Literacy is subversive

Books matter. I know you know this. But as adults, we have an opportunity to put books in kids' hands that change their minds about themselves, their minds, their emotions, and their futures. The stories inside our head shape our reality, and the stories we read help shape those stories. As the research of  positive psychologists Martin Seligman , Barbara Fredrickson , Carol Dweck , Edward Deci, and Richard Ryan illustrate, how we think about the events of our lives affect stress levels, feelings of control and competency, and positive feelings about ourselves and others. The story we tell ourselves matter. We can fill kids with stories about understanding and accepting emotions and finding new strategies when faced with obstacles. I would love to hear more suggestions as well. Please comment below with other children’s media that help use the big ideas of positive psychology with K-12. Talking about, naming, accepting, and discussing strategies for dealing with ...

Do something every day that scares you. Happiness is not a goal; it’s a by-product. With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts. It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot. People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how

You haven't heard from me in 2015, because I wrote a book proposal for my book Teachers, Mindset, and Motivation: Connecting kids to their positivity, passion, and purpose for Rowman & Littlefield. Contact me to read a sample! I'm excited to get feedback and help teachers connect students to their positivity, passion, and purpose.

I do not halve the words. Irregardless of what you say. Wind we talk, mine fallout Like angry ducks shouldering Mean metaphors. You never here what I intense. Conversions trip on tongues. Are dialogue step falters. I give up.

At thirteen, I received this book as a present from my Aunt Melody from Amarillo, Texas. I really liked the short ones in those years: "Fire and Ice," "Nothing Gold Can Stay," "The Rose Family." Later I discovered the long narrative poems about marriage and miscarriage and misunderstanding, and glimpsed adulthood through the trees and hills of his landscapes. Teaching Frost and poetry and critical thinking these last 14 years to seniors in high school, the poems have become part of my interior monologue. I can't choose a fork in the trail without muttering to myself, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..." And so this poem. Two paths It's good multiple realities meet A mathematical need. Nice when math and mental anguish agree. In all the possible eventualities, I can still feel the one with you and me. "Two paths?" "One traveller?" True. But "long I stood?" No. Untrue. It's an ...

It's the season where my seniors choose projects and mentors and their futures. They amaze me with their creativity again this year. Inspired by our local food bank, Food for People , a group has decided to volunteer as gleaners for valley farms to donate produce to food banks and weekend backpack programs for kids, and another group from our HROP culinary program has committed to offering a multi-part cooking class for food-insecure members of the community, featuring donated produce and food bank foodstuffs. Another group has decided to take on public education about the risks of electronic cigarettes and the writing of county and city policies to prohibit their use in public. Worried about salmon and trout endangered by non-native squawfish populations, one group plans a fishing tournament to eradicate squawfish and encourage their fishing. They do cool stuff. Last year, a student asked what my project would be, and his classmate piped up, "Um, duh. We're her project...

As anchored as I sometimes feel, the birds swooping overhead remind me of Flight. Winging in broad arcs riding thermals I can’t see, they don’t think of me, don’t watch me in the day, or the dark. All summer They’ve been imprinted on the blue Soundless and free over my Car, walk, errands, cry, Reminding me I can fly. I don’t know what it would be like If that feeling of flight was Taken as casually as men in power Took the lives of black sons in hoodies. I see power, grace, flight. If my children were in danger for being white, Would I just see vultures?