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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Do Good. Have Fun. Make a Difference!
In a month or so I’ll have the privilege of entering the seventh decade of my life. For someone who has always worked hard, played hard, done good (I hope) and had fun (I know), that’s quite an accomplishment – and it came with lot of great support from friends, family and colleagues and luck! I’ve been blessed with being a mother and grandparent, a university professor, a CEO of an international corporation in 22 countries, a tennis professional, a nationally recognized leader...Read More
A Piece of Peace
My son often wakes up very early this morning, wanting the last part of his sleep to be snuggled up in our bed. I love watching him sleep—the sounds he makes; the way he settles his body; his face as it relaxes back into slumber. In those moments, he is completely at peace. I see that kind of peace radiate from my children often. For example, one evening recently after dinner, they went outside to do some “gardening.” This consisted of them sitting squarely in the middle of our garde...Read More
When the Disconnections Run Deep, Youth Need Deeply Connected Systems
For my first post on the BOOST Breakfast Club Blog, I had planned to play it safe. Stick to a topic like youth program quality or youth outcomes measurement that I know well and have already written about, and pose a provocative, though largely, intellectual question or two about it. But this week, I’ve been distracted by the most devastating, and difficult to process, news I’ve heard about a young person I’ve known personally in my twenty years in the field. I was shaking when I received the p...Read More
New paper: What are the impacts of afterschool STEM?
Today, many afterschool and summer programs include science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) as a standard part of their comprehensive programming. Afterschool providers recognize the importance of improved STEM education for their students and that hands-on, inquiry-driven STEM is in line with afterschool’s overall approach to education. Practitioners are able to directly see the impact afterschool STEM programs have on students—they see youth engaged in and excited about STEM activiti...Read More
7 Specialties of the Afterschool Program Director
The director’s job can be very complex. We’ve come up with a powerful yet simple way to articulate what the job entails, illustrate how to effectively manage your time, and leverage your efforts to maximize your success. We have identified 7 Specialties that help bring simplicity to understanding a challenging and complex job. When directors only specialize in one of these areas (such as… “MY specialty is parent relationships”), they add value, but they never really...Read More
Who Leads Your Afterschool Program?
In my roles over the past decade, I’ve met quite a few afterschool and summer program leaders. Some of them strongly portray traits found in successful leaders. These adults set the tone for their sites, providing order and structure, flexibility, sternness, and a passion for children and making a difference in their lives. They communicate high expectations, but are nurturing in helping staff and children achieve them. They do not speak loudly, but carry a clipboard filled with procedures...Read More
6 Reminders for Maintaining your Leadership Rhythm
As I write, it’s one of those times where I must focus the lens for the gritty and most meaningful things to tell you about. We only have a few sentences to share before our time together is up, and it’s important to make them count. So that leads us to rhythm. There’s nothing like a band that plays together, a motor in with proper timing, a NFL team operating as a unit, and especially a leader that is in balance. Beyond most, I believe that you understand the importance of rhy...Read More
Ride the Wave!
In our field, systems, and relationships teeter-totter between structured and organic. Although our roots call us to be relationship driven, the push to professionalize ourselves and claim a noticeable and valued function in education has forced us to be more structured than ever. The current leadership in youth work has effectively created a pathway that balances the beauty of an organic team and the usefulness of structured planning. I believe this pathway was created by two things: a new wave...Read More
Leading With Purpose, Passion and Intention
A few years ago I wrote a book called Lessons in Leadership, drawing on the wisdom of pioneers in the afterschool world – individuals who have made a real difference in developing and sustaining exemplary programs, forging authentic partnerships, building the capacity of thousands of staff members to be more successful than they had ever imagined, influencing public policy and impacting the lives of millions of children and young people. I’ve received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls fr...Read More
Adults Aren’t Mature – Get Over It!
You’re an adult. You work with other adults. And neither of those statements guarantees maturity. Get over it. Before you stop reading, insulted and angry at me, let me clarify where this is headed. I write this in order to rid you of the nearly universal frustration that results in the assumption of adult maturity. An assumption that leads to all sorts of gnashing of teeth. Whenever I’m working in an organization in my consulting practice that focuses entirely on employee job satisf...Read More
Lead People, Not Programs
If you are in any sort of leadership role in any type of organization running any type of program and managing any number of people, I’m asking you to do something. I want you to copy the sentence below, paste it into a Word doc, increase the font size to about 200, bold it, italicize it, and post it somewhere in your office where you read it every day. Here it is: NOTHING INCREASES STAFF MORALE AND JOB SATISFACTION MORE THAN A WELL RUN ORGANIZATION. Do it. Seriously. Do it. Now. I’l...Read More
4 Quick Thoughts on Leadership
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” –Abraham Lincoln I love people who push themselves to perform at the highest level possible. Because I’m a child of the 80’s, where we proudly rocked mullets and tight rolled our jeans, I think about Michael Jordan. The game was over and you’d find him in the gym shooting 500 free throws. He had an internal drive to do better. He wanted to be the best he could be. Because I can actually hear your staff and students banging on your ...Read More