Edwin Rutsch 08

Interviewed Jan Elise Sells

Author Lost and Found: Healing Troubled Teens in Troubled Times

"This book invites you into a counseling office at a contemporary urban middle school as students show up, open up, and share their pain. "

About Empathy in the Schools

Jan was counselor in the Berkeley Schools.

She had set up counselling programs . for 20 years.

She was given a class of 18 student 'troublemakers'

  • students liked her because she didn't do discipline

  • She set up a peer counseling class

  • 17 boys - Rowdy

    • 16 black

    • 1 Jewish - straight A student

    • 1 girl

  • She started class with Talk about listening

  • talked about how counseling worked

  • gave a statement - how would you rephrase that

  • and don't sound like a parrot. use different words and put in different order

  • students had really low vocabulary.

  • the better your vocabulary the better you do in school

  • I am mad, translated in you 'feel pissed off

  • took her months to get them to the point of being able to do reflections

  • students worked in pairs.

  • Didn't have a big vocabulary so she took in words and they learned new feeling words.

the student shared.

  • was reflected.

  • how did it feel to be reflected and heard?

kids loved it

How to make it fun and engaging?

  • hearing each others real stories

  • the sense of feeling hear.

  • (Ann talks about nerver having felt feeling heard growing up. )

Fan of Robert R. Carkhuff art of helping 20th century

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599961792/