Cinema Therapy and “The Movie Making Process”©

                                    Dorothy Halla-Poe, Ph.D.

                    (Published by Children of The New Earth Magazine, April 2008)

Do movies really make a difference in our lives?  Yes, of course they do, because as human beings, we learn from what we see. Even when the experience is vicarious and we are only imagining ourselves in a role, movies affect us because of the combined impact of music, dialogue, lighting, camera angles, and sound effects that enable a film to bypass our ordinary defensive censors

(Fischoff, Stuart, 2006). 

We can become emotionally receptive and energized by an uplifting message, or we can become desensitized to violent behavior. But, like no other medium before it, the popular movie presents the potential of a new power for therapeutic success.  It is up to us to see that potential and use it creatively and well.

Cinema Therapy is a tool for assessment.  While many adults benefit from talking about problems, thoughts, dreams, or emotions in psychotherapy, most children and adolescents find it more difficult to express such feelings.  A young child’s response to movies can help a therapist to understand the child’s personality, concerns, interests or current problems. In a child’s choice of movies, we can find clues to their working role models…ideal self-images, internal resources, potential goals, perceived obstacles, degrees of imagination and creativity, and their overall philosophy of life.  Cinema Therapy allows children to express feelings that may be too threatening to express directly.

Films can also be used to get to the bottom of difficult issues.  Films provide a common ground for discussions about problems related to family, friendship, school, anxiety, self-esteem or love.  Issues can be addressed in relation to an outside element, and seeing how an individual in a movie handles a situation can offer children ideas how to deal with a problem in their own lives.  Key scenes, watched over and over, can become the basis for practicing new skills.  Many films enable children and adolescents to envision how their own problems might be solved when characters demonstrate behavior change.

Many films, like dreams, are full of metaphors and symbols that affect us on a deep level (Gordon, 1978).  Carl Jung said; “As the mind explores the symbol, it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason” (Jung, 1964).  Metaphors and symbols stimulate bi-lateral thinking and creativity; creating a bridge to the subconscious and bypass normal ego defenses often found in traditional therapeutic approaches.

“Myths and stories can help people place their own personal story and the stories of others into the proper context.  All myths and stories have a villain, and tell great tales of a journey upon which a hero must embark.  Likewise, young people are on a journey of the heart and soul” (D’Ambrosio, 2006).  “Moviemaking can be considered the contemporary form of mythmaking, reflecting our response to ourselves and the mysteries and wonders of our existence” (Voytilla, 1999).  Movies can have a powerful effect on children and adolescents because they speak directly to their heart and spirit, avoiding the resistance of the conscious mind. (Wolz, B. 2005)

Cinema Therapy can offer insight, role models, and options for more positive behaviors, but its limit is in its vicarious nature.  We are watching, perhaps internalizing, but we are not necessarily doing.  Unless a child actively and consciously engages in behavior change, Cinema Therapy lacks the element of experiential learning. 

While Cinema Therapy becomes a tool for assessment, “The Movie Making Process”© becomes the concrete tool for behavior change. This is experiential learning at its best, because it is creative and requires the child or adolescent to actively participate in its creation by becoming self-aware. (Feldenkrais, M. 1985)  The child becomes the “hero” in his own movie and actively engages in his own “journey” toward adulthood.  In essence, the child now becomes his own teacher and is learning from him or herself as he watches his movie, again and again.  He is “becoming” the behavior he admires and is solving his own problems as he acts out his part.

“The Movie Making Process”© begins with the problem to be addressed, then turns its focus to the desired outcome.  The movie becomes the hero’s journey toward resolving the issue and demonstrating more positive behavior.  If the issue is “bullying” the focus of the movie is on “kindness”, the hero learns through his movie experience how this feels, how it looks and how it affects others.  The movie is often based on a myth or story from antiquity, but our “hero” is the child.

“The Movie Making Process”© uses the techniques of gorilla filming, which is basically just using what we have.  This can be in the child’s own home, backyard, neighborhood park or the school playground.  It’s the creative process of choosing a theme and gathering, or creating, the props that make the movie “a movie”.

Children and adolescents love creating their own costumes and their costumes represent the “hero” they wish to become.

