“What are you doing here?” Unclear, I responded “Waiting for math class like everyone else.” “But what are you doing HERE?” he asked once again. Confused, I repeated the same answer. Now visibly upset and frustrated at my lack of understanding, he speaks much slower and in an exaggerated tone and asks, “No, but what did you […]
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A Critical Component of Intentional Teaching Raising Small Humans is Not Easy… Strong Parent and Teacher Partnerships Help. Relationships are important to all human beings. As adults we lean on our significant others – whether they be a spouse, friend, sibling, or colleague. Those people serve as a foundation that helps us to navigate life: […]
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The middle school years are arguably the most important years in a child’s education. The combination of changing bodies, developing minds, and complex social dynamics create a vortex of possibilities where children – if not led, supported, challenged, and inspired – can quickly become invisible, their growth held back due to missed opportunities or misplaced intention. […]
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Most importantly, remember and acknowledge that your kids are experiencing their middle school years in the midst of a pandemic. They have not had a normal school year since 2018-2019. For our 7th and 8th graders, that was in 4th and 5th grade, respectively. For some, the anxiety of just being around other people has become a normal way of life. There may still be some trepidation in getting together with friends and socializing like we did in 2019, and that is okay. We are extremely lucky to have been in person last school year, and we have had a successful opening to our current school year. Some students may still be adjusting to a more normal school year. It is helpful to create opportunities for conversations about day-to-day experiences to help them through this time in their lives. It is also important to know when to push the pause button and give ourselves and our kids the time they need when life becomes too overwhelming. We often hear that kids are resilient. As adults during this pandemic, our resiliency may seem to have waned from time to time. If this is true for adults, how can we expect our kids to be resilient? Resiliency is something that is taught. It is more than opening a math book and memorizing the times tables. It is being aware of the needs of your child. It is talking with your child about his/her needs and how to overcome them. With time, they begin to recognize and use those strategies on their own. There is no set curriculum to teach kids how to be resilient but continue to be patient and do what is best for your child. With time, our kids will not only learn to be resilient, they will thrive.
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I had the opportunity to welcome all of our Middle School students back yesterday, and it was absolutely wonderful to be with them. Our literal circle always feels like family, and just standing in it is incredibly grounding.
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Our collective goal is to enrich student wellbeing, which, in turn, will lead to better educational outcomes.
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Smartphones, access to social media, and today’s fast-paced environment threatens our attempts to keep our children younger longer. There is a growing movement to empower parents and families to hold of on getting their children smartphone until a older age.
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From the beginning of life, we all receive messages about how people are expected to think and behave based on various aspects of our identity such as gender, race, age, and class. These messages inform us throughout the process of socialization and are part of what shape our attitudes towards ourselves and others. These unconscious […]
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One way that we continue to build community within our classroom each year is by creating meaningful opportunities for the children to work and communicate with a single partner at times. This could be during a specifically designed activity, during lunch, or at a center. In the first photos, partners are either working on recreating […]
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Students spend much of their days at school and it is increasingly understood that those hours greatly influence their lives in ways that go beyond academics, including their social-emotional well-being. Schools that approach their impact on student social-emotional well-being with intention, and in partnership with parents, can help children develop a social-emotional toolbox that can […]
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