Element Is Everything

Ned Johnson Part 2: The Science and Sense Behind the Self-Driven Child

Terri continues the conversation with Ned on what we can do to reverse the trend of anxiety and learned helplessness. 

Ned Johnson Part 1: The Science and Sense Behind the Self-Driven Child

We are wired to care.  Care about ourselves, our learning, and each other.  Ned Johnson, co-author of The Self-Driven Child, shares his experience and views on why we are becoming an uncaring society.  

Relationships: Screens vs Humans

Casey O'Roarty of Sproutable discusses adolescents and smartphones.  

#26 School is in Session: Get Out of the Classroom

Meet young high school students who share how their natural love of learning remains alive through a personalized learning journey. 

Out of the Muck with Consent-based Learning

Ken Danford, author of Learning is Natural; School is Optional and co-founder of North Star, a center for teen learners shares his story and insight on self-directed learning.    

Stress vs Passion: Different Forms of Rigor

While rigorous learning requires challenge, it doesn't have to be painful.  Two high school students share their experience transitioning from meaningless to meaningful learning.     Show Notes:  https://realitychangers.org/  

Spark and Go Wild. Part 2

Part 2: John Ratey, MD, best-selling author and doctor of psychiatry, shares common everyday practices that bring a natural sense of well-being. Show Notes: Healthy Habits Inventory

Spark and Go Wild: Part 1

John Ratey, MD, best-selling author and doctor of psychiatry, shares common everyday practices that bring a natural sense of well-being.  Show Notes: Harvard Article on Exercise Can Boost Your Memory and Thinking Healthy Habits Inventory

Standing By the Water: Owning What You See

Personal leadership for success and happiness requires personal accountability.  Stryder Spillane, CEO of Leader Prep, explains the crucial step of problem-solving – owning the situation.  Show Notes: Meet Stryder Spillane, recently featured in HR Tech Outlook magazine, to reflect on how owning your current situation can bring a higher level of success and happiness.  HR TECH Outlook

The Power of a Picnic: Time to Relax, Reflect, and Rejuvenate

They say life is no picnic...but what if it was? What if every day we scheduled time for ourselves to relax, reflect, and rejuvenate.  Discover how a new mindset and habits can lead to better results with less work. This is the first of five parts of Season 3:  Taming the Modern Day Sabertooth

Heading for Open Waters: A Reflection on the Purpose of School

Imagine your children waking each day, knowing what they are going to do and how they need to go about doing it. You've prepared them and the environment so well, they hum along in their work driven by curiosity and fueled by discovery.  They tackle the “boring stuff” with patience and overcome challenges with optimism.  They learn things you never even knew or may have forgotten.  These are the characteristics of self-determined learners.   Today we discuss the purpose and function of lear...

If I Only Had a Brain - Using Multiple Brains for Better Decisions

Follow your heart, use your head, trust your gut.  Which is a person to do?  The neuroscience behind mBraining and Multiple Brain Integration Techniques (mBiT) tells us to do them all. A discussion with Lisa Blackett, certified mBIT coach and trainer, tells us how.  

Make Time to Find Your Element

Connor Swenson discusses the Make Time Framework to manage the forces that compete for our time. 

Redefining Success

Scott Schimmel, Founder, and CEO of You School walks us through the process of identifying what success looks like and explains why it is different for everyone.  "Where do you go to figure yourself out?" 

Learning as a Fountain, Not a Drain

Dr. Yong Zhao, award winner and author of hundreds of articles and thirty books on education, talks about the need for a new paradigm for assessment, technology, and the purpose of education.

All Is Not Lost When There is Play

Play is self-determined learning at its best, Peter Gray author of Free to Learn states, nature does not turn off our desire and capacity to learn when children turn five or six, we turn it off with our coercive system of schooling. In this episode, Terri speaks with Dr. Gray on the history and value of play, parenting styles, his definition of play, and the concept of learning loss. Resources: Free to Learn Social Media Peter Gray Facebook Blog: Psychology Today Blog Four new collectio...

The Hidden Element in Your Play History

More and more research is showing there is a correlation between play deprivation and depression. Dr. Stuart Brown, who we will hear today is the founder of the National Institute for Play, and the author of the national best-selling book Play, How It Shapes the Brain Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. His decades of work have proven play to be a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep and nutrition.  For the next three episodes, we're going to focus on play, what ...

