Tagged With "Calm classrooms"
Blog Post
Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
Blog Post
Teaching self awareness and stress recognition to kids age 4-6
Janai Mestrovich (BS/MS, Family & Child Development), teacher and developer of 'Superkid Power' (Ashland, OR) passed this along to me regarding how she uses finger activated mood card to measure temperature and kid stress levels: 40 Pre-K children learned how to measure their stress level this morning by measuring hand temp. with mood cards. Blue, happy-peaceful-very calm; Green, calm; Red, tight muscles/upset; Black Tense/grit teeth. We chanted and drummed appropriately - tense drumming...
Blog Post
The Deficit Lens of the 'Achievement Gap' Needs to Be Flipped. Here's How (edweek.org)
For too long, American schools have had a default orientation toward measuring students' abilities and achievement, rather than focusing on the resources-such as engaging learning environments and high-quality, culturally responsive teaching practices-that empower students to learn new concepts and skills. When data reveal students' shortcomings without revealing the shortcomings of the systems intended to serve them, it becomes easier to treat students as deficient and harder to recognize...
Blog Post
The Healing Place Podcast - Dr. Kristina Brinkerhoff: Educational Consultant
Dr. Kristina Brinkerhoff, a consultant, keynote speaker, presenter and trainer, leverages over 20 years of experience as a teacher, principal, superintendent and adoptive mom of five foster children, to help educators gain an understanding of the effects Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and the importance of trauma informed practice in schools.
Blog Post
The Perks of a Play-in-the-Mud Educational Philosophy [theatlantic.com]
Most American kids don’t spend large chunks of their day catching salamanders and poking sticks into piles of fox poop. In a nation moving toward greater standardization of its public-education system , programs centered around getting kids outside to explore aren’t normal. But that’s precisely what students do at the Nature Preschool at Irvine Nature Center in Owings Mills, Maryland. There, every day, dozens of children ages 3 to 5 come to have adventures on Irvine’s more than 200 acres of...
Blog Post
The Relentless School Nurse: When the Health Office Pass Includes Emotions
The collaboration between school counselors and school nurses creates safe spaces for students at school. Building a coalition between school counselors and school nurses creates a safety net for our most complex and challenging students while benefiting the whole school community. Promoting connections through intentional relationship building, and ensuring a school environment that is physically, emotionally and psychologically safe changes the culture and climate. Read about an amazing...
Blog Post
Toxic Schools Worsening Toxic Stress: The Destructive Reign of Universal Standards, Pathology, Medication and Behaviorism
This post is the first chapter of a book. The names HAVE NOT been changed, as each individual profoundly impacted the author's growth and development. She wants their identities to remain intact. I did not realize that my first years in public education would profoundly shape my trauma-informed journey and what I would do nearly twenty years later. But I clearly remember the late fall of 2001. I was completing my second year in a master’s program for school counseling at the University of...
Blog Post
Trauma in the Classroom: How Educators Should Approach it and What Parents and Students Should Expect From Schools [newsstand.clemson.edu]
By Michael Staton, Clemson University College of Education, November 18, 2019 When students arrive at school, they don’t check their trauma at the door or ignore it. Considering the effect trauma can have on student learning, teachers can’t choose to ignore it, either. Trauma leads to learning problems, lower grades, suspensions, expulsions and even long-term health problems. Teachers are increasingly expected to identify and work with issues students bring to school, and based on related...
Blog Post
Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Calming Corners
In our trauma-informed classrooms blog post last week, we talked about choices. We mentioned the benefit of having a space in the room where a child can go to help them calm down and become regulated. While this has become increasingly common at the elementary level, we have found that this is a tool that can work for students of all ages. Even when we survey adults about the things that help them to calm down when they are upset, one of the most common answers we hear is that they want time...
Blog Post
Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Choices
One thing that is common among many traumatic events is a complete lack of choices. When a person feels like they do not have a choice or control, it can be triggering and cause the negative emotions that the person ties to the original trauma. While you can do a lot relationally with how you interact with your students, you can also set up your physical space with choices in mind. As you think about choices in your classroom, here are a couple of options you may want to consider. First of...
