As I walked past our neighborhood Elementary school this morning, I was touched by the smiles, energy, excitement and enthusiasm of our children and their teachers. Moms and Dads were handing their children to the teachers they were entrusting with their child's future. What a great country we live in! What a wonderful time that first day of school represents. It is our finest hour. It is, in the purest sense, our opportunity each year to experience the rebirth of our own lives as seen through the hopes and dreams of our students and children. What makes it possible for us? It is the vision and commitment from each one of you, our hometown teachers, school administrators and our neighborhood parents. Thank you for this sound of freedom and the environment of growth and care eminating from our school yards across America. These sounds of joy and laughter from our children and students as they begin the school year bring hope and promise to our world.

Bill
William R. Duffy
National Executive Director
281-537-1301

Don't forget: New training DVDs are available: ARK Facilitator Training, The ARK Group Process and an Introduction to ARK hosted by Pat Summerall. Order yours today at www.thearkgroup.org. This excellent training guides will supplement the ARK lessons DVD's, manuals, workbooks, texts and advertising materials -- equipping you to begin ARK programs today. ARK programs provide breakthrough parenting and teaching "skills courses." With your help, we can make ARKrelationships the norm for the 21st century family, church, school and community.

For our Friends and Followers in the Dallas area, we are excited about our ARK for Churches Programs / with our next Facilitator Training set for September 15. Thanks to a wonderful gift by a local benefactor, we are able to provide ARK for Parents Programs to local churches. The program includes facilitator training, lessons on DVDs, books, and a host of supporting materials and services. We invite you to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. Contact us today by e-mail, letter or by telephone in Dallas at 817- 268-2100 or Houston at 281-537-1301 to reserve a spot for your church. The seminars will take place at a central location in the 1800 block of North Washington Ave thanks to the generosity of Dr. Curtis Wallace and the Pilgrim's Rest Baptist Church. Commit now, to enable your church family to become the parents and intentional adults in the lives of children that will change the world through your care.

All across America, in small towns and big cities, we are all struggling to define what it means to be neighbors and caring members of the community. In today's hustle and bustle, it has become easy to get lost in the groups that surround us as a collection of strangers rather than involved citizens improving the quality of life in our community of neighborhoods, schools, churches and businesses.

When people meet in situations where they do not have common cultures, history, heritages, characteristics, interests, belief sets, values or rules, each family and neighborhood seeks its own self- interest. Sometimes, and probably more often than not, we focus on our differences and those things that are not in common with our own ways. Our distinctiveness and push for self-rights can drive a wedge into our common community.

In order for us to realize the hopes and dreams of common community, we must be willing to do the harder work of building our common unity. What better place for this to start fresh, than in our neighborhood schools working with our children's teachers and administrators.

I would suggest that the richness of our diversity, heritages, characteristics, interests, values and beliefs..this richness of the soup of our lives... is the wonder of what is possible for our tomorrows. Some questions that we might all tackle together in our natural school communities that might build tomorrows of opportunity for our students and children:

1. What are the issues and concerns that are common to all the members of the community?
2. What are the causes to which all the members of the community are willing to commit in order to enrich our neighborhood, schools, families and each individual therein?
3. What common passions fill our lives that will benefit the greater good?
4. What individual contributions of each member might be used to improve the lives of our children and students?
5. What can each of us do now to make this place our home and our love for the wonder of life a community norm?

To this end, I challenge each one of us to think and act for the growth and betterment of our children, students and our common community.

How can we help?

Our dialogue, our conversations with one another, holds the promise for contributing to each of our children's and student's future. A future we will build together.

Thank you to Dr. Martin Luther King for his words: "We must be the change we seek". And, to Lisa Sullivan's words: "We are the ones we have been waiting for".

Read on...

Jerry is a 4th grader at Hoover elementary school. He has a fresh haircut for school this month. He prefers to wear cargo pants and a T-Shirt with his school mascot. Jerry runs with friends at his school. They are the "smart kids". Jerry is one of them, and he likes belonging.

