Sunday 12 February 2012

RTNews 118. We're back!!!!!!


RT® News


A magazine on Neuro Linguistic Programming in Education
No 118 February 12 2012

Hello teachers,

Welcome to 2012 as we restart for the year. We hope you have had enjoyable restful holidays and are refreshed and recharged for the year ahead. By now, many of you will either have begun the preparation for the new school year or be taking advantage of the February training courses. Any opportunity for ongoing training is worthwhile because it gives us the chance to reflect on what we do, to learn new skills and to polish old skills. This process of reflection and learning ensures that we are life-long learners and it sets a great example to our students. In a world that is changing with seemingly increasing speed, it is natural that we will be constantly adapting to change and acquiring new abilities. Think of what you know and can do now that you couldn’t ten years ago. Consider what technological aids are available now that ten or fifteen years ago were not nearly so present.

We believe that one of the most valuable aspects of Neuro Linguistic Programming is that it helps us to learn HOW to Change. Very often people say such things as: “You must get in rapport with your students, show more of an interest in them.” “You should organize your time better.” “It would be a good idea to speak to him in a different way.” This is all very well but how can we do these things?

Practitioner training in NLP gives us a huge array of tools to help us recognise the way we think and communicate with others and many choices as to how with small significant variations and awareness we can start to communicate quite differently, allowing us to reach other people more effectively. It also provides us with techniques and approaches to plan our lives better, manage conflict wisely, fix learning and in short enjoy life to the fullest.

We will be commencing our new Practitioner courses on March 31. If you would like to know more, see section 2 below.

We will also be giving a couple of workshops in February. Learning English with GANAS given by Laura will take place on February 22 and Jamie will be giving Congruency in the Classroom on February 23. See the calendar in Section 3 for a link to more information.


Hoping you all have a very enjoyable and enriching month,

Laura and Jamie

1. How long does it take to learn?
2. NLP Practitioner courses
3. Calendar of activities for 2012
4. Workshops and coaching
5. Subscribing/Unsubscribing to our e-zines in English and an invitation to visit


1. How long does it take to learn? (republished from 2006)


Answer one: If you're ready you can learn very quickly.

Answer two: As long as it takes.

Many teachers would love to have students who are ready to learn, who absorb the new material quickly and are able to reproduce it perfectly in tests or exams. But is this a guarantee of learning? It may, in fact, just prove that the students can retain certain information in their short term memory for the purposes of recall. If that is what our assessment system requires, then we may have a perfect match. However, is this real learning and is it what we as teachers and learners ourselves and as parents in some cases want? Those of us with NLP training repeatedly refer to learning in the muscle which NLP expert Robert Dilts suggests we aspire to in order to really have the new learning fixed. Learning in the muscle is the feeling that you now carry the new knowledge skill or information in you in mind and in body and that in some way. That you are a different person from when you didn't know it. So, a useful question at this point is whether we really want to learn something or if it is just a temporary knowing that we seek. If we really want to learn we have to engage our full presence in the act: our mind, body and soul.

We learn what we want to learn, what we perceive as useful to us. Helping our students to establish wants and needs is very important as otherwise they may be physically present in our classes passing time, picking up things which may be incidental and enjoying the social interaction, but not actually committed to achieving a tangible addition to their skills and abilities. Any activity that we do to set goals for the term, the year or the course will help students focus on that. It doesn't even matter if almost subconsciously they learn something different to what they say aloud – what is important is setting a purpose. Imposing our purpose or that of the school is usually less effective unless the students share the purpose. It is their commitment that matters.

Whether our students are ready to learn what we have to teach can depend on factors way outside our control. They may have the academic preparation but whether they have the internal motivation, beliefs, desires and experience to make the most of our classes is unknown to us. Some will, others will fall short, be uninterested, start in a blaze of enthusiasm and then fade out. We are busy complex people living in a complex world and our energy and attention are often attracted in a dozen different directions, a fact which complicates our learning process.

Answer two is perhaps an even honest response to the question and yet the one that may most frustrate teachers and school heads. This is because our education system has been largely structured into packages and syllabi that pretend that in one year XXX will be learnt and that after a certain number of these years a student will graduate as proficient in YYY subjects.

