Teaching Kids to Thrive
Essential Skills for Success
- Debbie Silver - Education Consultant, Keynote Speaker, and Author, www.debbiesilver.com
- Dedra Stafford - Education Consultant, Keynote Speaker, and Author, www.dedrastafford.com
Foreword by Rick Wormeli
Curriculum Leadership | Student Engagement & Motivation | Teaching Emotional Literacy
There’s more to student success than standards and test scores…
The modern view of student achievement focuses on high test scores, higher standards, and racing to the top. Thrive skills fit with new ESSA requirements to go beyond basic academic measurements in order to equip students for lifelong success.
Debbie Silver and Dedra Stafford present a practical handbook that guides teachers and parents in fostering learners who are socially and emotionally healthy and prepared to undertake future challenges. Through practical examples, precise strategies, and specific tools this book demonstrates how to empower learners in areas that include:
- Using mindfulness strategies to help students tap their inner strengths
- Learning to self-regulate and control other executive brain functions
- Developing growth mindsets along with perseverance and resilience
- Cultivating a sense of responsibility, honesty, and integrity
- Encouraging a capacity for empathy and gratitude
Grounded in decades of psychological research, Teaching Kids to Thrive merges academic, social, and self-skills to stimulate personal and school achievement.
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"Silver and Stafford have answered the question educators have asked time and again: “How, exactly, do I create a classroom culture conducive to growth, collaboration and critical thinking?” The book explores the importance of resilience, empathy, persistence and skills related to active listening to creating the mindset that will nurture and accelerate the continuous-improvement process. These are not “soft skills” that live on the periphery of textbook-driven, correct-answer-seeking lessons. They are life skills students need to practice - and teachers need to model - on the road to success in school, college, the workplace, and in a democracy. This is an eminently practical resource with enough research, examples, frequently asked questions, exercises, stories and humor for all educators; and all educators should have a copy of this book."
"I am doing backflips over having this book in my life! I work with teachers every day and every day I field questions on how to support learners in being open and present for learning. It is true-- we are educating a different type of learner than those of earlier generations. And so our teaching must shift, remembering that we teach children, not curriculum. Silver and Stafford have written the guide to working with this new generation of students; one which begins with the social-emotional health of each learner. They tackle head-on the most challenging and real moments of teaching, creating a research-based, practical, tried-and-true (yet cutting edge) handbook to simply and powerfully show learners how to ground and bloom. While this book focuses on students, the outcomes will bring joy, fulfillment, and gratitude to teachers. I have been waiting for this book without knowing it and now it will be my go-to resource and recommended text on teaching students how to thrive in all educational settings and in life."
"There are no convenient, instant answers to solve tough issues in education, and no one “event” can make a difficult student easy to teach. Great teaching is hard work. This book lays out a brilliant process for building Thrive skills. Read the book. Practice the skills. Practice patience and perseverance. Enjoy the rewards."
"Plain spoken and practical with enough neuroscientific research to support what teachers and parents have been sensing but didn't have the knowledge to articulate."
"It is now time for student to truly thrive! Educators have been looking for a resource that puts the reality back in education. Silver and Stafford have done just that. The authors know about the importance of students understanding content, but they also realize that students must be optimistic, show integrity, understand empathy, and believe in gratitude. What we can learn from this book is that you may never lose a job in life because you’re too smart; you get fired because you’re not a nice person. Make sure you look at their examples and situations and try to change your practices within our classroom or school. Let’s help our students thrive in all aspects of their life!"
