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Listening to a FREE Mindfulness and Meditation Summit presented by Sounds True and heard about a FREE curriculum from Richie Davidson, PHD at the Center for HealthyMinds at University of Wisconsin - Madison. Here is a description of the currilum: Various mindfulness programs have been developed for adults, but we and our colleagues at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison wanted to develop a curriculum for kids. Every school teaches math and reading, but what...

Editor’s note: This three-part series of articles and videos about the students and staff at Lakeside School in Horsham is made possible by funding from the Van Ameringen Foundation and the Reentry Project. The Van Ameringen Foundation is supporting two years of Notebook reporting on trauma-informed education. The Notebook is one of 15 news organizations in The Reentry Project, a solutions-oriented project on the issues facing formerly incarcerated Philadelphians. The aim is to produce...

By Special to the DN Anderson >> The entire staff of the Red Bluff Elementary School District , numbering more than 270 employees, received training Monday on the topic of Adverse Childhood Experiences , or ACEs, at the Gaia Hotel in Anderson. …. The presentation was given by Julie Kurtz , the regional director at the Center for Child & Family Studies for WestEd , a nonprofit research, development and service agency that works with education and other communities throughout the...

Be gentle on yourself. Be patient. Show yourself a little grace. There’s a corollary: Be gentle on your students, too. They’re trying hard to be their best selves. Show them the same grace. Here’s what that grace will look like in my classroom from January to May: Look for strengths, not just gaps. Practice patience. Balance goal-setting with celebration. Frame reminders for behavior in a caring way. To read more of Justin Minkel's article, please click here.

The past few years have brought a wealth of evidence for the impact of childhood trauma on lifelong health. The AAP has recognized the importance of childhood trauma with conferences (2015 Violence, Abuse and Toxic Stress: An Update on Trauma-informed Care in Children and Youth) and resources ( AAP Trauma Toolbox for Primary Care .) Like many pediatricians, I have been grateful for the attention to and evidence base for an area of pediatrics I see on a daily basis but for which I have felt...

Administrators at Carver say that students who enter high school overage feel like they’re wearing a scarlet letter, regardless of why they were retained. “There’s so much shame attached to it. Students constantly tell me, ‘I want to be at my right grade,’” said Jerel Bryant, Carver’s principal. “It’s a huge thing.” Those doubts and shame are one of the many reasons that overage students are at significant risk of dropping out of school. But in New Orleans, overage students are incredibly...

Something somewhat extraordinary happened last month at Billy Earl Dade Middle School in Dallas. The school — with a student population of nearly 900, about 90 percent from low-income families — planned to host its first “Breakfast with Dads,” according to the Dallas Morning News . About 150 male students, ages 11 to 13, signed up. But event organizers were concerned that some would attend without a male figure at their side, so they put out a call for volunteers who could serve as mentors.

The holidays can be a time of grief and sadness — a time when memories of our loved ones who have died come flooding back and our losses become magnified. During these milestones in the grief process, young people who have recently lost a loved one need particular support. It is important to consider that loss can take many forms for students: divorce, separation, incarceration, military deployment, deportation, moving and much more. Though different than a family member’s death, the process...

I wanted to share an outline of my Yoga Lesson Plan that I do with my preschool class. It is easy and fun to do with any age group, especially on a rainy or cold day. If you are not familiar with yoga or yoga poses, there are millions of videos, tutorials, and charts that are available online. Preparation Move all furniture out of the way to create a large open space Implement some type of yoga mat or defined space for each child (carpet squares as yoga mats) Turn off or dim the lights Play...

They enroll at 14 and finish by 20. What these students get for their efforts: a diploma, an associate’s degree and the skills to catapult them up the career ladder. P-Tech’s unique model brings together high schools, community colleges and corporate employers who collaborate on the curriculum. Fusing classroom instruction with workplace experience, the program also offers internships and mentoring. Meant to be completed in six years or less, P-Tech was designed by IBM, where nearly all...

Trauma-informed care “shifts the way you look at human problems from ‘what’s wrong with you?’ to ‘what happened to you?’ and ‘how can we help?’” says Sandra L. Bloom, an associate professor of public health at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Much of the research into trauma is based on the landmark 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences study. Adverse childhood experiences can range from experiencing sexual abuse and violence to witnessing violence or living with someone who is a substance...

(Reuters Health) - - Partnerships between teachers and doctors could help students and school staffers better deal with “toxic stress,” suggests a former teacher turned doctor. Pediatricians can help build resilience in both children and teachers to counter the effects of traumatic childhood experiences, poverty and violence, Dr. Kavitha Selvaraj of the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago writes in the journal Pediatrics. “Before I was a pediatrician, I was a teacher, and...