THE NEW TEENAGE SURVIVAL GUIDE A TEXT FOR TEENAGERS, PARENTS, TEACHERS AND YOUTH WORKERS by Dr Cecilia Netolicky An easy to use tool for conflict resolution in family crises, or in the classroom. The text is a toolbox of techniques and vital vocabulary, to facilitate dialogue and make negotiation possible, whilst minimising conflict. It deals with the issues of ethical codes and personal belief systems.

About the Book

About the Author
Dr Cecilia Netolicky is an education consultant, educator, artist and author.  She is university educated in Art, Anthropology, Literature, Career Education and Education and has been employed as a lecturer in the USA, PNG and Australia. Her PhD is in Education - Children with Special Needs and her PhD thesis “Improving Provision for Disaffected Students: Toward a New Educational Model” was an action learning study on the early programs she ran for disaffected youth. She is author of The TEE Survival Guide and several books of poetry and paintings. Her paintings have been exhibited in the USA, Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia

Her work has been featured in various publications, such as, Arts Unlimited, The Encyclopedia of Australian Women Artists, Australian Visions: Paintings and Poems, and VCE Health and Human Development Units 1 & 2.

The Book
The New Teenage Survival Guide combines The Teenage Survival Guide and The Teenage Survival Guide II into a single book. All stories and associated texts have been updated. All the stories are based on true stories and are springboards for further discussion designed to encourage re-assessment of personal ethical codes, rather than didactic documents designed to inculcate correct behaviour.  The stories are written in easy to read teenage English enabling even base-line literacy students to derive meaning through reading.  All issues are significant to the target group, presenting relevant learning materials, where literacy and ethics can be enhanced simultaneously.

In the first Teenage Survival Guide I was intent on preparing a text that was relevant to the target audience, highly readable and easy to use as a teaching device.  With The Teenage Survival Guide II I went further.  In talks I gave on The Teenage Survival Guide, and on the success of the trial program for which it was written, I was asked a number of questions I felt needed addressing:

 F How did we achieve almost 100% attendance when many of the young people were chronic truants?

F Why did they come to the program rather than sit home and watch TV?

F What were we offering that they wanted badly enough to attend when they didn’t have to?

F What were they getting here they weren’t getting in mainstream education?

F How did we achieve almost 100% success in getting our at-risk and disconnected students into technical college, apprenticeships, university and jobs?

F How did we manage to get these young people to the point where they went on work experience and got offered jobs and apprenticeships solely on the basis of their behaviour, motivation and performance?

At first I couldn’t figure out what we did that was different.  Was it that the texts we used were relevant to them?  Was it the relationship we established with them?  Was it that they really wanted to succeed and just hadn’t been provided with appropriate opportunities?

 I began experimenting with relief teachers.  I wanted to see if there were styles of teaching that succeeded with these young people and styles that failed.  I noted that there were definite differences in attitudes and conflict-resolution styles in teachers who won these young people over, and those who alienated them:

 F Teachers who succeeded valued them.  They believed that every one of them was worthwhile - that they were not failures, but kids for whom traditional education had failed.

F The teachers who failed to establish a positive learning environment, came in believing they were drop-kicks, destined to fail, hopeless and beyond help.  They spent their time trying to force-feed curriculum, whilst attempting to control behaviour problems and crises by applying stricter discipline.  They regarded any anti-social behaviour as an interruption to the curriculum, rather than as an opportunity to augment socialisation and enhance conflict-resolution skills.

F The teachers who succeeded regarded crises as golden learning moments.  When a golden learning moment arose they chose to deal with it and make it into a learning experience for the whole class, rather than as a crisis that was preventing the ongoing curriculum-driven instruction.

 I concluded that teaching style was a significant factor in providing a positive learning environment for these young people.  Curriculum also played a significant role.  It had to be relevant and at least to an extent negotiated.  These young people turned up because they could see that what they were learning could make a difference to the rest of their lives.  All curricula were based on functioning successfully in the adult world, and they wanted those skills.  They all wanted to succeed, but had not found opportunities to do so within traditional education - hence many had chosen alternative paths of success - such as becoming class clown, bully or victim.  These paths often provided attention and/or the status denied them through academic performance.  Some also lacked successful modelling behaviour at home.  We offered these skills.  We taught successful body language, self-talk and self-marketing necessary to getting and keeping a job.

The Stories and Work sheets
These stories grew out of my work with so-called ‘at-risk’ teenagers. All the stories are based on the real life experiences of my own children and my students. All stories are single page texts designed to be quick and easy to read. They were written taking on the persona of one of the participants, hence they are written in simple first person point of view, or direct speech, using colloquial Australian English and conversational punctuation. This enables even base-line literacy students to gain meaning through reading, as they are not intimidated by a ‘foreign’ vocabulary, punctuation and style. The stories are not concerned with setting, character development, or figures of speech. They are stripped bare - just conflict, action and issues. Hence, all students manage to grasp the issues without having to leap the literary hurdles built into much ‘good’ literature.

