An Heart of Gratitude

Would you like to improve the culture in your classroom and your life? Try gratitude. Based on my ten years of teaching experience, this is the most powerful tool that I know.

Gratitude has empowered me to teach more effectively, appreciate my individual students, grow in my profession, and enjoy life. Utilizing gratitude, I am able to model one of the most important lessons in life, having a positive attitude, especially about the aspects of life that challenge me.

Gratitude Journal:

To get started in your classroom with gratitude, I recommend actually writing your own gratitude list for a few weeks and feeling its power. Then you can
share your example and start the activity with your students. You might start your gratitude journal with being thankful for being alive, for having food to eat and clothes to wear. If you can think about something related to teaching that you're grateful for, that's even more powerful.

My students use a composition book and start every day by writing five gratitudes. If you have computers or iPads, you might have the students start a file to save their daily gratitude journal. By the end of the year, we each have almost 1,000 gratitudes.

I show the students an example or let them see this form:

1. Thanks for ___________________________.
2. Thanks for ___________________________.
3. Thanks for ___________________________.

Once a week, we go around the class and share our favorite gratitude. I am always encouraged and pleasantly surprised by what my students share. I get to learn about things going on in their lives that I might not hear about otherwise. This helps build a positive culture in our classroom.

In addition, I suggest that the students should be specific. For example, instead of writing, "Thank you for lunch," I would write, "Thank you for the tomatoes
and lettuce in my salad and for the cool, sweet iced tea with friends," or "Thank you for the nutritious lunch made by loving hands."

Exercising the Muscle

Gratitude seems to work like a muscle, and the physical action of writing a gratitude list helps develop "gratitude muscles." A recent study by Professor Philip Watkins from Eastern Washington
University, published in School Psychology Review , showed that those who are the least grateful seem to gain the most from making this effort .

That is good news to those us who may find it hard to start a gratitude list.
Sometimes I really challenge the students by asking if they can be thankful for homework or chores. This
challenge enables them to see what is good about homework -- that it helps them learn and prepares them for school and life.

In her article "Gratitude Activities for the Classroom," Vicki Zakrzewski of the Greater Good Science Center lists many more gratitude activities to try in your
classroom. This year, a new activity that I started in my classroom is writing down gratitudes on sticky notes and putting them on our classroom door, so that we have a positive reminder every time we enter and leave the room.

Students will even take this idea home and post gratitudes on sticky notes around their homes, reminding them to stay grateful.

Visible Change

Recent research by two leaders in the field of gratitude and education, Dr. Robert Emmons and Dr. Jeffrey Froh, supports the idea that gratitude improves the lives of students and adults. It illustrates how:

Keeping a gratitude journal on a daily basis helps students achieve the following:

1. Higher grades
2. Higher goals
3. More satisfaction with relationships, life, and school
4. Less materialism
5. More willingness to give back.

For adults, keeping a gratitude journal enables people to:

1. Be more optimistic
2. Experience more social satisfaction
3. Exercise more often
4. Have less envy and depression
5. Have fewer physical complaints
6. Sleep better.

I see these positive changes in my students. One of them saved her allowance and bought gratitude journals for her family. Her mom was in nursing
school and very stressed. At the dinner table, they would share their gratitudes for the day and grow as a family.

The mom came to me and thanked me for teaching gratitude to her daughter and helping her family. She said it helped her get through nursing school.

Tapping the Potential:

Dr. Kerry Howells, a leading researcher into gratitude and education, actually trains teachers to utilize gratitude in the classroom.

I challenge you to try it yourself and see how it works. My friends who have written a daily gratitude journal for at least two weeks speak positively of the
experience. Gratitude has transformed many lives.

It is true that our focus can stimulate growth. If I focus on the good and I am grateful, more comes into my life.

Conversely, if I complain and focus on the negative, more of that is drawn into my life. For me, the fruit of the focus on gratitude is happiness.

Finally, check out Gratefulness.org for extra gratitude resources.

Courtesy : http://www.edutopia.org

NANS speaks

FROM the President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Comrade Tijani Usman Shehu, has come an appeal that the government should increase the allocation to education in the 2015 budget, saying the current vote falls short of UNESCO recommendation and what is obtainable in other African countries.

