An Adventure in Choice Theory

         Over the last 12 months my life has changed for the better in many  ways. I appreciate that I am responsible for the changes, in that the choices I made during this time came from an assessment of my quality world as well as appreciating how my perceptions and sensory images had skewed into thinking I was one animal, when in fact, I had morphed into something different.  This article will begin a journey that I am taking with the real appreciation of the risks involved. My survival need is trumping my need for power, in the achievement sense of that concept. Thus, what follows is an attempt to chronicle my journey toward health.

            I have been involved with Choice Theory since it was Control Theory. I am a true believer. I know it works. I have a perceptual filter in my brain that has precluded me from really climbing the mountain of recapturing my health, however. Therapists might call it unworthiness. Religious people may term it the unacceptance of grace. For the last ten years, I have called it ‘excuse’. It worked real well.

            My organized behavior was more concerned with destroying the health that I had originally worked hard to achieve. To look at me at age 56, you would not believe that I’ve run 13 marathons and more halves than I can count.  How does any of this relate to an adventure in Choice Theory?

            I know the concepts. I get the ideas. I  have an iPhone picture with Dr. Bill that was taken at my certification week. Still not convinced? How many of you have an autographed copy of Choice Theory on your bookshelves?

I am certified, although according to my wife, I am certified nuts.  As I am walking my way through my Practicum Supervisor training, I am questioning my further continuation in the process. Are you beginning to see the picture?

            I have begun a quest to recapture lower blood pressure and BMI. To do this, I have chosen an experimental model of weight loss and health understanding that uses Choice Theory as its basis with mindfulness training as thought control.

            My process relates to total behavior in that I am meditating and using mindfulness in order to reorganize my behaviors around eating and exercising. I am appreciating the times when I have the sense of not wanting to exercise, or eat appropriately, in terms of what needs are being fulfilled during those “right now” moments. In a sense, I am more intimately allowing the front wheels of my car to steer me in a direction that is useful and pleasing.

            As I work through each day,  I try to have awareness of the perceptual filters confronting me in regards to my speech and behavior. The resulting questions are twofold in nature. “Is this behavior working right now?” “Is what you are saying to yourself about yourself what you really see if you looked at a photograph of yourself? Right now.”

            As the scales balance, I am choosing behaviors that are more aligned with the Quality World pictures I hold.  The questions turn; “Is this behavior bringing me closer to the people I love?” and “How does my present behavior match the picture in my Quality World?”

            Part of the experimental model consists of a constructed framework taken from the Realty Therapy techniques. This is a needs assessment checklist that accounts for filtering and processing. It feels good, too!

The accountability checklist relates to how I  meet my Quality World pictures through healthful lifestyle changes. This enables me to control, to the extent I can, my thoughts and emotions, and to recognize the times when my real world behavior does not match the attitudes of my perceived world.

The mindfulness piece  points me toward physical awareness of when my needs are being met and when I am most happy. Essentially, the question becomes “When do you feel best?” How do you know you are feeling well? Where, in your body, do you experience this ‘wellness’ feeling?

How has this concept impacted my life after seven days? I have become aware of present level behaviors and thoughts. I have stopped self-defeating talk around energy and possibility. I have begun a process of living in the present while being aware that habits take 28-42 days to develop.

There are readers who may question the use of writing to “advertise” a return to health journey. Thank you for that. The honest response is that writing about the process is three pronged. First, the caring habits of supporting, trusting and encouraging are being utilized to check their validity when an individual uses them on themselves. Secondly, relationship destruction is being lessened because criticizing and blaming are not highlighted. Finally, to anyone person reading this article, you may find there hope.

We’ll see where the journey leads. Right now I have a need to go work out, even though a half pound of good chocolate sounds better.

Peace be with you

Mike Rospenda

miqwaa@gmail.com

http://abundantoldsoul.hubpages.com/

           

           

An Open Letter to President Obama by Charlotte Wellen

As a National Board Certified teacher, with 34 years of teaching in American public schools and international schools in four different countries,  I have a lot of questions to raise about value-added assessments of teachers.  For instance, how many teachers are still in top-down management situations, so that they are afraid for their jobs, or afraid of losing respect from administration for a low evaluation?  How many teachers get a chance to have input into how the systems of their schools are working and to suggest changes and transformations?  How many teachers get time to work together in teams to improve instruction, to share ideas, to learn from one another's mistakes and successes?

In my experience, the answers to these questions are often that teachers are afraid of their administration's evaluations.  They do not get input into how the system works in the school.  They rarely have time to share with their colleagues in a non-threatening environment.  They suffer from fear and become anxious if there is a problem in one of their classes.  They are reluctant to admit problems exist because they worry that it will hurt their administration's assessment of their skills as teachers.

These fears indicate what Dr. William Glasser calls a "system problem."  This means that the problems in the system are not due to individuals who are not doing their jobs.  He believes that 95% of all problems are with the system that has been set up and that those problems can be fixed when the individuals involved begin to work together as teams to transform the system so that it alleviates problems instead of adding to them.

