Learning Through Crisis

1. Learning Through Crisis Laura Graves July 11, 2008 EDFS 377

2. The Conflict Cycle • Thinking patterns trigger stress • Stress triggers feelings & anxiety • Feelings drive behavior • Inappropriate behavior incites others’ behaviors

3. Personal put-down Failure to do something correctly Failure with friends Ridicule Scapegoating Being left out Infringement of rights Failure of justice Deprivation of a valued object or opportunity Confusion Boredom Confinement Not understanding what is expected Threats of harm Expectations beyond capacity School Stress-Producing Situations Fecser, F.A., Long, N.J., & Wood, M.M. (2001). Life Space Crisis Intervention: Talking With Students In Conflict (2nd ed.). Austin, Texas: ProEd. (pp. 28-29).

4. (p.33)

5. Developmental Anxieties • Abandonment • Inadequacy • Guilt • Conflict • Identity Figure 3.1 (p. 41)

6. Three Levels of Decoding Behavior • Acknowledging • Surface Interpretation • Secondary Interpretation

7. Styles of Influence • Motivation • Relationships • Shared Skills • Consequences

8. The Existential Crisis • Preexistential Phase • The Existential Crisis • The Postexistential Phase

9. Development of Values • Personal Needs • Adult Approval • Fairness • Responsibility for Self • Responsibility for Others

10. “By using LSCI, the adult conveys to a student that: (a) problems can be solved, (b) the student has an advocate in the adult, (c) the adult sees the good qualities in the student, (d) the student has the skills to solve the crisis, and (e) even though the student must exercise restraint, he or she is still a valued individual” (p. 80)

11. Six LSCI Stages

12. Emotional First Aid • Drain off emotional intensity • Support a student engulfed in intense emotion • Maintain communication when relationships are breaking down • Regulate social behavior • Act as umpire

13. Potential Pitfalls • Beginning LSCI when a student isn’t ready • Getting off subject • Allowing an adversarial climate to develop • Reflecting negatives • Permitting a student to seduce you into counter aggression • Treating complex feelings in trivial ways

14. More Potential Pitfalls • Failing to build LSCI dialogue from a student’s responses • Invading a student’s private space • Injecting personal comments about yourself • Allowing students to reverse roles with you • Failing to state the central issue simply and concisely • Jumping to solutions prematurely • Failing to consider negative solutions and consequences

15. LSCI or Zull

16. Where did it come from? • “…it is hard to make meaning unless it engages our emotions.” • Zull p. 166 • “…emotion seems to be the mortar that holds things together.” • Zull p. 8 • “Adults can teach students to recognize connections among their own feelings, behaviors and reactions of others.” • LSCI p. 44 • “The main task for the teacher is to help the learner find connections.” • Zull p. 242 • “Flooding emotions distort reality perceptions and dominate behavior.” • LSCI p. 123

17. What about these quotes? • “When adults continually use strategies that are threatening, as opposed to giving students choice with reality consequences, students are left in a powerless position.” • LSCI p.59 • “…we still find that we defeat learning when we take it away from the learner, when we make it about us rather than about them.” • Zull p. 242 • “To a large extent, experience has been the teacher.” • LSCI p. 111 • “Aggression elicits aggression.” • LSCI p. 35 • “…cycle builds on itself.” • LSCI p. 29

18. Additional Resources • http://www.lsci.org • http://www.reclaiming.com • http://www.pepcleve.org/index.html • http://www.uvm.edu/~cdci/best/?Page=lscidescription.htm