“Much education today is monumentally ineffective.
All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we
should be teaching them to grow their own plants.” — John W. Gardner

Resiliency Skills in the News

Children from Military Families Learn to Be Resilient at a Young Age

A recent article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes special programming in place in area schools that serve the children of military personnel serving in the Middle East. Evergreen Elementary, located near Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force bases, expects to see a 60 percent turnover rate in January 2008 when soldiers from a returning brigade unit will return to the United States and be reassigned to other locations. Not only must children learn to readjust during these transition periods, they may also need to cope with parents returning home with injuries, or in some cases, not at all. It is critical that they have the resiliency skills necessary to deal with the many uncertainties in their lives. The Office of the Superintendent of the state of Washington has set up “Operation Military Kids,” which provides a training manual and other resources for educators that are working with children of military personnel.

New Orleans Universities Overcome Katrina Adversities and Resume Task of Educating Young Adults

In an article titled “Resiliency U,” the Gambit Weekly reviews the processes used at five major universities in New Orleans - Tulane, Loyola, Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO), Xavier, and University of New Orleans (UNO) – to recover property, faculty, and students after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. All agree that the disaster has made them more alert administrators in terms of recruiting and retention, disaster awareness, campus security, and involvement in the local community. In order to maintain financial solvency, some big decisions were made. Tulane eventually dropped five majors that had been suspended since December 2005 and was able to divert those dollars into areas that were more critical to maintain and of higher student interest. Being able to cope with these changes has played a big part in the ongoing recovery of higher education in New Orleans.

Success Highways Customer News

Mi Camino al Éxito, Spanish Version of Lauded Success Highways Curriculum, Now Available from ScholarCentric

Mi Camino al Éxito is designed to provide schools serving Spanish-speaking students with a program that empowers them to connect their future with the importance of academic studies. Integrated into current curriculum, or used as an after-school program, Mi Camino al Éxito allows young people to learn and apply real-world skills, participate in hands-on learning projects, and work on building organizational and study skills in their own language. As in Success Highways, students work with ¡Alístate! (Revving Up) and ¡Adelante! (Moving On) pre- and post-assessment tools to gauge their success in building resiliency skills. For more information, contact Carol Waugh, ScholarCentric vice president of sales and development.

Grant News

TG Awards More Than $5.2 Million in Competitive Grants to Advance College Access and Student Retention

TG, a public, nonprofit corporation that helps create access to higher education through its role as an administrator of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), has awarded more than $5.2 million in grants to 42 institutions and nonprofit organizations to advance access to college, student retention, and educational research. This is the third consecutive year that TG has supported competitive grants through its Public Benefit Grant Program, the company's philanthropic initiative. TG's grant funds will help this year's award recipients with efforts in financial aid with need-based grants to students; student mentoring and internships; pre-college outreach to students and families; academic support and instruction; student retention; student transfer guidance and support; and education research. Last year, TG awarded $3.8 million in grants to 28 institutions and nonprofit organizations. TG's Public Benefit Grant Program is administered based solely on merit and needs, and without regard to the business of TG or any form of quid pro quo consideration.

Resiliency Resources

Hauser, Stuart T. Out of the Woods: Tales of Resilient Teens. Harvard University Press. 2006. ISBN: 13: 978-0-674-02173-0.

The central question posed by the authors — How do any of us grow up emotionally healthy? – is approached through the study of the adaptive capabilities of a select group of teenage residents of High Valley, a residential psychiatric facility. Hauser and his colleagues present a longitudinal study of 70 people who had been institutionalized in a psychiatric facility as adolescents, showing that those who had capacity for reflection, agency, and relationships developed resilience. A succession of interviews conducted with four adolescents, all of whom were under the age of 15 when they entered High Valley, follows an introduction to the research methodology. Undertaken during the course of a dozen years, the interviews clearly reveal the psychological obstacles and challenges the kids faced and overcame.

Have news you’d like to share? E-mail us at NewsEditor@ScholarCentric.com

About this Newsletter

Success Highways News is brought to you by ScholarCentric, publisher of Success Highways, a dropout prevention program for students in grades 7-9. You can reach us at info@scholarcentric.com, visit our Web site at http://www.scholarcentric.com, or call us at our toll free number 800-995-8779.

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