Autonomy and The Terrible Twos

Autonomy and The Terrible Twos

You have heard the phrase “terrible twos” and been taught to cringe, but are they really so terrible?  What is so challenging about that stage? Personally, it is one of my favorite ages.  It is when your child starts asserting more independence and learns to make decisions.  This means the child is moving away from you in their pursuit of autonomy.  This can mean butting heads when you decide your child must (you fill in the blank here) and he says “NO!, want__________”.  He is moving on from not just not wanting what you want, but moving towards knowing what …

Continue Reading
The Most Important Deposit

The Most Important Deposit

We have spent a lot of time discussing how to identify and deal with “issues”.  I have also mentioned it is imperative that your child not feel like an issue.  It is the reason we have moved away from disability first language, but that is not enough to make a person feel like more than their “problem”. In Of Bank Accounts and ATMs we discussed the currency of love. It can be challenging to find out what the currency is for the person you are interested in showing love to and find the resources to make a deposit. Suppose your …

Continue Reading
Just an Observation Part 2: Differentiating

Just an Observation Part 2: Differentiating

In part one we discussed the difference between an observation and a judgement. Ideally you would have the opportunity to have all the relevant and varied discipline specific professionals present on how to improve the proficiency of your observations for better targeted referrals.  Until this comes to fruition what can you do? I like to call this process the “Whole Task Analysis”.  It is very common for instructors to think about the sequence of steps necessary to accomplish a task.  This makes it easy to recognize where in the process the learner is getting stuck.  The next step is to …

Continue Reading
Way 12: Teach

Way 12: Teach

Peer tutoring was popular in the 1990’s.  What you are learning here is that this technique is in fact ancient, not a new discovery.  The point of these posts is to avoid reinventing the wheel and practice educational techniques that we already know work, if we use them. Why is teaching others such a powerful technique?  Because you have to really understand the content well to be able to give it over.  If you cannot give it over then you do not understand it clearly yourself.  You may even think you understand the material clearly, and then the person you …

Continue Reading
Way 11 Acquire a Friend

Way 11 Acquire a Friend

As the title tells you, it takes work to get and keep a friend.  The idea of needing to work on social skills existed well before the invention of Social Workers. So why is a friend so important and what does it take to acquire and keep a friend? Life is about balance in all things.  I think that perhaps it is for this reason there are many contradictions to life.  One of these dichotomies is the human need for the comfort of predictability, while at the same time a need for novelty.  Predictability is so important that research shows …

Continue Reading
Step 3: Verbalize

Step 3: Verbalize

This means say it out loud.  There are so many benefits to doing so but here I will focus on two. Most of us are familiar with the idea of “learning style”.  The term tends to refer to preferred sensory modality: auditory, visual or tactile. Learning style does include other factors which we will have to discuss another time.  The teacher’s lesson planning is an aside to the main point of the sages’ steps.  What NLP teaches is that the visual learner can connect better to auditory content when visual words are used e.g. “Do you see what I am …

Continue Reading
Engaging Materials part 2

Engaging Materials part 2

  I shared previously (Engaging Materials) that people are born self-centered and the more concrete your lesson the easier it is for your learner to engage and retain the information. In this post I am going to discuss these timeless principles of Engagement and how to apply them. The less mature your students are, the more self-centered they are.  This is why it is so helpful to find out what your students are “in to”.  This is also why relevance and engagement are such important components of the lesson plan.  If the lesson is about them they will be interested. I use this fact …

Continue Reading
Engaging Materials

Engaging Materials

So now that you know “what” you are doing and “why”, we need to think about “how”.  You did some preliminary work in your Research.  The next step is to think about sequence of presentation, semantics, how you are going to illustrate your point, etc.  The answers to these questions will tell you what Materials you will need.  If you plan to write new words on a blackboard you will need chalk.  White or colored?  Or do you need markers for a whiteboard instead?  Or have you prepared the words on a PowerPoint and need to make sure your computer …

Continue Reading
Lesson Planning – How Relevant Is It?

Lesson Planning – How Relevant Is It?

While last time we talked about the importance of action, for a plan without action is merely a dream, it is equally important to appreciate that action without a plan can also be disastrous (and something we would diagnose as impulsive).  That is why nearly half my lesson plan is focused on the pre-planning part.  The following items of the paradigm make it a well-thought-out plan. Goal rationale Objective rationale Research Relevance If you have been following us until now, you know that having a curriculum is not a good enough rationale for what you teach (see What to Teach).  Your …

Continue Reading
Are you a Dreamer or a Visionary?

Are you a Dreamer or a Visionary?

What differentiates the dreamer from the visionary.  You may have heard “a goal”.  One of the most popular new professions is coaching.  People are hiring coaches to help them achieve their goals in many areas, be it business, health or relationships.  What is the job of these coaches?  To help the person create a viable plan of action.  However, a plan is merely a detailed dream.  One of the jobs of the coach is for the person to feel compelled to follow through on their plan with action.    An idea, goal or plan without execution is just a dream. …

Continue Reading