Jeff's Diary for Issue 9

What is the Difference between NLP and …?

I am often asked ‘What’s the difference between NLP and such- and-such’s approach?’ The reply is simple ........‘Such-and-such will probably provide you with a range of wonderful ideas and approaches, a system and associated tools, all of which make a lot of sense – and are therefore very appealing. If you take on board and absolutely believe in their system and approach – whatever it is - you will make it work and it will work for you!

It’s rather like dieting, and keeping fit. There are so many approaches and menus, all offered by people who have developed their ideas and want to help others to do what they have achieved. You know that, whatever the approach, whatever the menu, if you follow a particular one to the letter, adopting literally everything that is suggested, work at following all the rules and directions, you will be successful. However, the evidence indicates even though they may start with the highest ideals and excellent intentions – not many people stick to the clear directions or last the course; many people give up – and this can add to their sense of failure. How often have you attended a wonderful course – on leadership, or time management, or communications, or … - and come away feeling great, with wonderful intentions, with a particular focus on one idea that seems especially pertinent to you - with a ‘halo effect’ that seems to fade (rather quickly!) with time…and a dream about the next wonderful course!

With NLP, our starting point is radically different. It is based on:

1. Eliciting, knowing and understanding exactly what you want

2. Providing you with:

• naturals models of excellence and methodologies to help you get what you want
• ways of doing it/getting it/ achieving it in your own unique way – enhanced by developing your own understanding about who you are and what you want
• a holistic approach that utilises your unique skills and competencies in line with your personal values and beliefs
• securing it in a way that that respects you and those around you. That’s the difference that makes the difference!

Some Fascinating Developments

We had an excellent and enjoyable end to 2000 and beginning of 2001 and the prospects for the coming year (and beyond) are very exciting.

For the final two days of the Autumn Term we worked with 50 staff (teaching and non-teaching) in a Primary School (for pupils aged 4-11) to the east of London. This was the first 2 of an accredited 4- day NLP Diploma. Imagine - the end of a very long term; they had been out (fairly late!) the previous evening for their end- of-term celebration; they were looking forward to a good Christmas break and a well-earned rest – and they had a 2-day workshop to attend! And, guess what – it went incredibly well and they are looking forward to the next 2 days. The only ‘problem’ was that the Head Teacher went off sick – with a terrible bout of ‘flu, and now feels that she missed out and needs to ‘catch up’ – and quickly!

The first day of this Spring Term, we provided a 1-day Introduction to NLP and Education for 30+ staff of a secondary ‘special’ school in central London and several ‘guest teachers’ they had invited from a companion school. The Head Teacher and her CPD coordinator are very keen to progress the work we have started.

We are being contacted by a growing number of teachers, heads, advisers, lecturers, parents and other people who are beginning to hear about NLP and want to find out more.

For instance, we are currently in discussion with a number of schools and Local Education Authorities; an Education Action Zone (a group of schools who have applied for government funding for projects to raise standards through innovative approaches to learning and teaching); a London football club who are working with young people (part of another Government scheme to provide additional learning facilities for primary and secondary pupils).

Our current experience is that a growing number of people are ‘coming across’ NLP, ‘have heard about it’ and are curious about how it can be applied to them and their lives – and, especially to learning and teaching. It’s a really exciting time, and a wonderful context for the beginning of a new year – yet a new millennium!

NLP and Learning and Teaching

Currently, people working in education in the UK are being made to concentrate on CONTENT – i.e. based on what I would certainly describe as an ‘Industrial’ Model (see item below). So, success is determined by how effectively teachers teach the content, and how successfully pupils/ students learn/ replicate it.

NLP provides a structure for working on the teaching and learning PROCESSES. We have put much of our time, energy and enthusiasm over the past four years in developing applications of NLP that are particularly appropriate to learning and teaching - and applicable to all stages of life-long learning.

Amongst the ideas we have developed are the following ‘constructs’:

NLP and Learning Success

At the level of competencies and skills, we know that the 3 S’s -: States, Styles and Strategies – are keys to learning:

1. Being good, RESOURCEFUL STATE: You have to be in a good state, so that you can access your inner resources and inner learning strategies – and, most important, dare to fail when trying out new strategies.
2. Know and enrich your LEARNING STYLES: know your preferences and meta-programmes in learning and enrich and add to these styles.
3. Know and enrich your LEARNING STRATEGIES: Find out how you learn and evaluate and experiment and fine tune these strategies and install new, perhaps more elegant, strategies - as and if necessary.