I teach in a Glasser Quality Public High School where we do not have these system problems.  Teachers are not assessed from the top down.  We are not in fear of our jobs.  We suggest at the beginning of the year the places we want support in our ongoing personal education as educators and we are given that support, without judgment.  In fact, asking for that support, for that input from our colleagues, demonstrates our caring for the work that we're accomplishing together.  When there is a problem in one of our classrooms, teachers do not have to fear for their jobs.  They can simply request help.  We consider that that is a professional way to handle the inevitable problems that are bound to arise in any classroom.

For instance, at Murray, if there is a problem with a class of students getting along with each other, or with the teacher, any member of the class, including students (who we consider to be teammates as well)can request a class mediation.  This means that a mediator (usually me, but could be several other trained staff members) will schedule a time to come to the class.  All class members are asked to respectfully list what is working in the classroom.  We all agree to come up with at least one thing that is working.  Once this list is made, usually, tensions subside immediately.  It's almost as if, because of the struggles going on in the room, everyone had forgotten there were great things happening, too.  Next, the mediator asks for suggestions to improve the way class is being run, or students/teachers are behaving in class.  These suggestions also need to be told in a respectful way, using what Dr. Glasser calls "Connecting Behaviors" or behaviors that tend to bring people closer together, like negotiating, sharing, listening, trusting, respecting.

When this list of suggestions is made, the mediator helps the students and teachers choose a few of them to focus on for two weeks.  A written plan is made to give specific things that will be done differently because of the mediation and descriptions of how life in the classroom will be if this plan is working.  This plan is posted in the room and in two weeks the mediator comes back to see if life is better for everyone.  If not, a new mediation is scheduled and a private conversation is organized with the teacher, the mediator, and the teachers' mentors or anyone else the teacher feels would be helpful to add to the teacher's strategies for handling the class so that they feel happier and the students feel happier. 

At a Glasser Quality School, we would not at all believe that because of these conflicts, a teacher is to be assessed as lacking.  We would appreciate it that a teacher cared enough, that the kids cared enough to want to have a happy class where everyone is having fun learning together.  That's our goal.  That's why we have the highest scores in our county on state-mandated testing, with an at-risk population, and with a large percentage (capped out at 40%) of special education students.

Our teachers are not afraid.  They are relaxed and feel supported by a professional environment that is based on the idea that we are all in a very tough job, but together, we can succeed and help our students remember that they love to learn and are smart enough to graduate and go on to college.

We believe that any teacher assessment method that frightens teachers, that comes from top-down management, that is related to whether or not a teacher gets to keep his/her job, or that divides teachers so they hunker down in their classrooms, is a large part of the problem, a SYSTEM problem, not a solution in any way.

So, if we, at Murray, received the statistics that value-added assessment will give, we would rejoice to get the information.  We would not then add it to some teacher's evaluation.  We would sit down as a PLC (professional learning community) and figure out if our system needs some tinkering so that our students do better year after year.  That's part of our system, that tinkering.  It isn't directed at individual teachers, because that would shut down the conversation, but tinkering is directed toward the system and how it can be improved so that we are all evolving and learning, both students and teachers.

At a Glasser Quality school, all students and teachers agree to accomplish at least one quality product each year.  A quality product is some work that we've done from joy and intellectual, artistic, and/or scientific excitement. No one has to tell us to keep working on it.  No one has to tell us it isn't good enough yet.  We KNOW when it's done because we WANT it to be as close to perfect as we're capable of making it.  We carry it around to share with others because we're so proud of it.  We believe that quality products cannot be achieved at all in an atmosphere of fear.

Teachers need to feel supported, relaxed, and happy in order to grow in their practices, in order to be open to try new things.  If errors are punished in some way, many teachers will often choose all the "safe, traditional" methodologies and will be far less wiling to explore or expand their thought.

President Obama and Secretary Duncan, I believe  would be well-advised, from our research and experience, to improve the SYSTEMS of America's schools and how teachers and students are treated in the schools.  Once respect and professionalism, and even love, are in place, then there will be no need at all for value-added assessment.  Value-added statistics will be welcomed as the professional staff supports each other in the quest for excellence because there will be no fear attached to the statistics, only a professional eagerness to have the data necessary to improve the system for everyone.  Students and parents, too, will be happy to have the value-added information so that they, also, can take ownership of how they are learning, so they are part of the system that leads to success as well.

Do We Really Have Meaningful Choices in Our Relationships by Charlotte Wellen

 Recently, in talking with a friend who is beginning to study Choice Theory, he mentioned that he wasn’t sure we really had meaningful choices because the people in our relationships are doing things and we have feelings as a result of their actions. He felt that we were somehow trapped in our relationships and raised the question, “Is our only choice to accept what they say and do, or to leave the relationship?”

I believe that he has put his finger on an essential misunderstanding of Choice Theory that most people run into when learning it. I know I did. In fact, I went into the office and quit my teaching job at Murray High School after the first two months because I was stuck in that misunderstanding.  Happily, I learned more Choice Theory, and I’m still at Murray, 23 years later.

The first axiom of Choice Theory is, “The only behavior we can control is our own.” Most of us believe that we are making some choices in our lives, but we feel that we are being controlled by many people around us and that there is little we can do about that. We feel trapped, we feel like the victims of the choices others are making. This is an understandable first interpretation of axiom #1.

