Bill Page Resume
Bill Page is eminently qualified with the experience, knowledge, expertise, research and success to offer fresh, effective and proven, staff development programs that guarantee increased achievement for all students including those most at-risk.
Bill served as originator, program director, teacher trainer, and demonstration teacher for Project Enable — a six-year research project of the Central Midwestern Regional Educational Laboratory (CEMREL) funded by the U.S. Office of Education. The program, implemented in St. Louis Missouri and Nashville, Tennessee, was extended and jointly funded by Peabody College, The Kennedy Child Study Center, Nashville Schools and Model Cities.
Page is known nationally for his staff development programs and presentations. He is also known for his remarkable classroom success in closing the achievement gap between successful students and at-risk, school-alienated, learning disabled and “trouble-making” students — in heterogeneous groupings in regular classes and regular schools. He taught in reform schools, inner city schools and elite suburban schools. Bill taught 14 different courses at 86 universities including 26 consecutive summer courses at the University of California at Riverside, San Diego, Irvine, Santa Barbara and Davis. Armed with the lessons he learned about “kids who have trouble in school” and with his humor, clarity and commonsense, Page has informed, inspired and motivated more than 100,000 teachers — and administrators — at hundreds of seminars and conferences in more than 2,000 school districts throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Page, who has lived in Nashville since 1969, is the author of the book, At-Risk Students, which has been revised in a second edition released in 2009. In the book, he discusses the problems facing failing students, “who can’t, don’t and won’t cooperate”, and then reveals how to overcome these obstacles to learning. The solution, he states, is to recognize and accept student misbehavior as defense mechanisms used to cover their embarrassment and incompetence; and to deal with the causes rather than the symptoms by entering into a democratic relationship, where the students assume responsibility for their own learning. Through 30 vignettes, teachers see the hapless students through the eyes of a fellow teacher, whose success in the classroom with these students made him a sought-after speaker in school districts across America.
Above all, Bill cares about kids. He cares about their lives outside of and beyond school. He says, “Not every child has a home, living parents, a religion or people who care, but everyone goes to school. It is the one experience common to all. We have the opportunity to help them develop productive, satisfying lives and to become good citizens. We must not fail them by failing them.
“To the world you might be just one person, but to one person you just might be the world.”
Bill Page, a farm boy who graduated from a one-room school forged a 46-year classroom career teaching middle school “troublemakers”. For the past 26 years he has taught teachers across the nation to teach the lowest achieving students with his proven premise, “Failure is the choice and fault of schools — not the students.”
Bill Page is a classroom teacher. For 46 years, he has patrolled the halls, responded to the bells and struggled with innovations. He has had his share of lunchroom duty, playground duty and bus duty. Bill recently finished his forty-sixth year of teaching.
He has had remarkable success in closing the gap between successful students and those at-risk. His specialty is school-alienated students, learning disabled and those labeled troublemakers, deprived, delinquent, rebellious and at-risk. He prefers working with problem students in heterogeneous groupings in regular classes and regular schools.
Bill has spoken to hundreds of thousands of teachers in staff development programs throughout North America. He taught extension courses for twenty-six consecutive summers at the University of California at Riverside, San Diego, Irvine, Santa Barbara and Davis, and has taught fourteen different methods courses for teachers at eighty-six universities.
As a speaker, Bill does not present himself as an "expert," instead, he offers his testimonial as a classroom teacher who discovered and developed his own educational philosophy and created his own effective strategies. Bill's personal message gets at the heart of professional attitude, personal responsibility and individual teacher initiative for increasing effectiveness and increasing the achievement of all students.
Bill Page
222 Wheeler Ave.
Nashville, TN 37211
(615) 833-1086
billpage@bellsouth.net
“I want to thank Master Teacher Bill Page for giving me, more than 30
years ago, the opportunity to clarify how I would like to see teachers and
students working together. I talk about him all over the world. Whenever I
speak of teachers and education, I tell people about Bill Page!”
