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.

Wine Camp:  held on New York’s Long Island, this class will help you study all the artistic angles of making wine!  www.winecamp.org

Dillman’s Creative Arts Foundation:   in wonderful Wisconsin, all kinds of classes are provided in sketching, oil painting, photography, watercolor…on a beautiful lake, with quaint cabins that are pet and family-friendly!  The campus is complete with wi-fi, massage, tai-chi n’ yoga classes—and there are also trips….abroad!  Learn art in Italy this spring, with future options to visit the Bahamas and Cuba to study painters and culture~!  If you can handle the temptation, visit www.dillmans.com

 Earthwatch:  travel the world and help to make it more environmentally clean!  All kinds of opportunities for educators are available at this link:  “Bringing together a community of scientists, corporate and non-profit partners, teachers, students, and volunteers, Earthwatch is finding creative ways to respond to the defining challenge of our generation. “

Home Exchange for Teachers:  Want to find an affordable exchange of living spaces?  Visit this link to sign up for cool house swaps with other educators!

Senorita in the City:  a teacher in NYC posts more classes on her blog about experiences abroad in Spain.

Hearts for Honduras:  Interested in a supporting an important mission?  Go and share your educational expertise through teaching trips with this amazing organization~

Chautauqua:  this word means to celebrate the love of learning through the arts, music, and nature.  Take classes at two beautiful sites—one is in Colorado and the other is located in Upstate New York, a gorgeous destination which I’ve visited several times with my own family.

The Bread Loaf Workshops:  this famous creative writing conference in the Green Mountains of Vermont has taken place since 1926, and the dates for this summer’s event are Wednesday, August 15 to Saturday, August 25.  Visit their website, and be prepared to discover a trip to Sicily in September as well!

Seven Arrows Yoga Retreats:  I recently found this sweet retreat, which is just a 45-minute ferry-ride away from Manhattan…dreamy!  Check out the lovely options for renewal in this old colonial home on 700 acres of Hartshorne Woods, near Sandy Hook Beach.

Zirkel the World:  are terrific trips guided by an educator who provides all kinds of explorations, year-round!  Check out the many awesome adventures on Teresa’s website, and know that you’re in great hands with this expert traveler!

Good Commons:  need to be renewed by a trip home, but a little weary of family?  This lovely getaway in Vermont is absolutely rejuvenating, without the drama….but with plenty of innovative retreats.  Tesha and Matthew will fill your tummy with local cuisine and nourish your soul in this spiritual oasis.

Wherever you go, and whatever you do….remember that life is short and what Walden wrote—”I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

“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.”

Kids need modeling to hear how to communicate effectively and positively with both others and themselves.  I overheard one of my students yesterday say, “I’m SO stupid!” and immediately interrupted this hurtful tirade with, “I’d like to hear you say, ‘Gosh, I’m investing my best today, because I’m a work-in-progress!’  Your inner critic needs to be disciplined!”  She looked right into my eyes, smiled and said, “Miss Clifton, you are so right!”  I love it when that happens. 

Amy Spencer, author of Bright Side Up:  100 Ways to Be Happier Right Now, offers some wonderful video-support for this effort called “Why Are My Kids So Negative?” and the culture of  ‘communication kindness’ that can be created in families.

Enjoy the link, and let me know how it goes as you grow a language of love with the kids in your life–!  If you’d like some help to nurture better self-talk in your home, please contact me about a new program, “The Happiness Circle:  Social & Emotional Support for Middle School Girls!”  It starts Monday, March 5th at the Clifton Corner, and we’d love for your daughter to join us!

What we studied as grad students at the University of Missouri was the process of writing (it’s not a one-time effort by any stretch of the imagination, whether you’re a professional author or struggling student—) and the integrated tango of reading and writing.  You see, writing is discovery and reading is participation on the page….and I fundamentally believe in both theories, because I practiced teaching them for over 16 years every day in the classroom—and I saw what could happen when both “thinking activities” become a vibrant part of a kid’s adventure at school.

It’s my humble opinion that reading and writing strengthen each other because they represent both sides of the brain:  the logical, linear, left-to-write process of writing and the imaginative, right-brained door of creation that dances in fiction.  If both sides of our beautiful brain are actively employed and appreciated, students strengthen the mental muscle of their mind in a holistic way—much like the building of both a bicep and a tricep.

NCTE has recently revisited this intricate dance in their report and reaffirmed the delicate and definite connection between valuable writing and deep, close reading.  They assert once again that “discipline-based instruction in reading and writing enhances student achievement in all subjects.”   That’s a key concept to remember when we think about time to read and the creative space to write…Nancy Patterson, in Voices from the Middle, highlights this process, saying, ” If the whole idea behind English language arts classes is to foster a love of reading and a thirst for human experience and ideas represented through text, then we have to think critically about not only the kinds of reading our students do, but also the kinds of writing they do.”

You can delve deeper into this discussion by reading this article by Lori Mayo, “Making the Connection:  Reading and Writing Together,” or call me personally—I’m happy to explore how we can help your son or daughter ENGAGE ON THE PAGE….whether it’s through writing and/or reading!

her stocks go way up—forever:

“Dear Ms. Clifton,

I hope you’re doing well in Park Slope!  Just wanted to thank you for all the support you’ve given me.  If it weren’t for you, I probably never would have wound up at *** College or have had the chance to spend a year in China.

