| By: Committee for Children Coping With Stress There are many sources of stress in life: Taking care of siblings, dealing with peer pressure, finding food and shelter, doing homework, dealing with family problems, dressing in style, passing tests, getting into college, finding a place to live… Whether we are old or young, male or female, live in the city or a small town, come from affluence or poverty, we are all faced with stress on a regular basis.Read More
| By: Committee for Children 5 simple things that might help your kid in school, and life http://blogs.babycenter.com/mom_stories/352014whats-school-readiness-got-to-do-with-family-meals/Read More
| By: Committee for Children Can A Video Game Teach Empathy? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/02/trip_hawkins_s_next_act_if_you_can_a_startup_for_social_emotional_learning.htmlRead More
| By: Committee for Children Tonight’s homework, class: playing well with others http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Tonight-s-homework-class-playing-well-with-5261093.php#page-2Read More
| By: Committee for Children Self-Talk Creates Champions… A champion uses positive self-talk, there’s no doubt about it. After watching the Winter Olympics, I am even more convinced self-talk is an important emotional skill that we must teach our students. Athletes don’t get to the Olympics by telling themselves they can’t, they’re not sure, or they’re not going to even try. Read More
| By: Committee for Children Writing From The Heart I got to witness one of the best writing celebrations and Valentine celebrations ever this past week. To end a unit of study on letter writing, my son's school celebrated by having secret pals. Each student in the school (K-5) wrote an initial letter about themselves and then that letter was handed out to a secret pal. The students wrote back and forth with their secret pals these past few weeks as the teacher strategically made sure the letter went to the right child. Every child always received one. Parents helped at home by knowing the due dates for each letter. But if one was forgotten, the teachers helped the child write a quick letter on the spot so that every child always received one on the day of the deliveries.Read More
| By: Committee for Children Narrowing the Socio-Economic Achievement Gap with SEL A recent blog post in the Washington Post discusses nine education predictions for 2014 made by educator and writer Larry Ferlazzo, covering such topics as computerized standardized testing, political forecasts, and one-to-one school computing initiatives. But it was number eight that jumped out at us. Ferlazzo posits that although social-emotional learning will continue to grow in popularity among schools, some “school reformers” (his quotation marks) will try to use this positive shift to “minimize the role of poverty and other causes of academic challenges and push their agenda instead.”Read More
| By: Committee for Children A Little Something to Warm Your Heart Have you ever felt on any given day that the negatives were hard to overlook? Maybe you woke up and read about a sad event in the news, or upon arriving at work you listened to various co-worker complaints about their challenging students. Driving home, you may have come across an angry driver with road rage, or someone at the grocery store who cut in front of you in line. Then, perhaps during dinner, your children got into a heated argument. Although days are not always like this, there are times when the positive things are not so easy to see.Read More
| By: Committee for Children A Story About Bullying: Part 3 I offer one final series of reflections on the subject of my last two blogs; the bullying situation of Connor and his parents. Here are some thoughts and comments that have flooded my mind as Connor’s parents and I continue to stay in touch. They are important to share, especially with those of you who may be having similar experiences yourselves, or with your children or students.Read More
| By: Committee for Children A Changed Perspective http://www.casel.org/news/2014/2/19/stories-from-the-field-a-changed-perspectiveRead More