Make Kindness The Norm
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation marks out the week surrounding Feb 17th to create a greater awareness of the value and importance of kindness in the world. The theme this year is “Make Kindness the Norm.” It challenges us to imagine how the world would be if more of us made acts of kindness […]
Perhaps instead of looking at what’s missing in our children’s learning, we need to look for the learning occurring.
How was the experience of observing your own learning? As we reflect on our days, weeks, and years, we become the history of the important things we learn and recall. So it is for kids, too. Perhaps instead of looking at what’s missing in our children’s learning, we need to look for the learning occurring. What […]
Behind in learning??
With so much focus on learning loss and the meme that kids are “so behind in learning” in the news, teachers, parents, and caregivers are becoming increasingly worried and frantic about how to help the learners “catch up.” However, I’m noticing it is all viewed through the lens of learning artifacts such as test scores […]
3rd Grade Daze
Have you taken a moment to observe children under the age of five recently? What do you notice? I had the privilege of meeting with a family via Zoom last week. They were showing me their chickens and newly built chicken coops. I observed their 4-year-old inside one of the coops with his baby chicks. His […]
How do I get my kids to…
I have received calls, texts, and emails from parents throughout the pandemic, asking me if I can help get their child to do their math, or reading, or “school work” in general. There seems to be an assumption that if my child “does” XYZ, then they will learn XYZ. However, as many of us know, […]
How will my child learn if nobody teaches her?
Many years ago, I worked with a family as they made the paradigm shift from the parents’ experience with traditional teacher-led learning to a more child-led approach. They were having difficulty understanding how their children would learn if there was nobody to “teach” them. They’d made this commitment to an unfamiliar approach to learning and […]
#MoreThanMyBrainInjury
Brain injury awareness month brings up so many thoughts and feelings for me. According to the Brain Injury Association (BIA), someone sustains a brain injury every 9 seconds in the United States. In an instant, their lives and the lives of their loved ones change. Our son’s life and our lives changed forever when the […]
“It’s not enough for me to write. I have to do right as well.”
I so appreciated the inaugural events today. I was especially impressed with Amanda Gorman’s poem. She spoke with such strength and poise! Who would have guessed that, as a child, she had auditory processing and articulation challenges that made it difficult for her to hear and say sounds like other children? In an interview with […]
Please Pass the Gravy and the Rest of the Story, too!
As we prepare to celebrate a 2020 version of Thanksgiving this week in the United States, I’ve been reflecting on an article that a colleague forwarded to me a few weeks ago, titled Decolonizing Thanksgiving Is An Oxymoron – Kids Books Dismantling The Myth of a “First Thanksgiving”. While I certainly appreciate the sentiments of gratitude […]
Why is agency so important?
People often ask, why is agency so important in authentic learning? In traditional school environments, we hear learners lament that “this is too hard, just tell me what to do,” and challenging learning is frequently avoided. However, learning can be joyful even when a struggle is involved when the learner chooses the challenge. Looking at […]