For fewer behavior problems and higher achievement in high
poverty, urban schools
Children without life goals develop into adults without life goals.
Behavior problems, teen pregnancies, and criminal behavior are all more common,
while academic achievement is much more rare without life goals.
As students advance though school they have increasing ability
to identify, document, and update life goals. Sadly, it is too rare that this growing
ability is used for what should be a consistently recorded annual event in each student’s
development, an event their parents or guardians should also be actively
involved in so that they also can also identify their goals for their child.
What are their goals as parents? This project encourages parental involvement in the development of priceless parental goals for every student.
As both parents and students develop the ability to identify and
update life goals, self-confidence and
self-respect grows for all involved. With that growth, behavioral problems decrease and teen
pregnancies will almost disappear. The best birth control in the world is self-control
built on the foundation of a solid vision on one’s future life and goals. Negative
behaviors lessen, and the potential for criminal behavior almost disappears, as
a student’s grasp of future goals strengthens.
Such a future focused, life goal identification project called
the Time Capsule Project, is now 12 years old in Dallas ISD. Quintanilla Middle
School began a goal-focused project for student motivation in 2005. It started
only with letters by 8th graders to themselves about their goals for 10 years into the future. Those letters were to be opened after a
decade in a huge vault bolted to the floor in the school lobby with 10 shelves
inside for 10 years’ worth of letters.
The graduation rates at the high school most students attended
immediately began to improve every year as discipline problems and other
negative behaviors decreased.
In 2009 parents and guardians were invited to join in with their
own letters to their child about their dreams for their child. While
only as many as 1/3 of parents wrote such valuable letters, that practice was
encouraged as the evolving Time Capsule Project spread to 7 more middle schools.
All Time Capsule Project schools have seen their School
Effectiveness Indices (SEI) measurements improve significantly faster than
other DISD middle schools during the three academic years from 2013/14 through
2015/16. (See documentation in blogs at www.StudentMotivation.org.) The two oldest Time Capsule Project Schools
have the highest three years average SEI of all 35 middle schools in Dallas
ISD! The remaining 5 schools had an
average three year improvement of 6.7 points on their average SEI while the 24
remaining non-magnet middle schools in DISD had their annual SEI scores go down
an average of 0.7 points.
In spite of this impressive increase in SEI scores for Time
Capsule Project schools, the level of parental involvement by writing a letter
to their child has rarely, if ever, gone above 30%. That changed in May of 2016
after the above SEI progress was documented.
In the past, the request for this parental letter had always
came from school staff in a letter sent home. In May of 2016, Quintanilla
changed the source of the request, and decided to have all three grades in the
school to be involved. The request for parents to write to their child
about their dreams for their child now comes directly from that child in a
letter the student writes in class to their parents.
Immediately the percentage of parents writing a letter to their
child increased almost threefold to as much as 85%! When the request comes
directly from their child, parents respond!
Remember, Quintanilla also stopped limiting involvement to only
8th graders. They expanded this priceless goal-centered letter
writing between parent and child to all grades.
Due to the immediate success of these changes it is now
recommended that Time Capsule Project schools have all students write one
letter to each parent, and/or involved relative, each year asking them to write
a letter back about their dreams for the student. Students in the fourth grade
and above should also ask that one story from their family history be included
in each letter, a story to be passed on to grandchildren. This strengthens a
child's awareness of their family heritage, their roots, and provides priceless
documentation of it.
A note from the school can be attached to each student’s letter
sent home. It reinforces details about the Time Capsule Project. It recommends
everyone writing a letter go over it with the student before the student brings
it back it school.
At school, students then write a letter to themselves about
their goals and how they will achieve them. This letter includes stories
students want to remember. When finished, each student places their letter, and
all relative letters received, into the self-addressed envelope they should
have addressed as the first thing to do in class, before writing their letters.
They use their complete home address with email and cell number placed in
the second and third lines of the address above the street number and name on
the envelope. The return address should have teachers name, the class, and the
date the letter is written. Addressing envelopes is critical so letters
are not lost. The completed envelope is placed into the school’s time capsule,
on the shelf dedicated to each student's class.
Each year the previous year’s envelopes are returned to students
before the next letter writing process. In their request letter to each
relative students include the letter written the year before. The year-old
letters are read before new ones are written to update dreams and plans.
It is a growing process. Students are reminded of it as they see
the 500-pound Time Capsule Vault often, passing it several times daily in the
school lobby, where it should be centrally located under spotlights.
This process changes for students in their final year in their
school before leaving for the next school in the educational process.
That last year letters are written with plans and dreams focused 10 years into
the future. These final envelopes remain in the time capsule for a
decade, until the class 10-year reunion.
The third Quintanilla Middle School 10-year reunion to pick up
letters will be in 2017 for the 8th grade class of 2007. It’s
scheduled before Career Day to secure volunteers for Career Day. On Career Day,
these volunteers talk to current students about life after middle school, their
employment and preparation for it, and what they would do differently if they
were 13 again.
Such annual goal-focused letter writing is now moving into the
elementary grades in at least two DISD elementary schools. At what age could a
child write such a powerful request to their parents in a letter? Writing the
letter prepares the student to be more open to what their parents will write
back.
It is never too early for a child to discuss their life plans
with parents. Nothing increases the potential for fewer behavioral problems
than having an active vision of one’s future life, a vision that parents are
involved with.
1-2-17 Bill Betzen, bbetzen@aol.com
