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 views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Enjoy the brain food.

The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!

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Youth Development Showdown: Nature vs. Technology

Take a moment to reflect on the last time you went on a hike, a camping trip, or any other type of outdoor experience. What was your mindset? How would you compare your attitude and outlook to your typical 9-to-5 self? I would bet there’s a stark difference. I experience this consistently with my two girls. The last time around was a Spring Break trip to Mammoth Lakes, a mountain town nestled in the Eastern Sierras. As much as my family loves the outdoors, my kids are not immune to their own 9-t...Read More

The Super Hero That IS Within

Editor’s Note: This blog was first published on Monday, April 8, 2019, with permission to use from The Leadership Program and Erika Petrelli, CEO. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The kids and I saw the movie Shazam. We all loved it, and afterward, they immediately grabbed their sketchbooks with the intention of creating their own superheroes. After some initial prototyping, Dylan came up with the character of “Sir In...Read More

Growing Grit: G = MC3

You may have heard of Albert Einstein’s famous equation on his theory of relativity… E = MC2. Our slightly less-famous equation on our theory of grittiness is… G stands for Grit I first learned about “grit” from John Wayne (True Grit – 1969 Western), but it took educational research rock star Angela Lee Duckworth (author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance) to make “grit” a buzzword in education, and a fundamental targeted outcome for our own afterschool programs. Duckwort...Read More

Quality Comes First on the Road to Critical Skills and Mindsets

There’s a burgeoning conversation about what kids need in America. More and more, educators, youth developers, and policymakers are thinking and talking about how we help young people build critical skills and mindsets like persistence, self-awareness, empathy, and communication. Paul Tough’s popular book How Children Succeed brought these concepts to popular culture, even Ira Glass got on board in an episode of This American Life! Though we haven’t yet settled on one common ph...Read More