REBTOZ

Wassup? Ms Withers Mr P’s been thinking about Ms. Smithers and her work with children in the early childhood setting. As a Rational Emotive Behaviour Educator, she is keen that her young charges understand that their thinking is connected to how they feel and act. She does this via the Have a Go Spaghettio! pedagogy, which is based on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT). REBT provides the counselling paradigm used by   counsellors and psychotherapists to help people identify the unhelpful and self-defeating habits of thinking that undermine their progress in life and living. It is called: The ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance . Mr P. wants to find out how the Have a Go Spaghettio! approach addresses the issue of bullying in schools. He asks her to explain how she and her Have a Go Spaghettio! colleagues address bullying at her school. Ms Smithers explains. According to REBT , the ‘bully’ does not or may not show respect to others in ways that cause the victim ext...

Mr. P. Popoffalot Mr Paxton Popoffalot (Mr. P.) has organised an interview with Have a Go Spaghettio! expert and Rational Emotive Behaviour Educator Ms. K. Smithers. She is using her school planning time to accommodate Mr. P. who is a journalist for the local newspaper, What’s Up? Mr. P: Thanks Ms Smithers. I’ve heard about the Have Go Spaghettio! program you use in your classroom, can you tell us about it. Ms. S: It’s a Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy based program, which teaches children about the thinking – feeling – doing connection. Albert Ellis, creator of REBT said the future of psychotherapy is in the school system, and we are doing it! Ms. K. Smithers Mr. P: Sounds complicated. How is this idea or principle conveyed to your young learners? Ms S: The key is to make the complex simple and fun. These young constructivists are the architects of their trajectories in life. They can have agency in their deliberations, learn to manage frustration and develop what Albe...

  Headwork Ahead is a sign that Ms. Smithers has standing in her classroom. It’s a visual reminder that monitoring how we feel, behave and how we think about what’s happening around us is an ongoing matter of mindful mind maintenance that can become an automatic, intuitive practice. Nevertheless, we need to be vigilant because Brain Busting Brain Bully is an opportunist and lurks around every corner! Have a Go Spaghettio! is a constructivist-based teaching and counselling pedagogy. It’s based on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy and General Semantics theories. Each posit that how we see ourselves, others and the world is a construction, a mind made virtual reality that can either be far removed from how the world is or is pretty well aligned with it. General Semantics introduces the notion that the ‘map is not the territory’ meaning that our constructed ideas about how things work are just that, a simulated internally fabricated model, the map that we believe represents the ...

Angus’ experience to date had taught him that he was inherently stupid and along with other associated self-generated conditions he decided he was in essence a no hoper. How did he ‘know’ this? Because the information he received from others and the meanings he made of  it, led him to conclude he was a hopeless case. Therefore, he anticipated failure and rejection. And he expected that the world would ‘be’ unfair and if anything good came his way, it was an accident, fate. He had constructed a predominantly Brain Bully sense of who he was, an irrational assessment of his nature, his capabilities; he had a bad self, and he deserved failure and the derision of others. His anger, depression and anxiety were attached to a belief construction that was informed by messages received which he deemed were true and correct. His significant adult mentors and others informed his belief constructions and his take on reality was set, and it was not a very healthy one. Angus didn’t get some ...

Ms Smithers is a Rational Emotive Behaviour Educator. She teaches to the Have a Go Spaghettio! pedagogy based on Albert Ellis’ Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. She teaches her junior primary students that they are constructivists, they make or build the beliefs that inform how they perceive events in their lives. Epictetus said: "It is not the things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance."  This in turn connects to the persons behavioural and emotional responses to those events i.e., thinking, feeling and behaving are all connected. Ms Smithers knows that if her students understand this, they can learn to regulate how they feel and behave by monitoring how they think about themselves, others and life in general. "As we think so are we." Suzy is one of her students and she believes she can do stuff, and through persistence she can achieve her goals and if she doesn’t, she strives to work out how to solve problems. She doesn’t believe in fai...

  Ms Smithers is determined to teach her young constructivist learners that habits of thinking can be healthy and helpful or unhealthy and unhelpful. She want’s to focus on the D part of the ABC DE of REBT counselling paradigm that she is learning about. This is the part where we ask the question How do you know? And what have you left out? What do we mean when we say, ‘My friend is mean!’ How do you know? And what have you missed out. Ms Smithers has compiled a list of expressions, utterances made by children in her class. Here are some: He’s dumb! I can’t do this! No one likes me. These are discussed and referred to often as Ms Smithers wants to promote a discourse that points to examining what we mean, explaining how we justify our meanings and exploring how what’s left out can challenge what we mean and form new and more accurate meanings. That’s the Have a Go Spaghettio! Way! Ms Smithers says, “When children present with behaviours and emotions that suggest t...

This is the script of the video. Ms Smithers is a Have a Go Spaghettio – ist! She is well versed in the basic principles of REBT and GS theories. She knows the language of feedback can be helpful, meaning she is making sure it is effort focussed and never person specific. She tells her students that making a mistake does not make us a mistake. She refers to the Have a Go Spaghettio! visual at the start of each day and sings the Have a Go song with the children. They anticipate having a successful day, and they will work through the inevitable challenges that crop up now and then. Ms Smithers greets her children as they arrive at school. She has done her homework, and her goal is to apply Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy and General Semantics principles in daily teaching practice. Another principle uppermost in her mind is to promote classroom discourse based on questioning, enquiry, problem solving and self – monitoring; referring to the classroom Emotional Thermometer and the Ca...

  The third in the ABC of REBT series, this video applies the ABC of REBT theory considered in the first 2 videos, to text analysis. In effect the ABC can be used as a critical literacy tool and in this instance we look at the situation Franklin the turtle is called to deal with. The ABC theory lends itself well to teaching children that strength of emotion in response to an unwanted happening is connected to how the situation is viewed, perceived. Ms Smithers is across the theory and is doing well in applying it in practice to reinforce the ABC of REBT ideas through the Have a Go Spaghettio! framework. Ms Smithers is a Rational Emotive Behaviour Educator, a Have a Go Spaghettio! – ist, and she is firing on all eight cylinders! We’re back at school; Ms Smithers welcome’s her children and beckons them inside. She’s planned a lesson that will illustrate how a book character deals with a serious and traumatic happening. Ms Smithers is aware that her students sometimes feel very ag...

Have a Go Spaghettio! is a pedagogy which provides the early childhood educator a way of delivering ideas and principles of psychotherapy to the young constructivist mind. Albert Ellis said a long time ago that the future of psychotherapy is in the school system so that’s Have a Go Spaghettio!’s mission, to help young people learn habits of thinking that will hold them in good stead. clap your hands touch the sky give it a try banana pie! Who is Abert Ellis? He’s the creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy which provides the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance counselling/teaching paradigm. It is the underpinning theory of the Have a Go Spaghettio! approach to social, emotional, behavioural well-being. General Semantics also informs the Have a Go Spaghettio! approach, which posits that ‘the word is not the person’ it intends to define. A personal failing or the opinion of others do not determine the persons entire worth. What is a good self? Is there such a thing?...