Sometimes all you need to make your day better is a gentle reminder that you are awesome, have beautiful hair, a lovely dog, cool pants or that “red is your color.”
Luckily Blake Grigsby has a car, a megaphone and plenty of compliments to dole out to the random strangers he drives by.
Watch the clip above to see how one simple compliment can make a person smile from ear to ear.
I was married to a psychotic. Yes, I know everyone says that about their ex. But my ex was actually diagnosed as mentally ill — and wouldn’t (or couldn’t) do what was needed to help his illness. We married young when I didn’t understand it. And, as sympathetic as I was, eventually he was so dangerous I had to leave and take my children.
When I got away from him, it was a great relief. I would like to say I did it quickly, but it was after many many years of knowing that nothing was going to change. I don’t know why I didn’t leave earlier. I guess it was the four children we had. But even for them, the physical and emotional abuse from him took its toll. As much as I tried to protect them, they all have emotional fall-out from his fatherhood.
But regardless of when it happened, once I got away from him, things immediately started to improve for me. I was the very-poor-and-always-tired single mother of four, but every night I slept soundly knowing that we were safe.
When I got a job, I was thrilled to work in an office with adults. I got to dress in nice clothes, had a great boss and coworkers, and was able to continue my education. I was elated that I was so lucky.
So why did I feel guilty when things started to go well for me and so badly for him?
It didn’t matter that I worked my ass off. I dropped kids off at three different schools and daycare before I arrived at my job each morning. When I got home at night the second shift of dinner, homework, chores and bedtime started.
But still, my ex took a big nosedive without me there. And, my happiness over being free turned to dust in my mouth. It was survivor’s guilt plain and simple. I kept asking myself why I deserved better than him. I was filled with sadness and worry over his situation. Oh sure, I hadn’t survived a natural disaster, or a terrible epidemic. But I had survivor’s guilt none-the-less.
Eventually I came to realize that it takes courage to see people you love fail. Every day I was looking in the mirror and telling myself to be brave about being a single Mom. And now I had another thing I had to be brave about every day.
No matter where it comes from, survivors guilt is real. Reason and logic can’t always help you through it. It isn’t something you deserve, nor something you can logically turn-off. So, if this happens to you, keep these things in mind as I did:
Recognition is key: I had to remember that I was also a sufferer, not the one who caused the suffering. I reminded myself of that, until I believed it.
See a Therapist: A support group or a therapist may suggest things that will help. I wasn’t able to afford a therapist, but my doctor recommended several very helpful support groups. I attended regularly to work through my feelings.
Focus on Acceptance: It’s tough when we are reminded in life that we don’t have control over other adults. We can only change ourselves. I found that focusing on the things we have the power to make better is the key.
I hope this is something you never experience. But if you do have survivor’s guilt- for any reason- there are things that will help to make life good again.
Let me know how you feel- and join the conversation. Visit me at www.FirstClassWoman.com and sign up for my newsletters. Sharing is the best way to life a good life.
Whenever I have the occasion to speak with professionals and parents about the challenges of bringing an end to bullying in schools and communities, I emphasize that “big” solutions — such as policies, procedures, and trainings (I say, humbly, as a Bullying Prevention trainer) are trumped each and every day by the seemingly little, yet extraordinarily powerful, acts of compassion and kindness that adults show to the young people in their lives. In turn, experts agree that fostering compassion in young people is among the best ways to prevent verbal, physical, and emotional aggression from taking root. Below, I detail eight ways to help your child and/or student develop compassion both as a character trait and a behavioral style:
1. Walk the Talk
Children may listen to your words, but more importantly, they learn from observing your actions. When you have a chance to practice a random act of compassion, do so! When you are frustrated in an interpersonal interaction, express your displeasure in words that show respect for the dignity of the person you are addressing. When you encounter a person who needs help, stop what you are doing and tend to them, even (read: especially!) if it is not particularly convenient to do so. Remember: opportunities to show compassion do not occur by appointment. Show young people that anytime is the right time to engage in acts of service and compassion for others.
2. Put the Child on the Receiving End of Compassion
While showing compassion to others is a top way to teach this value to a child, allowing a young person to experience compassion first-hand is even more impactful. When your child is hurt or sick, be sure to provide abundant TLCC (tender, loving, compassionate care.) It may sound obvious, but tending to a child when he is feeling down or under the weather is the best way to teach him how to show compassion to others.
