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http://www.goalsguy.com/
http://www.goalsguy.com/Events/children.htm
"Learning how to set and achieve a goal is perhaps the single most
important thing your child can learn to prepare for school, adulthood,
and employment. The more adept your child is at understanding this
important life skill, the more options he or she will have." - Gary
Ryan Blair National Kid's Goal-Setting Week is a special event,
which helps kid's and teens to learn one of the most important of
life's skills, goal-setting. Founded in 1998, this event is celebrated
annually during the first full school week of November: • November
4-8, 2002 • November 3-7, 2003 • November 1-5, 2004 • November 7-11,
2005 Whether your child grows up to be a surgeon, computer technician,
teacher, nurse, or engineer, the reliance on goal setting never
stops. Your child will be expected to apply a high level of skills
and increased knowledge on the job. And there will always be more
complexity awaiting your child in tomorrow's workplace and life.
The driving force behind National Kid's Goal-Setting Week is to
give you, the parents and teachers of this world some practical
suggestions and ideas that will help you to harness the uniqueness
of your children and to equip them to lead a life full of meaning,
purpose, and direction.
Have your students write about:
Something to do more of
Something to do better
Something to improve
Something to NOT do any more
Have them write the 4 resolutions and under each resolution 3 ways
to accomplish it. They should also illustrate their ideas. Have
them put this page into a plastic sheet protector and keep on it
their desk as a reminder. Every 4 weeks have them write an evaluation
of their progress toward their resolutions. Have them write of the
failures and the difficulties. Have them set new ways to get them
moving toward those resolutions.
Student Lost
Angeles Times
His own path to a life's dream
Palo Alto
Jose Trejo didn't arrive in Air Force one. His parents drove him
in their 1984 Chevy van, its beige paint faded and chipped, the
weary lungs of its air conditioner wheezing only hot air. His home
is not on Pennsylvania Avenue, but in space 3 of a Banning mobile
home park. His father Jose sr., is not president of the United States.
He works as a busboy. There are mnay pahts leading to stanford.
Chelsea Clinton's offered firm footing and was well lit by camera
lights, but Trejo's was more winding, less defined and, at times,
barely visible as he went in search of the $30.000 a year it costs
to come here. Since December, when he was admitted by the school.
Trejo, co-valedictorian has filled out as many scholarship applications
as he could find. He could have gone to less expensive schools,
but Stanford was in his heart and in his parent's dreams. They came
to the United States in 1980. When Jose was less than a year old.
Jose Sr, had been laid off from his job assisting farmers for the
Mexican government, and a friend invited him to work as a painter
in a small Banning factory. Jose Sr. and his wife, Julia. received
work permits and left Guadalarjara. They lived with friends until
they could afford their own apartment. Since they had no car, they
walked, sometimes little Jose, whose feet grew faster than their
income, was without shoes. They had two more children, both daugthers,
born in America the climb was harder than they expected. Sometimes
they felt they were slipping backward, and they thought about turning
around, going back to Mexico. Young Trejo heard little and spoke
little English until he went to preschool. One day when he was 6,
his mother picked him up from school on Friday, the only day she
got off work early, and was speaking to him in Spanish. There were
other children around, and he felt embarrassed. He didn't want them
to hear, because he wanted to fit in and he knew that they would
look down on him for being different. He ran ahead of his mother,
ignored her, hoping she would stop asking what is wrong. He worked
hard in school, fared well. In fifth grade, he recieved his final
B, and in sixth grade, his life changed. When he traces momentum
that carried to Stanford, he pauses at the memory of a spelling
bee, when he stood on stage at the old Banning High School, stiff
from nervousness,and the unfamiliar rigidness for a new suit bought
specifically for the occassion. The clumsy awkardness of seeing
the other students arrive in their casual school clothes. Even now,
his eyes turn misty when he describes the new feeling that surged
through him when he heard the final word, "sardomic," and how he
couldn't wait to get the letters out of his mouth. "I felt extreme
joy," he says, "like I had never felt before, I had never won anything
that big. My mother had tears in her eyes. There were people cheering,
and I cried and hugged my parents. It gave me the feeling that I
had potential to do what I set my mind to do, and I was more sure
of myself." It was about that time that his parents, expecting their
third child, decided they could not go back to Mexico, that it was
here in the United States that oppurtunities awaited their children.
When Trefo was in seventh grade, his life changed again. Both parents
lost their jobs, he remembers going with them to receive public
assistance. The lines were long, he says. He hoped none of his friends
would see him. A sense of shame was compounded by helpessness, his
parents say. Trejo had a friend who bequeathed him a newspaper route.
He and his father would awaken early to deliver the 120 papers.
Over the next two years, they took on more routes until they were
delivering about 500 each morning, waking at 2 am. Slowly they got
back on their feet, a process that continues. Even now, they cannot
afford health insurance for the entire family. They rarely eat at
restaurants and a 1974 Datsun that hasn't run since last year remains
parked in front of their home. Still, they are relieved to be off
welfare. Throughout his life, the lessons quietly taught by his
parents were to work hard in school, go to college, do better than
they. And respect others. His sister Lissette 12, also is a straight
a student. Esmeraldo, 6, is just getting started. Trefo was accepted
by Stanford in December He had been here before for a science camp
and was drawn by its stateliness, the way air seemed to hold new
thoughts and ideas that filled his soul with each breath. If only
he had the money, he thought. One by one, the letters began arriving.
