Okay, back to our regular scheduled programming...
A couple of years ago when I was doing my internship with adolescents. My fellow intern and I were co-leading (unsupervised) and had a curriculum to follow (we didn't make it) and it was failing. The kids had been there long enough that many of them had already done it plus they were not ready for the work it involved in the first place or at least they weren't gonna play along on this with 1st year interns (talking about their behaviors, trauma, emotions...) It was pretty much a total nightmare and the rookies running the show (us) were getting eaten alive every single group. We absolutely could not get to the information of the group, because following the curriculum resulted in chaos and power struggles from the first minute. It was a bad scene.
We talked about it with our supervisors and finally my supervisor (also the director of the program) said, "Drop it. Do something else until they are ready." So we did. This is what we came up with and it was AMAZING. My co-intern and I were doing high fives and body slams after this. (Okay, we didn't really do any body slamming, but I was feeling that Superbowl Sunday pumped and I think she was too.) It was the best group we had all year.
So, here's what happened: we decided we needed to talk about respect, because there wasn't a whole lot of that going on. So, we said it in song. We googled respect lyrics, looking for something other than R.E.S.P.E.C.T and got this from Train:
For reasons I don't know I treated you so cold
I wish I had those times again
Cause something that you said keeps ringing in my head
Someday you're gonna wanna come back and you're gonna wanna treat me fine
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little
I watched me push you down in dreams I had of you
And all I remember about those days is I would run around thinking that you'd be alright
But you lost your light along the way
And oh you were right about the things I'd say
Cause if I had it back again I know I'd treat you kind
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody got to have somebody
Everybody got to have someone
And all I ever wanted from this play
Was someone to talk to when I get down
It seems you get the things you give along the way
Now all I need is one more chance to make you feel like hanging round
Everybody needs a little
Everybody needs a little
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody got to have someone
We gave them all double-sided photocopies. One side had this, the other side had some really simple sentence completion in a poetry format. It was just something we threw together like,
To me respect is ________________________.
I feel respected when people ________________________.
I wish everyone _______________________.
etc.
We read the lyrics together and then invited them to either write their own lyrics/poem about respect or fill in the sentences. Then we had a little poetry open mic and discussion about how we all want to be treated. The gods smiled down upon the baby interns and their group that day, because the kids LOVED it. They. Loved. It. THEY LOVED IT! Words cannot express the beauty of this moment I swear to you. If it wouldn't have been poor boundaries, I would have kissed the forehead of every person in the room that day. I got so excited I said, "I am so amazed by how well you guys write (TRUE!). I think we need to make a book with this stuff!" and they thought so too and wanted to bring in more poetry, create art for the book on their own time etc... they lost interest in this later, but I think if we leaders had been a little less rookie and a little more creative, we might have been able to maintain a sense of excitement about that project and worked the curriculum we were supposed to follow into this... maybe.
After reading Contemporary Art Therapy with Adolescents, I think part of the success of this had to do with not only appealing to their interests (they like to write), but also we were not directing this at them. This wasn't about "tell me how you should be respectful and lets review group rules (snore)" but more like, "hey what do you think about respect?" According to Shirley Riley, teens do better when asked about a topic in general terms and don't do so well if asked about their own weaknesses and thoughts due to the natural narcissistic developmental stage.
The kids also noted how great the group had been which allowed us to discuss what they thought had made that happen and how we could have more awesome groups.
A couple of years ago when I was doing my internship with adolescents. My fellow intern and I were co-leading (unsupervised) and had a curriculum to follow (we didn't make it) and it was failing. The kids had been there long enough that many of them had already done it plus they were not ready for the work it involved in the first place or at least they weren't gonna play along on this with 1st year interns (talking about their behaviors, trauma, emotions...) It was pretty much a total nightmare and the rookies running the show (us) were getting eaten alive every single group. We absolutely could not get to the information of the group, because following the curriculum resulted in chaos and power struggles from the first minute. It was a bad scene.
We talked about it with our supervisors and finally my supervisor (also the director of the program) said, "Drop it. Do something else until they are ready." So we did. This is what we came up with and it was AMAZING. My co-intern and I were doing high fives and body slams after this. (Okay, we didn't really do any body slamming, but I was feeling that Superbowl Sunday pumped and I think she was too.) It was the best group we had all year.
So, here's what happened: we decided we needed to talk about respect, because there wasn't a whole lot of that going on. So, we said it in song. We googled respect lyrics, looking for something other than R.E.S.P.E.C.T and got this from Train:
For reasons I don't know I treated you so cold
I wish I had those times again
Cause something that you said keeps ringing in my head
Someday you're gonna wanna come back and you're gonna wanna treat me fine
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little
I watched me push you down in dreams I had of you
And all I remember about those days is I would run around thinking that you'd be alright
But you lost your light along the way
And oh you were right about the things I'd say
Cause if I had it back again I know I'd treat you kind
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody got to have somebody
Everybody got to have someone
And all I ever wanted from this play
Was someone to talk to when I get down
It seems you get the things you give along the way
Now all I need is one more chance to make you feel like hanging round
Everybody needs a little
Everybody needs a little
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody got to have someone
We gave them all double-sided photocopies. One side had this, the other side had some really simple sentence completion in a poetry format. It was just something we threw together like,
To me respect is ________________________.
I feel respected when people ________________________.
I wish everyone _______________________.
etc.
We read the lyrics together and then invited them to either write their own lyrics/poem about respect or fill in the sentences. Then we had a little poetry open mic and discussion about how we all want to be treated. The gods smiled down upon the baby interns and their group that day, because the kids LOVED it. They. Loved. It. THEY LOVED IT! Words cannot express the beauty of this moment I swear to you. If it wouldn't have been poor boundaries, I would have kissed the forehead of every person in the room that day. I got so excited I said, "I am so amazed by how well you guys write (TRUE!). I think we need to make a book with this stuff!" and they thought so too and wanted to bring in more poetry, create art for the book on their own time etc... they lost interest in this later, but I think if we leaders had been a little less rookie and a little more creative, we might have been able to maintain a sense of excitement about that project and worked the curriculum we were supposed to follow into this... maybe.
After reading Contemporary Art Therapy with Adolescents, I think part of the success of this had to do with not only appealing to their interests (they like to write), but also we were not directing this at them. This wasn't about "tell me how you should be respectful and lets review group rules (snore)" but more like, "hey what do you think about respect?" According to Shirley Riley, teens do better when asked about a topic in general terms and don't do so well if asked about their own weaknesses and thoughts due to the natural narcissistic developmental stage.
The kids also noted how great the group had been which allowed us to discuss what they thought had made that happen and how we could have more awesome groups.
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