Positivity in Action - Modello: A True Story

I don't know of a more matter-of-fact way to get to healthier relationships. I highly recommend this book: Modello - A Story of Hope for the Inner City and Beyond by Jack Pransky. Modello won the Martin Luther King award for the book best exemplifying Dr. King's vision of 'the beloved community,' but this book's inside-out philosophy also applies to our personal love and family relationships.

This true story is easily one of my favorites because it caused a shift in me as I read it in the same way that the Power of Now and Transcending the Levels of Consciousness did, simply by reading it. Modello was deeply affecting on a personal level, reminding me of the simplicity of what people need to feel hopeful and safe to be themselves. It felt GOOD to read it, and it has inspired me to relate to all the people I know and meet differently. Since I started reading the book and putting its principles to work in my life, noticeable (wonderful) shifts have happened in my relationships.

What is Modello about?
Modello is the name of a public housing project in South Florida that was once replete with violence, crack addiction, gangs, domestic abuse, alcoholism, neglect, welfare dependency and general hopelessness.

The temptation is to write off a place like that. And unfortunately, most people already had. Even 911 emergency response would not come to that project. Social service programs came and failed. But then something changed. Author Jack Pransky tells the story of how the people who lived in Modello were ultimately reached and came to find new hope.

The book begins, “This is a book about hope, about the triumph of the human spirit, about how all people have something inside them so powerful, so beautiful, so resilient, that once tapped even some of the most terrible living conditions can be overcome.”

Founder Dr. Roger Mills, his staff and other professionals put a simple life-affirming philosophy into practice at Modello over a period of two years.

This book describes how specifically this unique inside-out approach to solving community and personal problems was implemented over those two years, profiling extensive interviews with residents, teachers, staff members and Dr. Mills himself.

The staff running this project were chosen based on their ability to see people as inherently healthy and innately having enough common sense to want better things for themselves.

Through thinking about how they interacted with themselves and others, the staff’s job was to instigate a genuine curiousness within the housing projects. They saw the young kids involved in gangs not as evil people, but instead as basically healthy kids who had developed an alienated perspective, internalizing negative things people said about them as they were growing up. The staff remained patient, present and accepting. They got to know the people living in these raw environments as innately healthy people.

The residents were amazed by this.

“Nobody’s telling us what’s wrong with us and what we need to fix,” said one resident.

The project staff explained; “If they felt relaxed and light-hearted they would let down their guard and maybe some learning would get through.”

Letting people take the time they needed, the staff just focused on being with people, having a good time with them, listening to them and establishing rapport. They made sure not to say a negative word about anyone they came in contact with, or about each other. There was no suggesting, evaluating or judging. There were no mandates, no analysis of family history, and no attention given to unwanted situations, words or behavior. The staff truly was convinced that social change does not happen by force or focusing on what is unwanted, but by connecting people with their internal power to restore their hearts and minds to the beneficial, healthy state inherent within them.

Cynthia Stennis, Modello’s Day Care Director is quoted in the book as saying, “When counseling parents, I don’t try to change anybody. I just be myself and try to pull out the good in them, because I know there’s good in everybody. Everybody has self-esteem. Everybody’s got love. Every human being has it. It just had to be brought out of them. It’s just that other things are on top of it and they can’t really see clearly. I listen to them first. That’s the number one key is to listen to people first before you start talking to them. I listen to them, and nine times out of ten they are able to listen to themselves. A lot of times professionals don’t really listen to clients, and when the clients hear themselves they know what they need to do.

Cynthia understood that all that she had to do was see that each of the parents and students she counseled had all the health and common sense inside them that they needed. All she had to do was let them learn at their own pace, in their own time, accept them for who they were and enjoy them. And the residents responded in kind, sometimes dramatically changing problem behaviors, such as alcohol and drug abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, drug dealing and more.

As certain teachers began to integrate this new way of thinking, they reported experiencing benefits as well.

Excerpted from Modello:
“Teachers reported that they started to enjoy teaching more. They started to see that their stress came a lot from their thinking – about their job, their situation, and their kids. They began to pay attention to the mood level in the classroom, to be more flexible, to joke around with the kids, to be more down to earth, to be more themselves. When the teachers began to see the kids differently, they began to engage them differently. Like the parents, they began to see that kids respond to love, to caring. The quality of the relationship makes the difference. They then began to experience more success with those kids in the classroom.”

Was every single person in Modello changed? No. The book points out that the process of growing hope required an openness and a curiosity that not all people had.

Excerpted from Modello:

“Some learned it better than others. Some, though, never did catch on. But Dr. Mills realized they weren’t going to reach everybody. So long as they had a critical mass who, in turn, spread it to their friends and neighbors, soon the majority of people living in Modello would want to approach things in a more clearheaded way, and that was truly gratifying.”

For more information, contact: Jack Pransky The Center for Inside-Out Understanding P.O. Box 1392 Montpelier, VT 05601 Phone (802) 229-587 health, heroes, Power of Now, relationships, Transcending the Levels of Consciousn1 E-mail: jack at healthrealize.com