Educational Policy Campaign:
Nurturing is the Foundation

Deeper Learning: Educational Management Can Prevent Motivational Deficiencies
Educational management can address the major problems in schools today: drop-outs, lack of achievement, and fauxcheivement (going through the motions of achievement, without mastering the material.)

• Classroom Management: Motivational Cheat Codes
  Learn classroom management techniques from psychological research that work like cheat codes.

Hidden Curriculum: The Hidden Curriculum and Education Psychology
The hidden curriculum is more powerful than the explicit curriculum, so it needs more careful design. But, currently it's ignored.

• Is Standardized Testing a Necessary Evil in K-12 Education?
  Take a look at whether standardized testing undermines the scientifically validated foundation of education.

• The Moral Path of Curriculum: Fulfillment Or Judgment?
  Every curriculum takes the moral path of either fulfillment or judgment, find out how to tell which way you're going.

• Debunking The Myth That School is a Classroom
  A school is any context designed for learning but the persistent myth that it must include a classroom does everyone a disservice.

• In Elementary School, What's Elementary?
  Optimal states of mind is more elementary in elementary school than literacy.

• Academics Are The Wrong Lesson
  Subjecting children to academics under the dictatorship of a teacher teaches them the wrong social skills. There are proven alternatives that teach the right lessons.

• Early Academic Achievement Is A Waste: Build An Attitude Foundation Instead
  Early academic achievement is a well-intentioned booby prize, instead, elementary age kids need to build a strong attitude foundation from the 3R's of Respect, Responsibility and Resourcefulness.

• What Makes A Good School? Picking Good Students!
  A college president finally admits that good schools do not produce good students, they benefit from the desirable qualities of students who were already good.

• Breaking My Classroom Habit
  The classroom is an educational habit and it's a habit that is sometimes bad for children. Here's the story of how I broke my classroom habit.

• Intrinsic Motivation Research by Don Berg, Reed College
  This intrinsic motivation research suggests that two alternative school settings do a better job of maintaining motivation in their students than traditional schools.

The Story of School: History of Education And The Story of School
The history of education has to go back further than the industrial revolution to tell the whole story of school.

• Betsy DeVos and the Irony of Her "Innovation" Agenda
  Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos claims she wants innovation, but she doesn't know how to get it.

• Review of the book Privilege by Shamus Rahman Kahn
  Privilege and the problems of an extremely unequal society are being perpetuated despite the creation of diversity and oppenness at elite schools that were supposed to end those problems.

• Beyond the NCLB Act: Let's Get Off the Moral Path of Judgment
  A bipartisan report on the NCLB act calls for continued measurements of all the wrong outcomes and sends us further down the same moral path of judgment.

• Reading First Failed: Attitude Was Ignored (and still is)
  Education Week announced that the billion-dollar-a-year Reading First NCLB program failed but they didn't talk about the REAL reasons why.

• Ruby Payne's Framework For Preserving Poverty
  Ruby Payne offers teachers in the trenches a new weapon in the fight against poverty, too bad it will backfire.

• How Waiting For Superman Misrepresents Teaching And Learning
  This review of Waiting For Superman points out how the film misrepresents teaching and learning.

• Misinterpreting Privileges and Marshmallows
  Are privileges a real problem for society, or just a code for putting down people who take personal responsibility for their own lives?

Growing Mental Maps: The Over-Simplification of Educational Reform
Beware of educational reform proposals co-written by Hollywood directors and comedy writers.

• K-12 Self-Directed Learning FAQ
  Self directed learning in K-12 is a rare and valuable opportunity for high quality education and naturally raises lots of questions.

• How to Distinguish Autonomy Support from Control
  Autonomy support is a critical component of effective management behavior because it is a central component of meeting the psychological needs of the people you manage.

• Democratic Schooling: Nurturing Every Child, Not Just Playing The Odds
  Which is better for children, wild democratic schools or dictatorial industrial classrooms? Democratic schooling makes more sense than you might think.

• Home School Curriculum: Start Anywhere, Learn Everything
  This is a free home school curriculum approach that teaches the 3R's of Respect, Responsibility, and Resourcefulness.

• Is Standardized Testing a Necessary Evil in K-12 Education?
  Take a look at whether standardized testing undermines the scientifically validated foundation of education.

• The Case for Situationism
  A strong case for situationism was laid out in this collection of articles.

Teach Attitude 1st: Why Teach Attitude?
We must teach attitude because it is more elementary than teaching academics, so if children don't master attitude first, they are being cheated.

• Attitude Basics
  Short introductory videos explaining Attitude Basics for education reform.

• Attitude Metaphor for Minds
  Attitude is how you arrange the mental furniture of your body/mind recreational vehicle as you explore the world of your experiences.

• Metaphorical Definition of Attitude: It's a Matter of Life or Death
  Attitude is the one factor that predicts survival in disaster. Teachers need a metaphorical definition of attitude that helps them anticipate the true needs of learners.

• Technical Definition of Attitude
  Educators need a technical definition of attitude to be able to develop objective measures of teaching attitude successfully.

