to handle others, use your heart.’ (1)
Eleanor Roosevelt
In this chapter
Choose success ahead of time
Be ready for any challenge
Control the variables in the class
Drive your own neurology
Optimise your pleasure in teaching
Have you ever enthusiastically spent time and energy preparing lesson plans and resources, hand-outs, presentations, interactive resources, etc. then started your class and as the students arrived discovered they just weren’t in the mood, were disruptive, or not joining in, despite your best efforts? When a class goes well, we bounce out of the room feeling great. If not, we may end the lesson feeling drained of energy and despondent that all our efforts seem to have been wasted.
Teenagers in particular have an uncanny knack of pressing our ‘crumple buttons’. Parents, other teachers and managers may also affect our mood, however unintentionally. The question is, if other people can impact or change your state, who is in charge of how you feel and what you think? Perhaps, until now, you haven’t considered deciding which state would be most useful in a forthcoming class ahead of time. And even if you have thought this through, how successful were you in creating and maintaining your ideal state? Imagine that you can build a better strategy, one that takes care of itself, freeing you from feeling impacted by others around you, leaving you free to focus entirely on the best brain states of your learners.
Remember, in Chapter 3 we defined the NLP term ‘State’ as the total on-going mental, emotional and physical conditions a person experiences at a given moment in time. In short, this is what you remember, what you imagine is going to happen, and what you hear inside your head and feel in your body.
A major factor in using NLP for excellent teaching is the ability to take account of and manage as many as possible of the variables involved in the process of learning. We wonder why teachers are not taught to view the management of their own state as one such variable.
When you think about planning your state ‘ahead of time’, it may sound fanciful, yet people already do this. If a teacher wakes up on a rainy day and thinks about how awful their group was the previous day, then makes a picture of himself failing to teach well today, saying to himself, ‘it’s going to be worse than yesterday’ , it’s not a good idea to imagine what feelings are created! Most people resonate with that scenario, and that’s a good thing, because if you can do that, you can begin to consider what other states you can choose, practise and take with you into your class.
Take the example of a teacher who wakes up and changes her mind – literally – and does whatever is necessary in order to make feeling good a priority. She imagines the class going well, remembers the time when she taught brilliantly and everything was easy, makes the picture really bright, and says to herself, ‘this is going to be such fun’ . Imagine the feelings she has created for herself now.
All that is required is a decision to take control, not of what you think, but how you think. You could make a gloomy picture brighter and more colourful, or the sound of the voice in your head softer. NLP enables people to be exceptionally good at these skills, giving you the opportunity to play with your own state, driving your own brain and neurology to deliberately decide to be in the best state possible for teaching.
Equally, we can all learn to maintain our state in the face of provocation and adversity. Imagine going into work full of the joys of spring and feeling wonderful, then you walk into the staff room and encounter a grumpy person. You say ‘good morning!’ in your joyful tonality and he says, ‘is it? Yeah, right!’ How do you feel? If this grumpy person manages to change the way you’re feeling, the important question is - who is in control of your state?
If your students or other staff can change your state and have you feeling stressed and reactive, then they are in charge of your state. Basically, the person with the most stable and powerful state wins out - so make it yours!
Many people feel they are subject to the vagaries of external forces in determining their state of mind and mood. But the reality is that their state is often habituated and not something they actively and consciously pay attention to. Some people will say, ‘I can’t help it – it’s the way I am’ , because they haven’t yet experienced good state management. This isn’t a very helpful belief and so it is time to change it.
Consider the situation Nigel found himself in. As a Hairdressing tutor in a large college, Nigel taught the same programme each week, to two different groups. Most of the variables were the same - group size, age and demographic, subject matter, scheme of work, lesson plan, activities, etc. However, one group he described as his ‘Angels’ and the other group as his ‘Devils’. He said it didn’t matter what he did - one group was responsive, happy and eager, and the other group was difficult, challenging and unresponsive.
Nigel chose to work on this problem as part of his NLP Practitioner training. On the fourth day of the training he had a revelation, suddenly announcing, ‘I realise that when I think about or talk about my ‘Angels’ I smile and feel good, and when I do the same about my ‘Devils’ I frown and feel bad’ . He determined to use his new-found NLP skills to convince himself, as he was going in to teach his ‘Devils’, that they were really his ‘Angels’. Nigel planned this carefully and practised beforehand. He imagined the group, happy and smiling, attentive and enthusiastic. He imagined hearing himself teaching and the group responding with enthusiasm. He paid attention to the good feeling this gave him and intensified the good feeling by spinning it so that it spread throughout his body. He entered the classroom in this state and kept the good feeling going, whatever was actually happening in the room. It took just 20 minutes for the ‘Devils’ to ‘miraculously’ transform themselves into another group of ‘Angels’.
