An Educator's Guide to Understanding the Personal Side of Students' Lives

This guide helps educators gain a better understanding of several issues impacting on teacher-student relationships so that they will be better prepared to help students improve academically and socially. Understanding these issues will help students take their place as contenders in an ever-changing and complex world. The following are the issues that must be addressed in order to help each of our students successfully navigate through the risks and challenges of adolescence and follow their star: 1. Why historically teachers have not utilized their bully pulpit and skills to lead the way in addressing the personal and well-being problems. 2. Why changes in our students' families and communities have now created the need for teachers to be the primary source of intervention for underachieving and failing students. 3. Why school guidance counselors and social workers need to step back from their unattainable role as the primary source of student intervention and shift this role to teachers on the front lines. 4. Why we need to help teachers and administrators improve the quality of teacher-student relations right now and not postpone needed intervention until secondary school enrollment and class size are reduced. 5. How we can proceed to train and expect teachers to better understand how their students learn, develop, and effectively address the non-academic issues that get in the way of learning. An Educator's Guide to Better Understanding the Personal Side of Students' Lives is a road map on how to elevate the teacher's advising role, the most underutilized helping resource in the school, to its rightful place as a source of academic and non-academic help for students. Students need teacher advisers who can help them successfully navigate through the risks of adolescent life. This guide will help. The book includes 36 case studies of high school students that support why it is important for educators to be advisors and mentors. To learn more, visit www.williamfibkins.com.