The strong, handsome, teen boy sat in my office with a look of deep despair on his face. He was a kind person and a straight-A student, but recent trauma had pulled everything out from under him. There were panic attacks and sleepless nights. He struggled to...
Not long after I’d begun work as a counselor in a high poverty, high trauma school, I played a social/emotional game with a group of students in which I’d ask questions to get them thinking. “What would you do if you found $10,000?” I asked the children. Having come...
The 6th grade students at the Outdoor School were looking at the results of water samples they had just taken when a great blue heron landed in a tree above our heads. All the children turned to gaze at it, their eyes huge with excitement. What is that? they wanted to...
A lot of folks seem to think that all kids have trouble shifting from unstructured summertime to the structure of the new academic year. Some do, of course. But when the first day of school rolled around here, my granddaughter Anna jumped out of bed, excited to get...
Physical education is a crucial part of a child’s overall education. It presents limitless opportunities for instilling healthy habits while supporting their growth and cognitive development. Yet ask a random group of adults what they remember about PE class, and...
Think back to when you were small and grownups asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. Your answers probably changed a lot over time. One month, you wanted to be a veterinarian, the next, an astronaut. Or teacher. Or cowboy. Or scientist. Maybe you did grow...
