GOE13 Presentation: Introducing EFT to Schools

In his 2013 EFT & Energy Conference Presentation, Introducing EFT to Schools, EFT Master Practitioner and teacher Stefan Marcec will explain how to use EFT in school for students and teachers alike. Case reports of 1:1 sessions with different students and student groups. Dos and don'ts when working with teenagers. Teaching EFT to whole faculties – emphasis on how to get the idea of EFT across in the first place.

As a philosophy teacher at a junior college (Gymnasium) and a EFT Trainer & Coach (EFT Master Practitioner with AMT) I help students an teachers alike using EFT.

This presentation will be three-fold:

Part I:

• Different case stories from 1:1 sessions to group sessions with students
• Differences between 1:1 coaching sessions and working with groups of students
• Teaching EFT in the classroom as part of the PPP-course (philosophy-psychology-pedagogy-school subject)

Part II:

• Do's and dont s when working with teenagers
• Succefull techniques and aspects from the EFT toolbox for teenagers

Part III:

• Coaching 1:1 sessions with those in a teaching profession
• Teaching EFT to whole faculties: how to deal with the overly sceptic and the typical character features that many in this profession show

About Stefan

Stefan has dedicated his life to the study of body, mind, soul and their conjunctions and interactions.

Spending many years studying eastern martial arts and even recieving a substantial part of his training in Japan, he had also the chance to study many healing modalities like Craniosacral work, Qi gong, Acupuncture and Energy healing.

When he „found" EFT he instantly knew that this is „his" system. He was trained not only in the original EFT Levels designed by Gary Craig but also in related fields like TAT or BSFF.

Stefan teaches not only EFT Level 1 – 3 but conducts also special EFT seminars:

• He taught EFT in companies like the swiss national railways, EFT for teams working in women shelters, EFT for fire fighters and security personel and EFT at schools.
• He works also as a teacher for philosophy and literature at a junior college where EFT is even part of the curriculum of a school subject. Stefan presented EFT on national TV, at health conferences and appeared in numerous articles in newspapers and magazines in Switzerland.
• His special fields include working with teachers and students alike to prevent burnout in the teaching profession and to help students to get the best out of their school years. Another of Stefans areas of expertise is EFT for serious deseases.
• In 2007 Stefan founded internalwork.ch a company dedicated to the teaching of EFT and other healing modalities on different levels of the human existence.

Excerpt from "Introducing EFT To Schools"

Prelude

My professional life contains two parts:

On one side I am a philosophy and German literature teacher in a Gymnasium (similar to junior college) in Zurich Switzerland.

On the other side I own a company called internalwork.ch

Internalwork.ch offers trainings, seminars and personal coachings in different systems like bodywork, traditional martial arts, meditation & energywork, teachings from ancient wisdom schools and as a main pillar EFT.

And with EFT is where the two parts of my professional life overlap.

Using EFT in my teaching profession wasn’t planned at all but came as a natural process as my involvement with the school progressed.

The following are some insights into the EFT work with students, Do’s and don’ts with teenage students and finally a special neuro-energy workout I teach to students.

Working with students

Final exams – called Matura – are beside the entrance test the most important event during the four years of junior college / Gymnasium of a students life.

Passing the exams means getting access to the Universities in Switzerland

(everything except med school....there’s is an additional test to be passed for those who wish to become doctors....).

So the atmosphere during the months of final exams is always somewhere between anxiety, tension but also has a feeling of dignity.

Two years ago just during oral exams there was a slight knock on my office door.

Outside ten very nervous 19 and 20 year old female students.

“We heard that you do this strange tapping stuff that can help with exam anxiety” on of them shyly addressed me....

“Well If you heard that I guess you want my help......”

I led them in an empty class room and just told them

“Follow me, just do what I do and if it feels ok, keep doing it!”

I had learned early on when doing EFT in such a situation with students there is no need for long explanations – most of them just want to feel different right away and would do anything to get there....

The first time I used energy work of some sort in a classroom was many years ago before a literature test, when the whole class was so nervous you could almost feel the tension in the air.

I just had attended an EFT Level 1 seminar and asked the whole class to do the 9er Gamut procedure and that I would willingly explain the concept behind the strange eye rolling later. Well the class followed gladly, the atmosphere calmed down, the test was written but nobody ever asked again about the idea behind the eye rolling, singing and humming....

If you feel insecure because you think that everybody who starts tapping has the right to get first an explanation what he or she is doing then you might review your own self confidence when it comes to your work.

Especially when we introduce such a technique like EFT into a establishment setting like schools etc... we might feel insecure and the need to justify our work –

While conducting an EFT seminar for teachers almost requires an explanation for “behind the scenes“, working with students in situations like above doesn’t at all.

