The "Why"

   

     I am often asked why I do what I do.  So here is my "why"....

     I HATED school.  Oh, K-2 were kind of ok, but after that, it was all downhill.  Middle school was awful, High school was even worse.  Math was torture. The system did a great job on slamming my self-image into the ground.  Even in college, I found it tedious at best.  I was a "C" student in high school, barely.  Yet, when I got to college for my A.A.S. degree, I was on the Dean's list my first semester.  I always kept in the back of my mind the question.."Why was I able to do that in college, and not in high school? After all, it's the same brain!"  More on that in a minute.

     Fast forward....I'm teaching PE in a Catholic school in Brooklyn, NY, and LOVING IT!  The energy from the kids, it was awesome. The sense of fulfillment was amazing!  I did that for 4 years before I moved into sales work for the next 12 years.  Eventually, I came back to it, in a public school setting, and that's when it really hit me.

     My memories of how traumatic school was for me were triggered by seeing it in student after student.  I began by substituting with ESE (Exceptional Student Education) classes. These were special diploma students in a high school, the group noone really wanted to deal with. I found I had an almost instant rapport with them.  I have stayed in this niche in the high school setting ever since.

     What really hit me was how these student suffered so much in the system.  Angry and over the whole school thing.  It touched me, motivated me to pour out my heart for them, to learn ways to help them as much as I could.

     My biggest challenge, and it still is, is to keep my balance, when I see the system trying to be more important than the child.  Yet, day after day, I fight for them. Both in the system, and in my private coaching practice, I fight for them.  I delight in the possibilities of changing the world, one student at a time.

     My second niche was a natural offshoot of the academic one, self-image work.  It came from the repeated work I had to do with these students because of the harm the system and their labels did to their self-esteem.  I then extrapolated that to work with adults, and again, using my own "suffering" how much I was was held back in life due to my own low self-image.  I couldn't let that happen to others if I had the tools and skill to prevent it.  So I launched into it with the same passion I has with the kids.  Accepting second best is so unnecessary.  Being sad or anxious all the time isn't what we are created for.

     My purpose is to change the world, to contribute to it wonderful becoming. My purpose is to save as many students as I can from the pain of school.  There shouldn't be any, nor does it have to stay that way for students of ALL ages who are experiencing it.  There are easier ways to learn. There is an amazing person that is YOU.  There is no higher purpose to suffering with a low self-image. Nothing meritorious about it.  Every day, I rise with joy and anticipation of who I will help that day.  To that, gratitude is always added.  Gratitude that I was able to find my way out.  Gratitude that I learned tools so effective, I wish I knew them when I was a kid.

     I know this may seem a bit like rambling, but it is my hope it gives a glimpse into my heart, and into my "why".

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

     I was coaching with a teacher recently about how I can support her in teaching students with learning disabilities.  I asked to see her class roster, and as I was going over it, I recognized a name.  I asked her how this particular student was doing. She said, "At the beginning, he was doing well, low B's to high C's.  But lately, he is failing. He doesn't do his work, he is missing assignments, and he is starting to skip class".

    I wish I was surprised, but I wasn't. Sadly, it was bound to be happening.  You see, when I had my first interaction with this students about two months ago, I asked him to fill out a belief survey. I always do this, because it is a foundational step in the work I do. I MUST know what the student believes about themselves as a person, as a student, about school, etc.  I remembered one of his responses in particular. He believed he was dumb, and a poor student.

   Now the really sad part is, according to the teacher, he had the capability. He showed it.  To him, though, that didn't matter. His "thermostat" was set to dumb.  So once he saw the good grades coming, his thermostat kicked on. "I can't be doing this well, after all, I'm dumb!".  So the self-sabotage begins, as the teacher described its manifestation.

   Beliefs, motivation strategies, and the like are the foundation of my work for one very important reason, they are fundamentally VITAL! This is where the rubber meets the road, right here.  The number of peer-reviewed research regarding beliefs and academic performance is growing.  Students such as this HAVE to have those negative beliefs changed, and the sooner the better.

  In my private work, I use tools such as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to address this because they are extremely effective and rapid.  Only once such negative beliefs as what this student is experiencing are eliminated, only then can tutoring and other academic interventions have any chance of succeeding.

More next time....