Overview

A Connected School is a comprehensive program aimed at integrating the three major elements that almost everyone can agree are important for school success: achieving, caring, and safety. The program offers a conceptual framework for how people behave. By understanding the "how" of behavior, we can better understand why we do what we do and why others do what they do. We can then become better people, better parents, better teachers, better administrators. We are also better able to help our students do the same.

Until now, most school reform efforts, including the holistic education movement, have been without an adequate understanding of what makes living things different from inanimate things, such as rocks and metal. Mostly, school reform efforts have relied on what has come to be known as "best practices" rather than on a science of behavior. Consequently, we have been imposing one program on top of another, with the result that teachers are no longer able to sort them out, much less implement them in their own classrooms.

A Connected School first teaches some general principals which apply to all people and to all human interaction. Learning to apply these principles first to one's own life is emphasized. Flowing directly from an understanding of these general principles, specific communication skills are learned and practiced through role playing.