FOSTORIA SUCCESS
"Educating students to take pride in self and community"
Introducing SUCCESS
Before we all come back from summer vacation in August, we wanted to present to you some of the founding ideas and curriculum of our newly initiated SUCCESS periods. We didn't want to blind side you with lots of new information immediately upon your return, but rather give you time to reflect, digest, and make some suggestions before we roll into another great year here at FJSHS!
Why SUCCESS?
The SUCCESS period is centered around teaching kids how to deal with real-world problems and social emotional learning. Social emotional learning is education rooted in teaching kids how to understand and deal with their own emotions and social lives, as well as how to stay motivated, make good decisions, and how to treat others with kindness and compassion. Teaching them to reflect on how they think and why they make the decisions that they do will ultimately help them learn who they are and how their core values and beliefs shape their identity. Time and again, social emotional learning has been linked to higher attendance and graduation rates, and better academics, including improvements on state test scores. Bottom line: we want what's best for our students, which means helping them and giving them the guidance they need to make good decisions that will benefit their futures.
The best part? MOST OF THE WORK IS DONE FOR YOU!
That's right! We've put together a curriculum that we think you'll love, so you don't have to make it all up yourself! Now, this doesn't mean you can't put your own twist on lessons or teach it in a way that makes it more relevant to your students! We've given you the skeleton of the curriculum, including Course Organizers, Unit Organizers, and lesson plans, but HOW you teach those is up to you! We've also set up a folder in Google Drive where you can put new ideas for great lessons, because we all know that you are inspiring, creative teachers, and everyone would love to see what you're doing to be successful! And we're teachers: is not our motto, "Beg, borrow, and steal"? There are specific folders for grades 7/8, 9/10, and 11/12. We hope to see some great ideas soon! Below you'll find a link to the whole SUCCESS folder. You can't edit anything within the folders yet, but the hyperlinks above will take you to the "new ideas" folders for each grade band, which CAN be edited.
Questions? Comments? Concerns?
WE WANT YOUR INPUT!! We value your opinions, and if there's a question, a concern, or if you have a great idea for an activity or lesson, let us know! We'd love to hear from you! Remember, this is a collaboration. Your ideas are important to us! Here is a link to a suggestion box that has been set up on Google Forms. Just follow it and you'll be provided with a space to put your thoughts! If the form doesn't work, shoot me an email and I'll help you out! Thanks!
Ron Gutman: The hidden power of smiling