Head's Up, Kathleen McNamara

My daughter, Hannah, and I were lucky enough to meet Abby on our Alaska cruise last summer. I knew who she was from the USA Women’s soccer team. She was lovely and humble in person, but who knew?  This speech made me sing… Enjoy!

2018 Barnard Commencement Speech Abby Wambach

A Seven Hills parents recently shared this article with me. Today I wrote a bunch of overdue thank you notes. It made my day to express gratitude to those who make such a difference in our community. Try it!

Some great reminders about the fact that our children are always watching us as their parents…

MINDFUL.Org How to be a resilient parent

As we work with families, we keep being reminded that we cannot abdicate to technology in our own homes. There is no better social media monitor than the actual parent. This generates really good conversations. Having those conversations is what we practice at Parent Roundtables.

Why the best parental control IS the parent!

http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/mar18/Roquet–Fake-News-the-Gross-Internet-and-What-to-Do-About-Information-Literacy.shtml

The Japan experience with 43 of our 8th Grade students is still marinating, and likely will for some time to come. My own reflections on the trip, on the visible growth and maturation of many of our students, on the benefit of experiencing being “other” as a part of one’s educational journey will likely play out for weeks and months to come. I do look forward to hearing more of the student reflections as they get some distance from the experience and can “look back and reflect” on where they stretched themselves, stepped way outside of their comfort zone and overcame the stress of a language barrier, homesickness, isolation.

Yes, our students stepped outside the classroom for five school days and then part of their break for this excursion, AND the learning and persevering that comes along with this “classroom of a different sort” is not to be underestimated in the list of school experiences where they learn so much about themselves and their world. It’s all still marinating…

Well the weather gods saw fit to make our final day in Japan as glorious as all the others!

We had a great final day!

Leo’s dad swung by Kyoto from Australia and left us some ANZAC cookies!

Beautiful crisp morning and we pretty much had this Zen Garden to ourselves.

We are on our last tour day in Kyoto!

Loading luggage and waiting…