EatonBlog

A recent study published in the July issue of Developmental Psychology confirms what many educators already know: a child’s ability to exercise self-control is a determining factor in his or her success in school.  Indeed, self-control can be more important when it comes to ensuring student achievement than IQ or a host of other factors.

Children who have impulse control and are self-disciplined fare much in school emotionally, behaviorally, and academically.  These are all reasons our guidance curriculum and so many aspects of our behavioral/school discipline plan focus on self-control. 

As a principal, I can walk into any classroom on any day and identify right away those students who are exercising self-control. You can see it in their ability to listen. You can see it in their focus. You can see it in their level of on-task behavior…   It really is the strongest indicator of student success in school. 

What can you do as a parent to foster self control in your child?  Education World has published a list of several ways:

Controlling Impulses
Skill 1: Managing Situational Lure
– Learning to identify appropriate behaviors outside the classroom
– Learning to adjust behavior to match the situation
Skill 2: Demonstrating Patience
– Learning to wait
– Learning to take turns
– Learning to help others
Skill 3: Verbalizing Feelings
– Learning to build a feeling vocabulary
– Learning to identify one’s own feelings
– Learning to identify feelings in others
– Learning to share feelings
Skill 4: Resisting Tempting Objects
– Learning to discuss how the allure of material objects can influence behavior
– Learning to evaluate the need for material objects
– Learning to use objects appropriately

Following School Routines
Skill 5: Following Rules
– Learning to understand why rules are necessary
– Learning to identify with rules
– Learning to monitor one’s own behavior
Skill 6: Organizing School Materials
– Learning to follow instructions
– Learning to plan a task
– Learning to organize materials to complete a task
– Learning to complete homework
Skill 7: Accepting Evaluative Comments
– Learning to learn from mistakes
– Learning to distinguish criticism from teasing, sarcasm, and mean statements
Skill 8: Making Classroom Transitions
– Learning to follow steps in a routine
– Learning to move appropriately around the classroom

Managing Group Situations
Skill 9: Maintaining Composure
– Learning to ignore classroom distractions
– Learning to independently select a classroom activity
– Learning to behave appropriately when the teacher is out of the room
Skill 10: Appraising Peer Pressure
– Learning to evaluate a situation in terms of personal beliefs about good and bad choices
– Learning to act in accordance with personal beliefs
– Learning to identify peer situations where students should say “no”
Skill 11: Participating in Group Activities
– Learning to help others
– Learning to cooperate
– Learning to contribute to group discussions
Skill 12: Understanding How Behavior Affects Others
– Learning to identify behaviors that affect others
– Learning to demonstrate helping behaviors
– Learning to behave responsibly

Managing Stress
Skill 13: Adapting to New Situations
– Learning to identify ways by which people adapt to their surroundings
– Learning to cope with change
– Learning to direct one’s own behavior
Skill 14: Coping With Competition
– Learning to identify positive attributes of competition
– Learning to participate in competitive games
Skill 15: Tolerating Frustration
– Learning to identify feelings of frustration
– Learning to develop methods of coping with frustration
Skill 16: Selecting Tension-Reducing Activities
– Learning to identify physical signs of stress
– Learning to identify situations that cause stress
– Learning to identify tension-reducing activities

Solving Social Problems
Skill 17: Focusing on Present Situation
– Learning to evaluate disturbing feelings
– Learning to concentrate on a task
Skill 18: Learning From Past Experience
– Learning to describe a chronology of events
– Learning to learn from the experience of others
– Learning to learn from one’s own experience
Skill 19: Anticipating Consequences
– Learning to explain cause and effect
– Learning to understand the meaning of consequences
– Learning to accept consequences for behavior
Skill 20: Resolving Conflicts
– Learning to recognize situations
– Learning to develop alternatives to conflict
– Learning to use words to resolve conflicts

Teaching Self-Control: Strategies for Parents
The National Association of School Psychologists offers strategies to help parents teach self-control and to help them deal with their child’s feelings as they teach the skills.

Teaching Your Child Self-Control
This KidsHealth.org article offers suggestions to help parents teach their children to control their behavior. Tips are provided for kids from infancy to adolescence.

Here we are the first of October faced with another school closure due to illness.  Don’t get me wrong — I believe this closure was justified and necessary (24% students/21% teachers absent) — it just creates headaches for both parents and school personnel.  

If you are like me and our teachers, you are probably wondering how long before students must make up these missed days.    You might not know this, but for  several years, Loudon County has built extra minutes into the normal instructional day to account for 13 “stockpiled” days.  In the past, these were the days used for inclement weather closures.   So far, we have used six days for illness.    The biggest worry now is about future outbreaks of flu and additional school closures later in the winter months. 

As we face these issues, let me reassure you we will do everything possible to ensure our students meet and exceed all grade level expectations.  Our master schedule has little time for “fluff,” and over the next several weeks, we will be looking for ways to “sneak” in additional teaching time. 

Our custodial staff is in the building as I write this cleaning all desks, door knobs, and stair railings.  We will all continue working together to make the best of this difficult situation. 