3. Talk the Talk
Most children can learn about true compassion by seeing and feeling this trait acted out, but when parents talk explicitly about acts of compassion, they communicate its importance as a prized family value. As you watch television or movies with your child, be sure to point out instances where compassion was shown — or should have been shown! Talk about people who particularly need compassion, such as the elderly and children living in poverty.
4. Volunteer Your Time
When children become actively involved in acts of showing compassion to others, they learn about this value in a very deep and enduring way. Find age-appropriate ways to introduce your child to volunteering, such as visiting a nursing home and sharing a craft activity with a resident, serving a meal at a homeless shelter, helping to organize a canned food drive, collecting coats to donate to needy children, or even participating in a charity walk for a specific cause. These activities are at once meaningful and fun, which makes them especially effective in getting kids to routinely think compassionately about the needs of others.
5. Care for a Pet
Bringing a pet into a family is certainly not a step to be taken lightly or impulsively, but it is worth giving serious consideration to providing your young person with the experience of caring for an animal, as a way to foster compassion. Children who care for pets learn important values such as responsibility, unconditional love, empathy, and compassion for all living things.
6. Read All About It
Children’s books are great for providing a window into the experiences of others. As a School Counselor, my go-to children’s writer is Trudy Ludwig, the award-winning author of such books as My Secret Bully (my all-time favorite pick for sparking conversations with kids about bullying and relational aggression) and The Invisible Boy, a great read for inspiring empathy and compassion for young people who find themselves on the periphery of school social hierarchies. For older kids, check out biographies of famous figureheads of compassion, such as the Dalai Lama or Mother Theresa.
7. Compassion It™
In recent years, rubber wristbands have become a ubiquitous symbol of causes and concerns. While most of the messages are positive and inspiring, I must admit that their sheer common-ness resulted in me stopping reading the various messages on friends’ wrists. Until recently. I noticed a two-tone band that a relative was turning over and felt compelled to ask about it. It was a Compassion It band, she explained. Every morning, she puts the band on her wrist with its black side facing outward, as a personal reminder to act compassionately toward someone else. When such an act is committed each day, she turns the bracelet to its white side.
What a great idea — so simple, yet such a powerful reminder to prioritize kindness and make compassion a part of her everyday routine. Needless to say, I went online and bought a band for myself and one for each of my daughters right away. Does this turn compassion into a chore, you may ask. Am I making kindness into a To-Do list item for my kids, you wonder. Nope, not at all, I say with confidence. Quite the contrary: the bands have turned compassion into an everyday topic of conversation in our household and has effectively elevated kindness into a priority in each of our days. Best. Bracelet. Ever.
8. Make a Wish
Acts of life-changing compassion can be only a click away. Use the internet to introduce your child to different charitable organizations that provide compassionate assistance to others. The Make-a-Wish Foundation provides hope, strength, and joy to children with life-threatening medical conditions. While for younger kids, the site may be too heart-wrenching or scary, older kids can have a truly impactful experience of being able to provide tangible help and joy to a peer. The experience can be life-changing for both giver and receiver.
Signe Whitson is a school counselor, author, and national speaker on topics related to stopping bullying and promoting children’s mental health. For workshop inquiries or additional information, please visit www.signewhitson.com.
The word “network” gets used to mean many things. For professionals of all kinds, a network usually refers to a collection of people with similar or related skills and experiences, often those who can be helpful in finding new employment or advancing in a career path (hence the verb “to network”). If you Google “teacher network,” the first few pages of results mostly align with this version of network: online spaces for teachers to share and discuss resources such as lesson plans; professional associations for teachers of a particular discipline or in a particular region; graduates of particular teacher preparation programs, etc.
But not all teacher networks are created equal. Some are stronger than the sum of their parts, some have impact that extends beyond the immediate group of participating educators, and some have the potential to move the profession as a whole. These kinds of networks have characteristics similar to what Ken Everett, an Australian entrepreneur and a former classroom teacher, calls network organizations (2011). They exist to do something specific and are characterized by members who know and trust each other. They have a shared identity; a shared sense of purpose and responsibility for fulfilling that purpose; and the commitment and ability to develop distributed leadership for the organization. But network organizations aren’t created spontaneously, and many well-intentioned efforts to build teacher networks fall short of developing these characteristics. How can educators move beyond just networking to building strong network organizations?
