It is all about who You Expect Yourself To Be

Decision is a very powerful force

My interest in Neuro-linguistic Programming this year brought about significant changes in how I conduct my Art classes. Never a point in my teaching career am I so convinced by the beneficial effects of empowering beliefs, that a change in the state of mind itself, will bring about a level of performance boost that I had not witnessed.

I will like to share some data collected here that showcases the effect of the mental strengthening exercises that my pupils had been exposed to. Pupils in my class had been taught the skills required for a successful still life drawing in the beginning of the term before any of these drawing exercises had been carried out.

The 'Before' samples are a collection of works done in the beginning of Term 1 while the 'After' samples show the cumulative effect of the mental strengthening exercises pupils display near to the end of the term. Each pair of samples belongs to the same pupil compared over time.

It would have been an even better comparison if I had the samples of work done last year without the intervention of the mental strengthening exercises. What I am presenting here is based on my perception of the leap in performance in what pupils can do as compared to my previous batches of Sec 3s. Pupils who had graduated (and who had seen the works) without being trained in this particular area of mind conditioning had also commented similarly on the difference in the quality of work when benchmarking against themselves 2 years back.

I will like to point out again that the difference in ability expressed is chiefly due to a change in the pupils' belief. Instead of acknowledging that they are still beginners in still life drawing, pupils adopt the belief that they are already skilled artists in this area, that the qualities expressed through their works are the most natural manifestations of what they are already capable of. This mental state of who they expect themselves to be will play out through their actions.

Having said that, there are of course pupils who are not participating fully in the mental strengthening exercises. The reasons can be that they do not believe in the usefulness of the method, or that they may skeptical of about the whole 'positive thinking' thing. Immersion takes time, but I believe that the results will be a sign of confidence to the naysayers about such approaches. For every mental strengthening exercise I had with the class (mostly sourced from NLP: The New Technology of Achievement, by Steve Andreas et al) , I had practiced it on my own. And I can say with conviction that it is one precious skill all of us should acquaint ourselves with to maximise our human potential.

Power of Questions

Learnt a lot in the facilitation workshop recently. The trainer's really good in what he does and the whole day was spent purposefully. Going through the different set of activities that day reminded me again of the importance of asking questions, or more specifically asking good questions. There is so much control one can have of the situation when he or she can master exactly what to ask at which juncture.

Coupled with deep listening, we can create a very powerful emotional energy between the participants of that interaction. Everybody wants to be listened to, and the positive body language displayed as a result is very obvious due to the attention the speaker is given. Undivided attention in listening creates trust and mutual respect between the parties. The person who is sharing may go more extensively and deeply just due to the deep listening on the other end. This is a skill which needs to be practised. The feedback which I had received when I try to give the speaker my undivided attention was that I appear to be too serious. This is something which I need to be mindful of.

"The meaning of communication is the response which you get" - one of the presuppositions of NLP.

Asking the right questions

Had some lapses in blog posts the past 2 weeks and is jumping straight in here. Lots of things happened and I will probably split my postings to capture some of these.

Last week, a colleague came forward for help in as she had some problems in getting the pupils in her class to submit their files. Only 3 out of the 19 pupils had submitted their files after repeated reminders/warnings. I was invited to address the class for 10 min with the hope of talking some sense in them to do the right things.

10 min of communication to alter a set of ill-formed habit. I love the challenge. The tough part is to really decide what needs to be communicated in the short amount of time. What do I tell the pupils? What questions shall I ask to arrive at the desired effect? I am certain the class would have heard all sorts of reprimanding reminders from their different teachers to do their work. Adding on to this numbed message will not serve any good. I need to create more meaning to effect a sense of urgency.

When I went to the class towards the end of their lesson, I deliberated my message to the pupils. After a brief note of mentioning the importance of good work habits and its relation to their hope of going to the polytechnics, I told the class that I will give a call to all their parents, and I will only have 2 kinds of messages to communicate over the phone.

The first kind is that I will sing praises to their parents for their responsibility in submitting their work. The second is that I will call the parents to meet me for the coming PTM for their poor work attitude... The pupils will decide exactly what will be communicated over the phone. The choice is strictly theirs. I saw from their eyes then that they got the message loud and clear.

2 days after the event, 13 pupils submitted their work, more than 4X the orginal number. Although the situation was not perfectly resolved, I was very glad that it got a lot better. It will be an emotional boost to the 13 pupils when I finished calling all their parents to affirm their work. I am quite certain most have never received such validation.