By Dr. Karen Ruth-Jarmon

During the summer of 2016, I had the opportunity to attend a class led by Search Institute about their REACH student motivation research. I was excited for the information and instructional resources but, as I was new to the Harvest Network of Schools, I wasn’t sure how the students would receive it.

As the school year started, it became apparent that time was a precious commodity for our teachers. I could tell right away that implementing REACH Activities and Techniques was going to be a challenge, in light of everything else the school had planned for students. Additionally, as all of my students are of East African descent, I was a little unsure about how they might react to the personal questions included in some of the Anchor Activities.

To take on these initial concerns, our team decided the best way forward would be to divide the REACH work up to make it more manageable and impactful. To free all team members from having to create another lesson, I took on the responsibility of providing PowerPoint presentations teachers could use, either ‘as-is’ or as foundations to be modified based on their and their scholars’ specific needs. The REACH Anchor Activity resources made the creation of these slide presentations fairly simple, and the included activities were easy to set up.

That, it turned out, was the easy part.