Everything you need in a curriculum and more
By Kristin Clark Taylor
“It’s the most important tool that I have.”
Emily Fain-Lynch, a school counselor at Green Magnet Academy in Knoxville, Tennessee, knows a top-notch resource when she sees one.
She is not alone.
“Our entire district uses QuaverReady,” she says. “It’s my primary tool, the first thing I reach for.”
There are lots of reasons Fain-Lynch reaches for QuaverReady, well, so readily.
“What makes it such a valuable resource to me, as a busy school counselor, is that it’s so user-friendly, and it’s so completely compatible with my own style and approach,” she observes.
Fain-Lynch says that once she became completely familiar with the curriculum, she began to customize the lessons and incorporate supplements in a way that reinforces and complements her own counseling approach and style.
She also appreciates the fact that the curriculum is developed with a great deal of forethought and mindful intention.
“The lessons are designed to be adaptable,” she shares, “and the fact that they are ready to go, as they are, is a real time-saver and a highly effective time-management tool.”
“QuaverReady is everything I need and more.”
Empathy in Action
Fain-Lynch is an imaginative and resourceful counselor, using everything at her disposal to teach her students essential readiness skills for school and life.
She points to QuaverReady’s “Empathy in Action” lesson as one of the most impactful in the curriculum, particularly for her fifth-grade students.
“The content is just great, so I teach the lesson as-is!” she says, adding that she was recently able to introduce a project-based learning activity of her own to help demonstrate how to bring empathy into action, using Quaver’s “Empathy in Action” lesson as the foundation and springboard.
She paints a picture of how the empathy project unfolded.
“I had each student create a monument or memorial to someone who has used their empathy on a large scale,” she explains.
Some of her students chose historical figures, while others selected athletes and entertainers. The common denominator was compassion – every figure they selected had to have demonstrated a tremendous amount of compassion and empathy to others.
Then they got even more creative.
Fain-Lynch explains how they used cardboard boxes, bags, paper rolls, glue guns – “whatever we could get our hands on!” — to create their “empathy” monuments and memorials.
The project, she says proudly, was “a huge hit.”
Fain-Lynch says that QuaverReady’s cross-curricular applications also became quite evident while the students were working on this empathy project.
For this assignment, her students were required to conduct a significant amount of research on the historical figures they selected, which also helped them in Social Studies class because it strengthened their connection to other cultures and societies.
Even the social studies teacher could tell that Fain-Lynch’s students had this strong connection and deep understanding.
“The lesson really brings empathy alive for my students,” she says. “It opened their eyes and allowed them to understand empathy is a deeply personal way, on their own level.”
And isn’t that what empathy is all about?
Retention, Research … and Results
Fain-Lynch says she is able to use QuaverReady effectively across different grade levels and that “the retention of information has been very noticeable.”
“I’ve kept a number of my students for several years, and as they grow, they are able to pull these lessons with them,” she says.
“This allows them to build on and reinforce the skills that they’ve learned over time.”
The curriculum was designed with these kinds of retention efforts in mind, of course – to support young learners with content that grows in sophistication as students mature.
QuaverReady’s effectiveness is also grounded in research.
A comprehensive study confirms QuaverReady’s impact on student outcomes, supporting its use as an evidence-based curriculum. Take a look:
Are you ready to bring QuaverReady to your school?
Visit QuaverEd.com/Ready to make it happen!
Kristin Clark Taylor is an author and editor.
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