Teenagers are curious creatures and if they are really interested why the tapping worked there will come forward by their own.

Back to our classroom with ten very nervous young students:

“Don’t tap on stress talk” Silvia Hartmann cautions us repeatedly in Energy EFT.

Whenever you doubt this try to work with a group of highly nervous female teenage students....

After some very quick rounds of destressing – using only “my stress” / “My exam stress” we went to short positive statements, starting with “grounding” and “earthing”.

Therefore after stabilising and calming one should introduce some power enhancing rounds. There is no good if one becomes so calm before a test that he almost looses interest in passing the exam.

One exercise I found very helpful working in a group setting with limiting time is “The Global Entity EFT Protocol” found in the training program for the AMT Master Practitioner.

Using this specific protocol I asked the group to imagine that if they were one single person, what kind of person would they be?

They agreed pretty quickly on a tall, elegant woman in a lady-suit, self assured, relaxed but full of competence and persuasive power.

The group decided to do another de stress round to get more relaxed and after few rounds the found the entity pretty relaxed and themselves as well.

We worked on the mindset of self assurance and competence...

Toward the end when the girls had to leave to prepare for the presentations there was a great, vibrating energy in the room.

All students reported a real change in their performance during the oral exams and the scores were very good for 8 of the 10 students.

ChagALL - a unique school program

The school I am working at is not only a junior college but also hosts a unique program that promotes the school careers of students with a difficult migrant background. Its called ChagALL, like the famous painter and stands for:

“Chancengleichtheit durch Arbeit an der Lernlaufbahn”

… roughly translated as …

“Equal opportunities through work on the path of education”

In Zurich every student who wants to attend junior college must pass an entrance exam.

So there is a big industry of preparing students after regular school in special tutoring classes for these really difficult tests.

These special classes are of course expensive and most students with a migrant background can’t afford them.

So very few of those kids make it through the tests and many of them don’t last long in junior college even if they had passed the exams.

So my school established a program where we give regular tutoring to those kids;

This means twice a week additional classes in our school. Beside the technical training in math, German and French they also get what we call “personality training“, because most of them suffer from low self esteem connected to their previous experiences in school.

As I have the honour to be the program director of ChagALL I introduced EFT as a part of the tutoring program. The introduction happened in two parts.

From the beginning on I used EFT as part of the 1:1 coaching session I do with the students attending the program.

Especially towards the end when the students are supposed to take the test I use EFT intensively to address any exam anxieties.

Students learned EFT in the coaching session and got easy to do EFT as homework.

After year one of the program we introduced EFT as a tool during a 3 hour training in class, so students would be already prepared when coming to the coaching sessions.

Beside that we introduce them to a special neuro-energy workout that we conduct before every class (twice a week). This special workout is included at the end of this paper.

Everyone in the program used it before the tests and most reported impressive results.

Success rate in the past five years is at 78% of students passing the entrance test after attending our program. And we are sure that EFT and the energy exercises contribute to the success of our program.

Do’s and don’ts when working with students (teenagers)

Ø             Don’t explain to much but “just do it” – students respond to self-assurance and by “just doing it” you demonstrate just that: your competence with a technique that is highly effective (even it might very exotic for most teens in the beginning)

Ø             Let the student in 1:1 sessions lead from the beginning – that gives him a feeling of being respected as a young adult, an issue that is extremely important:

Ø             I have papers that show the tapping points and then I ask them to write down 5 words or sentences how they would like to feel f.i. during the math exam. I give them plenty of time to think and more important time to feel about their own choices.

Ø             Don’t patronize the students: many teenagers mistrust adults because they feel often betrayed by them and lied to. Paradise Lost they are in a difficult phase and very sensitive about their own independence. An attitude of “I can show you how to ease your emotional pain“ can - even brought forward with the best intent – totally backfire and lead to total refusal. We often tend to forget that teenagers generally can cope very well with stress and that they also have their own strategies like talking to their peers – who are in this stage of their lives often much more important to them than their own family

Ø             Especially parents should be very careful about this issue. Can’t tell how many times EFT students of mine were so frustrated because their teenage son/daughter would absolutely refuse to tap. Generally parents should use EFT first on themselves to become a better parent - everything else will follow.

Ø             Minimize any negative language when working with Teenagers in general and especially when teaching EFT to groups of teenagers. You can use the classic EFT protocol with addressing the problem if you love to have your classroom drowned in a emotional Tsunami – students – and especially girls have a very thin emotional makeup, especially in their a peer group. Addressing the problem directly might trigger strong emotional abreactions.

Ø             Doing classical EFT I am just using the Set up combining it directly with choices.

Ø             Using Energy EFT I go straight to positive EFT. Interestingly this last point has been recently backed up by Silvia Hartmann’s release of “Positive EFT“.