Classroom management and life skills training
for PreSchool, Kindergarten, 1st Grade and 2nd Grade
Use to teach the children in your classroom self-control, strive for team excellence,
the ability to love and respect others, listening to others, focus on classroom success,
delayed gratification, patience, fitness, health, appreciation for one another's differences,
communication, self-discipline, caring for the environment, a love of learning, safety,
and a reverence for life.
Introducing the “WE are Capable of Greatness”
Classroom skills and relationship building system,
When I did research for my first book Greatness and Children: Learn the Rules over three and a half decades ago,
I was in search of the answer to the question, “What makes some children choose to be great, and others choose to be less than their potential screams they should/could be?” I quickly realized that it was not money, skin color, religion, or even zip code.
There were children who under the most difficult of circumstances chose to become fortified, resilient and extremely capable,
while others in what we might describe as the best of circumstances, chose to go in the opposite direction.
I was driven to understand, “How do we inspire each and every individual child to live the greatness within them?”
My focus was on helping each individual child find their gifts, genius, strengths, and talents.
Shawn Acker, happiness researcher and author just released a new book entitled Big Potential: How Transforming the
Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being. Shawn, like myself, began researching the individual and
over the years has come to understand the enormous power and potential discovered only when a group of individuals
begin to understand the power of working together. Acker states,
“Our society has become overly focused on the “power of one alone: versus “the power of one made stronger by others. . .
We spend the first twenty-two years of our life being judged and praised for our individual attributes and what we can achieve alone,
when, for the rest of our life, our success is almost entirely interconnected with that of others.”
Acker designed and ran one of the largest studies of human potential that has ever been done at Harvard.
Using the most famously validated scale that measures how interconnected and socially supported an individual feels in their life,
he found that social connection was, hands down, the greatest predictor of thriving both personally and academically at Harvard.
His research revealed that when we work to help others achieve success, we not only raise the performance of the group,
we exponentially increase our own potential. He learned that our success and potential were not as dependent
on our individual genius, talent, mastery and skill as it was on our ability to make more of ourselves
by finding a fit for them in coordination and collaboration with others.
Shawn Acker continues, “Contrary to the myth of the lone genius, innovation and creativity have
so much less to do with individual attributes or aptitudes and so much more to do with
those around you. . .We are constantly shaping and being shaped by how others give, forgive,
and invest in one another.” I concur.
CAPABLES
for the CLASSROOM
In the last twenty-five years,
I have watched in dismay as communities, classrooms,
colleges and our country have continued to grow hostile, intolerant and divided.
Is it because there are not intelligent and capable individual members in these groups?
No, of course not. I have come to believe that it is because the intelligent individuals who
make up these groups have not been taught to cooperate and collaborate in making decisions that are bigger than their individual desires, motivations and opinions.
I too have come to understand we are only truly great when we learn to use our individual gifts, genius and talents in service and connection with others.
That is why I developed the CAPABLES G.R.E.A.T. Classroom & Childhood
Development System™ to aide teachers as they inspire and empower
children to work together toward a goal of greatness for an
entire community, instead of just ONE.
Helping children develop early social/emotional skills is vitally important
because these skills are related to how socially, emotionally, academically and
professionally skilled they are later in life. For example, having higher social-emotional skills
in kindergarten is related to important outcomes at age 25 (Jones, Greenberg, & Crowley, 2015).
These outcomes include:
• Educational success, such as completing a college degree
• Career success, such as an increased likelihood of being employed
• Other key life outcomes, such as being less likely to have problems with the police
Social-emotional skills help children to persist on challenging tasks, to effectively seek help if they need it and to be of help/service when others need it. These social-emotional skills help children to consider how their actions not only impact themselves, but impact a connected group as well. These important social-emotional skills can, and must, be taught.
This was highlighted in a large review of research on social-emotional skills in 270,034 students in kindergarten through 12th grade (Durlak et al., 2011). The review found social-emotional learning programs in schools not only improved
social-emotional skills, but also increased positive attitudes toward school, positive social behavior and academic performance. These programs also decreased the likelihood of kids getting in trouble
or experiencing emotional problems.