In addition, we know that in terms of RELATIONSHIPS, the following 3 R’s are key to learning:

1. Relationship to TOPIC/ CURRICULUM: The topic/ curriculum has to be of some meaning to you, something that stimulates your interest and curiosity.
2. Relationship to TEACHER/ OTHERS: If you like the teacher you will want to work for him/her - or you may want to make your parents happy, impress your friends/classmates…
3. Relationship to SELF: Build your self-esteem; like yourself; feel good about yourself and what you do in School; this is the basis for being prepared to take – enjoy taking – risks.

Many students – especially excellent ones - do this naturally. NLP has the models to analyse and understand the structures of, plus a wide range of approaches and methodologies to enhance and improve, all these key factors. Furthermore, it provides the methodologies for eliciting and working with the higher levels of values, beliefs, identity and purpose associated with learners and learning.

NLP and Teaching Success:

We know that the following eight factors are key to teaching success:

1. OUTCOMES: Know what you want - for yourself and for each pupil - and know how you will know that you have achieved your outcomes. Know the cognitive, affective and physical objectives for each activity. Clarity and evidence leads to success.
2. Sensory ACUITY: ‘Read’ them: Fine-tune your senses to have the awareness you are on track for achieving your outcomes. Watch for clues in the behaviour, attitude and language that would provide information on your pupils’ current states.
3. Behavioural FLEXIBILITY: Have the flexibility to vary what you are doing to achieve your outcomes with creativity, elegance and ease.
4. Build RAPPORT: Have the rapport skills to pace and lead students to reach their potential and discover the joy of learning. Be committed to your pupils. Get to know them. Know their backgrounds, interests, past failures and successes. This builds your credibility and provides bridges into their world
5. Target their STATE: All learning is state-dependent. Orchestrate pupils’ states to set them up for success. Know the target state for each learning activity. Change their states until they reach the target state. All the room’s a stage! Use a variety of spots as anchors: presenting, storytelling, feedback, initial instruction, and conferencing …
6. Reach their MODALITY & STYLES: Know and enrich your teaching styles and know how to help students enhance limited learning styles and explore new styles. Through language patterns, voice, gestures and activities, tap into the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic modalities of your pupils.
7. Pace and tune their STRATEGIES: Know and enrich your teaching strategies and know how to help students enhance limited learning strategies and install new more effective ones.
8. CONGRUENCE: Be real: Present an authentic, congruent message of openness, honesty and fairness.

Many teachers – especially excellent ones - do this naturally. Again, NLP has the models to analyse and understand, plus a wide range of approaches and methodologies to enhance and improve, all these key factors. Furthermore, it provides the methodologies for eliciting and working with the higher levels of values, beliefs, identity and purpose associated with teachers and teaching

An Industrial, Content-Focused Approach to Learning and Teaching

A few weeks ago I read the following article in the Times Educational Supplement. It was part of a book review, but seemed an awful indictment of education in our industrialised societies: …

• The Indians teach (classes of 50) by chanting (90 plus 2, 92)
• The Americans talk endlessly and courteously, embedding instruction in the triumph of the therapeutic
• The Russians stick tightly to the exercise in hand and teach it by getting one or two pupils ‘to think aloud and at length’
• The French run a tight ship, or, as one teacher says, ‘I tell them, they tell me’
• The English struggle resentfully against the grim quotas of SATs and still manage to fly the flag for personal experience and matters of the hear.

Fred Inglis (Professor of Cultural Studies, School of Education, Sheffield) in his review of ‘Culture and Pedagogy: International Comparisons in Primary Education’ by Robin Alexander, published by Blackwell for the Times Educational Supplement (19/01/ 01).

So, what must be true – for Fred to write this in this way? What are his likely presuppositions?

This provoked much thought for me – especially about what might be the basis of this, and previous, Government's approach to Education - what I would certainly describe as ‘an industrial, approach’ to learning and teaching that is so much in vogue with politicians, who have taken such a powerful control over what happens in our schools.

