Tagged With "students"
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25 WAYS TO SAVE TIME & TAKE LESS WORK HOME (teach4theheart.com)
"So many teachers take home loads of work each night, yet others somehow find themselves going home empty-handed. What’s the difference? While you may be tempted to say this is due to laziness or a lack of effort (which, unfortunately, is sometimes the case), that’s not always true. Some teachers have really learned the art of being ultra-efficient while they’re at work…..so they can take less home." "6. Focus on efficiency, not speed. If you’re anything like me, when you try to rush &...
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A Landmark Lawsuit Aimed to Fix Special Ed for California's Black Students. It Didn't. [kqed.org]
By Lee Romney, KQED, October 18, 2019 Darryl Lester was at his mom’s place in Tacoma, Washington, when a letter he’d been waiting for arrived in the mail. At 40, he was destitute, in pain and out of work. The letter delivered good news: Lester would be getting disability benefits after blowing out his back in a sheet metal accident. But he crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. Why? Because he couldn’t read it. From first through seventh grades, Lester had attended three public schools in...
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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus - for Students Everywhere, Online or Not [washingtonpost.com]
By Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, March 26, 2020 “Anxiety” is one of the words you hear frequently about our individual and collective reactions to the coronavirus pandemic — which has stopped public life in its tracks in much of the world. Kids are anxious. So are their parents and teachers and principals and superintendents and friends and elected officials. For those people who were anxious before covid-19, the sense of apprehension has only deepened. Given that, this post offers...
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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus [tolerance.org]
Experts from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network share their recommendations for educators supporting students during the COVID-19 crisis. By TEACHING TOLERANCE STAFF MARCH 23, 2020 L ast week, as schools across the nation closed their doors to slow the spread of the coronavirus, TT reached out to our community to learn what support you needed at this time. Among the most common responses was a call for trauma-informed practices to support students over the coming weeks and months.
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A "When the Nickel Dropped" Story - Sometimes It's Something So Small
My daughter, Candace, taught 5th then 3rd grade at an inner city Baltimore elementary school through Teach For America. It was trial by fire her first year, as this was a struggling school and many students had a trauma history. It is Teach For America’s mission to place teachers in the most needy schools. Candace was very enthusiastic, but didn’t know much about trauma and its effects, other than what she intuitively felt - which was impressively a lot. So it was very timely that I was...
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ACEs Validated My Teaching Experience
When I first heard about the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study , it felt like a light bulb had actually gone on. Finally, FINALLY, someone was validating what I saw every single day teaching in East Oakland. For eight years, I taught at an elementary school in the most violent part of Oakland , the part that the police called the “Killing Zone.” The kids in my class had seen friends, neighbors, and family members shot or stabbed, and routinely hid in bathrooms and closets when gang fights...
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After Fatal School Shootings, Antidepressant Use Surges Among Student Survivors [latimes.com]
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2019 The children who experience a school shooting but live to see their parents and friends again are often called survivors. But by at least one measure of mental health, they too are among a gunman’s victims, new research finds. In the two years after a fatal school shooting, the rate at which antidepressants were prescribed to children and teens rose by 21% within a tight ring around the affected school. The increase in antidepressants...
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An Interview with Alfonso Ramirez on Trauma Informed Schools
In 2016, the Oregon School-Based Health Alliance (OSBHA) worked to pass a bill to pilot trauma informed schools and funds were allocated to support two pilot schools, Tigard High School (THS) in Tigard, OR and Central High School (CHS) in Independence, OR. This is the third year of the pilot. OSBHA has been providing technical assistance to the two schools, working closely with the Trauma Informed Schools Coordinators’ hired to transform the schools. Alfonso Ramirez is the coordinator at...
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Are you a Resilience Champion in your school?
Spring is the time for rebirth and new beginnings! After some much needed rest, we go back to the classroom for the last few months with our students. At Origins, we have been lucky enough to host a number of teachers (and their teams) just like you who want the best for the students and for the school. Their success starts with you! After completing the first round of The Resilience Champion Certificate of 2018, we have 23 graduates putting their action plans to work. Some settings that...
