Students and teachers are enjoying winter break, and excitement is running high! It is hard to believe we have completed the first four months of school and we are approaching a new year. After the winter performances and class parties are over, we spend time with the people we love to ring in the new year. It’s so important to keep self care in mind throughout this time. One challenge of the holiday season is…
Studies have shown LGBTQ students are more likely to be bullied at school, which can lead to missed classes and a higher risk of suicide. For those kids, a teacher who knows how to be inclusive can make a big difference, but many teachers aren’t sure how to do that. Over the years, gender and sexual identity have evolved, and not everyone has kept up. A Queer Endeavor helps teachers navigate questions like how to…
When classroom tasks get a little too difficult, it’s common for teachers to hear “I can’t do this” from their students. Most at-risk kids have some self-defeating behaviors, including those that result in personal failure, and even students who don’t face extra challenges in the classroom get frustrated. Helping students push past their self-perceived limitations results in the beginnings of success. This leads into a success building upon success behavioral cycle. In order to get…
Creativity is an incredibly valuable skill. All too often, we outgrow our imagination with age due to an encroaching sense of self doubt, an ingrained belief that it’s an impractical pursuit, or firm guidance from more experienced grown-ups advising engineering over art school. Although almost everyone would agree that creativity is important, budget cuts to areas of education like art and music programs demonstrate differently. Creativity should be encouraged along with technical knowledge, since the…
According to social scientists, a mindset based on self-doubt leads to two common coping mechanisms among children and young adults. The first is called “self-handicapping,” which is when students underperform as a way to shield themselves from the psychic consequence of working hard yet doing poorly. The other is “subjective overachievement,” which is taking heroic measures to guarantee a successful outcome, and attributing that success solely to effort. The overachieving variant of self-doubt is common…
As young children begin to take notice of gender equality and the differences in social expectations for gender roles, the ways in which their teachers interact with them become more weighted. These interactions also create long-lasting effects in other areas of their lives, at times limiting their self-image and their perception of the opportunities that are available or appropriate for them. This trend is especially apparent in the shortage of women who pursue education and…
Look up from this screen right now. Take a look around. On a bus. In a cafe. Even at a stoplight. Chances are, most of the other people in your line of sight are staring at their phones or other devices. And if they don’t happen to have one out, it is certainly tucked away in a pocket or bag. But do we truly have a technology addiction? And what about our kids? It’s a scary…
It’s safe to assume that high school students would probably cherish a little extra sleep in the morning, but did you know that studies show that starting school later for teens is actually healthier for them? Sleep experts have determined a shift in sleep cycles (circadian rhythms) in recent studies. This shift begins in adolescence and makes it more difficult for most adolescents to fall asleep as early as younger children or older adults. Typical…
With school shootings and other tough topics now commonplace in our country’s nightly news, we not only have to worry about how the students of those schools are affected, but also about the tens of millions of other children in schools across the country who have since heard about what happened and now likely struggle with their own feelings of fear, confusion, and uncertainty. Parents and teachers alike may find the following guide helpful in…
According to a new experimental study by George Mason University professor Robert Youmans and University of Illinois doctoral student Jared Ramsburg, meditating before class can lead to better grades. The pair of researchers conducted three classroom experiments at a California university to see if meditation might help students focus and better retain information in class. A random selection of students followed basic meditation instructions before a lecture, and the students who meditated before the lecture scored better…
