This is an exciting time of year! Change is in the air! There is a familiar anticipation carried on the breeze. The approach of the new fall season brings with it crisp mornings, cool evenings, and the start of a new school year. Teachers are setting up classrooms and making plans to welcome new students. They are organizing materials, selecting books, arranging tables and chairs, putting labels on cubbies and shelves, and planning interesting activities. Teachers will learn students' names, interests, and learning styles. Students will learn teacher expectations, classroom routines, and how to work together with other students. The first days of school are the perfect time to begin to build a healthy learning community, establish routines, and create a sense of belonging for all. So, start with a smile and a lively "Good morning!" Greet every student by name and have a place ready for their belongings and labeled with their name. It's about being seen, and heard, and known. It's about creating a learning environment that's safe, welcoming, stimulating, and nurturing. It's about a place to belong. 

Have you ever walked into an emotionally toxic environment? You can feel it. Its poison seems to be in the air. Good teachers know how important it is to foster healthy relationships between children, but it is equally important to build positive relationships among the adults in educational settings, as well. Children pick up on negative energy between the adults that care for them, and challenging behavior exhibited by children can possibly be in response to a negative emotional environment in the classroom. Teachers and parents must be positive role models for creating healthy relationships! Exchange pleasant greetings, make eye contact, speak kindly, offer help and encouragement, and smile!

Positive energy is real, and it is vital to our health and wellbeing! Smile at someone today! :) 

Social and emotional development is a key component in the development and education of human beings. It is written into the curricula of many preschool programs, but often disappears from the written school curriculum around the first grade. It is my belief that within the social and emotional learning domain, pro-social behavior must be intentionally taught and supported in all classrooms from early childhood through the elementary and secondary grades. Pro-social behavior, the capacity to notice the distress of others and respond to people in ways that will help or benefit them, is important for the success of learners in the school setting and adults in the workplace and personal relationships. 
This is an excellent article from the NY Times that discusses the development of empathy and other pro-social behaviors, like kindness and compassion. Give it a read.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/understanding-how-children-develop-empathy/

To differentiate instruction is to recognize students' varying background knowledge, readiness, language, and preferences in learning and interests, and to react responsively.

Differentiated instruction is a process to teaching and learning for students of differing abilities in the same class. The intent of differentiating instruction is to maximize each student's growth and individual success by meeting each student where he or she is and assisting in the learning process.

(Hall, Strangman, and Meyer 2011)

As educators, we must believe that our role is not to dispense information, but to inspire and facilitate learning. When we foster genuine, positive relationships with our students and tap into our own creativity and intuition to connect with them, we become powerful conduits of positive energy to motivate learning and stimulate brain development in each and every student. I believe that this philosophy, together with content knowledge and skilled implementation of high quality strategies, is at the heart of differentiating instruction.

Motivation is the natural capacity to direct energy – through attention, concentration, and imagination - in pursuit of a goal. Learning is the active process of constructing meaning from experience and text. There is substantial evidence that motivation is consistently and positively related to educational achievement. It is important to keep in mind that all students are motivated in some way by something, although some may not be motivated to learn what a teacher has planned. The student’s motivation may be in another direction, aligned with a different goal or perspective or set of values; but in any circumstance, no matter how they may appear, learners are not inert.  (Wlodkowski 2008)

The question is: how can we make content meaningful and relevant for a diverse group of learners?

Do you know that we are born with 50 - 100 billion brain cells?

These brain cells, called neurons, are the functioning core of the brain. The body of each neuron is about one-hundredth the size of a typed period at the end of a sentence. A single neuron can connect with as many as 15,000 other neurons! These connections, called synapses, are referred to as the “circuitry” or “wiring” of the brain. By the time a child is 3 years old about 1,000 trillion connections will be formed! Nature, our heredity, and nurture, our environment, are equally important to brain development. We are born with the brain’s hardware, but the brain’s software continues to develop and mature with our life experiences. Try to make these life experiences as rich and positive as possible. The effects can last a lifetime!