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!
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The Challenge of Creating a Culture
Almost every day, I am a teacher, a student, or a leader. Sometimes I play one role at a time. Sometimes I play all three at once. One could say I dance in between them. I’m sure that all of us who work with youth move between these roles and watch our peers and our students do the same. The question I keep coming back to, no matter what role I am in, is how do I create a culture that I can be proud of and inspired to be a part of? And what I mean by culture in this context is the feeling ...Read More
Evergreen Learning Principles for Afterschool Programs
The Learning in Afterschool & Summer (LIAS) project was designed to unify the field of afterschool and focus the movement on promoting young people’s learning. If afterschool programs are to achieve their full potential, they must be known as important places of learning that excite young people in the building of new skills, the discovery of new interests, and opportunities to achieve a sense of mastery. “We spend so much time focused on ‘achievement’ and so little time fo...Read More
4 Things You Can Do Right Now to Promote Meaningful Participation in Afterschool
Research tells us that if we hope to make a difference in young people’s learning, we need to provide opportunities for learning that is meaningful. This is especially important as youth return to afterschool programs after a year of isolation. If young people are engaged in meaningful participation, they are empowered to be self-directed, make responsible choices about how to use their time, and participate as group members in making decisions that influence the larger program and what they lea...Read More
Some Things Don’t Change: Rethinking Adult Learning
When it comes to how kids and adults learn, there are similar dynamics that are very important to acknowledge and foster. I find at times, that folks get really focused on noting the differences across our various developmental stages/ages. Even though it’s important to understand these differences, it sometimes limits if/how we create learning environments that are engaging and experiential for adults. Okay, sure, we can sit through hours of a presenter talking at us and still learn and t...Read More
Global Incidental Learning
I’m a big fan of incidental learning. It’s sort of like multi-tasking for educators. Way back when, my classroom had English, French, and Spanish labels taped to walls, cabinets, desks, and other objects throughout the room so my first graders could make connections to those languages during transitions or after completing assignments. By placing these labels around the room, my hope was they would learn these words incidentally during “down times,” or if (gasp) they weren’t paying attention to ...Read More
Our Kids Are Stressed Out – 5 Ways to Empower Youth To Find Their CALMM
Focus, Pay Attention, Sit Still, Listen, Follow Directions… Just a few phrases youth are bombarded with on a daily basis whether it’s coming from their parents, teachers or other adults in their lives. As adults it can seem as if our words go in one ear and out the other and that children lack attention, motivation and behavior is something they have immediate control over or is an intentional response. Our kids Are Stressed Out – Empowering Youth to find their CALMM In my years as an educationa...Read More
Putting the “Happy” in “Happy New Year”
Happy New Year! It’s what most of us say this time of the year, isn’t it? If you asked, “What do I mean when I say that?” what might your answer be? It’s easy to fall in step with using these common phrases without the deliberate thought behind the words. What really got me thinking about this were the reactions to a recent post of mine on Facebook: I choose to see 2020 not as the year of canceled plans, but as the year where the world stood still long enough for us to see the things we need to ...Read More
Willing to Fight
This post originally appeared on the Breakfast Club Blog on September 20, 2010. I recently took a road trip up north to the bay area to congregate with about 70,000 like-minded individuals at the Power to the Peaceful concert. Road trips always seem to reignite the ‘rebel fire’ in my heart. My soundtrack included a number of folk songs that have never ceased to inspire me. As I began to listen to the lyrics of Ani Difranco’s Willing to Fight, I found myself a bit discouraged fo...Read More
Your wait time from this point is…
I feel like if 2020 were a ride at Disneyland, it would be Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. There have been hairpin turns, bumps, jolts, and long wait lines. But now, as we move towards the new year, it looks like we can hop off and jump on a new ride. A ride that’s a bit brighter, a ride that has just as long of a line, and may involve a little prick of our skin – not in Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, but a COVID-19 vaccine. The news has been full of reports regarding the trials, approvals, and shipping ...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
Playing in the Leaves
I cried after watching a commercial last night. No, it wasn’t a commercial with babies in tires, or one about a service member who makes it home in time for the holidays, or even a Hallmark movie special. It was a Toys’R’Us commercial. A group of kids were going on a field trip to the forest. While on the bus the guide tells the rather disinterested group that instead they are going to Toys’R’Us- the bus goes wild! Granted if I was being driven to jury duty and the ...Read More
Social Emotional Leadership: A Game Changer
You may have heard of social and emotional learning, or SEL. Defined and predominately shaped by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL, more than two decades ago, social and emotional competencies have become an essential avenue for developing key skills in our young people. SEL is defined specifically by CASEL as “the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage e...Read More