| By: Committee for Children Serving, Learning, and Becoming Great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.” Dr. King’s simple statement captures the essence of what is possible for all children when they are given the opportunity to act in the service of others: to make a difference, to matter, and to have a positive impact on the world. In short, to achieve greatness. How can we help our children become great? First and foremost, they need…Read More
| By: Committee for Children Book Review: The Mitten Tree by Candace Christiansen and Elaine Greenstein Reading level: Preschool to grade 2 Every winter morning an old woman named Sarah watches out her window as neighborhood children gather at the blue spruce tree to wait for the bus. When she notices one boy without mittens, she worries all day. Finally she digs out her old basket of yarn and begins knitting. Early the next morning, before any of the children arrive, she sneaks…Read More
| By: Committee for Children Service Learning for Pennies a Day When most of us see a pile of pennies, we think it doesn’t amount to much. But the kids at Madison Middle School know better. Some of the students at Madison participate in an extracurricular activity called Read More
| By: Committee for Children Social-Emotional Learning, Parts 1 and 2 http://www.parentmap.com/article/video-social-and-emotional-learningRead More
| By: Committee for Children Film Spurs Change Nationwide http://globegazette.com/news/local/film-spurs-change-nationwide/article_c1c5ac52-36be-11e2-903c-0019bb2963f4.htmlRead More
| By: Allison Schumacher On the Importance of Being Crazy About a Child “Somebody’s got to be crazy about that kid, and vice versa! But what does ‘crazy’ mean? It means that the adult in question regards this particular child as somehow special—even though objectively the adult may well know that this is not the case… For the child, the adult is also special—someone to whom the child turns most readily in…Read More
| By: Committee for Children The Recipe for Creating Positive Teacher-Student Relationships All of us, if we were lucky, had teachers with whom we shared positive, supportive relationships. When in their presence and in their classrooms, we thrived: We learned more and enjoyed school more. But what were the ingredients that went into creating these positive relationships? Researchers over the years have worked to uncover teachers’ strategies for developing positive relationships with their students. It turns out that it’s a…Read More
| By: Committee for Children New York Times “Motherlode” Blog: The Vagina (and Penis) Dialogues There are excellent reasons for using the correct anatomical terms for our reproductive systems with our children, but for many, there remains a linguistic taboo. Published November 6, 2012 by The New York Times on www.nytimes.com [Read the rest of this…Read More
| By: Committee for Children The Word Around the Water Cooler: SEL and Bullying Prevention The Program Development and Research Department here at Committee for Children is (as always) hard at work, and their current focus is the relationship between social-emotional learning (SEL) and bullying. It’s a concept that fascinates us, so we asked some of our colleagues and friends about the relationship from their unique perspectives. Here’s what they had to say. The Research Scientist “We know that bullying and…Read More
| By: Committee for Children The Sandusky Sentencing: Lest We Forget As the trial and sentencing of Jerry Sandusky come to an end, I can honestly say that I am relieved. I feel ready to move on. But in good conscience, I can’t do that.Read More