What we can ensure as teachers and administrators is that the material is available as input. Can we guarantee that our students learn it? No. Even if we test it, we know that there can be a gulf between regurgitating information for a standardized exam and actually having the learning incorporated. It is a big challenge and dilemma for modern education. Teach to the exams or teach for lifetime learning. This is because we know deep down, however much different methods claim the contrary, that learning is individual and is not so easily programmed. We know that some people learn on the road to Damascus and have revelations in which everything falls into place. We also know there are people who take driving tests scores of times and still cannot handle the controls of a car despite hundreds of hours of classes. We know that some students pick a concept up with a simple explanation and others can pore over notes and diagrams for months and never show that they have grasped what we want them to. And we know of students who are whiz kids outside school in their own sphere of interest and seem to be brain dead when they sit in our subject. We know that there are learning blocks and moments of inspired flow.

What can we do then?

The first thing is to know that we cannot learn anything for another person. If they can't or don't want to learn they won't. We do know that certain factors help to foster the learning process.

1. Treating all our students as individuals and as unique and appreciating them for their uniqueness.

2. Ensuring that the conditions for learning are favourable – that the students feel safe and comfortable and appreciated as members of the class.

3. Creating an atmosphere of experimentation, play and discovery, which allows us to make mistakes and change our hypotheses. Neutralising the concept of failure is very important here. A concept that is regrettably widespread in many educational systems.

4. Giving students repeated exposure to the material in a variety of forms – that allows intake through the senses (VAK) and for the varied multiple intelligences to be employed. Also important is to give them repeated opportunities to put their learning into practice or test it against what they already know.

5. Helping students to become aware of the process of their learning and not just the content or the goals. This is a particular challenge as our students often focus more on the tests and the results of these than in what is happening to them as they learn. When they become aware of their own learning styles, they possess the tools to influence their learning in any subject and not be dependent on the type of teacher or method of learning they face. As part of this, our feedback and our planning of spaces for them to reflect on the feedback they get from others following their effort are two invaluable contributions for learning.

6. Believing that all our students can learn. Our faith in their potential to learn is fundamental. If we regard them as no hopers, they will prove us right.

7. Being patient. Everyone has their internal times. Some people take months or years to acquire a skill or knowledge that others pick up in hours or days. The difference is that the second group is ready to learn, has the appropriate preparation, motivation and mental programmes that facilitate fast acquisition. Others, for many reasons, need longer, need more practice and exposure, more chances to try out the material. They may progress relatively little in our class because they need the time to consolidate past learning or acquire other skills prior to those we are actually presenting. This is something that our education system often forgets.

We know that as teachers we can be extremely influential in fostering learning. We may also tend to judge ourselves or be judged on external results. But how can we judge externally, the inner processes of mind, body and spirit? We can expect visible results but ultimately the richest reward for a teacher is knowing that a student has fully acquired some new skill or knowledge which will be with them forever.
And that we know seldom takes place from one day to another or in a steady predictable way.

© Resourceful Teaching 2012 Ó, Laura Szmuch and Jamie Duncan 2006

2. NLP Practitioner courses



Practitioner Certificate in NLP for Education



Our next Practitioner Certificate course starts on March 31 and consists of 16 modules to be held on Saturdays on a monthly basis in 2012 and 2013. This first level of training involves between 130 and 150 hours of direct training in the form of practical activities and guided practice. It gives students acquaintance with the methodology and many of the techniques comprising NLP and leads to an internationally recognised certificate as Practitioner of NLP in Education.
The Practitioner certificate with Resourceful Teaching offers you the chance to get an NLP certification and practise your English at the same time!

To enrol or for further information: send a mail to jamiearg@gmail.com or lauraszmuchcapacitaciones@gmail.com

Venue: Versailles, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
Time: One Saturday per month 9.00 – 17.00
Start Date: Saturday March 31
Investment: 380 pesos per module

The course includes written material and a full bibliography and morning and afternoon refreshments. As much as we encourage reading, the real value of NLP is the putting it into practice and our students have constant opportunities to employ what they learn in their daily work and lives.

