Emotional Intelligence (EI) was first theorized by researchers John Mayer and Peter Salovey in 1990. Since then, there has been increasing research into EI and growing interest in the field by educators, human resources personnel and business leaders. Since its inception, EI has been valued and validated in the praxis of Wondertree and SelfDesign programs.

Earlier this year (2006) 'Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life'* was published, summarizing much recent academic research in the field. From the introductory chapter, Dr. John Mayer asserts the following:

In 2005 Hawaiian researcher Dr. Daniel Janik published 'Unlock the Genius Within; Neurobiological Trauma, Teaching, and Transformative learning', reflecting his insights as a career as a neuro-surgeon and linguistic specialist. In this book Dr. Janik describes a general theory, tenets and description of neurobiologically-based 'Transformative Learning' (TL). Most significantly, Dr. Janik asserts that brain development is optimized, the most desirable behavioural traits emerge, and the conditions for (significant) TL (akin to SelfDesign's "Enthusiasm-based Learning") arise when a person/child is in a non-coercive, curiosity-based, mentor-assisted learning environment.

- "(Brain) Imaging, the Rosetta stone of neurobiology continues to develop and needs to become standard intellectual fare within educational institutions. ... this new knowledge boils down to a better understanding of our physical selves and how our brains actually learn. Neurobiological understanding is neither a wish, hope, nor dream - it's a necessary part of being a parent, student, or professional educator, and a requirement for humanity to eventually step outside violence and into a state of true, volitional learning."

- "In nontraumatic learning situations, mentor-learner pairings are nonstressful, volitional, and rarely limited by design, though to some extent by circumstances. Traumatic learning is almost always effective, although the majority of what is actually learned is unpredictable and almost inevitably includes many unwanted triggers and behaviors. Nontraumatic learning, when it is curiosity-based, discovery-driven, and mentor-supported, is almost always effective, and the majority of what is actually learned is predictable and rarely ever includes unwanted triggers and behaviors."

* Unlock the Genius Within; Neurobiological Trauma, Teaching, and Transformative learning is published by Rowman & Littlefield Education; ISBN 1578862914; Dr. Janik may be contacted through the website drjanik.tripod.com/

When Dr. Mel Levine was a youngster, he had what he describes as a Òspecialized mindÓ excelling at things like language and social awareness. By his own admission he was not very competent in sports and gross motor abilities. Today Dr. Levine is a pediatrician, an internationally known author, and the cofounder of the nonprofit institute All Kinds of Minds. Dr. Levine is also dedicated to expanding our understanding of differences in learning.

Below are some excerpts, first from an interview in the September 2006 issue of Educational Leadership, and, second, from Dr. Levine's book,' A Mind at a Time'. Mel Levine may be contacted through the website www.allkindsofminds.org/

If we want to prepare kids for adulthood, one of the most important things we can do is to celebrate their strengths, those assets with which they're going to find meaning in life and be able to make contributions. For the most part, adults who are leading worthy lives are doing so by mobilizing their strengths and affinities. What we should seek is a consonance between a student's education and his future career.

A math teacher sees a girl in her class who is struggling with mathÑshe just doesn't have the concepts and takes a long time to solve problems. But the teacher has found out that this girl is a whiz at summarizing stories she's read and enriching a class discussion. That math teacher realizes that this is a student who's going to have to use her expressive language abilities to learn math. In a sense, she's not going to understand math until she teaches it to someone else.

And so the girl gets a tape recorder. Every time she learns a math concept, she goes home and dictates an explanation of it. She recasts math in her own language in order to conceptualize it. She learns to use her strong expressive language abilities to leverage her weak mathematical abilities.

Here's another example. A content affinity is an area of content toward which a child is drawn for some obscure reason. A particular kid loves cars. Someone else is into sports statistics. Another child loves fashion. It is so important to identify these content affinities. When I was a little boy, I loved animals. No one else in my family had anything like my affinity for animal life. Now I live on a huge farm in North Carolina, surrounded by animal life. As I look out the window while we speak, I see my donkeys, my geese, my pheasants, my peacocks, six dogs, eight catsÑit's way out of control. But animals were always my affinity.

- "High schools force our kids to do everything as fast as possible, they have to write quickly, think fast, remember on the spot, sprint through timed tests, and meet tight deadlines. This frenzied pedagogical rhythm is totally contrary to what the students' brains are striving to become. The output controls - exist to promote thoughtful, slowly executed work, which should be one of the principle missions of adolescence and the high school years. I think we should reward adolescents from taking as much time as they need to do a good job. Most tests should be untimed, or else students should be allowed to do as much as they can do well, perhaps finishing the rest at another time. The output controls are doing what they can to decelerate thinking, decision making, and output, to make kids thoughtful rather than impulsive. Secondary education, therefore, ought to incorporate as one of its principal objectives teaching kids how to work slowly. That's what their developing brains are trying to tell us."

