Head+and+Heart

Our goal...to take care of more than just our academic goals...but also to take care of our **heads and hearts**...building a strong community of strong, HAPPY individuals.

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Would you like to know more about this young man and the company/invention that he INSPIRED? Click here.

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OUR Learning Styles Document media type="youtube" key="EmeTZGr_R5Q" width="560" height="315" media type="youtube" key="de3zdqKcIEY" width="560" height="315" I think that we decided that the Habit of Mind most profoundly exemplified over and over and over again throughout Salva and Naya's lives was...PERSEVERANCE. media type="youtube" key="svzPm8lT36o" width="560" height="315"

media type="youtube" key="jU4oA3kkAWU" width="560" height="315" 9.10.14 Today in class we talked about how this video EXEMPLIFIES ALL 16 of the habits of mind!

In class we watched and discussed the video series: Children Full of Life "Mr. Kanamori, a teacher of a 4th grade class, teaches his students not only how to be students, but how to live. He gives them lessons on teamwork, community, the importance of openness, how to cope, and the harm caused by bullying.In the award-winning documentary Children Full of Life, a fourth-grade class in a primary school in Kanazawa, northwest of Tokyo, learn lessons about compassion from their homeroom teacher, Toshiro Kanamori. He instructs each to write their true inner feelings in a letter, and read it aloud in front of the class. By sharing their lives, the children begin to realize the importance of caring for their classmates. Toshiro is an amazing example of what all teachers across the world should be like. He truly understands what teaching children is all about and certainly made a positive difference in the lives of these 10 year olds. Here is the full documentary. media type="custom" key="25757622"
 * Published on Apr 3, 2012 **

The next selection is taken from Brain Pickings Popova, Maria. "George Saunders on the Power of Kindness, Animated." //Brain Pickings RSS//. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.

[|George Saunders on the Power of Kindness, Animated]
//“What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.”//
 * By: [|Maria Popova]**

media type="custom" key="25757592" With his gentle wisdom and disarming warmth, Saunders manages to dissolve some of our most deeply engrained culturally conditioned cynicism into a soft and expansive awareness of the greatest gift one human being can give another — those sacred exchanges that take place in a moment of time, often mundane and fleeting, but echo across a lifetime with inextinguishable luminosity.

In this immeasurably wonderful animated teaser for the book, narrated by Saunders himself, illustrator Tim Bierbaum brings to life the author’s words: > I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: //Try to be kinder//. > In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class. In the interest of confidentiality, her name will be “ELLEN.” ELLEN was small, shy. She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore. When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it. > So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” — that sort of thing). I could see this hurt her. I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear. After awhile she’d drift away, hair-strand still in her mouth. At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.” And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.” > Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it. > And then — they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big final hazing. > One day she was there, next day she wasn’t. > End of story. > Now, why do I regret that? Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it? Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her. I never said an unkind word to her. In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her. > But still. It bothers me. > So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it: > What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. > Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded … sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly. > Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth? > Those who were kindest to you, I bet. > But kindness, it turns out, is //hard// — it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include. . . well, //everything//.

Resources: @http://www.byrdseed.com/10-facts-about-social-emotional-needs-of-the-gifted/