Be a Heartist!

 I recently discovered the "Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning" podcast... and I am HOOKED. Andrea Samadi is a kindred spirit for sure. I joined an online seminar all about The Brain and Learning, and here are notes from her excellent session:

  I cannot say enough about how good this book is! First of all, it explains how poverty affects/changes the brains of those who grow up in its grip. But best of all, there are concrete suggestions for how educators might effectively combat those brain changes and make a difference in the lives of students from poverty. All my favorites--brain science, education, making a difference--all in one book (which will be released in January)! Order it here .

I'm been thinking a lot (and bumping into) those "one-issue" voters, who justify voting for Trump because they believe he will aid in outlawing abortion.  On the left, we tend to paint these folks as monsters whose concern for human life ends as soon as a baby is born. I've certainly leveled that accusation myself. But do we know that for sure? While there may be a percentage who only want to overturn Roe v Wade out of moral self-righteousness, or because they believe the stories THEY are hearing about the left (we eat babies, and will not rest until every fetus is murdered...).  I made this sketchnote with a type of person in mind: someone whose heart breaks at the thought of sweet, cuddly babies being destroyed but maybe hasn't thought through the limitations of merely making abortion illegal. Someone who might want to help children and families but hasn't made the connection between those needs and the abortions that trouble them. So here it is, and it prom...

 I work for Promethean, and among other really cool products we make and sell, we have *FREE* web-based software called ClassFlow. ClassFlow does a LOT, but one of my favorites is polling. You can send out questions to students and collect their answers, send out new questions based on their answers... it's a fantastic way to engage students in a conversation about the topic at hand. I'm frustrated that more teachers don't know about it (or only remember its "growing pains" days--it's better now, I swear!). So I made a thing:

Horacio Sanchez asked me to make a sketchnote of a keynote address he was giving. It was a wonderful talk; I hope he gets to give it as a TED Talk someday!  The topic: Bias.  There's a lot of information out there about bias, and most of it is, well, discouraging. Much of what I've read on the topic seems designed merely to convince you that, yes, you have bias. Horacio explains that we all have bias, yes, but (1) it's due to many factors, including the culture and environment you are in as well as the way your brain is wired. (Not only that; the brain rewards  you for finding information that reinforces your biases. Brain! That's rude! ), and (2) There are things you can do about it, like (believe it or not) smiling more, and intentionally breaking the patterns that we tend to see as abject truths.  Love me a talk that brings hope to a seemingly hopeless situation!