--Marshall Rosenberg, Author, Life Enriching Education
Rosenberg Center for Non-Violent Communication
“This is a remarkable, insightful, attitude-changing collection. It is the
‘pebble thrown into the pond’ and there is no telling how far the ripples
will travel. Experts might speculate that it is more likely a tsunami than a
‘rippler.’ I’m waiting for the second title which, when paired with this book,
will create a tidal wave!”
--Dr. Edward C. Frierson, Past President
International Association of Children with Learning Disabilities
“Bill Page is one of the best models of an educational leader I have known.
He took a group of the lowest achievers in the University City School District
in St. Louis County and saw the students quickly begin to learn, develop
socially, enjoy school, rate their teachers higher, advance more than a
year’s grade level in academic progress, and begin to accept responsibility
for their own learning.”
--John G. Mitchell, Author, Re-Visioning Educational Leadership
“Bill Page has written a wonderfully challenging, humorous and helpful
book about working with ‘at-risk students.’ Providing insights into ‘those
kids who can’t, won’t, or don’t learn,’ he has done what ivory-tower theorists
have not done—provide insight and understanding into the minds, souls,
hearts and cognitive structure of students who struggle and fail.”
--Mike Shaughnessy, Senior Columnist
Education/News.Org, #1 On-line News Source
Quotes from the Book
Unlike other books on the subject, Bill Page explores the diminished lives of the thousands of students in our schools humiliated, flunked, retained, and "forced out". creating a student who because s/he is a failure in school is destined to become a failure in life and a contributor to the achievement crisis in America.
Bill recreates in the reader the feelings of powerlessness, shame, embarrassment, anger, frustration and simmering hostility toward the "normal" classroom, the "mandatory" school environment, the "distant" powers-that-be, and the "stuff" that is being "shoved down their throat."
The notorious misbehavior of at-risk students is a defensive reaction to the mistreatment and shame they experience in a traditional classroom for which they are unprepared. The vignettes show educators how to respond to the causes of at-risk behavior rather than react to the symptoms.
Chronic failure is a source of pain and embarrassment for at-risk students. To cover their pain and embarrassment, students
Until teachers understand that failure and the embarrassment are underlying causes of misbehavior. the that causes defensive ploys as a cover-up, they will contribute to the problem and continue the punishment-retaliation cycle of at-risk kids desperately defending their dignity; kids who can’t help misbehaving out of fear, embarrassment, and defensiveness.
When an estimated 15 million students flunk for the year, everyone in the nation feels the failure, its costs, and its negative impact on families and society. Few adults start a life of crime; it starts among “school losers” unprepared to make an adequate, legitimate living.
Teachers learned that failing students instead of teaching them was acceptable and expected. WRONG! Failure simply got rid of the student not the cause of the problem. Failure causes misbehavior rather than misbehavior causing failure. The alternative to failing kids is teaching them
A surprising and uncommon perspective is, “When one student flunks, it’s a personal and family tragedy; when 15 million flunk, it’s just educational policy.” Teacher/Author, Bill Page reveals that at-risk students’ misbehavior is defensive, not offensive and can only be reduced by a change in the school’s deleterious policies, misperception, and mishandling of the problem.
Bill shows that student failure is not only the schools fault and problem; he shows further that the failure cannot be ameliorated, prevented, remedied, or changed by the student. Only the school can change student failure. The students can’t do it. They are too busy hiding their pain and embarrassment, and fighting for their dignity and worth.
Unfortunately, the schools have no idea what to do about failing students. They have never had any policy other than flunking and retention. They have not acknowledged any other possibilities including “teaching them” instead of failing them.
The author shows that classroom misbehaviors are actually symptoms. The failure problem lies primarily in the meaningless and inappropriate school curriculum.
In the chapter “Remediation Doesn’t Work, At All, Ever”, I show how attitude makes the difference in at-risk student learning and what teachers can do about it.
“I had a kid who wouldn’t stay in his seat—So I assigned him two seats. He was no longer a problem: he was either in one seat or the other, or going between.”
