Student Support Services

.: Leaving Brent Subic

Students coming and going is part of life at an international school.  It is always sad for us to say good-bye to students that we have come to know.  If you are leaving Brent Subic to continue your studies elsewhere, please remember to complete the clearance form.  There are copies in the office.  The school will not release a transcript until you have completed the form.  It is also helpful if you inform your children’s homeroom teachers.  Once you have done this, we can help to make transitions easier for the children involved.  Thanks!

.: NOTICE TO ALL PARENTS, GUARDIANS AND STUDENTS: “ENGLISH ONLY” CAMPUS  - EFFECTIVE JANUARY 15, 2008

A growing concern at Brent – Subic has been the continued use of some languages other than English as a form of communication around campus.  Brent Subic, being an international school, espouses the use of English only as the medium of instruction and communication primarily for reasons of basic courtesy, consideration of others and to gain proficiency in English. 

To ensure the practice of courtesy and consideration for others as well as the facility in the use of a second language, EVERY student and employee shall be expected to use English only as a form of communication around campus (in hallways, classrooms, cafeteria, library, labs, and gyms).  Non-use of English may result in an immediate “campus service” session at the end of the school day from 2:50-3:20 for Lower School or 3:10-3:40 for Middle and Upper School.

The use of non-English (Tagalog, Japanese, Korean, etc.) however, is allowed for the following circumstances:

1. A need for clarity and further explanation to others with permission sought from faculty or staff.
2. In the “Native Language Safe Zones”: 

1. Lower School Playground
2. Middle Upper School Quadrangle (soon to be moved to the new Atrium Area)

“Campus service” sessions will entail various forms of classroom, office, or maintenance tasks under the supervision of either the faculty or staff members.  Care will be taken to ensure the safety of all involved.

The office personnel will have the names of the children involved in “campus service” sessions each afternoon. 

Brent Subic wishes to promote international understanding and respect.  We hope that parents, guardians and students will help us to implement this program successfully. 

Thank you for your Cooperation,

Brent Subic

Brent Impact

Working together to make a difference

Counseling Communications

Greetings to you all.  I thought it might be helpful for all of us if I was to keep you abreast of what I am doing and what I hope to do in the future.  My goal is to develop a program that stays flexible and can respond to your needs and the needs of the students as they arise.  I would like to move towards a preventative approach.  When there seams to be an issue that is repeatedly occurring I will do some more research, ask questions and see if we can’t come up with a plan to address the issue as a group rather than individually.   In this publication I would like to incorporate current research, ideas that impact education, and keep you up to date on my plans and progress, and my schedule.   If you have an article, lesson, story, or professional thoughts that you would like to share, please submit your ideas to be included in upcoming issues.  In addition please feel free to contact me or come and see me at any time with your thoughts and concerns about students and or the counseling curriculum.     I can be reached at 252-5497, or you can stop by my office 6-B next to Mr. Wyncoll’s.

Encouraging Success

Educational thoughts, brainstorms, lessons, ideas and information for parents, staff and teachers.

The Search for Positives

When students are struggling, finding something to praise may encourage them to continue to struggle and strive rather than to let go and sink.  If we see a student not succeeding day after day, seemingly not putting forth any effort, or perhaps attention during the class time seams to float away, it is a human response to react and attempt to cause change by focusing on what we see as causal to the problem.  Often times what we perceive as the cause or adding to the problem may not be how the student understands it.   For instance, some students can actually focus better, and take in more when they are doodling.  The teacher might understand the doodling as a sign of the lack of listening or motivation.  “Pay attention” or “focus” may help the student to appear more attentive for a moment.  In reality the student might be hearing they are “never going to be successful at this topic” because they are struggling, and what they can do to focus themselves “doodling” is not allowed in the classroom. 

One on one conversation with a student can bring remarkable incites to the table.  It may be something as simple as our blocks are a longer period of time than a student is used to focusing and that interspersing lecture with hands on activity could help with focus and retention.  It might be teaching the student how to “doodle productively” with a form of graphic note taking.  It is important to keep in mind the relativity of our observations, talk to the students about what we are seeing and look for the positives.  Especially for those students who are struggling, even if it is just the fact that they came to remedial. 

Remember that it takes several positives (Studies say around 5) to overcome a single negative comment.  This included when the negative is perceived rather than intended.   Students are not going to melt when they hear a negative, but studies show that it does affect their resiliency and their willingness to try. 

On that note:   LA LA LA LA LA

Praising
“Smart” vs. “Good Work”

Most of us as educators and parents understand intuitively that praising our students is critical.  Recent research is finding that it is just as important HOW we do that.  Nymag.com printed an article called The Power (and Peril) of Praising your kids and I have included an excerpt below.   If you want the whole article the link is posted at the bottom of the article.  Keep in mind that when the author uses the word “praise” they are specifically referring to saying “you’re smart” or other references in innate intelligence.

