Learned helplessness is an insidious condition involving undeveloped executive functioning, lack of persistence, and an undeveloped sense of connecting new words or concepts into a web of meanings. Remedial teaching in most small-group, diagnostic/prescriptive settings encourages continued learned helplessness because students are dependent on the teacher for guidance, and the accent is on content rather than learning strategies. The active learning environment used at Ben Bronz Academy, a secondary school for learning-disabled students in West Hartford, Connecticut, is a multi-faceted system built on a framework of metacognitive theory. It is designed to break the learned helplessness habit by constantly making the student aware of his passive style and helping him develop concrete tasks to substitute in its place. At Ben Bronz Academy, these deficit functions are mediated in two ways: the Instrumental Enrichment Program and the Active Learning Environment. In the Instrumental Enrichment Program, students learn problem-solving strategies through self-monitoring and self-mediation. The Active Learning Environment emphasizes metacognition, a point system to provide feedback on behavior, independence activities, hierarchies of strategies for important tasks, and a self-monitoring disciplinary system. A seven-item bibliography is included. (JDD)