What is Re-Education?

Is it a new curriculum for teaching social skills? Maybe it is yet another "new math" program? Will it help students score higher on the WASL or SAT’s?

Re-EDucation is a philosophical basis for working with children and youth who have emotional and/or behavioral disorders. Re-EDucation grew out of clear research based college programs supported by both Boards of Education and the National Institute of Mental Health in the 1960's.

Re-EDucation is not a coined program, but is firmly based on solid foundations of best practices. It is an ecological or a systematic approach to the problem of working with troubled and troubling children and youth.

One of the keys to the success of a Re-EDucation based program is a Teacher-Counselor. Nicholas Hobbs defined these people as, "a teacher- counselor is a decent adult; educated, well trained; able to give and receive affection, to live relaxed, and to be firm; a person with private resources for the nourishment and refreshment of his own life; not an itinerant worker but a professional through and through; a person with a sense of the significance of time, of the usefulness of today and the promise of tomorrow; a person of hope, quiet confidence, and joy; one who has committed themselves to children and to the proposition that children who are disturbed can be helped by the process of Re-EDucation." (1966)

There are 12 Principles that summarize the philosophy of Re-EDucation:

• Trust between child and adult is essential, the foundation on which all other principles rest, the glue that holds teaching and learning together, the beginning point for re-EDucation.
  
  
• Life is to be lived now, not in the past, and lived in the future only as a present challenge.
  
  
• Competence makes a difference; children and adolescents should be helped to be good at something, and especially at schoolwork.
  
  
• Time is an ally, working on the side of growth in a period of the development when life has a tremendous forward thrust.
  
  
• Self-control can be taught and children and adolescents helped to manage their behavior without the development of psychodynamic insight; and symptoms can and should be controlled by direct address, not necessarily by uncovering therapy.
  
  
• The cognitive competence of children and adolescents can be considerably enhanced; they can be taught generic skills in the management of their lives as well as strategies for coping with the complex array of demands placed on them by family, school, community, or job; in other words, intelligence can be taught.
  
  
• Feelings should be nurtured, shared spontaneously, controlled when necessary, expressed when too long repressed, and explored with trusted others.
  
  
• The group is very important to young people; it can be a major source of instruction in growing up.
  
  
• Ceremony and ritual give order, stability, and confidence to troubled children and adolescents whose lives are often in considerable disarray.
  
  
• The body is the armature of the self, the physical self around which the psychological self is constructed.
  
  
• Communities are important for children and youth, but the uses and benefits of community must be experienced to be learned.
  
  
• In growing up, a child should know some joy in each day and look forward to some joyous event for the morrow.

That might give you an idea what Re-EDucation might be (the ED refers to Emotionally Disordered) but you might still be wondering what is WAREA? WAREA stands for Washington Re-EDucation Association, which is the Northwest branch of AREA. AREA is the American Re-EDucation Association and is the organization that nationally promotes Re-EDucation.

WAREA is a grass roots organization that currently consists of about 20 professionals that are current practitioners working with troubled and troubling children and youth and base their practices on the Principles of Re-EDucation and best practices to work with EBD students/clients.

WAREA sponsors 4 different trainings throughout the year, but offer other services. We are able to come to your setting to do specific trainings, consultation and help support your current staff members in working with EBD children and youth. WAREA trainers are from both the education and mental health fields and have done trainings around the state of Washington and the United States.