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As Its Homeless Student Population Surges, Perkins K-8 Is Learning to Adapt [voiceofsandiego.org]
At one point last school year, homeless students made up a third of the Barrio Logan school’s total enrollment. Fernando Hernandez, the principal at Perkins K-8, makes sure his middle school teachers don’t put too much weight on homework. Hernandez caps the percentage of grades drawn from homework at 15 percent, which he says is lower than many middle schools. Though many schools and parents across the country have argued in recent years that schools should de-emphasize homework, Hernandez...
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One Teacher’s Heartfelt Strategy to Stop Future School Shootings—And It’s Not About Guns [msn.com]
A few weeks ago, I went into my son Chase’s class for
tutoring. I’d e-mailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, 'Chase keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home
is math—but I’m not sure I believe him. Help, please.' She
e-mailed right back and said, 'No problem! I can tutor Chase after school anytime.' And I said, 'No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.' And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth-grade classroom while Chase’s teacher sat behind me,...
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Our Students: The Reality
This is an excerpt from Breakaway Learners appearing in Evolllution ,and it deals with ACEs. I think the chapter in particular and the book more generally will be of interest to you all. Comments and thoughts are welcome as always. https://evolllution.com/attracting-students/todays_learner/who-are-our-students-now-and-into-the-future/
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Parent, Educator, and Student Resources - FREE
We have started, and are adding to daily, a free resource page for teachers, educators, parents, and students. It is filled with activities, educational & behavioral resources, and more. These are gathered from around the internet and my own stuff as well. We are offering daily tips, tools, and projects through our FB page linked here . The big message is all about Collective Resilience - Together We Rise. Be sure to like our FB pageso you can get notified when we put new stuff up!
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Positive Discipline in the Classroom Workshop- Apr 2 - May 7
"I love how interactive this workshop is and how open and honest we were allowed to be. I felt respected as an educator and human, and I feel empowered and encouraged..." Elementary School Teacher This Positive Discipline in the Classroom 5-week workshop gives educators tools to create a classroom and school environment where students feel encouraged and engaged in learning, solve their own friendship issues, and feel a sense of connection and value. As an educator you will feel a sense of...
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Coming soon: Philly School District families will have access to grief counseling, coronavirus support [inquirer.com]
For Philadelphia students and families having trouble coping with the loss of months of in-person school amid the trauma of a pandemic and a changing world, help is on the way. On Monday, the Philadelphia School District and Uplift, the Center for Grieving Children, will launch the Philly HopeLine, a hotline that will connect district children and families to grief support services, Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said at a news conference Thursday. The resource comes in response to a...
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CONNECTING WITH KIDS IN PAIN
Kids in pain cannot learn!!! Often your most difficult students are young people living in environments with Toxic Levels of Stress. These environments change the brain! The next time you are involved with a student that is escalating and beginning to loss control try some of the following ideas . 1. BE A THERMOSTAT- NOT A THERMOMETER Develop with-in your head a pause button. Slow down. Everything in your body will be telling you to speed up... remember emotions are very contagious.
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Coronavirus becomes unprecedented test for teacher-student relationships [hechingerreport.org]
By Liz Willen, The Hechinger Report, April 20, 2020 Social studies teacher Karen Rose stepped out of New Rochelle High School last month for what will likely be the last time. And while that makes her sad, it’s not what bothers her most after 34 years in the classroom. “My biggest worry is the kids I’ve gotten no response from,” said Rose, who is retiring in June and never expected to end her career struggling with online teaching. “I’m calling and emailing them constantly. Maybe their...
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Curbing the Spread of COVID-19, Anxiety, and Learning Loss for Youth Behind Bars [blogs.edweek.org]
By Sarah D. Sparks, Education Week, May 4, 2020 As educators and leaders juggle remote learning schedules, food distribution, and how to get kindergartners to sit still on Zoom meetings, there's one particularly vulnerable group of students in danger of falling off the education radar: students in the juventile justice system. Coronavirus is spreading rapidly in pre- and post-trial correctional facilities across the United States, and the challenges of social distancing for students in...
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Danny goes to school
Danny goes to school. The story of one child, hoping to be safe. http://lucidwitness.com/2014/0...anny-goes-to-school/
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Developing Students’ Ability to Give and Take Effective Feedback [kqed.org]
When Emerie Lukas was hired to develop and teach a STEM Foundations course to middle school students at the Dayton Regional STEM School , she was starting from scratch. The stated goal of the course was to prepare students for more rigorous work in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) classes in high school, but Lukas knew that meant far more than academic preparation. She needed to teach her students how to give and take effective feedback, how to solve conflicts, how to...