The movie is filmed as a silent movie, using gestures and expressions.  This is an important part of child development, to learn and recognize the subtleties of human feelings, acted out non-verbally in facial expressions and physical postures.  This also allows any child to participate.  It is not necessary to learn and memorize lines, merely to act out the part, expressing emotion through physical expression. (Greenspan, S. 1992)

The movie is often filmed through “reflection”.  The child is “looking back” on something in his past, perhaps an incident that has caused emotional pain, to himself or others.  The movie is the “journey” through the emotional pain to resolution, and a happy ending.  The movie always ends with resolution and hope.  The “journey” is completed and the hero is more aware, more skilled and can now see the incident in a new perspective. 

Narration is added after the movie is edited.  The narration is the storyline that tells the tale of the hero looking at his past, overcoming obstacles, learning new behaviors, seeing new perspectives, and coming to be more than he was before.

Music is added to the completed movie.  Music that is meaningful to the child or adolescent is best and is intended to create the emotional feelings that are important to behavior change.  (Gardner, H. 1993) We must feel inspired to change behavior, and we must feel hopeful.  Music can take us to those heights. While using copyrighted music is a very serious issue these days, there are always musicians in every community who want their music to be heard and used. There is also a lot of “royalty free” music on the Web.

It is important for the child’s completed movie to be “Premiered” with as much fanfare as possible.  Inviting family and friends to see the completed movie is an important element in creating new behavior.  Usually, children and adolescents like watching their movie, over and over.  This strengthens the new learning and each viewing reinforces that learning. (Schwartz, B., and Begley, S. 2002) Now the child is learning from the movie he created.  He is learning that he can be his own “hero” and can journey through the difficulties of life with awareness, skills and hope.  He is no longer just viewing, he is participating and that is the great power of experiential learning. (Feldenkrais, M. 1949)

                                                          REFERENCES

D' Ambrosio, Jay (2006). Rethinking Adolescence: Using Story to Navigate Life's Uncharted Years. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Feldenkrais, M. (1949) Body and Mature Behavior, ALEF, Ltd. Tel-Aviv

Feldenkrais, M. (1985) The Potent Self, Harper and Row, New York, NY

Fischoff, Stuart (2006). From Script to Score: How Film Talents Manipulate our Emotions. Unpublished manuscript

Gardner, Howard (1993). Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York: Basic Books.

Gordon, David (1978). Therapeutic Metaphors. Capitola, CA: Meta Publications.

Greenspan, S. I. (2004). The 6 Stages of Self-Esteem. Scholastic Parent and Child, 12 (1), 58–59.

Jung, Carl G. (1927). The Structure of the Psyche. Coll. Works Vol. 8. Presented in “The Portable Jung”, edited by Joseph Campbell. New York: Penguin Books.

Jung, Carl G. (1964). Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell.

Schwartz, J., and Begley, S. (2002) The Mind and The Brain, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY

Voytilla, Stuart (1999). Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions.

Wolz, Birgit (2005). E-Motion Picture Magic: A Movie Lover’s Guide to Healing and Transformation. Centennial, Colorado: Glenbridge.

The Movie Making Process®

Dorothy Halla-Poe M.A., M.S., Ph.D.

             Linda Flanders, CEO, Feldenkrais Practitioner

(Originally published and presented at the PISTA Conference 2004) International Association of Politics and Information Systems Technology

                      Technology in the Service of Human Development

The Movie Making Process® incorporates the requirements of human development with the best of modern digital technology.  Technology today is advancing and spreading at lighting speed; faster all the time and into all areas of our lives.  Equipment that once was obsolete two years ago is now obsolete within 6 months. This plays havoc with the economy as agencies try to find new financial footing.

Humanity is reeling from the physical effects of technology as well.  Normal human development does not happen at lightening speed; it is a timed and sequenced process that requires human interaction, behavioral learning, and real experiences; if we are to learn the full spectrum of emotion and mature into healthy and happy adults.  In times past, the way we lived our lives incorporated human interaction. Technology has now changed the way we live.  Pushed too rapidly, human development becomes distorted or retarded, and goes awry. 

While we continue to crave new and faster technology, as physical beings, we also feel the physical effects of getting what we want.  We are becoming isolated and narrow in focus, perpetuating a narrow, superficial, and isolated existence.  Human beings were not meant to live in this way. The human spirit needs to be nourished and replenished with work, play, friendship and love.  At the core of us, we are emotionally and physically interactive beings.

