Over 35 Years Helping Students Build Self-Esteem and Thinking About Their Future

4 Steps to Student Success & Cultural Diversity provide you with specific tangible things you can do in your classroom to help your students understand some of the questions they have about themselves but may be afraid to verbalize. How do I make friends? Why do I feel so alone? How can I be a good student? What does it take to reach academic success?

This program helps students start understanding how and what they must do when reaching for academic success as they begin to “find” their true selves. The program will provide activities and reading in chronological order that you should follow in the first step.

My undergrad and graduate degrees are in Communications from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon.  Early in my career, I was hired by the Portland Public School district as an advisory specialist. At the same time, I enrolled at Portland State University to begin a master’s degree in counseling to enhance my ability to serve students better.

When I started working in the Pacific Northwest, voluntary bussing was in its infancy stage. Portland, Oregon, was one of the first districts on the West Coast to pilot this program.

I was instrumental in organizing and hosting voluntary bussing program workshops for administrators, teachers, classified staff, and parents from the inter-city. After four years, my love for basketball led to an opportunity to become a head basketball coach at a community college in Washington State.

I also taught communication, health, and education classes during my thirteen years there. I also developed a course in communication and a “Values and Problems of Today’s Students and Athletes,” a physical education course. Even today, I continue to use eighty percent of those materials.

For the last thirty plus years, I have taught the same course under Interpersonal Communication at a community college in California. Frankly, my career has been remarkable! Teaching, conducting workshops, and adding new materials and videos to my classes over the years has been gratifying.

Now that I am coming to the end of my teaching journey, I want to share what I have learned with others because it has changed lives for the better! I’m not planning on retiring and going off into the sunset. I want to share some of this passion, wealth of activities, and ideas for you to use in your classroom.

I’m working on a  4 Steps to Student Success & Cultural Diversity workbook. There will be a teacher’s and student editions [workbook]. I want this workbook to be an instrument that when students have a problem or crisis, they can refer to their workbook and revisit the situation they are struggling with and know they are not the first person and will not be the last person to face this type of crisis.

The student workbook has many different stories under each of the four steps. During the last 30 plus years, I have shared these concepts at conferences and workshops for teachers, students, and parents.

I will work with individuals, groups, and school districts that want to engage students differently. I can guarantee you; my 4 Steps Program will make a substantial POSITIVE impact on the vast majority of your students’ lives.