Awareness – put simply is the skill of thinking about our thinking. This probably sounds strange, so let me explain.
The brain has been described as a ‘self-organising system’, meaning we don’t have to think about when to breathe next or how we can recognise people we know, or find our way home. We can do a lot of things without thinking about it. So why, you may ask, do we need to think about our thinking?
Well, there are some ways of thinking that are better than others, and some patterns of thinking that limit our performance. By developing awareness, we can recognise limiting thinking patterns and practise new ones. It enables us to ask ourselves:
“Is this how it really is, or just the way I think it is?”
Teacher Notes
The
starting point - thinking about our own thinking, and getting the
young people we deal with to do so as well. The operative question
could be used in many situations. For example: "I can't stand
up in front of people and talk, no way" might be an opening
to examine the thinking behind it.
You could probably refer to a similar fear that you overcame, only to find that the thing you feared didn't change, but your perception of it did. Some formal explanation may be helpful to start the process - focus on the 'self-organising' aspect, and how it kicks in without our conscious control.
Visualisation – the skill of creating pictures in our mind of what we want to be and do. We are born with pictures (sometimes called ‘patterns’ or 'templates') in our brain, and when we see something that matches this picture, it makes sense to us. A baby, for example, will look for something that matches a nipple, and immediately suck on it. They may put their thumb in their mouth, and ‘click’ this matches a pattern they were born with. They might keep sucking on it for a couple of years – it makes sense to them without even thinking about it.
As well as the pictures we are born with, we develop thousands more during the next few years right up to the present. The pictures we store in our brain have feelings attached to them. Some pictures make us feel great, and other pictures make us feel lousy, depending on how we were feeling at the time they were formed. I know a nurse who breaks out in a sweat every time the helicopter lands at the hospital – she was a triage nurse in Vietnam during the war. The sound of the helicopter triggers her memory and the picture comes up in her mind, complete with the awful feelings.
Schools aren’t war zones, but they can leave us feeling damaged. I have difficulty doing maths in my head, and when I try, up comes a picture of my primary school classroom, all eyes on me waiting for an answer to a simple problem that I couldn’t solve. The picture has a feeling attached, one of hopelessness and shame as all the other kids with hands going everywhere trying to be asked to solve it
The skill of visualisation enables us to create certain pictures or patterns that help us succeed and achieve. The skill is very useful in teaching and learning. When explaining something, we often say: “Well, it is like …”, and when the person we are talking to goes, “Ah ah” we know they have ‘got the picture’. In the avec esprit program, you will be encouraged to relax a little, and ask yourself this question:
“What would I look like if I was very successful at this task?”
Once again, some formal explanation may be useful here. It is inevitable that they have some experiences of their own of a pattern, similar to the helicopter and mental arithmetic examples. These examples could be explored and discussed. Try and focus on the arousal aspect - patterns come complete with the feelings attached that mostly override our rational thinking.
The connection between visualisation
and the program will become clearer when preparing the students
for their presentation. The image that they have manipulated to
have them in the picture (literally) can be a powerful metaphor.
Lyn, you will remember Josh leaning back in his chair: “Wow, I look
pretty spiffy” and the others crowding around in positive agreement.
And then the enthusiasm in the others to get their own images done.
This image helps them answer the ‘success metaphor’ question:
“What
would I look like if I was very successful at this task?”
You will need to reinforce the aspect of being in a relaxed state in order to establish a pattern. Chances are, you can still bring to mind the Bali Memorial you formed on the first workshop day in July – a picture that will probably have feelings of calm associated with it. Maybe a good example for your students, they will take notice that you are dealing with these things in a personal as well as a professional way.
There is benefit in covering this fundamental aspect of learning – linking what is not known (lacking meaning) to what is known and understood. If you can get a copy of Dances with wolves there is a great example of this when Costner tries to converse with the Native American, and they go through a process of getting each other’s word for ‘buffalo’, then a horse – each getting a starting point from which to build.
You may be able to think of more
recent examples – any situation where one person is trying to convey
meaning to another: “It is like…” and so on. Creating a metaphor.
