In the eyes of a college admissions counselor or an employer, what does it mean to be college and career ready?

Consider this thought:  Do consequences and punishments provide students the tools to change their behavior?

Let’s all think about the concept of taking away recess, giving detention or suspending students from school.  Is it possible that school administrators and teachers use these strategies because they don’t know HOW to help children change their mindset and behavior?

If your school administration believes in equipping students with the skills to communicate, collaborate and solve problems it is imperative that your school district have a framework to teach social and emotional intelligence in a 21^st Century context.  Punishments and consequences do not teach students relational skills. Punishment and consequences do not teach kids social and emotional intelligence.  We must guide students to look at and understand the ripple effect of their behavior (good or bad). If we want our students to be college and career ready and know how to solve problems we have to teach them how to differentiate between things they can control and things they can’t control.

Our mission at Generation Text Online is to help school administrators understand that most times consequences do NOT equip students with the skills to act and react in the way we expect…in fact, it commonly has the opposite outcome…causing the student to act out with anger, resentment and aggression.  It works the same way in the classroom.  If a teacher reprimands or corrects a student’s behavior in front of their peers, kids often become embarrassed, causing the student to shut down, become angry or even act out with aggression. Generation Text Online provides school administrators and classroom teachers with a framework that does equip students to act and react with empathy, compassion, active listening, respect, tolerance, acceptance, inclusion and in ways that affect others positively.

If we are to prepare our students for college and career readiness in a 21st Century global society, we HAVE to equip them with skills that allow them to be mindful, how to communicate, how to collaborate and how to solve problems.  If your school district is not intentional about providing students with social and emotional intelligence, if your district is not intentional about giving students the skills to “think” their way out of problems your district is not preparing kids to be college and career ready.