Strengths or Weaknesses: What Do You Focus On?
Many of us know how important it is to work with our strengths; however, putting this idea into practice flies in the face of how our brains are wired. Unfortunately, our negativity bias often overrides this and we revert to thinking if we could only improve a weaker area for ourselves and our learners. then […]
Student Agency
It was so much fun to co-facilitate the AERO workshop: “Student Agency: Empowering Kids to Follow Their Own Learning Journey” with Jill Keltner and Teresa Draguicevich. I appreciated the opportunity to work with these two talented educators on this topic, which is near and dear to my heart. Jill introduced me to this concept last […]
A Favorite Keynote Speaker
One of my favorite keynotes this year at AERO was Blake Boles’ on “Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going.” I appreciated his review of the history of alternative education, which includes homeschool and unschooling. He discussed the challenges which small programs and organizations face, including differentiating themselves and then also working with each other […]
AERO Conference Reflection
As usual, the 2019 AERO conference was a wonderful mixture of reconnecting with old friends, meeting new people, honoring the pioneers in the alternative education movement along with a flurry of conversations about the many possibilities of what learner-centered learning can look like in our rapidly changing world. The Theme this year was: Where We’ve […]
Knowing and Understanding Our Strengths
Monica is co-facilitating a workshop with Kathy on the value of knowing and understanding our strengths and those of our children . Here are some of Kathy’s thoughts about how her lens shifted after she did a strengths assessment with her children and worked with others with their strengths…