I’m excited to have a new information to share with everyone about the program! Please pass it along! We need to bring innovation to our schools to create a more positive emotional climate. We need more ALL-inclusive programs to empower students as leaders who spread optimism and hope.

2016 We ALL Have a VOICE! Program Brochure

What makes me happy is to see all of my kids’ pictures and remember the exact moments where those experiences happened. Creating meaningful relationships and helping others is powerful. With each project, school culture and climate shift in a positive direction. New opportunities to contribute to a common conversation begin.

So importantly, we are able to take a look at the serious issues at our school. Students live with anxiety, isolation, hunger, depression, bullying, low self-confidence, violence, and so much more. It’s not an easy time to be a student. Stress is high and pressure to achieve grows each year. By providing positive outlets for expression and conversation, kids’ brains are impacted in a positive way. This makes them more open to change, learning, and academic achievement. Addressing emotions is important. Learning how to help one another creates new connections.

Neuroscience has proven that school culture and personal narrative are the most influential factors in academic achievement. We CAN do something to create a positive and supportive emotional climate in our schools. It takes work, but is work all the effort.

We must do something innovative. It is unacceptable that 7,000 students drop out of school every day.

Will you join our movement to make a difference and help kids engage in school in new ways? We need you!  Contact us and help us spread the word that: We ALL Have a VOICE!

Here’s my new challenge. It is BIG, so get ready. I need you to help make this happen.

FEBRUARY 4th through the 14th  – SIGN US UP for the Challenge! 

Conversation-Changers: 100 school communities creating 1,000 Thank Yous each

Impact: 200,000 would experience the gift of gratitude in ONE WEEK!

Why now? The week before Valentine’s Day can be a challenging time for some. I know it has been for me in the past. Let’s share gratitude with people and fill our schools with positivity!

WE can do this!!!  BE a part of the team of 200,000! Help us make magic happen.

Click here to WATCH the INTRO VIDEO and get RESOURCES!

You may be wondering: Where did I create this goal?

I’m attending a training and we were asked to come up with a “Gutsy Goal”. I reflected on the success of our December 1,000 Thank You campaign and the fact that my kids want to do it again with a “friendly competition” with other schools. We got 935+ Thank Yous in December. I know we can do more!

Thank you Eric Jensen for the inspiration to get a bigger vision and plan!

Big banks of blue lockers, unused by students, This is my view. This has been my view for 7 years. And, the students can’t use them. This is a situation in need of a solution. I see them as a blank metal canvas.

My vision is that every locker at school is “Adopted” by a student. That student will submit a design. When the design is approved, s/he may paint their locker.

One of my amazing students, Audrey, came up to me and told me she is interested in working with the “Adopt a Locker” campaign. I love to see the kids’ excitement and enthusiasm. That is what brings a campaign to life. I have some crazy idea, according to a colleague, and the kids make it happen. I just guide them along the way. Together we figure out how to organize, launch, and manage the campaign.

Communities are built with each campaign. School culture is shifted to be more positive and hopeful. When we all want to be here at school and enjoy our surroundings, we will all achieve more!

This is the poster Audrey created to promote the campaign. We are having kids sign up this week. Next week we will meet to form teams. Off we go!!!

The Friday before Winter Break is a make-up day for finals. What this usually means is that a dozen or so students show up to work on projects and the rest are either having fun with friends, or sleeping in. I decided to create an “Inspiration Table” where kids could work on various projects to share with friends and family. I had rocks, tags, markers, stickers, and some new cool blue and pink sharpies for rocks.

Students wandered in and out of class, some mine and some new. I always enjoy these types of days where kids are kids and I am me. There are no titles, just people. The conversations I have with kids are interesting and different from normal class days. I find out about their plans, their families, their struggles, and their celebrations. I enjoy their energy which is more and more positive since their finals are completed and we are all more relaxed.

I am going to give the Dream BIG tag to my husband as a Christmas present.  He can use it as a bookmark since he loves to read. Someone else made this tag, and their positive energy will be passed along to others in the most positive of ways. Lesson: we make a difference is so many ways that we don’t even know! 

A happy ending to Semester one, this day certainly was.

It worked!!! I’m thrilled with the results. I just never know what to expect when I create a new campaign, but our experience went above and beyond, in just a week! The power of the people IN ACTION made a difference, together.

