News:
"Strategies
of Success Curriculum" creator Marianne Douglas has been named a
finalist for Cable's Leaders in Learning Awards
Cable
in the Classroom has announced the 2007 Cable's Leaders in Learning
Awards finalists!
43 of the most innovative educators,
administrators, policy makers and community leaders in the country
are being recognized for their vision, innovation, action and
transformation of learning in schools and communities.
Read More.
Recipient of Certificate of
Special Congressional Recognition by the United States Senate
"I have seen our
students grow in confidence, maturity and responsibility
as they accepted your challenge. The success of
your program is further apparent in the positive
atmosphere created not only in your classroom but in the
community as a whole."
Nancy Vorro
Former
Dean of Students, Mt. Hope High School
Bristol,
RI
“My
years in high school have been tough because of problems I was
having at home and everywhere else. At the beginning of the year I
was ready to give up, I didn’t know what to do. All I know was that
I was struggling to pass school and I had no support from my
family.
A
week into this class, I noticed that everything was slowly
changing. It helped me create a vision for my life, change my old
ways, become aware of my own negative thoughts and how to replace
them with new positive ones.”
"It
teaches things that aren't usually taught in school but are
necessary to be successful."
"It
helps with my and others self-esteem because it's a group of
different people in different ages/grades thrown into one class that
need to learn how to work together and get along as you would at a
new job."
“I still can’t believe how much I’ve changed since the class. I’m proud of myself
since I stepped up. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!”
Sophomore
“Now I have a positive attitude wherever I go. I took this
class because I was forced to (I didn’t want a study) and it was
the greatest class I have ever taken in my life.”
“Thank you for dedicating your life to designing your own course
to better the lives of high school students. That is remarkably
admirable. I find this to be very important because school is
too interested in giving book smarts and teaching us things we
don’t really need in life. Your class really prepares us for the
outside world.
Another thing that has impacted me is the environment your class
provides. The feeling I get when I walk into the room is one of
positive energy. It makes me feel like I belong. Most
importantly to me, I feel safe in your class."
"I
absolutely love this class and it's outrageously awesome. I
recommend it to every student. This class is always the highest
point of my day and basically makes my life better."
"Many of my music
students found techniques in 'Strategies of Success'
that help them as musicians. More importantly, I have seen many
students gain leadership skills, self-confidence and positive
energy."
Vicki Boyle, Choral Director
“This will be the class that students will still be talking
about ten years from now.”
Junior
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"Beside the student progress and reactions to this course, the
best part about teaching it, is the ability for me to
incorporate my own personality and personal experiences.
I was
concerned at first that I could not take Marianne’s creation and
mimic the results she has achieved. What I failed to realize is
that the message is imbedded in the curriculum and the daily
activities. That added to each teacher’s own unique style,
makes it work with the students."
Michael Almeida, Current 'Strategies of Success' Teacher at Mt.
Hope High School
“I should also say thanks because I certainly
haven't forgotten everything I've learned in
"Strategies for Success" and there's no way I'd be
making it through college without all that you
taught me." |
"I would encourage students to take "Strategies for Success",
as I have seen over the past several years the positive impact
this course has had on students. Some began the course as shy,
non-advocating adolescents and emerged more self-assured with a
better understanding of themselves and others.
Students have come back to thank me for telling them to take
"Strategies for Success". What they learned became a part
of them. They seemed to be enthused, active participants of the
class."
Van Chase, Department Chair Special Education, Pupil Services
"You don't just do the usual study from the text book but you
get involved in everything you do in class. It is by far one of
my favorite classes because we are taught skills and strategies
that will stay with us for the rest of our lives."
“Taking ‘Strategies of
Success’ was one of the best choices I’ve ever made.
‘Strategies’ can best be described as more than a class. It’s
more like an opportunity to gain tips and advice that you can
use your entire life.”
Sophomore
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They said it couldn't happen...
-
A high school class with eager
attentive students and virtually no
discipline problems
-
A mixed
class with students of all grades and abilities and as
diverse as the population of the school
-
A
class where students learn the tools they need to be successful
not only during the school year but for the rest of their lives
-
A high school program
that can positively change the climate of the entire school
while supporting all the aspects of the school - courses,
extra-curricular activities, and staff
But it has.
A program that achieves all that and more does
exist and is ready for your high school. And
with all that is happening in the world today, it has never been
needed more.
Created in the wake of the tragedy at Columbine, this program
has been changing the lives of the students who have taken it
since 2001.
While there are
no simple
answers to address all the issues that face
teens and schools at this time in our history, this program is making a marked difference in many of the issues facing
teens in high schools now.
A high school in Rhode Island
addressed these issues with a course created specifically to
tackle the educational and social needs of teens today.
The course entitled "Strategies of Success" was created by a
veteran award winning teacher and has been taught to over 3000
teens of all ages and abilities in the past seven years with extraordinary results.
Student achievement increased as did attendance.
Discipline referrals declined and an overall
positive attitude began to permeate the entire
school complex.
