Carol’s summary:

The recent suicides of three Cornell University students are causing campus mental health services nationwide to reassess their programs for identifying students who are at risk and getting them into counseling. While other mental health issues are often apparent in people who take their lives, suicide is a national health crisis among young people. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), statistics predict two suicides per year for a university population of 20,000 students, making it the second-leading cause of death among college students and the third-leading cause of death among youth overall (ages 15-24, after accidents and homicides). And because young people often turn to suicide as an impulsive solution to problems, many counseling experts say suicide is often preventable.

Learning self-advocacy skills, and how to cope with strong emotions like anxiety, must begin well before students step foot on a college campus. LifeBound’s PEOPLE SMARTS program offers strategies for developing emotional intelligence and subsequently creates a more positive school culture. One of the counselors we work with at an elementary school said it gave her students the language to process an apparent suicide by a student at their feeder high school. Schools tend to focus on academic skills, but unless students also learn how to handle setbacks and manage strong negative emotions, they will be at a deficit when it comes to handling life’s pitfalls, regardless of how bright they may be academically. For review copies of our PEOPLE SMARTS book and curriculum samples, please call toll free 1.877.737.8510 or email contact@lifebound.com

ARTICLE:

NEW YORK TIMES
After 3 Suspected Suicides, Cornell Reaches Out
by Trip Gabriel
March 16, 2010

ITHACA, N.Y. — All weekend, Cornell University’s residential advisers knocked on dorm rooms to inquire how students were coping.

On Monday and Tuesday, the start of a stressful exam week before spring break, professors interrupted classes to tell students they cared for them not just academically, but personally. Both days, the university president, Dr. David J. Skorton, took out a full-page ad in the campus paper, The Cornell Daily Sun, saying: “Your well-being is the foundation on which your success is built. If you learn anything at Cornell, please learn to ask for help.”

The university is on high alert about the mental health of its students after the apparent suicides of three of them in less than a month in the deep gorges rending the campus. The deaths, two on successive days last week, have cast a pall over the university and revived talk of Cornell’s reputation — unsupported, say officials — as a high-stress “suicide school.”

To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com

With all of its good intentions, most educators say that No Child Left Behind has resulted in teachers teaching to the test rather than captivating students with a love of learning. In an effort to turn this around, Arne Duncan and his administration are writing a new bill which they hope to complete by August of 2010. Here’s an excerpt from today’s New York Times article featuring some of the goals of the new law:

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Carol’s Summary:

In her new book, The Death and Life of the American Education School System: How Testing and Choices are Undermining Education, scholar Diane Ravitch blasts No Child Left Behind, a reform she originally supported. In an interview for USA Today she said, “If the goal of schooling is to produce educated people, we’ve lost sight of that goal.” She says the original intent of charters schools was to provide, “laboratories of innovation,” but instead they’ve become a privatized sector that competes with public schools, and in Ravitch’s view, contributes to their demise.

Whether public, private or charter, if schools are to regain their goal of educating the whole child, they must offer programs that boost academic, emotional and social intelligence for what the 21st century will require and reward. LifeBound’s student success and transition programs are designed to help students develop their critical and creative thinking skills and promote emotional and social skills for our global world. Likewise, our professional development seminars equip administrators and teachers with coaching skills to invigorate their staff and classrooms.

How can schools systems come to a consensus on the skill sets all students need to successfully compete in the global marketplace and contribute to the world at large?

How can school systems work together to create a relevant curriculum and retain strong teachers?

What is our responsibility to future generations of students to make sure we provide a world-class education for all learners?

ARTICLE:

Scholar Diane Ravitch: ‘We’ve lost sight’ of schools’ goal
By Greg Toppo
USA TODAY
March 10, 2010

Education historian Diane Ravitch can pinpoint the day when she realized public schools in the USA were racing down a perilous road, one that promised long-sought reforms but would never deliver — and probably make things worse.

It was Nov. 30, 2006.

That’s the day, nearly five years after Congress passed the No Child Left Behind education reform law, when Ravitch found herself in the downtown Washington, D.C., conference room of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, listening to a series of presenters weigh in on the measure’s “remedies” for low-performing schools. Many of the presenters that Thursday were ideological allies of President George W. Bush, who had pushed for more standardized testing and free-market competition among public schools.

To view this entire article visit www.usatoday.com