Our electronic media and game culture bombards the current world with mass reproduction and reproducibility that can fool the human eye.  Reality can become distorted; what’s real and what’s not real?  The word, simulacrum means an unreal or superficial likeness; a copy without the original. Simulation is a way to practice for a real event, but the simulation itself is a controlled event lacking real life consequences. Photographs, TV, video games, advertising, special effects, and computers are part of our electronic media, offering images so realistically created or altered, they can appear real, even when they are not.  This inability to differentiate the real from the not real causes us to question our reality and we begin to mistrust our own perceptions.  We begin to believe that nothing is real.  This leads to feelings of apathy, hopelessness, and, ultimately, anarchy.  If nothing is real, then nothing really matters.  We become as robotic as our technological inventions, and just as cold and unfeeling.  This is death to a human spirit that requires the warmth of human connection, touch and trust as its foundation.  And, the human spirit will not go quietly into the night; it will not vanish without a fight. It will express itself in some way. This need for human expression is where we can become vulnerable to various forms of addictive behaviors.

A basic knowledge of human development is needed to understand the fundamental nature of the gap that has been created by our technological advancements. Our experiences from birth to age five set in place the neurological foundations upon which future learning depends: self-awareness, self-regulation, communication skills, personal relationships and the ability to learn from cause and effect.  When one of these core developmental processes is not successfully navigated, it alters the ability to learn, evolve and mature. As human beings, we respond to and grow from being held, talked to, read to, listening to music, and interactive play; pleasurable physical experiences with others.  Without these foundations we regress; into human beings with no self-awareness, no self-control, unable to communicate our ideas, needs or desires to others, difficulty making or keeping relationships, and not aware of what is wrong, we are unable to learn from our mistakes.

Evolved human “thinking skills” need to be developed, analyzed and evaluated. Trying to interpret false images at a young and vulnerable age increases the difficulty in separating real and not real. As modern technology requires our cognitive self to speed up, the rest of our nervous system lags behind.  This ultimately becomes ‘a bridge too far’ and we create a split within ourselves; pitting technical being against human being: a brain without a body; intellect without emotion.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Technology can enhance the human world, but technology can also enhance the human being. What is needed are new ways to integrate technology with basic human needs and use that technology in the service of human development.

It is through the human developmental stage of “pretend play” and using the “movie making process”, that a creative alliance and innovative solution can be found between the world of human needs and the age of technology.

The “Movie Making Processâ” is a simultaneous learning and teaching tool that incorporates human development with the best of today’s digital technology. Brain, body, awareness and emotions, merge through a shared and meaningful experience with others.  This “shared and meaningful experience with others” is something human beings are hard-wired to need. Without it, there is an emptiness within that needs and desires to be filled. This desire will not go away until it is filled. Digital cameras and editing technology become the tools we use to create. Real life presentations expand this experience on a local level, and the Internet becomes the wormhole we slip through to share what we create on a worldwide scale.

The “Movie Making Processâ” was developed to retrace fundamental early childhood developmental stages, address alternative learning styles, as well as visual perceptual differences, and teach new, behavioral skills quickly through the power of neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to be re-wired. It does this through the tools of technology, self- awareness and play.

In the Movie-Making Processâ” acting is used as a source of age appropriate “play.” Pretend play is one of the developmental stages of early childhood, but the ability “to play” is needed throughout life; it is a human need.  Play leaves the essence of reality intact; it is based on an actual physical experience that is shared with others.  While simulacrum threatens to blur the difference between the “real” and “not real”, and simulation offers an imitation of an experience, pretend play incorporates mind and body through a shared sensory experience that teaches the subtleties of human actions and reactions—basic essentials of our humanness. It offers an experience to learn from and build upon.

There are three distinct elements to the “Movie Making Processâ”. Initial art-based lessons take the “theme” the movie will address and breaks it down into 3-4 abstract concepts; focusing on the definition of these words required for total comprehension.  These art-based lessons teach from the perspective of an overview; the ability to see the larger picture and the relationships of parts to the whole.  Using art, and physically creating these words and their definitions, it is possible for almost everyone to conceptualize the meaning, regardless of age or learning ability.  Developmentally, this process takes advantage of the natural order of learning which must incorporate an interactive personal experience with another, that combines visual-spatial activities and involves touching, feeling or exploring objects. It begins the filling of the emptiness.

The “theme” of the movie may be any issue that needs to be addressed, or subject that needs to be learned, yet it must also have a functional goal; a link that addresses, “how can I use this information to make my life better?”  Whatever the “theme” may be, it is within the shared experience of those participating and it is the experience that reconnects brain, body and awareness through active participation. 

