10 ideas to help teachers rejuvenate this summer

Teaching is ranked as one of the most stressful jobs in the world, which is why summer vacation is a well-deserved, hard-earned break. You don’t have to visit an expensive spa or travel to Europe to get rejuvenated before returning to school in the fall. With summer just around the corner, here are ten inexpensive ways to recharge so you can be energized, de-stressed, and ready for a great year ahead when school starts again.

1. Try something new.
Immersing yourself in learning something you’re interested in is a great way to reduce stress, increase creativity, and build confidence in yourself. You might try learning a new language, taking up cooking or gardening, learning an instrument, attending a dance class, or you could even try something as simple as a new restaurant or board game with friends. The website schoolofeverything.com is a site where people who want to learn things can get connected with people who want to teach things in their area.

2. Volunteer.
One of the most rewarding ways to rejuvenate and feel good about yourself is by improving your community or world as a volunteer. Not sure where to get started? The mission of idealist.org is to “connect people, organizations, and resources to help build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives.” Simply enter your zip code and specific skills to access opportunities that fit your interests and location.

3. Get outside.
Summertime offers an abundance of opportunities to get outside and enjoy the sun. Active outside activities include swimming, hiking, biking, or walking in the park. For the more lazy days, grab a good book and a picnic blanket and find a patch of lawn. Still thinking about volunteering? You can see some of America’s outdoor wonders while doing some good at www.nps.gov, the official website for the U.S. National Park Service. Once again, you simply enter your zip code or the park name to see National Park volunteer opportunities. The website cdtrail.org is another organization that sets you up with outdoor volunteer opportunities worldwide.

4. Exercise.
Summer is also a great time to work on the fitness goals you put off during the busy school year. Start out by building a daily routine of physical activity, even if it’s walking for 15 minutes a day. If you’re having trouble getting motivated, use sites like America On the Move, which challenges you and your family to make “small changes to a healthier way of life.” Cool Running is a site that gives running tips and advice, helps you keep a log, and offers community forums to keep you motivated. Similarly, the running plan on c25k.com gets you from the couch and ready for a 5k in only nine weeks. It’s a “gentle introduction to getting the body moving, starting off alternating between walking and running small distances, and slowly building up…” If running isn’t your style, try the gym, a local sports league, a yoga class, jump roping, or playing outside with pets or children.

5. Catch up on your reading list.
Ah, the joy of summer reading. During the school year, it’s a great idea to make an actual list so you always know the next thing you’re going to check out from the local library. There are several sites that can help you build a list perfectly suited to your interests and tastes. Type in the titles of books and names of authors you know you love, and get a list of related suggestions. These sites include whatshouldireadnext.com, yournextread.com, openingthebook.com, and goodreads.com.

6. Journal or blog.
There is something fulfilling and therapeutic about documenting the events in your life in a journal or blog. Sites like Blogger or WordPress are user-friendly ways to start establishing a presence online, but curling up with a diary and pen can also be a great outlet to get your ideas flowing. If you’re not sure what to write about, check out this list of 119 journal prompts to get you started.

7. Practice the art of savoring.
Your life doesn’t have to change drastically for you to feel rejuvenated. A cup of tea, a moment with your child or spouse, a delicious dinner, or a good workout are small things that, when savored and enjoyed, can lead to lasting life satisfaction. In his blog “Zen Habits,” Leo Babauta describes savoring as an art that helps make life more meaningful. “Savoring can teach you to be mindful, to stop procrastinating, to finally exercise, to eat less and more healthfully, to live in the present, and much more.” His tips for getting there include slowing down, eating mindfully, and living in the present.

8. Meditate.
It’s been said that, besides lifting your spirits, the practice of meditation can also boost your immune system, reduce blood pressure, and increase your attention span. In her New York Times article “How Meditation May Change the Brain,” Sindya N. Bhanoo cites a study showing that “those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress.” Start by committing to just a few minutes a day at a specific time. Pick a quiet spot, sit comfortably, and focus on steady, slow breathing for those few minutes. In this five-minute video on One-Moment Meditation, you can get some beginner’s ideas for fitting meditation into your busy lifestyle.

9. Take advantage of your city’s free events.
Check our your city’s calendar. Without spending money or going too far, you should be able to find a number of local events and activities to enjoy with friends or family. These might include concerts in the park, outdoor art exhibits or gallery strolls, classic movie screenings, or fairs. On the chance that your city’s calendar is empty this summer, you can always visit a museum or go window-shopping.

