DonorsChoose to get my high school students copies of GTD for Teens

ERJ1

Jedi Master
Hi - huge disclaimer to begin - mods, if this is not ok, please lock/take the post down!

I'm a high school teacher in a public school in Chicago and teach a really cool/unique class to 90 freshman students called Freshman Seminar. It's designed by a group called Umoja and it focuses on preparing high school students to be functioning adults! For example, our school year starts with me basically teaching the kids how to use their assignment notebooks and figure out who their counselor is. From there, we work our way through all sorts of awesome and meaningful content to give kids important life skills. For example, we've most recently spent a ton of time discussing the origins of anger, how to de-escalate tough situations, and bullying. Next up will be a unit on healthy choices and we close the year covering social justice and community service.

Students have really gotten a lot out of it and it has put me in a unique position as almost more of a counselor and mentor than a teacher. Kids seek me out for help with life struggles, homework help, and everything in between.

I'm given a lot of latitude in terms of how I present the content even though the curriculum is pre-made. Fridays in particular are up to me to teach whatever I want, play games with the kids, just generally build community in the classroom. It has been about a month or so since I began my GTD journey and I recently discovered GTD for Teens. I was struck with inspiration! My class is the perfect place to share some of these tools and methods. Imagine a scenario in which a large group of high school students are given these tools in 9th grade and can carry them through high school and into college.

I've created a DonorsChoose to try to raise funding to get a set of 90 books to provide to my students and teach them some of the skills within. If it's ok that I post this, the link is here: https://www.donorschoose.org/projec...m_campaign=ifproject&utm_term=teacher_6324154 and if people use the code LIFTOFF when donating, donations are doubled up to $50.

No pressure or big deal at all if you donate or not! I know I'm a relative noob here on the GTD forums, but I've found the method so wonderfully meaningful I'm hoping to share it with my students!

Thanks for reading!
 
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Baumbaum

Registered
Hello Erik, I'm a middle school teacher I've just received a copy of Getting Things Done for Teens: Take Control of Your Life in a Distracting World and started reading it (a weird coincidence, because it was a gift from my personal mental coach who once helped me get back to normal life; I knew nothing about GTD and so far, I can't comment on the effectiveness of the system). Could you please tell me a bit more about the method and how you implement it in the classroom? I'd appreciate if you could share a sample lesson plan, if it's possible. Thanks beforehand!

Stanley Baum
 

Baumbaum

Registered
Hello Erik, I'm a middle school teacher I've just received a copy of Getting Things Done for Teens: Take Control of Your Life in a Distracting World and started reading it (a weird coincidence, because it was a gift from my personal mental coach who once helped me get back to normal life and write my essay fast strategy for personal development; I knew nothing about GTD and so far, I can't comment on the effectiveness of the system). Could you please tell me a bit more about the method and how you implement it in the classroom? I'd appreciate if you could share a sample lesson plan, if it's possible. Thanks beforehand!

Stanley Baum


Just need to figure out how the method works and whether it can be implemented in middle school too. I've also found the downloads of mindsweeps on https://gtdforteens.com/
 

ERJ1

Jedi Master
Hi... well, I would recommend familiarizing yourself with GTD before trying to teach it!

Looks like you're kind of asking me to teach GTD/how it works/effectiveness of the system - that's what the book is all about :O
 
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