Ambrose Panico

Ambrose Panico is an educator and change agent who has worked as a classroom teacher, dean, coach, principal, central office administrator, and due process hearing officer. Ambrose began his career as a teacher in a Chicago Public School behavior disorders classroom. He retired as an assistant director from the Exceptional Children Have Opportunities (ECHO) Joint Agreement in 2010. He currently operates his professional development and consulting service, Behave Yourself L.L.P. His organization supports school districts and special education cooperatives in the areas of Social Emotional Learning Skill instruction, school culture, classroom communities, personal and social responsibility, transformative classroom management, and individual behavior plan development. As a consultant he has collaborated on a national level with like-minded educators to position children and young people to learn to control themselves rather than needing to be controlled. His books The Difference: Between Teaching Social Emotional Learning Skills and Kids Using Them, Palmetto Publishing, 2023, Behave Yourself! Helping Students Plan to Do better, Solution-Tree Press, 2009, Adventure Education for the Classroom Community, Solution-Tree Press, 2000 and 2007, and Discipline and the Classroom Community, Stylex Publishing, 1999, is evidence of his long-standing belief in the power of Community. He is a powerful motivational speaker who helps teachers be intentional about how they make their students feel and to remember why they became a teacher. He also provides workshops that are much more than a sit -and-get.