Happiness is an intriguing topic and we want to have a conversation with you this month about what the Researchers have to tell us about it.

The New Year's promise of renewal and hope to each one of us is as alive this day as when I wrote last month. We have a new President, a new assignment for the week in our classrooms, a new challenge from our spouse and friends. We at the ARKGroup always have you in our thoughts and prayers. We recognize the wonder, excitement, joy, happiness, trepidation, worry, uncertainty and fulfillment together with you in this wonderful new year of service and care for you and the children and others in your lives. A great big THANK YOU to all of you who "Risk " it all each day for the betterment of our family of children in schools, churches, homes and neighborhoods.

We encourage you to share our website (www.thearkgroup.org) with your friends and colleagues. The ARKGroup's website can assist you in obtaining any information you need (both faith-based and secular) about the Adults Relating to Kids' programs and processes for teachers and schools, parents and others who would be intentional in the lives of children. Visit our site today!
Bill
William R. Duffy
National Executive Director
281- 537- 1301

"The sound of change...Our children should recieve a quality education that every single citizen in this country should be entitled as an inalieable right.

We encourage you to commit to renewal and growth with education and networking facilitated by the ARKProgram DVDs: ARK for Teachers, ARK for Parents (faith-based and secular), ARK Facilitator Training, The ARK Group Process and an Introduction to ARK hosted by Pat Summerall. Order today at www.thearkgroup.org. The ARK Program has excellent lessons, DVD's, manuals, workbooks, texts and advertising materials. They will equip you to provide life-changing ARK programs including breakthrough parenting and teaching "skills courses." With your help, we can make ARKRelationships the norm for the 21st century family, church, school and community.

UPDATE ON OUR FAITH-BASED PROGRAMS

For our friends and followers, we have had outstanding, record-breaking participation through 2008 and January 2009 with over 270 churches in the Dallas and Houston areas participating in our ARK for Parents faith-based church programs. The Facilitator training, (which prepares churches to provide this outstanding program either to the entire congregation or to smaller groups, such as Sunday School classes) can be scheduled to fit the schedule of those who commit to serve as facilitators. Thanks to wonderful gifts by kind benefactors, we are able to provide ARK for Parents Programs to many churches who require scholarship assistance. The program includes facilitator training, lessons on DVDs, books, and a host of supporting materials and services. We invite you to make sure that your church takes 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 these programs for your church and to enable your church family to become the parents and intentional adults in the lives of children who will change the world through your care.

"Ageless Wit and Observation - "Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?" A challenge to you as teachers and parents to pose to your students and children. This "philosophy "question for the year holds the promise for growth and conversation with our young people of all ages and might just be the spark in them that ignites their minds to a world of identifying questions and developing solutions that is the hallmark of an educated person.

The exciting news documented by Ms. Park is that emotions and even behaviors can spread like an epidemic. Pathogens like the influenza virus pass like a holiday white elephant gift from person to person, but you probably don't consider the connections beyond the person who gave it to you.

The question arises, if you are struggling with eating too many sweets, your weight, smoking, a lack of exercise in your life, did you in effect catch a case of laziness, fat, etc., from a friend or family member who was similarly infected by someone else?

A body of work from Harvard social scientists (Dr. Nicholas Christlake and his political science colleague (James Fowler) at the University of California at San Diego created a stir in 2008. They announced that a 20 year study showed that emotions can pass among a network of people up to three degrees of separation away. The implications are that your joy and happiness may, to a larger extent than you realize, be determined by how cheerful your friends' friends' friends' are, even if some of the people in the chain are total strangers to you.

If this continues to hold to be true, it creates a whole new realm of possibilities of in regard to the ways people get sick, and even more exciting, the ways to get healthy. It may mean that an individual's well-being is the product not just of his behavior and emotions but more of the way they are fed by a larger social network.

In a most recent study, published in The British Medical Journal, the two researchers, looked at the happiness of 5000 participants and their 50,000 social ties. They found if a participant had a happy friend, that subject was 15% more likely to be happy, too; if that person's friend's friend was happy, the original subject was 10% more likely to be happy. If that person's friend was entirely unknown to the subject, he still was 5.6% more likely to be happy. They further found that happiness was more infectious in mutual relationships . They also noted that persons using "smiley faces" on their facebook page tended to cluster together.

If you haven't read this article or body of research, I strongly recommend doing so. We at the ARKGroup, are always exploring new ways and research projects that will help people live healthier lives. We recognize that communities of caring networks, volunteering to engage in projects that benefit others, and loving our children and other kids creates healthier communities and the potential for a better place to live, work, get an education and make a difference.

