask my students big questions, inviting their pre-adolescent engagement and philosophical curiosity into my own experience in a school. At this moment, though, I was watching a group of my students play at recess. They were laughing, running, and were simply overflowing with joy. They must know, I thought to myself, because I see nothing toxic about this moment, about their interactions, their culture. So, as we walked in from recess, I simply asked them about toxic culture vs. joyful culture (sometimes it’s easier to consider what the opposite is, rather than the thing itself).
“What makes a community unhealthy?” I asked. “What makes it feel toxic?”
They thought for a bit, talked it over, adorably cut each other off, finished each other’s sentences, affirmed good ideas, laughed at the bad ones, and ultimately concluded that toxic culture comes when people feel alone, scared, or just generally “not okay.”
As I mused over their findings, I synthesized those three characteristics into what I call the toxicity triangle.
What Toxic Culture Feels Like
Isolation:
When we find ourselves in a toxic culture, we feel alone. There is negativity, gossip, and lots of cliques. When we feel isolated like this–whether an adult or a child–we clamor to find a sense of belonging; but in a toxic culture, there is constant undermining and questioning of everyone’s intentions. We just don’t trust people easily in these settings. It’s almost as though nobody believes they belong.
When teachers are alone, they struggle to collaborate. They develop feelings of insecurity and paranoia due to the deficit of emotional connection they crave. Here, in this isolated state, toxicity grows because people don’t have the trusting environments they need to be vulnerable and to seek out support. Putting others down, workplace bullying and exclusive cliques are symptoms of isolation and only exacerbate the toxic culture.
Insecurity:
Insecurity means people in schools lack the support they need. There is no trust or constructive feedback, and the leaders who could provide it tend to focus on themselves, their image, and often become consumed with asserting their power (often a result of being insecure, themselves).
Nobody feels good about themselves, or safe in these environments. People exist with their heads on a swivel in fear of what might happen next and whether they will be knocked off their orbit by being told they are doing a poor job. Everyone craves affirmation that they are enough, but without that, insecurity runs rampant. Everyone is stressed. And toxicity grows.
Instability:
Wellness, Mental Health, and Social Emotional Learning are phrases that weren’t used ten years ago. Sure there has always been “work-life balance,” but even that element of the workplace has been thrown out of whack in recent years. Instability means there is no balance. Workload is high, expectations amid a global pandemic are unfair to teachers and students alike, and parents are more stressed as well, leading them to be less empathetic toward educators. Nothing is stable in a world of the unknown, and when nothing is stable, toxicity spreads.
Tragic in this triangle is the fact that teachers are not on an island. Anything they experience ultimately trickles down to the students. Think of students who feel isolated, insecure and unstable. Those are demons in the lives of so many young people today. And yet when teachers are feeling that, the toxicity spreads.
There is no joy. And that was the word my students had used, way back in our conversation about toxic culture. They’d touched upon joyful culture as the antonym for toxic culture.
So how did they define the triangle of joy? Connection, Trust, and Balance.
Just as extinguishing any one of the elements required in a fire will destroy the fire, removing any one of the toxic elements (isolation, insecurity, instability) and replacing it with its joyful antidote (connection, trust, balance) will result in a culture that is no longer toxic.
Just think: if you are suffering from instability and insecurity, but you have connection, it won’t feel toxic. It’ll be hard, sure, but the goal is to reduce toxicity.
Likewise, if you trust people in the midst of isolation and instability, it will feel less toxic.
And finally, if you have balance, even when isolation and insecurity are abundant, you might not achieve joy, but you will likely avoid a complete and utter overload of toxicity.
So what is the key to finding connection, to building trust, and to becoming balanced in the midst of toxicity?
Find the kids.
In the life of a school, it can sometimes be as simple as that. Seek out the kids and you will find the joy. In fact, it’s a simple acronym: J.O.Y.
Join our youth (which, if you recall, is exactly where this story began, around the fire; and exactly where it led, in conversation with my students)
When we look toward children and follow their lead–whether they are in Kindergarten or 12th Grade–we can see their hearts. Their hearts are easy to find.
But you know what matters most in letting kids lead joyfully? Giving them time. In our community, there is time to get outside. Time to connect. Time to be free. Time to relax. In these days of COVID-related stressors, overscheduling and anxiety, it’s easy to be isolated, insecure, and unstable. Time to simply be shifts the energy, eliminating toxicity triggers
Let them lead us. Let them be the kindling to the fire. After all, connection builds trust. And trust breeds balance.
Follow the children and they’ll lead you to the greatest antidote to toxic culture: joy.
Will McDonough is an author, teacher and Director of Community Engagement at The Country School in Madison, CT, a pK-8th grade school committed to honoring students’ creativity, sense of wonder, and intellectual curiosity. Named a top 100 Educational Visionary by the Global Forum for Education and Learning in 2020, Will can often be found with his family exploring the wooded trails and marshes near his home in Connecticut. Connect with him on Twitter @mrmcdonough or Instagram @wsmcdonough and check out his website for recent projects and ideas www.will-mcdonough.com