Why Should I Choose This Curriculum?
Strategies of Success provides students
with multi-intelligence, whole brain based, and team building
sets of lessons that allow students to gain tools for coping
with issues both in and out of school. The energizing classroom
environment created in this course allows students to actively
participate in building strategies that will last a lifetime.
Students who have taken this
course have shown marked improvement
in the following areas:
-
grades both in class
and on
state
assessment tests
-
relationships with
peers, school staff, family members, employers and friends
-
ability to handle the
stress of life both in and out of school
-
financial literacy
-
leadership qualities
This course was written to address
some of the elements missing in the education of teens in the
twenty-first century. Parents, business owners, teachers and
teens themselves have expressed concern that students are not
exposed to as many positive influences as in years past.
With
fragmented families and both parents working, teens often find
themselves with an overabundance of time on their hands and a
scarcity of empowering resources at their disposal. For many,
advice comes in the form of the omnipresent media or a fellow
teen. They need and want assistance in creating a good life for
themselves but often don’t know where to turn for reliable
information.
Schools have ramped up their
academic curricula to address new laws and national testing.
Teachers have been asked to
rise to the ranks of ‘high performing.’ Parents have struggled to find
solutions to help their children
But students still
seek a cohesive framework to link their educational and social
issues in a meaningful, engaging and inviting manner.
This course provides
that and more.
Students who
have taken this course not only have improved academically but
also have achieved goals that they, their parents and their
teachers have set for them in varied areas of their lives. The
students carry the positive attitude attained in this course
throughout the school complex creating a change in the
atmosphere of the school at large.
This unique curriculum has
everything a teacher needs to duplicate the phenomenal
success this course has achieved to date with over 3000 high school students of all ages and abilities.
Why should a high school
consider adopting this program?
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1. This curriculum is not from a big
publishing house.
It is written by someone who was in
the classroom
recently.
So often I’ve heard educators say that speakers and textbooks
are out of touch with what schools are truly like. Since I
am a very recent classroom teacher, my experiences are as timely
and as relevant as I could make them. Although I’m not
currently there on a daily basis, I left only 3 years ago and
stay very connected with the current teacher and students with
frequent visits.
2. This
curriculum although certainly not perfect has been tested with
over fifty classes
and although it appears simple, it's not easy.
Although the concepts taught here
are simple, they are not easy to achieve. The success of the
course is a result of the building of trust between instructor
and students and in turn, among students. Each lesson builds
that trust while sharing a simple but highly effective technique
used by the most successful people in the world.
Click here to see what
some of the spring 2008 students thought about the Strategies
program.
3. This may not seem like a
traditional textbook or course but maybe it’s time to think
outside the box.
What we’re doing in schools as a whole
is not working as well as it should. As a business owner as
well as educator, I didn’t feel that we were training high
school students as well as we could or should. They needed more
than the traditional education. But with busy parents, teens
were not getting as much of the common sense advice that many of
us experienced growing up.
This course helps to fill in the gaps
that are not being provided by society as a whole.
4. It's written so
any
teacher can have success with this program.
Many people wonder if the reason the
course worked was because I was teaching it. As much as it
flatters me to hear that, it’s the material and the way it is
taught that makes the course shine. My replacement has done
incredibly well and he had the memory of my place in the school
to contend with.
I think any teacher with a good
attitude about teens and a heart can take the words I’ve written
and make them come to life. I wrote out everything I could
think of to make it as easy as possible for them. Teaching is
one of the toughest jobs I’ve ever had so I wanted to make the
materials available for teaching this course
as complete and
easy to use as possible. Plus, whoever teaches the
course will have a year of email support as well as three hours
of phone support.
5. Students have fun in this
class.
When was it decided that school should
not be fun? Why would kids want to go somewhere every day for
twelve years that is so inherently serious all the time?
We
live in an entertainment driven world and as a society we seem
to honor most the people who entertain us – actors, musicians,
athletes. But we expect our kids who are constantly bombarded
with the media in all its forms to sit and listen to one human
speaking. We as adults have problems doing that!
Think of how
it feels to sit in a long after school meeting or professional
day with a less than inspiring speaker. And as stressful as
life is for most of us these days, most of us don’t have the
types of emotional challenges that many of our teens have to
overcome.
Let’s lighten their load while challenging them to do
their best. Let’s add a little fun to their
learning. You’ll be
amazed when you see how much students thrive when they begin to
enjoy school!
6. This course sets the tone
for the rest of the school if given the chance.
Within a very short time, it becomes
‘cool’ to be positive and everyone will realize something
special is going on.
This
attitude begins to permeate the hallways, the other classes, and
after school activities.
7. This course is filled with
activities
that fit all learning styles so that all learners have a chance
to shine.
My favorite quote about teaching from
Eric Butterworth is “Tell me and I forget. Show
me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.”
It’s
important to involve students in the substance of our courses.
How will they remember otherwise?
Speaker and businessman Alex Mandossian said at the recent Mark Victor Hansen “Mega Speaking
Seminar” that according to a study at Yale University, his
audience:
-
Will forget 40%
of what he told them in the following
forty minutes.