10. Laugh.
While it may be cliché to say it, sometimes laughter truly is the best medicine. If you’re still not feeling as rejuvenated and refreshed as you’d like, it may be time to “laugh it off.” Attend a local comedy show, rent a funny movie, or go out for a night with close friends and keep it light. Laugh and smile your way through the summer, and you’ll be a new person when school starts in the fall.

What have you done to get re-energized during the summer months (or at any time in the year)? Leave your comments below.

Test your Street Resilience with this free self-assessment

As Christian Moore continues to make progress on his book, “Resilience – The 2nd Greatest Principle in the World,” we are working on the development of a resiliency self-assessment tool to help readers gauge their strengths and weaknesses as they read. We’re interested in the range of scores that come out of this assessment, and that’s where you come in!

Simply answer the 14 questions below as honestly as possible. Try to avoid the tendency to “come out looking good” when responding.

Please rate each item for how true it is of you, using the following scale.

1=Never like me
2=Seldom like me
3=About half the time like me
4=Usually like me
5=Always like me

1. I react to rejection by giving up or decreasing the amount of effort I put forth.

2. Making a mistake just makes me want to try harder the next time.

3. When people aren’t confident in my abilities, I tend to put forth less effort.

4. I’m not the kind of person who will experience discrimination.

5. I believe innovation is possible without mistakes.

6. When I have a conflict with someone, it’s usually because the other person lacks a complete perspective.

7. I’m not afraid to expose my ignorance to gain a more complete perspective.

8. I rarely step out of my comfort zone to experience something new.

9. I’ve been able to transform some of my limitations into strengths.

10. During a typical day, I tend to focus more on what I’ve done right that what I’ve done wrong.

11. Fear of failure doesn’t deter me from taking action.

12. Fear of embarrassment keeps me from being my true self.

13. I use rejection to work harder to achieve my goals.

14. There are multiple people and interests in my life I can turn to during times of loneliness.

SCORING

Add up the items from questions 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, and 14. Then subtract items 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 12 from this total. If you scored between -28 and -10, your Street Resilience could use some work. Follow the blog for tips before the book comes out! If you scored between -9 and 9, your Street Resilience is average. Keep an eye out for posts on the other sources of resiliency to see which areas you might be stronger in. If you scored between 10 and 28, you are a very Street Resilient person. Read up on Street Res in the “Resiliency Source” section of this blog to see why this source is working out so well for you.

RESILIENCY SOURCE – Boost Your Street Res; Look Fear in the Eye

How do we access street resiliency? How exactly can we channel our mistakes and pain into resiliency fuel? I’ve compiled a series of “boosters” that can help you access additional “power from the street.” One of these is to look fear in the eye.

Fear is a part of our life from the day we are born until we die. From the fear of separation from our caregiver as babies, to social and rejection fears in adolescence and adulthood, to fears of aging and death, fear is constantly with us.

I still struggle with many fears on a daily basis. For most of my life I’ve been devoted to running away from the challenges I faced in my childhood and as an adult. To this end, there have been years when I traveled 260 days. In fact, over the past 10 years, I have traveled a total of 6 years of my life and over one million miles. You might say, “But Christian, you were working hard to provide for your family!” And that’s true. However, this excessive work-related travel enabled me to not have to focus on the challenges in my immediate family. Checking out from responsibilities, pain, and fear can be tempting, and for me, sometimes it’s too easy.

That’s not to say that traveling is easy for me. In fact, I am truly a world-renowned expert in the fear of travel. There are times when I handle these anxieties better than others, and there are things about traveling that I love, but traveling exposes many of my worst fears.

Ten years ago when I first started speaking across the U.S., I was very scared of traveling because I couldn’t read a map. I’ve always struggled with maps because of my learning differences, and whether rational or not, I was afraid I would get so lost on a trip that I would never get back home. I don’t know if I got lost too many times as a child, but this fear of being lost is extremely intense even today.

I became very good at negotiating with taxi drivers and begging them to drive me way out of their normal travel boundaries. I will never forget one time listening to a taxi driver telling his base that he had a man in his cab in an emergency situation who would die if he didn’t drive me over 80 miles away to a very important speech.

