KNOW THYSELF: The Path Towards Transformation

By Dr. NELSON C ELIAS

This book is prepared as a life skill training manual for adolescents which contain a lot of activities that sustain their interest. A chapter on adolescent developmental psychology is included to understand their behavioural patterns. It also includes a description on some typical maladaptive behaviour patterns of adolescents and the ways to deal it. A few easy to practice behavioural intervention techniques are mentioned that helps one to acquire the desired behavioural changes. This book would be highly useful for teachers, counsellors, life skill trainers, parents of adolescents and everyone else who deals with adolescents. It helps the readers to understand them better and help adolescents to know themselves. It would be of great help to an adolescent to know thyself and get transformed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716630248

Book preview

KNOW THYSELF

THE PATH TOWARDS TRANSFORMATION

Dr. NELSON C ELIAS, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2020 Dr. NELSON C ELIAS All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher – except that is otherwise permitted.

DEDICATION

Dedicated to my guide and light of inspiration Rtn. MRHF. PP. Prof. Dr. VEDAGIRI GANESAN, Ph.D. The Honorary Director, the Former Syndicate Member and the Ex-Professor and Head Department of Psychology, Bharatiar Univeresity, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India - whose simplicity and wisdom motivated me to write this book.

INTRODUCTION

This book is prepared as a life skill training manual for adolescents which contain a lot of activities that sustain their interest. A chapter on adolescent developmental psychology is included to understand their behavioural patterns. It also includes a description on some typical maladaptive behaviour patterns of adolescents and the ways to deal it. A few easy to practice behavioural intervention techniques are mentioned that helps one to acquire the desired behavioural changes.  This book  would be highly useful for teachers, counsellors, life skill trainers,  parents of adolescents and everyone else who deals with adolescents. It helps the readers to understand them better and help adolescents to know themselves. It would be of great help to an adolescent to know thyself and get transformed.

FOREWORD

Albert Einstein stated that Education is what remains after one has forgotten what has learnt in school.  It’s inarguably, skills for life and work that one gained through education and experience. Life Skill is an important dimension of pedagogy. Every state has to incorporate it in the public education system.   

In view of this, the Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989) emphasized the importance of Life Skill in education by declaring that education should be directed towards the development of the child’s fullest potential. WHO in their 1997 paper on Mental Health envisaged the need of Life Skills and defined it as "the abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. Our own National Education Policy have emphasized the importance of such training; All state education and central education boards introduced and incorporated Life Skill education in our curriculum.  However, the lack of text and reference books were the main concern among the teachers and trainers involved in this mission. 

Dr. Nelson Elias Chungath, a teacher, educator and a PhD holder in Psychology, approached this topic with social and cultural sensitivity. His work on Life Skill Education started with an historical account of the Oracle of Delphi and Buddha invariably showing his efficient artistry of using Western wisdom blended with Indian cultural context. 

Dr. Nelson covered all aspects of Life Skill identified by UN bodies and our own national education bodies, like CBSE, NCERT and various state education counsels. It was written in a step by step manner in lucid language. 

The teacher has a big role to play in a Childs Holistic Development as the Maitreya Upanishads stated as one acts and conducts himself, so does he becomes, the doer of good become good, the doer of evil become evil, one become virtuous by being virtuous, bad by bad action. Hence, what we preach is not matter, what we do will matter most. 

With this perspective and as I know  Dr. Nelson and his work, as he does always virtuous deeds, his phenomenal comprehensive work on the Life Skill Education is the need of the hour, and I recommend this work for all teachers involved in Life Skill Education to make use of it as a text book in their classes. 

Mumbai                                                                                      Dr. K. Purandaran,

August 20, 2020.                                                          CEO, Potential Unlimited                                                                                     

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Nelson. C. Elias had done his B.A., M.A., MPhil and PhD in psychology besides having a post graduate diploma in Counselling and a graduation in Education. He had undergone training in various therapy approaches such as behaviour therapy, hypnotherapy, logo therapy and acupuncture. He is working in the field of education and counselling for more than two decades. Currently working as a teacher at GVHSS Vattenad, Palakkad, Kerala, India.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I express my profound, heart-felt appreciation and gratitude to  Dr. K. Purandaran, Ph.D., C. E. O, Potential Unlimited and former Research officer and Program Manager at TISS Mumbai., for writing the foreword for this book whose simplicity always inspired me.

I am greatly thankful to my wife Mrs. Ansa and my daughter Aneeta whose prayers and moral support made it possible for me to complete this book

I am highly thankful to my son Aaron C Nelson for providing the technical support needed to prepare the book.

* Indebted to www.pexels.com for the images used in the book.

