Fostering a solid home-school partnership is a key to creating a firm foundation for academic and social-emotional achievement. Parent involvement in a child’s education can be important to developing mastery and self-efficacy, and can increase the value of education itself for the whole family.  One vital way to improve the home-school partnership is to give parents tools with which they can engage their children.

Often, parents do not know how to help their children; yet, they want to so desperately. They sometimes fail to realize how their experiences as adults in their work and in their social interaction could be utilized as models for children and adolescents to view their jobs as students.  Parents might feel intimidated by school or not see themselves as their children’s vital teachers.   If parents recognize that they have learned some tips or tricks to make their work or lives easier, they can impart to their children the need to find such strategies in their work and lives as students.  Yet, parents need techniques to teach their children.

What is lacking is a common language for approaching assignments across content areas that can be utilized by teachers, students, and parents alike. ACE My Academics can provide such a language, which can afford everyone a chance to comprehend the mechanisms for completing schoolwork effectively. Common understanding and clear communication foster partnership between home and school. With ACE My Academics, the components of literacy beyond decoding are broken down into specific behaviors with job descriptions and character names. This system gives families a way of talking about learning in English/language arts, history/social studies, and science.  Parents can learn the system and model how they use or could use such techniques in their own lives. In addition to modeling with specific examples from a parent’s direct experience in the workplace or social environment, parents can select sample texts, media, or primary sources of  interest and work through the strategies to show their thinking to their children.  They then can work with students on assignments to demonstrate how the techniques apply to schoolwork. This would be followed by a gradual release to students working on their own, following the I do. We do. You do. paradigm.

With ACE My Academics, through modeling with a common language, parents can elevate the value of student work and give children and adolescents the chance to think about, analyze, interpret, and respond to information in a mindful way.  Parents can help raise self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-efficacy. They can use their knowledge and experience to further support student achievement.  With ACE My Academics, parents have a manner to discuss student work, the school day, and knowledge acquisition in general with their children and with educational professionals. This practice enhances a student’s efforts to be successful in school, while affording families the chance to take part in education and be on the road to lifelong learning.

ACE My Academics seeks to offer teachers a methodology for reading and writing instruction that promotes intellectual and social-emotional development for all students. When combined with the these empowering teacher orientations, there can be an even greater increase in  student success.

Educators need to see themselves as:

• Learning Doctors, who utilize their hearts, minds, and senses to diagnose student problems and prescribe interventions for remediation (Brophy & Good, 1986).
• Scholar-Practioners, who actively consume information and have an ongoing commitment to improve their practice.
• Scientist-Practioners, who see their teaching environments as laboratories and take part in ongoing, thoughtful experimentation to improve student outcomes.
• Curriculum Developers, who create/appropriate curriculum to make an impact on student development, utilizing universal design and backward design principles that support high standards.
• Social Entrepreneurs, who combine sound learning and communication principles with critical thinking and problem solving skills to take on challenging  issues.
• Teachers, who draw upon a strong pedagogical and personal foundation to constantly revive their commitment to transforming student lives.

With these perspectives, educators can impart strength, courage, and wisdom (india.arie, 2001) and show warmth, a business-like orientation, enthusiasm, organization, the use of quality materials and activities, the use of clarity, structure, questioning and an academic focus (Rosenshine, 1971) that increase academic and social-emotional achievement.

All learners should strive to Always Capture Excellence (ACE) in their work and in their personal development.  There must be an equitable distribution of resources so all learners have the opportunity to set goals, meet them, and achieve their dreams.  We must work to create a community of citizens and scholars who seek to solve life’s challenges across domains.  To do so, education must provide a sound foundation for continuos growth.  The following principles have guided the development of ACE My Academics.

Purpose and Underlying Fundamentals

I think that a purpose of a fine education is to build an expanding knowledge base across disciplines, to refine ways of communicating it clearly, and promoting a life of meaningful productivity that includes service.

I believe that educators are learning doctors who need to be trained in and practice diagnosis and intervention, which includes a background in Special Education, Educational Psychology, and in the methods of scientific research inquiry.

I understand and support the interaction between scholastic rigor and warmth from student, parent, and educator perspectives, based on personal experience.

I believe in utilizing a full array of intellectual, social-emotional, and technological resources in promoting a more complete, investigative understanding of phenomena.

I look to cultivate the maturation of the whole person, integrating academic, social, and emotional constructs so that learners grow with wisdom, consciousness, and joy.

I hope to help raise self-esteem, self-concept, and self-efficacy among all learners to improve achievement in all areas.

Key Educational Behaviors

I seek to support the range of learners, scaffolding student growth to promote achievement.

I strive to make learning relevant and engaging so that learners can make meaningful connections between the subject matter and their prior knowledge.

I look to broaden student intellectual opportunities by helping them construct linkages between seemingly divergent ideas to spur creativity and innovation.

I ask learners to become flexible thinkers who actively advance their meta-cognitive and self-regulatory skills, intellectual curiosity, and motivation to love learning.

Key Community Relationships

I aim to fashion a collaborative learning environment where learners feel energized by delving into the perplexities of topics and working together to build understanding.

I look to promote independence and interdependence system-wide to yield dynamic community participation.

I believe in active cooperation among educators, parents, and learners to maximize success.

Key Rights and Responsibilities

I believe that all learners can make gains across varying domains.

I believe in finding and growing the positive element in the learning situation, in the educator, and in the learner.  With shared and accrued patience and perseverance skills by the teacher and the learner, coupled with an ongoing effort to seek out, develop, give, and utilize best practices, goals can be achieved and advancement can occur.  This entire process must be celebrated.

I have the utmost respect for learners of any age and look to help them on their path of development, and I believe that all learners deserve a high-quality educational experience throughout their lives.