Rowman & Littlefield Publishers The Solution-Focused Educator: Breakthrough Strategies for Teachers and School Administrators to Reframe Their Mindsets

The Solution Focused Educator is intended for classroom teachers and school based administrators at all levels. The content serves as a roadmap for how educators can reframe their mindset to tackle the current challenges in schools. Examples are given throughout the book to demonstrate how you can reduce stress by learning new mental strategies that shift problem solving away from needing others to change. The goal is for teachers and school leaders to better understand how to reshape their preconditioned responses to challenges by closing the gap that exists between the experiences they have on the job and their reactive nature to them. The book captures a unique twist under the topic of motivation and how to reframe one's attitude towards the typical discomforts faced by today's educator. The writing aims to establish a deeper understanding about the intimate relationship between problem identification and the anxiety that ensues within this psychological dyad. Utilizing the shape of a triangle, the author consistently makes the mindset concepts easy to understand. He utilizes this shape as a strong representational pattern that clearly illustrates how educators can, mentally, diagram problematic issues, outline their emotional reactions to them, and create a new attitude of solvability. Review In life, there are things you cannot change. But one thing you have complete control over is your attitude. Todd Franklin's new book The Solution-Focused Educator gives insight and concrete ways to govern your attitude. By using a personal development model, which Todd created, you will increase your opportunities for greater satisfaction on the job, with your family and your friends.--Arlene Randall, principal, Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia We live in a society where the force of rapid innovation demands a reconceptualization of the purpose and function of public education, and as the role of the teacher evolves to meet this need, the challenge of shifting fixed mindsets looms. Most educators don't disagree with the "what" and "why" of this change, but many struggle to actualize the "how" in light of all that they are expected to do and accomplish. By building on principles of brain and behavioral sciences, author Todd Franklin in The Solution-Focused Educator presents an actionable strategy for negotiating the emotional conflicts that can stifle and suppress. Through several case studies, teachers and those who support them are invited to connect with their array of daily demands through a lens of empowerment, where harnessing emotional responses to stimulants creates the conditions necessary for growth. This text offers a metacognitive routine that, through practice, can lead to the "how" that is necessary for education practices to meet the task of the 21st century.--Christie Day, educational specialist, Learning Innovations, former middle school teacher, Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia Todd Franklin's book, The Solution-Focused Educator, is an enlightening sourcebook for teachers and administrators who want to further develop a growth mindset that leverages these new skills and attitude to best serve their students, colleagues and parents. Referring to a number of experts in the field of human motivation and mindset innovation, Todd brings educators through a step-by-step guide for reframing their own mindsets for the better. In plain language, Todd utilizes personal development triangles to provide educators with tangible, real-world solutions to everyday experiences in a school setting. He shows teachers and school leaders how to re-assess their own habitual tendencies to problem solving and reshape those thought patterns for a more solution focused approach, in their quest to be most successful, in their work in all of our schools.--Pat Murphy, EdD, superintendent, Arlington Public Schools, 2015 Superintendent of the Year, Virginia Association of School Superintendents About the