FOR MORE RESOURCES SCAN THE Q R CODE

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER I4

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER II11

TRANSACTION OF THE LESSONS

CHAPTER III16

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENTS

CHAPTER IV37

LIFE SKILLS

CHAPTER V41

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

CHAPTER VI73

INTRA PERSONAL SKILLS

CHAPTER VII

MANAGING STRESS

CHAPTER VIII

BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

CHAPTER IX

PERSONAL VALUE SYSTEM ANALYSIS

CHAPTER X

JOHARI WINDOW

CHAPTER XI

ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR AMONG ADOLESCENTS

CHAPTER XII

SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR AMONG ADOLESCENTS

CHAPTER XIII

IMPULSIVE BEHAVIOUR AMONG ADOLESCENTS

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

LIFE SKILLS

APPENDIX B

BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION

APPENDIX C

ANALYSING CONVERSATIONS

APPENDIX D

TYPES OF RELATIONSHIP

APPENDIX E

ELEMENTS OF GOOD FRIENDSHIP

APPENDIX F

ASSERTIVENESS

APPENDIX G200

LIST OF TRAITS

APPENDIX H201

IMPULSIVITY-QUESTIONNAIRE

APPENDIX I

IMPULSIVE BEHAVIOUR PATTERN ANALYSIS

APPENDIX J

MIND MAP

APPENDIX K

LIST OF WORDS (LIST-1)

APPENDIX L

LIST OF WORDS (LIST-2)

APPENDIX M

LIST OF CAREER

APPENDIX N

LIST OF EMOTIONS

APPENDIX O

(QUESTIONNAIRE)

APPENDIX P215

TIME MANAGEMENT

APPENDIX Q216

ANALYSIS OF STRESSFUL SITUATION

APPENDIX R217

STRESS ANALYSIS

APPENDIX S218

STRESSFUL SITUATION ANALYSIS

APPENDIX T219

LIST OF PERSONAL VALUES

REFERENCES

CHAPTER I

THE PATH TOWARDS TRANSFORMATION

INTRODUCTION

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels, demons, heaven or hell  

                          -  Sree Buddha

Know thyself is an ancient Greek aphorism.  It is believed that this aphorism was inscribed on the forecourt of the temple of Apollo Delphi in Greece. Know thyself is the beginning of wisdom and is often attributed to Socrates, which literally means knowing oneself. Knowledge of oneself helps to master and develop oneself. This eventually benefits oneself, others and the society at large. Know thyself is an appeal for self help. Knowing oneself had a great impact on our behaviour, decision making and relationships. This book helps you to know ourselves better and use that knowledge to get mastery over ourselves. Knowing oneself is the first step towards self- mastery.

Need and objective of this manual                

The objective of this manual is to satisfy the needs of parents, counsellors, adolescent students, teachers, mentors and coaches. The commanding teacher and the most obedient students had turned out to be a myth in all parts of world.  Students are more aware of their rights and they expect respect from teachers, parents and elders.  The respect towards their attitudes, likes, dislikes and their choices.  From my experience of teaching adolescent students for over the last 20 years had taught me many lessons.  I find greater needs for guidance among adolescence. Since they spend most of their time on academic learning in the present day highly competitive world, they require guidance on how to behave properly. 

Adolescence is the transition period from childhood to adulthood. Till recently this was not considered as an important life span since once they reach puberty, they were regarded as adults. They go to work either in the fields or learn a trade for their livelihood and they would even get married in many of the societies and assign them the full responsibilities of an adult. But now the world became more complex which requires the adolescence to learn a lot of skills and acquire more knowledge in their fields of study. They need more time to acquire it. This put them in the educational institutions for a longer time. There they are not considered as fully adults since they are not financially independent or ready to take up a job. The world of work is very vast, complex and continually changing. They require additional skills to get accommodated to the changing world of work and life styles. So the need for guidance arises.

Adolescents don't get much time for face to face interaction with friends or other adults. They don't get opportunity for social learning through modelling, which is a time consuming process.  Teachers are now facing more problems of misbehaving and disciplinary problems than ever before in their classrooms and schools.  Most teachers transfer these cases to counsellors and parents.  The principal who also once belonged to the army of teachers - most times, stands in the middle of the battle ground without an armour or effective weapons or with weapons which he never knows how to operate.

Teacher education in many parts of the world is focused on effective transaction of academic subjects and doesn't cater to the real needs of the classroom, especially on how to handle disciplinary problems in the classroom. This is one of the major reasons for why many youth doesn't opt for a career in school as a teacher. Some existing teachers are also happy to leave the profession despite being paid comparatively well for their work.  A lot of research is taking place around the world on how to tackle the disciplinary problem. But still the teachers are struggling with this problem.  Parents are happy to handover the responsibility to the school officials and they expect that teachers should be experts in that area.  They are already busy with their work and they pay their tax or school fees for the service. Parents don't like to hear badly about their child.

