Tom Grove

There are very few public schools that can tell children, "You need to stay on the bus and we'll see you tomorrow."

Schools have to accept them as they are every day. Whether bright or challenged academically, the behaviors and attitudes these students bring will smack right into the social curriculum of the school and start chain reactions back and forth throughout the school system.

How schools react to their students influences how students react to the school. How students react to the reaction of the school influences how school personnel react, and so on in systemic cycles of responses. If a school functions as a closed system, it will identify those students who do not fit the mould, try to make them fit and find ways to exclude them. If the school is an open system, it will find ways to adapt and excel at educating those entering the system. Given what is happening in our urban schools, students are telling us they do not fit and are dropping away in alarming numbers. If schools want to maintain themselves as closed societies, then they are in essence creating a separate society.

What will become of these students? We already know and it is tragic. It is a national tragedy. On the other end, it is increasingly difficult to keep new teachers in education. They drop out at about the same rate as high school students in the first five years of teaching- 30 percent to 50 percent!

I have not met more than one new teacher with even one class on class room management in the past four years. Teachers arrive ill prepared on the front end and too many students leave ill prepared on the back end. The teachers do arrive well versed in the academic curriculum, but it is the social curriculum that can blindside them. It is a very clear fact that if a teacher does not have the social curriculum going well, they will always be fighting it to get to their academic curriculum. There is no way not to have a social curriculum so the only question is, what will it be like?

We should expect students to arrive at school and to be questioning and challenging life and living. Is math or language arts or social studies more important than that? Our job as educators is to be the example of the value of life and how to live. This is the social curriculum and it is totally in the hands of the teacher. Students will not let us escape this issue of how to live, how to be, in this world today! The other day a teacher complained how people think schools should be parenting their kids. The truth is that schools have been parenting every student every day in every school every minute! There is no way to not have a social curriculum!

No one, no one in a school is only teaching a subject area. They are also always teaching how to be happy, how to cope, how to deal with others, how to be optimistic or pessimistic, how to deal with mistakes and successes, how valuable others are, how to handle emotions in self and others, how to be forgiving, how to like others, how to be or not be patient, how to value the spirit of others in spite of their humanity- or not, how much other people belong, how to show honesty, how to have integrity, how much to expect from others, and many other factors -- not to mention how to love. It is impossible for a teacher to just be educating about academics. Our students are pushing all our buttons to make us teach them how to live, love their self, and love life. Sometime during high school, they are now ever increasingly turning their backs on us and walking away.

Students need and want to know how to be a citizen, a parent, a friend, optimistic, productive, useful, likable, sincere, safe, and loved. They also need learn how to have dignity and integrity, be needed in good ways, overcome adversity, handle feelings, restore their spirit and the spirit of people they love, and to have true authority of character- not in power to make people behave out of fear. They want soul satisfying happiness, and to bring that to others. Isn't that what you really want?

Welcome to The Nurtured Heart Approach™. When you read "All Children Flourishing," by Howard Glasser, you see his heart in a clear way. It is a way of being, of viewing life and others. It is a powerful social curriculum that goes on forever. It is as simple as, "Love your neighbor as you want to be loved," and just as hard. It is challenging yet joyful. Every teacher I know who has this social curriculum going in their classes, soon finds they are at or beyond their curriculum schedule. Students are better learners when their mind is not loaded with relationship issues.

The Nurtured Heart Approach™ is a powerful relationship model. Students who have hundreds of messages that they are no good begin to receive evidence they are already good and great. It is not fluffy spin doctor stuff, it is absolute truth. They know the truth and prove themselves even more worthy of recognition for their goodness and greatness. A system of greatness cycles on and on to even greater greatness.

Imagine if every student in the country got legitimate straight A's. Would it not matter more what kind of spirit they carried, the messages they passed on to others, their work ethic, their kindness, the way they managed problems, how they loved and valued people and the value they placed on life? What if we had a way to teach these qualities and values in a way every one was able to earn a legitimate A+ in Human Being? I think we do. That is why the book, "The Inner Wealth Initiative," exists. Am I saying teachers have to be perfect examples? No. But we already know what happens when we think we are not an example, just here to teach. All I am saying is: Start the journey of realizing and flourishing in your own greatness. It is example enough that you seek to enjoy and nurture your own spirit and heart, and those of others.

With Love,

Tom Grove