NB: This course is also being offered in Spanish

3. Calendar of Activities 2012

We are publishing below a list of the main events for Resourceful Teaching for the next few months. As each date gets closer we will give you more information and we will of course be updating the calendar with new dates as they arise.

February 22 2012 Workshop by Laura Learning English with GANAS 18.00 – 21.00, Versailles, CABA. contact lauraszmuch@gmail.com for info.

February 23 2012 Workshop by Jamie Congruency in the Classroom: are you aligned? Time to team up Teacher Development Conference run by International House San Isidro and ITESL, San Isidro/Florida. Contact: http://timetoteamup.blogspot.com/view/classic

March 31 2011 Practitioner Certificate in NLP applied to Education, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The courses in English and Spanish commence on this day.

4. Workshops and Coaching


If you would like a workshop or training in your city or town, please contact us soon as we have only a few dates available on weekends each year.
We can offer you workshops as listed in the website www.resourcefulteaching.com.ar or design something especially for your needs. In English and in Spanish. Please contact jamiearg@gmail.com or lauraszmuch@gmail.com if you are interested.

Laura is also available for Coaching. If you wish to advance in your career or personal life and wish to design a plan of action to do so, why not have a coaching conversation with her. Contact: lauraszmuch@gmail.com

5. Subscribing/Unsubscribing to our e-zines in English and Spanish and an invitation to visit

To subscribe simply send a mail to: rtnews@resourcefulteaching.com.ar with your name and city stating 'subscribe' in the subject box. To unsubscribe, follow the same procedure but write the word 'unsubscribe'. We only send this e-magazine to those who have expressed the desire to subscribe by the above means.


Visit our blog teaching resourcefully – nlp in the classroom
http://teaching-resourcefully.blogspot.com/
In Facebook you can visit our page by writing Resourceful Teaching

RT® Resourceful Teaching is a registered trademark.

Monday 6 February 2012

Introducing our friend...


Introducing our friend: NLP

This article is for those of you who are new to the wonderful three letters.

Let us introduce them to you:

NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming.

This acronym reminds us of the fact that our mind and body are interconnected and that we are responsible for the models of the world we create.
NLP training has two areas of application:

1. How we communicate with others
2. How we communicate with ourselves

It also aims at revealing the underlying structure of excellence. It offers answers to the question of "how" to do things effectively, or rather, how successful people in different fields do what they do wonderfully. It analyses subjective experience, taking into account patterns of behaviour, capability, values, beliefs, mission in life and internal representations of reality.

It offers a learnable technology which can help us improve performance and communication, overcome limitations, achieve goals and confidence in different areas of our lives.

With training in NLP we learn how to get rapport with virtually anybody, how to become flexible in our communication, how to use language effectively. We learn how to deal with conflict on a win-win basis, how to tap our resources (such as confidence, competence, inner peace, motivation, health, abundance, etc.), how to discover our strategies (of excellence, creativity, good memory, etc.), how to work with our beliefs and other levels of growth and learning and how our brains code our subjective experience.

NLP is an eclectic body of thought which is a branch of the Cognitive Sciences and Cognitive Behavioural Psychology. It grew out of General Semantics (Korzybski), Transformational Grammar (Chomsky), Anthropology and Cybernetics (Bateson), Reframing (Watzlawick et al), Family Systems (Virginia Satir), GestaltTherapy(Perls), Medical Hypnosis (Erickson) and several related studies. Its founders were Richard Bandler (a mathematician) and John Grinder (a linguist) who, in the early 70s, set out to discover the "structure of excellence".


Who benefits from the practice of NLP?


Any person who wants to improve the way they live their lives and develop an understanding of how to maximize their potential. Any person who wants to explore new tools and models for communication and learning through high quality training and assessment.


Why have we decided to give birth to a course specially
designed for teachers?


