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Find research-based practices for kinder, happier schools on our new Greater Good in Education website. The fields of social-emotional learning (SEL), mindfulness, ethical development, and other prosocially oriented forms of education have emerged to help support and guide teachers’ efforts to transform education. We here at the Greater Good Science Center’s Education Program would like to offer our support as well with the launch of our new website, Greater Good in Education (GGIE). GGIE...

Nationwide, public schools identified 1.5 million children experiencing homelessness in the 2017-2018 school year, an increase of 11% from the previous school year, according to a report released in January by the National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE). A small portion of those students are living in unsheltered situations, such as cars, parks, streets or bus stations, a segment that more than doubled from the previous school year. Homeless students in emergency shelters or...

Please see attached for the trauma-informed journey presentation given by Craig Beswick for Learn4Life on 9/07/18.

MINNEAPOLIS—ON THE heels of the National Indian Education Association's conference held in Minneapolis earlier this fall and just in time for Native American Heritage Month , the nearby Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community announced a $5 million philanthropic campaign to fund resources, curriculum, and training on Native American heritage for teachers and administrators across Minnesota , according to the Star Tribune . "We're hoping we can move the needle in the narrative in Minnesota and...

By Joshua Bote, USA Today, October 14, 2019 A bill signed Saturday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to cut the recent trend in schools of "lunch shaming." SB 265, which was originally introduced by California state Sen. Robert Hertzberg, will require that all public school students have a "state reimbursable" meal provided by the school "even if their parent or guardian has unpaid meal fees." It amends the Child Hunger Prevention and Fair Treatment Act of 2017, which previously stated...

Black people, including youth, are less likely to receive adequate care for mental health issues for a number of reasons: disparities in access to care, stigma about mental illness and lack of culturally competent mental health practitioners. According to a study published in the International Journal of Health Services , black children are about half as likely as white children to get mental health treatment. As the CBC task force, mental health experts and policy makers mull over ideas to...

The two biggest myths about ACEs science are: MYTH #1 — That it’s just about the 10 ACEs in the ACE Study — the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study . It’s about sooooo much more than that. MYTH #2 — And that it’s just about ACEs…adverse childhood experiences. These two myths are intertwined. The ACE Study issued the first of its 70+ publications in 1998, and for many people it was the lightning bolt, the grand “aha” moment, the unexpected doorway into a blazing new...

Foster youth face multiple obstacles that make it hard to succeed in high school. According to the National Foster Youth Institute , only about half of the nation’s youth raised in foster care end up finishing high school. As such, Learn4Life identified the challenges and solutions for this student population and set up a needs-based support team. Over the past three years, Learn4Life has doubled its foster student graduation rate to 77 percent in the 2018-19 school year, exceeding the...

By Hannah Wiley, Sacramento Bee, September 27, 2019 Gov. Gavin Newsom at an annual celebration of Native American culture said he wanted greater “truth telling” of California’s indigenous history and a stronger acknowledgment of the state’s genocide of native people. The governor opened his remarks at the 52nd annual Native American Day in Sacramento by describing California’s first governor, Peter Hardeman Burnett , authorizing a “war of extermination” against the state’s indigenous...

On a sunny day in April, I drove to Head-Royce School in the hills of Oakland, California, to join circle time in Bret Turner ’s first-grade classroom. I had asked Turner if I could sit in on some lessons after reading an article he wrote describing how he teaches about some surprising topics -- like race and class -- in an elementary school classroom. I wanted to see what that looked like and what kind of conversations first-graders at this private school would have around such complicated...

In a recent survey involving 1,000 primary teachers conducted by ed tech company ClassTag , 45 percent of respondents said more than a quarter of families were “hard to reach and engage,” with 21 percent saying that more than half of their families were hard to engage. However, according to the report, The State of Parent Engagement , parents tend to think that teachers do a good job of communicating. Some 39 percent rated teachers as having good communication, rating them at 9 to 10 points...

In 370 schools across England, children will be taught how to meditate, techniques for muscle relaxation, and breathing exercises for mindfulness. The program is being conducted under a mental health study that the British government is running up until 2021. Aside from the increasing number of young children that are showing signs of early onset depression and anxiety , National Health Service (NHS) reports have also indicated that 1-in-8 British children have mental disorders. Despite...