Supporting the Self-Determined Learner

Imagine spending time on what you care about using your observation of others as not only motivation, but as an actual learning resource. Today is part four of four on making learning personal. Mike Wehmeyer, co-author of the 2020 book titled, Teaching Students to Become Self-Determined Learners, shares with us strategies for student ownership and self-determined learning, as well as why now more than ever, the development of those skills are crucial. Element Challenge of the Week: Role Mo...

Different Learners, One Roof

Imagine a household of independent, self-determined and cooperative beings, where everyone understands their role and embraces it with pride. Today, we hear from three working mothers, one of them widowed, all of whom have multiple children with different learning styles and power traits, and whose children have engaged in multiple forms of education, from site based schools to homeschooling to hybrid learning. How did they manage it all? What tips tricks, resources, and strategies help in r...

Turning a Space into a Place: How to Create Your Most Productive Environment

Imagine working and learning where you feel safe, comfortable, and inspired. Having the freedom, the insight, and the courage to design a place to do your best learning and work. A place, where you will lose track of time, dive deeper into your task with no desire to make excuses to avoid your work. In this episode, Terri speaks with Mariaemma Pelullo-Willis, co-author of the book Discover Your Child's Learning Style and co-founder of the Learning Success Institute.  They talk about the po...

Take Learning Personal - Designing the Personalized Learning Plan

Imagine paving your own path for learning and professional development, the freedom to determine your own learning objectives, resources, and work products. This month, Terri's focus is on the personalized learning plan. Whether a student in a traditional school setting, a homeschool student, a parent honing your parenting skills, a hobbyist perfecting your talent, or a professional seeking more from your work, creating a learning plan that works for you is essential to meeting your goals. ...

A Matter of Perspective

Imagine looking at the members of your family, your team, your workplace, and feeling a sense of appreciation, recognizing them for their uniqueness. Imagine the sense of pride that comes from recognizing your own uniqueness, how you think, what makes you tick, what you have to offer others. Perspective is very powerful and personal bias comes in many forms. Significant experiences, for better or worse shape, our beliefs, our perspectives. But even something as simple as disposition, the way...

Second Hand Stress: A Roadblock to Your Element

Today we talk with Dr. William Stixrud, a clinical neuropsychologist and faculty member at Children's National and George Washington University School of Medicine, as well as the author of the book, The Self-driven Child in his book, which runs the gamut on topics related to child development, such as technology, sleep, exercise, homework, motivation, academic testing, control, and yes, stress. 

A Helping Hand with Second Hand Stress

Don't Misunderstand Me - Why We Do the Things We Do

Imagine the important relationships in your life like family, friends, and colleagues, being peaceful, open, trusting, and cooperative. Feeling understood, and understanding others. Feeling respect. Today we hear from Lois Ingber, licensed clinical social worker and certified trainer for Positive Discipline, who shares with us how a focus on our feelings helps us best navigate the behaviors of others. Mistaken Goal Chart 5 Love Languages

Executive Functioning - You've Got the Power

Imagine feeling smart, balanced, important, and connected. Executive Functioning-You’ve Got the Power is part one of four on connection is key. Last month, Terri introduced the concept of finding your element and talked a lot about the importance of self-worth and mindset and how what we know and how we feel about ourselves impacts us. This month’s focus is going to be on our relationship with others and learning! The Executive Function Connection

Life Happens - The Courage to Own it and Make it Better

While the path to your element is not always smooth, it is the rocky points that have the potential to bring out our best.  Before we can help our children, our students, and others, we need to get ourselves on the right path first.  And then we can walk the path together.  

Given the Circumstances: Integrating interests and talents into your life

Terri speaks with Rick and Laura Sylvester about how and why they created a program of support dogs for children with special needs, especially keeping their son in mind, who has been diagnosed with non-verbal autism.

Looking for the Element in all the Wrong Places

Earl Otte, Montessori educator, shares his story of the many paths it took for him to get to a place where work is play and he experiences joy on a daily basis. 

The Genie in Us (genius) All

We all possess genius.  It looks different for each of us.  That’s what makes it genius.  The first step to finding it is to make sure we are not trying to be something we’re not.  Then we will be able to focus on what we are.