The invention of the portable GPS unit changed my life. My first solo trips with a GPS device that talked to me were strangely scary, but I always made it to my destination. This new sense of independence was liberating and greatly impacted my self-esteem in a positive way. Things went well for about a year until one time in Seattle when the sound on my GPS stopped working. Another panic attack ensued. Since this experience I started traveling with three GPS devices, so I had a backup for the backup if the first two failed. Even with GPS, in certain cities sometimes I land at an airport, have a panic attack, and spend hundreds of dollars on a taxi to get me to my destination.

Planes are also very challenging for me. Let’s just say that you never want to be sitting next to the guy who is having an intense panic attack on the plane! If the person next to you is suddenly soaked in sweat and shaking, be gentle. He may just be having severe travel anxiety.

Although I still struggle with these fears, I have had to learn to look this fear in the eye and do it anyway. It’s hard to look a fear in the eye and continue to move forward and not let it stop you, but it’s like lifting weights: you get stronger with every repetition or exposure. It’s not fun in the middle of the workout, but the results can be great! Because I have chosen to face my fears, I have been able to provide for my family. I’ve grown a business from the ground up. I’ve been able to help a lot of people with WhyTry, a program I believe in. And I’ve gained a whole new sense of myself and what I can do. Our fears can be reframed as strengths if we allow ourselves to be taught and educated by them. With each year of my life, I am more and more convinced that my fears are the gateway to being resilient.

Fears are a powerful teacher of life, one we need to respect and listen to. This teacher can warn us and protect us from danger. Fear can motivate and inspire us. It is what gives us instant energy for fight or flight. Most of life’s crises that require us to access resiliency are founded in fear! It has been said that courage is not the absence of fear, but doing what should be done in the midst of fear. However, it’s important to realize that certain fears require us to get as far away as possible in order to be safe. Sometimes, courage doesn’t mean standing up to your fear. Sometimes it means getting the heck out of there.

The most resilient people understand that exposure to fear is often their solution to or cure for the fear. This is something I wish I had understood earlier, as I have spent a lot of my life running from my fears. Now I know that the ability to be resilient in the face of fear has nothing to do with how physically strong you are, how smart you are, how tough you can act, or even how emotionally stable you are. It often comes down to your willingness to stand in the thunderstorm of your biggest fears with no umbrella or protection, and allow yourself to get drenched from the exposure. Fear thrives in the darkness of confusion and the unknown. The less educated you are about your fears, the more power the fear has. Everything is less scary when there is a spotlight shining on it.

Guided Mastery

Brad Anderson, a friend and collaborator on this book, had lunch a few years ago as part of an interview team with Dr. Albert Bandura, the fourth most frequently-cited psychologist of all time, behind the likes of Skinner and Freud. Still working at Stanford in his late 80’s, Bandura spent years studying phobias and developed a brilliant methodology for working people through their fears. We’re not talking about little, easily managed fears here. During their lunch, Bandura told Brad about a woman in Santa Barbara who had a phobia of snakes. She’d read a story in the paper about a woman in San Francisco who had a snake crawl up through the sewer and into her toilet. The woman in Santa Barbara was now so paralyzed by her fear of snakes that she couldn’t go to the bathroom. Bandura works with people like her to desensitize them from this fear. During the course of the lunch he went on to explain this process—typically it would start with him saying, “There’s a snake in the next room. We’re going to go in there.” In the beginning the person would shudder and retort, “Oh no we’re not!” But Bandura leads them through a step-by-step process: First they look at the snake through a two-way mirror. Then they stand in the doorway of the room where the snake is. Eventually they wear a leather glove and touch the snake. By the conclusion, people with a lifelong fear of snakes would end up holding the snake in their lap, saying, “Look how beautiful it is!”

Bandura calls this process “guided mastery.” David Kelley is the founder and chair of the design firm IDEO and creator of the “d.school” at Stanford where students study creative collaboration and problem solving in everything from business to medicine. Kelley spoke about Dr. Bandura in a speech on creative confidence. He explained that what Bandura does when working with phobics is similar to what he does with his business clients, taking them through a “series of small successes.” “People who went through this process with snakes had less anxiety about other things in their lives. They tried harder, they persevered longer, and they were more resilient in the face of failure,” says Kelley. “Bandura calls that confidence ‘self-efficacy’—the sense that you can change the world and that you can attain what you set out to do.”

Like the person overcoming the fear of snakes, you don’t have to overcome a fear in a day; more often than not it takes a significant amount of time to overcome a fear. Sometimes it’s best to slowly desensitize yourself to the fear. Other times you might just have to deal with it by jumping off the high dive and immersing yourself in it. Since I have so many fears and anxieties I often have to just jump in. And when I am brave and go for it, I’m constantly surprised at how often I land exactly where I need to.