The attached article from Men’s Health has excellent tips for Dads, Moms, and teachers when dealing with common issues that arise in raising children.  I particularly liked the advice for handling tantrums and how to handle it when your child wants to quit a chosen activity. 

8 Lessons All Dads Should Teach

It looks like I’ll be postponing Principals Night In from September 22 to October 13.  All the illness and school closures are playing havoc with our schedules here at Eaton and made it impossible to plan appropriately for this event. 

I want to encourage as many parents as possible to attend.  Not only will we feed you and provide childcare services, but we will have a great time brainstorming together ways to improve our school.  It’s a unique way to meet other Eaton parents, and we always incorporate suggestions from this event into our school improvement planning process. 

Go ahead and mark your calendars now for Tuesday, October 13.  I look forward to a fun-filled evening hearing your ideas and getting to know you better.

It would seem the flu season is upon us early.  Our friends across the driveway at NMS are out of school the next three days to to absenteeism rates of 25% and above.  We have avoided these massive absences so far, but we know our turn is coming.  Custodians are doing double duty cleaning, we are washing our hands (and going through soap and paper towels like never before), and we are sending students home immediately when symptoms are reported.  With that in mind, you may want to open the link below for H1N1 information. 

H1N1 Information and FAQ

For those parents who attend Eaton Parent Nights the first two weeks of school, you heard us talking about new, more rigorous, state academic standards and requirements for high school graduation.  These changes are directly tied to the federal No Child Left Behind law and are designed to align Tennessee curriculum more closely to national standards.  In addition, the past few years, state testing has moved from norm referenced (where each child is compared to all other students taking the test) to criterion referenced (where each child is measured according to his/her level of skill acquisition).  All these national policies and mandates have led local school districts to become very focused on curriculum goals and aim toward creating learning environments where all children can become proficient in grade level standards. 

Which leads to the question many of you asked at Parent Nights — Why the switch to a Standards Based Report Card?  Loudon County Schools made this change for several reasons:  (1) This type report card allows students and teachers to be clear on the most important skills/content to be learned at that grade level, (2) The standards based report card gives clear information about what students know, what they are able to do, and where they need specific additional help, and (3) Teachers, students, and parents are more focused on the academic strengths and instructional needs of the individual student.  The main purpose of the standards-based report cards is to specifically communicate student progress toward mastery of the new Tennessee academic content standards.  Everyone is on the same page and understands clearly what is expected of students. 

You may wonder how this type of reporting is beneficial to students and parents.  Students can see the exact skills and concepts on which they need to continue working.  They are able to make connections between classroom lessons and the skills and concepts which are on the report card.  Parents will have access to detailed information about their child’s progress toward achieving grade level standards.  If your child struggles or excels in a certain standard, you will know.  This type of reporting also facilitates teacher/parent communication as the child’s academic progress is discussed. 

Eaton teachers will utilize a variety of measures to assess student learning.  These include, but are not limited to, tests, observations, projects, presentations, and graphic organizers. 

A few parents have expressed concerns that without letter grades, students will not be motivated to achieve at advanced levels.  We would contend that as long as our teachers challenge the students with rigorous, challenging curriculum, engage the students with interactive learning opportunities, and tie the learning to real life experiences and examples, that our students will be motivated to do their best.  When a child receives an “M” (Met the state standard), that tells us the child is ready to move on to new material or perhaps more challenging applications for that skill.  Our teachers will use this information to better individualize instruction for our students. 

If you continue to have questions or concerns about these new report card procedures, please come in and have a conversation with me.  This is the pilot year, and I’m sure we will be utilizing all data and feedback as we look toward making any changes for the 2010-2011 school year.

As always, I appreciate your support of our school.  My door is always open.

The School Psychologist Blog has five important ways parents can ease back-to-school anxiety for their children.  Click the link to read the article.  Have you, as an Eaton parent, found strategies to help ease those jitters we see at the beginning of a new year?  Please comment and share.

Washington Post Article

Active Summer, Active Minds
Educators Seek Ways to Prevent Learning Losses During Vacation
By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 15, 2009

It’s called “the summer brain drain” because during those long, hot months away from school, kids supposedly forget a lot of what they had learned in class.

Research, however, tells a more nuanced story: Some learning is lost among some groups, and others gain.

Here’s what experts from Johns Hopkins University, the University of Tennessee, the University of Virginia and elsewhere say happens over the summer:

– Most students — regardless of family income or background — lose 2 to 2 1/2 months of the math computational skills that they learned during the school year.

– Students from low-income homes lose two to three months in reading skills learned in the previous school year.

– Middle-class students make slight gains in reading achievement as measured on standardized tests.

Those findings suggest the obvious: that children lose math ability when they don’t use it and that middle-class students read more than those from poor families because they have more books at home. (The research looked at middle-class kids, but similar results would presumably be found in children from high-income families.)

It might seem as if students who lose two months of math skills need two months more to catch up. But educators say it’s not that simple.

When it comes to reading, experts say, some kids make progress not only because they read more.

“Life experiences other than reading can lead to advantages in reading comprehension,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at U-Va. who is an expert in cognition and the application of cognitive principles to K-12 education.