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Do Children have a Right to be Safe ?
A comparison survey of government and departmental(legal vs. healthcare, vs. education) treatment of child safety given prevalence of childhood trauma. http://lucidwitness.com/2014/0...-right-to-be-safe-2/
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Education Transformations - Providing Soc/Emot Training to Schools & More
Education Transformations is a company that works with districts, schools, teachers, and other organizations to improve Social/Emotional Intelligence (EQ), and what we call Relational Competency. We are San Diego, CA based, but can travel.
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Empathy and Reading Comprehension Song!
I wrote the song "Handle with Care" as I was dealing with the murder of my husband's grandmother (hence the dedication to Valentine Marie Williams). The process of writing the song helped me in the healing, and in also in my feeling hopeful that I could, indeed, reach out to touch young lives to assist them in developing increased empathy and compassion for others. I also hope and pray that it fosters in listeners/ singers a feeling of empowerment --- and an inclination --- to make a...
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Experts Worry Active Shooter Drills in Schools Could be Traumatic for Students [npr.org]
By Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Sophia Alvarez-Boyd, and James Doubek, National Public Radio, November 10, 2019 A regular drumbeat of mass shootings in the U.S., both inside schools and out, has ramped up pressure on education and law enforcement officials to do all they can to prevent the next attack. Close to all public schools in the U.S. conducted some kind of lockdown drill in 2015-2016, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Last year, 57% of teens told researchers they...
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Failing Schools or Failing Paradigm ?
Yes, money matters in Education. Money is absolutely necessary, but money is Not sufficient. A key variable has been missing from the discussions about a new Education Paradigm: Childhood Trauma. Childhood trauma is broad in scope...
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Healing in the Classroom: Juneau School Tries New Tack to Help Students [juneauempire.com]
By Michael S. Lockett, Juneau Empire, December 4, 2019 Just as a house built on a shattered foundation won’t stand straight, mounting research points toward a child’s earliest years as setting a pattern that will last their whole life. “What happens early in your life has really big and dramatic impact on the later parts of your life,” said Alex Newton, the counselor at Glacier Valley Elementary School – Sít’ Eetí Shaanáx. “All development for kids starts with their early caregiver...
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Holiday Stress, Self Care and Mirror Neurons
With Thanksgiving behind us, and the new year looming ahead, we are clearly in the midst of the holiday season. It is easy to focus on our students and their behavior this time of year. However, I would like to turn the focus back on us: the educators, caregivers and administrators. Though it is likely for different reasons than our students, many of us find the holidays to be a rather stressful time. You may be hosting, cooking, traveling, shopping, wrapping, financially strained,...
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Houston Schools Closed: What Happens When Schools Restart?
Please plan now for when schools re-open in Houston and surrounding area. It is not enough to just open the doors again.
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Houston Teachers Drafted to Become Trauma Counselors [dailybeast.com]
As Houston ’s school district of more than 200,000 students scrambles to repair damaged schools before classes begin next week, they must also plan for traumatized students to enter the classroom. The Houston Independent School District is in the process of working with counsellors, nurses and social workers to develop a “mental health recovery plan” for the district’s hardest hit schools, according to a statement from HISD. In the meantime, Mental Health America of Greater Houston and...
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In School Suspensions the Answer to School Discipline? Not Necessarily, Experts Say [edsource.org]
By Carolyn Jones, EdSource, October 29, 2019 More California schools are allowing disruptive students to serve suspensions on campus instead of sending them home. But experts said educators need to provide those students with high-quality behavior counseling for that approach to be successful. Schools throughout the state have embraced in-school suspensions in recent years, as studies have shown that traditional out-of-school suspensions can hurt students’ academic performance and actually...
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Shootings & Suicides Past the Tipping-Point: ACEs Epidemic & Declining Lifespans in US
Re: Building community by facing collective trauma with hope I am writing from Broward county, Florida, the school district in which the MSD school shooting occurred and that gave rise to the March for Our Lives Movement sparked by our students. Mankind has developed solutions to deal with self-perpetuating waves and EPIDEMICS of BEHAVIORALLY TRANSMITTED Neuro-Toxic Stress, CPTSD Trauma & ACEs that cause FIXED-MINDSET reactive black and white Scarcity-based thinking to increase and...