It is certainly a fact that others are attempting to control us and we are often attempting to control them, but according to Dr. Glasser, we are not successful. No one can control our choices.

We can't control the choices of the people around us, either. This means that we are all on a planet with others who are doing whatever they want. We are dealing all day long with what others are choosing to do. Their choices are impacting our lives in important ways. This includes the people we love. We aren't in charge of them, either, and they aren't in charge of us.

When they do something that impacts us, we are not trapped by that choice, however.   We get to make choices about how we're going to handle what they’ve done, how we're going to feel about it, even if we’re going to stay in the relationship. However, we don’t get to choose what THEY do. We only get to choose what WE do. Like the example of the dirty kitchen in my previous blog entry, I can’t choose whether or not my husband leaves the dirty dishes in the kitchen. I can choose, however, whether I want to clean the kitchen and whether I want to feel angry with my husband or not.

We definitely feel an initial “jab” of emotion before we have a chance to really think about what we want. But when we learn Choice Theory, Reality Therapy, and Lead Management, we see that we can slow down that moment, that jab of emotion, and wait before we lash out at someone.

We can think through what is going on, what the other person is probably trying to accomplish by what s/he did, and what we really truly want out of the situation. We can slow our responses down so far that we can think through how we want to answer, what the most likely results will be if we answer in certain ways, and if we want to deal with those results.

For instance, if we feel hurt by something our beloved says to us, we can decide to slow down that moment and think through the feeling. We could just say, "You horrible person! You hurt me! How could you? What kind of person would do what you did? What's the matter with you? I hate you!"

OR we could say, "I'm feeling hurt by what you just said/did. I really value our relationship and I don't want to damage it, so would you please tell me what you want here? What led you to talk to me that way? Did I do something to upset you? If so, I'd like to apologize and clear the air so we can start over. I'd like us to have a great day together, if we can organize it. What can we do to straighten this out?"

I think it's pretty obvious that the first response, which is all too common in most relationships, is what Dr. Glasser calls a “disconnecting” comment. It will bring about more conflict because it's filled with judgment and even personal insults. It's creating more things that will need to be worked out to get back to a normal feeling between you.

Whereas, the second comment lets the person know that you value them, that you are hurt, but you’re trying to take care of the relationship and to listen to what the issues are without judgment. Clearly, that response is MUCH more likely to end up with two loving people when the smoke clears.

Recently, my husband and I have developed a technique when one of us snipes at the other for no good reason, just because we didn't take the time necessary to think through a loving response and just gave ourselves permission to jump on the other one with anger or frustration. We say, "Let's just pretend that never happened."

It sounds funny, in a way, like a joke, but that sentence lets the other person know that we are taking responsibility for having just acted in a way that could hurt the relationship and that we don't really have a good reason for doing it and that we would like to wipe the slate clean and start over with a good heart.

So far, every time one of us has thought to say, “Let’s just pretend that never happened,” the problem is over. We smile in acknowledgment of our humanity, and we move on, without hard feelings. It works quite well, actually. And if one of us wasn't willing to just "pretend it never happened," then we could stop and work it out.

If we learn enough Choice Theory we will be able to see that we are not victims of one another’s bull-headedness.  We can work hard to choose behaviors that will protect our relationships, not hurt them.  If we feel that our friends or family members have made a choice that is hurtful, we can remember that if we do the same in return, the relationship suffers.  We can work to learn better methods of talking together, like Dr. Glasser’s Solving Circle, that help us get through our initial desires to make a revengeful, power-over comment.  Instead, if we can remember to make a comment that clarifies our needs, without hurting the relationship, we will feel a rush that truly meets our power needs.  This rush will be based on the knowledge that we are strong enough to get what we want in our Quality Worlds, a long-lasting, supportive relationship with a person who matters to us.

Charlotte Wellen, Murray High School Teacher, Basic Intensive Instructor

wellen1@earthlink.net                   Comments Welcomed!

Excerpt from Choice Theory with Addicted Populations by Mike Rice

Substance addictions consist of three stages:

Sociological:  Few, if anyone, start out drinking or using alone.  It begins as a social thing where inhibitions are lowered and a sense of euphoria is acquired.  If drugs or alcohol didn’t do this, no one would even want to use them.  Laughter and a sense of pleasure begin to override cares, concerns, and the concern of what others might think of them. 

Psychological:  During the sociological stage, it is also discovered that drinking/using causes unwanted thoughts and emotions to dissolve.  It’s no different than taking an aspirin for a headache or putting on a sweater or coat if cold.  Drinking/using quickly develops into a way of coping with frustration and unwanted emotions.  Substance use creates a sense of pleasure.  This pleasure is mistaken for happiness with the difference being:  Happiness is not as intense as pleasure but it lasts much longer.  Pleasure is more intense than happiness but doesn’t last long.  Therefore, the behavior must be repeated in order to continue the sensation.  We call that “Addiction.”  Also, pleasure is attained without the involvement of anyone else.  Happiness will always require a meaningful relationship with one or more people in one’s life.

