Learning Takes Flight

Hello LTF Listeners!
This episode is all about how to have those difficult conversations with parents. 

I will share with you how to conduct a meeting, send a message and why it is vital that you do not avoid these conversations and how by speaking up you will truly be helping the child in need. 

I also share with you a whole lot of gratitude and reminders to set boundaries for yourself as you build your school and classroom community.

This week I share with you why providing art and crafting experiences for children is so important! I give some examples of how to make these opportunities more accessible, affordable and less daunting to provide. 
I will also share with you some of the things we should never do in regards to a child's creative efforts. 
This is one of those "tip of the iceberg" episodes... an entire podcast series could be dedicated to providing art for children. 
I hope that this episode is a launching off point though and provides some inspiration and support. 
If you have any questions about how to adapt your classroom to offer more opportunities for art and crafting, please email me at:
[email protected]

Happy Listening!

This week I share with you about what is often called "teacher burnout". I truly think though that anyone working with children (and remember, children develop until age 24!) can feel overwhelmed, uninspired, frustrated and fatigued. 
I will share with you my experience with these feelings and what you can do to try and get through them. 
The most important message this week is this:
give yourself grace and know that you are not alone!

I hope that you can find some helpful advice here and maybe just the reassurance that what you are feeling, especially this time of year while a pandemic rages on, is completely normal!

This week I am sharing with you about why Montessori education is unique. I share the four key elements of Montessori education and how they are implemented in the classroom and into the raising of children. I will also share with you how you can implement these four elements into your child's life whether they attend a Montessori school or not. 

Dr. Montessori wrote and spoke about education being the only way for us to truly reach lasting peace, and in this episode I share with you how achieving peace through education is possible with these four key elements of Montessori education. 

When we raise children with empathy, accountability and an understanding of their impact within their community, we will raise children who care about others and who will understand how they can make the world a more accepting, loving and peaceful place. 

This week I share with you the importance of helping children to develop self regulation. I will share a bit about child development, the four planes of development and some ways that we can support children in their development of self regulation. 

I have been reflecting a lot of how demanding the world is these days with constant messaging and influencing happening through media and cell phones and that we may feel pressure to respond to everything right away. Self regulation helps us to remember to pause, reflect and by practicing mindfulness and self awareness we can eventually reach a more impactful level of self care and quality of life. 

Our work with children is helping them to build a foundation for their entire lives and by understanding the importance of self regulation we can guide them towards a better sense of self and overall happiness, even through difficult moments. 

This week I share with you how to face big changes in a child's life. We have all had a big year of change with facing a global pandemic, and now we are facing more change as schools open back up as well as parents beginning  to prepare for sending their children to school for the first time. 

I also touch on how to navigate your school community through big changes such as a teacher leaving the school. 

There are a few basic things we can do to help children and families:

Creating a  routine for your child, family and/or classroom
Listening and offering support 
Providing grace, empathy and understanding rather than being dismissive of someone's experience and feelings. 

There are several books about change for children, here are a few:

A Kid's Book About Change by David Kim

The Magical Yet by Angela DiTerlizzi

And the People Stayed Home by Kitty O'Meara 

In this week's episode I share with you why the term "classroom management" is grating to me and why children should not be viewed as people to manage i.e. control. 

I will cover a few reasons why classroom management in the more traditional sense doesn't actually work and how you can change you view and methods in order to improve your work with the children in your life. 

Episode 7: Go Outside:

In this episode I share with you why children need to spend time outside, what it takes to be outside safely and happily, where to go and play and how to create a natural playscape of your own. 

I share my own experience as a parent of inadvertently allowing our child to take over our yard, dig holes, build a fort, climb old tree stumps, and how now, looking back, a perfect, manicured yard would not have allowed this and what a gift it was that he had this experience. 

I am asking you to dig deep and address your own fears or hang ups of allowing the children in your life to play freely outside and why risky play is so important. Children develop a lifetime of skills by being in contact with nature, working through social problems with their friends on their own, problem solving, overcoming small wounds and celebrating their own resiliency. 

There has been research connecting depression, behavioral problems, lack of self regulation skills and so much more in children in relation to a child’s lack of access to nature and time spent outside. 

Join me in exploring ways to make going outside something you don’t have to think twice about. 

Books to get you started:

Rusty Keeler: Adventures In Risky Play: What is Your Yes?

Richard Louv: Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder

In this episode I speak with Dr. Sarah Graham and Christine Jorgens. Both of these incredible women have experience with adoption, advocacy, parenting and bringing cultural competency and awareness to the forefront of conversations when working with school and parent groups. 

About Dr. Sarah Graham and Christine Jorgens:

Dr. Sarah Graham is Associate Professor of Music at Lewis-Clark State College where she teaches courses in music and the humanities and conducts the Concert Choir. She has spent her entire career in music education working with students from kindergarten through the graduate level. A life-long church musician, Dr. Graham is also the music minister at the Episcopal Church in Lewiston.

In 2010 she and her former husband adopted three children from Ghana in West Africa. The first five years with her children, she lived in Illinois, but has lived in North Central Idaho for the last six years. 

Dr. Graham  was the recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Diversity and Cross-Cultural Understanding from LC-State in 2020  and has been working on a master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, where cultural competence is woven into the fabric of clinical mental health care. She was instrumental in forming a parent group for supporting parents with children of color in the Lewiston School District after racist incidents at school involved her children. Together they began an action plan to seek change in district policies. A little over a year later the district has implemented the changes that were requested. 

Christine Jorgens is a transplant resident to the LC Valley. She and her family moved here from Kailua Hawaii in 2007. After working for several years with the Lewiston School District with students with Visual Impairments, Christine took a position with the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind, and works as a Consulting Teacher for the Blind.

Christine is the mother of 4 beautiful children. She is a passionate advocate for Autism, Adoption, Foster Care, and Education.

Christine’s background includes finance/banking, probate trust distribution, professional doula, braillist, professional jazz vocalist, and a myriad of other ventures that she has enjoyed exploring - none of which she has mastered. 

Christine's life is lived by the principals of living boldly, and loving fiercely.

In this episode you will learn about adoption, foster care, becoming an advocate and unlearning. We reference some fabulous topics and authors that might interest you:

Ibram x Kendi and his book How to Be an Anti Racist

Don’t Touch My Hair by Sharee Miller 

Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry 

Hair Like Mine by Latashia M. Perry 

Terms:

Transracial adoption: Interracial adoption refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group. Interracial adoption is not inherently the same as transcultural or international adoption. 

Find: Chad Goller-Sojourner online for advice, 

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/author/chad-goller-sojourner/

Attachment:  describes a developmental process and a relationship between a child and their primary caregiver. Attachment usually develops over the first two years of life. 

Bonding: is a response from an infant, usually within the first few months of life. 

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is the main international agreement that covers international parental child abduction.

In this episode I share with you how to give your child the opportunity to practice self control, learn confidence and how you can learn to trust them.