Brackett and Rivers (2014) identified five skills that can be taught to increase emotional intelligence:
Recognizing emotions in oneself and others; Understanding the causes and consequences of emotions;
Labeling emotions accurately; Expressing emotions in ways that are appropriate for the time, place, and culture;
and Regulating emotions. These skills, which form the acronym RULER, are the heart of an approach for modeling emotional intelligence and teaching emotional intelligence skills.
I created CAPABLES™ to give teachers an additional tool that will not only teach the RULER skills,
but aid in teaching individual children the tremendous importance and power of being socially connected,
focusing on becoming greater as a whole, and creating an environment where a class room
develops their gifts, genius and talents with the same goal in mind: to become a
G.R.E.A.T. and connected group of extraordinary and capable individuals.
Research
and Theory
for Building
Strong
Relationships
Our
Mission
for the
Classroom
Our mission is to educate, motivate, inspire and emotionally touch lives in ways that change the direction of hearts and create a better world.
The CAPABLES mission is provide teachers with a cost effective, time concise, fun solution that gives them effective tools to interact with their students while imparting critical life, SOCIAL and success skills. Children are bombarded with influences in
their lives that expose them to a plethora of negative images. Experts tell us that because of television, and Internet, children will witness hundreds, if not thousands of murders before they reach the tender age of four. And by six-years-old, most children will have spent more time watching television, and playing video games than they will spend talking to their fathers their entire lifetimes. Sadly the only vision in some children’s lives is television.
Capables for the Classroom™ teach our children to Succeed Together
Children need to feel loved, CONNECTED, accomplished and valuable, AND they need to learn how to encourage those same
vital feelings in the hearts of others. Their values and emotional-social life skills do not come as standard equipment at birth.
They must be taught. Teachers need a simple way to teach discipline, character, forethought, focus and teamwork (unity)
to help their students succeed.
The CAPABLES We are Capable of Greatness Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™ provides a complete,
easy to understand and execute, fun, motivational, and educational system that can help pre-school and elementary children
learn group cooperation, and relational and emotionally intelligent skills they will use to connect throughout their lives.
Have you ever wondered how to teach children to love, respect and help one another?
The CAPABLES We are Capable of Greatness Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™ was developed for children, ages 3 to 9, and will aide teachers in teaching their preschool and elementary children the most valuable and necessary
life/social skills to help them manage their attitudes and actions in more productive and powerful ways.
The CAPABLES We are Capable of Greatness Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™ helps support and guide thoughts, choices and actions in ways that have the potential to guarantee more successful outcomes for everyone.
The CAPABLES We are Capable of Greatness Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™ with our CAPABLES™
stuffed plush tools provide teachers with a patented, innovative, powerful, effective and fun educational tool that helps establish basic, critical fundamental ways of thinking and behaving that have been proven over the ages to inspire and ignite
character building and social success.
The CAPABLES We are Capable of Greatness Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™ helps teachers help their class:
1. establish and maintain kind and respectful values and standards
2. reach for the stars and dream big dreams and achieve their goals
3. let their dreams direct and determine their lives and actions
4. develop and use their imagination together
5. set great goals, write them down and achieve them together
6. think powerfully and positively as a group
7. develop good habits through positive reinforcement
8. delay gratification and develop patience
9. recognize and name their feelings
10. develop foresight and carefully plan future actions
11. understand the power of contribution and sacrifice
12. appreciate their relationships and their world
13. develop emotional intelligence (empathy, sympathy & compassion)
14. accomplish their goals through correct choice and right action
The CAPABLES G.R.E.A.T. Classroom & Childhood Development System™ also:
15. teaches high-level, important life and social skills to young children
16. teaches thought management skills in a hands on, concrete way
17. strengthens emotional competence and relational insight in children
18. gives teachers another tool to make teaching less stressful!
The CAPABLES We are Capable of Greatness Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™ is divided into thematic units that include lessons on a self-calming strategy aptly named: “I. A.M. C.A.L.M.”. This easy to use tool helps teachers teach foresight and hindsight lessons, charity, contribution and giving back, affect and feelings recognition, being responsible for thought and feelings management, the importance of a positive and optimistic attitude and empathy development.
