REBTOZ

Mind stretch or mind stretching has entered the lexicon of learning and teaching in recent times. DECD (Department of Education and Child Development) identifies this personal capability as being crucial to achieving learning goals. Joan Moran explains here  Joan Moran: 7 Tips to Stretch Your Mind at Any Age  what she believes to be the elements of mind stretch ability. Her yoga practise and life experience has taught her some essential insights into how to get the best out of her physical and psychological selves. One essential personal capability Joan suggests we hone is learning how to tune into what we are saying to ourselves; our self talk. What is self talk and why is it important to teach our children? Simply self talk is the dialogue you have with yourself in your head. The concept of 'mind' is harder to define. 'What's on your mind?' you may ask. 'What are you thinking?' 'What are you thinking or saying to yourself?' The 'mind t...

DECD (Department of Education and Child Development) hosted a day of professional learning for the Montague partnership of schools. There were about 400 people there at SFERA's (a conference centre in Modbury, South Australia) The topic was on learning and teaching in general and how we as teachers can challenge and change personal philosophies on learning. How can we engage students more to enhance their capacity to see discomfort as something essential for building on existing knowledge and capabilities; to realise new meanings and understandings. Guest speakers used many interesting terms to put across similar ideas like: 'intellectual stretch' - raising intellectual demand of the task to bring students to the 'edge of their thinking' encourage self directed questioning Mind growth - develop the 'psychological muscle' to hang tough Metacognitive strategies to 'enhance the ability to solve complex, unfamiliar and non-routine tasks.' Prof...

Para Hills School P-7 has been addressing mental health at educative/preventative and therapeutic levels for almost a year now. The Kids Matter initiative has as one of its focus areas 'social and emotional learning (including evidence-based social and emotional learning programs -SEL)'. SEL is promoted continuously and relentlessly across all curriculum areas through the Rational Emotive Behaviour Education in Schools Program in operation at Para Hills School and o ther schools like Stuart High School, Whyalla Stuart Campus R7 and Long Street Primary Schools in Whyalla in South Australia. Rational Emotive Behaviour Education This is a systematic, counselling theory based program that teaches and reinforces that students (we) are the architects of our own personal philosophies about ourselves, others and the world and it's these that determine by and large how we feel and behave.  Albert Ellis' ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance is the key underlying theory/mode...

Ruby is six years old. She loves school and is having a great time. Her mum is a sole parent who exudes optimism and has a great sense of fun. Ruby's Nana and Pop often drop her off at school and they show a keen interest in what she does. Is Ruby happy because she was born that way or has she learnt to be happy or is there some kind of magical combination of many factors and influences that contribute to her positive demeanor? It is hard to know and when we start to talk about which factors are most influential we enter the realms of conjecture and approximations. Some say genetics is the major player whilst others will say conditioning and learning is most influential.  As a Rational Emotive Behaviour Educator I have a base theory which helps me to make an informed assessment as to why Ruby is Ruby. Ellis' ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance explains or postulates that as constructivist learners we formulate our core habits of thinking as we experience the world and ot...

Teachers, SSO's and counsellors in Whyalla continue to promote Albert Ellis' gospel of self efficacy and resilience through Rational Emotive Behaviour Education. The original 'positive psychologist' Albert Ellis has invited educators since the early 1950's to introduce REBT into schools so that students can learn how to unlearn and relearn habits of believing that they have constructed over their lifetime. The ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance is a very useful teaching and counselling tool. and educators in Whyalla, South Australia are using it daily!

If constructivist theory is what all learning and teaching is based upon how well do we know and understand it? How do we help students understand the philosophies they have constructed and how they by and large determine the choices they make and the emotions they experience? If a child has given up on herself and has reasoned that she is hopeless how then can she develop her potential? If she has hit a psychological brick wall and can’t push through it or clamber over it what can be done? This psychological impasse has a negative affect on the student and if schools are not equipped with the means to support her then nothing changes for that student.   Could educators unwittingly be peddling a brand of negative psychology in schools? If educators are addressing behaviours only and applying consequences to them this is not enough as the underlying individually constructed beliefs that give rise to dysfunctional behaviour and emotions aren’t being addressed.   We can...

‘You can’t teach young students the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance and it should only be used by a trained psychologist in the counselling setting.’ Albert Ellis railed against this kind of misinformation put forth to preserve the status of the psychologist as ‘expert.’ Ellis of course wanted his ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance to be accessible to all, especially to teachers and students. Far better that young children learn why they feel and act as they do and to develop insights and skills preventatively and educatively in the school setting. Jonas Salk who created the polio vaccine hypothesised that if we could ‘psychologically immunise’ students they would be less prone to mental health issues and would probably be physically better off too. Bat Fink, the cartoon character said to his enemies ‘your bullets cannot harm me, my wings are like shields of steel?’ He would wrap his wings around himself deflecting any harmful bullets from hitting him, thwarting ...

The English lingo is replete with idioms that would pose a problem or two to a student with Aspergers Syndrome. Certain turns of phrase would be as clear as muddy water! She would remain none the wiser if you were to ask her to ‘pull your socks up’ or ‘pull your finger out'or 'take a chair!’ Are you with me? She’d be flat out trying to cop on to the message.   How difficult would it be to get a handle on the meaning of a message if it can only be taken literally. Consider the expressions ‘to get a handle on something’ and ‘turns of phrase’ mentioned above. Somehow we internalise these expressions, which make particular meanings and we draw them out of our linguistic hat and use them in the right place at the right time in the right context (We hope!). But what of the student who has Aspergers Syndrome?   What assumptions can we make about her capacity to understand these culturally specific idioms? I was once asked to observe a student in the classroom setting as the tea...

Inevitably failure and rejection are part and parcel of our experience. It is very energy sapping to protect our children from every vagary of human existence. Such vigilance also denies our children the opportunity to deal with disappointment and build their own resilience to tough situations. Children need our support and guidance but they also have to learn to stand on their own two feet and protecting them from the reality of rejection and failure does them no favours. "We have to give them self- esteem so that they feel good about themselves,' so has been the wisdom of the recent educational past. What is self esteem and how can you give it to someone? Albert Ellis who passed away five years ago this week said: 'Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it's conditional.'   He was on to something here, people learning to esteem themselves according to how others viewed them or how well they did at tasks was the order of the day....