The Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper approach classroom setup

This video is another look at setting up the Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper classroom. It offers classroom strategies that help to acquaint children with the think, feel, do connection a la Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. Give it a try banana pie! The Success Helper Well Being Framework has been adopted by many schools in Australia. It embodies the thinking and ideas of Dr. Albert Ellis who created Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. His ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance is a counselling paradigm used universally to help people navigate their way through life. Ellis' therapeutic approach to wellbeing, mental health promotion/education is influenced by Stoic philosophy, Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics theory, Bertrand Russell's ideas and many more who teach that thinking, feeling, and behaving are all interconnected. The Success Helper Well Being Framework teaches children that they have the potential to manage their extreme and often self-defeating emotions/behaviours successfully, if they learn how these are influenced by their habits of thinking - their perceptions and assessments of what's happening around them. Unconditional self-acceptance is taught via the Framework which demonstrates to children that they are always worthwhile no matter what. In other words, their intrinsic value/worth cannot be taken away by failure or criticism of others; they are always worthwhile. This kind of headset or habit of thinking/believing is a kind of psychological resilience that protects them against psychological harm. e.g. To firmly believe that 'I am not your opinion of me' expresses the deep and firm understanding that an opinion of another does not/cannot define their whole being. It is irrational to think this way. Jonas Salk, who discovered the polio vaccine is known to have said how useful it would be if we could psychologically immunise ourselves against psychological harm. Unconditional self-acceptance certainly helps children deal with challenges of failure and rejection in a way that helps them keep their positive sense of self intact so they can rally through the tough times and

The ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance Paradigm - Give It a Try Banana ...

This video is about the theoretical underpinnings of the early childhood Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper approach to psychological wellbeing. 

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), is significantly influenced by philosophical and psychological perspectives. The Stoic philosophers, particularly Epictetus, emphasized the role of beliefs about events in causing emotional distress informed the creation of REBT. Albert Ellis was influenced by existential philosophers like Heidegger and Tillich, who focused on human freedom and responsibility. Karen Horney's concept of the "tyranny of the shoulds," and Adler's work also influences Ellis' REBT theory. General semanticists, such as Korzybski, also influenced REBT, highlighting the impact of language on thought and emotions.

Have a Go Spaghettio! I'm worthwhile crocodile!

The Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper approach to Social Emotional Learning is informed by Dr. Albert Ellis' ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance and Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics Theory amongst others.

Dr. Ellis created Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and said the future of psychotherapy in the school system.

The Have a Go Spaghettio! chart represents the competencies and capabilities that help us achieve our goals, develop confidence and respect for self and others.

The goal is to introduce the early childhood learner to their thinking nature and to help them underrated that thinking, feeling and behaving are linked to each other. For instance the Red Success Helper, 'I'm worthwhile crocodile!' represents REBT's unconditional self acceptance, the idea that a persons worth is not tethered to how others view them i.e., that they are not what others might deem them to be e.g., dumb, smart etc.

Self approval is important and learning to need the approval of others is an unhealthy philosophical perspective because it can give rise to severe psychological upset e.g., anxiety.

So Have a Go Spaghettio!

Doing is Not Being! REBT and General Semantics

A global rating of another's worth is when a quality or characteristic or behaviour is abstracted from all the competencies and traits possessed by an individual and is then used to assess a person's entire personhood. For example, deciding a person is 'bad' because they do something we don't approve of e.g., they didn't wave back!

When discussing this with a teacher colleague, she notes that there are several fellow educators she works with who label some students in negative global rating terms, suggesting that ‘that’s the way they are’ and that they will not change.

These observations concur with my own experience as a teacher and counsellor, where a ‘fixed mindset’ mentality affects how some teachers behave towards their students, projecting a conditional acceptance of the other attitude, defining student worth in a negative way.

