3/18, Sunday—from 3:30-6pm, I attend the “Brooklyn Wellness Connection Meeting” at the Shambala Yoga & Dance Center to network with other holistic practitioners.  Walk home for an hour from Prospect Heights in the nice weather, eat dinner, and work from 9pm-3AM to revise the landing page of my website, reorganize the pages/titles, and completely re-configure the layout of this online information—yet again…

3/19, Monday—attend yoga class, send follow-up emails and flyers to contacts at yesterday’s meeting, and decide to fill out a profile on the US Directory, which actually takes quite a while and requires that I create an additional web page in their portal (what’s wrong with a link to my already-existing and over-invested website?!).  Write a blog post and make follow-up phone calls before going to the Corner for five straight sessions, from 2pm through 7pm—one of which is a networking appt, another that is a pro-bono college counseling session, and a third which is a scholarship student.  Run into the city to connect over a late dinner with an old student from Poly Prep who has now graduated from American University and is selling real estate, midst creating her own original online video-sketch project.  (Student confesses total admiration for my career in education after trying to lead five teens in a group session of school support earlier that weekend.) Get home at 1am and work on job applications until 2am or so.

3/20, Tuesday—get called at 7:30am to substitute at Hanah Senesh Community School for elementary classes.  Do educational improv all day as a music teacher.  Run downstairs to library during lunch break to draft an outline of internships available at the Corner, for a biz fair the next day.  Reschedule a college coaching call after school due to subbing and accidentally double-book another networking appointment—call to apologize and reschedule.  Answer messages at the office and organize projects before running to xerox handouts for business fair, and head over to coffee shop in Park Slope to meet old teaching assistant from Prep for Prep.  Discuss finding a way to get my SEL workshops accredited with CCEU’s for teachers.  Walk home and work until 2am on job leads.

3/21, Wednesday—work until 11am and then conduct a free phone consult for half-an-hour with potential parent in NJ about son with executive functioning challenges.  Research places for each of us to meet halfway for sessions in the city, along with other tutoring spots she mentioned, before jumping in the shower and getting ready for Fordham University’s Small Biz Fair at the Rosemont Campus in the Bronx.  Take the MTA North to Jesuit campus (arrive obnoxiously early) and schmooze with merchants and students from 2:30-6PM.  Hand out cards, make unofficial pitches for education, look at baby photos, promote my programs of SEL, encourage graduating seniors.  Collapse on train at 7pm, answer emails on the subway, stop by drugstore on the way home, walk in the door at 9pm.  Eat some salad and work until after 1am on job leads.  Mourn that my free consult decided to pursue other options.

3/22, Thursday—get up and out the door by 8am, and into the city for a 9am workshop at the Aaron Academy, “Applying to College for Students with ADD/LD.”  Participate in discussion, get asked for several cards, and run to coffee shop to meet current college kid at U of Chicago.  Head back to the office together and organize receipts for 2011 while finishing our talk about midterms and study abroad.  Work on taxes/PayPal documentation and paperwork for accountant for four hours and then conduct a two-hour pro-bono counseling session with struggling college kid who is taking a leave of absence from an elite school in New England, while a tutor rents my side office for a few extra dollars.  Stay at office to clean up and organize for another hour, in the hopes I might get away for the weekend.

3/23, Friday—get called to sub in the main office at Hanah Senesh to answer phones and fill in for receptionist from 9am-4pm.  Catch up on some email midst helping prepare challah bread and making sure that little girl with scarlet fever has books to read in lobby.  Realize I don’t feel well myself (bad eggs during coffee shop quiche yesterday with student?—) and decide to cancel weekend upstate.  Head to office at 4:30 to finish paperwork for accountant—end up organizing and shredding documents until 9pm.  Buy soda water on the way home and eat yogurt before falling into bed at midnight after writing another blogpost and researching jobs.

3/24, Saturday—get up and respond to emails….research Seth Godin and Schools That Learn; order Wounded by School from Amazon and send a tip to client about a school lead for her son after reading “The Relationship School” article in NY Times sent by both father and friend.  Go to pilates and then conduct first coaching session at 3pm with new client on “The Book in You,” a program I’m launching for amateur artists creating first-time writing projects.  Talk with next-door neighbor until 7pm and clean apt.  Work on another blog post as an old college buddy calls to chat about college basketball.  Get inspired by “Women Who Rock” on PBS.  End up working on job leads until 2am.  Post tweets and tips on Facebook Fanpage.

