The Hajjar School has joined a nationwide community as a "Lesson One" school. For the past two years our children and staff have received training by Jon Oliver, author of "Lesson One: The ABC's of Life" To give you a sense of the program the following has been excerpted from the book "Lesson One: The ABC's of Life" by Jon Oliver and Michael Ryan © 2004.

Every day we face the challenges and joys and the difficulties of living, working, studying and playing with others. How do you deal with people filled with rage? How do you stop beating yourself up for failures when you know you've done your best? How do you handle every day pressures of work and home? How do you learn to believe in yourself and work out your problems with thinking, instead of turbulent raw emotion? How do you handle life's challenges and help children handle them as well?

Where do you find the answers to these questions? Schools teach reading, writing and arithmetic. But what about reality? What about life? If you don't learn about life's demands at home or at school, then how can your life become your own?

There's an answer to these questions: Lesson One. This unique program presents children and adults with a sequence of skills that change their lives. These are skills, among them self-control, self-confidence, responsibility, thinking and problem solving, and cooperation, that we all need to be productive and happy. Most of us understand intuitively that we need these skills, but not all of us learn how to aquire and apply these skills..

"Lesson One: The ABC's of Life" is a practical, understandable, sequential program for adults and kids that provides a time-tested program that has already changed the lives of thousands of children, teachers and parents around the country. Of the program, a parent says, "It has been very comforting for me personally as a parent to know that my daughter has those tools, these skills, her self-control and responsibility, and self confidence. These aren't just terms that she's learned that she's going to forget; they're tools that she has internalized. She can now bring them with her. She'll have them when she goes off to college. They'll stay with her forever, just like the alphabet. You don't just learn them one day and just forget them the next. You learn them and apply them to new situations."

Children and adults need Lesson One's critical skills to successfully and peacefully navigate their way through life. But expecting children to exercise self-control and take responbility for their own actions without knowing basic life skills is like asking them to write a book report before they have learned to read.

There are no supernatural powers or magic potions. The ABC's of Life is a rational, well-thought-out program that identifies the most important life skill and teaches them logically and in sequence, each one building on the one before it. The program receives glowing reviews because it approaches the issue of teaching skills in concise, intelligible manner. More to the point, it makes learning these skills fun.

The ABC's of Life connect to every aspect of a child's existence and, in the process, connects to adults by teaching the skills of self-control, self-confidence, responsibility, problem solving, and cooperation in ways that are accessible to children and adults alike. These skills are as basic as the alphabet; they must be treated equally important. Just as our children crave food to nourish their bodies, they too need these skills to enrich their lives.

For more information on this program, please go to the Lesson One Website.