“If it doesn’t work, stop doing it. Show me a teacher who says: “I’ve told him a thousand times…! And I’ll show you which is the slow learner.”
“The most unfair thing we do in school, is try to be fair. There is nothing more unfair than the equal treatment of unequals. It is the goal that is equal not the strategies to reach the goal.”
“It was the old story of schools taking credit for successful students, but blaming the unsuccessful students for their own failure.”
By taking Murphy, a nineteen-year-old who did absolutely nothing in class, even say hello in response to a teacher greeting, and reversing the role by making him a tutor of at-risk elementary students, it transformed his life. He became an outgoing, happy, helpful, active kid interested in participating and learning.
This Book takes the “Risk” Out of Students At-Risk.
Changing Knowledge into Teacher Action
At-Risk Students, provides, “Insights into kids, who can’t, don’t, or won’t even try to learn, cooperate, follow procedures, or behave.”
A New Book dedicated to the millions of students, and their teachers, who struggle with the “At-Risk Problem” every day.
Virtually every teacher in every classroom in every school has an “At-Risk Student” problem.
The National At-Risk Education Network, web site uses the slogan “The Nations’ #1 Problem. I have not heard the at-risk dilemma acknowledged publicly by any expert or official; but the fact is I know of no one who claims they know what to do. Judging by their actions there are only four actions schools actually take: 1.) Flunk problem kids, forcing them to drop out to a dismal future at age 16; 2.) Create a “dumping ground” alternative school and special education classes, to keep them out of the test score count; 3.) Lie about the number of imperiled students in their schools; and 4.) Exert tighter controls and harsher punishments on the at-risk victims, on their parents, and on their teachers.
Dramatic, compelling, and sobering accounts of the frustration, discomfiture, and defensive ploys of students at-risk are revealed through the eyes and heart of teachers who view with new eyes, understands failure, and its repercussions from the student’s standpoint, and feels their pain and misery. Failure is never and option! The alternative to flunking students is teaching them.
The New edition is ideal for Faculty Focus Groups.
Here Is a List of Ideas for Teacher Reflection:
- Thirty-one Independent Articles designed to stimulate classroom teachers’ reflection, discussion, comparison, and debate
- Understanding that at-risk student’s misbehavior, which every teacher copes with daily is a symptom of a problem, not the cause of the problem.
- Corrective approach considers attitude, failure identity, the classroom as a community of learners, and ideas for active participation of every class member .
- Solutions for at-risk problems begin with individual classroom teacher initiative and plan. The kids can’t solve the problem.
- At-Risk Students, shows the at-risk problem is the fault and problem of the schools. But, until the bureaucracy accepts the problem; it belongs to teachers.
- Misbehavior does not cause failure; failure causes misbehavior. Ways to reduce failure and ways to compensate for and avoid failing grades and failure.
- Teacher-Student relationship is key to changing the plight of At-Risk Kids. The book offers a list of teacher behaviors for improving the relationship.
- Elements that can resolve the at-risk problem are these: understanding, empathy, attitude, feelings, acceptance, involvement, and responsibility.
- Understanding, empathizing, and acknowledging At-Risk Student’s pain-based discomfiture, limited alternatives, and underlying motivation.
- Behaviors of clowning, apathy, hostility, bravado, defiance are used by students to cover hide and deny their inability, incompetence, and ignorance.
At-Risk: Students whom teachers cannot teach, control, motivate or interest using traditional techniques, prescribed curriculum, predetermined schedule, and preplanned level of instruction.
At Risk: Students whose parents are too immature themselves to guide wisely; too diminished by poverty to nurture; too far from opportunity to offer hope. Kids too far below grade-level to comprehend lessons; too far behind in prerequisite knowledge to acquire new information; too demoralized to care, or too embarrassed to acknowledge a problem.
At-Risk: Students whose failure, embarrassment, and wounded ego, cause desperate, self-destructive, defensive behavior instead of learning. Their misbehavior doesn’t cause failure. Failure causes their misbehavior.