The word is not the thing. Alfred Korzybski

Albert Ellis, who created Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, spoke of unconditional other acceptance, the belief that a person's essential worth is unconditional where one quality, 'good' or 'bad' cannot define them. Similarly, Carl Rogers spoke of unconditional positive regard for the other person. 

What's the point of this and how does it relate to teaching practice? 

We have been taught via feedback that we can 'be' whatever someone deems us to be, unintentionally perhaps, in total ignorance but we have internalised these irrational and debilitating ideas as they are reinforced as a matter of course through language.

Consider the expression 'why are you angry? Can't you calm down!' This may be said in an empathic or in accusatory fashion or otherwise but what does it mean?

I've worked with kids who believe they are their anger, that their total being is characterised by this unacceptable, in their eyes, affliction that they shouldn't have. There's something wrong with them and they feel guilt and shame and extreme sadness. 

We are not the word assigned us Alfred Korzybski of General Semantics theory reminds us. The kid 'is' not 'an angry' kid but a person who feels angry at times. 

Hi there! 

It is advised that as mentors to others in the capacity of educator or parent we pay attention to what we say and the possible meaning it may convey; are we asserting you 'are' a 'bad' person for doing what you did e.g., swear at someone, or a person who did what can be assessed as a 'bad' thing. Doing is not being!

Food for thought.

 

The Word is Not the Person! General Semantics

Alfred Korzybski of General Semantics says that we ought to be more thoughtful about the language we use and to be mindful of the messages we are trying to convey. Too many and inappropriate words can confuse understanding and he suggests that we develop a scientist sensibility (Korzybski, 2000) for listening. He talks about creating a verbal pollution free zone by asking three questions that encourage specific answers. They are:

1. What do you mean?

2. How do you know?

3. What did you leave out?

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, created by Dr. Albert Ellis, incorporates Alfred Korzybski's ideas in his approach to psychotherapy and can be applied in counselling practice when working with young students.

Mary is an early childhood student who is not travelling OK. The teacher says she is self-critical and doesn't want to do things. 

We talk about Brain Friend and Brain Bully thinking. BF makes OK feelings and behaviours and BB causes us to feel not OK and we don't act as we could e.g., to try new things

We talk about Mary and how's she's been feeling and agree they are not helpful feelings she feels. She also says that she hasn't been doing her work and the teacher is wondering why. We talk about how BB thinking could be making her feel bad and she says she thinks 'I can't do this. I'm dumb.'

Maybe BB is tricking her into believing that she is totally dumb and hopeless. So, we say out loud together, 'I am dumb and hopeless.' We agree that it’s a Brain Bully way of thinking and so we decide to work on this together and we use the questions introduced above starting with #1

What do we mean?

We both answer this together and say things like 'because I am too scared to try, I am dumb and stupid.' Then we ask ourselves the question:

How do we know?

We say 'we are stupid because we are too scared to try. The teacher says we are not progressing and she tells mum she feels concerned so it must be true.' We think this kind of thinking is Brain Bully trying to trick us. We say together, 'BB is trying to trick us,' so we ask ourselves:

What did we leave out?

We talked about all the things we can do and made a list and we agreed that this proves we can't be totally dumb and just because we might feel worried about failing at something it is not true to say we are no good and that we shouldn't try.

We said that we'll work at the things we aren't so good at but we'll try to remember all the things we can do which we forgot to remember!

The word is not the person so why can a child believe they are the word 'dumb' when all the evidence suggests otherwise?

Food for thought.

 

Mary Makes Sense

A lot of meaning in so few words and that was the unique capability of Seuss, to condense a lot into a little. But what does this mean?  Our ‘me-ness,’ what or who we believe we are is as varied and unique as a fingerprint or an intricate snowflake.

Our children I believe do as Seuss did; cram a lot into a little. They process the messages they receive and make logical deductions about what these messages mean. They determine how worthy they are as people according to the sense they make of their experience. They are constructing their reality of who they are, parsing out what makes sense to them from the stuff that is non-sense. What happens when the non-sense makes sense and the sense is nonsense? And what are they missing out when condensing so much information into a one-word meaning - good, bad, smart, ugly etc? Who or what is the ‘me’ beyond the one word label we assign our person hood?