The filming of the movie provides the framework in which to plug in another early developmental stage in an age-appropriate way.  Participants do not use dialogue; they use gestures and expressions to convey a message.  This is one of the earliest human developmental needs, initially learned from the gestures and expressions of parents or primary caregivers.  The reading of subtle body language is the foundation for learning the limits and boundaries of behavior.

Filming uses only one camera and one director/filmmaker. It is the participants who must develop certain “human” skills in order for the movie to flow with continuity and look more like a “movie” than simply action being recorded. Participants learn “to freeze” while the camera is

moved and the lens refocused to show another perspective. Learning how to “freeze” for the camera teaches the basics of self-control. Participants must learn and use self-awareness to regulate themselves “from the inside out.” The need for self-control is obvious: without it, when human behavior becomes uncontrollable; a danger to others, or ourselves, we will be controlled by others. Teaching self-control through the use of “freeze”, within the context of play, bypassing resistance to behavioral change.

The filming of the movie is often done in “out of sequence” parts, so the magic of editing technology now comes into play.  The edited version of the “movie” creates something far more wonderful than anything the participants could have imagined.  They see themselves larger than life, acting in a different way. Narration is added that contains the message the movie is intended to convey.  More sophisticated language can be used within the narration, for it is added to the solid foundation of true comprehension and experience.  

The final, magical touch, to the “Movie Making Processâ” is the musical score that runs through the movie.  Music is vibration and the combination of musical tones has always been able to inspire and move the human spirit.  In listening, we are emotionally moved, and through that process we become more than what we are.  The whole movie experience is now part of us; in our mind, our emotions, our body, and our spirit; aware, alive, and enhanced.

Several presentations of the finished “movie” are essential, and use the power of the media arts in a positive and pro-active way.  As participants present their creation to others; talking about their experience, what and how they created it, it is possible to bring a larger group into the experience and once again share a meaningful interaction, simply in a different way. Eventually, as digital technology expands and movie theatres acquire the universal ability to show digital movies, everyday people and community groups can become stars in their own lives; seeing themselves, literally, larger than life and learning from themselves, over and over.

At its core, the “Movie Making Processâ” is differentiation; simply taking an issue as it is; learning to do it differently with a productive and positive ending and gaining the awareness to perceive the differences.

As digital cameras get smaller, they offer the ability to be used with very young children, within classrooms, therapeutic learning environments and community groups, without being obtrusive. As they evolve in quality, they offer more clarity, more lighting corrections and more internal movement possibilities; getting closer and closer to the “look” of 35mm film. As digital cameras and editing equipment become more economical, they allow for their use by families, public education, community groups, faith-based groups, service agencies, even underdeveloped and economically disadvantaged countries.

As all-purpose, home entertainment devices invade and capture mainstream living rooms, the neighborhood “Premiere” is only a step away. The Internet, with its variable and expanding forms of distribution, allows for global presentations of local creative projects; entertaining and educating at the same time. Ideas are community property and free access to information is meant to be a matter of principle. Instead of being isolated by the use of technology, technology can be used to reconnect humanity as “communities” engaged in productive and pro-active use of the media arts.

The “Movie Making Processâ” was developed by Taproot, Inc., in Bay City, Wisconsin, an independent educational initiative.  Over the past seven years, Taproot has developed this process as a media and art-based learning and teaching tool.  Taproot also creates scripts and templates for these projects to be replicated by other communities.

This process has been used successfully with children who have complex learning difficulties or exhibit atypical behavior.  It allows for the creative and diplomatic progress of technology and humanity; incorporating the developmental needs of human beings and the very best that technology has to offer; each urging the other to continually evolve and challenging one another for excellence. Its potential uses are unlimited; allowing humanity and technology to co-evolve, creatively bringing out the best in one another.

“Movies are the highest popular art of our times,

and art has the ability to change lives”

                                                                                    Stephen King

                                                           Bibliography:

Your Child’s Growing Mind; A Practical Guide to Brain Development.

Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice; Howard Gardner, New York: Basic Books. 1993

The Gift of Dyslexia; Ron Davis, New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group, 1994

The Potent Self; Moshe Feldenkrais, New York: Harper and Row, 1985

The Mind and The Brain, Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., and Sharon Begley, HarperCollins Books, 2002

Virus of Violence, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Killology Research Group, Jonesboro, AK, 2006

Out of Control, Kevin Kelly, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Perseus Books, 1994

                              The Ability to Reason

                           By Dorothy Hala-Poe, M.A., M.S., Ph.D.