We invite you to follow the progress of Christian Moore’s book, “Resilience-The Second Greatest Principle in the World” each month in a brand new blog category: “Resiliency Source.”

Ask a trainer: How can I incorporate WhyTry into my summer school program?

WhyTry Training Consultant Kevin Card answers:

WhyTry can be an excellent credit recovery class for summer school students. It can be tied into a study skills class, an attendance course, or a character-building program approach. Here are a few ideas to make your WhyTry summer program successful:

1. Have all the tools.
Before you begin, I recommend you have all the WhyTry tools you need in place – meaning a curriculum set, a hands-on activities kit, music, video clips, and journals. If you have all of these, you’ll be a lot more successful. Kids get bored when all you’re using is a lecture format, especially during the summer. WhyTry’s fidelity checklist can help you make sure you’re incorporating enough multisensory learning into your program.

2. Make it fun.
Acquaint yourself with plenty of WhyTry’s learning activities. When kids come into a summer program, the last thing they want to do is sit still. Engage them, mix it up, play music, and keep a good pace. Using the activities can help your students see the lesson in an entirely different way.

Another way to involve the students in a fun and engaging way is to allow them to share their “passion, purpose, or interest.” This is a portion of the WhyTry class where students can share their talent or passion with the group – whether it be skateboarding, dance, music, or artwork.

3. Serve the community.
Too often kids stay inside themselves and are afraid to turn outward. Summer is a great time to help students find ways to benefit the community. I once took my WhyTry class to a Children in Crisis center. I was touched to see the at-risk youth from my class playing on the carpet and reading stories to the kids in the center. It was a cool thing, and the students will always remember that day.

4. Bring in mentors.
Students are a lot more apt to listen to someone who is their own age and part of their own peer group. That’s why I’ve found it’s really effective to bring in a former WhyTry student to share his/her experiences and what they’ve learned.

5. Introduce the “No F Game Plan.”
Even though it’s summer and students aren’t thinking about grades, I find the summer class is a good time to introduce or remind students about WhyTry’s “No F Game Plan.” That way, when school does start up again, they’ll be equipped from the beginning with the skills to keep up their grades and attendance.

If you’re using WhyTry as a component of a summer camp, you could go even heavier on the activities and tie them back to WhyTry’s visual analogies. Outdoor settings and gymnasium settings are great places to implement some of
WhyTry’s more hands-on activities. Complete the activity, then talk about the principles they learned there. They’ll always remember something they do more than something they hear.

Kevin Card is a WhyTry trainer, WhyTry curriculum writer, and teacher. To learn more about incorporating WhyTry into your summer program, contact us at 866.949.8791.

Introducing WhyTry’s “Surrendering the One-up” Workshop

Here at WhyTry, we believe that the key to creating positive change with youth doesn’t lie in interventions alone, but in the relationship you establish with youth. That’s why we’re excited to announce the new “Surrendering the One-up Relationship” Workshop, which provides staff members with several strategies for building positive relationships, and improving even the most dreary or frustrating classroom environments. The half-day workshop includes:

Tools to foster positive paradigm shifts
A strength-based approach to relationship building
Strategies to acknowledge accomplishments and build value and worth
A set of “lifetime rules” to establish in your classroom
Ways to create an environment of safety
Overcoming the fear of failure
Coaching on “giving second chances”
Discussion of WhyTry’s 3 R’s: Relationship, Relevance, and Resiliency

If you schedule a “Surrendering the One-up” before the end of June, you qualify for $1000 off.

Click here for the workshop flyer, or contact us to learn more.

Teens get artistic with ‘Four Sources of Resiliency’

As a therapist in a high school therapeutic class, Damaris Pyle of Homestead High School in Cupertino, California works with students whose social and emotional challenges interfere with their ability to learn. “Our goal is to keep them at their home school and help them graduate high school,” says Damaris, who currently uses WhyTry in two of her classes.

After reading about WhyTry Founder Christian Moore’s four sources of resiliency (Street, Rock Bottom, Relational, and Resource), Damaris says, “I was hooked! I asked both classes to brainstorm what they thought each of the categories meant and then I asked them to make posters that represented their perception of the concepts.”

Damaris adds, “I think they are pretty awesome.” A few of the posters and the brainstorms that inspired them are below.