From my work over the past decade at the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation, I have learned what it takes to develop leadership capacity in teachers from the beginning of their careers, and a robust national network plays an intentional — and critical — role in this leadership-building effort. Our Fellows work together, both in-person and online, over an extended period of time — five years for the initial Teaching Fellowship, and potentially an entire career for those who complete the Fellowship and remain engaged in the KSTF community. As we’ve built our network, we’ve seen it function in three distinct modes, each of which has, I believe, untapped potential to bring about radical improvements to the education system in the United States. I’ll use examples from KSTF to illustrate these modes, but there are other teacher networks that function in similar ways. (The National Writing Project is one excellent example that comes immediately to mind.)
In the first mode, a network organization of teachers functions to support and enhance individual teachers and their teaching practice, by facilitating broader access to resources, knowledge, support and mentoring. Professional support and enrichment of individuals is a common feature of many networks, but when members know and trust each other and have a shared sense of purpose, this support and enhancement can be personalized and contextualized in ways that multiply the overall effect. For example, KSTF Fellows work in groups to study teaching of a particular topic, or to develop their ability to use particular methods, such as Complex Instruction. These collaborations and affinity groups allow Fellows to deepen their connection to each other, further their sense of shared purpose and grow their own sense of agency and efficacy.
The second, less common, mode derives from the quantity and strength of connections among teachers that develops in the first mode. The networked organization supports and empowers teachers to work collaboratively with each other and colleagues to accomplish something particular in their local contexts. One somewhat tongue-in-cheek analogy that we’ve used to describe this kind of network is the humongous fungus: local clusters may appear to be independent, but they are deeply connected and nourished by the same widespread network. These emergent sub-networks form in response to a locally felt need and may dissolve as its members decide that their need has been met. While these sub-networks may vary in purpose, longevity, standards and practices, they build on and benefit from the professional capital of the larger network. KSTF Fellows have formed regional groups to work together on locally relevant issues such as district pacing guidelines and the impact of state standardized tests on teaching practice. While these kinds of collaborative groups are not uncommon, strong interpersonal relationships among the members, shared values and practices and autonomous (rather than top-down) goal setting and decision making allows them to accomplish far more than what a group of ad hoc teachers might ordinarily be able to accomplish.
We also are beginning to see evidence that teacher networks can function in a third mode that is both rare and of critical importance, given the current state of STEM education in the U.S. This type of network organization of teachers has the capacity to function as a collective entity to:
Our analogy for the third mode (also somewhat tongue-in-cheek) is an army: a collective entity made up of highly-skilled members with shared norms and expectations that gets deployed to accomplish something of ubiquitous consequence. However, like all analogies, this one has its limits, for a network functioning in this mode chooses how to deploy itself.
This third network mode is really all about knowledge generation for the profession. Teachers, of course, generate and share knowledge through a variety of channels, such as conference presentations, writing for blogs and practitioner journals and informal venues such as social media or conversations with colleagues in the hallway between classes. But the U.S. educational system does not have the infrastructure for systematically pooling, critiquing and widely sharing that knowledge. In part, this is because of the local character of education: Schools, districts and states have no mechanisms by which to harness and leverage developed human capital beyond local contexts. The result of this lack of infrastructure is that most of the professional knowledge base on teaching and learning comes from those outside the teaching profession.
And yet some of the most pressing problems in U.S. education are ones that cannot be fully understood, much less solved, without teachers’ specialized knowledge, skills and access to students and their learning, classrooms, schools and communities. This disparity suggests the need for a national network of teachers — intentionally cultivated to develop the characteristics of network organizations — that is both capable and driven to contribute to national as well as local efforts to improve education. Building such networks isn’t easy. It requires giving teachers the time and space to develop strong professional relationships and mutual trust and allowing them to cultivate shared norms and standards. But perhaps most importantly, it requires trusting teachers to identify and understand what’s not working, work together to fix it, and then share their work broadly for purposes of critique and widespread professional learning. While there are certainly simpler ways to network teachers, investing in the infrastructure to build network organizations has the potential to move the profession, and with it, the quality of teaching and learning everywhere.
Islam is roughly 1,400 years old, and Christianity about 600 more. About 500 years ago, Christianity begot another sect, Protestantism, which fought a bloody battle with the Catholic mainstream for hundreds of years. Their feud goes on, even if it is no longer bloodstained.
Islam had its rupture right after its founding. The Shia belief system came into being a few decades after Prophet Muhammad’s death, but was disdained by the Sunnis. The difference between Protestantism and Catholicism is not much, at least to an outside observer, just as the gap between Shia and Sunni Islam does not appear that wide. But to many within, the gulfs are wide and unbridgeable, oftentimes enough to spark internecine wars.
