7 Habits

This year our new principal came in stressing The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. Despite push back from the majority of the teacher, he continued to push this initiative. I admit, I wasn't completely on board. I felt that some of the Habits were too "high" for our students to get. Between seeing cute ideas on Pinterest, and actually seeing our students embrace some of the Habits, I'm more than willing to give it a full attempt next year, rather than the half-hearted attempted I did this year. Through our morning announcements (we have a TV show for announcements) they promoted all 7 Habits throughout the year. Now, I know that the majority of the students didn't learn all 7 just from that. I didn't even learn all 7 this school year. I focused mostly on the first three in class, specifically the first: Be Proactive. Surprisingly, it actually caught on.

By the end of the year, student's knew the first Habit, and how to show it. Students who came in whining about not having their work and not knowing could be silenced with a, "Well, I'm sorry you weren't being proactive." A mumbled, "Oh, yea..." resulted in a return to their seats to get back to work. When students came in announcing, "She gave me a U!" I would ask them to reword their sentence correctly. Students usually had to say the sentence again aloud as they looked for grammar mistakes, because I often corrected them on that, as well, but almost always figured out what I was looking for. If they didn't, their friends did. "Dude, YOU gave yourself a U."

So this summer I am going to delve more deeply into the Habits, for my own knowledge and understanding, and then scour the internet for ideas, lessons, printables, and posters to help utilize in the classroom.

B prepared for more 7 Habits posts soon!