After taking a longer than expected hiatus from my monthly communications (due to some very big issues with PowerSchool and email alerts not communicating) I think we are safe to resume! Very excited to start getting information back into the hands of families. The goal is to provide you with relevant, interesting or insightful, as well as useful tidbits each month in your inbox. As always, I'm here for your kids, but I'm here for you too....reach out anytime!

From time to time as an educator we stumble upon something that just hits right. Resonates and speaks to us so much so we just have to share. Recently, thanks to the amazing Julie Stanek and one of her stumblings, our middle school students took a closer look at one such article. Julie first shared the article with our MS team of educators because the information is relevant and offers some Aha moments. Our teachers all agreed that students should get a closer look too and offer their insights and perspective. Now, it's your turn as their families and parents, should you choose to indulge. Take a moment to read the article if you choose, but if you do please don't stop there! Take another moment to find out if your student got the chance to read it yet and listen to their thoughts. The perspectives we can gain when we have a shared experience with our kids like this can be nothing short of surprising at times and almost always valuable. Bonus......when we engage in conversation purely to discover the inner workings of their thoughts and opinions, not to tell them they are right or wrong, we build onto the ever important foundation of trust. Can't ever have too much of that!

Life is busy! For us as adults we know this to be true. But, for many of our students this is every bit as true for them too. Keeping kids busy isn't a bad thing, especially when they actually enjoy what they are involved in. But, what I have discovered in my work with kids is that it doesn't take much for them to develop a sense of overwhelm. Homework starts piling up, activities begin to take center stage and suddenly downtime is an idea of the past. Students generally are not armed with functional ways to prioritize and organize themselves. They must be taught healthy skills for balancing the things they have to do (school) with the things they get or choose to do (the extras). So often in education we hear the excuses for missing or late work as, "I couldn't finish it, I just didn't have time. I have practice...work...clubs until late and then I have to eat dinner and go to bed". This is usually accompanied by a high level of stress and worry. Students are looking for teachers to give them a break, teachers are looking for students to keep up with work and put school higher on the list of importance. Compassion and empathy is certainly achievable, just as keeping up with school can be as well. We really can have both! I believe the first step is helping kids to start seeing where they have control in their lives. Once a student recognizes that in everything they do, choice or not, there is a level of control in how they choose to respond. This is powerful for students, it helps them gain a broader perspective of their world. That is step 1. More often than not, even our busiest kids, have more downtime opportunities than they realize....after all, they tend to find plenty of chances to hop on a screen and catch up on the latest! We'll see more on this in next month's newsletter...stay tuned!

Email: asilvis@blaineschools.org
Website: https://www.blaineschools.org/domain/1446
Location: 111 8th Street West, Ketchum, ID, USA
Phone: (208)578-5054