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Calabasas High School students learn the seven habits of success
Pierce based the club on the book "Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens" by Sean Covey. The invitation-only club was developed because Pierce and teachers recognized that some students with potential were not necessarily meeting their goals. The club, Pierce said, was a means to "bridge the gap." "There is something in these students that needs to come out," said teacher Kathy Heukrodt. The group meets every Wednesday during the school's regularly scheduled support period. Students choose a personal goal as a focus. While some students may want to improve the relationship they have with their parents, others might focus on academic goals. Students and teachers use Covey's seven habits to reach their goals. The habits include being proactive, prioritizing, sincerely listening to people and working together. When the club opened in the 200809 school year, one student set his sights on becoming a professional golfer, Pierce said. He had to break down his goal into steps, including convincing his parents he was serious about it. He also had to obtain letters of recommendation from teachers and coaches, and follow through with myriad details before applying, and being accepted to, a professional golf school in North Carolina. Some students battle discipline issues. Nancy Ramirez, an 11th-grade student who now serves as a mentor to others, was such a student. "I knew Nancy because she was in my office all the time," Pierce said. "She was a fighter (but) now is a leader. She hasn't been in my office all year long." Nancy said she was "always getting in trouble." One bad habit, she said, was trying to skip over age-appropriate goals. She said she came to the realization that she was missing out on her teenage years. "Each age gives me the opportunity to try new things," Nancy said about her revelation. "Now I need to be concerned about school. . . . I can get a job later." The students have bonded with others in the group, Pierce said, and also developed more productive relationships with teachers. "They talk and bring out the best in other students," Heukrodt said about the student leaders. "These were the kind of kids that sat in the back of the room and never talked." School psychologist Sahar Barsoum credited such transformations on the students' ability to establish their own goals and discover the appropriate steps to achieve them rather than having an authority figure explain what to do and how to do it. "The school is not the thermostat; we are the thermometer," Barsoum said. "What happens here mimics what happens in a kid's life." Tenth-grader Savannah Murchland said she was skeptical about the program when she joined last year, but that's changed. "I'm excited every Wednesday to go (to the meetings)," Savannah said. The program has helped her make new friends and organize her life. Tanir Aickin was invited into the program as a freshman. This year, Tanir is a mentor. "My grades have changed a lot," Tanir said, adding that relationships with her parents and friends have also improved. "I can argue without fighting," she said. Heukrodt likened the epiphanies the students experience in the group to the story "The Precious Present" by Spencer Johnson. The story is about a boy whose grandfather told him that some day he would receive a "precious present" that would make him "happy forever." As the boy grew, he wondered when his grandfather would give him such an incredible present. After searching his entire life for the elusive gift, the boy grew up, grew old, grew angry, frustrated—and even sick, until he realized that he'd always possessed the present: "Not the past, and not the future, but the precious present." "Now we can just enjoy being a teen," Savannah said. |
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