NLP has been successfully applied in different fields such as sales, business, medicine, mental health, law, sports and so on. We believe good teachers and good learning are the answer to many issues in the world we want to live in. Highly prepared teachers, skilful in communication techniques, with very clear beliefs and values, and who have very specific goals to make this world a better place to live in are at the most important leverage point in the quest for positive change.

Our dream is to see professional teachers who know that their role in our society is even more important than what we have been led to believe.

© Laura Szmuch and Jamie Duncan, 2001



What is RT?


The vision of Resourceful Teaching is to see teachers growing and developing with wisdom, maximising their skills as communicators and models of excellence in their field through the application of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). These teachers are committed to using their talents and strengths in helping the world recognise the supreme importance of meaningful education as a birthright of all human beings.

The mission of RT is to provide a structure through which teachers have access to the skills and technology of NLP as applied to education. This includes high quality training and support, materials and information, contacts and networking. Our graduates are empowered with the awareness, choices, communication skills and facilitating beliefs and values to make a real difference in their teaching context.

The strategy of RT has been to create a Practitioner's Certificate and Master Practitioner's Certificate course completely orientated towards practising teachers. It is also to run workshops, shorter courses and other training for teachers. We offer consultancy and information to teachers and to educational institutes. We develop materials and literature applying NLP to the teaching and learning processes.

The structure of RT is to offer training and consultancy in Education in
the following ways:

* General Educational workshops
* Tailor-made on-site workshops responding to special needs of schools
or other educational institutions
* Practitioner Certificate in NLP for Education courses
* Master Practitioner Certificate in NLP for Education courses
* Consultancy upon request
* Electronic mail newsletter
* Free introductory talks
* Participation in major ELT events
* Ongoing access to instruction and trainers
* Networking and a forum for contact both within Argentina and
internationally.
© Laura Szmuch and Jamie Duncan, 2001
Who are we?


Resourceful Teaching was founded by Laura Szmuch and Jamie Duncan. We are Master Practitioners and Trainers in NLP, teachers and have done several post graduate degrees. We have both written books about teaching.


At one point in our careers we felt the need to go further in understanding the learning process. In particular, we paid attention to some important aspects in teaching which were not generally covered, like the delicate chemistry produced by the communication between teacher and student. We began to play with this intuitively and change things in our teaching and we started to read a lot about NLP. We wondered what would happen if we took all these marvellous ideas and technology and used them in education. We realised we had a lot to learn and that there was an amazing world to which we had only just gained entry, so we decided to take a course and learn about it properly.

As we were both very enthusiastic about applying what we had been learning to our classes, we began to try things out, take notes, read, and get books from the US, the UK and New Zealand that were not available here. Above all, we shared everything we were discovering. Individually, we started giving some workshops to friends and colleagues, until the day, when as we were about to finish the Master Practitioner, we organised a study group together. From this group, there were requests or almost 'demands' from our colleagues who wanted something deeper and more structured than just a workshop, to be given in English and dedicated to education and language teaching. At this point we were completing the Trainer training and we realised that we had all the material and ideas in our heads. What was needed was to put it in order and form a course. And our first Practitioner Certificate course in Education started.


The wonderful thing about working with teachers is that we see almost instant results. They tend to have a phenomenal drive and come to us interested in acquiring techniques to help their students learn more easily. Little by little, however, they realise that they are also helping themselves immensely. They become more open and more complete as people and discover that they have resources available to resolve conflicts and communicate more effectively. They see that they possess an enormous treasure in the form of their academic knowledge and training but that however rich this intellectual knowledge may be, it is still not quite enough. Therefore, they acquire tools to transmit learning, not just from the mental perspective. It is incredible to see the difference in their classes when they learn to use their bodies, their voices, aspects of non-verbal and unconscious communication and to value their intuition. They improve their communication with their students, parents of students, colleagues, heads and other staff in a remarkable fashion. And this is because their communication reveals a different point of view, one which has been nourished by NLP.