- "After following large numbers of my patients and watching them become adults, I am convinced that many students who appear to have significant learning problems (and in a real sense they do) in reality have highly specialized minds, brains that were never designed to be well rounded. After seeing endless examples of such misunderstood, often widely condemned kids, I have become convinced that their proper and humane management must include opportunities for early specialization. They need to practise their calling on a part-time basis as soon as the preferences become evident. Parents and our educational system must provide opportunities for kids to utilize and strengthen their strengths and their affinities - no matter what those assets happen to be. To deny a developing mind access to its specialty is cruel. To judge one's worthiness in the specialties of others is equally inhumane. And it's asking for serious trouble."

- "Current practices of testing students to determine if they meet criteria for a label in order to help them are totally arbitrary and unfair to those who qualify as well as those who fall within the cracks. The labels are showstoppers; once a clinician comes up with a label, people somehow think they need to look no further; they now have a handle on that kid. That's so obviously false."

- "We should always place an emphasis on the evaluation of strengths rather than deficits; students should be required to strengthen their strengths and should be graded rigorously in their chosen specialties."


	Hello, this location will provide information on research pertinent to Wondertree and SelfDesign. Research overview The basic tenets of SelfDesign and Wondertree Foundation for Natural Learning are that learning naturally and optimally unfolds for all children in a context of support, love and enthusiasm. Essentially, our work is to value and validate children's learning as it emerges in conventional and non-conventional (but equally valid) forms. Brent Cameron, founder of the award-winning Wondertree learning program in 1983 and co-founder of SelfDesign in 2002, first documented the principles of selfdesigning in his Masters thesis (Simon Fraser University, 1989). A book, 'SelfDesign: Nurturing Genius through Natural Learning' by Brent Cameron and Barbara Meyer (2006; (Sentient Publications, Boulder) now documents many of the most compelling insights and strategies of organization's work. An additional Masters thesis (SFU, 1997) was completed by Michael Maser on the innovative and award-winning 'Virtual High Learning Community', a Wondertree-style program for teens (Vancouver, 1993-1996). Wondertree and SelfDesign philosophy is original in nature and aligned with many of the tenets of Multiple Intelligences, Emotional Intelligence, Constructivist learning theory, Neuro-Biological (AKA 'Brain-Based') learning theory and the 'biology of cognition'. Accordingly, we owe a debt of gratitude to the work and research of John Holt, A.S. Neill, Ruth Benedict, Gordon Neufeld, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Jean Leidloff, Buckminster Fuller, Seymour Papert, Edith Cobb, Howard Gardner, John Mayer, Peter Salovey, Mel Levine, Nel Noddings, Douglas Harding, Humberto Maturana, Gregory Bateson, Ashley Montagu, John Grinder, John Dewey, Johann Goethe and many others. Some Current Pertinent Research ¥ Emotional Intelligence Emotional Intelligence (EI) was first theorized by researchers John Mayer and Peter Salovey in 1990. Since then, there has been increasing research into EI and growing interest in the field by educators, human resources personnel and business leaders. Since its inception, EI has been valued and validated in the praxis of Wondertree and SelfDesign programs. Earlier this year (2006) 'Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life'* was published, summarizing much recent academic research in the field. From the introductory chapter, Dr. John Mayer asserts the following: - Understanding EI helps approach emotions as signals - Understanding EI can enhance self-management - EI enhances understanding of what it is to be a human being - EI enhances the understanding of intelligence - EI enhances the fairness of IQ testing - EI can be used to predict important outcomes, - EI provides a rationale for taking emotions seriously in educational and organizational contexts * Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life is published by Psychology Press; ISBN 1-84169-435-5 ¥ Transformative Learning - Dr. Daniel Janik In 2005 Hawaiian researcher Dr. Daniel Janik published 'Unlock the Genius Within; Neurobiological Trauma, Teaching, and Transformative learning', reflecting his insights as a career as a neuro-surgeon and linguistic specialist. In this book Dr. Janik describes a general theory, tenets and description of neurobiologically-based 'Transformative Learning' (TL). Most significantly, Dr. Janik asserts that brain development is optimized, the most desirable behavioural traits emerge, and the conditions for (significant) TL (akin to SelfDesign's "Enthusiasm-based Learning") arise when a person/child is in a non-coercive, curiosity-based, mentor-assisted learning environment. Here are some excerpts from this book: - "(Brain) Imaging, the Rosetta stone of neurobiology continues to develop and needs to become standard intellectual fare within educational institutions. ... this new knowledge boils down to a better understanding of our physical selves and how our brains actually learn. Neurobiological understanding is neither a wish, hope, nor dream - it's a necessary part of being a parent, student, or professional educator, and a requirement for humanity to eventually step outside violence and into a state of true, volitional learning." - "In nontraumatic learning situations, mentor-learner pairings are nonstressful, volitional, and rarely limited by design, though to some extent by circumstances. Traumatic learning is almost always effective, although the majority of what is actually learned is unpredictable and almost