The Strength-based Approach for Vulnerable Students

Venturing Together: Empowering Students to Succeed

In Venturing Together, Bill Rossi gives you the tools you need to establish trust with vulnerable students so you can venture into learning together.

Read Venturing Together to learn how to:

  • accommodate students' unique learning abilities through mutli-dimensional teaching
  • create an environment of inclusion
  • acknowledge students for who they are
  • foster attitudes of mutual respect
  • empower students towards self-education
  • keep vulnerable/marginalized students engaged and growing
  • provide the architecture for directed, purposeful creativity

Rossi's creative teaching approach cuts beneath students' challenges to ignite the life force -- or, to be exact, the creative spirit. This empowers students to develop the essential skills and abilities necessary for real learning ... what Rossi calls The Principles of Empowerment. These skills include:

- The student's relationship to himself: Ability to concentrate; Level of motivation; Self-confidence to succeed; Ability to tolerate frustration; Consistency of effort.

- The student's relationship to the teacher: Listens to the teacher; Understands directions; Communicates needs; Communicates ideas.

- The students relationship to skills development: Shows respect for environment and equipment; Shows willingness to try new steps; Displays freedom in self-expression; Recognizes patterns; Shows ability to build on previous learning; Incorporates elements of the skill.

The approach is available for anyone wanting to improve their ability to access and utilize their creativity.

Venturing Together contains two books. Look-insides for Parts I and II are below.

Book/Part I - Fanning an Inner Flame: A Case for the Effectiveness of the Creative Arts in Human Services and Education
  • discusses how early African Americans dug deep into the arts to survive the adversity of slavery
  • pinpoints why creativity is an essential element for empowering at risk students
Book/Part II - Enlivening the Creative Spirit: A Strength-Based Educational and Mentoring Approach using the Creative Arts
  • describes the essential qualities and principles needed for a healthy mentoring relationship
  • describes the essential qualities, principals and environment required for dynamic strength-based teaching
  • provides specific approaches and orientations for effective strength-based teaching

Reviews

  • Wander de C. Braga, MD
    By providing the tools to reach a person's underlying spirit, or essence, Bill Rossi's educational approach enables teachers to bring forth aspects of students' being that truly humanize them.
    Wander de C. Braga, MD
    Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
  • Elinor A. Graham MD, MPH, Medical Director
    In my 25 years as a pediatrician I have never seen another approach that turns around youths' lives as well as this one does.
    Elinor A. Graham MD, MPH, Medical Director
    Children and Teens clinic, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA
  • James Harvey, Senior Fellow
    Bill Rossi reminds us that young people cannot grow up complete unless art, music and creativity are part of their lives, and demonstrates how to bring out the best in students with specific instructional approaches encouraging mentoring, strength-based teaching, motivation, and putting students first. What he demonstrates is that effective education is … about encouraging young people’s innate love of learning.
    James Harvey, Senior Fellow
    Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington; co-author, A Legacy of Learning
  • This volume provides valuable, specific tools for anyone wanting to creatively enhance their ability to teach or mentor. Bill’s approach is very effective.
    Kathryn Gerbino, Ph.D.
    Assistant District Superintendent of Instruction, Capital Region BOCES, NY
  • Veronica Jenkins
    Venturing Together was amazing, for me. It was inspirational and has a huge out-of-the-box focus. Here in our educational system it’s like we’re in a bubble – everyone’s inside a bubble – and what Bill Rossi is doing is outside the box. It’s a huge vision! -
    Veronica Jenkins
    Administrative Manager, Chester County Family Academy, West Chester, PA (Pennsylvania Charter School)
  • Venturing Together provides the ground for student and teacher to work and play together, and serves as a springboard to understanding and experiencing the student's emotional and social world. In this context, creativity represents communication as symbolic language, giving form to feelings and thoughts. What's really important is that the purpose here is not just to develop a skill, but also to develop relationship and companionship. This makes it ideal for educational, artistic, and therapeutic purposes.
    Marika Cutler Moore
    MSW, Co-Author, Developmental Play Therapy in Clinical Social Work
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