                                                  Published by Children of The New Earth Magazine

                                                   And The National Center For School Engagement

Humanity was given many incredible gifts besides the ability to walk upright and have opposing thumbs.  We were given creativity, curiosity, inspiration and a cerebral cortex that contains over 100 billion neurons to allow us to reason our way through the vagaries of our daily lives.  While creativity, curiosity and inspiration can spontaneously emerge or be called upon when confronting a new project, reason is a skill that must be learned.

To access those millions of neurons just waiting to assist us in dealing with problems, adversity, or just simply getting through the day, we need to think.  This may sound simple, but the reality is that often we don’t.

Far too often, we act on our emotions without giving forethought to the consequences of our emotional behavior.  This is particularly true in childhood and the early teen years when emotions, preferences, likes and dislikes, hold supremacy in our lives.  Unfortunately, wisdom and reason don’t necessarily emerge with experience or age.  How often have all of us repeated the same patterns of behavior hoping there would finally be a different outcome, only to realize we’re just living the same darn thing over and over.  So, where are those 100 billion neurons when we need them? 

The problem is that while human beings have the ability to think, plan and learn from mistakes, these are skills that must be taught.  They are “abstract concepts” and must become concrete before they can be used in real life.  The Ability to Reason is literally,

“the use of the cognitive mental powers needed to think, reflect, make decisions, work and apply ‘choice’”. 

To think means we have to use our body and brain together.  The brain thinks, but doesn’t feel or move.  The body can move and feel, but it doesn’t think. Thinking is literally to “have a conscious mind, to use one’s mind rationally in evaluating any given situation; recognizing that situations are always changing”.  To think requires paying attention to our environment, evaluating a situation, and deciding our course of action.  It actually requires some self-awareness and taking the time to evaluate our situation before we; spout off to someone else in anger, buy that new toy we really can’t afford, or go to a late movie when we haven’t finished our homework. Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?

However, if we don’t develop this skill, we will spend our lives at the mercy of our own emotions and we literally victimize ourselves.  That doesn’t sound like much fun either!

To reflect literally means to look back upon something that already happened. This allows us to learn from our mistakes, “boy, won’t do that one again”, learn from our successes “wow, that was great” and gives us the ability to think backwards.  Thinking backwards teaches the developmental skill of understanding Past, Present, and Future.

When we don’t reflect, we are living in a continually existing present and we aren’t growing or evolving into what we can become.  We’re limiting ourselves and our own vast potential for achievement, happiness, and purpose.

To make decisions literally means the act of making up one’s mind. This is an action word: Think—then Do.  To make decisions we must have possibilities to choose from, or  be able to imagine different possibilities and their potential outcomes. When we act only on our emotions, we are not making decisions.  We are simply acting on our feelings with no thought to the consequences. Some consequences may not be very important, but sometimes they can be really bad.  And we get to live with them! Imaging different possibilities, or choosing from existing possibilities is the gateway to the cerebral cortex and allows us to expand our horizons, develop new neural pathways, and exert control over ourselves.  It allows us to direct our own path in life.

To work literally is the amount of energy one has to put out to do something.  It’s important to understand the amount of work, or energy, we will need to pursue a dream, interest or goal.  It’s not just going to come to us magically, but the universe does work with a directed mind, so to pursue our goal with intention and commitment will give us the impetus we need to succeed.  We also have to determine how much work we’re willing to put into a goal, whether we have the skills necessary to achieve that goal, and just how committed we are toward making that goal a reality.  This requires thought, reflection, choosing our direction, and then just going for it!  We can really do what we want if we really want to do it.  Our future is our own choice.

Choice is the act of making a selection.  We must literally have a minimum of three options before we truly have choice.  When we can see only “one way” to do or experience anything, we’re thinking with a compulsive mindset.  When it’s “this” or “that”, we’re thinking concretely. Choice must involve a third possibility and we must choose the one that makes the most sense at the time.  This also allows us access to those 100 billion neurons in the cerebral cortex which will help us become very, very smart.

It will also keep us out of a lot of potential trouble, because we are choosing how we want to live.  That’s a good life.

The Ability to Reason Class

The Ability to Reason requires the use of the cognitive powers needed to think, reflect,

make decisions, work, and have choice, but these are abstract concepts and have to  fully understood before they can be used in everyday life.