But while the embers have cooled in Christendom, they have flared up once again in the Islamic world. The Arab Spring engendered hope that democracy will flourish in the Middle East. From Libya and Iraq to Syria and Bahrain, what has been left in its wake though is a series of countries in strife, often fueled by sectarianism.
On the one hand is the Saudi Arabia-led Sunni world that fears the resurgence of Shiite Iran. Iran was quite happy when America invaded Iraq. And why not, for America did what it itself wanted to do, that is replace the Sunni Saddam Hussein with a Shia-led government. Lo and behold, Iran got a hateful neighbor converted into a fervent ally.
The Saudis and their ilk watched the turnaround in Iraq with grave concern. Although there are only four Shia-majority countries in the world (Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain), Shias are roughly 15 percent of the world’s overall Muslim population. And they are distributed widely across the Sunni world.
The situation in Syria is especially traumatic, where a small Shia sect rules over a majority of Sunnis. When the Sunnis revolted, the ruler, Bashar al-Assad clamped down ferociously. The Gulf Sunni states, as well as the United States and the Europeans, provided arms and money to the Sunni uprising. Unfortunately, among the Sunnis, there were hardcore Al-Qaeda elements as well as others even more hard-line than them such as the Islamic State.
Emboldened by the outside arms and money, IS has now announced a Sunni Caliphate comprising large tracts of Iraq and Syria. They control the oil-rich northern Iraqi region, and thus have access to enormous funds. And they have been wantonly killing Shias, which has made Iran their firm enemy. Queerly enough, both Iran and the US are on the same side to curb IS.
In many Sunni countries, Shias are persecuted for being a heretical sect. In Iraq though, there is a distinct reversal. Until IS hived off a portion of the country, the Shia regime widely discriminated against the Sunnis. This led to angst, not only within the Iraqi Sunnis, who had ruled the country for more than 50 years, but also among the wider Sunni Gulf community.
Many in the region see America’s hand in the current upheaval in the Islamic world. But while the Iraq invasion of 2003 has proven to be the principal catalyst behind the turmoil being seen today, America alone should not be considered a mastermind of today’s turmoil. The schism between Sunnis and Shias is simply too vast, too gory, and too inflammable to blame any outsider.
Consider Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The fear in Saudi Arabia and its allied states is so great, that they are more than happy for Israel to take out the Iranian facilities. In this case, the Sunnis are willing to align with the hated Zionists against the Shias.
So scared are the Saudis of the prospect of an Iranian atomic bomb that they have already imported missile launch pads from Pakistan, and at a moment’s notice will have all the nuclear wherewithal from the same country. For sure other countries like Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait will aspire for the same.
Today seems like an especially troubling moment in the Muslim world. First, they had to see Muslim lands occupied by whom they consider as crusaders, and right now the Middle East and South Asia are mired in sectarian conflict on a scale unknown in living memory. Moreover, the word Islam has become synonymous with terror, whereas the Christian West that has fought them is quick to portray itself as liberators.
Many in the other major world faiths too seem to buy into Western propaganda, and see Islam as some sort of virulent cult. How then can Muslims first stop the sectarian massacres, and then restore their image in the eyes of the world? First, they must realize that the 1,400-year-old Sunni-Shia dispute is past its sell-by date. It’s high time for a truce between Sunnis and Shias. If Christianity could bring its sects in line, so can Islam.
Second, Muslims must realize that we live in an era of democracy. States cannot continue to exist as theocracies, monarchies, and dictatorships. Of course, one can keep postponing the democracy project, but Muslim democracies can integrate into the global village while retaining their culture.
Third, Muslim people should realize how much damage is done to their image by being painted as obscurantists and terrorists. More Muslims have died in the last decade in the wars against the West than Westerners themselves, but it’s Muslims that are getting a bad name. Some sort of reformation seems to be in order. This of course could be challenging in a religion like Islam with devolved spiritual authority, but just repeating ad nauseam that Islam is a religion of peace does not seem to be rectifying how they are perceived.
All of us like to be liked, our religions to be admired, and our countries to be applauded. Who doesn’t feel a tinge of guilt or a pang of anger when our identities are criticized, especially when we believe the criticism to be unfounded? The Muslim world is in crisis. It has seen crises before, and survived those. It will surely survive the current tempest, but will do so more easily with some of the prescriptions herein.
