Conscious Curriculum

Sarah Miller is a visionary in education and has served to support transformational models of education throughout her 20 year career in schools as teacher, leader, coach, and consultant.

She started her career in 2002 teaching in rural Mississippi, and then moved to Boston to support the building of a charter network specifically designed to serve youth who are disconnected from formal educational institutions.  There she fell in love with managing and training adults to find their passions and voices in the field of education.  She has held various leadership roles including Head of School and Chief Academic Officer - she has also taught in Boston University's Graduate School of Education.  Her true love is training adults in the work.

Sarah also has Cystic Fibrosis and is currently on disability and living in Nashville.  While she volunteers as a consultant to a charter network in Chicago, she isn't currently working in the field formally.  She loves discussing education and would love for you to reach out by emailing here at [email protected].

In this episode Sarah shares how her illness impacted her understanding of her identity and relationship to work, inviting us to be intentional, thoughtful, and healthy in the visions we set for how we want to impact the world through our work.

Sarah shares innovative strategies that would support all people connected to schools - students, teachers, leaders, parents, and beyond - and she addresses the roadblocks we continue to encounter as we apply what we know about teaching, learning, and holistic human development.

This episode will leave you inspired, ignited, and ready to shift your practice so you can integrate more joy, liberation, and balance into your personal and professional lives.

Have any takeaways from the episode?  Drop them below!  We would love to hear from you.

If you're looking for inspiration to create radical change in your own life or the life of others - - this episode is for you!

My Why: I want as MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE to be as HAPPY AS POSSIBLE so they can LIVE IN THEIR FULLEST POTENTIAL and GIVE BACK TO THE WORLD in EXACTLY the way they were designed.

My Mission: To reinvent the institution of public education so people have the power to heal themselves and achieve whatever they want in life.

My Goal: To help as many people as possible harness their infinite potential and share and celebrate their inherent magic and wisdom.

My Dream: A world where freedom (for all) feels like safety (for all).

- 2020 CDC reports 36.7% of high school students reported feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year. This percentage is higher for females (46.6%), and highest for queer teens (66.3%)

- 18.8% of high school students reported having seriously considered suicide in the past year – of which almost 9% actually attempted suicide.  This percentage is highest among females (11.0%), black teens (11.8%), and queer teens (23.4%) (CDC, 2020).

- As of last year, 2022, suicide is the second-leading cause of death for teens and young adults, ages 10-34 (CDC, 2022).

Source: https://jedfoundation.org/mental-health-and-suicide-statistics/

They need us.  We need us.  Now is the only time we got.

No matter the age of the students you teach, how can we leverage the pre-holiday academic season most wisely for meaningful teaching and learning?

How can we navigate the emotional landscape of the past year, and holiday season, to support our personal needs, and the needs of our students and communities?

More in the episode.

Wishing so much love to you and yours.  Happy Holidays <3

Miriam

"SMART" Goals ain't cuttin it.  Not for us, and not for our kids.

How to we teach ourselves and young people to set goals and achieve them...for real?

What shifts need to happen in the way we think about and practice goal setting - for ourselves and for our young people?

How do we know if a goal is a "good goal" for us?

All that and more in today's episode.

Got a goal you want to achieve?  Book a consultation call with Miriam - let's turn these dreams to embodied action.

Elisabeth Kristof is an expert in using applied neurology to move people out of pain, unwanted behavior and stress response. She is the founder of Brain-Based Wellness, an online platform that trains the nervous system and body to resolve old patterns, improve performance and increase well-being. 

She is the co-founder of the Neuro-Somatic Intelligence Coaching Certification Program, an accredited practitioner certification - one that Miriam has completed!

Elisabeth is a certified applied neurology practitioner who has been in the movement and wellness industry since 2007. She works with entrepreneurs, athletes, leaders and creatives to improve resilience, manage stress and regulate emotions through intentional, science-based brain training. Her research and work with hundreds of clients taught her that healing and change must occur in both the body and the mind, that each body, mind, and nervous system is unique, and most importantly, that with the right tools, we are all capable of healing.

Get in on Elisabeth's exclusive Free Video Training - her proven step-by-step system to PROCESS stress, RESOLVE anxiety, STOP pain, DROP unwanted behaviors and INCREASE clarity and focus.

It’s easier than you think. If you can watch a video, you can heal your nervous system.

Go here to get your free videos now:

https://brainbased-wellness.com/register/free-subscription/

These are two questions I am hearing from a lot of teachers.

The bigger questions, at the root of these questions are: 

- What has school come to in the United States?

- What's one simple thing we can do, amidst an epically ineffective system, to massively support ourselves and our young people?

In this episode, I offer concrete, practical, bite-sized shifts that to lead to radical change...and they are all connected to us SLOWING DOWN.

Let me know what you think!

Jason Valle grew up in the South Bronx, and graduated high school in June of 2020, at the beginnings of the Covid Pandemic.

Throughout school, his struggles with mental health significantly impacted his academic progress and social-emotional development.

Jason implores educational institutions to do better for young people.

Hear his story, and amplify his voice.

Share this episode.

Reviews help our show gain visibility, so the people who need to hear it can!

*note: this episode was previously published in April of 2021 - it was our most-listened episode in our first launch of the show.

This question tends to cut us at our core.  

We pour so much love into our work, and yet...

sometimes we don't see the impact.

PATIENCE and BELIEF are no doubt important - - but what else can we do?

Listen to find out.

David E. Kirkland, (@davidekirkland) is a Professor of Urban Education at New York University, and served as the long-standing Executive Director of The Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and The Transformation of Schools until starting his own educational equity company, forwardED. 

He is an activist and educator, cultural critic and author, and a leading national scholar and advocate for educational justice. 

While Dr. Kirkland’s work has always centered equity and culturally and linguistically responsive-sustaining education, his more recent work with the NYU Metro Center has focused on supporting instruction responsive to the social, cultural, and emotional needs of linguistically and culturally plural students. 

Dr. Kirkland taught secondary school and served as a school administrator in Michigan and New York. 

He has also organized youth empowerment and youth mentoring programs in major U.S. cities and currently leads efforts to enhance education options for vulnerable youth throughout the U.S. Dr. Kirkland has received many awards for his research and educational advocacy work; a full list can be found here. 

Learn more about Dr. Kirkland by clicking on the following links:

“A Search Past Silence: The Literacy of Black Males”

"How a Dyslexic Boy Fell in Love with Words"

"Elements of Oppression"

In this Halloween Episode, we tackle that there are few things scarier than what we are ACTUALLY practicing in schools - and how those practices impact how we function (or don't) as adults.

What makes us human is that we are CONSCIOUS.  We have capacity to reflect, and make change, and create with intention.

...but we're not really practiced in those elements of consciousness in school.  We're taught what to do, how to do, when to do, and why to do...but we're never really asked to consider our own conscious experience.

How CAN we teach ourselves, and our students, better conscious practice?

In this episode, Miriam guides through three practical frameworks - and simple strategies - that can be incorporated in personal and professional life - to support you, and the people you serve, to tap into their deepest consciousness and potential.