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Six Pathways to Healthy Child Development and Academic Success
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Six Pathways to Healthy Child Development and Academic Success
The Field Guide to Comer Schools in Action

Edited by:

May 2004 | 216 pages | Corwin

"Meets the highest standard of evidence for comprehensive school reforms that improve student achievement."
Review of Educational Research, 2003

"In a refreshing departure from today's focus on academic testing, Comer's SDP is designed to foster the development of the whole child. In Comer's schools, children are taught not only academics but the skills and behaviors they need to be successful in school and in life."
Edward Zigler, Sterling Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Yale University

Healthy child development is the key to academic achievement and life success!

Children and adolescents who enjoy healthy growth and development along six primary pathways are the students who learn well and achieve success in school and in life. But children from poorly functioning families and impoverished social networks too often find themselves without adequate preparation and support for the academic challenges that await them in kindergarten and the grades that follow. Believing that schools are uniquely situated to foster healthy development, renowned child psychiatrist Dr. James P. Comer and his colleagues at the Yale School Development Program (SDP) have dedicated 35 years to guiding students, schools, and educators toward academic success along the six developmental pathways of learning.

Combining research; evidence-based best practices; essential tools for planning, data analysis, and assessment; and a generous collection of charts, tables, and graphics, Six Pathways to Healthy Child Development and Academic Success offers educators a comprehensive and effective framework for whole school reform. In 17 lively and informative chapters, Dr. Comer and his coauthors offer a complete guide to:

  • Fostering healthy student growth and development along physical, cognitive, psychological, language, social, and ethical pathways
  • Comprehensive school planning to optimize opportunities for child development and learning
  • Creating a positive school climate in which all adults-teachers, parents, administrators, school staff, and community members-can help children grow and succeed
  • Ensuring continuous professional development and program improvement for the entire school community

Six Pathways to Healthy Child Development and Academic Success is the first-ever published field guide to the tried, tested, and true methods used by the Comer Process to promote child development and learning. Now every concerned educator and school leader can use this innovative framework to ensure that all school decisions are made in the best interest of children and their success!


Michael Fullan
Foreword
Edward T. Joyner
Preface
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Authors
 
Part I. Child Development = Education
James P. Comer
1. The School Is Preventive and Promotive
Michael Ben-Avie, Edward T. Joyner, and James P. Comer
2. Essential Understandings of the Yale School Development Program: A Reference Guide to the Comer Process
Carmen S. Gonzalez
3. Schools in Society
Fay E. Brown and Joanne N. Corbin
4. Child Development Is the Foundation of Education
Valerie Maholmes
5. Promoting Youth Leadership Development in Comer Schools
The Yale Child Study Center Faculty
6. Children Must Be Taught to Deal with Anger
Michael Ben-Avie, Virginia Arrington, Morton Frank, and Robert Raymond
7. Children with Special Needs: Special Education and the Comprehensive School Plan
Nora Martin
8. Using the Pathways with Individualized Education Plans for Children with Special Needs
Michael Ben-Avie
Part II. Children Need Healthy Adults
Balanced Development

 
Development Into Adulthood

 
Miriam McLaughlin, Alice Huff Hart, Everol Ennis, Fred Hernandez, and Jan Stocklinksi
9. Teaming and Team Building
J. Patrick Howley
10. A Team Approach to Educational Change
Jeffrey German with J. Patrick Howley and Michael Ben-Avie
11. Establishing a Foundation: A Principal's View of Task and Process
J. Patrick Howley
12. It's All About Effective Relationships: Frameworks for Understanding Ourselves and Others
J. Patrick Howley
13. Three Guiding Principles for Interaction on Teams
 
Part III. A Time to Act
Robert A. Murphy
14. Children and Trauma
Robert A. Murphy
15. Children During Wartime
Grace Nebb
16. Children of the World: How We Created a Full-Service School
 
Index

"In a refreshing departure from today’s focus on academic testing, Comer’s School Development Program is designed to foster the development of the whole child. In Comer’s schools, children are taught not only academics but the skills and behaviors they need to be successful in school and in life."

Edward Zigler, Sterling Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Yale University

Meets "the highest standard of evidence" for comprehensive school reforms that improve student achievement.

Review of Educational Research, 2003

"James Comer’s inspiration, dedication, generosity, persistence, and unflagging belief in the potential of every youngster, regardless of degree of risk or disadvantage, continue to be catalysts and models for those in the field who care deeply about children."

Maurice J. Elias, Professor of Psychology
Rutgers University
Key features
  • The primary resource for all Comer schools and for all schools and districts that want to use Comer principles to improve student learning and development.
  • A key training and administrative resource for urban schools and districts that must meet No Child Left Behind standards.
  • Meets "the highest standard of evidence" for comprehensive school reforms that improve student achievement (Borman et al., Review of Educational Research 73(2):125-230, 2003). 
  • A key resource for schools and districts considering school improvement and restructuring.
  • A key text for teacher education and educational administration courses on child development, educational psychology, readiness to learn, urban education, and school-family partnerships. 
  • Includes diagrams, forms, checklists, reminder cards, role cards, sidebar features, and sample presentations for students, staff, and parents.