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When students feel they belong at school they also feel respected and ready to learn. That's why teachers work so hard to create a class environment where every student feels able to contribute and be heard. "As human beings, one of the most essential needs we have is the need to belong," said Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute in an Edutopia video series on the science of learning. "When that sense of belonging is there, children throw themselves...

The power of social media connected me to the work of AFFIRM Research and Dr. Megan Ranney . Through months of tweeting and sharing resources, a relationship was forged that somehow broke through the anonymity of the internet and created a professional and also a personal connection. In the spring of 2018, I was asked to contribute a guest blog to the AFFIRM Research site. Here is a link to the blog: No More Empty Desks I am a school nurse being welcomed into a physician-driven organization.

A bill to provide mental health care for Indiana students narrowly passed the Senate this week. The legislation was written in response to school safety. Bill author, Sen. Michael Crider (R-Greenfield), says the creation of an integrated mental health system is a key step in preventing school violence. "Every recent incident in Indiana that I’m aware of has not been a total surprise," says Crider. " Someone knew that student was having issues." [For more on this story by JILL SHERIDAN, go to...

In the United States today approximately 12.8 million students—or 27 percent of all those in school—attend school in a district in which over 75 percent of students are non-white. In a new report , researchers at EdBuild , a non-profit that analyzes school-funding issues, calculate that these students are getting dramatically shortchanged on the school-funding front. The majority of racially concentrated, non-white districts are also low-income. Poor, non-white districts educate about 20...

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson is one of the central people who’s helped us begin to see inside our brains. His work has illuminated the rich interplay between things we saw as separate not that long ago: body, mind, spirit, emotion, behavior, and genetics. Richard is applying what he’s learning about imparting qualities of character — like kindness and practical love — in lives and in classrooms. This live conversation was recorded at the Orange County Department of Education in Costa...

Author: John Matich, Training Associate and member of the Thinking Collaborative Futures Team .....In a trauma-informed school, the adults in the school community are prepared to recognize and respond to those who have been impacted by traumatic stress (ACEs). In addition, students are provided with clear expectations and communication strategies to guide them through stressful situations. The goal is to not only provide tools to cope with extreme situations but to create an underlying...

Last month, the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social Emotional, and Academic Development released a long-awaited report titled “ From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope ,” offering recommendations for further integrating social-emotional learning (SEL) into schools to support the whole student. Written by key educational leaders, researchers, and policymakers, it represents a major milestone in SEL movement. “The promotion of social, emotional, and academic learning is not a...

We would like to make the community aware that an amazing national team of practitioners are hosting the Trauma Informed Schools Network Conference: Cultivating Connections in Nashville, TN at Lipscomb University from July 15-16, 2019. The conference will only be around 125 participants. The mission of the conference is to create networks and connections through learning about best practices associated with trauma informed practices. The design of the conference will be trauma informed in...

Self-Regulation Begins with Dogs, Tense Knots and Calm Socks Originally posted to ORAEYC, February 19, 2019 | Janai Mestrovich, M.S. We were all barking like dogs that were upset on all fours in the preK classroom. Then I used the Breathing Sphere to guide 20 preK children to take slow, deep belly button breaths to release the mad dog tension. As we all slowly exhaled and released the tight knots of tension, we were able to become calm dogs. The sounds of tense mad dogs had filled the room...

Most American teenagers — across demographic groups — see depression and anxiety as major problems among their peers, a new survey by the Pew Research Center found. The survey found that 70 percent of teenagers saw mental health as a big issue. Fewer teenagers cited bullying, drug addiction or gangs as major problems; those from low-income households were more likely to do so. Some psychologists have tied a growth in mental health issues among teenagers to increased social media use,...

A new study suggests that mindfulness education — lessons on techniques to calm the mind and body — can reduce the negative effects of stress and increase students’ ability to stay engaged, helping them stay on track academically and avoid behavior problems. After finding that students who self-reported mindful habits performed better on tests and had higher grades, researchers with the Boston Charter Research Collaborative — a partnership between the Center for Education Policy Research at...

By way of brief background, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng, a peace educator consulting for the Obama Foundation, was director of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii. Her brother is former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama. But Maya says we can't leave conflict resolution up to governments: resilience will come from ordinary people, not from centralized, powerful institutions or well-tested solutions alone. "It's imperative that we start...