I became social entrepreneurs after a life-changing event that involved my granddaughter.
She attended a “magnet” school in the St. Louis Public School system. At a parent– teacher conference I read some essays posted on a bulletin board entitled “The Night.” One seventh grade girl wrote:
“I’m not afraid of the night.
I’m not even afraid when I hear bullets.
I take my brother and we lay down in the bathtub
until the shooting stops.”
Accent on Success®, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children succeed, is the direct result of that young girl’s essay. John Bishop is the Executive Director of the organization.
Our first book, Goal Setting for Students®, took more than 1-1/2 years to write and had valuable input from more than twenty-five professionals with advanced degrees in teaching and curriculum development. The book has received three national parenting book awards.
After the awards John received numerous requests for additional ideas to help positively impact children’s lives. The Teaching Moments life skills ideas that we email twice monthly to subscribers is our response to those requests.
We sell the book to help fund the organization's activities (much like the Girl Scouts sell cookies). However, the Teaching Moments are FREE. Because we want to reach as many children as possible, we encourage people to cut and paste them into their newsletters, blogs, newspapers, bulletin boards, etc. We ask for a byline including our website goalsettingforstudents.com.
Goal Setting for Students® combines Mr. Bishop’s life experiences with the valuable input of more than twenty-five teachers, school administrators and college professors.
Mr. Bishop knows about these important life skills on a personal level. He had two major back injuries in a ten - year period. The first broke his back in four places, and the second left him in constant pain.
After living with the pain for more than two years, he realized he had to do something to change. Mr. Bishop set a goal to improve himself mentally and physically. The first day he did one pushup and spent the next three days in bed. Then he did it again and again. After several weeks he was doing ten pushups a day. Eventually he started taking martial arts and fourteen years later earned two Black belts. He started out with some very small goals and learned how to build upon them.
John Bishop, a graduate of Babson College in Boston, has more than twenty five years experience in sales and sales management. He has owned two companies and developed sales organizations in the United States, Europe and Japan. Mr. Bishop has been married to Carole for more than twenty-five years. They live in St. Louis and have two daughters and three grandchildren.
Each of the eight chapters in Goal Setting for Students® is specifically designed to facilitate meaningful discussions on these important life skills issues. The book shows students (ages 9 -15) how to use the goal setting principles in their school work.
When students learn how to use the goal setting principles they take more ownership of their education.
Why is a goal setting program so important?
In 2002 our nation spent more than $382 Billion on education.
- More than 99% of these dollars were spent on what adults will do to give students a "learning environment" - building, books, science labs, teachers, sports programs, etc.
- Less than 1% was spent on teaching children how they can take more responsible for their education.
With Goal Setting for Students® children learn how to take positive control of their education. They learn to embrace their parents' and teachers' efforts to help them succeed.
