Teachers Learn A New Trick by RedRover

Posted on October 23, 2016 by Marcia Moran

How do we go about making sure that our kids learn empathy in addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic in school? Sadly, if you talk to today’s teachers, it often gets lost in the shuffle of getting the “real” instruction done. Teachers have so much time to get the nitty-gritty done the time for learning the soft skills fall by the wayside. Yet empathy, the ability to walk in someone else’s place and truly feel what they experience, gives children a way to understand the world differently. That’s where RedRover comes in. This organization has invested in building a program that teaches empathy to third and fourth graders. Empathy Goes to The Dogs… and Cats Let’s suppose we’re part of a class. The teacher tells us that we are trying The RedRover Reading Program today. Everybody becomes involved and you… …

Performing Your Way to Growth – Webinar with Cathy Salit

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Shannon Polly, MAPP

We had a great time with Cathy Salit today, CEO of Performance of a Lifetime. A powerful company with a funny name. As you can see from the photos, she engaged a whole class of psychology students by asking them to perform (and groan and stretch). Their teacher wrote: Hi Cathy, My students and I enjoyed your Webinar. They groaned with you, and wrote what they learned afterwards. Play and performance is so radical, when people get it, it’s life transforming. Great job. Rafael Cathy spoke about her book, Performance Breakthrough: A Radical Approach to Success at Work. Based in a field called Performative Psychology founded by Lois Holzman, Fred Newman and Ken & Mary Gergen from the Taos Institute. As Dr. Holzman said: ”We collectively create our lives through performance (simultaneously who we are and… …

The Power of Positive Listening

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Shannon Polly, MAPP

Listening is like driving. Everyone thinks they are good at it. But probably less than half of people really are. That’s why I was interested by the research of Kate Muir. Research into how emotions change over time has revealed that negative emotions tend to fade to a greater extent over time compared to positive emotions, an effect known as the fading affect bias. Talking to others is an important way in which this process can be enhanced: frequent social disclosure of past emotional events can help dissipate negative emotions and maintain positive emotions. The question is, how and why does talking help? Kate described experimental research which demonstrates that the degree of responsiveness of the listener during social disclosure is pivotal in how the speaker feels afterwards. Further, merely responding to the speaker is not enough. This research provides… …