Biochemical (and physical):  This is the last stage of developing addiction.  Simply stated, substance addictions are the result of ingesting or introducing addictive substances into the body over a period of time. Eventually the body's cells quit fighting the substance’s prevalence in the body and begin to change their cellular structure to accept and function with the substance. This is when it becomes biochemically a physical addiction. When the addict/alcoholic goes for any period of depravation, the cells react in a way that causes the person to experience several forms of physical and psychological withdrawal effects, some of which can lead to death.

To date, there has been no one gene that been identified that is attributed to alcoholism or drug addiction. Several claims have been made over the years but none of them have ever been proven to be a factor in addiction.  Genes are taking the rap for a lot of behaviors that are no more than learned behaviors. "Well, both his father and grandfather were alcoholics so it must be genetic." A statement made purely subjectively with no proof of any genetic factor. If his father and grandfather were both alcoholics, he learned to cope and behave with unwanted emotions the same way they did . . . by drinking. Not only are alcohol or drugs in one's Quality World, they are also in one’s behavior system as tools to deal with their unhappiness.

Using and drinking does provide for the five basic needs but in maladaptive and paradoxical ways:

Survival: An addict/alcoholic feels they cannot possibly survive without their drug of choice. Without it, they feel sick to the point of wanting to die, (and often take their own lives or die from alcohol or drug related organ damage). No addict or alcoholic has the wherewithal to be an addict or alcoholic without the help of others. They survive by relying on others to provide their physical and addictive needs.

Love & Belonging: The use of drugs and alcohol tend to drive all of the important people away from the addict/alcoholic. To compensate for this loss, the addict/alcoholic begins to rely on his drug or alcohol as his/her sweetheart. They actually have a love relationship with their drug of choice and they begin to associate with those things that don't talk back . . . alcohol, drugs, television, newspapers, pets. What they want and need most to be happy is actually being destroyed by their behavior resultant from substance use.

Power: They have lost the respect of others and the only Power they feel they have left is the power to continue to use drugs or drink and say NO to the need for help. Admitting they need help for their addiction would take away the only power they feel they have left. This is why they put up such a fight in interventions and when told by others they need help. They feel they have power over their addiction but feel powerless to control it. They tend to say they can quit on their own, but if this were true, they would have quit a long time ago.

This false sense of Power is also what led to their addiction. They believed that they could drink or use here and there and if and when it began to be a problem, they would stop. The problem, however, is noticed by others long before the addict or alcoholic recognizes it. Even after obvious addiction, they fail to see it as an addiction.

Freedom: Since they no longer have important people in their life, they rationalize that they don't need anyone and can do whatever they want to do especially drink or use drugs. They no longer have employment and have co-dependent others who will give them what they need so why work? Paradoxically, they often end up in jail or prison.

Fun: Their initial use of drugs or alcohol may have been fun at first. But over time, hangovers, incarceration, withdrawals, sickness, and pain are no longer fun. Yet they will continue to use because they feel normal when drinking or using but ill when they don't.  Fun appears to be the only need their addictive use no longer meets.

All of this information, and more, can be found in my latest book, Choice Theory with Addicted Populations, with foreword by Dr. William Glasser and is available on www.amazon.com under Mike Rice, Choice Theory in the search area, or via my web site: www.Mike-Rice.com.

Teenagers: Anger and Violence by Charlotte Wellen

What Do You Do When Your Teen Won’t Stop Using Anger and Violence

in a Reasonable Amount of Time?

A parent has written to ask, "What else is there to be done if a person doesn't want to stop being violent?" This can best be illustrated with another story.

 A few years ago, a young lady (I'll call her Ruby), had a drug issue and one day she came to school under the influence of some drug or other that she had taken the night before. She normally had a good relationship with me. She was in her 1st Period English class and I called her to the Choices room because she had blown up in an aggressive way the day before and had been referred for a mediation with a teaching assistant.

 When she came into the choices room, I said, "Welcome, Ruby! How are you today?" She answered calmly, rationally, in a friendly way, until I said, "You've been invited to a mediation with Ms. ___ . Are you ready for that today?" At that point, she began to resist, vociferously! "I will NOT EVER mediate with her!!! She deserved the anger I threw at her!!!! She had an attitude toward me and I'm never ever going to apologize or straighten it out. I'm going to talk to her as mean as I want every time I see her from now on. I HATE her! I HATE her!" It was like she had turned on a stream of anger and hate and she had jumped right into the middle of it. She was suddenly unwilling to listen to me at all. She would not calm herself down.

 After a few minutes of watching her revving herself up and piling fuel on her anger fire, I told her that if she couldn't calm herself down in a few minutes, I was going to need to have her go home and return tomorrow with a parent so we could make a plan together. At this, Ruby decided to interpret me as attacking her, no matter how calm I was. She stood up and said, "I'm going back to my English class now!" I said, "I'm sorry, Ruby, but you're too upset to go to your English class. I'm going to need you to stay up here until you're able to talk calmly to me."

