This is http://www.essayz.com/a9212233.htm         
Previous-Essay      <== This-Essay ==>     Following-Essay
Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words.
{Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.}
==========================================================
      %STUDENT TEACH LEARN NEW SKILLS BEHAVIOR KNOW 921223

     Students learn new behaviors,  skills,  knowledge and
attitudes  when they feel secure enough to take risks with
a  sense of safety.  Ridicule,  embarrassment,  threats of
punishment,   threats of  rejection  and  excommunication;
these undermine students' opportunities to chose and learn
new behaviors, skills, knowledge and attitudes.

     Conformity   and  fulfillment  of  expectations   are
usually perceived as being relatively risk free;  unlikely
to bring ridicule,  embarrassment,  threats of punishment,
threats  of rejection or excommunication.  Conformity  and
the fulfillment of traditional expectations do not involve
creativity,   imagination,  or transformation;   or  their
risks.    Most   communities  are  better   at   promoting
conformity,  than they are at promoting learning  creative
new ways of dealing with dilemmas and problems which their
community does not know how to deal with.

     To promote healthy learning and creative  initiatives
a  community  needs to give its students of all  ages  the
gift  of  true personal security---within  contexts  where
mistakes  are opportunities for open and honest  learning;
rather  than  occasions  for   ridicule,    embarrassment,
rejection,  excommunication,  etc.  Mistakes should not be
occasions for  punishment;   but occasions  for  open  and
honest  dialogue  about  what  can  be  learned  from  the
mistakes by recognizing  what lead up to the making of the
mistakes. Through honest conversations it is possible that
people will be converted from the attitudes,  assumptions,
perceptions and beliefs which lead to the mistakes; to new
creative  ways of approaching situations  which  are  much
less  likely to lead to repetitions of old mistakes or the
making of new mistakes. Yet,  such conversations are often
impossible because  students are  not  given  the security
which is the prerequisite to them.  Too often teachers are
more preoccupied with being in  control of their students,
than with liberating their students to be creative---which
is apparently more risky. Yet it is the preoccupation with
control which leads  to  frustration,  anger,  alienation,
rebellion, and ultimately to violence. That which  appears
to be less risky, is in the long run the most risky.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================