Strengths

Wednesday mornings are our training days. In order to put training into applications, we have Friday mornings set aside for Case Discussions. For this week, we focused on the Strengths Perspective Model.

Together with this week's Strengths' lesson is the story of Pippi Goes To School. Has anyone heard of Pippi Longstocking?? I did!! I LOVE to read about her carefree life. After 20 over years, I have already forgotten the story. Reading it again gives it a refreshing feel. (I'm really really a kid in an adult's body.. hee..)

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In Pippi Goes to School, our heroine's insurrectionary spirit is hardly dampened by her first taste of academe. Her friends Tommy and Annika head off bright and early at 8 a.m., "hand in hand, swinging their schoolbags." Pippi can't be bothered to get going until a little later: "At exactly ten o'clock she lifted her horse off the front porch, and a little later all the people in the town ran to their windows to see what horse it was that was running away." It's just Pippi headed for school in her own inimitable fashion. The teacher's vain attempts to teach her math and art and music fail miserably. When asked to add 7 and 5, Pippi retorts, "If you don't know that yourself, you needn't think I'm going to tell you." It's not that Pippi's naughty, it's just that she has her own way of doing things. At the end of the day, it's she who's consoling the exhausted teacher: "You understand, Teacher, don't you, that when you have a mother who's an angel and father who's a cannibal king, and when you have sailed on the ocean all your whole life, then you don't know just how to behave in school." (Ages 4 to 8)--Claire Dederer

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Off hand, 1 of the 6 principles of the Strengths' Perspective model tells us that our client is an expert in their own world. Through the simple story of Pippi going to school. Throughout her whole life she has been sailing on the ocean. She's right.. What does she really know about behaving in school? She knows about waves and water caps, etc but what does she really know about behaving in school? Changing the story a little, I am wondering what if Pippi's a soft spoken girl and the teacher insisted that Pippi has misbehaved and punished her?

Very often, when I help someone, when I give advices or even simply when I hear a problem, I did not listen properly. I did not hear the context. I may not know the history. And easily, I could fall into the trap of judging someone cause my personal values say "It is wrong.". To listen is really a lifelong skill.

Hmm.. Strengths Perspective... Honestly, which is easier? To look for flaws or to look for strengths to affirm a brother/sister? Dear Heavenly Father, help me to be one who looks up to you and keep my eyes focused on you.