Be a Tolkien Ent: Responsiveness vs. Reactivity in Education and School Counseling

Our students are reactive. As educators we are called upon – not to be reactive, but to be responsive. 

A responsive educator posture doesn’t always come naturally, especially when we are confronted with the reactive crisis-sense of a student, or a staff member for that matter. The sense of emergency is contagious. We are deeply attuned to it as fellow humans. Much in the same way that people will react to a snake before they are even consciously aware that they have seen one, we will react to others’ sense of crisis and emergency before we’ve paused to think about the nature of the issue. It is a healthy group survival response, but it is not conducive to developing self-regulation and maintaining a learning environment.

Deliberate responsiveness is the term I use to describe process-oriented, attuned, and thoughtful responsiveness. It is an over-arching theme to nearly everything I advocate for at the intersection of education and mental health. It requires significant practical planning and conceptual reframing to maintain a responsive position. Dr. Jacob Ham describes “learning brain vs. survival brain” in this popular video. To maintain conditions that support students being in learning brain, the adult staff group has to maintain its own collective version of learning brain.

Tolkien provides us with a fantastic and clear example of this with the behavior of the ents -Middle-Earth’s tree-like giants. Tolkien’s ents serve as a model of practicing deliberate responsiveness.

In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Frodo’s companions Merry and Pippin find themselves on a side quest recruiting reinforcements for the battle against Saruman’s armies.

They have the good fortune to encounter Fangorn, a tree-like giant. A battle is brewing, and Merry and Pippin’s compatriots are vastly outnumbered. They entreat the powerful Fangorn to help them in battle and to recruit more ents. Fangorn listens carefully, sometimes responding “Now don’t be hasty.”

Fangorn listens and explains at a pace we might associate with “mindful eating.” After much of this slow listening and explaining, he agrees to consider the hobbits’ request. However, he is not going to consider such an important question on his own. He calls a meeting (an entmoot) to consult and decide along with other ents. By using this special name, entmoot, Tolkien signals that this is an established process, not a reaction. The entmoot goes on for three days before they reach a conclusion. 

When reactivity meets process, everything slows down, and crisis-energy is dissipated. 

Tolkien was really on to something, both about human nature and the nature of trees. Real trees live for hundreds of years. They have a system akin to the human nervous system, though one difference is speed. Their electrical signals travel at the slow rate of one inch every three seconds (Wohlleben, 2105, p. 8). Peter Wohlleben’s popular The Hidden Life of Trees describes tree behavior, including their ability to communicate with each other through the air and fungal networks underground. Between their long lives and their rates of internal and external communication, trees are on a very different time scale than humans. Trees are active, but so slowly relative to us as to be unrecognizable without special attention and effort.

As educators and school counselors, we can learn from trees and from Tolkien’s ents. Our students will turn to us reactively, frustratedly, and as desperate as Merry and Pippin begging Fangorn for assistance. We will likely feel activated to join them in their reactivity. But, we can strive to be as different from our students in our response as ents are from hobbits, and as different as trees are from people. 

We can welcome the student’s crisis into the safe, secure, and slow speed of thoughtful adult consideration. We can listen, long and engaged, like Fangorn. We can even use his “hm, hoom” sounds of considered acknowledgment. We can stop and think. And we can tell our students that we will continue to think about the issue they have presented, and we will consult with the other school staff about such a significant challenge. And yes, it may take a while to give this all the thought, consideration, and collaboration it deserves. But, like Fangorn again, we will dependably follow up and follow through.

References 

Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954). The two towers: the lord of the rings part two. Ballantine

Wohlleben, P. (2015). The hidden life of trees; What they feel, how they communicate. Greystone