September 11 - the day the world changed and Strategies for Success was born

Ten years ago today, my principal announced that our country was at war. I had just started teaching my brand new Strategies for Success program, the one I had asked to create after one of my students had taken his life after being bullied. I had a TV in my classroom and I turned it on, just in time to watch the towers fall. Like the rest of the world, we were stunned.

We stayed in school the entire day with a faculty meeting to follow. The principal had called me in to ask me to write up some strategies to share with teachers so that they could work with students in the days to follow. Although I had studied my material for years prior to creating the course,I felt I was too new at this to help, but of course I had to try. It was a daunting task to come up with the words to share with everyone. But I did my best...and the lessons in the course began to resonate throughout the school the next day, that year...and still to this day.

I think Strategies for Success helped my students, my school's students and the faculty cope with the new life in America. I know I was grateful to have learned the lessons in the course from the masters - both in print and in person. Knowing the material in Strategies got me through what was the most difficult time in my life.

You see, not only was I teaching a new program that September day, I also owned a flight school at our major airport, a flight school that would be shut down for weeks as the FBI sifted through our records for information about terrorist hi-jackers. And did I mention that my wonderful business partner had recently passed away not leaving a will? And that one of my customers had died in a plane crash on September 9 and one of my planes had crashed in Maine on September 10 (both pilots survived without a scratch gratefully)?

September 11 changed our lives. The lessons changed lives too...and continue to do so 10 years later back in my old school and several schools around the country. I hope you never have to deal with all I did at that time but I do know that these lessons are here for you and your students... should you ever need them.

With gratitude to those who taught me, those who shared, and with great sadness to all we lost on that terrible day...