Services and Workshops
Through years of experience as an educator and administrator, Ruben has honed a sense for how education works best for students. He has great insight into building environments that foster success. Ruben Speaking, LLC offers schools and districts access to his experience and talent through customized assessments and services tailored to each school. Ruben also continues to offer workshops and presentations through aha! Process, Inc. Below you’ll find descriptions of all services offered and contact links for booking.
Services and Workshops offered through Ruben Speaking, LLC
Campus Assessments of Culture and Procedures
- Do you find that no matter what you do the culture of your campus still seems stagnant?
- Do you find that even though teachers are working hard, it is hard to make progress?
- Are you seeing students disconnected from your school rules and procedures?
- You know something needs to change but you don’t know where to start.
- If so, it’s time to look at how the culture and hidden values of your campus affect the results you are experiencing.
I help administrators gracefully uncover blind spots to be better prepared to plan ahead. and address at their work environment from a perspective that is difficult to obtain when you are there in the trenches. .
A campus assessment is an objective and comprehensive look at what is happening in your school. Daily routines, systemic practices, classroom management, and much more are studied, analyzed, and reviewed with campus administrators.
Schedule an appointment for a campus assessment to help your team get focused on necessary priorities for improvement.
To book this service, call (281) 772-7317 or email [email protected]
Strengthening and Coaching of Daily Routines and Strategies
Coaching can be scheduled to address campus identified needs or as a solution to assessment findings.
Coaching addresses the following:
- Communicating behavioral expectations from administration to the staff
- Improving student/teacher relationships
- Classroom management
- Behavioral modification strategies
- Creating and managing behavior contracts
Ongoing one-on-one coaching, small group, and whole day group training are available. Ask how training can be accomplished during the school day. Call to determine the best approach for your campus.
To book this service, call (281) 772-7317 or email [email protected]
Taking Control of Your Classroom
Educators are facing a level of classroom disruptions never seen before. The world is not the same as it was even a decade ago, and these changes are reflected daily in our classrooms. Today’s students are more diverse in their backgrounds and experiences. They are digital natives who are more socially aware and vocal about their views on various issues.
This workshop is not just about fostering student ownership of learning. It’s about empowering you, the educator, to inspire a culture of self-efficacy and purpose in your classroom. By shifting the focus from a teacher-centered model to a student-centered one, you can instill confidence and intrinsic motivation in your students, leading to increased engagement and better academic outcomes.
To book this service, call (281) 772-7317 or email [email protected]
To Be Educated is To Be Liberated (Student Presentation Grades 6-12)
Going to school for legal reasons can cause us to forget why we go in the first place and lose interest. We attend school to become self-sufficient, to empower our future, to strengthen our role in society, and to become contributing members of communities. That narrative attracts and makes sense to adults, but how do we communicate these ideas to young students and establish their buy-in?
This student presentation uses engaging conversations, motivational thinking, analogies, and hard examples to get students to think out loud and see themselves through different perspectives. It stimulates interest and heightens awareness over the critical role education plays in their lives today while focusing on tomorrow.
To book this service, call (281) 772-7317 or email [email protected]
Workshops offered through aha! Process, Inc.
Framework for Understanding Poverty: 10 Actions to Educate Students
Explore class differences and 10 actions you can implement in the classroom to improve the success of low-SES students. This workshop is based on Ruby Payne’s book A Framework for Understanding Poverty, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies.
Teachers who participate in this training will:
- Use concrete instructional strategies to help students from poverty
- Understand hidden rules of economic class and effects on behaviors and mindsets
- Develop stronger relationships with students to impact behavior
- Reduce discipline referrals
Topics include resources, mental models, family structure, language patterns, and more. Give new and veteran teachers tools to help students from poverty today.
To book this workshop, call (800) 424-9484 or visit www.ahaprocess.com
Educating Students Experiencing Homelessness, Instability, and Disengagement
What do you do with students experiencing a lack of permanent housing or with students who are hungry, tired, and have demands placed on them based on the unstable environment they are living in?
This new workshop looks at what homelessness, instability, and disengagement do to learning and the strategies and understandings that are necessary to address those issues. The workshop covers a social cognitive framework that includes the role of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in learning and how safety and belonging impact the prefrontal cortex. Multiple strategies are given.
To book this workshop, call (800) 424-9484 or visit www.ahaprocess.com
Researched Based Strategies (Academic Classroom Applications)
Serve under-resourced students with hands-on techniques that help you narrow and then close the achievement gap. Reduce planning time, improve effectiveness, and develop more immediate, reliable intervention strategies.
Most importantly, employ best practices to address student challenges before they become overwhelming.
