Healing Centered

Every Student Matters: Cultivating Belonging in the Classroom

This educator discusses how if students feel anxious socially, they will not be open to taking academic risks, so building a culture of belonging has become his greatest priority. He clarifies what he means by “belonging;” it’s not about “fitting in”—students’ individuality and uniqueness should always be valued. Belonging in the classroom means ensuring that all students feel welcomed, comfortable, and part of the school family. These five strategies can help ensure that students feel they belong in your classroom. 

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Cultivating Resilience in Schools Toolkit

The Cultivating Resilience in Schools toolkit is intended to be used by school-based leadership teams, which include representation across all areas and key collaborators, to establish systems and structures for building resilient schools and learning communities. It should be used in consideration of contextual, cultural, and social factors unique to each organization and everyone within the organization. Its comprehensive approach help makes connections and authentic relationships among educators, students and families, and promote positive school climate and culture, with an emphasis on classroom culture, safety and wellness. 

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5 Strategies for Developing a Schoolwide Culture of Healing

While the term ‘trauma-informed care’ is important, it is incomplete,” says Dr. Shawn Ginwright. One of its shortcomings is that it leads people to think of trauma as only an individual experience instead of thinking about it in terms of systems or contexts. Ginwright explains how we need to have a broader perspective of how the environment – where young people live and play – can be traumatizing, This article describes 5 parts of healing centered engagement:

culture
agency
relationships
meaning
aspirations

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Developing Teacher Resilience & Resilient School Cultures

Teacher resilience in a pandemic is a timely topic for America’s superintendents. This literature review focuses on teacher resilience and retention, with relevance for building resilient school cultures. The question guiding analysis of studies was, “What factors and processes contribute to teacher resilience and the ability to overcome adversity?” Findings were that individual and contextual factors of resilience impact teachers’ ability to persevere, as well as schools’ capacity to retain novice teachers. Resilience is associated with retention, job satisfaction, and other positive outcomes. Actions for developing teacher resilience and resilient school cultures are identified. K–12 teachers who attend to factors of resilience can better adapt and overcome adversity. School district leaders who encourage teacher resilience can foster resilient school cultures 

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You Can’t Pour from an Empty Cup

Taking care of yourself is vital. It can be challenging to prioritize time for yourself when there are so many other people and things to take care of in life. But focusing on others, whether it’s family, students or friends, is difficult if you haven’t already taken care of your needs. We also need to call out the need for collective or community care, which is communal responsibility of the group rather than the lone task of an individual. By the end of this course, participants will be able to: understand the definitions of commonly used terms; increase knowledge about the ABCs of self-care; learn about collective care and healing-centered environments; complete your Action Plan with your self-care information.

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Speak Up at School: How to Implement

This guidebook from Learning for Justice offers tools and strategies to prepare you to speak up against prejudice, bias and stereotypes at school. Because whoever it is, and wherever you are, there are ways to be ready for such moments, ways to make sure that you aren’t caught tongue-tied, ways to make sure that you don’t let hate have the last word. Check out the accompanying instructional video and guide on how to implement the curriculum in classrooms for grades 6th through 12th.

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Power of Identity: Facilitating Identity Circles

The Power of Identity presents materials on culturally responsive supervision from the first of a three‐part series designed for supervisors in teacher education. This series was developed in partnership with Dr. Tanisha Brandon‐Felder, a consultant in professional development on equity pedagogy. This document contains handouts, planning tools, readings, facilitation video about Identity Circles, and other materials to provide facilitators with a scaffolded experience. The materials focus on experiential understanding of the power of identity and to imagine the possibilities when teachers truly know their students. 

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Speak Up at School: How to Implement (video)

This is the accompanying instructional video on how to implement the curriculum in classrooms for grades 6th through 12th. The guidebook from Learning for Justice offers tools and strategies to prepare you to speak up against prejudice, bias and stereotypes at school. Because whoever it is, and wherever you are, there are ways to be ready for such moments, ways to make sure that you aren’t caught tongue-tied, ways to make sure that you don’t let hate have the last word.

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Ways to Communicate High Expectations to Students

This article provides an understanding of why communicating high expectations to students is important. Effective communication is key to conveying high expectations to students. It requires a clear approach that acknowledges their capabilities, sets achievable goals, and fosters a growth mindset. As educators, it is essential to strike the right balance between high expectations and support, ensuring students feel motivated and empowered to reach their full potential. The accompanying form from Cultures Connecting provides a list of ideas. Choose one that is a new strategy you can realistically implement. 

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