What most excites us is that they approach us as 'professionals', committed to their work and then they discover themselves as 'people'. They realise that they need to devote time and space to themselves and to the organisation and planning of their lives and careers in a wider perspective. Teachers normally live in a whirlwind of classes, preparation, marking, exams and different groups and undoubtedly this is a situation in which it is easy to lose oneself. The changes that we witness in teachers have to do with finding themselves again and reacquainting
themselves with their subject, their pupils and their lives. Apart from dramatic improvements in their classrooms, they tell us of important changes in their families and with their partners, of new jobs or growth in their institutes, of more useful free time which emerges from better organisation and clear objectives. They also tell of better physical
health and we insist a lot on this point as teachers need strong and flexible bodies, loads of energy and to eat well. Teachers need to set an example for students.



Our mission to make NLP accessible to all teachers in the country, in Latin America and other parts of the world who are interested in improving their work situation and their lives with this powerful tool.


When people complain about the crisis in education, we consider that it is a good idea to teach those who teach. When those who are part of the teaching-learning process know where they are going, what their beliefs and values are and how to find their mission, the crisis becomes a path of opportunities. The huge changes that we are experiencing in the world are an excellent challenge and the better prepared we are and the greater our self-knowledge and our personal and spiritual development, the more chances we have for continued learning and growth in all aspects of our life.


© Laura Szmuch and Jamie Duncan, 2001

Lauraszmuchcapacitaciones@gmail.com
jamiearg@gmail.com

Training in NLP – the Resourceful Teaching Way




For over 13 years, we (Laura Szmuch and Jamie Duncan) have been offering training in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to teachers of English.
We have developed varied and interesting courses and workshops including the 130-hour Practitioner in NLP applied to Education. This course presents all the main topic areas of NLP together with the practical application of these to the classroom. Alongside this, we also cover such aspects of education as: motivation, setting and reaching objectives, discipline, the elements of effective learning, communication with students (and parents), conflict resolution, multisensory presentations and much, much more.

During this period, we have seen our students, who are also our friends and colleagues, grow and develop both in their personal and professional lives and pass on this knowledge in turn to their students and colleagues.
It is with great pride and pleasure that we watch how NLP has become a part of many teacher training programmes and how it is now present in sessions at educational conferences, on training courses and in the Methodology and Didactics syllabi of Teachers’ Colleges.

As we continued to grow and become better known, we also began to give training in Spanish to teachers of different subjects and areas; as well as to a variety of professionals in other fields who were interested in learning more about the novel work we were doing. What started as our dedicated, loving and intensive work with small groups of teachers grew and spread throughout Argentina and to other countries. We have long lost count of the number of people we have given training to in Argentina or abroad, be it through full-length courses, workshops, seminars, conference presentations or online training.

We are deeply committed to quality in education with the professional development of the individual in both her mind and her practice. We are convinced that all of us together can bring about changes and improvements in our field. We believe that education at all its levels will not really change and improve by imposing modifications from above, determined by the Ministry of Education or similar authorities. Education will change as a result of the internal reflective processes of teachers combined with their training in their subject areas. This reflection responds to the teacher’s need to find ways to help the students to learn more effectively and efficiently.
Quality of education and quality of life go hand in hand. Therefore, caring for the teacher at a physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual level is essential. A teacher who is centred and well-prepared internally is the basis for all educational change, whether it be at primary, secondary or university level or in training at the workplace. We know that the networks of support and encouragement we have been generating have assisted many people in the inevitable moments of crisis that today’s world presents us with.

Teachers, like many other professionals today, face constant challenges. Some manage to find strength in the practice of their profession, while others, unfortunately, succumb to a sense of resignation, apathy, frustration or impotence. The tools that NLP offer us together with all the other processes and techniques we have developed in Resourceful Teaching have empowered many people and it is our most sincere wish that this continue to happen.

We are pioneers and leaders in the training of NLP in the field of education and we say this with immense pleasure, satisfaction, humility, and with the conviction that this is part of our vocation. We are happy that all the time, energy and effort we have put into our project has seen it and the students we have taught blossom and thrive in their work and lives.

