Embrace Civility in the Digital Age

Historical Trauma and Social Work: What You Need To Know Historical trauma has emerged as a critical area of study in understanding and addressing long-term health problems in communities.

Four Lessons From the Tacoma Whole Child Initiative The Tacoma Whole Child Initiative combines hard data and innovative community partnerships to support students' social and emotional development.

Talking across the aisle at St. Luke’s School Building on their commitment to engage students in activities that enable them to "talk across the aisle" as part of the Caring Schools campaign, St. Luke’s School has launched the “Curious Conversations” series. We connected with Elizabeth Perry, Head of the Upper School, to learn...

Five Ways to Help Teens Feel Good about Themselves As teens struggle with anxiety and perfectionism, how can we help them like who they are?

12 Resources to Help you Address Mental Health in Schools If you don’t know where to begin to address mental health in your school, here are a list of resources to help you start the conversation.

Eye Level: Communicating with Kids Who Have Lost Their Cool Helping our kids help themselves during those meltdown moments.

CCSSO Inclusive Principals Guide Copyright © 2018 Council of Chief State School Officers. All Rights Reserved.

Texas School Beats ADHD by Tripling Recess Time While most school districts across the country are cutting back on recess time and ramping up the Ritalin, one Texas school has kindergartners and first graders sitting still and “incredibly attentive.” What’s their secret? Their recess time has tripled. Instead of 20 minutes of recess per day...

Aiming for Discipline Instead of Punishment | Edutopia Brain-aligned discipline isn’t compliance-driven or punitive—it’s about supporting students in creating sustainable changes in behavior.

Half of All Students Have Experienced Trauma: What Teachers Can Do

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Why American Students Haven't Gotten Better at Reading in 20 Years Schools usually focus on teaching comprehension skills instead of general knowledge—even though education researchers know better.

Study Finds Connection Between Trauma and Psychosis in Children Researchers connect the impact of early trauma to the development of psychosis in children as young as 7 years old.

Using Chosen Names Reduces Odds of Depression and Su***de in Transgender Youths In a recent study, researchers found that when transgender youths are allowed to use their chosen names their risk of su***de and depression decreases. 

SEL as a Foundation for Academics | Edutopia These middle schools were built on the idea that academic risk taking, fostered by social and emotional learning, can be a key to high achievement.

Why Exclusionary School Discipline Practices are a Civil Rights Issue - The Education Trust The newly formed Federal Commission on School Safety, chaired by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, is underway this month. Among key things being considered by the commission is the repeal of the Obama-era school discipline guidance, which aims to address the racial disparities found in schoo...

Implicit racial bias causes black boys to be disciplined at school more than whites, federal report finds Disparities in discipline are wide, the Government Accountability Office found.

It’s Time to Tell Your Kids It Doesn’t Matter Where They Go To College Stop fretting about grades and prestigious schools

Teach Kids When They’re Ready Earlier is not always better.

Teach our children well Claire Crooks knows that teaching children to foster healthy relationships from a young age will not only decrease the likelihood of bullying in classrooms, it will decrease the likelihood of domestic violence.

Neuroscience Reveals How Gratitude Literally Changes Your Brain to be Happier - Ideapod We often hear about the power of gratitude for creating a more positive and happy mental state. But did you know that gratitude literally transforms your brain? According to UCLA's Mindfulness Awareness Research Center, regularly expressing gratitude literally changes the molecular structure of the....

Amen!

“There needs to be a lot more emphasis on what a child can do instead of what he cannot do.” Dr. Temple Grandin, New Hampshire 4-H alumna

10 Strategies and Practices That Can Help All Students Overcome Barriers Educators today are faced with the daunting task of teaching students that face personal and social emotional challenges on a broad scale unlike any other generation. We now have in our schools what we refer to as the recession babies, a generation of ...

Tips for Building Meaningful Connections With Students Guest post by Kelly Parker South Meadow School (SMS) in Peterborough, NH is guided by our vision: “A caring, cooperative, and respectful community of learners.” We are a family and work hard to ins…

As we implement promising research- and evidence-based bullying prevention programs, we must also plan for the change process. Diana Laufenberg reminds us that when the "shiny newness" wears off, we must be prepared with critical strategies to sustain change in schools, including community engagement, continued accountability and teacher support. This Mindshift article explores Laufenberg's pillars to sustaining change: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/50675/five-ways-to-sustain-school-change-through-pushback-struggle-and-fatigue

Empowering Students as Change Agents Open today’s newspaper or turn on the news, and there is a good chance you’ll find a teenager –or more likely several teenagers– expressing their views or crafting action plans in support of a significant social cause.

This is a great approach: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/31/596054250/how-more-meetings-might-be-the-secret-to-fixing-high-school

How More Meetings Might Be The Secret To Fixing High School The BARR model, for "Building Assets, Reducing Risks," has serious evidence backing it up as a solution for real improvements in student success.

One reason cooperative learning works is this approach fosters personal power and connections. Both strong underlying needs.

MultiBrief: Cooperative learning strategies to support reading comprehension Studies have documented the effectiveness of using cooperative learning to increase academic achievement for students with and without disabilities. Results of these studies show that students who regularly participate in meaningful and structured reading groups have higher reading comprehension and...

Why Taking Away Recess Is a Counterproductive Punishment When teachers deny recess for poor classroom behavior or late work, they hurt not only their students with ADHD, but the whole classroom. Learn why ‘losing recess’ is a terrible punishm…