As a Catholic School survivor I can very clearly remember the ache that would form in my right wrist as I wrote a punish lesson. For those of you not familiar with this age old concept, it was a great way to drive home the importance of a behavioral modification. For instance I remember being given the task of writing I will not talk in class 100 times on notebook paper. That's a punish lesson. If you had really gotten on Sister's nerves you would find yourself writing that same lesson on the black boards and it was your job to wash the boards afterward! The punishments worked for a couple of reasons. The first is obvious, it was really unpleasant to have to write this, especially when you had to do it at home, which meant your parents would watch you do it. They would drive home their own punishment when they saw what you had been tasked to do! For many kids the act of having to do this once was enough to keep them from repeating the offense, at least for that school year ;-)
Secondly, and germane to this blog, the act of repeatedly writing the same phrase was creating a neural connection in the brain, essentially carving the rules into the child's mind. Given that a positive thought is more powerful than a negative one, it probably would have been better if they had us writing I will be polite and pay attention in class, but since that is a longer sentence I'm really glad they didn't know that data back then.
Studies have shown that when we write something down we remember it better than if we just listen to it. That's why taking notes is so important to learning. To even further reinforce the lesson one can verbalize what you have written. In this manner you have engaged three major functions of your brain and created different pathways all leading to the same thought. Had the teacher tasked me with repeating the lesson aloud as I wrote, I probably would have only had to do it once. Instead I remember having to do it a second time, but never again after that.
I have decided to apply the punish lesson idea to my daily growth exercises in the form of an Intention Lesson. Each day, starting today, I will fill a page of my journal with the following: I work from home and love what I do. As I know that it is important to visualize my dreams as already having come true, I am writing my intention in the present. I am not being overly specific, I'll let God and the Universe figure out the details. I'm just going to focus on the important points of my dream.
I wrote my first Intention Lesson this morning and it took approximately 5 minutes. My hand was aching, and my writing became quite messy towards the end, but I felt so good afterwords. I was left with a sense of expectancy and excitement. I could hear the words repeating in my mind even after I had stopped writing. I am really looking forward to doing another Intention Lesson tomorrow!!! I think this will be a great reinforcement to my other activities and it gives me another few minutes daily to focus on the dream ;-)
Drop me a comment if you want to hop on the Intention Lesson bandwagon! One very important note though, make sure your lesson isn't too long and detailed just in case you need to use your hand throughout the rest of the day ;-)
Interesting, do you think it would work if I wrote, My kids sleep all night every night!
Posted by: Patti C | July 29, 2008 at 10:20 AM