Introduction

Little Robert (not his real name) was slightly built and small for his age. Not a day would go by without a confrontation of some type with the other students in his class and with older students on the playground. Robert was not only feisty, but he could also actually be called mean. Robert never met an altercation that he did not want to be a part of. Being sent to the office was just part of Little Robert’s daily school routine. While the teachers and other staff members were trying to figure out what to do with Little Robert, he thought that being sent to the principal’s office was an opportunity to visit his friend the principal. It didn’t occur to him that the reason he got to visit the principal so often was because he was in trouble for misbehaving. Little Robert, like so many students since the pandemic, was going through a social/emotional adjustment post pandemic. Because of isolation he had missed out on learning many of the social skills he would need to survive and thrive in school, or life in general. Being a little 1st grader who had not been in school for almost two years, Little Robert did not benefit from the pre-school or kindergarten routine that most students go through once they start school. He was now in the first grade but lacked the understanding of the social cues and social awareness expected of other first graders. While Little Robert’s situation might seem isolated, he isn’t the only young learner experiencing what he is going through. The fact is that many of  his classmates weere going through the same struggles as Little Robert, but they had better self- control. Fortunately for Robert he attended a school that had the InspireSuccess mentoring program. With help from the program, he established a caring connection with a mentor and his behavior, especially self-control and listening, began to improve. By third grade he was at grade level and no longer going to the principal’s office for bad behavior. How can we help all the Little Robert’s of the world to learn, grow and interact better with others? That is our compelling why!

Study Problem

There is a big challenge facing the United States in that many children are not doing well in school and many parents are losing confidence in the schools. They don’t feel the schools are safe or are performing as well as they should. For example, the Center for Disease Control has stated that 1 in 6 children in the US aged 2-8 years has a mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder (CDC, 2023) In addition, the 2023 NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) indicates that overall school performance is declining, despite more resources being allocated to solve the problem. Beside the challenges caused by poverty, the isolation and disrupted learning due to the COVID pandemic has added to the growing gap between where students should be in their educational progress and where they are. The pre-existing gap between high and low socioeconomic groups is not closing but growing wider. For all groups achievement scores are dropping in reading, math, and in general knowledge. The Gates Foundation admits most of their extensively funded strategies, such as Common Core, have had no discernible beneficial impact, and maybe have even contributed to poor performance. The prestigious Pioneer Institute out of Boston has published a recent research paper that is entitled “Common Core Catastrophe” which is based on its book Drilling Through the Common Core” (2015) and documents the dismal results. There is a need for concern. These students are the future. They are family members, future employees, future leaders, professionals, and members of our community.

A 2021 study of 17,000 young people from the University of New South Wales in Australia, indicates another problem. It demonstrated that in the last two years students have seen a dramatic decrease in well-being, in their ability to regulate emotions and impulses, are less able to empathize with others, less able to handle stress, and are less tolerant of views not their own. The researchers blamed these alarming results on too much use of social media, so that students now experience much of their social interaction online. As a result of this they lack social cues such as body language and tone of voice. Similar research in the USA also indicated that social networks have replaced communication in person to a large degree with a result a drop in relationship skills (Twenge 2017). There is a growing body of research indicating that the increasing use of social media by students is having an increasingly deleterious impact on brain development and the overall mental health of young people.

The Solution: Inspire Success

Are there any workable solutions to this worldwide dilemma? We believe InspireSuccess provides a solution that is affordable, easily implemented, and has proven to get results. It is now being used in ten public and private schools with 323 students, by home school parents, and by parents wanting to enhance what their children are learning in the school setting. It can be effective in any one-to-one setting where a child can interact and learn. It also can function in small-group settings.

As Michele Borba says in her best-selling, research-based book about thriving students imagine how our play-deprived, digital-driven, stressed out, running-on-empty students would relish classrooms based on curiosity instead of one-size-fits-all presentations. InspireSuccess is designed to provide the tools and setting to do this either in one-to-one settings or in small group interactions.