Blog Post
What do preschool teachers need to do a better job? (hechingerreport.org)
One city’s attempt to professionalize early education could be a model for the nation. “We believe that preschool is an integral part of the public school system and public school should be universally available because every child can benefit from it,” said Josh Wallack, Deputy Chancellor of New York City’s Department of Education. “Therefore, preschool should be universal.” The changes have come with new money and support to ensure that the city is not only offering preschool to all, but...
Blog Post
What's Lost When Black Children Are Socialized Into a White World [theatlantic.com]
By Dani McClain, The Atlantic, November 21, 2019 Jessica Black is a Pittsburg, California, mother of two black teenagers, both of whom have been disciplined multiple times at their middle and high schools. Her daughter has been suspended more than once, and teachers often deem her son’s behavior out of line, reprimanding him for not taking off his hoodie in class and for raising his voice. In observing her own family and others, Black has noticed a pattern: Behaviors that many black parents...
Blog Post
Would you send your kids to school in the woods? [LOUISVILLE COURIER JOURNAL]
This Kentucky classroom has no computers, toys or walls. Instead, students are surrounded by an abundance of oak and maple trees and a bubbling creek. In the spring, butterflies and honey bees are their constant companions. On a cold day in early winter, a woodpecker chatters away on an old tree branch overhead and nearby, the soft crunching sound of squirrels can be heard bounding through fallen dried leaves. You might not know it, but you're in the middle of a classroom. "We're...
Ask the Community
Healing ACE's
Healing Childhood Trauma I’d like to thank each member of ACE’s Connection for all your work helping and supporting children through various activities and organizations. You are clearly a collection of people who care about the children of the world. It is in recognition of these efforts that I ask you to consider two books on healing childhood trauma. They represent a life-time partnership dedicated to raising and educating healthy children. Secondly, I’d like to ask you for a word of...
Blog Post
'How Do We Recover?': Experts Weigh In on How to Talk to Your Kids About Shootings [latimes.com]
By Nina Agrawal, Los Angeles Times, November 14, 2019 The shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita on Thursday touched off intense, heart-sinking fear among many teenagers who ran for cover, barricaded classroom doors with tables and chairs, and hid in closets. Later, as they were reunited at a park, evacuated students and parents collapsed into one another’s arms in long, tearful hugs. “Fear made it feel like we were waiting in silence forever,” said Andrei Mojica, 17, who locked...
Blog Post
In a converted bus in Tijuana, a school emerges for asylum seekers (Los Angeles Times)
By Alejandro Maciel, December 4, 2019, LA Times TIJUANA — It’s a Friday morning and, as at any other school, children are cutting paper, drawing, reading aloud and playing with friends. There’s some shouting and pushing too, and their teacher patiently arranges the desks and gives instructions. What’s unusual is the setting: the inside of a passenger bus that has been converted into a classroom. The school is part of the Yes We Can Mobile Schools project of the Yes We Can World Foundation ,...
Blog Post
Is This as Good as Childcare Gets? [TheAtlantic.com]
“Money has been a constant struggle,” says Kim Silva of her 30 years as an early-education teacher in Massachusetts. “One unexpected expense can put you in the hole for months.” Silva, 46, is the lead teacher in a preschool classroom at NorthStar, a childcare center in New Bedford, Massachusetts, that largely serves children whose parents’ income is low enough that they are eligible to receive financial subsidies from the state to help pay for care. Silva has worked there since she was 15,...
Blog Post
Is your school a buffer zone against toxic stress?
The challenge of the fast pace and the strain of living in the 21 st century is the chronic stress of keeping up with volume of information, expectations and adverse experiences that leads to stressors of daily living. Adults have become good at adjusting to and compartmentalizing these stressors. Children and adolescents however are struggling to keep up and are in fact caving under the weight of the stresses. In addition, many children lack adequate nurturing and supports needed to give...
Blog Post
L.A. teen moms in program that allows their children in class graduate from high school (abc7.com)
PANORAMA CITY, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A group of students who studied in a classroom alongside their babies at a Panorama City school received their diplomas Monday. When 19-year-old Teresa Campa attended classes at the Assurance Learning Academy, her 5-month-old daughter Lydia usually sat with her. "Once I found out I was pregnant, I knew I had to finish high school," Teresa Campa said. Campa is one of nine teen mothers who received their high school diplomas thanks to a curriculum called...
