PROGRAMS: SCHOOLS

In my role, as a school psychologist, I saw despair in the public schools. Often, the students and teachers seemed demoralized by a lack of funding and academic failure.

In particular, the special services' classrooms carried the burden of social rejection and the stigma of "special education."

In these classrooms, students responded to their feelings of hopelessness and failure by becoming either the class clown or the invisible student. For these students, it was better appear "unwilling" to learn rather than being seen as "unable" to learn.




"The Lost Village"
Mastery experiences require a child to plan, persevere, and to believe in their own skills.
Morita Therapy
Morita therapy was developed in the early 1900's in Japan. Morita teaches children to take action and develop the skills necessary to "climb" the obstacles in their life.

Often these obstacles stand between children and the realization of their goals. Morita proposes that once children have developed the life skills necessary to climb one "mountain" in their life, they are prepared to use these same skills to climb future "mountains."

The Journey hopes to provide the footholds necessary to climb these mountains.


Mastery Experiences
When a child takes action and utilizes the skills necessary to surmount a challenge and to reach a goal, the result is referred to as a mastery experience.

Mastery experiences require a child to plan, persevere, and to believe in their own skills. In other words, mastery experiences teach children that through hard work they can make their dreams come true.

The Journey was designed to increase the frequency of cauldrons mastery experiences by teaching them ego skills. Ego skills include: 1) task persistence, 2) frustration tolerance, 3) mood modulation, 4) impulse control, and 5) delayed gratification. Ego skills are the tools that are necessary for children to reach their goals.

Ego skills lead to self-discipline and "do not drop from the heavens as does the rain and snow". Rather, ego skills have to be taught to a child by a caregiver. Many of the children who experience academic failure need to be taught ego skills.


Locus of Control
The nine Journey adventures present children with challenges or goals which must be mastered in order to earn the adventures' rewards.

Over time, these mastery experiences can lead to the development of an internal locus of control. An internal locus of control is the belief that through one's effort and hard work one determines whether one succeeds or fails. Importantly, an internal locus of control has been shown to be related to increased motivation, academic achievement, and a reduction of feelings such as helplessness and hopelessness.

On the other hand, a person with an external locus of control views success or failure as the result of luck, the behavior of others, or the self-perception that one is inherently good or bad.

Children who have an external locus of control do not perceive themselves as the casual agent for their success or failure. For example, children who have a "victim script" have an external locus of control. They believe that whether they succeed or fail has been determined by their abuse or failure experiences.

A clear goal of The Journey is for children to develop an internal locus of control. When children have an internal locus of control, and they have not experienced success, they view their lack of success as the result of either 1) having an inadequate plan or 2) not having "worked long enough" to achieve success.



"Angel of the Waterfall"
The Journey addresses spiritual awareness in the form of Being of Service to others and in the sense of exploring our connection to others... The Journey was designed for children of any faith and for children who do not have a faith or religious belief.
Personal Growth
While The Journey initially focuses upon teaching children basic and intermediate skills; the Journey also recognizes that these skills are necessary but not sufficient for personal growth and "artful living."

Personal growth requires that in addition to these skills, children develop their intuition, imagination, mindfulness, and wisdom.

The Journey's sequence of training is similar to Abraham Maslow's Theory of Humanistic Psychology.

Maslow states that human beings have a hierarchy of needs and that a person must satisfy their basic needs for physiological survival, safety, and belonging before they can truly focus upon meeting their higher needs for self-esteem and self-actualizing experiences.

Much like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, The Journey's hierarchy of skill building moves from teaching basic life skills such as: self respect, relationships, assertiveness, and self-discipline; to teaching intermediate Life Skills including: teamwork, leadership, and respect for nature. Once a child has mastered the basic and intermediate skills, they are prepared for training in advanced Life Skills such as intuition, thankfulness, creative self expression, and Being of Service.