More Superflexible Thinking on my part… - by Stephanie Madrigal

The Superflex curriculum was primarily designed for the elementary age children; however, many educators have come up at workshops to tell us that they have successfully introduced Superflex with their middle school students or that they have changed the characters adapting them into more age appropriate characters or even used an anime spin which many middle school students are into.  As we know all students are different in how they may respond to this curriculum.  Most students find it fun while some think it is boring or maybe too childish for them.

At times we all have to call on our Superflex powers and look at what we can do differently with this curriculum or any of the Social Thinking strategies to make them inviting… and also face the reality that for some kids, parts of lessons won’t work at all!

A couple of weeks ago, I had a session with a student who, shortly after hearing me introduce Supeflex, insisted that it was not for him and all he could think about was defeating Superflex because this was fun! After much discussion with regard to some of his behaviors, how they mesh with Social Thinking concepts and his preference to link all of this to his constant theme of talking about the military, I stopped him and said, “You know what? …you are right, this Superflex thing really isn’t very good and I am so glad that you helped me see this.” At which point, I proceeded to take the Superflex comic book and throw it over my shoulder. “Ahh, that feels much better, you know what”, I said, “I want to tell you a little secret. I am really tired of writing about Superflex, talking about Superflex so this is great!  Now, let’s talk about that army general that you were just mentioning…you know, in your brain, it’s like you have an army general in there who is trying to take the social information he knows is around him and give the best commands to his brain and fire the right responses down those pathways so he can stay in control of his military.” He and I spent the whole session drawing and discussing his brain general and how the general was in charge of changing this student’s thinking and related social skills.  At the end of our session that day, he turned to me and said, “Hey, if you decide to write a book on the general, I hope you give me some credit.”  Like Michelle, Pam and I always say, Social Thinking and related teaching strategies are best used when they serve as a launching pad to your own creative lessons. For our brighter students our job as teacher is to out clever the clever!

Stephanie

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