Without a doubt, we can make a difference in the lives of our future, our children's future and the future of the world.

We invite you to join with the hundreds of others in your towns to organize ARKGroups of care and support today. Call us, we will be thrilled to help.

Let us have your suggestions of hope and encouragement, and we will share them.

Top Discoveries in 2008:

• Snow on Mars
• Mystery Insect in London
• Melamine in Chinese Milk
• Shark birthing males
• Iphone kill switch
• Red Sox Jersey in Yankee Stadium concrete
• Lost Beatles interview 1964
• Your own understanding of the economy
• A secret revealed to you by someone you love

Top Quotes:

• It has been a long time coming, because of what we did on this day, in this election, ...
• If I had perfect foresight, I would have never taken this job in the first place.
• I thought I would host an end-of-of -the- world-party, but the media might take it seriously - Stephen Hawkings
• The path will be a little easier next time. - Hillary Clinton

Top Olympic Moments

• Phelps' photo finish
• Lightning Bolt Jamaican sprinter
• Grand Opening
• Redeemed basketball Mens team
• China's hurdles heartbreak
• Yelena Isinbayeva pole vault record for women
• US Men's Volleyball triumph and tragedy
• India finally gets its first gold medal
• Youngest wrestling US champ - Henry Cejudo

Top Slogans

• YES We Can
• Country First
• Faith, Family, Friends
• Tomorrow begins today
• Hope for America

Top ARK Moments

• Your conversations with others in ARK Groups
• Your conversations with your children
• Your conversations with yourself
• Your conversations with us

There truly is wonder all around us. For the ARKGroup, the wonder and beauty of your participation with us is the greatest opportunity of our generation, for loving and caring for our children, students and those other children around us is the most important task in the world. All children desperately need the caring heart of an intentional adult.

We are people who have kids in our lives. What more could we wish for? How we relate to them will determine the future of our world. Please consider a donations to ARK Programs that can be a means of giving adults tools for relating to their kids and showing that they care. Give as generously as you can. You will make a lasting different in the lives of deserving children.

A report card from our research at the University of North Texas reveals that teachers and parents- - who are intentional about relating to preschoolers in a caring way--can have a dramatic, positive impact upon the behavior of children. The research was conducted in nine Dallas-area preschool sites during the 2007- 2008 school year.

ARK for Teachers groups and ARK for Parents groups were provided at the nine Dallas testing sites. The observations of their children's behavior by the parents and teachers who participated in ARK groups were compared to the observations of the parents and teachers in control groups at the nine schools who did not participate in ARK. The research clearly show that the observed behavior of the children whose parents and teachers participated in the ARK Program is much better than the observed behavior of the children whose parents and teachers were in the "non-ARK" control groups. This research has vast implications regarding the "pay-offs"-- in terms of the good behavior of children--for parents and teachers who are willing to invest the effort in loving and caring for the young ones intrusted to their care.

ARKParenting and ARK for Teachers programs help small-group networks of support to practice loving toolsets for care in our parenting and teaching . They enable us adults to participate in signifancant moments of care-giving and allow us to focus on the acts of kindness of our children and students. ARK programs help teachers,mothers, and fathers to establish firm and consistent expectations about the things we know to be important while anchoring our children and students in love, warmth, support, and encouragement.

To find out about facilitating an ARK Program in your area, give us a CALL!
We can make a difference in our schools, neighborhoods and famlies. We can be a convergent force for the good, the beautiful and the true that lives in each of us and those we encounter each day.

Check out our Dr. Brooks Website for an excellent view on Forgiveness

ARK is always aware of organizations which want to incorporate the ARK experience in their programs but who need financial assistance to do so. Even public schools frequently don't have the resources that will allow them to offer their students the life- changing benefits of ARK. DID YOU KNOW THAT ...your gift of $100. will introduce ARK to a school, United Way supported agency, neighborhood center or church?... that your donation of $1,000. will provide ARK programming for an entire school?...that your contribution of $10,000. will allow the ARKgroup to equip 10 schools within a school district to begin the ARK for Teachers and ARK for Parents programs?

GoodSearch - a way to support ARK while using the Internet. You can contribute to the ARKGroup so that we might invest in your favorite community services, church, juvenile justice program or school--just by searching the Internet or shopping online with GoodSearch - www.goodsearch.com - powered by Yahoo!

Read on at the ARK website...