Brain Behavior Institute - Session 17

I found this neat optical illusion that I thought explained everything we have learned over the past few days!  My brain(story teller) is still trying to communicate with my cognitive unconscious!  Bill Nye

The info learned today about sleep,memory etc, explains how we're organized to have corrollations between our story telling and cognitive unconsciousness.  If I understand it the melodies, themes in my head are carried by my cog un and formulated in a song by my story telling mechanism.  Sometimes the story telling creates major, minor moods or sometimes has no explanation at all and depresses the musical impulses and I lose the creativity at that moment.  The certain musical score may or may not return.  Thanks Paul.

Bullying Group: Angela, Judith, Jack and Joyce

There are 3 targets (bullies, victims and observer) that can be addressed regarding the problem of bullying.

One common scenario is to convince the bullies that their behavior is not appropriate and as so must end. However if the bully's behavior is first generated in her cognitive unconscious as a response to an ‘irritation’ caused by the different behavior of the victim, then the bully will only recognize her storyteller’s generated version of why she must attack the victim until they go away and stop causing an unbalance to her accepted group culture. Her story works for her and others as the dominant members of the culture.

The victim has also generated a story as a result of cues from her cognitive unconscious that causes her to follow her own ‘true’ behavior. She has no idea why she is being attacked and is not aware of being out of balance to others. And if she does recognize why her story irritates others, she can't easily access her cognitive unconscious to change her story. 

There has been some success with empowering the observers because perhaps because their cognitive unconscious is experiencing both stories and may be able to be influenced in the generation of a story that will help the victim.

The other potentially successful method could be to develop strategies that the victim might accept so as to diffuse the irritation of others (in their cognitive unconscious) and create better balance around her.

As I was walking to the train yesterday I overheard a man and a woman in a heated discussion. As I was passing the woman said, "You never know, they could just be telling stories."

Jill, Deb, Shoshona

Learned helplessness:  The children who approach a problem, assignment, situation and immediately shut down and say "I can't do it."  When a teacher sits with them, we discover that they actually has the skills they need and can do the work.  However they continue to react in the same manner. 

Our story for this behavior:  The story teller is activated by an emotion.  The story teller tells the story,  "I can't do it", but the story is not reflective of cognitive unconscious.  We can help them access their cognitive unconscious, but the next time, child responds the same way: the story hasn't changed.  If you tell them their story is wrong, they might simply shut down (percieved attack on their self).

What can we do?  Perhaps we can teach them to inhibit their story teller and access their cognitive unconscious.  But a more effective approach seems to be to help the child tell a new story.  The child needs new experiences in order to create a new story. 

Could trying to associate the situation with a new emotion help as well??

When I was in fifth grade (or so) my Mother asked me why I did something.  I responded “I though …. “ She asked me “Who is paying you to think?”  I responded “You are paying all of that money to send me to a Christian school, so you are really paying me to think.”   I had won that argument!  My Mother just walked away from me at that point.   I do not remember the preceding or the antecedents, but I remember that confabulation.