Poinciana Schools Quotes

“Greatness begins with the active pursuit of improvement.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, The Wealth Reference Guide: An American Classic

“I see the most effective teacher being the one who facilitates learning in the same way a gardener facilitates growth, as opposed to the one who is just giving instruction.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., Principles of a Poinciana School

“Teaching is about helping students to cultivate talents, foster understanding, and develop skills.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“Rules and consequences are not the best tools for classroom management. Giving students goals and rewards is more effective. It’s about putting systems in place that actively incentivize good behavior and passively decentivize bad behavior. In this way, as a teacher you can spend less time on managing behaviors and more time on educating and leading.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“Students need to be continually exposed to content that is slightly more advanced than their comprehension. This is how minds grow - by having to reach beyond present capability. This is how everything grows - by having to reach beyond.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“Teachers have to model the behaviors they expect from students. If you expect your students to be respectful, you need to be the first one to be seen showing respect to every student and every other teacher. If you expect your students to be curious learners, then you yourself should be a curious learner who is willing to learn from your students sometimes. Do not ask of your students any behavior which you are not willing and able to model.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, The Wealth Reference Guide: An American Classic

“There’s a big difference between teaching and instructing. Telling kids what to do and giving them assignments is not teaching, that’s instructing. On the contrary, teaching includes helping students to cultivate talents, foster understanding, and develop skills. Anyone can instruct, but teaching is a gift.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“Teachers should treat students like the potential of who they are becoming and not who they are now. For example when you’re teaching a 12 year old student, remember that in only five years they will likely have a job and/or be preparing for university. This is how you cultivate the greatness in a person.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“A classroom needs to feel like a safe place for both students and teachers. In order for creativity and higher level thinking to be present in the classrooms, a feeling of safety must first be present in the classrooms.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“Students learn well through inquiry. We should embrace the students' natural inquisitiveness. We should also encourage students to ask more questions and better questions, and encourage them to use seeking as a means to finding answers.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., Principles of a Poinciana School

“Poinciana Schools is going to cultivate generations of exceptional human beings.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., Principles of a Poinciana School

“Every teacher should have real world experience in the subject they teach. To teach science, you should now be or have been a scientist or been in a job that uses science a lot. To teach business, you should now be or have been an entrepreneur or worked in the corporate world. This way, we can teach for real life and not for tests or abstractions.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, The Wealth Reference Guide: An American Classic

“Allowing bullying in the classroom is equivalent to excluding learning from the classroom. If bullying is present in the classroom it causes the classroom to not feel like a safe environment, and people do not learn in unsafe environments - except for those things which they feel will ensure their present safety.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“Every school should be a hub of creativity.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“Sometimes we find ourselves searching for answers,
When really what we need Is the discernment
To ask the right questions.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, The Wealth Reference Guide: An American Classic

“Teachers should encourage students’ creativity. That means that it’s okay for class to get a little wild sometimes. You can’t have creativity without getting a little wild sometimes. That means in our classrooms we should hear lively discussions, insightful debates, engaging conversations, exchanges of ideas, and informative play.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“At Poinciana Schools, every student is like a beautiful Poinciana Tree that produces an abundance of blossoms of value.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“To key to classroom behavior management is to have a structured system in place whereby good behaviors are actively and abundantly rewarded, and bad behaviors are promptly and efficiently punished. Rewards should be like the air, ever present and always lingering. Punishment should be like a thunderstorm that is obvious and inconvenient yet quick, temporary and not abusive. The predominant theme of classroom management should be good behaviors and continuous rewards.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“The key to classroom behavior management is to have a structured system in place whereby good behaviors are actively and abundantly rewarded, and bad behaviors are promptly and efficiently punished. Rewards should be like the air, ever present and always lingering. Punishment should be like a thunderstorm that is obvious and inconvenient yet quick, temporary and not abusive. The predominant theme of classroom management should be good behaviors and continuous rewards.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“Teacher is the most important career in society. Without teachers, no other career would exist in mature form.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“Careers are not defined by age or employment status. Careers are defined by consistent value creation. So if you're 12 years old and you consistently create engineering value, you are an engineer.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“When students are inspired, they’ll do anything to gain new knowledge and understanding. They will seek to learn even more than the teacher seeks to facilitate learning.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr