Dear Difference Maker,
This morning an unexpected thought rolled into my consciousness that teachers are people too!
I think the greatest misconception about teachers from the outside of the school world is that they are somehow are supposed to be exempt from real-life – day-to-day – human experiences!
I know! It’s kind of crazy how we do that in our minds when thinking about teachers, doctors, and lawyers – just to name a few of the professions that have a perception factor attached to who they are because of what they do for their livelihood! Most of our adult lives we fear “being called into the Principal’s (boss’s) office” as if it is going to be a bad thing rather than a great thing.
So, because of this morning’s insight, I’d like to share a case study with you about what it takes to work with some of the ineffective people we find ourselves teaching with that can in fact, be helped.
An Ineffective Tenured Teacher’s Success Story
I have spoken to over 20,000 people in a period of just two years, and I have found that almost every school district – workplace – has a “Mary Ann.”
You know her. She’s a bit on the frumpy grumpy side, is insecure, a bit needy for approval, and gives the appearance of being incompetent and confused about even being deserving of a job.
The Mary Anns we know have hearts of gold and are incredibly caring and genuinely interested in everyone’s well-being. They really do care, it’s not just a front.
In fact, the Mary Anns of this world would give you the shirt off of their back if you needed it, just because they care that deeply for humanity.
Unfortunately, the Mary Anns are often put down and made fun of in our work world.
They receive VIBES from their colleagues, (and parents) ever so discreetly, and in a politically correct fashion; vibes that imply that they are incompetent, incapable, just too sensitive and they just let people walk all over them.
They’ve been attitudinally labeled as Losers!
The Mary Ann I came to know and love was the type of ineffective tenured teacher that had a great degree of difficulty with students because she had never received the kind of training that would help her develop a truly effective Skill Set.
The result was total chaos in her classroom each and every day.
The communities’ most influential parents begged the Principal to not put their children in her classroom. So, the Principal – not wanting to “rock the boat” of the political system – put the lowest-performing and most challenging students (the kid’s nobody wanted in their classrooms) in Mary Ann’s room with the outside hope that she would get tired and quit.
I assure you I am not making this up – he openly shared this with me, and it was common knowledge among the faculty and staff – often gossiped about in the teacher’s lounge.
The fall that I arrived at this school to work as the guidance counselor, the assessment that I had given Mary Ann’s students revealed that 56% of her classroom were students who were at-risk behaviorally and emotionally and therefore below-average level learners.
I invited Mary Ann to attend my Academic Success 101 Continuing Education Class that I was teaching through Portland State University in Portland, OR. She readily accepted my invitation and showed up to class ready to learn. She took my full 9 Week Class twice during that school year.
In the spring I re-issued the school district’s test. The standard improvement normally shown by the best of teachers would show an increase of about 2 points.
Mary Ann’s class had increased its overall score by 4.7 points.
OUTSTANDING
Needless to say, both Mary Ann and her students broke through many cycles of failure in those seven months, because she eagerly applied what she was learning.
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In just 10 Comprehensive, Fast-Paced Sessions, |
It’s a New Year – the perfect time of year to begin again no matter what’s gone on so far this school year. Go watch my video!
This program is for the individual person – teacher /parent – who wants to pre-pave their way to a phenomenal, easy flowing winter and spring with kids of any and all ages NOW.
This program is also for administrators who are ready to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT with those on their faculty who are not as effective as you need them to be.
Learning a new Attitudinally Effective Skill Set – school wide – is as simple as scheduling 1 day a week, bi-weekly or monthly in-service / meetings – whatever fits your school’s needs and schedule.
If you are an administrator and your school has intense academic and behavioral issues, then do weekly meetings with your faculty and staff – or at the very least bi-weekly.
Step 1: Schedule the day and time for the Teacher Meetings and then ASSIGN one session for them to listen to at their convenience for learning how to be highly effective with the really tough behavioral and academic issues and then …
Step 2: Come TOGETHER as an educational community with a shared common goal of academic excellence.
Simply start each meeting sharing that week’s SUCCESSES and working your way through the tougher challenges utilizing the approaches being learned.
This will be a fast paced hour of discussing what’s being learned and what’s being applied.
Your leaders WILL lead the way, and the others will think it’s their idea!
When you invest in Academic Success 101, you will immediately receive downloadable materials that you can issue out to your teachers – one session at a time.
In addition to your automatically downloadable package, an easy to navigate Online DASHBOARD is accessible to which you can distribute access to all your faculty and staff.
Reaching out to make a world of difference THIS Year!
PS … I welcome you to peruse my companion book to this program, Make a Difference with the Power of Connection before investing at:
PPS …To Learn How to Re-Label Children for the BEST, long-term, self-sustaining results for Academic Success for THIS Year.
Academic Success 101 is a Self-Paced Online Course with downloadable MP3s of my One-on-One Hot Seat Coaching of Parents, Faculty, Directors and Administrative Personnel.
You REALLY can make THIS YEAR the MOST ENJOYABLE second half of school year ever by learning the Power of Your Attitudinal Energy to positively transform students (faculty and staff) with an attitude!
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