 In her more rational moments, she would definitely have listened to me and begun to calm down. But my best guess is that under the influence of the drug, she was finding it challenging to tone down the emotion. She raced out of the office and down the hallway and we had to have teachers lock their rooms as she ranted and raved. I ended up calling the police to remove her for disorderly conduct, but she left on her own accord before they could arrive.

 Two days later, she returned to school and did a remarkable mediation with me, taking full ownership of her behavior and planning with me various ways to help herself learn to calm down. She told me, "I have been wrecking my entire life with this level of anger and you are the calmest person I know. Even you had to resort to calling the police to deal with me. I REALLY don't want the police in my life. I'm afraid of myself sometimes. I'm afraid my own mother and siblings are going to throw me out if I put out this much anger. It scares them, too. My boyfriend has threatened to leave me if I show this kind of anger around him again."

 So, after we had mended the relationship and after she had reassured me she was ready to return to classes, we planned out some things she could do if she felt extraordinary anger again (such as say, "Please don't talk to me right now. I need to go calm myself down somewhere alone and dark." or "I would like to have the HeartMath machine to practice calming myself down. I'll come back to talk to you when I've gotten the lights to go all green."). I agreed to remind her of those options and to get out of her way to allow her to put them into practice. She agreed not to take the anger out into the school, so that I would feel inclined to call the police.

 We never had a single other problem over the next 8 months before her graduation. I believe that she did frighten herself at how far she was willing to encourage her anger, even given someone urging her to calm down, someone she trusted. And once she was able to make a plan, she realized that the anger wasn't "having her," but that she was choosing it and that she didn't really WANT to choose it at school again, so she didn't. Once or twice, she asked to use the HeartMath machine, but other than that, she remained more or less a model student through graduation, even including a very stressful last week of school in which she was racing to complete several challenging projects to at least a B level, in time to walk across the stage. She ended up working late into the night just before graduation, and stayed calm throughout (and very proud of her efforts, too).

 I believe that our relationship was maintained because I remained calm in the face of her hurricane. She was able to best her own furious anger because she wanted to rise to the challenge my calmness placed before her. She wanted to be proud of herself and I think she wanted me to be proud of her efforts, too. If I had given in to my own inclinations of yelling back when attacked, I believe that it would have seriously damaged our relationship. I would have shown myself to be untrustworthy in an important way, someone she couldn't show this anger to safely. Still, that didn't mean that she wanted to continue to show the anger. It seems that once was enough for her to learn that it was really not a monster inside of her that she couldn't control. She wasn't a victim of the anger, but was choosing it herself and could choose not to indulge in it, as well, which felt much better. This is a life lesson and I felt honored to be there to watch it taking place.

Choice Theory and Spirituality Q/A by Rhon V. Carleton

Question: "I was wondering how the bible compares to choice theory
especially when you have verses in proverbs that say he who spares the
rod hates his son and also what does choice theory say about demon
possession and the spiritual world? Also, when the bible talks about all have sinned and fall short of God's glory and that we need to be saved. How does choice theory view these things?"

Answer:  Let me first mention that I have been associated with Dr.
Glasser and the WGI for 35 years. The comments I will share are my
understanding of Dr. Glasser's take on these topics. Dr. Glasser has
deliberately stayed away from couching choice theory and reality therapy within the context of any world religious view.  He seeks to offer his theory of how the human brain works
to choose behaviors based upon his observations, study and conclusions which
will apply equally to persons of all faiths, races, cultures and
nationalities. I was drawn to the study of CT/RT when I came to realize that this is the
closest secular system to a biblical understanding of human behavior. In
theological terms, I believe that Dr. Glasser has received his sincular,
unsurpassed understanding through "general revelation" which God gives to
all people.There is a biblical reference in Romans 1: 20 which reads: "For
since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities---his eternal
power and divine nature---have been clearly seen being understood from what
has been made,..." Dr. Glasser has used general revelation in
uncovering the way our brains work to chose need-fulfilling behaviors
to get what we want the most now.

CT would agree that every human being has a basic need for freedom
(mankind's nature is that he/she is free to choose). Each person chooses to
place pictures that he/she believes to be most need fulfilling in his
Quality World. This would include pictures of systems of faith and
morality. We may choose to include pictures of God, religion and references
to child discipline in our Quality World. You mentioned the verse that
speaks of "he who spares the rod hates his son." Many are raised by parents
who practiced physical discipline in nurturing children. "No pain, no
gain!" Choice Theory defers to the procedures of reality therapy in having
adults and children alike self-evaluate their behavior and make better
choices. The only time I heard Dr. Glasser advocate spanking is when the
young child may be choosing a life threatening behavior such as running in
front of moving cars. There has been a children's made-up game called
"Yikes!" where a child deliberately runs in front of a moving car. This
would be such an incidence when spanking may be in order.