Seuss again says:

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities.”

Nonsense, as a fantastic inversion of reality, a temporary world of fantasy and fun of our choosing contrasts with what we accept as true and we can revert back to reality; our reality when we choose to. But it is not a game or adventure when our worldview is built on nonsensical constructions that our reality tells us are true. It is a dark fantasy to learn that we are worthless or dumb and that no one cares about us. Douglas Adams reminds us:

“Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you.”

Adams reminds us that the reality experienced is unique to the person who is living that experience. All we perceive via our sense experience (sight, sound, smell, feel) creates the universe we know. But it isn’t the same universe that others have created.

A child in the classroom will be as unique as the fingerprint we referred to earlier. How one sees the world will be particular to them, specific to them. They are constructing their version of reality according to their interpretation and understanding of their own lived experience.

… ‘people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences.’ http://www.thirteen.org/edonline

In an ideal setting our children are active participants in their learning. They do not only receive and automatically accept what is given to them but they process and test input against the evidence available and make informed decisions. It is the job of teachers to help children learn how to think; to enquire and test the hypotheses they are encouraged to make. What’s true or not at the time? How are these truths challenged by new evidence? Etc.

What of the counsellor who sits before the young person who seems to be living her ‘nonsense’ induced dark fantasy of her ‘reality?’ How does the counsellor know this is the case? What do we do? Why?

How do we know this? Her demeanour, how does she present? Is this usual or characteristic of her general behaviour? What have others observed? What is revealed in her talk? (No one likes me; I’m dumb, what’s the point)

What do we do? We work out together to find out the non-sense that we assume is causing the young person to feel and act as self defeatingly as she does. We listen to what she says and we isolate those ideas that we agree don’t sound right. We challenge those ideas with evidence and make new assessments of old constructs. We work hard to understand our new learning, to replace old habits of thinking with new more helpful, sensible ones.

Why? So the young person can help herself know when non-sense is gaining ascendency and to quickly relegate it to the non-sense files when needed and to be able to monitor emotions and mindset as a matter of course.

Albert Einstein reminds us that:

Mary is a student in a primary school. Her belief that she is worthless and unlikeable is a problem for her, a persistent illusion. What ‘thinking rule’ has she constructed that causes her to feel and act as she does? What opportunities does she deny herself because she believes she’s not worthy or that she is not good enough? These are questions the counsellor will explore with her young client. This is the ‘non sense’ to be teased out of Mary’s subconscious and placed in the clear light of day for very close scrutiny and examination.

Alfred Korzybski General Semantics says that we ought to be more thoughtful about the language we use and to be mindful of the messages we are trying to convey. Too many and inappropriate words can confuse understanding and he suggests we develop a ‘scientist sensibility’ for listening. He talks about creating a ‘verbal pollution free zone’ by asking three questions that encourage specific answers. They are:

1. What do you mean?

2. How do you know?

3. What did you leave out?

When applied to Mary’s situation this is how a discussion may unfold:

Mary – ‘I am dumb and no one likes me.’

Counsellor – ‘What do you mean? What is your understanding of ‘dumb’? What do you mean when you say no one likes you?’

Mary – ‘I can’t do anything! No one wants to be my friend.’

Counsellor – ‘How do you know? What evidence is there to prove you can’t do anything and no one likes you? ’

Mary – ‘I never get anything right! People don’t want to hang out with me.’

Counsellor – ‘What did you leave out? What things can you do? What have you ‘forgotten to remember?’  What can we find that proves you cannot be dumb and unlikeable and that this could all be non-sense?

Mary Mary

Please be wary

Of the nonsense you believe is true

You can act dumb and fail at stuff

But don’t let that define you!