When the Rosenberg Foundation began investing in criminal justice reform in 2006, we were driven to take action because of the disproportionate impact of incarceration and the lifelong consequences of felony convictions on boys and men of color and low-income communities in California.
A responsible approach to criminal justice can make our communities safer, save tax dollars and help all of us, but our current system is falling terribly short — at great economic, human and moral cost. Most acutely, our juvenile and criminal justice systems present tremendous barriers to success for boys and young men of color. That’s why it is exciting to see the White House courageously joining forces with philanthropic leaders to address this issue head on.
In February of this year, President Obama launched My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative focused on fixing the persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color, including addressing racial and ethnic bias within the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems.
Among the recommendations endorsed by My Brother’s Keeper: tackling over-incarceration and racial bias in the justice system, improving trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve, and removing unnecessary barriers to successful reentry and employment.
In addition, dozens of foundations across the country have come together to launch a coordinated strategy to remove the barriers that constrain the life prospects of boys and men of color. Among their bold calls to action: ensuring that boys and young men of color’s exposure to harm from the juvenile and criminal justice systems is dramatically reduced.
Together, these efforts are helping to spark a frank, national dialogue about the intersections between criminal justice policy and racial bias and inequality. As the My Brother’s Keeper’s taskforce report points out, in schools, in communities and in courtrooms, boys and young men of color are less likely to be given a second chance, and are much more likely to receive harsher punishments and be victimized by crime.
Clearly, our broken approach to criminal justice is taking a tremendous toll on our federal, state and local budgets, and on struggling communities and boys and men of color in particular. But we now have a real opportunity to roll up our sleeves and work to make a difference on these issues.
Increasingly, Republican and Democratic leaders alike are calling for new approaches to address mass incarceration and to close the school to prison pipeline. The Department of Justice has laid out a set of promising reforms at the federal level, including doing away with draconian mandatory minimum sentences for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes. A handful of states are closing prisons by investing in drug and mental health treatment and community-based supervision to prevent crime.
Lasting success requires that we bring together likely and unlikely allies — certainly reform advocates and policymakers, but also businesses, labor, community colleges, law enforcement and others — to ensure that we engage all sectors in finding common ground and focus collectively on the task at hand.
In schools, we can stop expulsions for young children and limit suspensions and expulsions at any age to actual offenses such as possession of drugs or weapons. Most children are disciplined now for minor infractions of school rules and “willful defiance” or mouthing off. In the juvenile justice system, we can stop locking up so many boys of color, significantly reduce the prosecution of children as adults, and instead rely on proven interventions that can help young people successfully enter adulthood.
We also can once and for all move away from our “incarceration only” approach and champion sentencing reform. For example, decades-old penal code sections in most states treat non-violent drug crimes as felonies, which means people end up with real time behind bars and lifelong consequences, instead of getting the addiction treatment they need. We can dig deep into those state penal codes and rid them of the legacy of the failed War on Drugs.
We can use the savings from reducing the number of children and adults locked up at enormous expense to invest in crime prevention, education, proven alternatives to incarceration and re-entry services, and for programs that help victims of crime and violence rebuild their lives.
All young people — regardless of race, ethnicity or background — deserve access to the opportunities and the tools they need to thrive. Young men and boys of color are our future — they are one the fastest growing segments of our population — and they are invaluable assets to our families, communities and our nation. By dismantling the disparities that exist in our criminal justice system, we can change the odds for boys and young men of color, and achieve real justice and safety for our communities. Doing so is a moral and economic imperative of our time.
Nikola Tesla was a legendary futurist before the term futurist even existed. He made all kinds of predictions about the way that world would and should operate — some of them accurate, and some of them controversial . And guess what? It’s his birthday!
To promote the fact that Delta has added USB ports to every seat on its long-haul international flights, the airline installed these clever ads—as spotted by Laughing Squid’s Scott Beale—in New York Uber taxis, giving them powered USB ports too so that passengers can recharge their phones.
Oxford scientists just revealed a new kind of display technology that can render images smaller than the width of a human hair. The detailed images you see above were rendered on these flexible, nano-pixel displays. Would you believe that each one is smaller than the width of a human hair? And that’s only the beginning.
IFTTT—If This Then That—is an automator that links different internet connected services (think: Gmail) and devices (think: your smartphone). After turning on each service, or channel, you can use it as a trigger for another service, or vice versa. It may sound complicated, but it’s actually a nice, intuitive way to simplify your life. Here’s where to get started.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
