Linda Flanders will be presenting " The Ability to Reason: From the Abstract to the Concrete" at the 2009 2009 Youth Intervention Conference on Oct. 27-28 in St. Paul.
For young people to be independent, mature emotionally and live freely outside of the Criminal Justice System, the ability to reason is essential. The Ability to Reason is literally, “the use of the cognitive mental powers needed to think, reflect, make decisions, work and apply choice”. It’s now an art-based cognitive skills class currently taught for Court Services in Goodhue County, MN as an innovative approach for early offenders. After three years, we have a 91% non-recidivism rate. This class has been adapted for use by school Social Workers and Special Ed teachers, plus another adaptation for 12 Steppers in recovery. It is also excellent for parents with pre-teen children in “Surviving Middle School”. The process is based on developmental and experiential learning.
Many of the young people we teach are smart, some gifted and yet some learning disabled. No assessment is needed because we all do the same art-based lessons together.
In class we use clay (or Play-doh) and colored pencils (or crayons) as the learning tools. The class is divided into two segments during which these 5 abstract concepts are learned.
To THINK means 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 use one’s mind rationally in evaluating any given situation; recognizing that situations are always changing”. To think requires self-control and allowing a few seconds from idea to action.
To REFLECT means to look back upon something that already happened. This allows us to learn from our mistakes or from our successes, and gives us the ability to think backwards and learn from experience.
To MAKE DECISIONS means the act of making up one’s mind. This is an action word: Think-Evaluate-Do. To make decisions we have to have options 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’re re-acting. Imagining different possibilities, and their possible outcomes is the gateway to expand our horizons through creative thinking.
To WORK is literally the amount of energy one has to put out to do something. It’s important to understand the amount of work, or energy, we need to pursue a dream or a goal. We all must determine how much work we’re willing to put into a goal, and whether we have the skills necessary to achieve it. This requires an honest self-assessment. The bigger the dream or the goal, the more work it will be.
CHOICE is the act of making a selection. We have to have a minimum of three options before we truly have choice. When we can see only “one way” to do, experience or think, we are acting on habit. Habits become in-grained, can turn compulsive, possibly addictive. When it’s “this” or “that”, we’re thinking concretely, going back and forth. True choice must involve a third possibility. The importance of three options is that they can evolve us up and out of that box. Three options can be mixed and matched; we’ll show you how. This is the overview of the class that we will present at the conference.
This class teaches the concepts in a way that all kids can understand. But they are “skills” and must now be actively practiced in real life.
We’ll also have an exhibit table at the conference where the lesson plans can be purchased for use with your own kids or classes. Linda Flanders: www.taprootinc.com
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