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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An Open Letter to Pandemic Educators
For educators in a pandemic, our greatest priority is not academic progress, but social and emotional well-being. You have likely spent the last year under intense pressure trying to do anything you can to make a difference. Have your efforts closed the achievement gap? Should they be expected to? No, of course not. In everything you do, you have shown kids that they belong, that someone cares for them, that they are worth all your effort, and that you want them to be safe. That is the primary m...Read More
A Call to Action – Let’s not forget our Older Youth
This morning I had coffee and a celery-green apple-turmeric smoothie (my wife is trying to keep us healthy) for breakfast. Perhaps it did not provide the proper amount of sweetness to boost my mood, but perhaps it was just the kind of medicine I needed to say the following. We need to think about our priorities. We need to focus on older youth. The field of education, after school, and beyond is currently focused on getting young students, TK through 2nd graders, back to in-person learning ASAP....Read More
Looking forward to the end of 2020, preparing for what comes next
Personally, I feel drained by this year’s unpredictability and chaos. I have struggled to balance being present, preparing for what happens next, and not getting lost in too many “what ifs.” Professionally, it’s not much different. With so many urgent daily needs to take care of, it can be hard to make space to think about what will be needed in 2021 and beyond. So recently I did an experiment: I scheduled 1 hour in my day to pause and reflect on the needs of students and families, as well as th...Read More
Bringing at-home STEM success into focus
STEM has left the building For a long time, advocates of STEM education have worked to bring STEM learning closer to students’ lives outside of school. This year, though, COVID has made STEM learning a part of students’ lives outside of school in ways nobody ever imagined or wanted. The pandemic has forcibly ejected STEM from the traditional in-building school environment and strewn it about in a great blurry mess spread out variably and amorphously among the home, Zoom sessions, mask-, distance...Read More
Fun for the Zoo: Engineering Enrichment and Enhancement
Fun for the Zoo: Engineering Enrichment and Enhancement. In our Fun for the Zoo class, student “fungineers” are challenged to invent enrichment items that provide stimulation, challenge, and novelty to enhance the behavioral, physical, social, cognitive, and psychological well being of zoo animals. In the wild, animals must forage or hunt for food, and protect themselves against predators, but in the zoo, most of their needs are provided for by the keepers. So, enrichment must be pro...Read More
Social Emotional Learning in Out-of-School Time
For the future, it’s vital to rethink the dynamic relationships between heart and mind within human consciousness and their essential place in the education of all our students. —Sir Ken Robinson, PH.D., author, speaker and leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation In conjunction with academic learning, social emotional learning (SEL) plays a critical role in educating the whole child and laying the foundation for lifelong learning, engagement, and well-being. While...Read More