Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Brutus Comes to Class

We had a fun time in my counseling class last night. As a guest speaker, I invited Brutus, a puppet (aka Eric), to attend. After lecturing on some of the important skills and attitudes one must have when counseling (e.g. eye contact, attentiveness, serious listening skills, appropriate and limited self-disclosure), Brutus was introduced to the class as a professional counselor. We asked for a volunteer to allow Brutus the opportunity to demonstrate his "fine" therapeutic skills. Mohammad (our one and only student from Bangladesh) readily volunteered. Mohammad was a great sport in this counseling interaction. The puppet interrupts him, is distracted, almost falls asleep, and at one point says, "You think you've got problems. . .." It was a fun way to teach what NOT to do and to underscore the importance of learning effective counseling skills. (We apologize for the wobbly videoing and poor sound quality--Katie (11 years old) was gracious enough to offer to video for us).

P.S. Apparently our video is followed up with links that were put there by YouTube. We take no responsibility for the content of these links.

2 comments:

Kye said...

This brings back fun memories for Terry and me after working with puppets for years. Your Brutus looks suspiciously like our Mr. Quimper....Puppet Productions, Inc? What a fun way to show Karyn's students how NOT to counsel!

Hiking Guy said...

I loved it!!!What a great teaching technique, Karyn.