To watch students and staff create and share Thank Yous notes was inspiring. I’m so thankful to the teachers who incorporated the campaign into their lessons. I’m so thankful to one of my students,  D’Nessa who went around an got 54 Thank Yous, herself! I know that there are another 66 Thank Yous out there. It’s time to check and see if all the teachers who participated reported their numbers to me.

The power of gratitude was real and alive her at school for the last weeks of school. Amidst the stress of finals, grades, and holidays, together WE CREATED beautiful moments and changed lives!

As I told my colleague who wrote one Thank You: EVERYONE is important!

It has been over a year and I can remember the day I spoke with Candy Chang like it were yesterday.

This call to action is more serious than ever. With 7,000 kids dropping out of school, we need to do something to help kids stay in school. So many kids, 46% in our survey, don’t feel like they have a voice. If kids don’t have a voice, why would they stay in school?

It is up to US to give kids a way to share who they are and way for them to make a difference at their schools. We need to build a strong, positive school culture where SUCCESS is the ONLY option.

The campaigns I’m creating will change the world, one student at a time, one school at a time. I just need you to help. I can’t do it alone. How about it? Join my adventure!!!

Why 1,000 Thank Yous?  This campaign is based on research. Following are some videos are articles that support this campaign to connect people with gratitude.

GRATITUDE

• Check out this Ted talk for more insight into the power of gratitude.

David Steindl- Rast: Want to be happy? Be grateful.

HAPPINESS

• Check out this Ted talk for research about happiness. Yes, research about happiness! WATCH and see how your understanding of life can change in 12 minutes! You will never thing of unicorns the same way!

Shawn Anchor: The happy secret to better work

RESILIENCE

• Education Weekly also published an article that discusses the power of resiliency. Addressing the realities of life and connecting with one another has a powerful impact on achievement.

Leaders Take Note: Resilience is Not Just for Kids

• Mindfulness: Neuroscientist Richard Davidson and clinical mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn discuss mindfulness training as a tool to develop greater resilience to stress.

VIDEO: Can Mindfulness Increase Our Resilience to Stress?

The following excerpt from the Education Weekly article poses some serious questions for thought: 

“Mindfulness is one route that is scientifically successful in developing the ability of people, children and adults, to work through their emotions. Our point is not to recommend this as the answer, but to raise the questions:

“Does our organization

• reflect shared values that acknowledge the feelings of others
• have methods or routines that encourage empathy and recovery
• allow for the time and space needed for development and practice of resilience?”

We cannot allow schools to be places where the rush to the finish line negates life along the way. And, we cannot afford to make the mistake of thinking only some children or only some adults are stressed.  Demands on individual lives and families are and will continue to change daily. Schools must include changes in the way each member of the organization, children and adults, are treated and taught. Two things are certain in our lives and our systems: Change will continue and adversities will present themselves. We must lead in a manner that helps all to thrive in this environment. This calls for emotionally and spiritually healthy leaders who, themselves, are resilient and who can create and lead healthy, resilient educational systems.”

Our 1,000 Thank Yous Campaign is one that addresses these issues of stress as a positive, FREE solution for change.

1,000 Than Yous Campaign officially begins at Highland High School. students are now Conversation-Changers in ACTION. In light of the recent violence in our country, my mission becomes even more important to me. Building a community means building our world. Building a community means ACTION. We can talk about caring about one another. We can talk about having a community. But, do we? Really?  What do we DO do connect?

This campaign to make a difference by saying Thank you to people who make a difference in our lives, a difference in the world has been intentionally share with a group of students, my 4th period French 1 class.

Every movement starts with one person. If it does not go beyond that one person, it does not grow into a movement. What does it take? SHARING that idea with others. Does it matter with whom? No. Does it matter when? No. What matters? That the idea is SHARED. That is it.

Here’s how you can TAKE ACTION to change the conversation:

1. Take a piece of paper, any kind!
2. Create a thank you to a person you know. Color it nicely.
3. Explain WHY you are thanking this person. This is KEY.
4. Give your Thank You to that person.

REPEAT as many times as possible!

4 Steps to Building a BETTER COMMUNITY. Simple. Powerful.

TAKE 10 minutes to change a life.

1,000 Thank Yous – 7 days

We CAN do this!