Let’s rethink the way we coach youth sports and the purpose of sports beyond a myopic vision.

In the wake of World Kindness Day I’d like to post a friendly reminder that love wins! 

Free suggested resources and strategies for reimagining social and emotional learning and for integrating SEL compentencies into your classroom or school.

Does kindness matter? What kinds of people, traits, qualities are considered admirable and influential? What consistent messages might teens be hearing and learning about kindness?

Life is full of complexity and abnormality. It is difficult to look to the future and imagine something different.

When people feel more in control of their lives, people are generally happier, more optimistic and healthier.

We like change we can control. We resist change that we can’t control. People don’t like change that is forced on them. The status quo is always easier than change.

To embrace change requires a risk. This can be frightening.

In addition, John Steinbeck said, “When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you have two new people.” There is no doubt that great things come from a meeting between people---I know I have changed in so many positive ways because our daily interactions, discussions, debates, arguments, and thinking.

What is your relationship with money? Why do we care so much about money? What is the relationship between money and happiness? As the Notorious B.I.G lamented, “It's like the more money we come across; The more problems we see.” Conventional wisdom however, suggests that money does lead to less problems, and greater happiness. Is a good life a life filled with goods?

I'm thinking if schooling can answer this question, then schools can move closer to a bona fide 21st century educational paradigm:

How might daily classroom experiences be transformed into flow classes? Csikszentmihalyi's theory of optimal experience reveals that if something is too challenging and we lack the appropriate skill it leads to anxiousness. If the task is too easy (not challenging) and we have more than enough skill, we become bored. The key is to find the right combination in a task that challenges and that we possess the right amount of skill to do it.

As researcher Nicholas Christakis reminds us, “Rather than asking how we can get happier, we should be asking how we can increase happiness all around us…when you make positive changes in your life, those effects ripple out from you and you can find yourself surrounded by the very thing you fostered.”

Mean world syndrome, first coined in the 1970s by Dr. George Gerbner, is a cognitive bias where the world begins appearing and feeling to be more dangerous than it actually is, due to repeated exposure to violence-related content on mass media. Increased feelings of pessimism, fear, and even a hyper-vigilance of perceived threats may develop. This bias impacts people’s beliefs and attitudes about the world.

An education should help young people find purpose. An education should add value to one’s life and value to the world. The following are post-course reviews, after grades have been stored, from students spanning almost two decades.

Graduation day is wonderful. This day is like the Super Bowl for education. The outpouring of positivity and pride amongst faculty, administration, parents, and students makes this day special. However, back in the early 2000s, an upsetting trend began to develop in the messages expressed in student graduation speeches. These speeches became a catalyst to the development of a high school course I created and later this book.