In our own work, we use or Play-doh and crayons as the learning medium.  The class is divided into two segments during which these 5 abstract concepts are learned.  Three concepts are covered in the first class along with information about how the brain is formed.  The second class is a review of the first three concepts and the addition of two new concepts.

These lessons include:

·         The exact definition of the word (Webster’s Dictionary)

·         Clay symbols representing the definition

·         A simple sentence to illustrate the definition

Students roll out Play-doh or clay ropes and spell out the word being defined.  For example, think.  Students use clay to create a symbolic definition for the concept,

“Brain + Body = Think”.  Finally students use colored pencils to write out the sentence

“My brain and body need to work together for me to think”.  Students are requested to use their non-dominant hand or to write the sentence in a different way from their usual writing. 

All of these concept lessons are based on the latest scientific information about the power of paying attention.  The class is designed to:

·         Enhance human connectedness,

·         Create a learning experience that incorporates developmental levels of thinking and doing,

·         Allows learning to come from a variety of learning styles,

·         Builds on the ability to “pay attention”, as a requirement for new learning.

We have since added a simple card game to start off the class.  Each student is given 5 cards to illustrate that this is how we come into life; a mixture of heredity and environment that we have no control over.  It happened to us.  What we can do is to develop our talents and skills to become something more than the sum of our parts.

We encourage students to keep what’s good in their hand.  Those are their talents and abilities.  We encourage students to share with others what they don’t need, but that another student might use.  And, we encourage them to accept from others what is offered that may increase the value of their own hand.  This is an experience in collaboration where everyone comes out ahead.

As long as students have complied with the instructions and have made the words out of clay, symbolically represented them in clay, and written a simple sentence to define the concept, we know that they have now learned the Ability to Reason.  It is now up to each student to use free choice and make their own decisions.  However, decisions can now be based on reason, and not just pure emotion.  “Think first—then Do”.

The Ability to Reason class was initially created for county probation looking for an innovative approach for first-time offenders in the Criminal Justice System.  Many of these young people were smart, some gifted and some learning disabled.  What they all had in common were similar responses to the question; “What was the reason for your behavior that resulted in your arrest?”  The responses included; “I don’t know, “I felt like it”, or, “I wasn’t thinking”.

All of these answers were both accurate and illuminating; they hadn’t paid any attention to their actions.  Some just acted on an ill-defined impulse. Some did feel some emotion and acted on that specific impulse with no forethought of consequences; and some didn’t think at all before they acted, just a spontaneous reaction to some event.  What was lacking in these answers was the concept of “Reason”; these kids just didn’t “Think” the situation through before they acted, and their actions caused negative consequences for themselves and their families.  More importantly, these kids still didn’t have the skills to do something different when a similar situation arose.  That was the key.  These kids just didn’t have the skills to reason through their behavior before they acted on it.  They needed to understand the abstract concept of reason, define its elements, and learn how to use these concepts in a concrete and constructive way.  

The class has since grown to include more learning disabled students and other offenders who have been in the criminal justice system but for whom probation has no answer. The class is considered a successful program.  Over the past 18 months, there has been an 89% non-recidivism rate. Training and curriculum are now offered and many school Social Workers, Special Ed and EBD teachers have taken the class.

While human beings have an incredible capacity to think, plan and learn from mistakes, these are skills that must be taught, and do not simply emerge as workable concepts as a child grows.  These are skills that must be developed, but first kids need to understand the abstract concepts that are the basis for the “Ability to Reason”.  That is what this class teaches. 

                                                               References

Armstrong, T., 1994, Multiple Intelligences In The Classroom, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, VA

Burger, E., and Starbird, M., The Heart of Mathematics: An Invitation to Effective Thinking, 2005, Key College Publishing, Emeryville, CA

Costello, R. (Editor in Chief) 1991, Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, Random House, New York, NY

Davis, Ron, 1997, The Gift of Learning, Berkley Publishing Group, Berkeley, CA

Feldenkrais, M., 1985, The Potent Self, Harper and Row, New York, NY

Gardner, H. 2006, Changing Minds, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA

Gelb, M. 1998, How To Think Like Leonardo DaVinci, Random House, Inc., New York, NY

Sapolsky, R., 2005, Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, The Teaching Company, Chantilly, VA

Schwartz, J., and Begley, S., 2002, The Mind and The Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, HarperCollins, New York, NY