“A Good Teacher Is a ‘Self-Abuser’ Teacher!”
A grad-school professor of mine said this in class one day. He was lamenting that his wife, a kindergarten teacher, had been on leave for two years to have their two children. He specialized in language acquisition and reading development, so he used his wife’s classroom as an observational laboratory for years. While she was on leave, he was having a difficult time finding a replacement.
The title of this post greeted us in our email inbox on Friday. Elisa Collins, a middle school teacher in Cape Coral, FL, wrote us with exciting news! She went on to say:
“…and Karl Fisch contacted me and congratulated me!! I have used the SOAR curriculum for 3 years now and it has made the kids smarter and more organized!
I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and that your new year is off to a good start. As you may recall, I tackled a big project in November and December, writing 30 articles in 30 days. I wanted to determine the topics and issues that are of greatest to concern to parents and educators so I can better target the materials we develop and the free articles we distribute.
Some of the hot topics included handwriting (to my surprise), gaps in our educational system, and challenges with motivation. Teachers spoke about their constant frustration that they just can’t “do enough” to reach all of the students they want to reach or have the impact they had hoped to have. Parents are struggling with homework and finding that homework is, in many instances, destroying their relationships with their children. Heavy stuff.
One year ago today, I was called in to meet with my son’s principal…and accused of “Educational Neglect!” In the eyes of the court, “Educational Neglect” is full-fledged child abuse.
For the last few months, my son has been drowning in homework! He’s in second-grade. As you may know, he has dyslexia and ADHD. But, his “disabilities” are not the problem. As a matter of fact, our targeted interventions and his hard work have put him very close to “grade-level.” He hates writing (the process of forming letters, not composition). Otherwise, he’s progressing nicely.
Nonetheless, he’s drowning in homework.
I imagine your life is a lot like mine…too many things to do and not enough time to do them! This seems to be the curse of our technological age. We have great tools for improving efficiency, but we are also expected to be infinitely more productive.
As you know, most of the time, I write about improving education for our students. Our mission at SOAR®, however, is to “make the lives of the students, parents, and educators with whom we work as simple as possible.” (If you ever call our office and speak to Chrystal, Jill, Katie, or Chris, you will know they take this mission to heart! They are four very kind people who are proud to be of service…which makes me very proud to have them on our team!)
I struggled in school. From kindergarten thru 12th grade, I struggled to earn mediocre grades. I would study for hours…then fail a test. Over time, I had no motivation to study. “Why should I bother?” I wondered.
As I entered college, I knew something would have to change. Based on my track-record, I would never survive. So, I found a couple of books on the subject of “preparing for college.”
This week, I thought I would share an inspiring article from ADDitude Magazine. I am a big fan of ADDitude and was very touched by an article about a mother and daughter who overcame substance abuse and threats of suicide through a double ADHD diagnosis. They learned about ADHD together, and grew significantly from their experiences.
I am sharing this particular article for a few reasons:
I am very excited to start teaching it (SOAR Study Skills). It's funny because a lot of what you do is what I do informally on a daily basis, but it's nice to ...
Katie G.
Tobi Flair
Public Middle School
New Orleans, LA
Tobi Flair is the principal at Harry Hurst Middle School in Destrehan, Louisiana. Her building has built a 20-minute session of “SOAR time” into their daily schedule.
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