Issue 149: july 2011

plished when their work en ter tains the

class. They take pride in their imag i na tion

and  sto ry tell ing  abil i ties.  Soon  they  can not

be held back from writing them down. 

An other way I build in ac com plish ment 

is by be gin ning a writ ing as sign ment with

art work. I make pho to cop ies of nat u ral

ob jects, such as leaves and pine cones.

With the pine cones, I ask the stu dents to

color in the parts and then make the cone

into a fish-a wish fish. I ask them to write a 

wish para graph on the back of the page

and share it with the class or just with me. 

Then we paste an other piece of paper on

the back and cut it out. The fish can be

dis played on a bul le tin board. The writ ing

is se cret this way, but any pub lic dis play of

stu dent writ ing, such as dec o rated haiku,

is good for in creas ing a sense of ac com -

plish ment, while de creas ing the frustration 

of fail ure.”

Mr. Har ring ton uses a tech nique that

Fritz Redl called “hur dle help.” He rec og -

nizes the dif fi cul ties in volved with writ ing,

and builds in sup port to help his stu dents,

many of whom have a his tory of school

fail ure,  man age  the  in ev i ta ble  frus tra tions

en coun tered when they at tempt to write.

The merg ing of cur ric u lum with self-con -

trol  de vel op ment  pres ents  stu dents  with

here-and-now mod els of how frus tra tion

can be man aged, while high light ing the

ben e fits of mak ing the ef fort. This kind of

nat u ral  con se quence  is  a  pow er ful  pos i tive 

re in forcer for persistence in the face of

difficulties.

 

Teaching frustration tolerance

throughout the curriculum 

Stu dents  with  low  frus tra tion  tol er ance 

need in sight into how frus tra tion af fects

them, and they need help in de vel op ing

cop ing  strat e gies.  Lit er ally  every  area  of

the  gen eral  cur ric u lum  pro vides  mini-les -

sons  about  tol er at ing  frus tra tion.  For

ex am ple,  con sider  these  frus tra tion

tolerance-teaching activities: 

So cial  Stud ies:  Talk ing about the feel ings 

of fa mous peo ple adds vi tal ity to so cial

stud ies and pro vides pos i tive mod els — a

crit i cal miss ing el e ment in the lives of

many young peo ple-as well as teach ing

about  the  ben e fits  of  frus tra tion  tol er ance. 

Have your stu dents dis cuss whether Marie 

Curie ever had frus trat ing days. How

about Mar tin Lu ther King, Jr., and Jackie

Rob in son? How did they cope with frus -

tra tion? Or con sider Ste phen W. Hawk ing, 

the em i nent ex pert on black holes in

space. He is to tally dis abled by motor neu -

ron dis ease, but he is the top the o ret i cal

phys i cist in the word. How did he do that? 

Ex am in ing  the  pro cess  of  sci en tific  in quiry, 

with its pains tak ing at ten tion to de tail,

pro vides real-life examples of how

frustration tolerance leads to success. 

Math e mat ics  and  through out  the  cur ric u -

lum:  Tape  a  “frus tra tion  ba rom e ter”  on

the desk of each stu dent, using a piece of

paper with a col or ful de sign. Tell stu dents

to make a check on the frus tra tion ba rom -

e ter each time they feel frus trated.

Stu dents do not have to ex plain why they

put a check on their ba rom e ters. Keep a

re cord of these in ci dents of frus tra tion.

After a pe riod of a week or two, have stu -

dents tally their total num ber of

frus tra tion in ci dents for the pe riod of data

col lec tion. Have them make their per sonal 

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frus tra tion ta bles or graphs, first by days

and then by sub jects. Dis cuss the re sults.

Try to iden tify and re cord rea sons for stu -

dent vari a tions in frus tra tion. Bring in

cop ies  of  USA Today to show stu dents var i -

ous ways of show ing data with ta bles and

graphs. En cour age students to be creative

in their own table and graph design. 

Con clu sion 

Stu dents must see the ben e fits of

self-con trol skills, such as frus tra tion tol er -

ance, be fore they will in vest them selves in 

per sonal change. As my 12-year-old

daugh ter re cently re marked, “I’m like

most peo ple, Dad-I don’t like change.”

Change is hard and it re quires per sonal

com mit ment.  The  more  op por tu ni ties

stu dents have to ob serve how each

self-con trol skill pres ents it self in life and

in the class room, the greater the like li -

hood they will in vest them selves in

changing their own behavior. 

From: Reach ing  To day’s  Youth, Vol 1 No.2,

pp23-26

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CYC-Online July 2011  /  Issue 149

F

ac ulty mem bers in Child and Youth  

Care col lege pro grams play out

three dif fer ent roles as they teach

as pir ing  prac ti tio ners.    Every  fac ulty  mem -

ber should be a suc cess ful CYC

prac ti tio ner  as  well  as  being  ac a dem i cally

credentialed, and even tu ally skilled in

adult  ped a gogy.  This  com bi na tion  of  roles

cre ates a three level view point as we en -

coun ter our stu dents.  Typ i cally we ex pect 

to have a re la tion ship with each stu dent

based on a learn ing

dy namic, then we

must  eval u ate  pro -

fes sional  suit abil ity

and fi nally we need

to en gage stu dents

in  ac a demic  rigor,

both read ing and

writ ing at a suit able

level.

So we see the

per son first, then

the fu ture staff mem ber and fi nally the

scholar. Our in cli na tion is to pay at ten tion

to peo ple is sues, since we are pri mar ily

help ers, which some times gets us into

muddy wa ters where we end up in a help -

ing role, coun sel ling rather than teach ing.

We also can find stu dents who are ac a -

dem i cally  quite  suit able,  even  ex cel lent,

yet are poor fu ture prac ti tio ners.  Our

own  def i ni tion  of  pro fes sional  suit abil ity

may also be skewed by per sonal ex pe ri -

ence or the pas sage of time.

So how do we ac tu ally eval u ate stu -

dents in a pro fes sional school? What are

the cri te ria (the new buzz word is ru brics)

that func tion well across courses and fac -

ulty dif fer ences? Per haps this is a ques tion

that also can in form

su per vi sors  and  pro -

gram  di rec tors  as

they hire and train

new CYC staff.

My own an swer is

to use a CYC ap -

proach that is

con gru ent  with  the

be liefs  and  at ti tudes

that we hope to in -

cul cate in our

stu dents as they work with youth and

fam i lies.    So  a  re la tional  and  de vel op men -

tal frame work that looks for skills and

abil i ties as well as the po ten tial for growth 

and new be liefs is most use ful.   Stu dents

need to be more than ac a dem i cally skill ful, 

practice

Academic Roles and

Relationships

Jack Phelan

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