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"I love how interactive this workshop is and how open and honest we were allowed to be. I felt respected as an educator and human, and I feel empowered and encouraged..." Elementary School Teacher This Positive Discipline in the Classroom 5-week workshop gives educators tools to create a classroom and school environment where students feel encouraged and engaged in learning, solve their own friendship issues, and feel a sense of connection and value. As an educator you will feel a sense of...

Back in early January, I wrote a commentary for Education Week ( read it here ) that focused on ways that those of us who care about SEL can get critics to understand why it's important that schools focus on SEL. If you read the blog, and scrolled down to the comments, you saw that I did not win everyone over. I actually had some people e-mail me to send support because they were appalled by the comments. Unfortunately, I was not surprised by those comments. I was actually expecting them...

I had a conversation with an elementary principal from Florida while I was in WA DC last week that has been haunting me. This amazing principal and her staff came together to become a trauma informed school. Why? Because they saw their students’ pain and wanted to create a nurturing, safe, and loving school culture.... Days before coming to the Trauma Sensitive School Conference, she and her staff were notified by the State of Florida Education Office that the entire staff was going to be...

Are you ready to change the temperature of your school’s behavioral climate? Are you prepared to implement new strategies to help your staff connect with students and their families? Are you looking to empower your team to effectively de-escalate classroom problems before they become crises? Make your school a place all children can learn and thrive with the skills you develop through the National Council’s Trauma-Sensitive Schools Learning Community . Connect with experts and professionals...

There are many perspectives on the topic of discipline in our classrooms and schools, and I’d like to explore the idea of using brain-aligned discipline with students who have adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Discipline, unlike punishment, is proactive and begins before there are problems. It means seeing conflict as an opportunity to problem solve. Discipline provides guidance, focuses on prevention, enhances communication, models respect, and embraces natural consequences. It teaches...

New York educators seeking better ways to deal with students' trauma, anxiety, depression and stress gathered Thursday in Greece. Educators from across the state said they attended to be proactive, looking for services and strategies to better help students. "I don't feel qualified for all of it," Carrie Seitz, a Rochester City School District teacher in the youth and justice program, said about addressing traumas that her students have experienced. However, "kids are craving the connection"...

With teaching High School Health, I began using this curriculum in the fall semester 2017. Students are responding to this; asking for it! This engages students and speaks to them at their level. https://www.dibbleinstitute.org/mind-matters-more-details/ How about we front load all students with coping skills for trauma... before trauma hits? We know that everyone will feel the affects of trauma at some point in their life: a car wreak, a divorce, or possibly a death. Happy to answer any...

EVERETT — As you learn to look at something in a different light, it can change the choices you make. When children get into trouble at school, sometimes the root cause is trauma and toxic stress they have experienced outside the classroom doors. If the people who provide care for them — including teachers, principals and social workers — know how to recognize and address that trauma, they can do a better job. They can try to make sure it doesn’t keep the child from growing academically,...

Yuridia Nava, a counselor at Riverside Polytechnic High School in Riverside, Calif., has been getting to work at 7 a.m. lately. It's class registration time, so she wants to be available before school for parents and students to come in with questions as they plan for the next year of courses, SAT tests, and college preparation. Poly — as her school is known — employs six counselors for its 2,700 students, so Nava and her colleagues each work with about 500 teens. That's just above average.

Amplify their voice, not yours. Broadcast your willingness to be a "helper". Assume competence in youth leadership. Don't assume anything else. The moment news spread that the students of Parkland, Florida were using their voices to speak out against school violence, Rep. Shawn Harrison staffer claimed that the students were paid actors. This reaction isn’t uncommon. Some adults in positions of power are hesitant to include youth voice in the public sphere, and some will use any means...

Black male students in rural counties and those in foster care are suspended at some of the highest rates in California, a new report has found. The report also found that the disparity in suspension rates among black male students compared to all students is greatest in kindergarten through the 3rd grade. The report, titled " Get Out! Black Male Suspensions in California Public Schools ," looked at suspensions through the 2016-17 school year. It was authored by J. Luke Wood and Frank Harris...

Throughout my entire K-12 childhood experience, I never once saw anyone who looked like me. Not in any textbook. Not in my teachers' or administrators' faces. There were no role models on television and not one affirming character who looked like me in a novel. I was never taught about a single Asian female of any significance who made any positive contribution to society at all. Much later in life as a 1st grade teacher in my own classroom, I looked at my own classroom library collection...