WHAT ARE YOUR CHALLENGES WITH STUDENTS AND HOW CAN WE HELP?

- What Are Your Challenges With Students And How Can We Help. None of us has escaped the experience of attending school and all of the tumultuous feelings of love and hate that just being in school evoked. Feelings toward teachers, toward peers and toward our various subjects. The problems of classroom life parallel the problems of group life. Through our courses in school-based modern group techniques you will discover the exciting unseen world of group dynamics that colors the social and emotional life of your students and impacts on their learning.

- We know that students come to school unprepared for the demands of group living, yet most of their day in school is spent in groups: in the classroom, lunchroom, gymnasium, auditorium, school yard.

- Throughout the school day, students reveal their unmet developmental needs: through refusing to complete work or participate in class; through mistrust of adults and peers; through paralysis to try new things; through their criticism of us; through ignoring us; through challenging us; through outbursts; through silence; through academic failure.

- School is the next setting after the family, where students can practice being part of a community. In class they experience the typical frustrations of family/community/group life: misunderstandings, antagonisms, interruptions, disagreements, indifference, callousness, inconsistencies, immaturities, etc.

- Try as we may to ignore it, learning doesn't take place in isolation from children's feelings about subject matter, feelings about peers and feelings about teachers and other adults in the school community. A CLASS IS A GROUP!

- Given these challenges, we are also given opportunities to intervene in the course of a class hour or day to move students toward mature functioning as group members.

OUR FIRST CHALLENGE IN OUR WORK IS TO HELP STUDENTS KNOW WHAT THEY FEEL, WHY THEY FEEL THAT WAY. OUR NEXT CHALLENGE IS TO HELP THEM EXPRESS THEIR FEELINGS IN WAYS THAT ARE GOOD FOR THEIR LIVES AND FOR THE LIVES OF OTHERS IN THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY. A FINAL CHALLENGE IS TO HELP STUDENTS HAVE ALL THEIR FEELINGS AND ACT IN WAYS THAT ARE HELPFUL TO THEIR LIVES. RESEARCH SHOWS THAT ATTENTION TO THE SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DYNAMICS IN THE CLASSROOM FREES ENERGIES FOR ACADEMIC ENDEAVORS.

WHAT ABOUT OUR FEELINGS?

What About Our Feelings?Within a 40-minute period with impulse ridden, self-destructive students, do your feelings run the gamut from helplessness to hate? Has anything in your training so far prepared you to deal with these intense feelings and with the stresses of being classroom/group leader? Do you despair at being misunderstood? Rage at being interrupted? Suffer remorse over mistakes made? Feel demoralized about lack of progress? Feel stupid? Inadequate? Want to be elsewhere?

- As educators our feelings are always connected to what is happening around us-some things we react to are visible, others invisible.

- We "catch" our students' feelings: we feel inadequate, helpless, confused, stupid, angry, lonely, guilty, despairing, etc., all feelings they feel. This is part of "emotional contagion".

- Knowing the source of our feelings can help us better understand what is going on in our classes and learn to "recycle" our feelings through intervention strategies that will move the class dynamics forward.

ONE OF OUR MAJOR NEEDS AS EDUCATORS IS TO BE PROVIDED WITH THE EMOTIONAL NOURISHMENT THAT WE PROVIDE FOR OUR STUDENTS. WE NEED TO WORK WITH PEERS IN A SUPPORTIVE SETTING WITH A TRAINED FACILITATOR, TO PROCESS THE WIDE RANGE OF INTENSE FEELINGS STIRRED UP IN US AS WE TEACH, KNOW WHERE THOSE FEELINGS COME FROM AND LEARN HOW THEY CAN GUIDE US IN OUR WORK. TEACHING IS A COMPLEX TASK BECAUSE OF THE COMPLEXITY OF OUR SUBJECT MATTER, THE EMOTIONS AROUSED BY THE LEARNING SITUATION ITSELF AND THE EMOTIONAL IMPACT OUR STUDENTS AND CLASSES HAVE ON US!

HOW DO WE DO THIS?

How Do We Do This?Our training model is didactic and experiential. Since students learn in groups, you will focus on the group dynamics aspects of learning.

- You will experience the concepts being taught and extrapolate from your experiences to those of your students.

- You will be invited to present cases of classes and groups you are working with, and work with your peers to analyze the data presented and plan intervention strategies to address student needs that have been identified.

- We will model and identify the concepts of school-based modern group process being taught as they unfold in our training.

- You will leave with useable, reliable strategies and ways of interacting with students to resolve blocks to academic, social and emotional learning.

- The training is a chiropractic undertaking in developing emotional flexibility, in understanding how we feel as class/group leaders and what our feelings mean in terms of our students.

ABOUT DR. FEINSON, DIRECTOR OF ADVENTURES IN TEACHING AND COUNSELING

In 1989 I ended a long career as a teacher and Guidance/Social Work Coordinator with the New York City Board of Education to expand my work as a trainer in school-based modern group techniques. I have influenced the careers of thousands of teachers and school mental health workers and the children they work with through various projects and training I have implemented in New York and New Jersey.

I have over 30 years of experience working in public schools and with public school educators applying school-based modern group techniques. I am an educational consultant for the New York State United Teachers Union and have conducted courses for the Regional Training Center in Morristown, NJ and the Ridgewood Institute for Professional Development, Ridgewood, NJ. I am the retired Co-Administrative Director of the Center for the Advancement of Group Studies in NY and Coordinator of its Educators Training Programs. I have spearheaded intensive training programs in NY public schools for teachers, counselors and social workers, provided leadership training to School Leadership Teams, and am the recipient of a grant from Time-Warner to work as an educational consultant to the NEST Project which is investigating factors which effect the retention of new teachers in public schools. I am also an instructor at Rutgers University School of Social Work.

I believe that while direct intervention with students is wonderful (I have directly intervened with hundreds of at-risk students), the best way to impact on the social and emotional well being of children, and help them reach their academic potential, is to educate the people that have the greatest influence on their school lives-teachers, counselors, social workers, administrators and parents. As a licensed teacher, licensed clinical social worker and certified group analyst, I am devoted to bringing my knowledge and experience in emotional education, emotional communication and school-based modern group techniques to educators and parents for application to the children they work with. These techniques have been field tested and have proven effective in helping students maximize their potential and helping teachers leave at the end of each school day feeling effective in their work as classroom group leader.

HOW TO CONTACT DR. FEINSON:

All questions are welcome. Those of general interest will be answered on the web site. E-mail or phone consultations on specific classroom/group issues are available for a fee. You may email these questions or call me at (201)410-5839. These questions will be posted in a private on-line supervision site for subscribers only.