Blog Post
Mindful News Roundup: On Our Minds (mindful.org)
Mindfulness in preschool A new initiative in Miami, Florida, is assessing how mindfulness in families might cultivate resilience and reduce domestic violence. The pilot program is headed by Scott Rogers , a mindfulness teacher and director of Miami Law’s Mindfulness in Law Program . Rogers has developed mindfulness exercises to be integrated into an Early Head Start educational setting, where preschool teachers, parents, and young children can learn about and practice mindfulness together—in...
Blog Post
On the Street: Network Leaders Plus Sesame Street Resources Boost Community Engagement
Guadalupe Mendoza used to drop off her kids for pre-school, then make a quick and silent retreat. “I hid away,” says Mendoza, mother of five children aged 18 to 5; all but the oldest attended the Head Start/ECEAP (Early Childhood Education Assistance Program) at Walla Walla’s Blue Ridge Elementary School. “I didn’t allow myself to have a connection with the staff.” Three years ago, Mendoza began volunteering with the pre-school. Then she attended a moms’ group. Still, she shied away from the...
Blog Post
Peace of Mind: Adverse Childhood Experiences [14News.com]
Science shows children's exposure to trauma and toxic stress could lead to major health problems later in life. Walk into any classroom at Evansville's Ark Crisis Child Care Center, and you will find children who feel safe and welcome. "A lot of the kids that we see have lived in a number of different places, they don't have a home, they don't have some place to call their own," said Angie Richards Cooley, Ark Crisis Child Care Center executive director. "So we work really hard here at Ark...
Blog Post
Playtime May Bolster Kids’ Mental Health [theatlantic.com]
“Play has become a four-letter word.” So says Kathy Hirsh-Pasek , a psychologist at Temple University and one of the authors of a new paper about the importance of play in children’s lives. The clinical report , published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommends that pediatricians write a “prescription for play” at doctor visits in the first two years of life. Years of research have shown that play is an important part of a child’s development, assisting in cognition, memory, social...
Blog Post
Positive Discipline in the Classroom Workshop- Apr 2 - May 7
"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...
Blog Post
Program gives Spokane schools resources to help students rise above adversity
By Jim Allen , Thu., Oct. 24, 2019 Think of it as a well-school checkup. On Tuesday morning at Bemiss Elementary School, educators and health professionals spoke enthusiastically about something called Resilience in School Environments, or RISE. A collaboration between Kaiser Permanente and the Spokane and West Valley school districts, the RISE program is expected to lift up teachers and administrators and give them tools to cope with all the challenges of the modern student. The challenges...
Blog Post
Revisiting a Wonderful Resource
Today I stumbled on an "old" resource and was reminded about what great and accessible information it has. Calmer Classrooms was published in 2007 by the Child Safety Commissioner in Victoria Australia. It is full of excellent and...
Blog Post
Schools Spotlight Social, Emotional Learning Amid Complex Times [fosters.com]
By Hadley Barndollar, Fosters.com, October 20, 2019 In a second-grade classroom at New Franklin Elementary School, a warm flurry of compliments. Seated in a circle, girls praise each other’s dresses and sweatshirts. A boy gives his friend kudos for helping him clean up after an activity the previous week. They all murmur the teacher-advised response — “thank you” — through toothy smiles. It’s a lesson on compliments. Down the hallway, in a first-grade circle, students talk about inclusion...
Blog Post
Self Regulation Skills Bring Resiliency to Angry Preschool Boy
SUCCESS! RESULTS! Here's a testimonial from a preschool teacher who reinforces the Superkid Power skills I teach to a classroom of 3 and 4 year olds. "Two very active little boys were playing in the dramatic play area. Both saw a police officer uniform that they wanted to wear. We have been working on social dialogue throughout the month so one little boy responded with "Can I have it when you are done?" The other little boy responded with "Yes." Thinking that he was able to play with it...
