Education
Wired for Curiosity
“Being curious is an essential part of human consciousness, a joyful feature of a life well lived. But as recent research evidence shows, fostering curiosity holds a power that goes beyond merely feeling good. In fact, curiosity may be critical to student success in school.” – Wendy L. Ostroff Children are hard wired to…
Read MoreThe Joy of the Positive Word
The days of summer are filled with joy, but joy can be short-lived when something as simple as a negative word comes your way. Everything immediately changes because a bomb was dropped on your psyche. It rolls around in your mind like a cyclone destroying the positive thoughts that had once taken center stage.…
Read MoreJoy-Boosting Self-Talk
You can’t help but smile when you look at these faces filled with genuine joy! According to the dictionary joy is “a feeling of great pleasure or happiness.” Children are experts at experiencing joy, but what happens to us as we get older? We are so filled with self-imposed expectations,…
Read MoreHow to Deal With Bucket Dipping
What is bucket filling? “It is helpful to think of every person as being born with an invisible bucket. The bucket represents a person’s mental and emotional health. You can’t see the bucket, but it’s there. She said that it is primarily the responsibility of parents and other caregivers to fill a child’s bucket. When…
Read MoreThe Resilience of Heroes
“Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up.” – Rocky Balboa I love the old Rocky movies! I know I am showing my age, but my heart still soars when I hear the theme music and see Rocky Balboa charging up the 72 stone steps leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Rocky…
Read MoreBend, Baby, Bend
I have a great love for children’s stories! They are incredible teaching tools and always speak to my heart. Since this month’s theme at ERG is resilience, one of Aesop’s fables came to mind: Once upon a time there was a huge oak tree that lived on a river bank. It was very tall and…
Read MoreBounce Back
“Blessed are the hearts that can bend, for they can never be broken.” – Albert Camus Have you ever heard the story about the old donkey and the well? Once an old donkey fell into a well. He cried and cried until the farmer heard him and came running. The farmer couldn’t figure out…
Read MoreHow To Start Summer
Having to tell someone how to actually start a season may seem odd, but if you know educators, then you might know someone who needs this advice. We are in schools at least 9 months of the year, and at the end it is sometimes hard to say goodbye to our school year selves. In…
Read MoreLet Them Eat Cake
Where’s the happiest place on earth? Hint: It doesn’t begin with the word “Disney”. For close to 50 years, Denmark has been ranked as the happiest country on earth. Why? Well, researchers can name quite a few reasons, but one of the most interesting ones to me has to do with the national school curriculum. …
Read MoreThe Empathy Test
Since I’m blogging about empathy this month, I decided to take an online empathy quiz. I ended up taking several and basically they all said the same thing. I have a high level of empathy. This didn’t surprise me to be honest. However, the test I found most interesting was “The Empathy Test” by Greater…
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