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Held for four hours each weekday afternoon, the Star-C afterschool program is one part of a dynamic model — piloted here at the 186-unit Willow Branch, where the residents’ average income of $18,750 is well below the U.S. poverty line — that’s showing how affordable housing can boost performance in local schools, increase resident health and even quell crime. Alongside its fundraising arm, 3Star Communities, Star-C was founded by Marjy Stagmeier, 55, a successful manager of commercial and...

There are a few more days to submit your proposal for a 90-minute workshop to be presented at our 2nd Annual Philadelphia Trauma Training Conference - Preventing Childhood Trauma and its Impact across the Lifespan: An Interprofessional Agenda for Providers, Advocates, Policy Makers, and Community Members The submission deadline is March 1st . If your proposal is accepted you will be granted free admission to the three-day conference . First launched in 2017, the Philadelphia Trauma Training...

Humanity has lost its connection with the Earth. As a species, we too easily distance ourselves from the war being waged on the environment. Most of us are opposed to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the oil pollution in our oceans, yet we continue to let it all happen. We care, but we don’t care enough to put a stop to all the madness. Why? Because we have lost touch with nature. Sadly, we do not feel the planet’s hurt. Her cries of protest are falling on deaf ears. For the most...

Imagine if meditation was a regular part of school life for children. Just think how different the world would be. If every child was able to connect to the ocean of consciousness that permeates all that is, the desire to do wrong by others would dissolve. Meditation helped me find meaning in my own life. I would not be following my heart and trying to change the education system if it weren’t for meditation. It connected me to the deepest yearning of my own soul, and aligned me with my...

Today on the podcast we learn more about the developing brain so that we, as parents and home educators, can incorporate brain-based practices into our family’s lives. Our guest for this episode is Joshua MacNeill, Director of Lakeside’s NeuroLogic Initiative and an expert in trauma-informed education. For example, in the first year of life, more than one million new neural connections are formed every second . Adversity impairs these new connections, and the greater the adversity a child...

Navigating love and relationships can be difficult at any age, but especially so in the angsty teenage years. Budding romances can be fun and exhilarating but also confusing and uncomfortable. In these moments of confusion, teens often turn to friends or the internet for advice. But what if teens were trained with other options? What if lessons in love and romance were taught more explicitly in schools and at home? It turns out that teens are yearning for these lessons. They’re looking for...

Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore, United States, doesn’t have a detention room or an active punishment policy for disruptive kids. Instead, there is a Mindful Moment room, where students are encouraged to participate breathing practices or meditation to “ calm down and re-center .” They are also given the opportunity to talk through what happened with specially trained aides. Created in partnership with the Holistic Life Foundation , a local nonprofit organization that...

In rural Kentucky, students go to school with people they’ve grown up with. It’s not uncommon for their teachers and principals to be family friends or even relatives. This can create a tight-knit school community, but it can also make privacy hard to come by. Vivian Carter, a longtime teacher and principal and the current innovation coordinator at Hazard Independent Schools, in Eastern Kentucky, said students don’t always open up to the adults in the school building if they have issues at...

Children who have lived through traumatic experiences and therefore display “difficult” behaviour need far better support, a charity has stated. YoungMinds is calling for a Government strategy to help these children who are “too often misunderstood by the services that should support them”. The charity’s new report, ‘ Addressing Adversity ’, argues that these kids don’t get the help they need because of this misunderstanding, yet they are the ones who often need it most. [For more on this...

Sometimes I think I have PTSD from failed change efforts. I am not kidding. I have developed symptoms from living through nearly twenty years of failed education reform efforts. When I reflect on the many change efforts I participated in, I shudder. I try to block it out. I avoid discussing it. There is an "activating" body memory (SE™ talk) for me that is associated with prescriptive change efforts. When I encounter a stimulus or trigger, like someone talking about a new protocol intended...

Of the roughly 74 million children in the United States, just under 51 million are preK–12 public school students. Every day, 13 million of these children go hungry. A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds . And 2.7 million have a parent in prison. Our children are living in a state of emergency. How can we, as educators, expect them to learn when they are living in a constant state of fight or flight? Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente...

When it comes to the history of slavery in the U.S., the central role it played in shaping the country and its continued impact on race relations, students don't know much. In fact, only 8 percent of high school seniors can identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War, according to a report released Thursday by the Southern Poverty Law Center . "It's important that everyone understand that slavery is truly at the foundation and formation of this nation," Hasan Kwame Jeffries,...