-
They
will forget 30%
more in the next 24
hours.
-
A week from the date he spoke, another
20% will have
been forgotten.
-
They will lose 90% of what they had heard that
day. 90%
Learning with activity aids retention. That’s why we need repetition. That’s why it pays
to know our best learning style. It’s why teaching must
involve
activity.
8.
The curriculum is written so current events in the news or the
media can be woven in to the lesson to make it more relevant.
Kids today
want what they’re learning to connect with their lives NOW. They can’t see far enough into the future to understand where
they’ll need to know history or the Pythagorean Theorem. But if
you can show them how it connects with their lives now, they
become eager students.
Many say that students of previous
generations had to learn seriously and that may be true. But
those generations didn’t have the distractions that kids today
have. We can either keep trying to make them like we were and
keep losing them to all the things that interest them more than
school or we can find a way to use those things to connect with
them and entice them to learn.
9. It
honors the fact that students want to know why they're learning
a lesson.
Seeing the
reactions students had to knowing their learning styles taught
me an important lesson. Students want to be in on what’s going
on. They want to know why we do what we do. The little two
year old who asks “Why” has evolved into the high school student
who asks, “Why do I have to learn this?” or “When am I ever
going to use this?” If we can answer that question
convincingly, we move closer to having them become active
participants in their own education.
Awareness of that simple
distinction changed the way I taught. I had always been pretty
forthright with my students but I now began to share the ‘why’
of everything I did or at least made it comfortable for them to
ask. It was more than students knowing which standard the
lesson addressed. It was knowing why this mattered to their
lives now and later.
10.
The instructor who
teaches this course will learn new teaching techniques which
they can share with others in the school.
And they
can make this course their own.
Many of the methods I used to
teacher this course were discovered in
business seminars. People who speak at these incredibly large
and expensive seminars are very effective at educating the
members of the audience as well as keeping them motivated and
entertained. If they don’t do a good job speaking, they’re done
professionally.
A business closes if it’s not successful.
Classroom teachers who are boring and don’t have the ability to
teach are still in the classroom for the most part. It’s not
that they’re not trying their best. It may be that they were
never trained to be great speakers. Whatever the
reason, they’re still there. That’s the way school systems are
set up.
I know this because I certainly have had my boring
days. I even bored myself so much that I took a leave of
absence! I only wish I had learned these techniques earlier in
my teaching career! Author
and original 'Strategies of Success' teacher Marianne
Douglas.... |
How can I use
this program in my school?
This course was designed
to be
used as a semester course. It was originally
placed in the business department as an elective but it could be
placed in other departments as well.
A
school could use this program in other ways besides as a self
supporting course.
They
include:
-
As an after school program. At
the recent American Association of School Administrators
conference in San Diego, a video was shown to
superintendents relating the benefits of after school
programs for teens. This program would be an ideal addition
to schools looking for meaningful ways to extend the school
day.
-
As the
character component for senior project programs. Senior projects are
becoming commonplace in the school course of studies.
Students must enroll in at least one course where character
is studied. This program encompasses character and
ethics among other topics
-
For
personalization or advisor/advisee programs.
Schools and parents recognize that many teens feel isolated
and disconnected from their peers. The personalization
and advisor/advisee programs were developed to address this
problem but often
schools are unsure of what materials are available to put
these programs into place.
You can
have this course in the high school in your district. The
entire program has been tested over 60 semesters. The detailed
curriculum is now available to schools around the country. It is
written so that any teacher can duplicate the process that
achieved such amazing results.
What's included
when I purchase this program?
The
curriculum packet contains:
-
The Teacher
Edition
-
The Student
Journal Book which is copy ready (one copy is included
with the packet. Schools may opt to purchase
individual books for students)
-
A CD with
all Student Journal pages should a teacher want to
personalize the work along with supplemental materials
-
A copy of the
teen book written by my students titled, "How To Deal
When Your Middle Name is Stress - Real Teens, Real Advice"
-
One year email
support
-
Three one hour
phone conversations between myself and the prospective
teacher
-
A
teleconference for the entire staff of the school that
purchases the program so that they might understand and
support the positive changes that the school will begin to
encounter.
What is the purchase price?
Price: $1695
Can I take a look
at the program before purchasing?
Absolutely! Email us at
Info@StrategiesofSuccess.com
for
a perusal copy in PDF.
It
includes the following:
-
Three of the 56 lessons
-
The Student Journal pages for each lesson
-
The introduction to the course
-
What to expect as the teacher of the course
How can I purchase
this program?
There are three ways to purchase this program:
1.
Purchase online.
(click
here for information on
purchasing individual items)
2.
Send a Purchase
Order to Horizon Enterprises either by FAX at 401-246-2298
or by mail to:
Horizon
Enterprises, Inc.
PO Box 356
Barrington, Rhode Island
02806.
3. Send a
check made out to Horizon Enterprises, Inc. to the address
above.
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