The final lesson in Foundations Unit 1.1 teaches students how to use the Power2Achieve Portable Compact-4-Excellence Tool. What is it? Check it out here. We know the Portable-Compact, essentially a handshake between group members that says “We agree that this is how we will work together,” is an essential element that must be present for effective teaching and learning to occur.
However sometimes for students, teachers, administrators, parents, policy makers, etc., that isn’t enough. Yes we know we should teach students these things, but with all the other subjects and initiatives competing for our time and resources, can we really afford to spend time teaching and practicing things like this? For example, I once heard a teacher say they would love to teach students a system for setting up norms in small groups, but they only had 48 minutes to teach a complete lesson, so they weren’t sure that there was any time for something like a Power2Achieve Portable Compact-4-Excellence.
So why should we do this? Why intensely and intentionally teach character development? Why spend the few professional development opportunities we have left on anything but the traditional content areas?
Why Power2Achieve?
This week I’ve heard some incredible answers from some surprising sources.
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I heard a story of a classroom where a Power2Achieve lesson was being taught. During the lesson two students explained that they always felt excluded. The teacher recognized it as a serious issue not just for these two students, but also realized that other students may feel this way too. Instead of just making an effort to involve these two students in that one particular class, the teacher shared the experience with the other faculty members at the school, and challenged them to seek out students who might feel excluded and work to include them in new ways.
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I visited with one of my best friends, a person I’ve known since we were in preschool, who wanted to know more about what exactly IEE does. I shared the Power2Achieve competencies chart with him as we talked, at which point he stopped me and said that during all of his corporate training sessions over the years, this is exactly the types of things they’ve been trying to teach people (I won’t say which one, but he works for a huge multi-national organization in the financial industry).
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I spoke to a friend who has worked hard to build a positive culture in a new young family. This person shared that effective communication, working together, and managing their priorities are the three things they’ve found to be essential to enjoying their time together and growing as a loving family.
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The most powerful example…I heard a story of a teacher in a Power2Achieve training that answered the question of “Why?” with great clarity: “Because our students deserve this.”
IEE designs and delivers Power2Achieve programming because the research says its necessary and because real teachers and administrators in real schools say it’s needed.
We all work hard to teach students in a way that will develop their performance and moral character because they deserve it.
We hope you can use the Power2Achieve Tools, strategies, and lesson plans in Unit 1.1 and all our other Foundations units, Toolkit PD workshops, and CEEA surveys to give your teachers and students what they need, and what they deserve: Intentional, engaging, and supportive educational preparation for success in school, work, and beyond.
