Unexpected Gifts: Discovering and Nurturing the Strengths in Every Child

With the newspapers filled with articles and editorials about the Race to the Top federal funds and the need to improve the quality of teachers and principals, I just had to express my opinion on this topic. I sent in this letter today to the Chicago Tribune and wanted to share it with the readers of my blog:

The Chicago Tribune’s January 11th editorial “How’s Your Teacher?” definitely got my attention. It seems to make sense to offer states in the U.S. an incentive to improve the education of their students. For sure, our own state of Illinois doesn’t seem to be highly motivated to improve our schools since it seems unable to take the steps to provide equal educational funding for all of our students. However, if the argument for justice and educational equity doesn’t work in Illinois, we know from recent history that money talks here – so possibly a monetary carrot of as much as $500 million from the federal government might just work in Illinois.

Yet the Race to the Top plan does not go far enough in its efforts to bring about school transformation. While it calls for the creation of a bold and cutting-edge plan to improve the quality of both the principals and teachers, it still falls short. For sustainable school transformation to occur, there needs to be an additional provision in any school improvement plan. This additional provision would hold parents and students equally accountable and responsible for fulfilling their obligations as true and equal partners in the educational process.

Hopefully if parents and students are held to appropriate standards and receive the training they need to improve and update their needed skills (parenting for the parents and study skills for the students), there will be much to celebrate even if we don’t receive the $500 million in funds. The students will win with everyone collaborating to improve our schools and possibly we can all look forward to the Chicago Tribune writing another attention-getting editorial. This time, “How’s Your Family?” just might be the perfect title.

Have you ever wondered what would happen, if as parents and teachers, we made it our New Year’s resolution to look for and notice the strengths in every child? Can you imagine what might happen if we then intentionally and systematically nurtured those strengths each day? Personally, I think teaching and parenting miracles would take place. No doubt you’d see a transformation in our homes, our schools and our communities.

You might wonder what is holding us back from doing something as basic as this – looking for strengths instead of always trying to find and correct weaknesses in our children. Here in the U.S., perhaps it’s the result of living in a society that has focused first on challenge areas instead of looking for the strengths and gifts each person brings to the world.

In any event, we can resolve to be different and become Strength Detectives by simply tapping into the positive power of humor. By doing this, we can create a more caring and relaxed atmosphere in our homes and our classrooms where relationships, not performance, will matter the most and where strengths are more easily detected and where challenges can be successfully addressed.

The following strategies, inspired in part by Diane Looman’s book, The Laughing Classroom, are designed to help you become an effective Strength Detective and make 2010 an amazing year for both you and the children in your life.

1. Learn to take yourself lightly and laugh at yourself.

2. Choose to be accepting, enthusiastic and caring.

3. View life as an exciting adventure.

4. See every situation as a learning opportunity that stretches you.

5. Find the humor in frustrating moments to expand your capacity to demonstrate patience with difficult people and challenging situations.

6. Focus on changing how you respond in situations and not on changing others.

7. Bring a sense of playfulness and joy into your life each day by reading jokes and humorous poems aloud to your children and your students, listening to humorous radio shows or podcasts, watching comedies or playing games.

By following these strategies, you can count on having more joy surrounding you. In this process, you will create an atmosphere of trust, creativity and spontaneity. Then you will begin to see more clearly your own strengths and the strengths of your children and students. When you do this, you will truly transform your home and classroom and become a Strength Detective who is ready to help all children learn without fear or a struggle. Good luck to you! I’d love to hear how this all works out for you.J

Ever wonder what it would be like if our schools solved their current economic challenges by eliminating the job of the principal? According to an April 11th article in the Arizona Daily Star, some schools across America are beginning to think about the economic benefits of operating a school without a principal.

Currently, schools without principals are in existence in the U.S. and functioning quite well. There are 14 teacher-led small charter schools in Minnesota, a dozen in Wisconsin and several in California. The success of these schools is catching the attention of those interested in transforming our current American school system and the Arizona Daily Star article indicates that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has “just donated $1.2 million to EdVisions Schools – one of the front-runners of the teacher-ownership model – to strengthen its national network and to support the creation of another 100 innovative high schools.”

It’s an intriguing and new idea to many of us in education – schools without principals – and one that makes sense for a variety of reasons to quite a few people already. Certainly it prompts us to think about the need to change the current role of a principal and even if the role of a principal is relevant anymore if we truly hope to transform our schools to meet the needs of 21st century learner.

