Beyond the Duct Tape Fix

Enter: the new thing in life right now.  In June, my husband and I joined the Marching Ravens because that's what music teachers-who-are-too-old-for-DCI-and-too-nerdy-not-to-give-up-the-once-held-passion-of-performing-in-front-of-massive-crowds-of-unsuspecting-fans-who-thought-they-were-going-to-watch-a-football-game do.  Every game day, we arrive at the practice facility several hours before kick-off to practice the pregame and halftime show.  During this rehearsal, a brief incident (probably 15 seconds, max) took place that I've been thinking about on and off ever since.

A little background info, first: At the end of the pregame show, we form RAVENS on the field and launch into the fight song.  I stand at the top of the R which lines up with the rest of the other letters in line across the field.  The move immediately prior requires that I march in a backward diagonal leading into this line.  For anyone who has marched before, you know that keeping in the form trumps getting to your exact, assigned blade of grass on the field.  So if you're in a line or form that is moving too slowly, you sacrifice your exact destination for maintaining the shape.

So we were moving into this shape, but the line was about a yard closer to the sideline than it is supposed to be.  On the last step, several people in the middle (where everything is based off of) realized this and took a huge step backward on the last count.  Because I (and others close to me) had been in line but couldn't react to this compensation, we wound up being about a step closer to the sideline and slightly out of formation.  Now, this is practice.  It's the time to fix things and make final adjustments.  As soon as the song concluded, another band member stormed over to me and yelled, "You HAVE GOT to stay in LINE.  You are WAY too far forward!"  I expressed that I had been in line but couldn't react in time when the center of the line took a big step back on the last count of the move.  She swore, spun around, and went back to her spot.  

This woman has never spoken a word to me before, she isn't a section leader, and felt that, regardless of reason, me being a step out of formation was justification enough to walk 15 yards to loudly confront me about it.  I don't mind that she said something to me about it, but in mulling it over a bit more, I started seeing similar patterns. What is it that allows us to feel yelling at someone is an acceptable thing to do?

What is yelling anyway?  I'm not talking about calling the dog from outside; I mean angrily expressing one's point of view toward another.  It assumes fault based on personal perspective and conveys, "You screwed up, you inconvenienced me, you should feel badly, and now go fix it!"  Yelling dehumanizes the other person by devaluing them... and usually over something simple that really isn't that big of a deal.  I'm certainly not advocating for a coddling culture, nor am I suggesting that we habitually overlook things that should be corrected.

But what if we considered briefly, before opening our mouths, that the recipient of our words (and, perhaps more importantly, the tone of our words) is someone who has purpose and put thought behind their actions?  We would see the person as more important than the actions they do.  We might discover that the action we thought needed to be corrected is just a byproduct of incorrect thinking.  If we discovered this, we could more quickly get to the root of the problem rather than a duct-tape fix on the surface.  

...Though duct-tape is pretty amazing.