For the past ten years, psychologist Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia (she’s now at Stanford) studied the effect of praise on students in a dozen New York schools. Her seminal work—a series of experiments on 400 fifth-graders—paints the picture most clearly.
Dweck sent four female research assistants into New York fifth-grade classrooms. The researchers would take a single child out of the classroom for a nonverbal IQ test consisting of a series of puzzles—puzzles easy enough that all the children would do fairly well. Once the child finished the test, the researchers told each student his score, then gave him a single line of praise. Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, “You must be smart at this.” Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”
Why just a single line of praise? “We wanted to see how sensitive children were,” Dweck explained. “We had a hunch that one line might be enough to see an effect.”
Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they’d learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck’s team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The “smart” kids took the cop-out.

Why did this happen? “When we praise children for their intelligence,” Dweck wrote in her study summary, “we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.” And that’s what the fifth-graders had done: They’d chosen to look smart and avoid embarrassed.

In a subsequent round, none of the fifth-graders had a choice. The test was difficult, designed for kids two years ahead of their grade level. Predictably, everyone failed. But again, the two groups of children, divided at random at the study’s start, responded differently. Those praised for their effort on the first test assumed they simply hadn’t focused hard enough on this test. “They got very involved, willing to try every solution to the puzzles,” Dweck recalled. “Many of them remarked, unprovoked, ‘This is my favorite test.’ ” Not so for those praised for their smarts. They assumed their failure was evidence that they weren’t really smart at all. “Just watching them, you could see the strain. They were sweating and miserable.”

Having artificially induced a round of failure, Dweck’s researchers then gave all the fifth-graders a final round of tests that were engineered to be as easy as the first round. Those who had been praised for their effort significantly improved on their first score—by about 30 percent. Those who’d been told they were smart did worse than they had at the very beginning—by about 20 percent.

Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

In follow-up interviews, Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts.

Repeating her experiments, Dweck found this effect of praise on performance held true for students of every socioeconomic class. It hit both boys and girls—the very brightest girls especially (they collapsed the most following failure). Even preschoolers weren’t immune to the inverse power of praise.

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

Counseling Department Program
Plans and Progress

Working on the development and implementation of ESL Support Program: For all levels we have been brainstorming ways to ease the transition for our incoming ESL students.  We have come up with a two pronged plan as a base for a support structure. 

1. Develop a pamphlet for distribution at the start of every semester, in students\parents first language ie Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, to educate the Parents and Students about what we expect from a Brent Student.  That would include explanations as to how our grading works, behavioral expectations, other issues that would help students to be more successful with ESL and their transition into Brent Subic.   

2. To develop list of words that are commonly used for classroom management and class structure that will be focused on first in the ESL classes.  These words will also be sent home with translations and asked that these words are practiced on at home.  We have started this with the lower school and will soon be asking the upper school teachers to help with its development so that it is related directly to teachers work in the classrooms.

Upper School

High School

I am working intensively with juniors and seniors with college preparation information.   In the process of developing a curriculum map for high school program.  This will be shared with you upon completion. 

Goals:  Work with 9th & 10th grade on understanding their “JOB” as students, their transcripts, importance of grades, volunteering, activist in their college applications, and exploring the self like learning styles, decision making and being advocates and supporters of each other.

Have a curriculum map for the entire High School Program including methods of data collection for use in program evaluation. 

Middle School
 
I will be going to the Middle School camp and getting to know the student better.

Goal: To work with students on decision making and being advocates and supporters of each other, increase understanding of responsibilities of their “Job”, and help students learn about being a good citizen of Brent, the larger Subic community, and the world.   

Lower School

I am teaching 30-40 minute sessions in the K-5th grade classrooms once every two weeks using the Second Step Curriculum.  The curriculum assists student with understanding their feelings, dealing with those feelings appropriately, and problem solving.   
For the k-3rd grade we will be focusing on identifying feelings, recognizing those feelings in others, how feeling change, predicting how others are feeling, and communicating feelings.   This first section is the foundation for helping student gain empathy for others.  The fourth and fifth graders will be covering feeling identification, changing feelings, conflicting feelings, similarities, preferences, perceptions, and communication of those feelings.

Goal:  I hope to soon have a schedule to get into the Pre school classes once a month. 

My Schedule

I am working on a two week rotating schedule.  The week starting September 10th will be week 1, September 17th will be week two, and so on.  The unmarked areas are going to be used for touching base with students, office work, program development, and as time slots for the programs still in development such as the ELC and Middle School and Lower High School Curriculum. 

Week 1—Every other week starting September 10th

 Week 2- Every Other Week Starting September 17th.