Innovation Into Schools

Posts Tagged ‘Tap’

As a teacher I am always curious to discover how EFT might work in new situations at school. It’s fun to try tapping on just about anything and notice the positive results that we get. Recently I had the opportunity to use EFT in two different ways with my class during a medical crisis.  

My students were in the gym playing floor hockey. During the game, Kevin raced in low toward the net to score and was accidentally struck with a hockey stick right above his eye. It was nobody’s fault, just a freak accident. 

Kevin was brought to the office and was attended to by one of my coworkers.  By the time I arrived, Kevin had a cloth and an ice pack over his wound.  He was obviously in pain and very upset. 

I immediately took his hand and began tapping on his karate chop point while he relayed the details of his accident to me. I asked if I could see his cut and was shocked to notice a deep, significant flap of skin come away from his forehead. 

Keeping my own feelings to myself, I asked how he was feeling and he answered quietly, “Sick, I am going to throw up.”  He was in shock: white, clammy and shaking. I thought that he was going to faint so I continued to tap on his karate chop point while someone brought him a bowl.  

While I continued to tap I asked, “Do you want me to say the words for you?” He nodded, so I added, “I’ll just tap on your finger points though, and leave your face alone.” 

By the time his mom arrived to take him to the hospital he was calm enough to walk to the car with our help.

After Kevin left I returned to my class and attempted to teach a lesson, however all of my kids wanted to talk about the accident. There had been a lot of blood on the gym floor, and they were very upset about the whole thing.  The boy who had been in net called out, “I can’t get that visual image out of my head. I was the goalie and saw everything, even the flap of skin with all that blood. It was awful!” 

So we applied EFT in an entirely new way. We called it the “Yuck Factor”. Together we tapped on the blood and all the gory details of the accident until we were ready to create new images of Kevin’s wound being healed with stitches. That helped everyone to calm down so that we could resume our day with some semblance of normalcy. No one mentioned Kevin’s accident again until he returned later from the hospital to show us his scar and seven stitches.  

Kevin’s scar has healed remarkably well. Now that he is over the shock, he has a story that he may enjoy telling for the rest of his life.  

Feeling curious about how effective EFT had been for Kevin during the aftermath of his accident, I recently asked him if he thought the tapping had helped him at all.  He responded with a big smile.

“Yes! he said, “If we hadn’t have tapped I would have thrown up for sure!”

Thank goodness for EFT!

One of the many benefits of teaching EFT to your students is that they are able to quickly and quietly show you by tapping that they are feeling anxious or frustrated or in need of some assistance. 

I realized this shortly after I introduced EFT to my class. I had just completed a lesson on equivalent fractions and saw that I had done a poor job of it because many of my students were struggling with their work.  When I attempted to re-teach the concept I noticed several students tapping on their karate chop points. I smiled and asked, “Do equivalent fractions make you feel that anxious?” One girl grinned right back at me while continuing to tap and announced, “Yep!”

I realized then what a wonderful teaching tool EFT is. Not only does it enable children to relieve anxieties and improve test scores, it can also alert us to their need for assistance. Often the children who are the least vocal are the ones who experience the most anxiety, and tapping is a polite way for them to make us aware that they need some help or compassion.

Not long after that occasion, I noticed a boy quietly tapping while working at his seat.  This immediately made me aware of his need for some assistance, but when I asked if I could help him he responded, “No, I’m just tapping because I’m worried about the District Bike Race this afternoon.”  I invited him to do some tapping with me, but by this time the whole class was listening in. Everyone else wanted to tap as well! They all opened up about their worries and we tapped as a group to alleviate their fears.

Once we arrived at the bike race I was intrigued to notice many of my students tapping on the start line. Later, I was excited to see several of them complete the race so well. But I was especially delighted to notice the boy who had expressed the most anxiety before the race (and had incidentally taken a bad tumble off his bike while riding) come in last with a huge smile on his face.

The most important lesson for me on this day was that because I had noticed just one of my students attempting to tap away his worries, I was able to give everyone in my class the encouragement and understanding they needed, enable them to enjoy the bike race with a worry free attitude, and allow them to affirm that they were awesome kids whether they won or lost this race or finished somewhere in between.

Since then, whenever I have seen children tapping quietly their own, I have tried my best to give them the help and compassion they need and deserve.