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!
Interested in becoming a blogger? Email [email protected]
Click here to Register for a free account or click here to Login to your existing account.
If you are diving into this article, your summer program or camp is probably in full swing. Let’s be honest though, along with the fun and flexibility of summer comes stressful situations and strong emotions. Taking time for yourself – a “Me Moment” – is an important strategy to appreciate periods of calm and regulate challenging feelings when they arise. This is even more critical if you are an educator or caregiver supporting others on a regular basis. To bring this idea to life, I...Read More
2020 began with a shock for me. I learned that Mary Jo Ginty had died in her sleep December 29, 2019. A month later, I was among the friends and family who gathered in Long Beach to celebrate her life. I was grateful to be in a room with others who loved her. We shared our grief, our treasured memories, and a lot of hugs. My friend Michael Funk shared a story about how Mary Jo was not a hugger. She doled out hugs frugally. You had to earn them. I never got one, but I know she loved me as much as...Read More
BOOST appreciates you through the year, so we wanted to send some holiday cheer! We can’t wait to keep learning and laughing with you in 2021! Here’s to brighter days ahead. xo, TEAMBOOST Click to download the PDF
Almost overnight, the lives of high school students all over the country, along with their teachers, mentors, and group facilitators, were completely disrupted. At a time where spring break, prom, and graduation was on the mind of many students, suddenly they found themselves wondering if they would return to school at all, or whether the abrupt ‘goodbyes’ were the last memory they would carry with them. Later in the spring, when racial tensions increased nationwide, students found themselves ag...Read More
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
Last winter I flew across the country to attend a health equity training with colleagues and, as I sometimes do when I travel, I carried a stone in my pocket that symbolizes for me balance, regulation, and interconnection – a reminder of seeking to join my head and heart space. The stone fit perfectly in the palm of my hand and felt smooth and solid there. After two full days of intense learning, reflecting, storytelling, and connecting, I debriefed and discussed with colleagues over dinne...Read More
I come from a family of immigrants, a fact that I will always take pride in. When my mom first immigrated to the US from the Philippines in 1978, she came as a nurse and settled in Chicago before ending up in Los Angeles. She spent over 30 years in the healthcare field as an RN here in LA at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and absolutely loved her job — it was her calling — until she retired a few years ago. It was her cousin, my Uncle Vic’s calling too. He followed the same pattern, ending up on th...Read More
There are many times in my life that I can think back to and attribute success solely to what I have done by myself, for myself, or for someone else, but accomplished just by me, alone. These are excellent moments for self-reflection and acknowledgment of individual accomplishment, and although individuals create many great things by themselves, we do not, for the most part, live as hermits, isolated from the rest of humanity. We live in families and in societies comprised of cities and towns, a...Read More
We have all shared this experience of navigating the impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Tough decisions were made to close schools and community facilities. Parents and educators are learning to operate in a new virtual space. Layoffs have been made. There is new federal and state legislation to help communities cope. Through this all, our communities have seen tremendous creation from young artists, theatre-makers, musicians, and dancers. Spoken word performances on social media and virtu...Read More