Our emotions are fundamental to our ability to be effective, and there’s unanimous consent that our jobs are stressful.

As I explored this concept, what seemed critical was the notion that emotional resilience can be developed

They persevere and believe that they are in control of their lives, and they are optimistic and believe in their own strength.

1. Have personal values that guide their decision-making.

Resilient teachers:

If I was the education czar, I would mandate that everyone working in schools have one component of their professional development—and a certain number of hours per year and minutes per meeting—allocated to developing emotional resiliency. If we really are going to transform our system, we need to start by attending to people’s emotional experiences and well-being.

2. Place a high value on professional development and actively seek it out.

3. Mentor others.

4. Take charge and solve problems.

5. Stay focused on children and their learning.

6. Do whatever it takes to help children be successful.

7. Have friends and colleagues who support their work emotionally and intellectually. 8. Are not wedded to one best way of teaching and are interested in exploring new ideas. 9. Know when to get involved and when to let go.

These

Polling of parents often shows that socialization is a key concern

“The Big Think” as an alternative to Facebook, the popular social-networking site that causes angst for many brick-and-mortar schools over online bullying that can spill over from the site into school hallways. The Big Think is a closed social-networking site open only to K12 Inc., students and their parents

cyber students were rated significantly higher by both parents and students themselves in various areas of social skills, though teacher ratings for those students did not differ significantly from those for students in traditional public schools. Problem behaviors among online students, as rated by the parents, teachers, and students themselves, were either significantly lower or not significantly different when compared with national norms.

The quality of the online program is a factor in socialization, as is the type of student enrolling, she said

For a student already lacking in socialization in a traditional school setting, online education could be even more isolating. And for low-achieving students taking online classes, Ms. Minke said, families may not be as involved as they need to be to ensure their children are “academically progressing and to monitor their social development.”

From a larger, societal perspective, she said, online students may not be exposed to the diverse viewpoints or communities they might see in a regular school.

I’d worry that [online students] might not have the diversity of positive adult role models.”

Adding a layer of socialization to cyber school can make the difference in a student’s experience.

“This gives them the opportunity to collaborate on their work or mingle and become more invested in the educational process,

“We want to build a student-student relationship as well as a relationship with a teacher,”

“Students are expected to speak differently in school than they do at home,” she said. “What happens with teenagers in particular, but also young children, is that lots of times they grow up with a language at home that is very different than what they’re expected to use in school. Code-switching is teaching them how to navigate from how they talk at home to how they are expected to speak and write in school.”

“Students who text are actually using sophisticated speech patterns,” she said, “so if we can understand what those are, we can illustrate how they’re different than the patterns that are meant to be used in school.”

“It’s huge for adolescents, because what do teenagers want? They want to be part of a community of peers, but they also want their independence,” she said. “Digitalk allows for both. They can be part of a communications community, but they can manipulate the language in unique ways,” she said.

“Lots of times, English is taught in a very linear method: ‘First, we’re going to brainstorm. Then we’re going to draft. Then we’re going to revise. Then we’re going to publish,’” she said. “What we found was that students’ processes were extremely non-linear, and that they were actually mimicking the affordances that technology allows them,” she said. “Technology is very non-linear and interconnected. That’s why they call the Internet a web. So students move seamlessly back and forth between word processing programs and the Internet.”

This is important for educators, she said, because there is a disconnect when teachers ask students who are accustomed to working this way to prove what they know with nothing more than a pencil and paper. “Technology for writing and composition is a whole new ballgame. Teachers have to figure it out pretty quickly, because the students that we’re teaching are coming from a different place than we are,” she said.