Fostering A Can-Do Spirit

Today I'm excited because I was invited to talk about empathy, compassion and kindness on this Kindsight 101 Podcast. It was such a delight to visit with Morgane, the interviewer, who crafted insightful inquiries and totally knew her stuff. Grab some coffee or tea and click the image below to listen in.

I'm also tickled because my stuff is almost completely out of boxes from my move out of our Leadership Central learning lab. True story, it's very hard for me to let go of things, especially the hand-made cards of gratitude and love in my Smile File from my superheroes and ideas I thought I might need one day, like this ring that we picked up over a decade ago, when the kids and I took a Developmental Assets Walk with the Bay Area Alliance through Challenger Park.

I'm pretty sure there were eight beads, because the idea was to stop at eight stations along the way, one for each of the Asset categories, and collect beads while talking with the person at that station about that Asset. I figured we could easily adapt this to our six-pillars framework, so I saved the beads that most closely aligned with our true colors and put it in a box with so many other treasured ideas, to try it one day. I advocated for a Pillar Power Walk many times, but to no avail. Still I kept this idea, perhaps for such a time as this.

How would you use it in your character building? Could you give out beads as students go through your core values lessons? Could you host a Family Character Night and give families an opportunity to make these together? Could students collect beads with every stop on campus (classroom, library, music room, STEAM lab, etc) that they visit at Open House? Could there be a certain colored bead to align with the emotions or skills they've attained? Unlimited possibilities for these colorful rings that students can hang on their backpacks or use as a keychain.

Today's picture book pick of the week by Julia Finley Mosca and Daniel Rieley came in the mail yesterday and I'm pretty jazzed about it, possibly since I always figured I wasn't a math person. {Turns out there's no such thing.}

And probably because it's such an inspirational read.

Meet Raye Montague.

She's a woman.

She has dark skin.

And she's a whiz at math.

Back when she was growing up,

those three things didn't add up.

It was during a time when inequality was amped up.

In fact, her genius was over and over again passed up.

But this can-doer never gave up.

This is her success story, spotlighting her big big dreams, how hard she worked to become an engineer, and what she endured and overcame to get the recognition she'd earned as the first person to design a ship using a computer. Check out this growth-mindset title; it'll inspire your can-doers to reach higher and never give up.

Our chapter book of the week was buried in my boxes

of stuff because I'd taken it to school to share it with

a few of my students and suggest it as a summer sizzler.