Miss Powell’s Blog

Wow, what another empowering workshop in relation to the importance of student welfare in our education system. It was a wonderful day, filled with hands on games and activities that kept me awake and engaged for the entire time. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wilson is an inspirational man with an amazing ability to use games to develop resilience strategies for our chilren. Wilson and his wife believe that games are the way we learn without the consequences of reality. The games are created with the purpose of children becoming considerate of themselves, each other and the world in which they live with sound and good reasons for the things they say and do.

In the first workshop the focus was on developing self-soothing strategies, building a community and raising awareness of strong and weak choices. This workshop we moved to the next stage of developing empathy within our children. Wilson believes that for us to succeed in this goal, children need to feel a sense of connection to other people. When they are connected they are intune with the other person. The games that we focused on allowed this to happen through having opportunities to use the sense of trust, memory, effective verbal and non-verbal communication and having a more challenging environment where teamwork was essential to succeed.

The other major focus for this workshop was the necessity of you to pay attention to detail when children are playing the games. Your children will develop more strategies through your reflection on the games, as you are the observer and they are the participant. We also focused on the language in which you use in the games in order for them to accept responsibility and learn from the experiences. Wilson highlighted the importance of asking quick one answer questions to a child when they have made a weak choice. This avoids lack of concentration and allows them to take responsibilty. Following are some examples:

1. Is that the right thing or wrong thing to do?

“We do the right thing because the right thing is the best thing to do.”

2. Are you having a strong moment or a weak moment?

“It takes great strength to be sensible.”

3. Are you ready to be your own boss or are you inviting me to be your boss?

“Though often we must, of necessity make chidren do the right things, we should never lose sight of the need to raise children who make themesleves do the right thing, even when they don’t want to.”

4. Are you running away from the problem or are you dealing with it?

“Problems, much like monsters, are only satisfied when they have devoured you. Give them no such satisfaction. Tackle them head on and refuse to be eaten. Stare them in the eye, understand them for what they are, and with courage battle them until they are defeated. With success, will come greater strength. With greater strength will come the confidence to beat even larger monsters.”

5. Am I trying to help you or hurt you?

“Wise adults accept that the feelings of children are sometimes hurt when the help given was needed but not wanted.”

6. Are your feelings in charge of your actions or is your thinking in charge? Are you a master or victim of your feelings?

“Feelings like nothing more than to take charge of actions. Don’t let them. They are, and are meant to be, the servants of thought. As servants they rreward our lices with a multitude of experiences. As masters they lead us to ruin.”

All of these questions link to one another and make the children think about their actions. I also believe that as teachers, we should be asking ourselves these questions when we may react to some situations in our classroom. Megan and myself use this language consistently within our classroom and it works amazingly, especially with the boys. They really relate to wanting to be their own master.

Deb has several resources in the library and if anyone wanted a hand with getting started, I would be more than happy to go through it with you.