This empowering book provides an in-depth exploration of the learning processes and the environmental elements needed for a learner to be successful in the classroom and in life.
Author J. W. Michels, MA, reveals how, as a child, he was conditioned for failure. But at age forty-three, after filing bankruptcy, watching his marriage break apart, and feeling devastated, he learned through counseling why he believed he was doomed to fail and how he could reverse that process.
After becoming certified to teach science and agricultural education, success in dealing with behavioral problems in the classroom led him on an investigation to explain the approach he had intuitively discovered but could not put into words. The outcome is this groundbreaking work on the internalization of success in the learner that challenges conventional thinking on many levels.
Claim Your Agency brings together key ideas of Watzlawick, Weakland, Fisch, and many other researchers to form a unique perspective on the power of attributions, stigmatization, and treating individuals with respect in learning and character building.
About the Author: J. W. Michels, MA, was born in a rural community to parents of German-Polish descent. After graduating from college, he farmed his family's land for about twenty years before changing his career to education and counseling.
Today, he is a licensed professional counselor, mental health practitioner, and sex offender treatment provider. He's certified to teach upper-grade-level science and agricultural education and has worked with children with disabilities, behavioral disorders, and mental health issues with great success. He has a private practice in Lubbock, Texas.
Michels earned a BS in agricultural education from Texas Tech University and an MA in counseling from Midwestern State University and he completed most of the requirements for a Masters of Education in Special Education.
In his community, he has instructed children at his local Catholic church, coached Little League baseball, and helped develop leadership skills for young men.
