Lesson One Company

CONTACT:

306 Dartmouth St.
Boston, MA 02116
(617) 247-2787
www.lessonone.org

Jon Oliver, Founder and Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

Lesson One began in the Hingham schools in 1973, when a young teacher in his first day on the job was punched in the back by a student. The second day she punched him again. The third day the teacher gently held her fist and drew a face on it. The face spoke, and told him that her father had held a gun to her head and her parents were getting a divorce. That experience began a 29-year journey that has been cited by the White House, featured on ABC's World News Tonight and NBC's Dateline, studied and evaluated four times by a professor at the Harvard School of Education, and featured in Parade Magazine--which in two weeks evoked 6,000 calls and letters from all 50 states asking for help.

What has he learned? That one of the greatest impediments to education in schools today is that far too many children and classes are simply out of control, and that this chaos affects not only schools but family life and communities as well; that students cannot learn, teachers cannot teach, and schools cannot educate, unless they are all working full-time on the practical ABCs of living as well as learning: self-control, self-confidence, responsibility, problem-solving, and cooperation. These comprise the "Lesson One" that must be taught from the beginning, starting in pre- and elementary schools, with practical exercises such as "the bubble game," in which the children are lined up and the teacher blows a stream of bubbles in front of them, and the object is to resist the natural urge to touch and pop the bubbles. With this educational strategy, studies have shown that classroom practice and students' behavior dramatically changes, and teachers spend up to 60% more of their (and their students') time, teaching!

The Lesson One Company was created in 1975 to address issues in special education and racial integration in the Boston public schools. Since then Lesson One has developed a basic-skills training program--including a Teacher Guidebook, posters, workbooks for all grade levels, kits of unique teaching toys, games, and children's books. This evolved by 1994 into a "Whole School Model," refined into its present form by 1999, and disseminated to schools and school systems in 20 states. In January 2004, its book "Lesson One: The ABCs of Life," was published and has been endorsed by Bill Cosby; Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children’s Defense Fund; Dr. Alvin Poussaint of Harvard University; Dr. James Comer of Yale University, and many others. Now Lesson One needs donor-investors to help it gear-up for accelerated growth nationwide. If you're interested in changing what ails education, this is for you.

(2002: CULTURE: Education: Formal: School-Related)