Blog Post
'Children Live a Lifetime Before They Come to School' | Teachers Working to Ease Childhood Trauma [wbir.com]
By Gabrielle Hays, WBIR 10 News, February 10, 2020 Melissa Bucks spent 36 years of her life teaching kindergarteners and first graders in Knox County. She just retired in May but is still involved in the classroom and in the community. After almost four decades in education, she can recall how trauma in the classroom changed over time and how it impacts some of our youngest children who are trying to learn. “It was always different but there was always one child, two children or three...
Blog Post
Collateral Damage: Advocates aim to save Baltimore children from impact of violence [baltimoresun.com]
The first time she witnessed a student's major tantrum — a 2-year-old hurling a toy stove filled with plastic pots and pans — Shanikia Johnson had just started as a teacher at Little Flowers Child Development Center in West Baltimore....
Blog Post
Could we improve America by treating 2-year-olds better? [hechingerreport.org]
This story is part of a series that looks at what makes the 2-year-old year so critical and what could be done to better support toddlers in America. The series was produced by The Hechinger Report and Columbia Journalism School’s Teacher Project , nonprofit news organizations focused on education coverage, in partnership with Slate Magazine . Sign up for our newsletter . Or view the whole series . In Wichita, Kansas, single mother Tiffany McNitt sometimes cries after dropping her kids, aged...
Blog Post
Do You Have a Story to Tell? Speak at the 2018 Fall Trauma-Informed School Conference
Beyond Consequences is excited to announce that our Call for Proposals for the 2018 Fall Trauma-Informed School Conference has been extended. If you have a great story to share about your experience in working with students who’ve had adverse childhood experiences, we would love to hear from you! Here are some examples of sessions that fit in at our nationally recognized conference: Administrative/School-Wide Track • Mindfulness Instead of Suspension • Special Education Law & Advocacy •...
Blog Post
Early-childhood development offers a brighter future to entire nations [The Seattle Times]
By Steve Davis and Peter Laugharn, July 29, 2019 The Seattle Times The World Health Organization just unveiled an initiative that could improve millions of children’s lives and boost the global economy by trillions of dollars. The initiative, known as the Nurturing Care Framework for Early Childhood Development , [ PDF attached ] seeks to change how we raise infants and toddlers. Children’s experiences during their first three years of life heavily influence their well-being as adults,...
Blog Post
Early childhood educators learn new ways to spot trauma triggers, build resilience in preschoolers
A hug may be comforting to many children, but for a child who has experienced trauma it may not feel safe.
That’s an example used by Julie Kurtz, co-director of trauma informed practices in early childhood education at the WestEd Center for Child & Family Studies (CCFS), as she begins a trauma training session. Her audience, preschool teachers and staff of the San Francisco-based Wu Yee Children’s Services at San Francisco’s Women’s Building, listen attentively.
Blog Post
Equipping Grandmas With Childcare Credentials [TheAtlantic.com]
On a recent morning, 15 women gathered in a mint-green classroom at First Lutheran Church in Longmont, Colorado, to learn more about the fundamentals of childcare. They talked about mapping out daily schedules with time for reading activities, group play, meals, and naps. They traded tips about the inexpensive educational materials available at Dollar Tree stores. But this was no Saturday-morning babysitting boot camp. It was part of a 120-hour training course that will eventually earn...
Blog Post
Giving traumatized kids a head start in healing [PBS News Hour]
Every year, thousands of children in the U.S. are expelled from school before they reach kindergarten. PBS News Hour special correspondent Molly Knight Raskin reports on the Head Start-Trauma Smart program in Kansas City, Missouri, thats trying...
Blog Post
Healing with Yoga
Did you know that yoga can reduce stress and heal the mind, body, and soul? Let me explain how yoga can prevent, treat, and heal Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s) and toxic stress. In my personal experience as a Sonoma County preschool teacher, I noticed many children, parents, and teachers in our program had very high levels of stress and anxiety. We all live busy lives and tend to focus on the next activity instead of the one at hand. So I decided to try yoga. I started doing yoga with...