3/25, Sunday—depressed about not being upstate and friend’s cancellation of coffee date.  Do laundry, watch political shows, and read.  Discover NYSACAC and CACNY, along with new job posts and professional organizations I haven’t yet joined… Write follow-up emails for contacts made through entrepreneurial fair at Fordham, workshop at Aaron Academy, and other contacts with future speakers on SEL in the city.  Tell Hanah Senesh that I can sub the next morning for fifth grade….and crash in bed before starting the week all over again—only to realize as my head hits the pillow that my ‘spring-break-investment-spin-cycle’ did not result in one job interview or a single new client….But I think we might have a better idea about how I spent my time last week.

“SEL is the conscious building of interpersonal (awareness of other’s feelings) and intrapersonal (self-awareness) intelligences necessary for living an effective, engaged life. How can parents support their child’s social and emotional growth? Here are eight tips that support adolescent SEL at home and strengthen the changing parent/child relationship:

1. Active Listening – How a parent listens to an adolescent child can positively aid in the work of identity formation. Parents help their children explore the “who am I?” question of adolescence by listening without judgment or fear. Listening with an open heart helps adolescents make sense of their world and their changing selves as they begin the process of taking responsibility for who they are at that moment and who they want to be.

2. Self-Reflection – Where does self-reflection, the foundation of self-knowledge, fit into an adolescent’s busy schedule? Parents can promote this critical developmental need at home in creative ways – conversation around the dinner table or even watching a movie together. Self-reflection needs time to develop and practice to come naturally.

3. Model Authenticity – Adolescents are keen observers of human behavior, especially of their parent’s behavior. They constantly question truth and reality as they experiment with new ways of being. Parents support their child’s search for emotional courage and honesty by living it themselves – or at least by putting ones best effort forward. A good starting place for parents is to not pretend to have all the answers.

4. Promote Creativity – The adolescent work of creating an identity means stepping into the unknown. Like artists, adolescents enter an empty canvas and experiment with colors and materials as a way to accept or reject new ways of being. Creativity gives adolescents freedom to experiment and create themselves in safe and constructive ways. This can be achieved through art, writing, dance, sports, clothing, theatre and music. Parents validate their child’s creative endeavors when expressing their own curiosity with real questions and interest.

5. Celebrate Mistakes – Mistakes mean your child is taking risks and ultimately learning from their experiences. Mistakes are an essential part of growing. Physicist David Bohm writes: ‘From early childhood, one is taught to maintain the image of “self” or “ego” as essentially perfect. Each mistake seems to reveal that one is an inferior sort of being, who will therefore, in some way, not be fully accepted by others.’ This is unfortunate because ‘all learning is trying something and seeing what happens.’

6. Parallel Process – Parallel process is learning and growing alongside your child. With each moment of your child’s growth, parents are reminded of their own experiences at that age. Simultaneously, perspective is necessary for parents even when they feel there is none. Adolescence joins parent and child in the human journey of self-discovery.

7. The Struggle is Important – Parents often want to pick their child up after they fall down. It is important to recognize that resilience is linked to learned self-reliance. Adolescents need to learn and accept difficulty as part of life and living. They learn what they are made of when they go through something on their own. Parents need to support the important work of struggle as a developmental imperative.

8. Integrating The Dark Side – It can be frightening to witness a once sunny, ‘problem-free’ child transform overnight into a gloomy, irritable adolescent. Some parents find the emerging darker side (self-doubt, anger, fear, self-consciousness) difficult to accept and send the message that the harder stuff of growing up is not accepted. Parents need to integrate the highs and lows, the good and the bad, to support balance and self-acceptance.

Ultimately, adolescents who are exposed to authentic SEL experiences and practices at home and in school are better equipped to live lives of self-acceptance, discovery and personal responsibility.”

When writing college applications, it’s easy to fall into the pompous, I’ve-done-so-much-please-think-it’s-impressive voice.  There’s also the my-life-is-hard-can’t-you-relate voice.  Your true voice isn’t coming out.  Sandra’s there to help you with that; when she read my essays, I was ceaselessly frustrated in my attempts to sound smart or superior.  It’s not about that.  A school will accept you if you’re right.  Admissions counselors were students of that college, so they understand the kind of person who’s meant to be there.  Your essay may sound intelligent and academic and eudemonistic and all the other smart words you can think of, but that might not be you.  Write about something that makes you happy, or something that makes you sad, or something that means everything to you but no one else understands why.  Your college essay is supposed to represent where you were in life at that point.  Don’t you want to go back to read it and know?  Some girl ranting about big changes and academic devotion won’t be familiar to you.