Yet, I certainly think that a school requires leadership and vision and an effective principal can provide that leadership and motivate his or her team. However, those in leadership need to consider a new model of leading that involves more than periodic classroom observations and evaluation of teachers and a close examination of student test scores. Principals need to be equally in touch with the strengths and needs of the teachers and the strengths and needs of the student and parent community.

Perhaps a leadership model like Southwest Airlines – where there is a customer service focus first on listening to the ideas and meeting the basic needs of the employees – would lead to the transformation of our classrooms. Certainly it would give teachers a voice, a sense of trust and ownership in the vital job they do that will ultimately result in the relationships that need to be built among administration, faculty, students and parents before any improvement in student learning will take place.

So perhaps, out of this economic meltdown and now the glimmer of economic recovery we are seeing this week, will come some cost-saving efforts that will lead to a new way of running schools without principals. While this might be unlikely to happen in a large urban or suburban district, perhaps you can start a conversation with your principal about changing the leadership model to one that is more collaborative and shared and one truly that honors both the ideas and voices of teachers, students and parents. If this happens, then schools with principals like this could finally be every teacher’s dream.

Today begins a historic week for our country here in the U.S. and for our world. To honor both tomorrow’s birthday celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the inauguration of President-Elect Obama on Tuesday, January 20th, I would like to share with you my dreams for transforming the educational experience for children around the world and find out about your dreams.

My first dream is for a world where every child can grow up knowing that he/she is a whole child (see my September 1, 2007 blog entry and wholechild@ascd.org). The adults around each student would respect and accept the differences that each child brings to this world and work to make sure each child is “healthy, safe, supported, challenged and engaged” in the learning process.

By accepting the differences in learning styles and interests, teachers and parents would celebrate each child for his/her uniqueness. Differences in a student’s readiness to learn would be understood and addressed by implementing a variety of strategies in classrooms and homes where the adults will have been equipped through staff/parent development training to teach necessary 21st century learning skills.

Secondly, I dream of a world where all children experience educational equality with access to books, educational technology tools and an opportunity to learn something new each day. In their schools, these children would be encouraged to recognize and utilize their strengths to learn and teachers and parents would work hard to remove any obstacle that would be a barrier to learning.

Finally, I dream of a world where teachers, administrators, parents and students would respect and value each other and strive to communicate effectively. They would all work collaboratively to solve problems, resolve conflict and create a educational climate that honors the diverse learning needs of every child.

I know that these three dreams are not mine alone. They represent the hopes of so many other educators and parents all over the world.

What are your dreams? Please share them here and with other parents and teachers at your school because I firmly believe that we all can help each other if we combine our vision and talents.

In sharing and combining our efforts, we might even be able to create a global network of like-minded people, people committed to global educational change. It is only by working together across racial and geographical boundaries and across cultures that we can have an impact we could have never dreamed possible just a generation ago.

Welcome to 2009 and to Unexpected Gifts: Discovering and Nurturing the Strengths in Every Child. As you move forward into a new year, I hope that in 2009 you will consider adding a new item to your New Year’s resolution list: to have a positive impact on the lives of a very special group of children and adults whose dignity, human rights and hope have been crushed.

These children include the 2 million children who are “exploited in the global commercial sex trade and the 1 million children living in detention and waiting trial for minor offenses.” You can read more about these children and the 27 million men, women and children living as slaves by visiting the website for the International Justice Mission, http://www.ijm.org/whoweare.

I first learned about the International Justice Mission (IJM) in August of 2008 when Gary Haugen was speaking in South Barrington, Illinois, at the Willow Creek Community Church Leadership Summit, http://www.willowcreek.com/lds/events_LS_2009.asp.

His story of how he became inspired to create a human rights organization and the stories he told of the life-changing victim rescue in 12 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America completely captivated the attention of the audience. Hearing him speak served as a call to action to the thousands of people who attended the conference in Illinois and at one of over 140 satellite sites around the U.S. Haugen’s speech truly opened my eyes to the need for more of us to get involved in this incredibly courageous humanitarian effort to fight worldwide injustice.

While I hope this blog helps others identify and nurture the gifts of every child, I do know that this is most likely not going to happen if the child or the child’s family is a victim of injustice. So, I ask that you join me and get involved. Visit the IJM website and find out how you and your family can make a critical difference in the lives of oppressed children and their families. Your involvement can lead to a life of freedom for countless children and adults. You can help change the future for a child whose strengths and gifts can be rightfully identified and nurtured and who deserves of a life of hope and dignity.