What changes first? You do!
Nigel chose his ‘state’ and his response in relation to this group. He also demonstrates the fundamental attitudes of NLP that include tenacity, determination and creativity to find the variable that makes the difference. It’s reasonable to assume that there was some history in the situation between Nigel and his groups, which led to the point where Nigel developed the unpleasant feelings towards one group. However, in NLP we don’t need the ‘back story’ or an understanding of the history behind a situation. The circumstances that lead to a situation don’t contribute usefully to the process required to get out of it. Nigel simply determined to try everything he could to bring about change, and once he determined which variable would make the biggest difference, he kept going until he very quickly had two fantastic groups of students.
In summary, the goals Nigel achieved were:
To engage comfortably with both groups, so as to teach efficiently and effectively
To decide what was within his control and gather the necessary resources within him
To rehearse the acquired skills until he was unconsciously competent and behaving automatically in the way he chose
To believe it was possible and imagine the result by running the movie of his success in full Technicolor and quadraphonic sound
To be clear that the goal would benefit everyone concerned
Of course no one can or would want to live in a constant, full-on exciting state of deep joy at all times. Sad and bad things do happen and it wouldn’t be human to feel happy during such times. The important thing is not to dwell on the sad times and to take control of our state the rest of the time. We can be really specific about creating the perfect state at any moment. We may want to be in a state of relaxed alertness or comfortable contentment - any combination we choose - what’s important is to learn how to do it, enjoy doing it and know how to create really great states in others. Later, we will consider how to create states in others, but for now how would you like to be in the best state possible?
Let’s take a moment to consider what is happening in our brains and bodies when we are in a particular state. Most people underst
and that thinking takes place in the brain and that connections are made through the neural pathways . The chemicals that our bodies create, such as Serotonin, Oxytocin, Dopamine and Endorphin, act as neural transmitters, ensuring our brains work optimally and we feel good.(2)
What many people don’t realise is that we have another system in our gut, which impacts on our thoughts and feelings. This is known as the enteric nervous system. Just like the neurons in our brain, the neurons in our bodies send and receive impulses, record experiences, and respond to emotions. The body’s nerve cells are bathed and influenced by the same neurotransmitters . The gut can upset the brain just as the brain can upset the gut, and the gut can create feelings of wellbeing just as easily. It’s easy to see why it is often referred to as ‘the other brain’.(3)
In the early days of NLP, the neurochemical processes could not be verified because we didn’t have the benefit of technology such as MRI scans to study these influences. Now we know more and can utilise this knowledge to create exquisite states that bathe your whole neurology in good feelings, especially through processes recently developed by Richard known as Neuro-Hypnotic Repatterning® (NHR ). Think about designing the perfect cocktail – take a dash of playfulness, a measure of calm, and a squeeze of excitement. There are numerous NLP techniques for creating great states; however here we introduce you to this NHR process, which we can explore with the help of Denise.
Denise is a lovely lady and a very enthusiastic teacher. She bubbled with confidence when working with children, but was moving into teaching other teachers and was extremely nervous. By using NHR she was helped to develop an exquisite state to support her in her new life. Asked what 3 feelings would be most useful for her in this new situation, she said she wanted to have a feeling of acceptance, a feeling of excitement, and a feeling of coolness. This last one was because when she got flustered she often had a hot flush which led her to feeling more flustered, and she would spiral into imagining what others were thinking instead of concentrating on what she was doing and noticing the responses she was getting.
Denise has now learned to take each feeling in turn, first finding a time when she felt completely accepted and loved, and building that feeling so it courses through her body, She notices which way the feeling moves in her body so she can spin the feeling faster in that direction to intensify the feeling. As she pays more and more attention to that good feeling it becomes really strong and powerful. She mixes this feeling with the next feeling of being excited to create a new and brilliantly good state. Denise then imagines standing on top of a mountain in a wonderful cool breeze with a river running below, amplifies that feeling and mixes it with the feelings of acceptance and excitement. She gives herself a word and a colour to re-access the feeling whenever she wants it.
Creating an entirely new state is different from re-accessing an existing state - Denise stood in her own pillar of power, and that evening she discovered for herself how powerful the technique is and was instantly convinced to study NLP to become a better teacher and also learn how to optimise other people’s brain states for learning.
The anchoring process Denise used is explored in the next chapter.
Of course, the same principles that apply in the classroom apply to teachers outside the classroom. If as a teacher you don›t have any control over your state you can become stressed and either burn out or become numb to the process and cease to enjoy it. If you are stuck in a system where you have to do things rigidly by the rules of others, or you are under time pressure, you can prepare yourself for the challenges. Instead of running yourself down and becoming frustrated, you can accelerate yourself so you become more motivated, and make it so that having limited time becomes an asset rather than a liability.