For the first five years of its history the program was called MentorSuccess™ and has been expanded to ten schools. We will be restructuring this original program, to include some concepts from our earlier award-winning mentoring program called HOSTS (Help One Student to Succeed) and it will be referred to as InspireSuccess throughout the rest of this document. The program provides structured mentoring for children in kindergarten through 3rd grade. The goal is to create caring connections that inspire success in children. It is a learning application designed to teach children success skills and what research labels protective shield skills. The program uses carefully curated award-winning literature and games to teach and reinforce success skills. These skills are a blend of the seven essential life skills that every child needs, according to research by Ellen Galinsky (2010) in her book Mind in the Making and by Michele Borba (2021) in her book Thrivers: The surprising reasons why some kids struggle while others shine. These skills include self-confidence, self-control, expressing empathy, optimism, decision making, perseverance (grit) and other traits that are essential for a successful, productive life, and good behavior at school. A 50-year longitudinal research study first conducted by Werner (1989) indicates that these concepts, when taught by mentors, or what she called champions, and applied by the student serve as protective shield skills. They helped children from the toughest environments overcome adversity and develop resiliency and a growth mindset.

The InspireSuccess program uses structured ‘success tool kits’ with easy-to-follow instructions to create thee caring connections that inspire success for children in life, leadership, and relationships. The process helps build bridges to lifelong mental wellness and preventive mental health by teaching these vital leadership success and relationship skills at such an early age. This is in response to people asking why wait so late to teach skills that build success? This is done by engaging students and parents/mentors in a structured, customized, and focused one-on-one learning experience. A customized learning pathway is produced by our unique and proprietary digital tool called the Relationship Connection Generator (RCG). This learning pathway matches materials to a student’s reading and age level and allows them to explore self-identified interest areas that ignite their curiosity and passion. This maximizes the magical moment when a student has that ‘aha’ experience that ignites their desire to learn. This user-friendly and fun approach has already achieved remarkable results, motivating over 320 children over the last three years to engage, learn, and succeed. We have proof of concept that InspireSuccess provides an ideal way for parents and/or volunteers from the surrounding community to forge productive relationships with students that enrich the lives of the students and mentors alike. InspireSuccess inspires transformation one life at a time by offering educators and/or parents’ the highest quality and appropriate materials to address behavioral challenges as well as help successful students expand their abilities. We see InspireSuccess as being the first step in creating a suite of learning apps that will revolutionize learning by inspiring the child’s curiosity and passion for learning.

The program builds bridges to mental wellness by connecting students with caring, highly trained volunteer mentors and/or school staff, or parents. The materials are also used to teach proper schoolroom behavior and interpersonal behavior by being available to classroom teachers in what we call the connected classroom. These success skills are based on leadership and child development research and are all carefully tailored to a younger audience. They include behavioral areas such as self-control, bullying, collaboration, and conflict resolution. With the right structure, and customized to the student’s needs, we can focus on inspiring learning in life and relationships and developing a growth mindset. We use our unique Relationship Connection Generator (RCG) software to design the customized success toolkits and learning pathways to help propel each student into a successful learning experience. The success toolkits have easy to follow directions and include research-based critical thinking and creativity generating questions to help guide student learning. Everything is customized to the student’s reading level and curiosity areas so the mentor/parent can engage the student and adapt to thestudent’s learning style and pace. Targeting the “sweet spot” of learning, InspireSuccess creates a beneficial mentoring relationship, maximizing the moment, while providing structured and focused learning goals. The result is an amazing educational experience that we call the “most reachable, most teachable, ‘aha’ moment” that ignites the student’s desire to learn and helps form bonds with the mentor and child.

Essential Elements of InspireSucess

An essential element of the InspireSuccess program is our inclusion of the child’s curiosity gap first described by Lowenstein in 1994. He describes this as the gap between what a child knows and what they really, really want to know. This knowledge gap causes mental pain, or an itch, and the student feels a need to close it. Subsequent research on the curiosity gap indicates it is a motivator of learning, essential in decision-making, and crucial for healthy development (Kidd, C. & Hayden, B., 2015) In a series of studies it was found that curiosity enhanced intelligence as highly curious students aged three to 11 improved their intelligence scores 12 points more than their less curious students over the same period of time. It also increased their level of perseverance or grit, and it produced deeper engagement in learning (Kashdan, T., & et.al, 2018).

According to Michele Borba curiosity also has a multiplier effect (Borba ,2021).

“Simply put curiosity amplifies children’s talents, strengths, performance and potential. Curiosity plus self-confidence increases openness to take healthy risks and explore. Curiosity plus empathy opens and strengthens relationships. Curiosity plus perseverance deepens learning.” (p. 168).

