One Austin public school principal explained why social skills curriculums are needed this way:.

Friday, September 17, 1999

One Austin public school principal explained why social skills curriculums are needed this way:

"When I was growing up there were families with five, six, seven, eight people around the table. The TV wasn’t on and you needed to be able to say "please" and "thank you" to get what you wanted.

"It’s not like that anymore."

Families are smaller.

And in many cases, their children are either spoiled, or ignored, or undisciplined, or a laundry list of other characteristics that makes a child self-centered and socially inept.

More children then ever before are entering school not sharing and not caring.

The changing face of families has led to diminishing quality time, leaving the schools in charge of teaching social graces.

At Neveln Elementary, the teachers gathered a day or so prior to the start of the school year to institute a new program called Peace Keepers.

"It’s conflict resolution," Principal Sheri Allen said. "It’s about how you deal with things when they’re not going your way."

Fourth grade teachers Dean Burzinski and Kari Bain attended a Peace Education Inc. conference this summer in Jacksonville Beach, Fla., on the new curriculum.

"It’s one part of school," Burzinski said. "But it’s a big part.

"It’s not a 15-minute lesson and that’s it. It’s talking about it all day long."

Heretofore, each and every teacher at Neveln had their own method when dealing with students regarding citizenship. One teacher could drive home one message and another teacher the same one, using different techniques and language.

The Peace Keepers curriculum gives every teacher the same tools to work with, preventing students from getting mixed messages and reinforcing time and time again how important caring for each other is.

What the teachers and students are equipped with are called I-Care Rules.

There are five of them:

1) We listen to each other.

2) Hands are for helping, not hurting.

3) We use I-Care Language.

4) We Care about each other’s feelings.

5) We are responsible for what we say and do.

At Banfield Elementary, a program called Positive Action is in place.

When a teacher or cook or custodian sees a student, say, open a door for somebody, or an entire class walk quietly through the hallway, the authority figures in the school can hand out Positive Action cards.

Once a class collects 10 Positive Action cards, the class gets a wooden token. Students and classes work to build up wooden tokens in the Banfield Bank.

Once the bank reaches a certain level, the student council chooses an activity. It can be a school-wide ice cream party or extra recess time. Last year, when the pupils collected 40 tokens, they held a beach party.

Banfield is in its seventh year of Positive Action.

"It teaches our kids that it’s good to be nice and that it feels good," Principal Brenda Saxton, who also presides over the school’s Word of the Week. This week’s word is Self-Concept. Next week’s is Valuable, followed by Happiness & Success, Unique and so on down the line.

"Every lesson is something that helps us throughout life," Saxton said.

We should thank our lucky stars schools are helping kids through life in more ways than ever before.

Otherwise, we might have a bunch of little adults on our hands.