College applications are going to stress you out.  I’m sorry, but there’s no way around it.  Sandra understands this fact, and she will always have a snack or a hug to give.  It’s difficult to sound like yourself when you’re worried, so try to relax.  I suggest doing some writing with Sandra, because you should be perfectly at ease in the Clifton Corner.

My last piece of advice is don’t lie to yourself.  I know you want to get a lot of acceptance letters to boost your ego, but don’t take on more than you can manage.  If you hate snow and the liberal arts, do you really expect to get into Macalester?  If you can’t stand small towns or writers, are you really going to go to Kenyon?  Apply to schools that mean something to you, that you could see yourself caring about after your four years are done.  It would be ridiculous not to give yourself some choice, but too much will overwhelm you when it’s time to send in your letter of intention.  This is again where Sandra can help. You can talk with her about all your schools and she’ll ask the perfect questions to help you figure out if that’s a good place to apply.

Please, please don’t freak out about college.  You will end up at the “right” school, no matter how badly you convince yourself everything will be.  Instead of freaking yourself out, try to take a breather with Sandra and realize what’s most important. You.

-Julia Rittenberg, Freshman at University of Chicago

They told us we were experts “sitting on a solution,” yet as a mere lit and poetry teacher, my forte is more about asking questions…But I did write a piece—it just didn’t hit any mainstream menus.  So I thought I’d share my perspective here, especially after reading an article in the NY Times this past weekend called “The Mechanic Muse–From Scroll to Screen,” by Lev Grossman.  It seems to me that there might be a small choir out there….So this is what I composed this past August 2011, my Almost Op-Ed.

I’ll never forget the day I lost my first friend in New York City:  the Q-train crossed the Manhattan Bridge, and I closed the book of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  My vision clouded as I looked out at the boats on the East River and tried to hide my mascara-stained cheeks from tired commuters.  It was the summer of 2002, and I had sold my old Mazda and a little bungalow in Indianapolis to land in Flatbush…without a job, a roommate, or a clue.  As a former high school English teacher, I reached for a map—and what I picked up was Bette Smith’s tale of Francie Nolan, a girl growing up in Brooklyn.

Granted—today, many of us can easily access Smith’s book on a Kindle, or maybe the glow of a Nook could be a reassuring nightlight during those first evenings alone.  But a book is sturdy, like an anchor in this quickly-moving city.  Back then, I’d take Francie on the train and her journey would speak to me, and I wasn’t alone:  I found myself surrounded by readers at every stop.  In days gone by, we could actually observe what people on the subway were reading, much like watching the weather in society—sometimes we traded a quick eye of approval or began an exchange with the familiar refrain, “I love that book!”

Not so today.  Coming home from work on the MTA, the young woman in front of me cradles a glowing tablet of gray plastic.  She could be reading anything—and in some ways, I suppose that freedom is liberating.  (Perhaps I don’t want someone to know my secret of reading The Secret.)  But the potential connection of literary love between us is lost.  I may or may not have commented on the cover of an anniversary-edition novel or asked about the author—today that conversation will likely not unfold, as I have no idea about this woman’s fictional journey, and therefore have much less access to her real experience on the F-train this evening.  In this uncanny age of progress, I’m reminded of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit-451, where characters recede into a magical screen of fabricated “family,” and I have to wonder—with all the advancement of technology, could there be a cost to humanity?  Certainly we are not burning books.  But as they keep disappearing from my radar, like Clarisse, I must ask, “Are we happy?”

Nine years ago, I held Francie’s hand as I schlepped through the city, looking for work, searching for community.   Eventually landing a position as a teacher in a program for gifted minority students at Prep for Prep, every two weeks I would pass out a different novel.  At first I thought my students were mocking me:  with the announcement of each new title, the room erupted with unbridled excitement.  I discovered that I’d finally found my tribe, and felt a little like St. Nick, gifting each child with a book of his or her own….to write in, to highlight, to shield from the daily insults of “nerd” or “freak.”  I had been one of those kids:  during recess I’d escape behind the comforting rows of books in the school library.  Diving into the biographies of the Wright Brothers, Marie Curie, and Jackie Robinson, I found the strength and stamina to sort through the stress of school.  I’m just not sure (even if my family could afford it—) that I would have discovered the same comfort in a Kindle.

