An educator, who trains other educators to successfully improve both discipline and academic performance among their students, Darlene can help teachers curb time-consuming low-level behaviors before they escalate. Reclaimed class time offers teachers the opportunity to connect with and truly teach their students, and unsurprisingly, administrators also have fewer disciplinary problems to address.

Guess what? Students in this kind of nurturing environment are learning and as happy as everyone else about it!

Darlene’s philosophy about teaching is simple. She agrees with Madeline Hunter: “Kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!” Many think this famous teacher out of UCLA was being too “warm and fuzzy,” but what she meant was you are not going to reach some kids academically until you first reach them emotionally. Do your students know you care about them as people?

Sometimes the subject matter in our classrooms can’t compete with the drama in their lives. The main ingredient missing in a lot of our classrooms today is that vitally important human connection. Darlene points to the research, which is clear. When students know you value them as unique — as a human being, not just another student on your roster — they will work harder for you and challenge you less.

Every year there are new (or revamped) notions about how to work with students, and some of these have value, but oftentimes they turn out to just be more of the same tired propositions that fluff things up, but don’t bring about lasting change. Darlene believes teachers don’t need any more theory or new, trendy programs with catchy names, but rather, they need to be given proven, research-based strategies and applications that can be used immediately. And if a teacher is already using something that works for her (or him), any new tool put in the mix should augment that already successful something! No fluff or cumbersome protocol. Just workable strategies to empower the teacher and add excellence to his (or her) classroom.

In Darlene’s opinion, educators have one of the most difficult jobs in America, having to change hats constantly throughout the school day. Well, if you’re a teacher, you know…your students look to you to fill the complex roles of mom, dad, nurse, counselor, teacher, advisor, judge, jury, lawyer –- just to name a few.

Does it ever feel to you that, besides their shared expectation of your filling all those roles,  the  only thing your students have in common is their age? Darlene gets it. Students come into our schools with different backgrounds, cultures, cognitive abilities, assets, and experiences. The “one size fits all” approach does not work anymore.

Do you know one of the biggest unchallenged assumptions shared by many today about education is that kids are coming to school willing and ready to learn? A fellow educator with you, Darlene believes this is not the case. We have a generation of kids coming to our schools basically un-socialized. Many students are learning behavior and even values from TV shows, video games, social media and a myriad of other influences, and though we didn’t know we were signing up for it, we are in a place in American education where many of our students look to us for guidance, predictability, and structure.

Chances are you agree that, while there’s not much we can do between 4pm and 8am, there’s a lot we can do from 8am to 4pm. Darlene’s mission is to help teachers — you — understand the legitimacy of your authority within the school setting and reclaim lost instructional time as you learn to use common-sense strategies and techniques to reshape your teaching spaces into successful learning environments for your students.