In a world of increasing pressure on teachers and their students it is very easy to fall into negativity when challenges are never ending and being thrown from all directions. Just as you move through one set of obstacles then the next ones are already in line to...
As the tragic news of the loss of life from terrorist attacks in the UK fills our TV screens, I continue to worry how this is affecting our children, both now and for their future lives. In my last blog, I described how when working with high school teens on ‘positive...
More than a year ago, in this post, I’ve announced that I was going to study resilience in teachers in at-risk contexts in my master’s thesis[1]. I will now share with you the results of this research. Teachers in at-risk contexts The study was conducted with a group...
Before I go any further, I want to stress that this blog is NOT about the complexities of terrorism! It is about how constant news bulletins, extended coverage of world events and the reactions of adults to such events may be affecting our children. I recently...
It’s not only students who suffer with stress as GCSE examinations approach; teachers and parents can feel stressed too and often don’t know how to support their teens effectively. A recent Radio 5 Live survey reveals that parents say their mental health and sleep...
“Seeding Values” & Positive Education “Semear Valores”/ Seeding Values (“SV”) is the premise and the name of the program that is being implemented in a school in Cascais, Portugal, with 50 children. The program is born from the will of a mother – with an...
Changing Your Mind This week I find myself wondering how many of us don’t really understand how we think, or realise how important our thoughts and outlook are, or how much our mindset can affect our everyday lives, either negatively or positively. As I am...
Ellen Langer proposed the idea that we, in our daily comfortable routines, can slip into mindlessness— cruising on auto-pilot1. Not that we don’t have minds, but that we don’t pay attention and we are not mindful of the 3D picture called life. As an educator of adult...
Is it Friday yet? In the teaching profession all I hear, and have heard for the past 14 years, is “is it Friday yet”? Teachers seem to spend much of their life wishing it away – looking to the weekend, or the next break so they can really enjoy life. Many teachers...
As my son (11) and I went to drop off school supplies for my son’s teachers, we approached a school employee who appeared to be the building gate-keeper; she stood strongly in front of the entrance doors. The conversation went something like this: Me: [Smiling],...