This is the future that Bradbury predicted—one of increasing isolation and alienation, a land where books don’t exist.  While some have financial access to a well-stocked Nook, true literacy is not just about the individual journey, but engaging in shared ideas within a larger community—whether in the quiet of a book shop or the bustle of a subway.  This exchange may still happen in classrooms across the country, yet consider my experience at a laptop school in Brooklyn Heights.  The students are sensitive and exceedingly bright:  as a permanent substitute who served two paternity leaves, there is no other place where I’d rather teach.  But I feel a bit lost leading a literature discussion with a room full of faces staring intently at a green-glowing computer screen.  A single electronic tool simplifies and condenses multiple texts and notebooks, but it simultaneously dims the open forum of unsure eyes, wondering glances, and even a daydreamer’s stare—each a portal for discovery, discourse, and debate.

Undoubtedly, my Prep kids would adore owning an iPad—its lightness would save weight in their heavy backpacks and might even prevent future visits to the chiropractor.  It’s a fact that electronic tablets provide unlimited options for the intellect—but I wonder about students who don’t have access to this electronic avenue of information.  What will happen when libraries no longer offer books on loan?  It seems to me uncanny that “the good book” makes reference to The Tree of Knowledge.  Could it be that books are a sacred source, a connection to Spirit?

Francie’s ritual of reading on her fire escape midst the branches of a tree offered a vision of Brooklyn that wasn’t yet mine—but in August 2002 as I moved through the hot, crowded streets to the Newkirk subway stop, Bette Smith gave me the glimpse of a dream.  By reaching for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as my weapon and shield, I defaulted to a strategy that had worked so long ago in my childhood.  I found the courage to explore this city with Francie—one page at a time.

What was interesting, however, was that my one-on-one tutoring clients from the regular school year became students in a more traditional classroom setting, and I was able to observe their habits as learners…So it suddenly became very clear why “enrichment” was a good idea for many of these individuals—not because they weren’t intelligent or capable or even interested…but because they sometimes weren’t entirely ENGAGED.

Everyone has a subject that really drives and delights them—for my dad, it was sports.  He can recall the details and particulars from just about any St. Louis Cardinals game that was ever played on this planet.  For my mom, her scene is Scrabble—she can often be heard remarking the words, “Oooh—that word has never been played on the board before!” because in this particular arena, she definitely has a photographic memory.

But ask my dad to explain a problem in algebra or require my mom to merge into major highway traffic, and both individuals suddenly fall flat.  The results are often abysmal.  Why?  They just didn’t tune in to the nuances required to develop that specific skill— for lack of a better way to phrase it, they just “couldn’t be bothered” when they had the opportunity to clue into details for these particular lessons…

It’s okay that my dad hires an accountant and that my mom sticks to the side roads when running errands, but what if they had to ‘pass a class’ in these “subjects” now?  Both of them would have to change their approach dramatically.  And this is the heart of learning:  change.  The skills that come quickly for us are ones that are natural and easy—and because they are already fun, we get more engaged with doing them even better—again supporting the old adage that “success breeds success.”  When we don’t enjoy an activity, on the other hand, we begin to avoid and ignore important signs and signals, and herein lies the true crux of my point….

Each of my kids this summer was intelligent and gifted—but every one of them reached a moment when they just “checked out” of the learning scene, for whatever reason.  As a result, key concepts were missed, and a foundation for future learning was lost—that familiar awful spiral.  We’re all human, but the key to preventing future road blocks this fall is creating a way to literally ‘rise above the mundane’ and find a way to Get ENGAGED in order to stay in the game of learning—somehow, some way…

Looking ahead at future classes and inevitable challenges as we approach a new school year, I encourage both parents and educators to “translate” skills that already flourish into areas of weakness.  For example, if you have a kid that’s a good cook on your hands but struggling in math, learn how to “parallel” following the directions of a recipe with forming a theorem in geometry.  If, on the other hand, you have a child who is “afraid of the ball” (as I was in gym) but a talented musician, link the skills in sports to an aspect of music—like “hitting a note” or “catching a tune,” so that the sense of already established success is readily available and accessible to transfer into a foundation of confidence for the more daunting activity.

When we can train the brain to feel ENGAGED, even on the smallest scale, kids often learn, despite their original apathy, and that’s when life can become suprisingly fun.  On a positive note (and on behalf of my talented parents!) my mom now changes lanes successfully through the complicated byways of Pittsburgh in order to see her three grandchildren and coordinate transportation for their demanding after-school activites.  And my dad—well, he found a way to earn a PhD from Princeton (despite an aversion to equations) in order to become a seminary president.  Both of my parents navigated a way into what matters most to them, and your children can too.  Even if “disinterest” can sometimes feel like a dancing gremlin who often wins, there is always a point of entry into the world of discovery.  As E.M. Forster so aptly wrote, “Only connect…” and at the Clifton Corner, we’re looking forward to connecting with You this fall!