Literacy Access K-12

Here's a free list of growth mindset questions from Understood. These prompts are a good way to integrate reflection into conversations with kids about how they approach learning. Hopefully these conversations can lead to insights and productive conversations about new approaches your child can try in challenging situations.

Free Growth Mindset Worksheet 15 prompts for your child

One reason why I love working with students one-on-one: it makes this possible ⬇️

MLK, Jr. Day 2021.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King.

Free Executive Function online summit! If your child struggles with executive function--and many kids do, especially those with ADHD--then perhaps some of these free online workshops will help. This year of remote learning is going to pose an extra challenge for kids to stay organized and on top of their school work, so I'm excited to learn new tools to support executive function for my students as we navigate this school year. Are you in?

Executive Function Summit - Executive Function Summit Free Summit made just for Parents. Learn From The Experts How To Help Your Child Navigate School & Life Through Better Executive Function.

Okay, I love this. These kids have started their own neighborhood newspaper to bring good news about events right in their own back yard, so to speak. A great intersection between literacy, community building, and the trend of seeing the "small things" up close during COVID. Bravo, kids! Maybe you know a group of kids who might want to start their own neighborhood paper.

A new local newspaper in Berkeley digs deep on neighborhood news A new newsletter made entirely by kids provides light in dark times.

The words Black Lives Matter are not controversial. They are a fact. And we know the words themselves are not enough. We must do the work within and without to reform society to a place where this fact is reflected in all aspects of our lives. Black lives matter. But there is more: Black Aspirations Matter. Black Dreams Matter. Black Health Matters. Black Wealth Matters. Black Talent Matters. Black Opportunity Matters. Black Voices Matter. Black Justice Matters. Black Representation Matters. Black History Matters. Black Exhaustion Matters. Black Pain Matters. Black Beauty Matters. Black Communities Matter. And on and on.

As educators and parents, we must use our voices and areas of influence for social justice.

I am a middle aged white woman who was raised as a child and teenager in the Black community. I began middle school in the 1970s. That summer, Roots played on the televisions across America. My sister and I, plus one other white girl, were the only three non-African-American children at Marcus Foster Middle School in Oakland that year. I had a lot of explaining to do on the playground, I can assure you. Later, in my early teens and well into adulthood, I was taken into an extended black family. I was raised in an almost solely Black neighborhood through the Reagan years when money was being pulled out of communities of color in favor of trickle down economics. I have experiences and understanding of African-American lives and love and power in my bones, while I benefit from the white skin privilege of my skin.

At this time, I again am learning so much listening to the dynamic, angry, articulate, educated, determined, powerful Black voices teach us and preach to us what it is to live in a system designed to maintain covert and overt white supremacy. These voices, tired though they are, are laying out the nuance, the complexity, the history, the interconnections that rob people of color of humanity, power, safety, voice, representation, respect, opportunity. On and on.

May we all listen. May those of us with white skin let down our walls of defensiveness, willful denial, and ingrained perspectives, so we can play a positive part in this profound reckoning centuries in the making.

Ta-Nehisi Coates makes the case in Between the World and Me that the burden for ending racism must land squarely on white people because it emanates from our actions and systems. Currently, that is not where the burden is landing. But we can also see that there is something different happening, an opening, a recognition that hasn't happened before. Perhaps we are understanding that white people have to get ourselves educated enough, compassionate enough, committed enough, open enough, secure enough to begin to take steps that make the situation better for POC, not worse with uninformed good intentions, denial of realities we don't experience, or by turning away. We need to get it together. Because Black Lives Matter. Black Lives are Precious.

More resources to source from as we have the hard conversations about racism and privilege with ourselves, others, and children.

Your Kids Aren't Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup — Pretty Good Your kids aren’t too young to talk about race. Here are a few resources to get your started.

Anti-Racism Resources for all ages A Project by the Augusta Baker Chair | Dr. Nicole A. Cooke | The University of South Carolina |

Although this podcast is aimed at educators, parents who are wondering about the solutions schools and school districts are considering for the fall will find this very informative. It also gives an idea of the challenges teachers are facing as they work to adapt to teaching in the new normal. Highly recommended. 35 minutes.

Reopening School: What it Might Look Like Some thoughts on what post-COVID instruction might look like. (Spoiler alert: None are as good as face-to-face, but a few aren't too bad.)