Practitioner Certificate in NLP for Education

Our next Practitioner Certificate course starts on March 31 and consists of 16 modules to be held on Saturdays on a monthly basis in 2012 and 2013. This first level of training involves between 130 and 150 hours of direct training in the form of practical activities and guided practice. It gives students acquaintance with the methodology and many of the techniques comprising NLP and leads to an internationally recognised certificate as Practitioner of NLP in Education.
The Practitioner certificate with Resourceful Teaching offers you the chance to get an NLP certification and practise your English at the same time!

To enrol or for further information: send a mail to jamiearg@gmail.com or lauraszmuch@gmail.com

Venue: Versailles, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
Time: One Saturday per month 9.00 – 17.00
Start Date: Saturday March 31
Investment: 380 pesos per module


The course includes written material and a full bibliography and morning and afternoon refreshments. As much as we encourage reading, the real value of NLP is the putting it into practice and our students have constant opportunities to employ what they learn in their daily work and lives.

Practitioner's Certificate - Course Outline

Modules:
1. Becoming aware of ourselves and the way we communicate
What is NLP? The Presuppositions of NLP. The big picture and the resources we have inside. Mind and body. Nutrition and the brain. Hemispherology. Communication – verbal and non verbal. Process and content. Rapport. Calibrating. Pacing. Leading. Logical levels.

2. How to engage the subconscious mind
V.A.K. and representational systems. Preferred learning channels. Eye Patterns. Remembered and Constucted experiences. Variety and difference in classes.

3. Precision Language
Language as the generator of actions and results. Surface structure and Deep structure. Deletion. Distortion. Generalisation. The metamodel of language. Questions to obtain complete and high quality information. Filters. Precision language. Affirmations.

4. Anchors
Anchors. Functional and dysfunctional anchors. Unconscious anchors. Spontaneous anchors. Spatial anchors. Contextualisation in the field of education. Installing anchors. How to call on resources when required. Group bonding. Magic moments. Introduction to submodalities. Programming motivation.

5. Discovering inner resources
Submodalities and how to work with them in relation to feelings, moods and physiology. Visualisations. How to transform undesirable states into resources. Stress relief techniques. The physiology of success. The submodalities of achievement.

6. Being aware of our students’ inner worlds and responding to their mental programmes
Association and dissociation. Sorting styles or metaprogrammes. Filters of choice and communication. People. Information. Place. Time. Things. Activity. Self-Others.

7. Perceptual Positions and Motivation
1º,2º,3º, and 4º position. Goal setting and successful outcomes. Well-formed questionnaire.

8. Conflict resolution
Techniques to detect and resolve symptoms, conflicts and obstacles which appear in people and organisations. Finding the Positive Intention. Internal and external conflict. Win-win model. Theory of constraints. Congruence.

9. Strategies
Forms we use to organise thought and behaviour in order to achieve an objective. Disney strategy. Detecting individual strategies. Applying strategies. Use in learning. R.O.L.E. model

10. Achieving continued growth
Generative technique to go from an unsatisfactory present state to a desirable future state. New Behaviour Generator. Theory of chaos. Theory of attractors. Resistance to change. Sorting Styles – the second layer: General-Specific. Internal-External. Towards Objectives-Away from Problems. Matcher-Mismatcher. Same-Different. Past/Present/Future Time orientation. Procedure-Options

11. Gaining deeper awareness and understanding
The fine points of non-verbal pacing. The Wall. Making new meaning of a symptom, behaviour or conflict. Positive intention as an agent of change.

12. Verbal magic
Reframing of content and context. Metaphors. The ontology of language. Introduction to beliefs

13. State Management
Convincer Patterns. Stacking and Collapsing Anchors. Protection and boundaries. Being congruent and aligned as a teacher.

14. Integrating the changes
Contextualisation of course material. Application to classroom practice. Feedback. The classroom as a system and as part of a system. Peak experiences and flow. Sponsorship. Future pacing.

15. and 16. Evaluation modules
Lesson plan. Conflict resolution. Practical techniques.

Each module lasts 8 hours

Dates for 2012

Module 1 - March 31
Module 2 - April 21
Module 3 - May 26
Module 4 - June 23
Module 5 - July 7
Module 6 - September 1
Module 7 - October 6
Module 8 - November 10