The scenario can be described as follows:

1. If we want to raise standards across the country we need to CONTROL the SYSTEM – through Standardising Input and Measuring Output

2. Create a range of publicly scrutinised devices to control the Input:

• A National Curriculum, which all teachers must adhere to
• A range of methodologies and approaches to teaching that we expect our teachers to adopt
• We thereby ensure that all Teachers Teach it (? In a way that we know will be successful?) and all Students Learn it

3. Create a range of publicly scrutinised devices to measure the Output:

• Assess the pupils progress within our National Curriculum:
• A Baseline Assessment when pupils start school
• Key Stage Assessments every two years
• Various Exams at the end of the statutory stage of education and before access to Higher Education
• All results published and in the public domain – and form the basis of measuring success
• Assess the teachers and their schools
• Undertake regular Ofsted Inspections - by a group of ‘independent scrutineers’
• Place the results of these inspections in the public domain
• Place the responsibility for responding to these inspections in the hands of the school’s Governing Bodies

SO WHAT!

If students LEARN = everything is OK: everybody is happy (and we know that the likelihood of this success varies within a range of factors including local, environmental ones)

If the students DON’T LEARN = NOT OK!!

• Failing Pupils: a growth in what are described as pupils with Special Educational Needs
• Failing Teachers: low self-esteem within the profession; pressures on teachers to change or leave
• Failing Schools: are ‘placed on ‘special measures’ and closure is threatened – and will take place (has taken place)

So what? Well there has been an improvement in ‘standards’ - as we would expect - put your focus and energy in a particular area and you will see results. So the increase in standards relate specifically to the particular, defined aspects of the curriculum. However, this has been accompanied by:

• a rapid increase in disaffected students - who feel that they aren’t valued
• a rapid increase in the numbers of pupils defined as special educational needs
• a rapid increase in disaffection amongst teachers and many other people working in education - who feel that neither are they understood or valued nor is what they believe in or stand for valued.

Compare our approach - as described in the ‘NLP and Learning and Teaching’ above.

I happen to believe that this ‘industrial’ approach and its associated systems are not sustainable – either because so many disaffected people will leave or disrupt the system; or because the content will continually be changed to suit changing circumstances, or that once the desired content-based results have been achieved, the focus will be put on another aspect.

This is particularly relevant in a society:

• that is changing so rapidly, at such an accelerating rate, that the content will always fall short/never fulfil demand (apparently the amount of information/ knowledge we create is doubling every few years!)
• that is becoming increasingly competitive – both nationally and internationally -with the resultant demand for change, and to adapt and respond to change at an increasing rate
• where there is probably a wide agreement about our needs. For instance:
  • people who know and understand themselves and others
  • people with excellent relationship and communication skills
  • people who know HOW to learn – and who can do this rapidly and with ease
  • people who feel associated with and will play their part in their community
  • people who act in a mature responsible manner – who come from a point of high self-esteem, who respect themselves, and who respect others around them and their environment
  • people who can adapt, be creative and flexible

For us, of course, NLP provides the models and structures for understanding the processes, plus the tools and methodologies for developing the behaviours described above – in a way that is not purely systematic or systematised, but acknowledges and takes as its starting point each person’s individual and unique approach to their own life and needs!

Our message to those working in Education is that NLP can provide you with the wherewithal to –

• focus on, and be successful in, understanding the structures of the learning and teaching processes (HOW we learn, HOW we teach, HOW we influence and motivate, HOW we build self-esteem …)
• apply these tools and methodologies for improving the learning and teaching process and everything that supports it.

NLP will provide you with what you want – in the way that you want to do it. We also believe that the consequences of our approach are:

• teachers will enhance their self- esteem – for instance, as they understand HOW their pupils learn, how their teaching affects their students, and thereby enhance their teaching and make it more appropriate to a wider audience
• students will enhance their self- esteem and their learning – and begin the process of understanding and taking more control and responsibility over how they learn
• results will radically improve
• the government – and the public – will INEVITABLY get the results they demand

It’s a win-win!

So, let’s end on a lovely note. I found the following poem in my doctor’s surgery. I hope that you enjoy the read.

JEFF’S STOP PRESS

Even within the world of NLP we have ‘icons’ - people whose reputation goes before them. Robert Dilts is one such and recently (23rd February) Paul Jacobs and I had the great pleasure of meeting with him, to see and hear - yes, and touch! - him as a ‘real’, and most delightful person.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how we might work together in developing and promoting NLP and its applications to Education.

We shared many ideas and possibilities, and got most energised by the thought of setting up the first World Symposium/Conference on NLP and Education. We have set an initial date of Friday 5th to Sunday 7th October 2001- so put this in your Diary now! [More in our next issue]