Amond them was a reply from the Vikki Carr Scholarship foundation,
which provides financial assdistance to Latino students from Texas
and California. It was for $1,000, the foundation, co-chaired by
Carr and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry
Cinsneros will honor Trejo, who is considering biotechnology as
a major, and the rest of this year's recipients as it celebrates
its 25th anniversary on Sunday. Some of the other scholarships required
recipients to be US citizens. Because of that and the changing political
atitudes toward noncitizens, Trejo's parents became citizens last
year, simplifying the process for their son. In all, the scholarship
checks totaled $15,000. The balance will be covered by grants, loans
and work study. And, so two weeks ago, Trejo and his parents following
the unfamiliar guidance of a borrowed map, set out from Banning,
which is west of Palm Springs, for Stanford. Even then, the journey
was not easy. "We stopped at about 15 gas stations to ask for directions.,
Trejo says. We tried to take a short cut." But there were no shortcuts
to Stanford, only back roads. There was great excitement on campus
the day Trejo arrived. Reporters and cameras swarmed around the
Clintons. He got a glimpse of them as they walked to the library.
It says something important about this country, Trejo says, that
he and Chelsea could end up here on the same campus. They come from
different starting lines, arrived on different starting lines, arrived
on different paths. And even though they may never meet, they hold
in common these next four years, a time for new beginnings.
Some sources
for goal setting ideas!
The Book of Virtues
The Book of Virtues by William J. Bennett.
The Children's Book of Virtues by William J. Bennett
The Three Questions by Jon J. Muth, Leo Tolstoy
The Children's Book of Heroes by William J. Bennett
http://www.askeric.org/Virtual/Lessons/Language_Arts/Writing/WCP0072.html
Valuetales Series by Spencer Johnson-most are out of print
-check used books stores. Great true stories about real people.
Some titles:
The Value of Dedication : The Story of Albert Schweitzer
The Value of Courage : The Story of Jackie Robinson
The Value of Respect : The Story of Abraham Lincoln
The Value of Responsibility : The Story of Ralph Bunche
The Value of Self-Discipline : The Story of Alexander Graham
Bell
The Value of Believing in Yourself : The Story of Louis Pasteur
MOTIVATING STUDENTS
Motivation is a learned response. One
that comes from knowing what accomplishment feels like. Provide
experiences for your students that will result in success.
You must teach success in small steps
AT THEIR SKILL AND UNDERSTANDING LEVEL !
so they can learn to feel accomplishment and learn about the excitement
of learning new things. Students need to KNOW the skills and knowledge
before they can USE the skills and knowledge to ask questions, solve
problems, or investigate possibilities.
They must have a foundation of knowledge to use!! And that must
be taught!!
When they are ready to use the skills and knowledge, they must be
taught HOW to ask questions, solve problems, or investigate possibilities.
Each activity must be taught.
Then you must model (do the activity TOGETHER) a minimum of 3-5
times.
Then go to a group-no more than 3-to do an activity.
Be sure to thoroughly discuss as a class what went on and the results
of each groups work. Students don't read without being taught. We
often forget that any of these skills (reports, problem solving,
investigations, etc.) must also be TAUGHT!
As you begin the year, that "stupid, annoying
student " might have some hidden talent. Look for it!! REMEMBER...
Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil.
Charles Darwin, who began medical career at Edinburgh and
gave
it up, was told by his father, "You care for nothing but shooting,
dogs
and rat catching; you will be a disgrace to yourself and your family."
Carl Jung's teachers considered him to be stupid. He had
trouble with mathematics.
Gregor Mendel twice failed the examination in Vienna to qualify
him
as a teacher.
.Albert Einstein's teacher described him as mentally slow,
unsociable,
and adrift forever in his foolish dreams. He was four years old
before
he could speak and seven before he could read.
Amongst other future scientists who did badly at school and showed
little promise were
Edison, Humblot, Ffesenel, Berzelius, and James Watt.
Among artists who did badly were Joshua Reynold, Gauguin,
Turner, Edouard Manet, and Rodin. Rodin's father said, "I have
an idiot for a son" his uncle said that the boy was uneducable.
The boy was described as the worst pupil in the school, failing
three time to secure admittance to the school of art.
Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school.
Ludwig van Beethoven's music teacher once said of him as
a composer,"He is hopeless."
When Thomas Edison was a boy, his teachers told him he was
too stupid to learn anything.
A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had no good
ideas
Tolstoy flunked out of college.
Louis Pasteur was rated as mediocre in chemistry when he
attended the Royal College
Abraham Lincoln entered the Black Hawk as a captain and came
out as a private
Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade.
Emile Zola, Fontaine, Jonathan Swift, Wordsworth,
Honore da Balzac, Hans Christian Anderson, Keats
all did
poorly in school.
Napoleon Bonaparte left school undistinguished, 42nd in
place;
The Duke of Wellington was though by his mother to be the
dunce
of the family.
Nasser did badly at school and failed to secure entry at
a law school
and so he entered the army.
.
See
the archives for more!
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