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Fostering Resilience
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Fostering Resilience
Expecting All Students to Use Their Minds and Hearts Well

Second Edition

December 2007 | 240 pages | Corwin

"All administrators and teacher leaders need to study Krovetz's volume on how excellent schools with caring, collaborative, and challenging cultures build self-efficacy and resilience in students with diverse abilities and social backgrounds."
—James R. Bean, Professor of Leadership Studies
Lock Haven University

Give students the care and support they need to build a successful future!

This must-have handbook for education leaders illustrates the power of resiliency in the lives of students striving to succeed in school and life. Practical and reader-friendly, the text presents four elements that characterize resilient learning communities: care for students, high expectations, substantive support, and participation.

The second edition of Fostering Resiliency features an added case study, revisits schools from the first edition, and describes how some schools stayed on track, how others fell away and then recovered, and how others are struggling to come back. School leaders will also find:

  • Sample questionnaires, strategies, and tools for self-evaluation
  • A list of critical elements for curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices
  • Important considerations for teacher and administrator roles

This powerful book illustrates how significant student achievement is possible despite socioeconomic disadvantages and how participants at every level can cultivate transformative systemic change.


 
Preface
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Author
 
1. Whatever Happened to That Old Gang of Mine?
Definitions

 
Whatever Happened to That Old Gang of Theirs?

 
Moving From Risk to Resilience

 
What Is This Resilience Stuff?

 
Does the Presence of These Protective Factors Relate to Student Learning?

 
Where Do We Go From Here?

 
Case Study: Anzar High School

 
 
2. Prerequisites: First Things First
First Things First: The Head

 
The Right Leg: Collegiality

 
The Left Leg: Professionalism

 
The Arms: Managing and Leading Change

 
The Heart: Resilience

 
Case Study: Oak Grove School District

 
 
3. What's in It for Me?
Collegiality

 
Intellectual Stimulation

 
Voice

 
Respect

 
Increased Job Satisfaction

 
Shared Ownership and Leadership

 
Obstacles

 
What Does It Look Like?

 
Why Me?

 
What Do I Do First?

 
Will There Be Public Schools in the Twenty-First Century?

 
Case Study: Two Oak Grove Schools

 
 
4. I Care, You Care, We All Care - But How Do Students Know?
What Would a School Look Like Whose Culture Is Centered on Caring?

 
What Would Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Be Like in a School That Is Centered on Caring?

 
What Do Teacher and Administrator Roles Look Like in a School Focused on Caring?

 
Case Study: Rosemary School and Cezar Chavez School

 
 
5. Providing High Expectations and Purposeful Support
Taking the Easy Way Out

 
High Expectations: Focus on Literacy

 
High Expectations: Habits of Mind

 
What Gets in the Way?

 
What Else Gets in the Way?

 
High Expectations Mean Believing That All Students Are Capable of Using Their Minds and Hearts Well

 
Purposeful Support

 
What Would a School Look Like Whose Culture Is Centered on High Expectations and Purposeful Support?

 
What Would Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Be Like in a School That Is Designed to Foster High Expectations and Purposeful Support for All Students?

 
What Do Teacher and Administrator Roles Look Like in Such a School?

 
Once Again, Does It Matter Which School a Child Attends?

 
Case Study: Alum Rock Small Schools of Choice

 
 
6. I Value Your Participation: Now Sit Down and Shut Up
Participation as the Third Protective Factor

 
What Would a School Look Like Whose Culture Is Centered on Meaningful Participation by All Students?

 
What Would Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Be Like in a School That Is Designed to Foster Meaningful Participation by All Students?

 
More Details on Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

 
What Do Teacher and Administrator Roles Look Like in Such a School?

 
Case Study: Homestead High School

 
 
7. Managing Change: On Your Mark, Get Set, Are You Ready to Go?
What We Do Know About Change

 
What We Can Do With What We Know

 
The Section You've All Been Waiting for: What About All the Resistance?

 
A Final Word

 
Case Study: Mission Hill Middle School

 
 
8. Marty Krovetz's Top 10 List of Commonly Asked Questions About Resilience
Question 10: Our staff is very congenial, and we are known for how caring we are with students. Aren't we doing resilience already?

 
Question 9: How can what happens in my classroom or in my school overcome the problems my students encounter outside of school?

 
Question 8: What is the role of the district office in fostering resilience?

 
Question 7: How do we coach our principal so that she sees the building of a resilient learning community as a priority?

 
Question 6: How can we create change in individual teachers about attitudes and expectations towards certain groups of students such as Title l, English Language Learning, migrant, special education?

 
Question 5: How do you get a mature staff that has a history of mistrust and private practice to talk with each other about fostering resilience?

 
Question 4: How will we know we are succeeding in fostering resilience? What measures would we use? Who would we use them with? When would we use them?

 
Question 3: Should we teach students about resilience and help them understand how to foster resilience in themselves?

 
Question 2: Given the pressure of NCLB, how do we find time and resources to foster resilience?

 
Question l: I am exhausted. How do I foster resilience for myself?

 
 
9. A Final Word or Two
 
Resources
 
References
 
Index

"A practical yet thought-provoking reminder that the way adults interact with each other and with kids plays a critical role in helping all students achieve. The research and the case studies make this book a must-read for all who care about schools."

Kathy Gomez, Director of Educational Services
Evergreen School District, San Jose, CA

"This is one of the best books about resilience for practitioners in education."

Sara Truebridge, Research Associate
WestEd

"This book offers clear, practical advice and lessons derived from firsthand accounts of schools that model quality school improvement practices. The examples cover different levels and are drawn from demographically diverse schools."

Jerry Patterson, Professor of Educational Leadership
University of Alabama at Birmingham

"Administrators and teacher leaders mired in performance funding and teaching to the test need to study Krovetz’s volume on how excellent schools with caring, collaborative, and challenging cultures build self-efficacy and resilience in students with diverse abilities and social backgrounds."

James R. Bean, Professor of Leadership Studies
Lock Haven University

"Krovetz provides educators with a guide—based on real schools and real educators—for making the principle-based, systematic changes that can transform schools from the inside out, moving them from cultures of risk to resilient learning communities that not only help all children succeed, but help them become confident, competent, and caring citizens as well."

Bonnie Benard, Senior Program Associate
WestEd

“Embraces a global audience of principals and leading teachers. Now in its second edition, the text aspires to facilitate resilient learning communities via the understanding and application of four emotive elements: care for students; high expectations; substantive support and participation. Revisiting previous research and observational case studies, Krovetz illustrates the power of resilience in students and their respective learning environment. This book works to renew and strengthen learning communities, not re-define them.”

Bendigo Weekly, February 2008
Key features
  • Focuses on resiliency as a key element for student success
  • Uses case studies of schools that are successful despite being economically disadvantaged and linguistically diverse
  • The new edition looks at the original school 10 years later, and shows readers what has changed, improved, become problematic, and more
  • Includes sample questionnaires, strategies, and tools to help school leaders evaluate their own beliefs and school culture  

Sample Materials & Chapters

Krovetz_preface.pdf

Krovetz_ch.1.pdf


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