Comment
Re: Early Childhood Education Is Not a Profession [PSMag.com]
Sure I am preaching to the choir here, but we really do need to pay these teachers as professionals so they will stay and take more interest in furthering their skills via higher education! I feel very blessed to have been able to stay in the field of working with children ages 0-5 years and their big people, thanks to having a second income in the family. It will be a sad day when in spite of a bachelor's degree and 42 years of experience in the field , CA's new minimum wage of $15 an hour,...
Blog Post
3D Teaching Example to calm pre-K and K kids
Janai Mestrovich, Ashland, OR, (BS/MS, Family & Child Development) has been teaching Early Childhood Education and Social/Emotional Learning for 42 years. She specializes in '3D' experiences that help her students visualize and feel the lesson as part of the SuperKid Power curriculum. The 'breathing sphere' opens and closes to show kids how the body/lungs/diaphragm work inside them and Janai opens and closes it as she counts out numbers for inhale, hold and exhale. In the 'staying calm...
Blog Post
A Guide to Creating “Safe Space” Policies for Early Childhood Programs [CLASP]
From the Center for Law and Social Policy Early childhood programs play an important role in the lives of young children and their families. But in our current immigration policy climate, families across the country are questioning whether it’s safe to attend or enroll. Providers can take steps to protect families’ safety and privacy by implementing policies that designate their facilities as a safe space from immigration enforcement. This guide explains federal agency guidance related to...
Blog Post
Announcing CRI's Newest Trainings- July and September!
CRI is excited to announce new trainings! We will have online trainings in July, and an in-person training in September. July Online Trainings CRI Course 1 LIVE WEBCAST: Trauma-Informed Training A dynamic 2 part six-hour LIVE WEBCAST course, Course 1 introduces CRI’s capacity-building framework for building resilience, KISS. Knowledge, Insight, Strategies and Structure describes our community’s learning and movement from theory to practice and how to implement evidence-based strategies into...
Blog Post
Are Lockdown Drills Trauma Informed?
Are lockdown drills trauma informed? We have outlined three easy to implement recommendations. Please share with your fellow teachers!
Blog Post
Armstrong: Building a Supportive Classroom Community in Early Childhood
As an educator and researcher who specializes in early childhood and also works with older grade levels, I’ve used National Bullying Prevention Month to reflect on ways bullying progresses as children age. I’ve been wondering what can be done in early childhood to prevent bullying in later grades. I’ve reviewed the literature on bullying, including sites that provide suggestions on how to prevent and address bullying , but figuring out how to get started can be overwhelming as it involves...
Blog Post
As More Children Show Symptoms of Trauma, Head Start Programs Expand Support Services
This story is part of an EdSurge Research series about the early childhood education workforce. HAMILTON, Ohio — Suzanne Prescott first noticed the changes in children’s behaviors in 2015 "She was fielding reports of kids knocking over bookshelves, tables and chairs; hitting their classmates; and causing physical harm to themselves and their teachers. Not only were more 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds having outbursts, they were doing so with an intensity Prescott had never before seen. In some...
Comment
Re: Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Calming Corners
You can get a lesson plan for setting up calm down zones or "positive time out areas" in the Positive Discipline in the School and Classroom Manual. Available at PositiveDiscipline.com There are lots of other trauma informed SEL lessons in the manual as well.
Blog Post
Play Therapy Can Help Kids Speak the Unspeakable (NYT)
By Dani McClain, July 21, 2020, NYT. Dee Ray doesn’t learn how children feel by listening to their words. Ray, a researcher and counselor in Texas, learns by watching them play. She directs the Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas and often works in schools, where she sections off a 10 feet by 10 feet area in a classroom and fills the space with toys — a child sized kitchenette, puppets, a bop bag that a child who needs to work out some aggression can punch. [ Please...
Blog Post
Seven Steps to Calm an Explosive Child
Are you exhausted by the explosive behaviors of the children you love? First, I want to say I am so proud of you. I know the fatigue and frustration that comes with parenting a child who feels out of control. The fact that you are reading this article means you are looking for support and guidance, and that means you are on your way to helping the children in your life. And believe me, you are probably already doing a better job than you think! Kids need you to show up more than anything!