Are you looking for the perfect gift this holiday season and for every holiday season during the year? Would you like to truly take advantage of the teachable moments of these challenging economic times and help your children put serving and compassion into action?

Then, definitely consider visiting Trade As One, www.tradeasone.com. This organization, devoted to fair trade, believes that, “Every time you buy something, it should change someone’s life for the better.” When you buy from Trade As One, you’ll also have the satisfaction of knowing that the money you are spending goes directly to the people who design and make all the beautiful and unique items and also goes to the “organizations that offer them shelter, medical care and education.”

According to Trade As One, the people involved in making the items available for sale include:

· Women rescued from exploitation and other abusive situations
· People with HIV/AIDS
· Worker-owned cooperatives

For all these people, our purchases from Trade As One provide a ”path out of extreme poverty.” It gives us an opportunity to truly make a difference in the world and as the world-famous band, U2, says in one of its songs, “We get to carry each other.”

When I made my purchases from Trade As One earlier this fall, I had the direct opportunity to change lives and create a sense of hope. You can give your children this same experience of putting compassion into action by making a purchase yourself from Trade As One. It’s never too early or too late to teach our children that by providing hope, each of us can change the world and help make it a better place, a more peaceful place for everyone around the globe.

It certainly takes an optimist to think that these difficult economic times have any kind of silver lining. With so many people feeling the stress and worry of the global economic meltdown of the last month, it makes you wonder how as parents, grandparents and teachers, we can possibly salvage some teachable moments out of this global economic mess for our children.

Yet if we look closely at the truth of why, as a nation we are in such an uncomfortable position, we can begin to identify the rich lessons and themes of history and share them with our children. We can show our children that studying history teaches us that what we are experiencing is really not new and has been faced before.

However, we can emphasize another lesson of history that teaches us that we can develop a sense of resiliency in the event of any crisis and we can be inspired to rise above our fears and stress to reach out to others who, are indeed, less fortunate. In doing so, our fears are transformed into a sense of hope and optimism. It’s incredible how different our lives become when our focus is not on what we have lost but on what we have to give and how we can serve those in need.

So, perhaps the silver lining in all of these events is that we all can begin to think more outwardly and teach our children to do the same. You can start immediately by talking with your children about ways to help those in your own extended family, in your own neighborhood and community. Once you do this, you will have taught your children a lesson in serving and compassion – a lesson that will last a lifetime. It’s a lesson that money could never buy – even in the best of economic times.

In many parts of the world, today marks the official end of summer. Vacations and holidays are over and it’s back to school for our children. But on September 2nd in Chicago, Illinois, on the first day of school, parents are being asked by Rev. James Meeks, who leads Salem Baptist Church in Chicago, and by other area pastors to withhold their children from school in a symbolic show of support to help end the inequities in educational funding in Illinois. Rev. Meeks, who also is an Illinois state senator (D-15), has long been an advocate for educational equity for our children and has the support and respect of many people and organizations that believe all of our children deserve equal opportunities for success.

All of us who care about children certainly have to give Rev. Meeks credit for raising awareness and persistently and courageously challenging our state legislators and governor to do something now about changing educational funding in Illinois. Rev. Meeks call for reform reflects the sentiments of families and educators in every district in our state who know it is truly time to end the shameful inequities that exist in our Illinois schools. These same inequities exist to an even more dramatic degree in countries around the world and have garnered the attention of a variety of educational advocates who care deeply about the future of our children in every country.

Yet, parents and educators here and all over the globe will hopefully do more than just listen and applaud Rev. Meeks call for educational reform. Ideally they will respond by joining together to create a new global P.T.A. – Parents and Teachers Taking Action.

Just what effective action can parents and teachers take that could possibly change anything right now without adequate funding? Actually, there is much that can be done that will enhance Rev. Meeks’ efforts as he works to bring about much needed change to create long overdue educational equality in Illinois.

Parents and educators around the globe can join an active and vocal network of educational advocates who are speaking out on behalf of children everywhere. They can join the Whole Child Initiative, a respected international program started in 2007 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (wholechild@ascd.org).