You also mentioned, "what does CT say about demon possession and thespiritual world?" I referred to placing pictures of our spiritual beliefsin our quality world. They are sometimes harder to take out of our quality world than to put them in. Pictures of our beliefs about demon possession will also be placed in our quality world when we see them as need-fulfilling. CT does not have a statement of belief concerning
theological positions of demon possession or any other specific religious
doctrines. Instead, if a person chooses one or more of the seven deadly
habits, we help them self-evaluate the consequences of such behaviors and to
choose to replace them with the seven caring habits (see Matthew 7:1-2,
Romans 2:1, John 12:47-48 and Luke 6:38).*

Your last observation was, "... when the bible talks about 'all have sinned
and fallen short of God's glory' and that we need to be saved, how does
choice theory view these things? Both CT and Judaeo-Christian faith believe
that mankind was created good. The Judaeo-Christian belief is that mankind
was tempted and chose through freedom to go against God's perfect will. In
CT the origin of temptation comes through our creative reorganization
process that pops pictures of need fulfilling alternative behaviors without
regard to morality. We may choose a need fulfilling behavior which we
believe to be against God's will (sin) and join all of humanity who have
done likewise. CT and scripture talk of "guilting" behaviors. Dr. Glasser
once said that "if we chose to guilt enough, it will keep us from doing the
temptation again." The scriptures talk about "being saved" from the cycle
of sin and moving toward reconciliation with others and God (see I
Corinthians 10:13, Hebrews 4:15, I John 1:9, and Psalm 32:5). Christians
usually believe the concept that Jesus Christ, the redeemer, paid the price
of the punishment we deserve for our sinning. He could do this because he
had no sin of his own and willingly died for for those who believe in him as
Savior, that they may have eternal life (John 3:16) living in God's eternal
kingdom. Choice Theory uses the procedures of reality therapy to establish
reconciliation in relationships between people and the God of their belief
system.

A Free Tool to Try: Standardized Needs Assessment by Masaki Kakitani

 Are you interested in knowing empirically what your need strengths actually are in the workplace? Well, Masaki Kakitani has developed just such an instrument. He normed and validated his tool within Japanese culture and is currently attempting to do the same for English-speaking cultures. He is looking for English-speaking people to take his Basic Needs Profile. The good news is that until it has been normed, you can take it for free. That's right, FREE! To access the assessment, go to https://marc.achievement.co.jp/bnt/, create your profile, take the assessment and get your results. You can help out a fellow colleague and get valuable information for yourself. Sounds like a win/win to me!

CT/RT and Power Tools by Mona Dukin

All of us seek identity, significance, purpose and power. The power need is the need to feel important and to be appreciated for who we are and for what we do. The power need is met through confidence, being heard and understood, accomplishments and in the giving and receiving of service and respect.

Motivational speaker Les Brown has six “Tools to Reclaim Your Power” that I think applies to the continuation of Dr. Glasser’s his life-changing Reality Therapy and Choice Theory concepts and legacy. Here is my brief interpretation of Les’s tools.

1.  It’s possible. When you have an idea that will benefit self and mankind it is possible that you can implement it. If anyone else in the entire world has done something out-of-the-box, then it is possible that you, too, can do something beyond your current skill level, whether simple or exemplary. 

2.  It’s necessary. Once you begin the possible it becomes a need to carry through. Having left a place of safety it is necessary to broaden one's comfort zone. It becomes a white-heat passion that must be fulfilled.

3.  It’s you.  Others may in time come alongside to assist, guide or carry on but initially the weight is on your own shoulders. It is dependent upon your own unlimited belief in yourself. It is you investing your time, your energy and your resources into a fledgling concept. It is you motivating you to keep on keeping on, to continue when everything within says "Quit". 

4.  It’s hard. An airplane needs resistance to fly. Mechanically - as well as physically and emotionally - it is hard to overcome pull and drag in order to soar. It is hard to keep up momentum when others may think you are crazy. It is hard to get up after a seeming defeat. It is hard to push for change in a complacent, smug, self-satisfied world.

5.  It’s worth it. Your second wind kicks in, the goal is in sight and nothing will stop you now. The rewards, small and no-so-small, begin to collect and grow. You are filled with gratitude to God, family, associates and the world for what you have learned and how you have grown in the journey.

6.  Its finished. This is the most beautiful part. Even before crossing the finish line, your dream has taken on a life of its own and it will succeed in spite-of-you, with or without you. Your legacy is intact and will be passed on to future generations.

Dr. Glasser and Carlene and the Board can rest in the momentum created by his 85 years thus far on planet Earth. The Institute – nay, the people who have dipped into Dr. Glasser’s ideas and gained strength from them – has come too far to turn back now.  Let us be like Tim-the-tool-man-Taylor and add “more power” to our “teaching the world Choice Theory”. When inspiration calls, answer the phone and give it directions to find you.

Mona Dunkin, RT/CT/LM

Motivational Speaker and Corporate Trainer

Practicum Supervisor, The William Glasser Institute

Solution Principles

P O Box 774

Elm Mott, TX  76640

www.monadunkin.com  www.monadunkin.blogspot.com

Walter a Quality School Student

 

--  How the Concept of Quality Work Can Impact

Academic Achievement

Walter went to elementary and middle school in a large northern city, where he lived with his mother, a professional woman.  Walter's father was not in the picture and Walter's mother was very upset that her son was getting into trouble.  In middle school, he was found with a bunch of boys who were playing with a gun on school property after school.  Also, he was failing middle school.  He was several grade levels behind in his reading and he only laughed when his mother urged him to improve his reading abilities.  He told her he didn't have time to read books because he was doing important things with his friends.  She felt she was losing him and when he was about to enter 9th grade, she sent him to live with relatives in Charlottesville.

