This is my 19th year of teaching. I've taught at 8 schools in our Board, and worked with hundreds of students. But sometimes, no matter what previous experiences you may have had, a child's comment stops you. It makes you think differently. This is one of those times. Yesterday, our school [...]
By Sonia Gregory, Teaching Principal, Chief Paul Niditchie School Dr. Stuart Shanker says, “See a child differently, see a different child.” This is such a beautiful concept in Self-Reg. It seems so simple, but what does it really mean to reframe a child’s behaviour? I like to think that I [...]
As we go back into the classroom this week to get ready for school, I'm doing some thinking around a phrase that I hear quite frequently in educational circles: the need to "prepare children" for the next grade. Recently, I started to look at this phrase through a Self-Reg lens, and this [...]
In this vlog, Susan Hopkins applies the Energy-Centred Teaching (ECT) model that she first developed with Dr. Stuart Shanker in 2017 to offer a fresh way of thinking about priorities for the start of the school year. Susan outlines the four frames of ECT--protECT, connECT, collECT, and detECT-- and shows [...]
Recently, I shared my Self-Reg journey on The MEHRIT Centre Website. As I mentioned in my profile here, I now find myself seeing everything through a Self-Reg lens. I was reminded of this recently, as I worked with the other Summer Curriculum and Site Support teacher to get things ready [...]
Yesterday started as my day often does, beginning to get materials organized for the week and setting up the classroom space prior to the start of Before Care. Soon after I started though, I noticed that some of our butterflies emerged. On Friday, we had two butterflies, but today, we [...]
I recently read John Hoffman's wonderful blog post about Thoughts On Parenting While Angry. I was really taken by this post, as I realized that it's not just parents that have these moments. Educators can also have them. I remember one of these moments for me last year. I walked [...]
The Future Lies in the Hands of Self-Reg Parents, Schools, and Communities I first started thinking about social justice and democracy when I was 16 years old. I had just attended a political rally where Pierre Elliot Trudeau talked about a Just Society: one in which “equality of opportunity is [...]
As a Kindergarten teacher, I understand the value of dramatic play. I know that students communicate much of their thinking and learning in this way. There are so many opportunities for oral language, including the development of new vocabulary, as part of dramatic play. But the truth is, I rarely like [...]
The Self-Reg educator or parent seeks to understand, rather than manage a child’s behaviour. In effect, what is being reframed here is what it means to see the Kindergarten teacher as a professional and not a glorified baby-sitter: someone who has been trained to ask the right kind of “Why” and has [...]