“If you don’t have a reading problem or a problem with decoding . . . your ability to read a passage is dependent on having some relevant background knowledge,” he said.

Such knowledge is related to the wide variety of summer experiences for many middle-class and affluent kids — in camp, on vacation, in their own homes. The lack of resources for poor children in the summer has big consequences, experts say.

“If we can eliminate the summer gap, we can close the longstanding achievement gap between richer and poorer kids,” said Richard Allington, a professor of education at the University of Tennessee and past president of the International Reading Association. “Basically, even poor kids grow reading skills at about the same rate as middle-class kids, when they are in school.” he said. “Two-thirds of the achievement gap occurs during the summers, not during the school year.”

Schools, libraries and nonprofit organizations also tend to place more emphasis on summer reading than on mathematics, which explains in part why kids across the socioeconomic spectrum lose ground in math over the summer, said Ron Fairchild, executive director of the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins.

Another factor in the loss of math skills is thought to be the nature of the subject: Facts and knowledge based on specific procedures are easier to forget than concepts. But Willingham said it is also true that the nature of human memory means that students can re-learn relatively quickly.

“Someone who loses 2 1/2 months of skills doesn’t need 2 1/2 months to relearn it,” he said.

Fairchild’s center promotes quality summer programs for children, especially those who are less affluent. The center works with 5,000 programs in all 50 states, aiming to provide academic and cultural enrichment, healthy meals and physical activity — elements to help students succeed when they return to school. Healthy meals are not an afterthought. Research shows that most children gain weight in the summer, an undesired outcome amid increased childhood obesity.

So for those parents who tell themselves that kids don’t need to do anything academic during summer because, after all, they didn’t themselves when they were young, and they turned out just fine, experts have this reply: Think again.

Take the Scholastic Summer

Reading Challenge

We know that for students, summer can be a season of full of learning opportunities … or learning losses. Research confirms that students who don’t read four or more books over the summer typically score lower or stagnate on reading comprehension tests when they return to school. 

Keep your students turning the pages all summer long with these recommended books, reproducibles, book videos, and more. Get parents involved — share the importance of summer reading by downloading this send-home letter.

Summer Challenge LIVE!

In support of summer reading, Scholastic is encouraging you to get students excited about reading with the Scholastic Summer Challenge, a free summer-long literacy program designed to motivate all children to read four or more books.  The Challenge began with a live game-show webcast on April 30. Hosted by Jon Scieszka, children’s book author and National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, the 40-minute game-show webcast featured four teams of fifth graders who answered trivia questions about authors, illustrators, and anything related to kids’ books. Classrooms around the world helped the contestants earn additional points by responding to live web polls, online questions, and more. It’s easy to integrate this event into your day with this classroom guide. Points earned during the April 30th webcast were awarded to the color teams to kick off the Summer Challenge.

Scholastic Summer Challenge

This free, web-based program helps kids find great books and provides a fun, multimedia platform for them to discover new authors, talk about books with other kids, and keep them motivated to read all summer long. When kids log their reading minutes, they earn points to win the team competition — and be part of the World Record Challenge. When your students read 4 or more books, they will be making a difference in their own lives and in the lives of other children in need. This year, Scholastic has partnered with Save the Children to raise awareness about the importance of reading and helping others in need. At the end of the summer, Scholastic will make a financial contribution to Save the Children on behalf of all readers in the Scholastic Summer Challenge, in support of Literacy, Early Steps for School Success, Emergency Relief, and Nutrition/Physical Fitness. The winning team gets to choose where a special donation to Save Your Children will go.

Happy Summer Reading!

In an era of high stakes accountablity for education, budget cuts, and general desperation for many families due to hard economic times, we have much to be thankful for.  Our community has once again embraced this school, our faculty, and our students, and showered us with generosity. 

Thank you to Two Rivers Church for donating the start-up monies for our weekend food backpack program.  Currently, we are sending home 80+ backpacks of food each Friday with our students.  One of the small group ministries from Two Rivers spent two weekends weeding, pruning, cleaning up, and mulching our Mary Lee Hitch Reading Garden.  It is beautiful!  Also, in case you were not aware, with budget cuts came a reduction in landscaping services.  Church members last August weeded and mulched our playground. 

New Providence Baptist Church has embraced all the schools of Loudon County/Lenoir City and provided delicious meals, snacks, and desserts for our staff each month of the school year!  They are hosting a large family celebration for the schools on May 17 at Tate & Lyle Amphitheater in Loudon which begins at 4:00. 

Central United Methodist, our next door neighbor, graciously allows our students and families to utilize their worship center for grade level musicals.  Also, they daily allow our parents to use their parking lot.

Dixie Lee Baptist provides breakfast for our staff two times each year.

Loudon County Baptist Association provided a hamburger lunch for our staff.

First Baptist Church allowed the entire Loudon County school system to use their facility on opening day.

In addition to the churches, we have parents who have gone above and beyond.  Tonya Pierce has spearheaded many food projects, and Sherri Childress also worked with her business to provide hundreds of food items for needy families. 

Whenever I become the slightest bit discouraged, I remind myself how very fortunate we are.  We owe our community a note of thanks!