Welcome to A Connected School web site. It is the result of several decades of studying efforts to improve schools in the United States, Canada, and Australia while also learning and then teaching the concepts and applications of Perceptual Control Theory (PCT for short) to thousands of teachers and administrators in the United States, Canada, Australia and several European countries.
A Connected School is a staff development program which offers a comprehensive school improvement approach grounded in a scientific model of behavior originally introduced in 1973 by William T. Powers in his seminal book entitled Behavior: the Control of Perception. PCT has since been embraced by scientists and human services practitioners from a wide variety of disciplines worldwide.
Take Charge! is a curriculum for adolescents based on E. Perry Good's book, In Pursuit of Happiness. The book offers a straight forward and easy to read introduction to the concepts of internal motivation and purposeful behavior derived from PCT.
Learning the fundamentals of PCT and its applications in the real world takes time. Unlike so many school reform programs, A Connected School is based on a set of principles rather than just on what has come to be known as "best practices." Applying the principles derived from PCT requires a basic understanding of the model and the development of skills which are far more sophisticated than just memorizing a set of instructions or prescriptions which can then be applied to situations according to a simple set of guidelines. Learning PCT requires concentration and hard work. It is not a quick fix. The model challenges existing notions of behavior, in many ways redefining our understanding of how and why we do what we do.
We encourage you to spend some time on this site and those we have listed in our "links" section. We also hope that you will give us some feedback as you begin to explore the rich world of Perceptual Control Theory. Please do not hesitate to contact us with your questions.
Once again, welcome to A Connected School.