Shehu who expressed with dismay that
hitherto education in the country is not receiving adequate attention as it ought to, worries that the trend is likely to jeopardise the future of the country if not adequately addressed.

He challenged government to make education matter a priority and also look into alternative ways of funding education so Nigeria could acclaim its rightful position in the international
arena.

He said, “There is no denying the fact that
education is very poorly funded in Nigeria, which is yet to comply with the UNESCO recommendation that 26 per cent of annual budget be spent on education. Nigeria spends 8.34 per cent of her annual budget on education.

As concerned education stakeholders,
we are calling for the upward revision of the 2015 budget to meet the 26 per cent
recommended by UNESCO, as the amount voted for education fails to adequately address the funding of the vital sector.

“The future of university education in Nigeria will ultimately boil down to priorities. Government at all levels, career officers in the ministries of education and parastatals, the universities management team can decide to reverse this trend and shift university education costs away from those least able to afford it.

The situation in our higher educational
institutions will improve considerably if the government spends at least 25-30 per cent of her annual budget on education and out of this amount 18-20 per cent on capital expenditure
for infrastructure in the sector with low cost-sharing and tuition fee.”

Shehu averred that if government at every stage boosts their investment in public university education, there would be massive development of human capital needed for national advancement and better livelihood.

“Since the educational system needs to be financed, the private and public sector
assistance or contribution should be more encouraged. In order to derive these benefits, the government should uphold the World Bank’s
advice that Nigeria and thirty-eight other African countries should subject their educational system to revitalisation and selective expansion policies in order to benefit from the World Bank donor countries.

“The use of taxes whether direct or indirect, income or property tax could also be more intensified to generate more revenue for the country.

Likewise, government could explore
the re-introduction of loans to students of
tertiary institutions while the scholarship
schemes could be revamped at the federal and state levels,” he said.

For cost effective strategies of universities education to be achieved in the country, he urged government to pay adequate attention to policy frameworks; proper management and accountability of fund allotted to university education sector; and also ensure that officials
need to provide long-term solutions are elected rather than politically expedient fixes that leave the system of university education at risk.

Shehu also preached on the need to provide access to all qualified students regardless of their financial circumstances; meet the nation’s workforce needs by producing graduates able to contribute to every sector of society; and allocates resources based on a competition of ideas, not history, politics or privilege.

Written by Ujunwa Atueyi

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Achievements are easy to come by!

Supervision is simply when a mother asks her daughter to prepare jollof rice for her, she provides all the needed ingredients, tells her how to cook it beat.

The mom comes to the kitchen in about 15-20 mins interval to check if she is doing the right thing, if she is not she makes corrections.
The supervisor is the mom,
The supervised is the daughter

Achievement is accomplishing a particular goal that has been made know earlier, it can also be viewed to be having passed beyond the set out mark.

Supervision involves more of regular check, periodic evaluation of every activity to ensure that it is inline with the set out goal. This check is on all the human resources put to work alone.

Human resources in a school involves the cleaners, the security, teachers, assistant teachers, head of departments, librarian, store keepers, secretary, school secretary, nurse, class teachers, etc

Checking on a teachers should be based on a checklist which should contain a list of the individuals job descriptions or what is expected of him/ her in brief.
This will help us know what to look out for when supervising

Supervision  should be scheduled - may be Wednesdays for assistant Teachers, Tuesdays for Teachers, and some selected days for other school staff.

Supervision must not be static in order for supervision to really be effective

Supervision for teachers and assistant teachers should include classroom environment, writing materials for students, teaching aids, teaching methods, teachers attitude, teachers use of words, the subject matter, use of examples.

Why supervision ?

It ensures that schools conforms to the rules and regulations and other government directives

To make teachers aware of various resources that can enhance their teaching function for the benefit of the students

To raise the standard of education by helping teachers

To improve the students learning conditions

To ensure that everyday efforts are not wasted in the school

Helps the school uphold a good name

Helps the administrator know the real needs of the school

An effective and efficient administrator doesn't just sit in the office literally doing nothing but ensure everyday's activities moves the organization closer to it stated goal.