This is why InspireSuccess starts the mentoring

process by determining what students are deeply curious about. Once the student is motivated to learn the mentor’s job becomes much easier.

According to other researchers curiosity opens children up to possibilities and inspires them to learn both inside and outside the classroom. It has been proven that children with greater curiosity are much better performers academically than less curious students (Renninger, et.al. 2018). A meta-analysis of over two hundred studies involving 50,000 students reported in the Association for Psychological Science (2019) demonstrates curiosity is at least as important as intelligence in determining academic performance.

How do you determine what a student is curious about? You ask them! The InspireSuccess program uses a proprietary curiosity inventory that asks students a series of thought-provoking questions about their hobbies, dreams, and especially what they are curious about. This is an activity they engage in with their mentors over the first two weeks of mentoring and is a crucial part in building a solid relationship.

The curiosity areas identified by students are then keyed into our Relationship Connection Generator (RCG) and along with success skills they and their parents and teachers feel are needed, this links them to books and carefully selected games that have been identified to help them achieve their goals.

Another key component to the InspireSuccess program involves developing grit or perseverance in students. This concept of grit is similar but not the same as curiosity, as Angela Duckworth indicates in her book on developing grit. She says the two ingredients of developing grit are determining what a person’s level of perseverance or self-control is and what they have a passion for. In a study with Martin Seligman (2005) they found that the secret ingredient for student success was self-control or willingness to not quit (Perseverance). It proved to be twice as important to academic success as the student’s intelligence level (Duckworth & Seligman (2005). This led Duckworth to introduce a term called grit to the discussion about student performance. She developed a grit scale to measure the ability to stick to a task or long-range goals. She found this was a stronger predictor of academic success than any other measure, including IQ and SAT scores (Duckworth, 2016).

How does the InspireSuccess program help students develop self-control/grit? It is through a series of recipe cards and discussion points the students review with the mentor. The recipe cards describe what the trait is, why the trait is so important to learning and success, what are some steps they can take to practice the trait, and then includes a curated piece of literature that describes a character practicing the trait of self-discipline. The mentor and student are also encouraged to engage in discussions about how the trait has been exhibited in the literature or their life, or that of a favorite character. This is not a one-time exercise but continues to be a theme for the school year and is kept in the student’s toolkit for regular review. In addition, our mentors are all trained before starting in the program how to properly praise students for effort as well as results.

Another component that has helped InspireSuccess students is that they are encouraged to imitate mentors as they practice new traits. This is especially true when they play board games. An often-heard phrase in our mentor center is ‘sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.’ Many students have not had the experience of playing board games, reading instructions, taking turns, and playing by the rules. It can be hard at first—but proves to be valuable in creating behavior changes and self-control in students. We train our mentors to expect that they will be watched closely by the students and how critical this learning by observation can be.

Imitation accelerates learning and multiplies learning opportunities. It is faster than
individual discovery and safer than trial-and error learning (Meltzoff, 2008).

This quote has proven true and reinforces the value of including games in our student learning process.

Florida Department of Education Resiliency Initiative

One of the ventures we are watching closely is the Florida Department of Education Resiliency Initiative. This effort emphasizes ten student areas for proficiency, closely following the traits proposed by Galinsky and then Borba. The ten resiliency standards are grit, perseverance, gratitude, personal responsibility, volunteerism, critical thinking, problem solving, empathy, citizenship and honesty. They are teaching these standards under what they are calling creating a culture of resiliency. The Florida State Board of Education responded to a legislative act that is calling for inclusion of these standards across all curriculums. They also want to emphasize mentoring. Such actions, and a similar move in Texas, leads InspireSuccess to believe the program is in the right lane to be a leader in revolutionizing instruction to children.

Results and Conclusion

Because of the timing of this paper the results on the pre and post behavioral evaluation we use are not available for 2023-2024. Over the 2022- 2023 academic year, data collected from our pre/post behavioral assessment survey sent to teachers with students enrolled in the program indicated that 65% of students that were mentored showed significant behavioral improvements in the classroom within the school year, the remaining 35% showed some progress and benefitted from the program. In addition to the pre/post an end-of-year evaluation was administered to teachers, parents, mentors, and students. Feedback indicated:

• 100% of teachers would recommend the program to other teachers.
• 100% of parents would recommend to other parents.
• 100% of mentors would recommend to other mentors—and were coming back.
• 100% of student

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