The importance of emotional well-being in learning
I developed Aleph Therapeutic Learning for children and young people who do not thrive with the use of conventional teaching methods. The Aleph approach is compassionate, lively and effective. I designed my educational activities to:
*Identify and ease learning-related anxiety
* Provide deeper understanding of any learning difficulty that may be present
*Uncover innate ability
* Encourage expressive, confident use of vocabulary
* Enable better understanding of topics and ideas
*Enable confident engagement in discussion
*Enable creativity
*Build a sense of self worth
Very many children and young people suffer from learning-related anxiety. This problem is often undetected, but it needs to be identified for learning to flourish. An important feature of the Aleph approach is that it creates a stress-free and rewarding experience in which fears about learning can be eased or even dissolved. In fact, many young people who appear to be experiencing learning difficulties are actually suffering from anxiety, which causes the blocks that appear as difficulties.
Aleph Therapeutic Learning does not work with conventional ideas in regard to learning. Its approaches have been formulated to give each young person an experience in which they can gain a real connection to the topics that they need to study. Most importantly, it recognises that learning involves the emotions as well as the intellect. (Please contact me if you would like to read these short pieces: True learning is a felt experience and Why use the term ‘therapeutic’ in regard to learning?)