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SOURCE Seminar Helps Learn4Life Students Thrive
Students of Unity, Respect, Consciousness and Empowerment (S.O.U.R.C.E.) is a seminar offered at Learrn4Life’s Innovation High School National City and Chula Vista resource centers that promotes empowerment, resiliency building, and leadership skills. Students engage in the seminar using project-based learning where they are tasked with creating a public service announcement. This exercise gives students a platform to voice their needs and explore issues that are relevant to them. It also...
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Starting the School Year Optimally
So, the start of the school year is not easy for many students, especially those who have experienced or are experiencing trauma and stress and abuse. And, for those who have experience Big T trauma (immigration issues; fires; floods), the beginning of the academic year may not be easy. I think we have, unfortunately, not recognized the many aspects that need to be considered on the first few days of school. Transitions are not easy and we tend to think that one day orientations, filling out...
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Student Discipline & Co-Regulation
Co-regulating Students Correcting student behavior is part of our work as educators yet often it can lead to escalation of student behaviors. As teachers we can learn ways that can lead to students actually hearing what it is we say. Note: For anything positive to come of our concern both the adult and the young person need to be in the executive center of our brains!! I intentionally use the term "care-fronting" rather then confronting. As teachers and administrators we want to learn skills...
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Study: Black Students Face 'Accumulation of Disadvantage' [educationdive.com]
By Naaz Modan, Education Dive, October 10, 2019 Dive Brief: A new study from the University of California, Los Angeles' Center for the Transformation of Schools finds a student's quality of life is linked to his or her academic performance. Where they live, access to healthy food, and quality of air and healthcare are among factors that influence academic performance and the schools they attend. Black students in Los Angeles — who are already faced with higher suspension rates, attend...
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The Beginning of the End of Random Searches: Students Know What They Need Next [fixschooldiscipline.org]
By Ashley Ruano, Fix School Discipline, October 1, 2019 The #StudentNotSuspects coalition has long worked in Los Angeles to end the random searches policy that discriminate against students and create a hostile campus environment for students to learn. For many years, Los Angeles Unified School District implemented mandatory random metal detector searches in middle and high schools. The searches did not make campus environments more secure. Instead, the policy targeted, and criminalized...
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The Educators Helping Students Through Trauma
A comic strip depicts how one New Orleans school’s emphasis on student safety and emotional well-being has helped a 13-year-old navigate a family crisis. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/10/the-educators-helping-students-through-trauma/544188/
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Native American Students Suspended at Higher Rates Than Peers. New Report Looks at Solutions [desertsun.com]
By Risa Johnson, Palm Springs Desert Sun, September 30, 2019 Native American students in California's public schools face higher-than-average suspension rates, according to a new report. A joint effort between California State University, San Diego, and the Sacramento Native American Higher Education Collaborative, the report outlines what it calls troubling trends regarding how school administrators discipline students. Racial disparities in school discipline, particularly for African...
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Navigating the Holidays for Students with ACEs
Over the last few weeks, I have had countless conversations with schools about the uptick of behavioral issues this time of year. Many educators are recognizing that students with ACE’s have a tough time around the holidays, but very few people know what to do about it. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, below are the top three pieces of advice I have been sharing. Avoid some of the most common holiday traditions: When we have negative experiences, our brain latches on to everything...
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No More 'At-Risk' Students in California [insidehighered.com]
By Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed, November 5, 2019 A decades-long effort to change how educators talk about students facing economic or social challenges has been backed by California lawmakers. A bill to remove references to “at-risk youth” and replace the term with “at-promise youth” in California’s Education Code and Penal Code was approved by California governor Gavin Newsom in mid-October. The California Education Code is a collection of laws primarily applying to public K-12...
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Number of Homeless Students Rises to New High, Report Says [nytimes.com]
By Mihir Zaveri, The New York Times, February 3, 2020 Some children lost a stable home when a parent succumbed to opioid addiction. Others were forced to stay in hotels after hurricanes or fires destroyed their homes. Still others fled abuse or neglect. More than 1.5 million public school students nationwide said they were homeless at some point during the 2017-18 school year, the most recent data available, according to a report from the National Center for Homeless Education released last...
