Dear Difference Maker,

Like most teachers, one year my teaching contract was dependent upon my agreeing to do an extra curricular activity that I had no interest in, or so I thought.  For me it was coaching girls volleyball and basketball.

I loved sports and had been very athletic in high school but I never thought about coaching until getting a teaching job was contingent on it. I was married to a football coach and I was raised in a farming community in Nebraska so football was my life growing up.

Its a funny thing about how teaching can take you down roads you had no intention of traveling.  After I started coaching my own team, I discovered not only how fulfilling it was, I found out just how competitive I was!

I had been using my version of Team Learning (Cooperative Learning) for seven years up to that point in my classroom.  Now because of coaching two sports, I was taking team building to the next level.  By the second year of coaching, my girls had won district championships in both volleyball and basketball.

Teamwork really does make the dream work. 

There’s no better time than the present to experience the healing power of inclusion through team building.  The last 9-Weeks of any school year are pivotal in creating 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” program.

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

Reaching out …

Founder of Heart Productions & Publishing, the Pacific Northwest

Team Work and Playing Catch Up 
Excerpt from 9 Weeks to a Make A Difference Year Curriculum

We are about to embark on Catch-up Learning.

There are some proven methods for identifying students who fall behind academically and intervening to help them catch up on learning, and there are some essential tools that teachers need to have in place for students to develop a community mindset.

The Brain-Based Research suggests that superior learning takes place when classroom experiences are safe, inclusive, enjoyable and relevant to students’ lives, interests and experiences.

A great way to give students meaningful opportunities in becoming skillful in social engagement and lower their affective filter is to team up and make coming together to learn, fun!

Having fun while learning also helps students retain information better because the process is enjoyable and memorable.

Week 3 of my 9 Week program is about students getting to experience a couple of fun, team building activities that will generate a lot of conversation and insight into themselves and each other in light and fun ways.

Kids already talk a lot, so why would you want to get them to talk more?

There’s talking to be talking, and then there’s talking to learn more about each other.  There’s nothing like new insights and understanding about each other’s thoughts, feelings and stories, to unify us and to help us not feel so alone.

When students can see common ground, their brains relax and breathe again.  Brain science observes that a relaxed mind lights up the frontal lobe of the brain.  Simply put, a lit brain becomes a “can do” mind!

Objective of this week is to build upon the idea that community takes teamwork. This week’s activities provide an opportunity to work as a team to explore the dimensions of a compassionate community and inclusion.

By allowing students the opportunity to distinguish between “Me” and “We” they can feel what benefits they receive when they are a part of something greater than themselves.

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 get started now!