 In writing The Teenage Survival Guides, my concern was to construct texts that, through relevance to their target audience, made reading an opportunity to grow as the stories deal with issues embedded in their daily experiences. I was encouraged by the students’ responses - both their involvement with the material and their greatly improved literacy results. This, compared to the results achieved by the very same students using more traditional teaching materials, was remarkable.

 When using these texts in the classroom, I introduce stories as the issues become relevant to the class (eg if there was a stealing incident I ran “Best Mates Don’t do That”; a bullying incident I ran “Top Dog”; a sexual slur I might run “He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut”; or a homophobic incident I might choose to run “He’s Okay Really”).  We then approach the work sheets. Here I often go through one question at a time. I read the question, we then discuss possible responses as a group, and only then the students write their responses. This gives plenty of opportunity to reconsider their ethical code by putting their own ideas out there and hearing peer responses, and also listening to how others in the group regard the issue. This often leads into research projects, debates and discussions, offering opportunity for students to explore the issues in greater depth for themselves.

These stories and work sheets were designed to encourage students to examine, both their own behaviour, and that of others involved the drama/incident, thereby demonstrating that alternative behaviours may have resulted in better outcomes. They are springboards to trigger and focus discussion, rather than dogmatic solutions to conflict resolution.

 The stories are loosely grouped by topic. However, as all the stories deal with many issues, they could be used to demonstrate other points. The “Table of Contents” lists the main issues dealt with by each story to facilitate application by teachers, parents and youth workers at contextually appropriate moments.

Table of Contents
The stories are loosely grouped by topic. However, as all the stories deal with many issues, they could be used to demonstrate other points. The “Table of Contents” lists the main issues dealt with by each story to facilitate application by teachers, parents and youth workers at contextually appropriate moments.

The stories are covered by the usual copyright restrictions. However, the work sheets are provided copyright free

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BIG BUTT BETTY

We all feel dreadful now. We went to visit Betty during school yesterday. Freaked me out totally to see her like that. White as sheets. Black under the eyes. Tubes coming out her arm. She looked better before.

Guess I'm as much to blame as anyone. We didn't mean any harm. We were just teasing her like we tease everyone else. Guess she just took it extra hard. Started that day she came to school in those new shorts. We all took the mickey out of her. Called her "big butt Betty". Jordy started it and we all took it up. Turned into a game. Who could get her the most embarrassed. In the end she took off and went home.

I felt lousy. I reckoned she looked great. Made me think of a Leonard Cohen poem the teacher read us "I'd like to tell her what haunches like that do for a guy like me". But I'd never have the nerve. They'd all think I was an idiot for going for her.

Went to see her that day after school to try and set things right. Just wanted to tell her she looked good and to ignore them. But I never got to tell her. She acted like nothing happened. So I did too.

Next day at school I noticed she had nothing but Diet Coke all day. Same thing happened all week. When she ate something, she'd take off for the toilets. She'd come back real white and sad looking. Made me feel dreadful. I was pretty sure I could stop her if I just had the guts to show her I like her.

She started getting really thin after that. I didn't find her attractive anymore. She was depressed and sad looking all the time and that didn't help her looks much. We watched her at lunch time. None of us spoke to her much, though some of us dropped in after school for a while.

Wasn't long before she started going home sick all the time. Didn't seem to have enough energy to get through the day.

Then she didn't turn up for a week and we got worried. A bunch of us wandered over after school. She was in bed and looked terrible. Couldn't believe it was the same person as the day in the shorts. All I could think of was she did this to make herself look better and more attractive. Boy, women are stupid!

© 1996 Cecilia Netolicky

WORK SHEET ON BIG BUTT BETTY

Bulimia, Anorexia Nervosa and Teasing

Humans come in all shapes and sizes. There's no "perfect" shape. It's possible to be successful and happy if you're tall or short, fat or thin. We've all felt at some time, "Wouldn't it be great if I had the perfect body!" Many of us wish that we were slimmer, or more rounded, or had bigger muscles. This is natural. If this wish begins to take over our lives and influences our eating, exercise and self-esteem, we may move from a natural and harmless wish, to having an obsession.

Bulimia and anorexia nervosa are eating disorders related to poor self-esteem and a negative body image. Teasing can aggravate this problem. We may do it in a playful way, but at the wrong time or in the wrong way, it can have serious repercussions.

1. What type of person is the narrator of the story?_________________________________
2. Are we invited to like him? Why or why not?____________________________________
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3. Why is he scared to be seen supporting Betty? _________________________________
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4. What do you think of his attempts to help Betty?
What else could he have done? _____________________________________________
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5. Did he think Betty looked better after losing weight?_____________________________
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6. Did her weight loss help her popularity? Why or why not? ________________________
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7. Suggest THREE things Betty could've done to look better, that wouldn't have resulted in other problems? ________________________________________________________________________
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8. Suggest THREE other ways she could've reacted to their teasing? __________
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9. Do you think the teasing started Betty's problem? Were they just having fun, or were they trying to hurt her? ________________________________________________________________________
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10. Teasing can be fun and harmless. Did this teasing pass that point? When should the kids have stopped? ________________________________________________________________________
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11. Suggest THREE things the rest of the class could've done to stop her problem getting worse?
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12. What can you learn from this story? ________________________________________
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