Using NLP to help Middle School students choose their High school

Secondary adult ( used for other purposes)
Gigliola Pagano, Italy

Teaching in a Junior High School, every autumn I witness the students' difficult times when they have to choose the High School they want to go to. This is a choice that will have an impact on the student's future course of studies, careers and life. It is a delicate time when circumstances force them to think of their future and what they want to do with it.

Having used Robert Dilts' T.O.T.E. model effectively as a way of tracking and supporting change in my life, I thought I could adapt it to assist my students choose their next path in life - their future school. The T.O.T.E. (Test Operate Test Exit) model is a mental strategy used in N.L.P. (Neuro Linguistic Programming) for defining a goal and this is an extension of this strategy to help people managing change. It gives the overall landscape involved in the changing process. I also liked the metaphor of the landscape used in this strategy because I thought it could well fit the imagination of the 14 year old teenagers of my class. I then decided I wanted to adapt this strategy to fit 22 students in a group visualisation.
These are the steps of the activity.
All the students need is a sheet of paper and a pen.

MY FUTURE SCHOOL -- STEPS TOWARDS A CHOICE

1. PRESENT STATE. Close your eyes and concentrate on yourself, notice your breathing and think of your present situation. Where are you now? What is your present context? Keep in mind whatever is that defines your present state, maybe a picture or a feeling or some words that you say to yourself. Keep the essence of this situation in mind and open your eyes. Draw on the left-hand side of the paper a picture, a symbol or a word that defines your present state.
This is the starting point, the students' present life situation. The journey starts from a reflection on their present.

2. YOUR GOAL. Close your eyes again and now imagine your dream, your goal in life. What do you want in your future? Again catch the essence of your dream, either a word, a picture or a feeling. Open your eyes and note down on the right hand side of the paper the dream that you have in mind.
This is their future goal, it is not only the school they want to choose, but their future life, who they want to be in their future. Imagining the dream (as a picture, feeling or sound) often helps making it more real.

3. EFFECTS. With your eyes closed now go to a time in the future where you will have already reached the goal. What have you got by achieving your goal? What has your goal done for you? Why do you want this goal? What effect has it had on your life? Again note this on your paper just beyond your goal.
The students now go to a time in the future when they have already reached their dream (it has been possible), they can notice the long term effects of reaching their dream.

4. PATH. Now that you have these 2 points in time, the present situation and your dream, draw a path and a landscape that connects these 2 points. It can be a shore or a wood, a mountain or whatever landscape your imagination might suggest.
The students create their own metaphorical landscape, that is meaningful to them.

5. WALKING THE PATH. Close your eyes one more time and follow your path. Go along your path and notice the landscape that you have created. How do you know that you are going in the direction of your goal? Or how do you know that you are walking in the opposite direction? Is it a feeling that tells you or some words or pictures? Note these down along your path on your paper.
The students notice the inner/outer signs that tell them they are approaching their goal or going away from it.

6. GIFTS FROM THE PRESENT. With your eyes closed go back to your present situation and think of the important things that you have in your present state that you want to take along with you in your path and in your future goal. What is it so important in your present life that you want to take with you? It is probably a value that you have that might come out in such words as "friendship", "affection" …
Any change, to be effective, must check and preserve the ecology of the system involved. Here the students come to think that when you move in a new direction you don't have to throw everything away, but you can keep the important and valuable things from the past situation.

7. FLYING THE EAGLE. Closing your eyes now imagine you are flying high like an eagle looking down at your landscape and observing it from this distant perspective. You notice yourself moving towards your goal. Who else is involved in this landscape, it might be your friends or your family. How would they react to your goal? Would they support you and walk along the path with you or would they try to stop you? What obstacles do you see on your path now that you are observing it from this higher perspective? What resources do you have that can help you reach the goal?And now that you have this privileged position of the observer, having considered all this, do you still want this goal or do you want a different goal? Open your eyes and note down the obstacles and your resources along the path.
Observing your path from a higher/detached perspective helps you to widen your horizons, assuming the point of view of an observer. Again considering the ecology of the people involved in this change might bring you to notice if these people will be an obstacle or rather a resource in your journey. The students think in terms of resources they need to overcome the obstacles - or maybe the obstacle is so big that sometimes they even want to reconsider the whole journey.

8. SHARING. Now choose a partner in this group and share with him/her your landscape. When it's your turn listen carefully to what your partner has to tell you, and try to be along his/her path as much as possible.
Sharing their landscape with a partner helps the students to translate the metaphor into words and to give voice to what they have felt during the journey.

Once they have imagined all the elements and steps involved in the journey the students have reported feeling the journey much easier and in most cases they felt the sense of confusion and of "not knowing" almost dissolved somewhere along the path.

There are many times in our lives when we are confronted with an important or difficult decision that implies a change - now we have yet another tool that can help us keeping track of where we are going.

Please check the NLP course at Pilgrims website.