REBTOZ

Teacher College has been a hot bed of thinking and creativity for more than a century. The brightest luminary (in my opinion) is Dr Albert Ellis whose REBTspawned the cognitive therapy revolution. The REBE School Cluster in Whyalla South Australia wishes to acknowledge the rich legacy of thinking and creativity that Dr Ellis has left us. We continue to apply his ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance in learning and teaching across all year levels (preschool to year 10) so that children can learn to be less disturbable and more able to pursue their goals in life, to be happy and successful. Thanks Dr Ellis from all of us Rational Emotive Behaviour Educators in Whyalla, South Australia. Have a look at this tribute to the life and work of a true legend of psychology, Dr. Albert Ellis.

It’s useful for children to be taught about the value of hanging in there when the going gets tough. The act of doing the hard stuff is driven by the belief that ‘I can hang tough in tough situations.’ This thinking becomes habitual the more the child negotiates difficult situations successfully. Teachers and parents can help their young charges develop this very important capability in a fun way. Read this story to your students about Mr. Chin.   Let me introduce Mr. Chin. He is married to Mrs. Chin. They live in a house in a place called ChiniChinChin. They are the Chins from ChiniChinChin and they have a problem. Mr. Chin gives in. Mr. Chin would start jobs around the house and he would get tired and not finish them.   He would say ‘I give up’ and he would have a rest and fall asleep. He dug half a hole in the garden and built half a shed. He mowed half the lawn and shaved half of his beard. He did look funny! Mrs. Chin said, ‘Have you finish...

Unconditional Self Acceptance (USA) protects us from the slings and arrows that life tests us with. It is how we deal with adversity that is key to remaining strong and purposeful in living our lives productively. USA affords us a degree of psychological resilience and hence is a very useful 'habit of believing' to teach our students. How do you teach this? This questions has been addressed in previous posts and here is another idea to think about.  The cartoon character BatFink could protect himself by deflecting bullets with his 'wing shield.' Psychological resilience is a little like having a protective invisible shield that will allow factual and reasonable information through but will reject those things that are untrue and harmful. Unconditional Self Acceptance helps students understand that whilst they will experience failure and rejection, they themselves can never be failures or rejects. Their positive traits, characteristics and capabilities can't be can...

This article (starting below the photograph) was written by Adelaide Advertiser journalist Martina Simos which was published on 9th June 2013. The article comments on research done by myself (Giulio Bortolozzo) and Dr. Ken Rigby on student attitudes/beliefs/constructed personal philosophies and how these are linked to bullying (bully-vcitim-bystander behaviours). The Whyalla REBE (Rational Emotive Behaviour Education) School Cluster is implementing the REBE counselling based student behaviour development program. This involves the explicit teaching of Unconditional Self Acceptance and Unconditional Other Acceptance to students which helsp students understand how the 'habits of thinking' they have formed are linked to how they feel and behave. The research mentioned below suggests that students who develop Unconditional Self Acceptance are less likely to be the victims of bullying. Rational Emotive Behaviour Education is a school wide system of behaviour development...

Below is a short message of acknowledgement from Dr Debbie Joffe Ellis of the first anniversary of the opening of the Albert Ellis Professional Learning Centre in Whyalla, South Australia. More than 200  educators, counsellors, allied professionals and para professionals have attended workshops in that time. The focus is on helping students and people in general work on their emotional and behavioural well being.  Using Dr. Albert Ellis' ABC Theory of Emotional and Behavioural Disturbance students learn how they have constructed their irrational personal philosophies that drive anger, anxiety, shame and depression over their life time. Rational Emotive Behaviour Education provides the means to deconstruct their errant and self defeating habits of believing and develop more healthy and rational ones. "I send my congratulations to Giulio Bortolozzo, and to all who practice REBE at Stuart High School, for the ongoing excellent contributions they make to students, and to o...

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...

‘The teacher said I’m the best pupil’ the student declares proudly (see picture below). What does this mean? The individual may construe this in a rational way or an irrational way. Rational Emotive Behaviour Education teaches student’s about Unconditional Self - Acceptance that demonstrates how one positive or one negative personal attribute or characteristic does not or cannot define categorically a person’s total value.   It teaches students that their worth isn’t given to them by others and therefore cannot be taken away. They have worth because they exist and ‘that’s that’ as Albert Ellis would say. The same applies to success and failure.   We can fail at something but does that make us failures? This is a very important insight for students to have. How many students measure their worth according to how well they do in their exams? Or how they are esteemed by others? When we measure our worth according to how others view us or how well we do we are at gre...