Teachers often say, ‘I have to teach 30 students, and that’s too many’ . We believe that you can teach 1,000 people if you’re in the right state. If you free up your time by giving kids the acquisition skills and installing in them the enthusiasm, there is no limit to what you can achieve. People can be enthusiastic about all sorts of things that may seem strange to others - stamp collecting, knitting, pottery or politics, for example. We don’t know how politicians get excited about any of the things they have to vote for, but they do and enthusiasm isn›t in limited supply in human beings. It only becomes depleted if you are not in the right state of consciousness.
Learning to go inside yourself and access great feelings, spin those feelings and attach them where you need to is a skill that teachers especially need. Above and beyond everything else, the school system puts teachers on an uphill climb. It›s not having 30 kids that is the problem, it’s having 30 kids and having nothing that makes you feel excited. When you have control over your own state, you can pay attention to what is really important, and that’s being a great teacher
summary
In this chapter you have learned the fundamentals of creating great states for yourself, so you can begin to take control of your thoughts and feelings, think on purpose and lay the foundations for helping your students to be in the best states for learning. You have been introduced to the powerful technology of Neuro-Hypnotic Repatterning® (NHR) to enable you to easily and effortlessly create exquisite states in your teaching and in your life generally. Now it’s time to spread the good feelings to your learners!
references
1. Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
2, Carey, Joseph, ed.1993 Brain Facts, A Primer on the Brain and the Nervous System. Washington,
DC: Society for Neuroscience,
3. Emma Young, 2012, Gut instincts: The secrets of your second brain New Scientist issue 2895
activities
Activity 1
Some people don’t realise how they can take charge of their states of consciousness. They believe that their moods, feelings and thoughts happen to them, not the other way around! We want you to realise that you are in charge of your brain. You do not have a ‘monkey mind’, as the Buddhists call it. You have the ability to choose your responses. So take a pen and paper and take a few moments to make some notes on two contrasting situations. First, think about the last time you had a challenging group or lesson: Now compare each question for each situation and notice the differences. Look for the 2 questions where the differences are the greatest and imagine going through the challenging lesson with the state from the great lesson. How different does it feel?
What were you seeing with your real eyes?
What were you seeing in your imagination?
What were you hearing on the outside?
What were you hearing on the inside of
your head?
Name the feeling you had
Where was the feeling in your body?
Which way did the feeling move and where to?
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Activity 2
Now it’s cocktail time, so take a few moments to relax and follow the process below:
Decide which 3 states would be really good for you to build into your neurology in preparation for teaching a class (or any other situation you choose).
Choose words that are powerful and stated in the positive. For example, rather than thinking about ‘being not nervous or not interested’, use positive words like ‘being calm and curious’. Our brains go where they are sent and can process positive instructions (e.g., being calm) much faster than having to negate the thing you don’t want (e.g., being not nervous), so it makes sense to take the shortest route to the best result.
3. Remember a time when you felt this feeling absolutely and see what you saw, hear what you heard, and notice where the feeling is and in which direction it moves. Now begin to spin the feeling in a way that intensifies the feeling. Once you feel this, continue to spin the feeling faster and more fully as it radiates throughout your body.
4. Repeat with the second, and then the third feeling and have them mix together, just like Denise did, to create a new feeling cocktail.
5. Give this n
ew mixture an anchor. This is a strong association, such as a name, symbol, colour or sensation. So this time squeeze your thumb and index figure together to create your own anchor. When you do this at the same time as feeling your new state, each time you repeat or fire off the anchor the wonderful new feeling comes straight back to you.
6. Have your mind’s eye imagine yourself going through a lesson in this brilliant new state and notice the likely responses from those around you.
7. Take your mind off this for a while and make a cup of tea or catch up on emails.
8. Now test your anchor by squeezing your thumb and index finger together and feel really good just because you can!
Extension Activity
Next time you go into class, fire off your anchor by squeezing your finger and thumb together and see how you can take the wonderful feeling into class with you.
This eBook is licensed to Dominic Luzi, [email protected] on 10/18/2018
chapter 11
Winning your class over
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‘Education is not the filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire’. (1)
William Butler Yeats
In this chapter
Discover the secret of super-fast rapport
Create powerful learning states with your students
Control the variables in the classroom
Learn how to anchor great learning states
Chain states together to lead students into resourceful learning states The other day, Anne, a highly experienced retired primary school teacher said, ‘In over 35 years of teaching I never once asked my class, ‘do you want to learn something today?’ There are many ways to gain commitment and engage learners in learning and asking this question isn’t one of them! If one child didn’t want to participate, I would spend all night thinking of different strategies to engage him/her in learning tomorrow.’
Teaching Excellence Page 15