WE ARE DEDICATED TO MEETING
THE “GREATEST” NEEDS OF
TEACHERS AND THE
CHILDREN THEY LOVE!
The primary objectives of e CAPABLES
Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™
are to:
(1) Develop children’s awareness and communication regarding their own emotions,
as well as, more accurately reading the emotions of others’
(2) Help children learn to handle aggressive, angry and frustrated feelings with thoughtful self-control
that aids them in choosing socially wise and balanced behavior over impulsive, inappropriate behavior;
(3) Promote Social/Emotional Competence Skills. When children feel emotionally competent they feel more positive esteem for themselves and their peers, and they manage relationships with authority figures and peers better;
(4) Develop children’s problem-solving skills by fostering the integration of their self-control, feelings recognition, communication and relationship skills; Build a skill set of finding solutions to problems with the help of others;
(5) Create a positive classroom atmosphere that builds community and supports social-emotional learning;
(6) Strengthen bonds and trust with teachers; build trust with fellow students, build trust in community of peers;
The CAPABLES We are Capable of Greatness Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™ is designed to help teachers and other caregivers create an environment that promotes children’s learning of social/emotional skills,
delayed gratification, a desire to contribute and sacrifice to a whole, as well as attitude control. The system provides guidelines on how to increase children’s learning during natural situations called teachable moments.
Our most teachable moments are moments where children experience an emotional reaction or a problem that
requires THEY make a choice or decision. Whether the child chooses positively or negatively, these moments
allow teachers to introduce insight about given situation and positively reinforce a child’s behavior,
OR
positively align with a child to support them as they suffer, and grow stronger from,
the natural consequences of their negative choice or behavior.
Primary Objectives of
CAPABLES
Classroom Program
Henry Ford tells us “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
A Kenyan
Proverb
teaches:
“Sticks in a
bundle
are unbreakable.”
Halford Luccock,
a prominent American
Methodist minister and professor
at Yale Divinity School tells us,
“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.”
Helen Keller reminds us, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
Aristotle
famously said,
“The whole is greater
that the sum
of its parts."
Reid Hoffman, the cofounder and chairman of LinkedIn tells us, “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.”
CAPABLES Capes & Badges
of Honor
A few of the super hero powers
the Capables® encourage and enhance are:
self-control, the ability to love, excellence, listening, focus,
delayed gratification, patience, appreciation, communication,
health, self-discipline, fitness, helping at home,
caring for the environment,
a love of learning, safety, and a reverence for life.
Using The “We are Capable of Greatness”
CAPABLES Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™
encourages teachers and students to take the time to notice and pay attention to their
classmates positive and responsible choices and behaviors.
Using the CAPABLES We are Capable of Greatness Classroom Skills and Relationship Building System™ helps to insure that as your children grow into adolescence they have a
greater capacity to respect themselves, authority and others. It aids children in becoming leaders in their communities, who care about things larger than themselves,
such as family, community, faith and fairness,
all the while learning to give of their time and talents
to those in need.
Your children will love challenging and increasing their skills as they earn Badges of Honor™
to place on their Capes of Greatness™.
CAPABLES Quick
Guide for
Teachers
Teaching Children
Thought Management
at an Early Age
CAPABLES Think-a-Head Pocket
The Capables™
are designed to strengthen and encourage your ability
to teach more powerfully, creatively, effectively, enjoyably and peacefully while creating
a real sense of community and unity within a classroom.
.
You can teach students how to slow down, calm themselves, and make
time to think carefully when they are angry or frustrated using the
Capables™ “I. A.M. C.A.L.M™ self-management system,
so that they can make more sound and careful choices. When helping one
student learn how to calm themselves, you are actually teaching all of
your students how to reduce stress and calm anxiety and stress.
This technique is easy and powerfully effective.
Children will use it throughout their lives.
STAND TALL
CLASSROOM
VALUES
Teaching
Students
Self-Control &
Relationship
Management
Books are Available for
your Classroom
UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN
& THEIR
PERSONALITIES
Children's Super Hero Personality
Color Tendencies
CLICK ON PICTURES BELOW TO EXPAND AND LEARN MORE:
