Grateful to Nicole Kavanaugh of Benchmark Education for involving me in their recognition of National Parent Involvement Day TODAY, November 18th. This article focuses on how we can authentically build, nourish and sustain our learning team – students-parents-teachers – that is so necessary in order for our children to learn. Hope you’ll check out the full article. Here’s how it begins…

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, it goes to his heart.”  — Nelson Mandela, Lead Liberator of South Africa

“If culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door to all the rooms inside.”  — Khaled Housseini, Afghan American Author

The seismic changes in schools and in families ushered in over the past few years have shone a bright light on the role of parents and caregivers as essential teachers and partners in education. Teachers were dependent upon parents to get their students online and in a conducive learning environment during remote learning. As students returned to their buildings in person, parents and caregivers remained deeply invested in their success. Many students had experienced trauma as a way of life before the pandemic, but now all students added layers of trauma from the consequences of a global pandemic, creating a unique uneasiness as parents and caregivers sent their children back to school.

You could say these are hard times or you could say these are heart times — times that unmistakably, undeniably involve our hearts in showing up, in accepting and managing challenging emotions, and in growing and sustaining our nourishing relationships. READ THE FULL ARTICLE.