After one year in the local public school system, where his grades were a bit better, but still very low, his Charlottesville family heard of Murray High School and sent him to take a look at it.  He decided to join our school community.

Murray is a wonderful place for a troubled human being because everywhere you turn at Murray people are smiling, welcoming you, and urging you to discover your potential.  However, that also makes Murray a place that is a bit stressful because it is close to impossible to slip through the cracks, which means that teachers are always paying attention to how you are doing and offering opportunities to progress and to grow.  For someone who has developed the ability to hang out and not accomplish, to resist and pretend apathy, this attention is disconcerting and even unnerving.  

Walter did his best to ignore the efforts of the teachers and to reestablish himself as a class clown and a "cool dude," someone who disdained school and graduation.   He often laughed when teachers asked him if he wanted to graduate from high school and said that his grandmother and mother expected it, but that he couldn’t care less.  

He soon made friends at Murray because many students appreciated a young man like Walter who enjoyed a joke, could play basketball like a professional, and who was ready for any risk-taking behaviors that looked like fun.  He spent his days avoiding work if possible, and continuing his old behaviors of turning in only mediocre work.  Soon, he was substantially behind in all of his classes and his name began to be a common topic of discussion at our weekly student-support staff meetings.  We held meetings with Walter and his grandmother, which we call SAT meetings (student assistance team)in which all his teachers gathered and asked him what he needed from us to help him succeed, but he had trouble instituting any of the plans that were made.  He was too happy spending his time on video games, basketball tournaments, and laughing with friends.

We realized that if he was to going to graduate, he was going to need some true intervention to get his attention.  I had Walter in one of my classes, English Through Video Yearbook, in which students learn their English skills by working on a product valued by the entire Murray community.  The class is very demanding.  Students learn how to use professional video editing software, like Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Photoshop, as well as how to use digital video cameras, to interview subjects, to plan out and produce short videos, from the ground up, even to go out into the community to generate video commercials, which they then shoot on their own, working with local business people.

As well as these practical projects, the class involves working hard to improve their English skills, with essays based on novels they read and discuss in class book talks.  They are also required to complete other creative activities designed to help students, who may have taken English out of their Quality Worlds*, relax and begin to excel, catching up on the skills they are missing from their past educations and pushing toward the skills they will need to do well in any college in the world.  Clearly, English Through Video Yearbook students are busy!

Murray High School became the world's first Glasser Quality Public High School in Oct. 2001 and we base our success primarily on the ideas of Dr. Glasser:  Choice Theory, Reality Therapy, and Lead Management.  Students, teachers, and parents work together to learn these concepts and to apply them to our everyday lives at school, at home, and even in outside jobs.  Of these ideas, one of the most powerful is the concept of the Quality Product.

Dr. Glasser postulates that one of the problems with traditional schooling is that, except for after school activities, teachers have lost sight of the importance of urging students to find projects to do that excite their hearts and minds.  Too often in the large public schools, students are simply moved through the curriculum toward standardized tests.  Even the best students are sometimes only going through the motions in order to achieve the goal of college far down the road. 

Dr. Glasser has spoken at many schools across the country and he usually asks the staff of those schools to gather together a group of their best students to climb up on stage with him to be interviewed about their educations.  Dr. Glasser asks the students if they like school.  Most say that it's okay, not great.  Then he asks if there is any part of school that they really love.  Just about 100% say they love their after school activities, such as the school newspaper, forensics competitions, the play, the yearbook, sports teams, band, or many other possible projects.  Their faces gleam as they tell of their accomplishments in these fields.  

Then, Dr. Glasser says, so how about in your academic classes?  What have you accomplished there that you would say is Quality Work, work that you love to do, that you give up free time to keep working on for the excitement of it, work that you know is important to yourself and to others, work that is relevant to your life and that challenges your hearts and minds? 

There is always a long, uncomfortable silence as students think.  Often, I have seen faculties sitting in the audience become frustrated at the silence.  Once a teacher I observed raised her hand and said to one of her students, "John, what about that essay you wrote about Hamlet?"  He said, "Well, I did the essay.  I got an A on it, so I'm glad I did it well, but I didn't really care about it.  I didn't get all excited about it and take it around to show everyone.  I don't think my friends would care all that much to read about Hamlet, but they really loved the yearbook last year and I was really proud of that.  I did the essay because I had to, in order to get the grade and to get into college."

At Murray, many classes are designed around projects that teachers hope will attract students to do quality work.  It was my belief that Walter really needed an opportunity to accomplish some quality work that was attached to school and academics, and not just to basketball and playing with friends.  So, I managed to convince him that signing up for English Through Video Yearbook would be a good idea.

At first, Walter balked at all the requirements for the class and almost dropped it.  However, he and I had worked together for a year already and we had a very good relationship, so he decided to trust me and to stick with the class.  Once he had climbed the steep learning curve required to master the video editing software, and once he had his hands on the cameras and had the freedom to go out into the world and videotape his own projects, Walter was hooked.

