Metahistorical Understanding and the Personal Business Plan (Part 2)

Developing a Personal Business Plan (PBP)

Using the PBP model the student is brought into a process of setting goals and organizing a plan of action to achieve these goals. Students are introduced to Wholistic Problem Solving as a way to examine their learning, goal setting, organization and achievement. Through this process a theory of mind and an individualized problem solving technique can be developed and utilized to address problems across a wide variety of situations. This careful record of the student’s successes and failures over time serves to help them begin to realize personal patterns in their problem solving that are indicative of their learning style. Over time this knowledge is made real and practical as the student achieves their goals.

By turning the problem solving process back upon itself students learn more than just how to approach a problem, they learn how their brain functions in relation to the process of problem solving. This enables them to approach their own thinking in a self aware and practical way. They learn to both identify and balance their individual strengths and weaknesses. It is through this process of coming to comprehend their neurologically based disability that the self defeating and mal-adaptive behaviors, that are truly the disabling parts of these disorders, can be addressed, interpreted and ameliorated.
            As problems occur, or are discovered, they are placed on the student’s Personal Business Plan. Over time their PBP becomes a historical record of the students past difficulties and triumphs. At this point the document can be analyzed and reflected upon metacognitively. The process its self creates a story about the student that illustrates their success and how they achieved it.  With this narrative a student can begin to learn how to use their understanding of their own history to guide them through problems and identify metahistorical problems and patterns that they may not have been aware of otherwise. For example, long term trends, subtle repetitions of self defeating behavior or reoccurring excuse patterns become apparent and can be highlighted by the teacher. For some students, their disability is such that it is almost impossible for them to comprehend their own history at this level without the memory scaffolding this document allows.  With it, the student can begin to see their history as a stream of cause-and-effect relationships they have control over, rather than a series of unconnected episodes and events rot on them by a hostile outside world. By further inserting a metacognitive problem solving focus to this historical understanding of self, students can become aware of their own personal pitfalls and discover the strategies that work best for them to avoid these pitfalls.