Emotion Management – understanding where our emotions come from, and being able to manage them better. Emotions or strong feelings are designed for action not thinking – they kick in automatically, and change the way we breathe, what we see, what we say and do. Emotions often shut out clear thinking and seeing the result of our actions. ‘Doing your block’ may feel like the best option, but if you have to fix up the damage later after you have actually thought about it, getting better emotion management skills makes a lot of sense.
All emotions are made up of three things:
- the picture (or pattern),
- physiology (breathing, posture, stance)
- language (not just words, but the way we say and interpret them)
So, the basics of managing our emotions is recognising the factors that form them, and understanding that changing one of them changes the emotion. One of the most limiting emotions is fear, and part of the avec esprit program is designed to assist in dealing with this. When young people are asked to present to a review panel, or teach adults online learning skills, they mostly fear they will not be able to do it. One strategy to overcome this feeling is asking ourselves:
“What can I change in myself to feel different?”
Emotion management, as I see it, is about a commitment to:
- understanding the interplay of language, physiology and beliefs – you may choose to provide examples to show feelings each have these parts.
- recognising that changing language or physiology, and we change the emotion – the crux of managing emotions. Try and get them to be ‘angry’ without an anger-related posture or language.
- understanding the role of patterns and metaphors in our thinking – especially the aspect that the pattern has the feeling attached up to half a second before our conscious mind gets involved.
- being honest with ourselves – recognising and reflecting on all encounters, not just the ones that turn sour.
- recognising that we won’t just ‘get’ the skills, we arrive at a better level of functioning through practice – especially practising in a supportive understanding environment.
Let me give you an example, for it ties the three other parts of the quartet together. I manage four fairly large websites, and I am very aware that I don’t have a systems administrator’s mind. It used to stress me out making changes and fixing problems. I realised that I had to think about it differently (awareness), and that I had to manage my emotion better, because getting worked up reduced my effectiveness.
I asked myself: “What would I look like if I was completely successful at this task? How would I feel? What would I say? What posture would I have? This gave me a metaphor to work toward - I now had a pattern that would be looking for a match in the environment.
creativity – is the skill that ties each of the other three together. Being prepared to try new ways of thinking, a sort of mental ‘freeing up’ like sports people do before a game. Creativity adds pictures, imagination, fantastic ideas, colour, and excitement to our thinking, and affects the way we do things. The question for stimulating our creative mind is:
“How can I think about this in a different way?”
You can probably see the way these four skills tie in with each other - thinking in a ‘different way’ comes from awareness, visualising things, and knowing we have some control over how we feel.
Some of the activities used to develop these skills will be unfamiliar to you - they are meant to be. We call it 'walking over new ground' or 'making the ground move under our feet'. Facing unfamiliar challenges enables us to recognise an 'automatic' response, and gives us a chance to look at things in a fresh way - to try more effective ways of thinking.
Part of my routine includes talking to myself: “Now this page is part of worksheets, so this goes here like this, now check that all the links work…YES…YES…woops, we will soon fix this little beggar… let me see…image not found…” and so on.
I can hardly believe the difference, instead of getting stressed, I almost look forward to it. You will notice it is emotion management – it has a pattern/belief component, it uses language, and has a physiological dimension – the emotion will automatically match these, and even if things foul up on the site, I work through it without getting worked up.
During term 4 there will be situations that our young people will fear: the presentation, the formbuilding program, the ‘teaching’ of teachers, each represent unfamiliar territory for them. This provides a reason to think about how we are thinking about these challenges. The four operative questions will be effective, especially if the young people have seen examples from your explanations and experience of how they can influence our performance.
I am not suggesting that these four personal skills fix every limiting condition in ourselves and others. But what I can claim with some confidence is that they do give people a greater sense of control. Pretty empowering stuff, especially for people who don't feel they have much control over their lives. The universal explanation is ‘shit happens’. It's much more effective and life-enhancing for them to be able to see cause and effect and to feel that they have some control over what happens.