• Towards a General Definition of Attitude: Minds Are More Than You Think
  Your mind is more than you think. Consider a definition of attitude in which your mind extends beyond your body in things around you and the behavior of other people.

• Positive Attitude in Reality
  Positive attitude is more than thinking good thoughts, it's the ability to access a beneficial state of mind regardless of your situation.

• Re-reading Viktor Frankl's Man’s Search For Meaning: Writing In Spite of My Schooling
  Starting with Viktor Frankl's quote about attitude learn how the stories we are told, and tell ourselves, create who we are.

Nurturing In Schools: Nurturing Education Policy is the Ultimate K-12 Solution
Education policy currently fails to nurture most students and teachers and this is the central moral and practical problem with schools.

• Attitutor Learning Theory
  Learning is automatic, unconscious and impossibe to avoid. A learning theory based on learning, not just teaching.

• Definition of Education
  A proper definition of education is NOT the delivery of information, it is cognitive mapping of reliable access to optimal states of mind.

• Why Is Education Important?
  This exploration of how education, properly understood, provides individual fulfillment, fosters resilience and may ensure our species survival answers the question: Why Is Education Important?

• Honoring The State's Interest In Learning
  How is the State's interest in learning served when parents can be prosecuted for homeschooling? Recent prosecutions indicate that some States are operating under mistaken assumptions about learning.

• Our Education System: What are the Nuts and Bolts?
  Our education system today should make optimal states of mind a higher priority than literacy.

• Definition of Education
  A proper definition of education is NOT the delivery of information, it is cognitive mapping of reliable access to optimal states of mind.

• Being a good teacher, what's it take?
  Being a good teacher requires both passion and a place that supports you to be passionate.

• What is Teaching?
  The obvious core of teaching is facilitating learning, but teachers are, more importantly, cultural catalysts.

• My Big Teaching Idea
  My big teaching idea came on a baseball field and instantly convinced me that the idea that teaching is just delivering units of knowledge, skills, and information to students is utterly absurd.

• Lifelong Learning is Lifelong Thrival
  Lifelong learning is a buzz word for something that everyone wants to achieve, but does it really mean something important?

• What’s A Teacher To Do?
  Teachers who disagree with the status quo face a big challenge, but sanity is possible if they stay focused on the 3R's of respect, responsibility, and resourcefulness.

• A Policy Framework for Nurturing in Education
  A policy framework for nurturing in education was presented as a poster entitled "Nurturing is the Foundation" Policy Framework at the 6th International Self-Determination Thoery Conference in 2016.

The Hero's Game: Leadership in Education: How to Play the Hero's Game
Leadership in education today is about heroism, but hero's have to play the right game or they lose. Learn what game is afoot.

• Leadership Is Not Management
  Leadership is about aligning the context of an organization to meet the needs of those inside, those outside it, and other organizations. Management is just meeting the needs of the organization.

• Consulting Button: Educational Leadership Consulting
  Don Berg, the author of Teach-Kids-Attitude-1st.com, is available for hire to do lectures, presentations or consult on applying leadership principles in school settings.

• Trans-Partisan School Reform: End the Neglect of Psychological Needs in Schools
  School reform is too important to entrust to political parties, so let's organize a trans-partisan plan for creating great schools.

• School Reform Framework: Guiding Change for Sustainability
  A school reform framework is necessary because it's an extraordinarily complex process that will be more successful with appropriate guidance.

• School Reform Biomimicry
  School reform biomimicry is a challenge but we can learn from alternative schools how it's done.

• Heroism Interrupted: A Cautionary Fairy Tale for Leaders
  A Cautionary Fairy Tale for Leaders

Parenting: Parenting Advice And Resources From Parents To Parents
Parenting advice and resources for parents from parents.

• Parenting Styles or Childing Styles
  Parenting styles researchers assert that if you simply behave right as a parent your children will behave right, too. This is wrong, parenting is a moral, not behavioral challenge.

• Expert Parenting Advice, Can We Trust It?
  What’s a parent to do when parenting experts disagree? Some expert parenting advice seems absurd, but is it true?

• Parenting Facts
  Parenting fact #5: Parenting is a moral challenge not a behavioral one. Read all five parenting facts here.

• Most Schools Won't Fit Book: Every Parent's Dilemma And What To do About It
  This book reveals the central problem affecting schools today and provides quick solutions parents and teachers can use immediately.

• A Nurturing Educational Policy Will Solve Every Parent's Dilemma
  An educational policy to ensure schools become nurturing places is presented in the book Every Parent's Dilemma: Why Do We Ignore Schools That Nurture Children? by Don Berg.

Don's Motivation Research: Intrinsic Motivation Research and Other Resources by Don Berg
Don Berg's intrinsic motivation research suggests that two alternative school settings do a better job of maintaining motivation in their students than traditional schools. This page also includes handouts for some workshops.

Site Information and Miscellaneous Pages

• Parent & Professional Development Workshops
  Parent & Professional Development Workshops faciliated for your school commmunity by Attitutor Services.

• Educational Leadership Consulting
  Educational leadership consulting can help you better engage your students, staff, and all other stakeholders in solving your school's biggest challenges.