“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” Dr. Seuss (Ted Geisel) SEL Connection: Whether to be yourself or stand out from the crowd is a question all students wonder about. Peer pressure is a real force in …
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” Maya Angelou SEL Connection: Happiness is a fleeting thing sometimes, no matter what your age. Students are at all levels of development and experience happiness, or the lack of it, to the …
“Do every act of your life as if it were your last.” Marcus Aurelius SEL Connection: Children love to take risks. The risk could be something simple like jumping off a diving board, or more complicated like asking somebody out …
“Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it.” Albert Einstein SEL Connection: Schools impose restrictions, whether it be behavioral expectations in class, dress codes or rules for student-athletes. Students hate rules. And that’s because students don’t like …
“Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.” Aesop SEL Connection: Students love to be first– the winner of the race or the one with the most friends. And then there’s academics. This “be first” message permeates …
MLK’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail is a true classic, both for its historical significance and unapologetic endorsement of non-violent civil disobedience. It actually made the list of required readings for the AP government/politics course, a list that includes Federalist Paper …
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” Benjamin Franklin SEL Connection: The word we use now is ‘grit’, which is essentially the very same behavioral trait endorsed by Franklin in the 18th century. Kids want to be successful but also like …
“Courage is grace under pressure.” Ernest Hemingway SEL Connection: Courage is one of those qualities of people that is really hard to define but easy to identify. Students admire courage, whether it be the student who gets up in front …
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy SEL Connection: Kids hear all the time that they should go out and ‘change the world’. The world is broken and they have the power …
There is nothing that animates learning more than a great question. If we can just get that one thing right, life is good. Unfortunately, there’s a lot stacked against us. Outside school, amidst the polarization of political views and clutter …