Since Jerry could walk, he has constantly heard that he is "smart". He has heard it from his parents, grandparents, teachers, neighbors and adults freinds of his family. He has done well on the "TAKS" tests for his school, so we know he is capable.

But as Jerry has progressed through school, this self- awareness that he is smart has not always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, his Mother has noticed just the opposite. "Jerry didn't want to try things he wouldn't be successful at," his Mother says. Some things came very easy to him, but when they didn't, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, "I 'm not good at this". With a glance, Jerry was dividing his world into two - things he was naturally good at and things he wasn't.

Why does this child who is measurably in the upper half of the charts, lack confidence abut his abilities to tackle routine school challenges? Jerry is not alone. For a few decades, it has been noted that a large percentage of average-to-above average students severely underestimate their own abilities and underachieve.

When parents and teachers praise their students and children's intelligence -- and 85% of American parents and teachers do -- they actually are setting up a "label" that can be a source of discouragement. Everyone does this, habitually. By praising the end-result, we underrate the importance of the effort. The encouraging of the effort, rather than the praising of the end-result should be our focus. A study by Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia has proven this to be true. Her study of over 400 fifth graders concluded that when "we tell them that the name of the praise game is: "to look smart, don't risk making mistakes', the " efforts" of their teachers and parents backfires with a child seeking to control his "smartness" results and who wants to avoid the risk of being embarassed by a sub-par performance.

Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable he can control. The child comes to see himself as in control of his efforts, and the result is that he is not focused on expectations of success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child's control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to failure.

As I reflect on Jerry and the work of Dr. Dweck, I am reminded of the little things in our lives that we do that have such large impacts on the lives of our kids. It is hard to put the encouragement of efforts rather than the praise of results into practice. Old habits die hard. ARK Groups and processes provide opportunities to change old habits and to try new opportunities. I am thankful for those teachers and parents who explore options with an open mind. We sometimes put our children and students in high-pressure environments, seeking out the best subject exercises and classes. We expect and want so much for them. If we are not careful, we hide our expectations behind constant glowing praise - which robs them of their change to make their own deduction about themselves, and of their chance to explore challenging opportunities and to risk the possibilities of failure.

We are all anxious parents and teachers. A starter question to explore the encouragement versus praise experiences with your kids. Tell me (my child and or student) "What happens to your brain, again, when it gets to think about something hard?"

Please share your ideas and read on...

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At the ARKGroup, we are dedicated to education and to the sharing of processes that create networks of shared experiences of adults that will keep our children healthy. Our programs can make available a number of strategies in your parenting or teaching toolsets that will result in resilient and loved children whose lifestyles are full and are characterized by feelings of compassion, satisfaction, happiness and joy.

We encourage all you to begin ARK for Parenting and ARK for Teachers classes in your church, school and/or community centers. ARK Teaching and Parenting is for "Great Teachers and Great Parents and Other Intentional Adults" who want to be even better at the most difficult but most treasured job in life; raising children who can be all that is possible for them in this big, wide and beautiful world.

Check out this website for Kid Friendly ideas

• Become a program sponsor by funding an ARK for Teachers Program in School Districts: Electronic Packages for $950.
• Funding an ARK for Parents Program in Schools, Community Centers, Churches, Neighborhood Centers, Sunday Schools, Youth Centers: Facilitator Training Programs for $500.
• Purchasing individual manuals for $30 each to support organizations who need materials.
• Purchasing ARK for Kids or Teens workbooks for $30 each for deserving kids' networks.

Your support of The ARKGroup, Inc. creates possibilities in our churches, community centers, and public and private schools. If you have an opportunity, idea, challenge, or destiny to fulfill through helping children to grow into their full potential, please contact us. Together we can improve the quality of life in our communities--one child, one family, one classroom, one school at a time. Helping other people lifts one's spirits and gives hope for the future.

Read on...