The Difference That Makes The Difference

 

   

   


     I am often asked, "What is the difference between what you do and ordinary tutoring?"  While that is a multi-layered question in my opinion, I will attempt to address it to some degree here.

    A key distinction in my approach is to seek the answer to the question, "What is the difference that makes the difference?"  In other words, why are some students so successful, while others are not.  Assuming for the sake of the discussion all things are equal (no organic or physiological issues, etc), the students all have, by and large, the same brain.  So why such a difference?  This achievement gap is the subject of MANY studies, and all sorts of things are seen as the answer. Here, however, I wish to offer a simple answer.

    To me, to seek the true source of this difference, we need to look at each student as an individual.  This means looking to unlock the potential in each student.  If I look at two students, one great in Math, the other terrible in Math, I GUARANTEE a large portion of the difference is how the subject is communicated TO THEMSELVES, namely, how the information is PROCESSED.

    In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), their essential foundation is in something called "modelling"  Modelling is looking at a desired skill or attribute seen in another person, and getting "in their head" to discover the recipe for how they do it, then install that in yourself or someone else who desires it.

    A key component in my work with students to to elicit how they are processing information. How do they process what they are good in, and compare and contrast that to how they process what they have difficulty in.  Once that is determined, the work begins to "alter" the processing of the difficult thing with processing strategies of what they are good at.  Follow that?

     Therefore, the difference that makes the difference isn't in a magical curriculum, not in luck, not in "I guess Johnny just isn't a good student", or anything else. It is in the student's own self-communication, his/her own processing. There is no where necessary to look but within. This is, perhaps, the most hopeful message ever told to students who are struggling, and their parent who suffer emotionally with them.

      Until next time......

To get a free report that describes the foundations of this work, go to my website, www.easeoflearning.com

The Elephant In The Room

    Ok, so here is the elephant in the room...when talking about disabilities such as ADD/ADHD...."Well, Johnny can't focus, he tries and tried. He must have ADHD"  And the medicating soon begins in many cases.  Here is the golden question that, when I ask it, I have yet to get an affirmative response. "Well, has anyone TAUGHT him HOW to focus?"   "No?  Hmmmmmm"   Now understand, I am not saying there is never an organic reason for having focus issues.  What I am saying is that, shouldn't there be an attempt to train the person HOW to control their mind before they are labeled and medicated?

   Often, when a workshops and presentations about such things, there is usually a list of famous people in history who we THINK had ADHD, or which ever other label.  Now, think about it for a second.  They had this challenge, and yet were highly successful.  How? Well, here is another "elephant in the room" theory... They were successful because they had NO LABEL!  They were just who they were, period.  No stamp of disability, no label providing limitations, and frankly, no medication.

   I know this views will ruffle some feathers.  In my coaching, however, I need to look at it from this point of view. I can't look at a label, as a limitation.  I have to see it as, "This is how the child is. Now, how can I help them get to a different result?"  How can we expect people to focus, or be socially capable, or successful in school for that matter, if they are not first TAUGHT?

The System Comes First

 
   When I first started martial arts training when I was 16 years old, I was drawn to Bruce Lee's philosophy. In a nutshell, he was against styles and systems of training, in that they would come first, forcing an individual to conform to the system.
   I was reminded of all this yesterday, in a school meeting. I cannot go into any specifics, but I can say it certainly roused my passion against the "classical mess" as Bruce would put it.  I saw, clear as day, the system coming first, before the student.  Quite frankly, it made me ill.  As I thought more about it, I realized how many students are alienated, how many are counted as an "acceptable loss".  So many students, especially those with "learning disabilities" are thrown off the cliff by the system.
   I put disabilities in quotations for a reason.. Please understand, it is not to downgrade any one's learning challenges.  To me, in my experience, the labels are often just another aspect of the system. The student's come to accept it, and then, well, you know the rest....
   I so often get great results with students so labeled because I take them as individuals, not as parts of the system.  I unlock them, I use their strengths to their advantage.  It should be about the individual, after all.  The disability is often that the system never got around to figuring out how to teach the child, period.  Again, I am not saying that there are not genuine, organic disabilities that affect learning, but there are not in the numbers I see.
   The late Dr. Don Blackerby, from whom I learned a majority of what I do, laid out presuppositions that the system uses.  They are negative assumptions, and I still see them rampant.  What the system fails to see is the emotional component of learning.
   I recently counseled with a high school student who confessed to me that she had an abortion over the summer. She is now an emotional mess.  Tell me how any of the latest and greatest curricula or methods will make any impact at all until her emotional state is cleared and balanced?  They won't, they can't.  So simple of a concept, isn't it? Yet so often overlooked.  This is perhaps the greatest tragedy of the educational system of all.