Then other person who has to take the responsibility is the school counsellors. But some schools don't have a counsellor. Even if a counsellor is present, he could handle only serious cases of misbehaviour because schools can't afford to have so many counsellors. Some Counsellors are inexperienced and students are likely to behave well with them and they don't find an issue with the student. Some of them will be referred to a therapist.  It all depends on the attitude of the parents whether they consult with a therapist or not. The other group of professionals who work are coaches. They impart life skills to adolescents. But they are too expensive for most schools to afford. Their service will not be available for every problem that occurs in the school. It is also very difficult to find efficient coaches in every part of the world.

What I would like to convey you in a nutshell is that it becomes the primary responsibility of the teacher to make sure that there is a healthy relationship between teachers and students and also among teachers and students themselves.  This manual is prepared taking the needs of the adolescent students who attend the school and also on how the teachers can effectively intervene. It will also benefit the parents of adolescents and everyone else who interact with adolescents. The knowledge about the behaviour pattern of adolescents can greatly benefit the parents. It helps them to predict their behaviour and find reasons for their change in behaviour - which provides them with more tolerance, patience and be more empathetic towards them. The adolescents themselves can also be benefitted by recognising the nature of their own behaviour and the ways to alter their own unhealthy behaviour patterns.

A lot of research is being conducted all around the world in the disciplines of education and psychology regarding the inappropriate behaviour patterns of adolescent students. But most times the results and the knowledge acquired through research end up there itself without being carried over effectively to the teachers, who in my view are the soldiers in the midst of the battlefield without armour. Most of the research reports contain too many technical jargons and also doesn't contain clear protocol on how to convert this precious knowledge into practical school settings.

Many countries around the globe don't promote the research which is conducted by teachers. They are neither given proper training to do research nor their findings getting highlighted in the society. They even think that it is not the job of the school teacher to do research, which is the sole property of researchers attached to the university and institutes of higher learning. When me as a school teacher approached a senior University professor for providing guidance to do my doctoral work he asked me why these school teachers should go for research. At least in some countries they are being looked down upon despite being given gifts and flowers on the Teachers Day. Some believe that they don't have the calibre to do independent research.  The degree of this attitude differs from country to country and there may be some exceptions, but it is not the case everywhere.

Some governments had put up separate curriculum to teach life skills, but many of them didn't. Even in the places where the curriculum is implemented, it is not properly done. Teachers are not given proper training and failed to build up confidence building measures among teaches regarding their own efficacy to deal with such a curriculum. Many of them still feel that teachers should concentrate at the proper transaction of the different academic subjects. They evaluate themselves on this basis, like how many of their students got highest grade etc. Since teachers make constant contact with the adolescent students, they should be well equipped with the skills necessary to cope with the problems that arise in the class room and school. They should not be left at the mercy of the other professionals or a couple of teachers for every crisis.                                                             

The thriving business like management skill training workshops, workshops on the science of mind, different modes of psychological therapies, positive thinking skills etc. are affordable only to an elite few.  These are the areas for many to make huge amount of money with little investment. So chances are many that frauds will also make a play. So what I personally feel is that proper self -management skills shouldn't remain to be a mystery to the common man so that the above business will not flourish. The knowledge should be benefited to the common man. So why don't we make psychology and the related fields more popular and cost-effective. Let every teacher learn how to prevent or manage behaviour problems of their students and enable them to make healthy human relationships. There should be a social movement among the teachers to press their respective governments to make these types of skill acquisition programs available to them. 

These skill acquisition programs make teaching in the school more hassle-free and enjoyable. It is at the adolescence period that students are more difficult to manage. Students may not even know themselves that they had a problem. But when they reach college and enters early adulthood, they may voluntarily seek the help of a professional to get rid of the problem. It is the right of every teacher to get the required knowledge and skills needed to manage the behaviour outcomes of the students.  I am sure that this book would be of great help to the teachers, parents, counsellors, mentors and coaches who deal with adolescent students. Every effort has been made to make this book very brief, simple and application oriented. It contains activities that really sustain the interest of adolescent students.  The goal is to empower every teacher to become great behaviour management experts so that they can go to their classrooms with their heads high up with a feeling of high enthusiasm and high self - confidence. 

Adolescence is a period of great change. It is at this period that some of them start to think about their own behaviour and make introspection. But they don't know how to do