Street Resiliency

-Know who to hang out with and who to stay away from
-Ability to adapt to situations
-Trust your instincts

-Overcome obstacles
-How not to cause trouble so you don’t get in trouble
-How to do a lot with “nuttin’”

Relational Resiliency

-Don’t get discouraged when relationships “go south”
-Talk to trusted people
-Be willing to work through conflicts for a resolution

-Establish friendships with new people
-Communication skills
-Ability to talk to people

Resource Resiliency

-Awareness of support options
-Be able to change thoughts
-Think outside the box

-Get help from parents and other outside people
-Accept feedback, constructive criticism and observations
-Give respect to all people. You never know if they may become your boss.

Rock Bottom Resiliency

-Recognize the cause
-Appreciate what you have
-Realize that everything changes

-Realization of who you are
-Be willing to be super uncomfortable
-Find spirituality

If you have ideas, photos, or stories related to the WhyTry Program in your school or organization, contact us or leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

How Resilience Education is changing lives

Resilience Education. It’s a new term and a new idea – teaching students resilience so they’re better equipped to succeed in school and in life. But as the research seeps in, it’s pointing to something positive.

For example, an Education Week blog discusses a speech at the American Psychological Association by Martin E.P. Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, who cited a study on resilience conducted on 240 9^th graders. The students were divided into two groups: one that incorporated “positive psychology” – or resilience education – into the course, and a group that didn’t.

The kids in the positive psychology group read “Romeo and Juliet,” The Scarlet Letter, and all the other literary works taught in the control-group class but with added attention to the strengths of the main characters. Students in the experimental group were also required to do three “loving” things for another person… (Viadero)

As researchers followed the two groups of students through high school, they learned that the experimental group had “improved their social skills and had a greater love of learning and higher grades than those who had taken the straight-up literature class” (Viadero).

Seligman is involved with research surrounding University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Resiliency Program (PRP). PRP’s approach helps students consider alternative interpretations to their negative beliefs, while also learning “techniques for assertiveness, negotiation, decision-making, social problem-solving, and relaxation” (Gilham, Reivich). Over 2,000 youth between the ages of 8 and 15 have been evaluated using PRP, and the results of this particular resilience education initiative are impressive:

Taken together, the existing studies suggest that PRP prevents symptoms of depression and anxiety… In several studies, PRP has prevented elevated or clinically relevant levels of depression and anxiety symptoms. One study that examined PRP’s long-term effects on behavioral (externalizing) problems found significant preventive effects of disruptive behaviors 24 to 36 months after the intervention (Cutuli, 2004; Cutuli, Chaplin, Gillham, Reivich, & Seligman, 2007)

The focus of the WhyTry Program is also to teach vital resiliency skills to youth of all ages. Research has shown that, using WhyTry, academic progress improved in all areas; students improved GPA, behavior problems decreased, and motivation increased. (A full list of WhyTry research summaries can be found here.)

For being such a new idea, the findings surrounding resilience education are promising and hopeful. For more information on teaching resilience to youth in your school or organization, contact the WhyTry Program at 866.949.8791.

RESILIENCY SOURCE – Boost Your Street Res; Get the ‘Whole Picture’ Part II

Often, when someone discriminates, it is because they only have a ‘half view’ of the situation. They don’t see the whole picture. This is a real blind spot, because very few people are aware when this is happening. (Remember the girl in my college class?) But I really believe that most people aren’t malicious or mean; I think most discrimination occurs due to a simple lack of exposure. The whole picture view is a determination not to disrespect others, but to strive for understanding on every level and see everyone as equal. The half picture view is thinking that another person is less than me. It can breed an attitude of revenge.

Think of how much harm comes from people lacking the whole picture every day.

Think of how much harm comes from people lacking the whole picture every day. Bullying. Racism. Genocide. If you have conflict with someone, it’s usually because someone is not willing to look at the other half of the picture. This can be applied to couples, or to a whole organization, or to a war between two nations. Someone with this view sees a polarized world: all good or all bad. A world that sees the whole picture is a world of opportunity. It is a safer world, where the thought is, “How can we all win? What is the mutual benefit for everybody? How can I join others? How am I part of all humanity? How do I create opportunity for others to win as well?” Compare this to the half picture view: “What’s in it for me if I reject others? How can I separate myself from others? How can I show I am superior or better? How do I keep my power, my dominance?”

