Breakfast Club Blog
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is a curated space where bloggers from around the world contribute content on a continual basis about a variety of topics relevant to in and out-of-school time. The BOOST Breakfast Club blog is at the heart of an ongoing dialogue where expanded learning and education professionals share their personal thoughts and stories from the in and out-of-school time field. They also tell us what they ate for breakfast!
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!
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Seeing Clearly in the Fog: Reflections on the Core Value of Connection
The other morning I went to the beach and was startled by the fog. From the boardwalk where I jogged, I could barely see the waves surface upon the sand. People emerged before me from the damp greyness only as I got close, and even the high-rise buildings off to the side disappeared as I gazed up. There was mystery in the distance, and what laid ahead remained hidden. And so, I focused on my breath, my pace, my thoughts, the people before me, and the here and now feeling of it all. While our wor...Read More
Identity Development for Youth – OST Has a Role to Play
My work at pilotED Schools includes designing an identity development curriculum that includes representative history and civic engagement woven together with transformative social and emotional learning practices. A key feature of the adolescence development journey is determining who one is and deciding who one will be through identity exploration and development. Let’s chat about identity development today! One framework that I turn to often in my work is the Foundations for Young Adult Succe...Read More
Self-Care Ideas: Give 1/Get 8 Reboot!
Keeping children at the center of our work means taking care of ourselves. Last year I wrote an article for the BOOST Breakfast Club Blog called Self-Care Ideas: Give 1/Get 8. The idea was to crowdsource ideas from a few educator friends to learn more about the daily self-care practices that help them stay resilient. For this post, I’m excited to share a reboot of that article featuring 7 more friends and their answers to the questions in CASEL’s Give 1/Get 8 worksheet. I hope their ideas inspir...Read More
Dream, Baby, Dream
As you may know, I am privileged to do school assemblies across the country speaking to all kinds of students. Even when I start driving onto the school campus I begin to feel those “dad emotions” coming up in me. I want to hug every person. I want to spend hours with each of them individually just to hear their story. They’re all–every one of them–amazing kids. We all do what we do because we believe in young adults. They are packed with potential and need someone they respect...Read More
NEW STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS ANNOUNCEMENT
BOOST Collaborative is proud to announce formal, strategic partnerships with two national organizations to enhance our collaborative role in supporting educators. Sanford Programs at National University- Sanford Harmony and Sanford Inspire Sanford Programs were established through a generous gift by renowned philanthropist and businessman, Mr. Sanford, in order to serve the global needs of the 21st century. Sanford Programs provide innovative and inspirational education programs to teachers and ...Read More
What the COVID-19 Crisis Has Taught Us
I just finished my spinach smoothie for breakfast and am reflecting on how we all work hard these days to stay healthy and sane. My wife makes me spinach smoothies to start the day, and I drink them, though I don’t like them, because they are promising—hopeful for good health and energy. We need both, especially in these trying times of global pandemic, social distancing, and online learning. Friday, March 13, 2020 (yep, Friday the 13th) will be remembered by many folks in the education world fo...Read More
Redefining Student Interaction and Connection in a COVID-19 Environment
Throughout my time educating young people of all ages, from preschool to college, whether as an employee or employer, teacher or mother, I have spent the last 20 plus years utilizing a secret formula that my staff and I have come to label “Kid Whispering.” What is “Kid Whispering” you ask? Well, it’s the ability to communicate with, relate to, teach, inspire, and empower kids, to do and be their best. This is done through many means, both emotionally and physically, and on both the micro and mac...Read More
Using Mindfulness to Transform Self and Students
My love affair with mindfulness began innocently enough. I was working as a primary care provider in an internal medicine office at the time. I was a newly graduated PA and quickly became surprised by how many patients would come in to the office over and over again for the same problems. So many people were continuing to suffer despite getting all the best medical care that western medicine had to offer. What was missing? I was determined to find out. At the time, I had not even done yoga, much...Read More
Cardboard Cut-outs, Story Time, & Makeshift Doc Cams: Creating Some Semblance of Normalcy
Last night our family assembled on the couch to watch opening day baseball. We donned our orange and black, took a few selfies, and watched our beloved San Francisco Giants be trounced by our biggest rival. An otherwise empty Dodger Stadium had fan cut-outs positioned in the stands most visible for the TV-viewing audience. They piped in crowd noise. Major League Baseball was trying to give the players and the fans as normal an experience as possible on opening day in July. Normalcy, or some semb...Read More
An empty basketball court…
Prior to this spring, I had all of these ideas rolling around in my head about this next blog post. Would it be about standardized testing (a normal spring occurrence) or preparing your English Learner (EL) for summer? Would it be a post about connecting EL families to school and making them feel welcome? Then, around mid-March, we all began talking about something else… Did you see that they closed Italy? Did you see that there are COVID-19 cases in Washington State? Did you see they held that ...Read More
An Invitation to Unplug: 4 Nature-Based Activities
This month, Healthier Generation is celebrating Park and Recreation Month and the essential role greenspace plays in making our lives better. For example, did you know that trees can reduce anxiety and taking a walk outside can provide grounding and self-awareness when conflict arises? Today, I want to invite you to unplug and take a mindfulness break with me. We’re going to use Healthier Generation’s new Nature-Based BINGO Card. It’s a resource you can share with families, but for today, I want...Read More
Taking a Pause for Equity
Slow down to move fast. Sounds counterintuitive, right? But knowing when to press pause is a critical decision that all leaders face. Here are some thoughts on why taking a break is the right thing for all leaders right now. As leaders in expanded learning, we often evaluate our practices against a set of criteria, perhaps aligned with a specific grant, or internal goals and objectives. What if instead, we took a step back and really looked at how our efforts and decisions impact the very commun...Read More