[9-Weeks] Ask How I Can Make A Difference?

Dear Difference Maker,

It’s happening!  Educators around the country are gradually getting back to their classrooms and with it may come heightened energy and pent-up emotion.

The classroom management problems that existed before COVID may in fact now be even more magnified.

What a great time to take steps to gently and easily capitalize on your student’s current emotional states and harness the built up energy of this past year.

You have the power and influence to take this shared experience and make this last quarter the safest, most inclusive classroom community they’ve ever known, one week at a time.

Chinese word for crisis can be translated
as both danger and opportunity.
May we open our eyes to both. 

While we often hear, “I just want things to return back to normal,” this may just be the most dangerous lamenting we can let ourselves do.  Things have changed and many of those things are laying the foundation for necessary paradigm shifts.  This is not the time to go backwards to the way things were.  Let’s keep going forward to ease into a greater humanity.

Virtual learning for example:  never before have teachers been inside of student’s homes in this way.  Everyone has been stretched.  Never before have teachers and parents worked so closely together to keep their kids in front of the screen for their daily classes!

To quote Mathew Portell, Principal of Fall-Hamilton Elementary, an internationally recognized innovative model school for trauma-informed practices in Metro Nashville Public Schools …

“We required our teachers to call every student every day
and virtual learning shot up. Why?  Connection.”

He goes on to say, “We’re not asking our teachers to be therapists.  Studies are confirming that it is the consistent, little interactions that add up and are far more impactful than even therapy can be.”

I will also add that it is every infinitesimal attitude, vibe and tone you offer in every single interaction which is accumulative and will, over time, either calm or agitate (regulate or deregulate) any child you are working with.

Virtual learning required teachers to reach out emotionally to their students via the Internet or through phone calls, drive-bys, food delivery, etc.  New levels of energetic encouragement and connection happened.

What’s the best that can happen the next 9 weeks?

One of the best things that can happen is that we don’t let the energetic connection that has happened slip away just because students are back in the classroom.  That we keep doing what we did virtually to engage, energetically connect and be interesting.

Social engagement is happening whether you are managing it effectively or not.  Take the last quarter of this school year and direct what’s happening socially and emotionally in your classroom with “done for you” conversation starters, so your students begin learning more about each other, and then how to care and be protective of each other going forward.

By simply directing the conversation one class period a week over a period of nine weeks you can Make A Difference this year that transcends anything that’s ever happened for them and for you.

Mental Health has been on the forefront, but now it’s a MUST DO for educators.  Like it or not.  No one is coming to fix this.  Waiting for professionally trained outside reinforcements most likely is not happening.  Waiting for state funding is going to be a long wait.  Your students need a safe, inclusive community in our classrooms now!

Click the link for more information and be the one to set the tone!

Reaching out …

Founder of Heart Productions & Publishing, the Pacific Northwest

The Teddy Stallard Story
Excerpt from Make A Difference with the Power of Connection

While this story was obviously perfect for teachers, parents and grandparents I had failed to realize that the most amazing value of this story is the emotion it stirs up in us all; it makes us want to be better people and treat each other, not just children, more affirmatively and compassionately.

And that’s why the answer for us all lies in the transforming Power of Compassion!

“No problem can be solved from the same
level of consciousness that created it.”
– Albert Einstein

Once, when I showed the Teddy Stallard story to an audience of 500 Junior High and High School students, the groans, coos, ooos and ahhs going on during the movie touched my heart big time.

After the movie was over, I looked out at them and there was a palpable silence. When I asked them for their insights, over fifty percent of the room raised their hands wanting to be heard.  To summarize what they said about Teddy’s story:

1) it made them realize that while we know everybody in our classes, no one can ever really know what goes on in someone’s home, and 2) in the words of student after student: “I realized that I really can make a difference by stepping in to help.”

I choked back my own tears. I had no idea how deeply and profoundly students of this age would experience this story.  I’m also happy to report that while grade school students are not as articulate, their realization that they too can make a difference in someone’s life, may just choke you up too.

Here’s a message I received from a PTA mom after she watched the movie:

“Mary, I just dropped my son at school after a very difficult morning … one of many. Patrick and I have one of those ‘clashing’ relationships where we are constantly bickering with one another. Your email arrived just in time and I watched the Teddy Stallard story. A box of tissues later I realize that ‘I Am’ the problem. I hear myself talking and that’s all I hear sometimes. Thanks for reminding me that if I want change, I need to create an environment of gratitude, laughter and encouragement. I know that, but today I needed the reminder and recharge. This time I won’t forget. Rather than respond to ‘my Teddy’s’ sarcastic tone, I’ll stop jumping in with an answer. We fight for independence. The mirror is a powerful tool and a very scary realization. Patrick is a wonderfully kind, sensitive, creative young man who has much to offer the people around him, including me. I just need to give him a chance to share that. I see more laughter in our household. That’s a good thing. Just need to keep it going. I learned something the other day …. the word ‘listen’ when you change the letters spells ‘silent’. Thank you.” – Terri Stanganelli

Also provided in 9 Week Curriculum …

This story is about so much more than a child being lost in the school system; it is truly about the Power of One to change a life forever, through the power of compassion.

What I began to see happening as schools used this movie in their PD meetings was that while educators were genuinely touched for several days, as it is with most things, the compassion this story brings would fade away.  It is a story that must be savored and utilized for days and weeks to come.

Week 2 is centered on the Teddy Stallard Story and the compassionate connection it evokes.  It is designed to help your students with how well they do with their day-to-day social engagement opportunities by simply putting themselves in someone else’s shoes.

It shows them how to care for each other because we just never know what someone is going through unless we take it upon ourselves to investigate.  Students young and older all love investigating.  It’s not about caring for a day.  It’s about continuing to care for each other day after day.

While you are provided with conversation starter “done for you” questions, you are not limited to them.  Keep going.  The more you can get students to open up about their thoughts and feelings, the more you know about how to reach them and teach them.

There’s no better time than the present.

The last 9 Weeks of any school year – and particularly this chaotic school year – are pivotal in creating comradery, so they can end the year with the excitement and expectancy of getting on with the next school year.

Learn more about how to make your classroom safe, all-inclusive and hum with academic productivity with my “9 Weeks to A Make A Difference Year” Curriculum.

Your Road Map:  1) one class period a week for nine weeks: play a heart connecting movie and/or engage students in a team building activity which you will then use to, 2) direct the conversation using my “done for you” questions to, 3) explore what is really on in your students’ hearts and minds.

When you follow my 9-Week Make A Difference Year Curriculum you will …

• slow everything down and breathe a collective breath.
• ease your students into constructive and productive social emotional engagement with “done for you” activities and discussion questions.
• learn deeper levels about each student by listening to them discuss “what came up” for them about the movie or activity.
• start tuning-in to your students’ “hidden stressors” that each of them is struggling with daily, not just academically, but socially and emotionally to build a common bond.
• experience the transformational power of my WIW – “What, If, When” – technique, to shift the energy of the room in 30 seconds or less as intense situations come up (and they will come up)!
• see unskillful behaviors with new eyes of understanding, hear with healing ears.
• be thrilled at how a safe, inclusive and caring community will yield calm minds and accelerate learning.
• marvel at how quickly students – particularly those who are normally behind – are able to catch up and even pull ahead.

Click the link for more information and then be the one to set the tone!