inevitably includes many unwanted triggers and behaviors. Nontraumatic learning, when it is curiosity-based, discovery-driven, and mentor-supported, is almost always effective, and the majority of what is actually learned is predictable and rarely ever includes unwanted triggers and behaviors." * Unlock the Genius Within; Neurobiological Trauma, Teaching, and Transformative learning is published by Rowman & Littlefield Education; ISBN 1578862914; Dr. Janik may be contacted through the website drjanik.tripod.com/ ¥ Neurodevelopmental Learning - Dr. Mel Levine When Dr. Mel Levine was a youngster, he had what he describes as a Òspecialized mindÓ excelling at things like language and social awareness. By his own admission he was not very competent in sports and gross motor abilities. Today Dr. Levine is a pediatrician, an internationally known author, and the cofounder of the nonprofit institute All Kinds of Minds. Dr. Levine is also dedicated to expanding our understanding of differences in learning. Below are some excerpts, first from an interview in the September 2006 issue of Educational Leadership, and, second, from Dr. Levine's book,' A Mind at a Time'. Mel Levine may be contacted through the website www.allkindsofminds.org/ i. from an interview with Dr. Mel Levine in 'Educational Leadership', September 2006. Why do you say that the most important thing to know about a child is his or her strengths? If we want to prepare kids for adulthood, one of the most important things we can do is to celebrate their strengths, those assets with which they're going to find meaning in life and be able to make contributions. For the most part, adults who are leading worthy lives are doing so by mobilizing their strengths and affinities. What we should seek is a consonance between a student's education and his future career. Can you give me an example of how a teacher can uncover a hidden asset and enable students to work on a particular weakness? Let me give you two examples. A math teacher sees a girl in her class who is struggling with mathÑshe just doesn't have the concepts and takes a long time to solve problems. But the teacher has found out that this girl is a whiz at summarizing stories she's read and enriching a class discussion. That math teacher realizes that this is a student who's going to have to use her expressive language abilities to learn math. In a sense, she's not going to understand math until she teaches it to someone else. And so the girl gets a tape recorder. Every time she learns a math concept, she goes home and dictates an explanation of it. She recasts math in her own language in order to conceptualize it. She learns to use her strong expressive language abilities to leverage her weak mathematical abilities. Here's another example. A content affinity is an area of content toward which a child is drawn for some obscure reason. A particular kid loves cars. Someone else is into sports statistics. Another child loves fashion. It is so important to identify these content affinities. When I was a little boy, I loved animals. No one else in my family had anything like my affinity for animal life. Now I live on a huge farm in North Carolina, surrounded by animal life. As I look out the window while we speak, I see my donkeys, my geese, my pheasants, my peacocks, six dogs, eight catsÑit's way out of control. But animals were always my affinity. ii. excerpts from A Mind at a Time* - "High schools force our kids to do everything as fast as possible, they have to write quickly, think fast, remember on the spot, sprint through timed tests, and meet tight deadlines. This frenzied pedagogical rhythm is totally contrary to what the students' brains are striving to become. The output controls - exist to promote thoughtful, slowly executed work, which should be one of the principle missions of adolescence and the high school years. I think we should reward adolescents from taking as much time as they need to do a good job. Most tests should be untimed, or else students should be allowed to do as much as they can do well, perhaps finishing the rest at another time. The output controls are doing what they can to decelerate thinking, decision making, and output, to make kids thoughtful rather than impulsive. Secondary education, therefore, ought to incorporate as one of its principal objectives teaching kids how to work slowly. That's what their developing brains are trying to tell us." - "After following large numbers of my patients and watching them become adults, I am convinced that many students who appear to have significant learning problems (and in a real sense they do) in reality have highly specialized minds, brains that were never designed to be well rounded. After seeing endless examples of such misunderstood, often widely condemned kids, I have become convinced that their proper and humane management must include opportunities for early specialization. They need to practise their calling on a part-time basis as soon as the preferences become evident. Parents and our educational system must provide opportunities for kids to utilize and strengthen their strengths and their affinities - no matter what those assets happen to be. To deny a developing mind access to its specialty is cruel. To judge one's worthiness in the specialties of others is equally inhumane. And it's asking for serious trouble." - "Current practices of testing students to determine if they meet criteria for a label in order to help them are totally arbitrary and unfair to those who qualify as well as those who fall within the cracks. The labels are showstoppers; once a clinician comes up with a label, people somehow think they need to look no further; they now have a handle on that kid. That's so obviously false." - "We should always place an emphasis on the evaluation of strengths rather than deficits; students should be required to strengthen their strengths and should be graded rigorously in their chosen specialties." * A Mind at a Time is published by Simon & Schuster (March 2002); ISBN: 0743202228 ¥¥¥¥