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Black students and families need more support — and they need it now. An unprecedented coalition dives in with a new LAUSD task force. [laschoolreport.com]
An unprecedented coalition of community members, educators, parents, and students at LA Unified have convened a new task force to urgently address why African-American youth continue to have the lowest test scores and why black students and families continue to feel ignored by the education system. Black students persist in having LA Unified’s highest rates of dropouts and suspensions. They are most likely to be identified as needing special education services, and they are least likely to...
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California Plans to End 'Lunch Shaming' That Guarantees Meals for All Students [usatoday.com]
By Joshua Bote, USA Today, October 14, 2019 A bill signed Saturday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to cut the recent trend in schools of "lunch shaming." SB 265, which was originally introduced by California state Sen. Robert Hertzberg, will require that all public school students have a "state reimbursable" meal provided by the school "even if their parent or guardian has unpaid meal fees." It amends the Child Hunger Prevention and Fair Treatment Act of 2017, which previously stated...
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California Plans to End 'Lunch Shaming' That Guarantees Meals for All Students [usatoday.com]
By Joshua Bote, USA Today, October 14, 2019 A bill signed Saturday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to cut the recent trend in schools of "lunch shaming." SB 265, which was originally introduced by California state Sen. Robert Hertzberg, will require that all public school students have a "state reimbursable" meal provided by the school "even if their parent or guardian has unpaid meal fees." It amends the Child Hunger Prevention and Fair Treatment Act of 2017, which previously stated...
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California's First Surgeon General: Screen Every Student for Childhood Trauma [nbcnews.com]
By Patrice Gaines, NBC News, October 11, 2019 Dr. Nadine Burke Harris has an ambitious dream: screen every student for childhood trauma before entering school. "A school nurse would also get a note from a physician that says: 'Here is the care plan for this child's toxic stress. And this is how it shows up,'" said Burke Harris, who was appointed California's first surgeon general in January. "It could be it shows up in tummy aches. Or it's impulse control and behavior, and we offer a care...
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Closing the Empathy Gap in Education
In the Hechinger Report, Amanda Wahlstedt wrote about the empathy gap she experienced as a poor student with a disconnected privileged teacher. She wrote: As a young girl in rural southeastern Kentucky, I remember distinctly hearing my teacher talk about “first of the month-ers,” or people who were out and in the grocery stores at the first of the month, typically with shopping “buggies” overloaded with preserved food. When I looked around the classroom I noticed many of my friends either...
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It's Tricky
Use your words. It seems like such a friendly, gentle reminder. And it would make grown up lives so much easier if kids would just say what they want! Except what if they a) don’t know the right words or b) don’t know what they want? I walked up on an educator (let’s call them G) and a small child in the hallway. I could see the child had been crying, and was now stomping their feet and making sounds with their mouth, something like, “Uh uh uh uh uhhhh!” G, who was kneeling down on the...
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Learn4Life students in San Diego Get a Lesson in Yoga
Since 2016, certified yoga teachers Josie Duraso (E-RYT 200) and Tara Booze (E-RYT 200) have been sharing the practice of yoga with students and staff at the Learn4Life Innovation High School resource centers in National City and Chula Vista. This year-round enrichment program provides a safe space for students to not only participate in the physical practice of yoga, but to explore meditation and mindfulness, self-regulation tools, and positive habit building. Students participating in this...
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Learn4Life Teams “Get Lit”
At the recent “Get Lit – Words Ignite” Classic Slam poetry competition, Learn4Life (L4L) students throughout California demonstrated that they have the knowledge and eloquence to Shed Light and Motivate (SLAM) their communities to take action. Hailed as the world’s largest youth poetry slam, the event took place April 26-28 th in downtown Los Angeles and included seven L4L squads and 36 total teams. Get Lit – Words Ignite is an organization that uses poetry to “increase literary, empower...
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Many of NYC’s bilingual special education students don’t get the right services. Remote learning has made it even harder. [ny.chalkbeat.org]
By Reema Amin, Chalkbeat New York, April 30, 2020 After years of searching in vain for the right school for her son, Erendira Matamoros was hopeful she found a good fit. David, a 14-year-old who is autistic and primarily speaks Spanish, is legally entitled to a small special education classroom led by a bilingual teacher, but that’s hard to come by in New York City. Only about a third of the roughly 5,500 students who required small bilingual special education classrooms this fall were...