It was a pleasure to watch Walter so involved.  He conceived of the idea of doing a segment of the yearbook on the basketball tournaments he had organized.  One section of the segment would show a morphing of several games, in slow motion, matching the actual bouncing of the balls to the rhythm of a piece of music he composed on Garageband.  Walter literally spent dozens of hours on this section of his segment.  He concentrated for hours at a time, never moving from his seat, determined to get just the right effect.  He watched it over and over, looking for errors and then taking the time to fix every one.  He worked many hours after school and into the evenings, bringing his grandmother in to the editing lab to see the latest versions of his video.  

When his segment was complete, he was so proud of it.  He asked if he could show it off in a community meeting,** so other students could get excited about purchasing a copy of the video yearbook and he helped to organize the showing.  At that point, you would imagine that Walter was going to earn an A in the English Through Video Yearbook class.  However, his old habits were dying hard.  Walter successfully avoided turning in the work on the novels for the class.  In fact, he hadn't read the novels.  He hadn't even done one draft of the papers required to earn credit, so Walter earned an Incomplete, which then turned into a NCY (No Credit Yet***) for the class.  Still, he loved the class and loved the final product, as did the rest of the school.

Although the staff was not happy that Walter had chosen not to earn credit for the class, we all acknowledged that his decision to throw himself into the Video Yearbook project had had a profound effect on his behavior choices around the school.  He had decided that he loved the school and was loyal to it and to the teachers.  He no longer wanted the teachers to be disappointed in him.  He began to pay more attention in classes.  He began to listen to the Choices Teacher's questions when he was sent to Choices**** for behavior issues and to participate wholeheartedly in creating plans for his success.  He began to talk about graduation as if it was his idea and not something being forced upon him.

At the beginning of his senior year, I was able to convince him to meet with me regularly after school, privately, to work on his reading and writing skills.  It had taken us two years of working together to get to that table in my empty classroom after school that first meeting we had together.  There were many transformations that had needed to happen before Walter was ready to bring himself there, and to willingly WANT to learn to read and write.  Still, he brought many of his resistance behaviors and especially his fears of failure with him, as well.

Walter acknowledged that he was ashamed of his reading and writing skills.  When I asked him if he wanted to graduate with his current level of skills, he began to tell me of his fifth grade classroom where he had had a severe conflict with his teacher and had given up on school, especially on reading.  He had had to repeat 5th grade. He had felt humiliated by the teacher and had decided then, on some level, never to allow that type of humiliation to happen again, so he had avoided reading at all costs.  In the course of telling me this story, Walter, a proud seventeen-year-old, began to cry.  He finally had begun to realize that his lack of reading and writing abilities were based on a choice he had made years before and that he could now make new choices.  The realization was a very important one for his academic future.

Over the course of the next few months, Walter and I worked our way through many books and his skills grew exponentially.  I will never forget the night he finished up his first true essay, on a thesis he had developed himself, an essay complete with quotations he selected from the novel to support his assertions.  He was so proud of that essay!  He KNEW it was great, that it had all the elements necessary for a good paper, but also had his own ideas and theories about the book he had read.  He jumped up from the table and ran to the telephone to talk to his grandmother.  He excitedly yelled to her that he had finished it and it was "totally phat!"

Our time spent together on that first Quality Product had shown Walter his true abilities.  He had given up back in 5th grade because of what we, here at Murray, would consider to be a mistaken policy of failure in schools.  Because of the Video Yearbook success, he was able to convince himself that there was hope for his graduating from high school.  He knew that he had accomplished something of quality that was valuable to others and that led him to believe that he could accomplish other equally daunting tasks, like reading books and writing essays.  

Many educators would assert that the time spent on creating that video yearbook was time wasted.  After all, could learning Final Cut Pro prepare Walter to do well on his state standards of learning tests?  Shouldn't we have been spending the time doing practice tests and making sure Walter could tell the difference between their, there, and they're?

Our answer at Murray, which has been proven to be true time and time again, with students from all backgrounds, is that first comes healing from failure.  Time is needed for students to begin to trust teachers again, and especially to begin to trust themselves again.  Only then is there an opportunity to help students turn away from wasting their lives in rebellion against learning, possibly even dropping out of school. 

We believe that no matter how long it takes, the healing and relationship-building come first and then the academics will almost inevitably follow.  We have found here at Murray that most of our students really WANT to graduate from school and do well in academics.  They would like to imagine themselves in college, and then having a fulfilling career and lifestyle.  They have simply lost that vision of themselves somewhere in the labyrinth of the failure system that chokes our traditional high schools.  When that failure system is done away with, when students are given respect and confidence by their teachers, then they begin to transform themselves right before our eyes.  Walter's story ends with a graduation.  It even ends with his earning an advanced pass on his statewide writing exam!!  Amazing, and for this teacher, life-affirming.   I learned as much from Walter as he ever learned from me.  We made a good team.

Charlotte Wellen

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*   Walter is actually a combination of several similar Murray stories.  This was done to protect student identities.  The examples given are all true, but do not all come from the same student’s life.