Purpose

Hi! I’m Brianna and I am currently venturing through the planning of a new elementary school. Our focus is on social/emotional skills and service learning. I’m learning so much from research and the other amazing teachers I’m working with, I just have to share!

Just as all people desire a balance in life, so should our kids. They need us to give time to teaching integrity, grit, empathy, self-discipline, and to embrace diversity. As teachers we are helping raise the whole child. We’re growing their hearts along with their minds.

Service learning is a large piece of this. In a nutshell, this is the education side of community service. I believe that adding education to common school community service projects like, penny drives, school supply donations to Africa, etc. will help prevent kids from developing the idea of a single story (TEDGlobal 2009, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) toward a certain group of people and add a piece of understanding and responsibility to the choices they make.

On a personal level, I have added two amazing guys to my life, for life. I have recently become a wife and step-mom. So, beside searching for the best way to give students the opportunities to practice their social/emotional skills, I’m also practicing this at home with the help of my husband. My favorite way to start these conversations is through stories. I’m consistently searching for the best children’s literature that represent a wide range of families both for my classroom and my home. My step-son is growing up in two homes with parents from different cultures. He is not alone in this, yet there seems to be a low amount of published books that “look like him”. I’m always in search of the stories that talk about this directly and subtly for topics around mixed ethnicity and blended families. Please share if you have some great ones!