Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is as famous for its effective use in personal training and therapeutic applications as it is for its colorful origins. However, despite the great potential of NLP insights to improve or even transform education, formal inroads into schools, colleges and universities remain elusive. One reason, perhaps, is that NLP training is a competitive industry in its own right, with a slight new-age flavor and a price tag that makes NLP prohibitively expensive for school systems to adopt widely. Another reason may be that among the factions within the NLP business, there is a lack of consistency in approach and quality, leaving schools to consult with NLP trainers on an ad hoc basis, if at all.
To help bridge the gap between NLP advocates and educators, I offer this article, and here I would like to discuss NLP not as a business, but as phenomenology, or what goes on subjectively within the learning mind, hoping that NLP ideas find their way here. in more and more classrooms.
In both formal education and other applications, NLP takes advantage of the real-time subjective experiences of students and teachers to help students adapt their own learning strategies based on their internal maps of the world. Basic NLP income earning strategies can be taught to both teachers and students, assuming students take more responsibility and credit for their own success. These NLP strategies start with the end in mind, allow students to alter their own mental and physiological states, map new learning onto their own internal maps or change their internal maps to accommodate the new learning, try alternative ways of seeing or expressing the new learning. and test new learnings for ecology in the future.
I will highlight 10 fundamental NLP patterns with brief examples of their possible application in school, and I will trust your imagination to implement these ideas effectively in the classroom.
1. Teach well-formed results
They say that a well-defined problem is half solved. NLP teaches that effective learning happens best when you know the result you want. Once an outcome is defined, vivid visualization enhances the outcome and prepares students’ minds to do well on tests. When solving complex or project-based problems, “chunking” is an NLP term used to teach breaking the steps towards the result into meaningful, manageable sizes. Obstacles are dealt with in simulation mode, and then the student is better prepared to navigate or traverse those obstacles when they arise in real life.
2. Teach Rhythm, Pairing, and Leading
NLP teaches that in a state of rapport, any learning is possible. Students learn best when they feel esteem and respect for their teacher and are free of fear from their peers. Rapport is facilitated when the teacher not only blends students’ physiology and language, but also paces or aligns the material with their mental maps of the world. Once students feel that they are operating from the same map, the teacher can guide them into new learning territory. In addition, listening and rapport are valuable life skills that must be formally taught to students.
3.Teach State Calibration
NLP advocates using sensory acuity to observe the person in front of you for clues as to their current state. Teachers learning to read body language have a real-time meter at their disposal that tells them if their teaching is working. The signals are given through postures, gestures, breathing and eye movement patterns, and skin tones and colors, which do not indicate whether the teaching is momentarily “hot or cold.” Adjust accordingly. Students who learn body language can also gain emotional intelligence and navigate school, work, and home life with greater freedom.
4. Teach future rhythm and check ecology
Future Pace and Eco checks are ways of testing and debugging mental strategies in our heads before going live with them. If the school is a kind of laboratory, then it is the perfect place for this type of testing. Students and teachers can measure the impact of each decision, action, project and learning on their future, that of their families and communities, and the environment. Checking ecology is highly subjective, but it exercises a critical mental muscle and is less slippery in values-based approaches.
5. Teach flexibility of response
Rigid teaching styles only reach part of your students, part of the time. Behavioral calisthenics allows the teacher to tap into a fuller range of emotional states, verbal delivery patterns, to reach more students more of the time. Students can also learn that if something doesn’t work, try something else. Flexibility that is openly rewarded teaches that there is no such thing as failure… only feedback. The queen rules the chessboard, because she has the most available moves.
6. Teach state elicitation
In NLP, a state involves thoughts, feelings, and physiology, and covers the spectrum from deeply relaxed to highly aroused. A great teacher needs to be able to “switch on” the neurology, to be able to associate the correct state with the new learning. Memorable learning does not happen through intellectual discussions, but through emotional discussions, such as fear, anger, disgust, confusion, shock, peace, joy, forgiveness, focus, fun, go Go for it. Emotions are energy in motion and should not be repressed, but channeled in a productive and ecological way.
7. Teach State Induction
I am not suggesting teaching or using hypnosis here, as it is illegal in many states to induce trance in school, and deep trance is getting out of hand. However, it is well documented that relaxed and alert “alpha” states are more conducive to absorbing new material. A teacher might quietly teach students how to take deep breaths and focus or unfocus their eyes a bit before taking in new information. At other times, a teacher may teach students how to enter “beta” states, when a high level of alertness is required to perform tasks quickly (this is the state induced by most video games). Effectively teaching students to voluntarily alter their states can avoid the need for stimulant drugs. Humor is a very powerful tool to induce a state of learning. We always remember the things that made us laugh!
8. Teach break state
When moving from one topic to another, or between repetitions of a new mental sequence, this NLP pattern teaches the importance of “clearing the screen.” The break state allows students to clearly identify the beginning and end of a mental sequence, and also to generalize the new mental strategy in all contexts. Hears! Do you smell popcorn?
9. Teach Anchoring
This NLP pattern installs a link between positive emotions and positive behaviors or strategies on top of a positive emotional state. Using sensory acuity, teachers can be alert to these spikes as they occur and reinforce them with “yeah!”, “got that!”, “boom!”, “pow!” or some other type of distinguishing mark. Soon, the emotion and behaviors become integrated. Students can also be taught that negative anchors can be undone and replaced with positive anchors. Knowing this provides great strategies for school, home, work, and life.
10. Teach to access positive intention
Disagreement and disappointment are part of life, but this NLP pattern assumes that we all do things for a positive reason. Teachers and students who frame disagreement and disappointment in a positive light can avoid being critical while keeping the dialogue going. These patterns imply a line of questioning that will ask about the positive intent and then look for a better way to achieve it.
I don’t know how or when the reader will adopt these ideas or how or when individual teachers will incorporate these ideas into their own classrooms, but I think these 10 NLP Patterns deserve consideration in all cases. It is up to the reader to decide now and apply these patterns in a meaningful and successful way.