Thanks so much!”

-A Corner Kid

I worked with this student from sophomore year at an independent school in Brooklyn into freshman year of college on many angles of growth—from written expression/organization, note taking and test preparation to time management, self-esteem and motivation—and couldn’t be more proud of his authentic engagement, not just in academics, but as a citizen of the world!

I wouldn’t trade this journey for all the tea in China! 

In order to honor the authenticity of this piece, I have not made any grammatical corrections:

“You should go to the Clifton Corner because you can learn many things.  You can learn many things for example how to draw a non-vilont picture.  And how to be nicer because I was telling people to go away when they were trying to help me.  And how to put my hand on the paper because It would slip away when I didn’t know that.  I also learnd how to pay attention in class because I wassent paying attention before.  I also learned how to read better because I used to be spaceing out.  As you can see, I leared many things from the Clifton Corner and Sandra Clifton!”

Please Curb Your Dog
(aka, I Stand on Ceremony)

On a chilly Saturday–the first one in January–I was enjoying the luxury of a day away from the office and unexpectedly bumped into my old doctor, her five year old daughter, and visiting mother.  It was a serendipitous and stolen moment….the kind I treasure.  In the midst of this reunion and introductions, we unknowingly lingered on the sidewalk together–and, I guess, caused a bit of a traffic jam….

Now, usually when I enter the ‘urban jungle’ of the subway, or the streets of Manhattan, or any commercial center, I am ready with my usual etiquette of armor to practice the tools of patience and fortitude.  I know that I’m going to be jostled, that I’ll need to side-step, that it’s important to accommodate and apologize for the little space that we navigate in this crowded city–and especially not to take anything personally.  But on this particular afternoon just after the holidays, I was caught off-guard–perhaps because I’d just returned from the less pressured streets of Pittsburgh, reminded of store clerks who smile and look in your eyes, and big open aisles…

At any rate–midst my hug, I heard a voice cut through the afternoon air with an acid accusation hurled like an unexpected snowball.  It sounded something like, “GREAT!  Just totally block the sidewalk and not give a care, why DON’T you?!”  Now, usually I would turn red, apologize, feel awful, and side-step quickly.  But for some reason, an energy in me rose up and roared.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent the last twelve weeks in a class on shame resilience–I don’t exactly know.  But for some reason, I snapped.  Yup.  Right there on the streets of my cozy neighborhood, I whipped my head and yelled into the icy air, “Yes!  This time we are the ones in the way!”  My friend blinked in disbelief.  I was a little shocked myself.  We did scoot to a side corner to conclude our rendezvous, and I nervously joked about developing a “Brooklyn Backbone” since our last meeting. But the moment had jolted both of us.

As a coach certified in Emotional Intelligence, I’ve been well-trained to reflect on my behavior and evaluate just about every angle of my interactions…so I wondered how I’d been triggered on this lovely Saturday of lazy laundry and easy errands.  Why hadn’t I been able to take a “meta-moment,” the technique I learned through my training at Yale in Social & Emotional Learning?  This “anchor” of Emotional Literacy helps us to wait a split second before responding–and allows individuals to rise above a reptilian reaction of “fight or flight” to tap into a more evolved part of the brain.  Despite a daily practice of mindfulness (and frequent yoga classes!) I had failed to circumvent the animal inside:  when someone bit, I had barked back this time.  To put it bluntly, I had not curbed my dog.  What a way to start 2012, right?

But instead of shifting into shame, I took a moment to explore a deeper issue underneath this split-second social interaction….You see, while I do accept responsibility for my sharp reply, each of us is a kind of PBS:  Personal Broadcasting Station.  And while I can usually filter (and even ignore) negative stimuli, it was obvious that this particular comment had registered beyond typical ‘public pollution’ to the scale of totally toxic.

And here’s why:  I hadn’t cut in line, or honked my car horn, or run a red light….What I had done was gotten lost in giving someone a hug.  Although inappropriate and unplanned, my animal anger had come from a primal need to reach out to someone in my tribe.  This time, instead of apologizing, I stand on ceremony–of sacred connections and common courtesy…And I write tonight to encourage each of us to acknowledge our shared tapestry….to allow our fellow creatures the opportunity to get lost in a moment of remembered relationship.  To make some space on the sidewalk for grown women to hug, for little children to skip, for distracted teenagers to giggle and gawk without a clear direction or decided destination….

As we enter a new year, I renew my responsibility to be a positive PBS, and want to challenge each of us to try three additional actions:  Pause, Breathe, and Smile.  You never know what kind of moment you’re encountering.  Maybe that doctor saved my life.  What I do know is that she deserved that crowd-stopping hug.

So as we walk through 2012 together, may we each make an effort to curb our inner animal and create some space on the sidewalk of life–for simple ceremonies and uncommon kindness.  It just might be the best detour you take this year.

Your story is just beginning….

Stand…and Swing–!