Businessmen focuses on building skills in middle schoolers
By Caitlyn Kelleher Journal Staff Reporter

Former Ashburnham resident James Desrosiers is teaming with local businessman Mark Brideau to teach goal-setting skills to middle school students.

Desrosiers said it's important to teach students how their daily actions and choices affect their futures. There needs to be more of a focus on imparting these skills rather than assuming children will acquire them, he said.

"Let's teach them how to succeed," Desrosiers said. "This should be part of the human conditioning."

"He presented us an offer we couldn't refuse," said Pamela Miller, the principal of Hawthorne Brook. "It is really connecting with a lot of what we have talked about here."

Miller said the program blends some of the same skills the school is concentrating on, like time management, long-term planning and goal setting.

"They are skills that our kids need," she said.

Desrosiers is working with groups of 25 to 30 students for 45-minute sessions on Monday, Nov. 13, and Tuesday, Nov. 14.

Miller believes the program will work with the Second Step program, which is geared at preventing violence by teaching emotional and social skills.

"It seems like what he is bringing to us is going to reinforce what we are already doing here," Miller said.

The program also complements the work that Desrosiers has done in the past 10 years. He's been teaching goal-setting and time management program since 1996.

Desrosiers is also holding a Family Goal Setting workshop on Thursday, Nov. 17, at Hawthorne Brook Middle School in Townsend.

Miller says she likes that the program works with students, teachers and families.

"It sounds like a win-win situation," she said. "It makes [the students'] work here a lot more meaningful if they can see the connection to their future."

Miller was especially pleased that she didn't have to find money for the classes in an already tight budget.

Brideau, who recently bought Ashby Oil, is donating $2,500 for the program. He has been working with Desrosiers for five years in other school districts.

The father of four between the ages of 28 and 10, Brideau agrees with the need to foster essential skills in children.

"I have experience and I'm still experiencing the youth of today," he said.

Desrosiers started working with middle schoolers in 2001 after spending 14 years gearing his skills-building program to adults.

"It's just goal setting," Desrosiers said. "It works for everybody."

The first year he designed the program he taught it at Overlook Middle School and students from Oakmont Regional High School illustrated the book.

Family Goal Setting

workshop will be held on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 6 p.m. at Hawthorne Brook Middle

School in Townsend.