This program is designed to re-focus the attention back on the holistic needs of our children – the social, emotional, spiritual, physical, moral, civic and cognitive – instead of zeroing in on individual test scores in a few subject areas. With the Whole Child Initiative, the diversity of our children, their individual strengths and their unique capabilities and gifts are affirmed and celebrated. Their individual learning differences are accepted and barriers to learning are removed. Test scores are seen as one small piece of a much larger picture of life-long learning. The local community of parents, neighborhoods, schools, support service agencies, businesses and places of worship all work together to support the whole child.

By working together, we can then succeed in achieving the goal of the Whole Child Initiative: raising whole children who are “healthy, safe, engaged, supported and challenged.” Yet it cannot be emphasized enough that family involvement is key and is an area where all parents have so much potential to make a difference. This difference is intensified when parents join in with teachers and community members to support and nurture the love of learning in all children. With this type of community collaboration, in addition to equitable funding for education, our children will be able to reach their true potential as life-long learners.

Chicago’s Rev. Meeks has boldly challenged our state legislators here in Illinois. Now let’s hope he will issue the same valiant challenge to parents, educators and all community members in Illinois – and around the world – to work together, speak out and take action to support the education of the whole child.

Reforming educational funding will be a crucial factor anywhere in improving education for all children. It might even lead to raising test scores. Yet with just more money and higher test scores, we will fail miserably at what really matters – raising and supporting a whole child whose health, physical and emotional safety, access to and acceleration of the curriculum and love of learning is at the very core of the educational process.

As an educator or parent have you ever been bullied as a child or as an adult or had a student in your class or child of your own who has been the victim of bullying? If you have, then you are acutely aware of the emotional and physical impact of bullying on adults and students of all ages around the world. Yet the negative impact of bullying goes beyond the individuals involved. Everyone in the school, not just the targeted victims, suffers considerably when a hostile environment that supports bullying is tolerated.

This is the conclusion of Anita Gurian, Ph.D., of the New York University Child Study Center and author of an education.com article titled “The Emotional Toll of Bullying in Schools.” In her article she states that the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports, “50% of children are bullied and 10% are victims of bullying on a regular basis.” These students “have reported they suffered side effects of bullying – a drop in grades, an increase in anxiety, a loss of social life.”

Her recommendations for parents (and teachers) include speaking up and taking action to bring bullying out in the open by:
· helping your child know that he/she is not to blame
· teaching your child how to react when bullied
· working with the school to ensure that the school environment is safe and that bullies are “reprimanded in an appropriate manner and…steps are taken to spread anti-bullying messages.”

All children around the world deserve a teaching and learning environment that allows them to feel safe, accepted and valued as individuals who all look and learn differently and who all possess unique gifts. We can help to create this safe learning environment when we model assertive communication skills and teach these same skills to our children.

These skills, which are a part of the Conscious Discipline program by Becky Bailey, empower individuals of all ages to speak with both respect and clarity to each other. This respect and clarity leads to healthy boundaries that are the key to all positive relationships in our families, schools and places of work.

With bullying in our schools so pervasive and yet so often ignored, it’s time to speak up and take a global stand against bullying. We must equip our children with assertive communication skills and work together as parents and educators to address the issue of bullying. You can learn more about strategies that will help your child by checking out the Conscious Discipline or Stop Bullying Now websites listed in the blogroll.

Once we take the steps to break the cycle of violence that bullying represents, we can truly build the foundation for world peace in every home, classroom and community.

Can one person, one idea or one organization possibly make a difference in the lives of millions of people? If you are familiar with the story of John Wood, the Microsoft executive who left his job (and wrote about it in his 2006 book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World) to start a non-profit organization, Room to Read, to bring books, libraries, computer labs and education to children in developing countries, then you would answer yes.

Knowing that “education is a lifelong gift that empowers people to ultimately improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries and future generations,” Room to Read has made a tremendous difference in the world and in the lives of children since it began in 2000 and has attracted worldwide attention and well-known supporters. With over 3600 libraries built in Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and South Africa, there is still so much work to be done to establish libraries in other countries. This means that there are many ways to involve more individuals, classrooms, schools, neighborhoods and organizations around the world to donate funds or volunteer their time and efforts to raise money.

Be sure to click on the Room to Read link in the blogroll to learn more about this amazing organization. As you read through all the information posted on the site, I am confident that you will be inspired to think about how you can help.

I hope you and your family will find a way to be of service to this worthy effort and encourage you to share the Room to Read link with your friends. Perhaps you’ll even think of other ways you, as one person, might change the world just as John Wood was able to do through Room to Read.