Relevant Audience: K-12
Training Prerequisites: None
To book this workshop, call (800) 424-9484 or visit www.ahaprocess.com
Emotional Poverty: How to reduce anger, anxiety, and violence in schools
Every evening on the news, there are multiple stories about violence and anger erupting. Workplace and school violence are increasingly a reality. Using a brain-based approach, this session looks at the underlying causes of anger, anxiety, and violence; how they develop; and the tools that can be used to change those responses. Emotions are processed 200 to 5,000 times faster than thought. To change behavior, the motivation for the behavior must be changed. This session will provide understandings on how that can be used with family, relationships, institutions, and oneself.
The workshop:
Provides understandings of origins of anger, anxiety, and avoidance
Gives a language to talk about brain regulation, integration, and emotional competence
Provides tools for educators to address and reduce anger, anxiety, and avoidance
Helps educators manage the “classroom dance” that occurs between the educator and the students
Provides the tools to motivate good behavior
Identifies the differences in male and female emotional processing
Participation requires purchase of Emotional Poverty in All Demographics at the reduced price of $21.
To book this workshop, call (800) 424-9484 or visit www.ahaprocess.com
Emotional Poverty 2: Safer Students and Less-Stressed Teachers
In this workshop, you will learn and practice many techniques/exercises that will help students/parents build emotional resources in school and at home.
Workshop Objectives
- Provide educators tools to read the emotional body language of students.
- Provide strategies for regulation of behavior from the prefrontal cortex.
- Identify key issues in the brain development of adolescents.
- Understand the hippocampus and its creation of stories that guide behavior and identity.
- Learn strategies to reduce adult stress and compassion fatigue.
- Use a brain-based approach to the emotional realities of parents and parenting.
Length: Six hours, deliverable in one, three, or six sessions.
Training Prerequisites: None
To book this workshop, call (800) 424-9484 or visit www.ahaprocess.com
Boys in Crisis (Working with Boys who struggle with school)
Boys account for 85% of the discipline problems in schools. They also constitute the largest populations in special education, Title I, and those who have reading and writing problems. Boys are the ones who have committed the violent acts in America’s schools, and they are the most likely to drop out of school.
This workshop focuses on the “why” behind male behavior in schools and what schools can do to begin making school more “boy friendly.” Issues that affect boys who come from poverty, as well as middle class, will be explored in this session.
Parents can also benefit from this content in an evening presentation focused on creating well-adjusted boys at home and at school.
To book this workshop, call (800) 424-9484 or visit www.ahaprocess.com
Understanding Hispanic/Latino Students and Their Parents
Hispanic/Latino students have the highest dropout rate. Many experience cultural tension in school when behaviors are misinterpreted as rude or disengaged but are actually a result of cultural upbringing. This workshop provides an understanding of hidden rules in the Hispanic/Latino culture and of issues that Hispanics/Latinos encounter in public schools. Participants will learn strategies to enable students and parents to improve academics and socialization.
To book this workshop, call (800) 424-9484 or visit www.ahaprocess.com
Working with Students (Classroom/School Management)
Classroom management can be a challenge even for the most experienced teacher. Working with Students gives you tools and strategies that improve classroom management and discipline.
You’ll learn to:
Improve student communication and performance with one simple formula
Handle bullies and entertainers with expectations for behavior and consequences
Reduce harassment, cursing, threats, and violence
Recognize and control your use of “voice” to improve communication
Student discipline solutions often seem locked up and out of reach. Working with Students is your key to achievable student behavior and performance.
To book this workshop, call (800) 424-9484 or visit www.ahaprocess.com
Pre-K to Grade 2 – Preventive Discipline and Students out of Control
What do we do when the student who is out of control is between four and seven years old? It’s hard to reason with a child who has limited vocabulary and little ability to tell us what is really going on in their mind. Behavior is an emotional response; it is not about logic.
This workshop will provide very specific strategies for helping prevent disruptive behaviors and for what to do when one child occupies everyone’s time and energy. States are now making laws that prohibit the suspension of young students. We must become better at helping our younger students develop emotional stability. It can be done through focused activities that are fun and engaging while relevant to developing stronger social skills. We also share administrative structures that produce better coordination for containing behaviors—we get everyone on the same page.
This workshop, usually lasting one day, is also offered in a two-day format. Day 1 is for administrators and focuses on what they can do to optimize staff productivity, lessen stress, and motivate staff to keep the student as the top priority. Leadership is the single most critical element when dealing with students who demand focused attention. Day 1 also covers what teachers will learn on Day 2. Day 2 is for teachers and staff members and focuses on specific strategies for starting off with a proactive mindset and for dealing with emotional outbursts.
Ruben Perez has a wealth of experience as a behavioral specialist and interventionist in public schools. He brings a fresh, practical approach to addressing the behavioral needs of young children.
To book this workshop, call (800) 424-9484 or visit www.ahaprocess.com