I want to clarify that I don’t believe it is actually possible to ever gain the whole picture view in its entirety. All truth is not available to us. But, when we strive to understand the full picture we are gaining a more complete view. Conversely, a half picture view doesn’t literally mean we understand half of a situation. It means we have a limited view and understanding. One of the biggest problems comes from people having a half picture view but thinking they have the whole picture view, a very common situation. Ask yourself, “Is it possible that I don’t have all the information about this situation? Is there a chance that I am not understanding the other point of view?” Because chances are we don’t. We rarely have the whole picture view and the ability to understand and empathize with all involved, which is good reason for giving others the benefit of the doubt and cutting everyone a little bit of slack.

How the Whole Picture View Comes Into Focus
So how do we get the whole picture? Some have it due to experience. Others have to proactively seek it. Look for other points of view that are different from your own. We need to increase our exposure. Without the total picture, we are less able to access Street Resiliency.

A few years ago a colleague of mine was able to take his family on a trip to China. They had a tour guide who took them to all the expected, ‘touristy’ places, which were beautiful and impressive. My friend then asked the guide if he could take them to see a typical Chinese village, so that they could see how a group of Chinese people in an impoverished community really lived. The guide was noticeably uncomfortable, but did as he requested. What they saw was shocking, and life-changing for him and his family. They witnessed row upon row of cinderblock and rubble houses, with no semblance of any organization or community. Scrawny dogs and hungry people were everywhere, forlorn and hopeless looking. My friend’s family didn’t realize that people actually lived in such extreme poverty. Even though they had traveled halfway across the globe, their itinerary as listed would not have given them a whole picture view. They had to look for it and seek for it. And it was worth it– before this part of their travels, they had an incomplete view of this part of the world. The increased exposure was incredibly educational and valuable.

Before this part of their travels, they had an incomplete view of this part of the world. The increased exposure was incredibly educational and valuable.

I’m not saying you have to travel the world to increase your exposure, although that is certainly something that can happen if you’re fortunate enough to be able to do so and you have the right mindset. There are many ways to get the whole picture view and it doesn’t have to be costly. Your library can be your best friend. Reading can open your mind in invaluable ways. President Abraham Lincoln lived in poverty and was denied formal education in order to work on the family’s “hardscrabble” farm. His father was forced to loan him out to work on other farms to pay off debt. Lincoln went to school a week here, a week there, and calculated that in total he had one year of formal education. Doris Kearns Goodwin, a well-known Lincoln biographer, says, “Books became his academy. Relatives and neighbors recalled that he scoured the countryside for books and read every volume he got his hands on.” It was said that he couldn’t contain his excitement whenever he got a new book– couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, but stayed up all night reading. Lincoln was confined to an extremely small world in terms of geography and diversity, yet took tremendous advantage of the one resource he did have—books about the world. Literature allowed him to transcend his surroundings.

“Books became his academy. Relatives and neighbors recalled that he scoured the countryside for books and read every volume he got his hands on.” -Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lincoln biographer

If you only expose yourself to what you know and are comfortable with, growth and insight into other options are stagnant. Try to increase your exposure to occupations and cultures that are different from your own. Experiment with the ‘Do the Opposite’ principle—watch or listen to media carrying political views that are different from your own, for example. Research, ask someone for help, and experience something new. The opportunity I had to spend time living with my grandparents (the World War II generation), as well as spending time with Mama Jackson, my African-American ‘second mom’ and mentor who frequently took me in off the streets, and her family exposed me to different ideas and views. Living on the East Coast and in the western United States has expanded my mind. I have learned that no one group of people has all the knowledge and insight. I can’t settle for one perspective on an issue or situation if I’m going to continue to grow, discover my true purpose, and access resiliency.

It’s important to note that exposure alone does not necessarily equal enlightenment and make you more resilient. It does not guarantee understanding. Exposure while seeking to get the whole picture view is what leads to insight and expanded perception. Getting the whole picture view means you take the time to understand both that which you easily agree with, and that which you don’t. Instead of focusing on what is wrong, I have found it is much more productive to focus on what’s right with a community, culture, people or organization.

No one sums up the whole picture view quite as powerfully as someone who has literally had the whole world view. Edgar Mitchell of the Apollo 14 mission, said, “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’” Michael Collins, an astronaut on Gemini 10 and Apollo 11, said, “I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of 100,000 miles their outlook could be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions, presenting a unified façade that would cry out for unified understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not capitalist or Communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied.”

