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Crowded classrooms, hectic teaching schedules and rowdy students have teachers across the country looking for ways to keep their classrooms calm. That may be one reason mindfulness programs have become so popular. Mindfulness can be practiced in many ways, but at its core mindfulness is self-awareness, a way for students to ground themselves in the moments, creating space to better understand and manage their feelings. Mindfulness has become a core social and emotional learning strategy in...

While in high school, Sarah founded Project VOICE, an organisation which uses spoken word poetry to improve literacy, promote empowerment, and encourage empathy and vulnerability in the classroom. Through workshops and performances, she and her colleagues instil in the students a desire to share and listen to each other’s stories, while showing them that it’s okay to be affected by emotion. “I think the only way people become willing to be vulnerable is if it’s modelled to them,” she tells...

"Even though I was getting A's and B's, mostly A's, in all my classes — all my honors classes — I still felt it wasn't good enough," Savannah says. No matter how well she did, someone else was doing better. "The pressure I put on myself was out of control," she says. She says she felt the pressure all around her — from peers, teachers and her parents. Newfound awareness of these kinds of struggles, has started a conversation — and new initiatives — in her community. A group of parents is...

Crystal Willoughby, her five kids and two grandchildren have bounced around the hamlets and hillsides of Lake County for four years, always close to — but never quite — landing a permanent home. They’ve lived in motels, campgrounds, a minivan, shelters, trailer parks and, on some nights, the bathroom at a city park. “It hasn’t been easy, but I try to make the best of it. When we’re sleeping outside, I say we’re on a camping trip and we roast marshmallows and stuff like that. I try to make it...

Have you ever had the experience of becoming the living embodiment of an illustrated children’s book character? Yeah, that’s happened to me. I am Froggy. The Froggy that goes to school Froggy. In the children’s story, Froggy feels anxious about his first day of school. His healthy and natural nervousness (the body’s stress response system is activated by novelty) manifests in his dream. In his dream, he misses the bus and shows up to class in his underwear. I am feeling “Froggy.” Two...

I wanted to share a few ideas I've used in the classroom that have really helped my ACEs students (mostly middle school, but could be tweaked to use for younger kids): 1. Write the event/name of person upsetting them on an index card. Have them slowly tear the paper and put the pieces in a trash can while calmly repeating, "you are not worth my anger." Write the event/name again on another index card. Tear up the card and throw away the pieces while calmly repeating, "I control myself."...

Mental health concerns, like anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, can affect a student’s ability to concentrate, form friendships and thrive in the classroom. Educators and school counselors often provide Social and Emotional Learning programs (SEL) in order to help these students, as well as school-based therapeutic support groups. However, even in these forums, getting teenagers to speak about their problems can be challenging, especially when they feel like outsiders...

As Megan Hendrickson finishes her graduation remarks, her already-shaky voice gives way to a flood of tears. Before she can cross the stage and return to her chair, a classmate folds her into a warm hug. Within seconds, 12 students are huddled in a clump, arms wrapped around one another, as they say farewell to a place they’ve come to call home. The ceremony took place at Meristem school, in the Sacramento suburb of Fair Oaks, where adults with autism and other intellectual disabilities...

Lincoln Park Public Schools announced Monday that the district is implementing the Resilient Schools Project, an initiative aimed at reducing the impact of childhood trauma on students. With childhood trauma linked to high-risk behaviors from drug abuse to smoking and from promiscuity to depression, the aim is to increase students’ resilience in the face of the adversities around them. The program builds on a holistic education movement centered on the whole child, inside and outside of the...

The student comes in for a pregnancy test - the second time she's asked for one in matter of weeks. She's 15. She lives with her boyfriend. He wants kids - he won't use protection. She loves him, she says. But she doesn't want to get pregnant. She knows how much harder it would be for her to finish high school. At many schools, she would have gotten little more than some advice from a school nurse. But here at Anacostia High School in Washington, D.C., she gets a dose of midwife Lorel...

Despite some incremental progress, Los Angeles Unified officials continue to “evade” the requirement of the state’s education funding formula to spend substantially more on schools serving low-income children and other students who generate additional revenue for the district, authors of a study released on Tuesday wrote. In their fourth annual analysis of spending in the state’s largest school district, the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and Communities of Los Angeles Student Success, a...

Schools across the country are moving away from an era of zero-tolerance policies and shifting toward methods that involve restorative justice, encouraging students to resolve their differences by talking to each other rather than resorting to violence. In New York City, five schools that have implemented this system are already seeing results. NewsHour Weekend's Megan Thompson reports. In a 9th grade civics class in Brooklyn, New York, Erica Wright is encouraging students to talk to each...