School Social Work

Expert Gerald Sklare provides fresh insights and new applications for solution-focused brief counseling (SFBC).

Are you or your teachers frustrated with carrots and sticks, detention rooms, and suspension-antiquated school discipline practices that simply do not work with the students entering our classrooms today? Our kids have complex needs, and we must empower and embrace them with restorative practices that not only change behaviors but transform students into productive citizens, accountable for their own actions.

Why Don't Students Like School? (2nd Edition) features 25 percent updated material while still honoring the classic, beloved approaches of the original. The second edition will help teachers improve their practice by explaining how they and their students think and learn and reveals the importance of story, emotion, memory, context, and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences.

School discipline is broken. Too often, the kids who need our help the most are viewed as disrespectful, out of control, and beyond help, and are often the recipients of our most ineffective, most punitive interventions. These students - and their parents, teachers, and administrators - are frustrated and desperate for answers. Dr. Ross W. Greene, author of the acclaimed book The Explosive Child, offers educators and parents a different framework for understanding challenging behavior.

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.

Drawing on nearly three decades in education - from his mother’s after-school program on Chicago’s South Side to his tenure as Secretary of Education in DC - How Schools Work follows Arne as he takes on challenges at every turn: gangbangers in Chicago housing projects, parents who call him racist, teachers who insist they can’t help poor kids, unions that refuse to modernize, Tea Partiers who call him an autocrat, affluent white progressive moms who hate yearly tests, and even the NRA, which once labeled Arne the “most extreme anti-gun member of President Obama's Cabinet.”

It can be heartbreaking to watch your child struggle through school, not making friends, getting into trouble, and generally feeling miserable, but it doesn’t have to be this way! Your child’s difficulties aren’t because they lack intelligence, that they can’t make friends, or that they just have a bad attitude. Fortunately, it’s simpler than that. They are just missing social skills. Social skills are what enable us to effectively communicate, more so to listen. They teach us how to empathize with others, solve problems, and handle emotional overloads. With this in mind, ...

Antiracist professional development for white teachers often follows a one-size-fits-all model, focusing on narrow notions of race and especially white privilege at the expense of more radical analyses of white supremacy. Frustrated with this model, Zachary A. Casey and Shannon K. McManimon, both white teacher educators, developed a two-year professional development seminar called "RaceWork" with eight white practicing teachers committed to advancing antiracism in their classrooms, schools, and communities.

Kids are naturally curious, but when it comes to school it seems like their minds are turned off. Why is it that they can remember the smallest details from their favorite television programs, yet miss the most obvious questions on their history test? Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham has focused his acclaimed research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning and has a deep understanding of the daily challenges faced by classroom teachers.

Why is it so hard to change problem behavior - in our kids, our colleagues, and even ourselves? Conventional methods often backfire, creating a downward spiral of resentment and frustration, and a missed opportunity for growth. What if the thinking behind these old methods is wrong? What if people don’t misbehave because they want to, but because they lack the skills to do better? Or as renowned psychologist J. Stuart Ablon asks, what if changing problem behavior is a matter of skill, not will?

Christine Montross was a nervous first-year medical student, standing outside the anatomy lab on her first day of class, preparing herself for what was to come. Entering a room with stainless-steel tables topped by corpses in body bags is shocking, no matter how long you've prepared yourself, but a strange thing happened when Montross met her cadaver.

For decades we've been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F*ck positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let's be honest, shit is f*cked, and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn't sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is - a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is his antidote to the coddling, let's-all-feel-good mind-set that has infected modern society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

The story of Kathleen's escape from incarceration in an institution for "fallen women." In 1974, the shadows of the Magdalene laundry still haunt Kathleen as she daringly escapes from a life of oppression. Now on the run, the priest is hot on her trail. As the priest's attention shifts to other lost souls, the consequences are nothing short of devastating. Meanwhile, a famous American actress and her wealthy husband have arrived in Ireland to adopt a baby and discover an unexpected offer they cannot refuse. Will it turn out to be a dream come true or a nightmare waiting to unfold? Enter the...

📚 "Ryder's Rough Start" - A Tale of Resilience and Joy! Join Ryder on a rollercoaster of emotions in "Ryder's Rough Start," a heartwarming story perfect for young readers. Late for school and feeling overwhelmed, Ryder learns valuable lessons from his compassionate teacher, Mrs. Benson, about the amygdala and managing strong emotions. The narrative unfolds through engaging activities that mirror the complexity of feelings, teaching young readers about mindfulness and emotional intelligence. As Ryder and his friends explore calming techniques, the story becomes a transformative journey of...

The stated goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are often reasonable, if not noble—to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment for all. Yet, as more and more people are discovering, DEI as commonly practiced isn't a natural extension of past civil rights movements or an ethical framework for opposing discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, etc. Rather, it is inextricably connected with an illiberal and authoritarian ideology—Critical Social Justice—that demands adherence to its tenets and punishes any dissent from its dogma.

Discover design strategies for using your own unique social identities and experiences as inspiration to challenge the status quo and create the kind of lasting change that leads to greater equity and social justice, from Stanford University's d.school.

Most educators want to cultivate an antibias and antiracist classroom and school community, but they often struggle with where and how to get started. Liz helps us set ourselves up for success and prepare for the mistakes we’ll make along the way.

Does the mere thought of speaking in front of an audience give you goosebumps, butterflies, and heart palpitations? If you want to overcome all of these, then you need this book in your life. For a lot of people, public speaking is a terrifying thing. Preparing to speak is the easy part. You either familiarize yourself with the topic, create cue cards to help you remember the things you need to talk about, or in some cases, memorize your speech. But when it's time to step up onto the stage and face the crowd, that's when the real challenge begins.

Standards are the foundation of our educational systems today. Fairness, rigor, and high achievement for all students are the focus of standards-based schools. Yet the standards movement means nothing if it does not improve student achievement in the classroom. In this revised edition, Dr. Reeves provides step-by-step guidance on how to design and implement standards-based performance assessment to make improved teaching and learning a reality in the classroom.

At a time when Americans are debating the future of public education, Johann N. Neem tells the inspiring story of how and why Americans built a robust public school system in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. It’s a story in which ordinary people in towns across the country worked together to form districts and build schoolhouses and reformers sought to expand tax support and give every child a liberal education. By the time of the Civil War, most northern states had made common schools free, and many southern states were heading in the same direction.