We invite you to follow the progress of Christian Moore’s book, “Resilience-The Second Greatest Principle in the World” each month in a brand new blog category: “Resiliency Source.”

Ask a trainer: What are your ideas for using state changes in the classroom?

WhyTry Training Consultant Steve Robinette answers:

When a teacher is actively using state changes in the classroom, time moves quickly, everyone has fun, and the students want to come back because they’ve had a great experience. But before we go into how to make state changes successful in your classroom, let’s talk about what they are.

What is a state change?
The whole idea of a state change is to get kids (or adults) engaged early and keep them engaged throughout your lesson. It’s continually switching the sensory focus from visual to auditory to body kinesthetic and back again. This keeps students’ attention and gives them the opportunity to learn more as they tap into all their senses.

Why do we need state changes?
Some studies have shown that elementary-age children have an attention span during lectures of four to six minutes. Our attention span grows as we get older, but even in adulthood, most of us struggle after 12 minutes.

When I ask teachers if they’ve ever lost students’ attention during an important lesson, they always laugh and say, “Yes!” So in WhyTry trainings, I tell them we’re going to model state changes during the training and move on. Halfway through the day, I stop. “OK,” I’ll say, “I want you to think back on the day so far and point out all the state changes I’ve used.” They’ll be surprised that the day’s already half gone, because I try to switch gears every 8 to 10 minutes to keep the group’s attention.

How WhyTry makes state changes easier
When you keep WhyTry’s 3 R’s in mind (Relationship, Relevance, and Resilience), state changes start to come naturally. For example, if I’m trying to develop a relationship with my students, I’m going to tell personal stories, engage them in activities that help me get to know them better, and encourage art and journal prompts that help me better understand who they really are. If I want to show them the relevance of what I’m teaching, I’ll use music that can help them make a personal connection to the lesson and show YouTube videos or movie clips that they can relate to. All of these things are state changes, and when we’re constantly engaging them in this way, it builds resiliency.

A few ideas

1. Use good framing.
Make everything you do exciting. Instead of using the boring frame of, “Children, we have an activity now,” engage students in activities by framing them as challenges, experiments, and competitions.

2. Do the unexpected.
When you start to lose students’ attention, do something completely unexpected to wake them up. For example, when I’m teaching the WhyTry lesson “Desire, Time, and Effort,” I’ll say, “OK, we have a personal challenge. We’re going for the world record and we have a maze we’re going to do.” Then I’ll run across the room throwing the papers everywhere and say, “You have 20 seconds! Go!” This simple state change gets them back on track, re-focuses them, and increases heart rate and oxygen flow.

3. Surrender the One-up Relationship.
Sometimes I’ll tell the kids, “Let’s not talk about ‘stuff.’ We talk about ‘stuff’ all the time. Can I just tell you a story about something that happened to me once? We’ll get back to ‘stuff’ later.” I go sit down with them and start talking, and suddenly we’re all just a group of kids. A lot of WhyTry’s “Surrendering the One-up Relationship” strategies are also great state changes.

4. Have them stand up.
A lot of times when I do an activity, I’ll have the students stand up whether or not the activity requires this. By standing up, they’re moving a bit and getting some oxygen flowing. This makes the time pass quickly and helps them focus.

5. Prepare in advance.
Have an arsenal of state changes prepared beforehand. If the kids are not making connections and you’re starting to lose them, it’s time to pull another one out.

6. Engage early and often.
My final piece of advice for creating a “state-changing classroom” is to engage EARLY, and engage OFTEN. It certainly requires more effort on our part, but as educators, I think we can all agree that the kids are worth it.

Steve Robinette is a WhyTry training consultant who has worked with youth and adults in a number of settings. For more information on state changes, contact us at 866.949.8791, or share your own state-changing ideas with us in the comments below.

Flexible teaching ideas from a WhyTry Warrior

Parent Involvement Specialist Faye Wilson has learned to be flexible as she implements WhyTry with a variety of groups.

Sometimes a person has to be flexible – and no one understands this better than Faye Wilson, a parent involvement specialist for the Wicomico County Board of Education in Salisbury, Maryland. Since going through the WhyTry training in May of last year, Faye has implemented WhyTry in a middle school after-school program, at an elementary summer camp, with a choir/dance ensemble, in a one-on-one teen mentoring setting, and with groups of adults as a seminar teacher for her church. Needless to say, Faye Wilson is a woman of many hats.

