On Monday, before the blizzard sent us home, we listened to a wonderful presenter-Willow Sweeney. She shared with us great information about being Top 20 Teachers!
http://www.amazon.com/Top-20-Teachers-Revolution-Education/dp/0974284327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361395427&sr=8-1&keywords=top+20+teachers I plan to use and incorporate these strategies into my daily teaching!
I also plan to consider purchasing two of the other books her company has written: Top 20 Parents!
http://www.amazon.com/Top-20-Parents-Responsible-Emotionally/dp/0974284319/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361395507&sr=1-1&keywords=top+20+parents This book looks like it is geared for parents of children 8 years and under!
Another one that may pertain to some of your older children is Top 20 Teens!
http://www.amazon.com/Top-20-Teens-Tom-Cody/dp/0974284300/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361395568&sr=1-1&keywords=top+20+teens
Here's an excerpt from a blog regarding the Top 20s and POTENTIAL....
Enjoy!
by Paul Bernabei
Top
20 people develop potential in themselves and others.
What
is potential?
Potential is a
power inside each person that waits and waits and waits to get activated and,
when it does, comes out to make a positive difference in the quality of his or
her life, relationships, and experiences.
Furthermore,
when potential develops in an individual, it makes a difference in the lives of
other people as well. Potential, quite simply, is a power inside each person
that wants to come out and make a positive difference in his or her life.
What
happens to that potential?
For some
people, nothing happens to it. Although they have potential, it never get
activated, its’ not developing, and all of our training talks about reasons why
that happens. For others, their potential develops at a normal rate. These
people are doing okay. We call folks in these two groups the Bottom 80. But for
people in a third group, their potential explodes. Their potential develops at
an accelerated rate. They are the Top 20.
What
makes the difference between Top 20 and Bottom 80s?
When we
operate as a Top 20 person, we think, learn, and communicate, or TLC, in highly
effective ways. When we operate as bottom 80s, our thinking, learning, and
communicating is highly ineffective. In a real sense, each person is a Top 20.
At times each person thinks, learns, and communicates in highly effective ways.
Likewise, each person is a bottom 80 who, at times, thinks, learns, and
communicates in highly ineffective ways.
Consequently,
when we use this Top 20 and Bottom 80 language, we are not comparing ourselves
to other people. It’s simply a way of our understanding these two dimensions
about ourselves: a Top 20
dimension when we TLC in highly effective ways and a Bottom 80 dimension when
we TLC in highly ineffective ways.
The purpose of
all Top 20 training and materials is to help people become aware of Top 20 and
Bottom 80 ways of thinking, learning and communicating. We will all, at times,
operate in Bottom 80 ineffective ways. However, with that awareness we can more
quickly move back in the Top 20 direction and choose more effective ways of
thinking, learning, and communicating.
