Carl Emery

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Carl Emery Manchester University

• Writer and lecturer in social and emotional
  wellbeing/conflict resolution with a particular
  focus on disengaged learners 14-19

Children's social and emotional wellbeing in
schools, a critical perspective Authors/Editors
Debbie Watson, Carl Emery, Phillip Bayliss
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Teaching Learning

• When we become totally focussed on covering the
  material, preoccupied with competence and
  success, we often forget to open our hearts to
  the young people, particularly if they are
  sabotaging the success of the group.
• We may shut down and create a range of barriers
  to protect ourselves.

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Engaging Learners

• Building Relationships Managing Challenges. 30
  hour programme, 1 day programmes. Coaching model.
• Built on a three strand foundation
• Contextual
• Subjective
• Relational
• (Emery Watson 2011)

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Positive Engagement Programme BRMC

• Key Concepts
• Stipek reports that learners work harder for
  teachers who treat them as individuals and
  express interest in their personal lives outside
  school/college.
• (Stipek, 2006, page 46)
• Building and developing resilience and
  reciprocity
• A process model
• Contextualised for 14-19
• Practice/reflection-based model
• Not prescribed

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Belonging Feelings Behaviour
In pairs

• Think of a time you believed you werent valued
  and didnt belong, or were labelled. Talk about
  how you felt at that time.
• In squares (two pairs)
• Write words at the centre of the page to describe
  your feelings. Illustrate the way you behave when
  you have those feelings.

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Key Principles

• Learners and staff need to have a sense of
• Belonging
• Being heard
• Being understood
• Teacher PRESENCE and building relationships are
  key to this. We need to develop a strong and
  sensitive presence built on successfully using
  our body, mind and voice.

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Presence

• Think of someone you know in your school/college
  who has presence.
• What do you see them do?
• How do they demonstrate this presence?

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Presence

• We celebrate those precious moments when we
  embody a presence that carries the class to a
  place where minds and hearts are moved and
  genuine connections occur. Some teachers just
  naturally live there most of the time. But how do
  we find that place?

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Presence
Although presence is a difficult thing to define
we all know people with it and these people
generally share the following qualities

• Body - Strong clear body language and the ability
  to read and respond to others body language 
• Mind - Clarity and calmness of thought,
  understanding the power of positive thinking and
  recognising their thought process particularly in
  regard to perceptions and expectations. 
• Voice - A strong clear voice that uses pitch,
  intonation, rhythm and breathing to state clear
  messages, create confidence and demonstrate
  understanding. The voice also needs to
  communicate messages that encourage learners to
  participate, feel positive and follow
  instructions.
• To develop presence we need to ensure that body,
  mind and voice are working in unison and are
  balanced.

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Body

• Body - Strong clear body language and the
  ability to read and respond to others body
  language.
• Zones in your classroom
• Connected
• Learning
• Drifting
• Lost

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Body Activity

• The body arc
• Directive body language
• Patrolling rescuing

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Body

• Congruence
• Eye contact
• Positioning
• Patrolling
• Proximity
• Posture
• Facial Expressions
• Non verbal cueing
• Barriers

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Mind

• Mind - Clarity and calmness of thought,
  understanding the power of positive thinking and
  recognising their thought process, particularly
  in regard to perceptions and expectations.
•  

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Mind Activity

• Evaluations and observations
• Which of the following statements are
  evaluations, and which are observations ?

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Evaluations or observations?

• Paul is aggressive in class  
• James said I looked good last night 
• Josie got up from her chair three times during
  the ICT lesson 
• Keisha would not sit still around during
  functional Maths
• Gina is always late for college 
• Jack tapped his pen against his desk for over ten
  minutes 
• Jasmine is usually messing about
• Ben never stops talking 

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Voice

• Voice - A strong clear voice that uses pitch,
  intonation, rhythm and breathing to state clear
  messages, create confidence and demonstrate
  understanding.
• The voice also needs to communicate messages
  that encourage learners to participate, feel
  positive and follow instructions.
•  

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Language

• Language is one of the most powerful tools
  available to a teacher.
• It permeates every aspect of teaching and
  learning.
• Remember what they hear and interpret has a
  huge impact on how they think, act and learn.

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Language

• Okay, settle down everyone. Lunch is over,
  lets get started. We have to get to work on our
  functional skills now.
• I see that everyone is ready for functional
  skills, lets get started.

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Language

• Different messages.
• First version implies learning is about
  resisting pleasure, that is now over. Have to
  implies it is something we dont really want to
  do, demonstrates no choice is on offer.

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Attack/Distortion words

• The Always/Everything Distortion
• Challenging generalisations allows young people
  to 'buy out' of their extreme thinking. Look out
  for 'all-or-nothing' words like 'all, always,
  never, everyone, no one, every
  time/place/thing.
• 'People are always shouting at me'
• Which people ?
• Always ?
• Shouting ?
• At you ?

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Attack/Distortion words

• 'Oh, everything's going wrong!'
• Everything?
• How are things going wrong?
• What would need to happen for them to go right?
• Similarly, other extremes/absolutes
  'couldn't, mustn't, shouldn't, unable to',
  etc. can be challenged and changed
• 'I couldn't do that'
• What stops you?
• What would/might happen if you did?

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Remember

• To learn we need
• to feel safe (orderly familiarity)
• experience success more often than failure
• (celebrate often what I do)
• to be noticed (say my name)
• to be trusted and respected (as a human being)
• to be motivated (use what I remember)
• to feel acceptance (as I am )

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Contact me

• carl.emery_at_postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
• 07852 192770
• http//www.exploringwellbeing.co.uk