That’s why, when it comes to teaching the WhyTry lessons, Faye is not afraid to diverge from the exact lesson outline and cater the program to the needs of the group she’s working with. Here are a few of the tried and true ways she’s “split off” from the lesson ideas in the WhyTry teacher’s manual.

The Reality Ride
A popular activity in WhyTry’s first lesson is called “The Keys to Staying on Track.” It involves having team members touch numbered pieces of cardstock in order in as little time as possible. Faye suggests using words to a song (She likes Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) instead of numbers. “I suggest that for younger children a nursery rhyme or school song, or even a motto that you want them to learn, might be a motivating factor for them to play this game.” And for the adults? “I have even used this with adults,” she says. “And they are in a huddle strategizing like you wouldn’t believe.”

Tearing Off Labels
Generally in “Tearing Off Your Label,” students are encouraged to give themselves a positive label. Faye likes to mix this up by putting everyone’s name in a box and having each student draw a name. They are then instructed to create a positive label for that person. “We ask them to write down positive words that come to mind, and we review them,” says Faye. “They also know if they choose not to be positive, they also will not receive the positive feedback/label that someone has developed for them.”

The Motivation Formula
Instead of simply showing the WhyTry visual analogy “The Motivation Formula” and moving on, Faye encourages her class to draw their own river and dams, then gives them the option to share their art with the class. “This is a great exercise to give the class artists a time to shine,” says Faye, adding, “I always show them MY rough sample so they will know it’s OK for theirs to ‘rough and gruff.’”

Climbing Out
The “Climbing Out” lesson is a picture of crabs in a pot, pulling each other down as a representation of peer pressure from friends. “Around here when we catch crabs, we often put them in a bushel basket,” says Faye. To help the students relate the visual to their own experience, she brings in a variety of pots and baskets with different items in them. “They are asked to get the item out, using only their left little finger or a fork between their teeth,” explains Faye. This helps demonstrate that some pots are more difficult to get out of than others, and it also creates a nice tie-in to “Desire, Time, and Effort” and “The Reality Ride.”

Desire, Time, and Effort
WhyTry’s “Desire, Time, and Effort” visual is a difficult maze that shows students the importance of hard work to succeed in life. Faye likes to share the biographies of famous people her students are familiar with, such as LL Cool J, Michael Oher, or Venus Williams, and have her students identify the “desire, time, and effort” those people put in to be successful.

Lift the Weight
WhyTry’s “Lift the Weight” lesson teaches students that laws and rules make us stronger, and Faye likes to help her students see how this applies in real life. “I have them brainstorm some ‘terrible’ news (either from TV, Internet, or school),” she says. “We talk about what rules were broken (at that moment or earlier in life). Then we talk about what might have been different if they had chosen the HARD things, and we identify those: walk away from a situation, choose a different friend, not being ‘smart’ with the teacher or police officer.”

Faye also uses a team-building STEM activity to teach this principle, giving each team four sheets of paper and encouraging them to use their paper build the tallest tower. She explains, “I share that we can lift a lot more weight just as we can get that tower higher – when we work together, observe the rules of physics (or the environment), and exercise some patience.”

Get Plugged In
The “Get Plugged In” lesson emphasizes the importance of having a variety of positive connections, and uses the examples parent/guardian, positive friend, teacher/counselor/school official, positive mentor, and something that inspires or motivates you to do good. Faye divides the categories into envelopes and gives each student one, then challenges them to describe in 1-2 sentences a positive connection in their life that falls into that category. For example, “Lynette is my positive friend because she always tells me that I can do things.”

Recently, Faye’s class presented an overview of WhyTry to a group of AmeriCorps volunteers, and asked everyone to share the name of someone to whom they are “plugged in.” Three of the 11 people shared the name of one specific volunteer who has made a difference to them. “It was quite emotional,” Faye says of the exercise.

Faye says she is always looking for ways to reach her students, and WhyTry has given her additional tools to help her in her work. After meeting WhyTry Founder Christian Moore last year, she says, “I saw how these visuals and activities would help youth in particular think and reflect on their lives. Some students do not have family support…”

She continues, “I understand Christian’s premise that students need to be empowered, they need to practice skills of resiliency. I also believe that if more parents understand and use these skills in their own lives, they will be more effective, caring, and consistent parents. They won’t be easily rattled. They’ll be able to share with their children, ‘Dad’s in a flood plain, but these are the lifelines being thrown to me and I’m going to make it out.’”

If you have ideas or stories related to the WhyTry Program in your school or organization, contact us or leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.