Comments on: Speaking at a Secondary School

By: Ron Staff

Ron Staff — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:15:32 +0000

At last something for youths that is positive and about them being able to have some ‘ownership’ about their own mindset – it’s not something our society is currently very good at. Much of the notions from the state are rather vague and is often about what young people ‘should do and think’ – I don’t feel that has very much resonance with them. It’s fantastic. Let us know how it goes

By: Mark Rhodes

Mark Rhodes — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:10:28 +0000

Maggie, thanks for your comments. One of the things that moves around quite a bit for childten at school is Values. They start off at home and are basically getting their Values about what is important in life from their parents or guardians.

However once school starts and especially once they get into teenage years with lots of peer pressure and wanting to belong, and adopting their own identities they often change Values and put more emphasis on friendships and having fun etc, however once they leave education and start getting into longer term relationships, working and having bills to pay etc then Values shift again, all of a sudden survival can be more important than fun etc. Often what can happen is they then pick up some or all of the Values they originally got programmed with when younger. This is why later we find ourselves saying things to our children then saying to ourselves “I don’t believe I sound like my parents”

The challenge often when we pick up these values again is often they don’t really suit us and the people we want to become, if we want different lives and outcomes to our parents etc then the same values as them may not work so well, or if the values are ok then may be the rules or beliefs created to support those values may not fit in with the Goals or aims the individual has, hence people get confused, frustrated and “can’t see a way out of things”

Mark

By: Maggie Finch

Maggie Finch — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:01:34 +0000

I have no recollection of any classes that addressed any of the issues I have heard you speaking on, and certainly not about ‘Limiting Beliefs’. Had I had this at school age, I could have saved myself from many years of wasted time and complete lack of self esteem.

My strong influences from my childhood and my own schooling, was that I had a complete list of Responsibilities (to my parents, my teachers, my school, my employers, my friends, my peer group, my family, and so on and so on!!

The counterpart of this was that I had no rights.

When teaching at College 10 to 15 years ago, I had class upon class of students who were full of their own Rights. If I then asked them what their responsibilities might be they had at that time no concept, that for them to have their rights, others had to have responsibilities.

I used to then do a lesson with them to discuss these concepts and to negotiate with them our own list of rights and responsibilities for the time we were to spend together in the learning environment.

I feel that your talk on ‘Limiting Beliefs’ will be of great benefit to the class (and would love at some point to hear about its content).

It would be interesting, at some stage to chat with you on the Rights / Responsibilities debate.

Regards

Maggie

By: Jon Hinchliffe

Jon Hinchliffe — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:12:49 +0000

Like you I am pleased to see that schools are now taking the opportunity to help pupils understand about concepts like limiting beliefs.
My memories from school are very limited but I can’t think of lessons where we would have learnt such topics. The lessons were all based on formal subjects and I don’t think any time was reserved for life experiences. In fact in my school the only break from normal lessons was for sex education and in my year it seemed a random mix that were given it. I don’t recall the criteria just that I was not selected receive sexual education.
Schools now seem to teach PSE (Personal and Social Education) which is clearly where limiting beliefs could be added in. I suspect it currently isn’t being taught and I think it would be great to start teaching the teachers about it.
It is something I myself would like to break into and I would move on to including self guided imagery and motivation.
I wonder how many teachers could make lessons more interesting by actively talking in all senses about their subjects and therefore appearing to be on the same wavelength as more of their class.
As a hypnotherapist it would be great if more problems could be prevented by improved education of the subjects I teach to the individuals that see me.

By: Ian Morgan

Ian Morgan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:09:16 +0000

There was little or no guidance when I was in school. Careers advice by the PE master was as good as it got. It is great that schools of today are prepared to bring professional people into their environment to help and prepare the youngsters to start off their working life.

I wish there had been some form of personnel development to allow me to integrate into the workplace.

I feel the youngsters are better placed today by living in a more open and available society and experince far more than when I was in school

By: Pastor Dan Keller

Pastor Dan Keller — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:54:32 +0000

I actually teach a class that is based on making right choices. I teach that everything we do has choices from getting up on time to going to bed on time. Everything is a choice and we have to learn to make choices correctly. If you are having bad time in a class I would say it was due to a wrong choice. If you are having a relationship problem most likely it was a choice you made. My class goes through the entire day covering everything we do from clothes we wear to food we eat, what we watch, read and listen to is all choices. We control our destiny, not excluding God now, and it is by choices we make. I hope this does help you and the class.

By: Jon Whiteside

Jon Whiteside — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:47:34 +0000

We certainly didn’t have any of the information you are talking about regarding mindset and and personal development.

In fact, the only thing we really had, which has now seemed to have slipped, is discipline.

The closest we came to finding out what we wanted to do was careers day, which wasn’t much help to be honest.

By: Jane Gregory

Jane Gregory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:43:08 +0000

Hi Mark, good luck with the school talk. I went to a small private school and confidence much part of our syllabus, all be it wrapped up in different tags, like drama and elecution lessons.

More recently I’ve been involved in delivering training to young people to enhance their confidence covering issues like predudice and conflict resolution, empowering them, I hope, to think out of the box and find other ways of looking at problems that affect them.

Good luck with the seminar, I will look forward to hearing out it went.
Best Jane