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Social & Emotional Development

Education Buzzwords: A Rundown on Social & Emotional Learning

December 10, 2018
Although the concept has been around for some time, social emotional learning (SEL) has become the new buzzword in education circles, joining the ranks of other child and youth-centered keywords including trauma-informed teaching, restorative justice, and positive behavior intervention schools...
Beatriz Beckford's picture

Remembering My Dear Friend and Freedom Fighter Dr. John Maguire

December 6, 2018
“Up until I was 16 years old and a senior in high school, I did the same thing my friends did. We drove through the Black side of town throwing pears at Black guys and yelling racial epithets. We were the White oppressors. I was the White oppressor.” My dear friend Dr. John Maguire readily admitted...
Marian Wright Edelman's picture

Safety In Our Kids' Schools: Providing Social & Emotional Support

December 4, 2018
As a parent, I believe that it is essential that my children feel not just physically safe, but also socially and emotionally safe in their schools. As a mental health professional who has worked in both elementary and high schools, I have seen that physical safety is often the primary focus in...
Keisha Mathew's picture

9 Ways to Avoid the Rampant Consumerism of the Holidays

November 28, 2018
Now that Black Friday starts at many stores on Thanksgiving night itself, holiday shopping madness is in full swing even before you put away the leftovers. And many of the season's strongest sales pitches are directed right at kids. If you want to enjoy the holiday on your terms, it'll take a...
Caroline Knorr's picture

Lessons in Servant Leadership

November 16, 2018
“The way through chaos, calamity, and confusion is not by adding chaos, calamity, and confusion. That multiplies what’s hurting us and undermining us. The Hebrew and Christian Bibles insist from the first chapter to the last chapter you cannot overcome evil with evil, you have to overcome evil with...
Marian Wright Edelman's picture

Where Kids Find Hate Online -- and Tips for How to Handle It

November 9, 2018
Hate speech is all over the internet. Fueled by trolls , extremists, false information , and a group mentality, this kind of cruelty against a religion, ethnicity, sexual identity, gender, race -- or anything, really -- has reached a fever pitch. And while some kids will be attacked, and some may...
Caroline Knorr's picture

Succeeding Against the Odds

November 9, 2018
After two years of divisive, hateful rhetoric from the highest levels of government, the profoundly inhumane treatment of immigrant families, and the placing of corporate profits ahead of the basic needs of children—the poorest age group in America—the results of Tuesday’s election instilled in...
Marian Wright Edelman's picture

Tips for Talking to Kids About Negative Political Ads

October 31, 2018
The closer we get to a major election, the more likely it is that political ads will hit below the belt. Negative political ads expose kids to highly partisan, sometimes inflammatory, and even frightening images. But because they're so extreme, it makes them ideal for analyzing the devices they use...
Caroline Knorr's picture

Lessons from Ruby Bridges

October 26, 2018
I recently had the joy of presenting an award from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs to Ruby Bridges. As a six-year-old first grader in New Orleans in 1960, Ruby Bridges became the first Black student to attend an all-White elementary school in the South. She...
Marian Wright Edelman's picture
raising activists, teaching children to vote

Teach Your Kids that Voting is Important by Taking them With You

October 24, 2018
There was a time when my children were small and I often skipped voting in the midterm elections. I had a lot of excuses - no one to watch the kids, I didn't want to stand in line with them being nuts all around me, Midterms weren't important anyway. Wait, what? Now it's hard to believe that I...
Alexa Bigwarfe's picture

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