#and giving kids a safe way to explore emotions and connect with peers through role play

[thewindsofsong]

I would love to not work someday, but at this time, my job is the only one giving raises while my partner’s job as a high school teacher in an urban area is apparently being denied a measly $800 raise because she already gets money for running clubs.

The clubs that she spends extra time each week running and organizing stuff for. The clubs that she only just started being compensated for running after doing so UNPAID for multiple years.

And people have the fucking gall to wonder why there’s a goddamn teaching shortage.

[reetu24]

Best play school in delhi ncr

Developing Young Minds: Rhythm Play School's Group Therapy for Kids to Revolutionary their Potential

Emotional well-being is a vital thread in a child's complex life story that frequently needs careful attention and nurturing. Children face a variety of emotional obstacles on their growing path, which can have a serious negative effect on their mental health. Children's group therapy has become a priceless tool, offering a disciplined and encouraging atmosphere for emotional development. This article analyzes the many advantages of group therapy for kids, looks at several group therapy models, and shows how organizations like Rhythm Play School are improving kids' lives by offering group therapy sessions regularly.

The Importance of Emotional Well-being in Children:

It is important to comprehend the fundamental role that emotional well-being plays in a child's entire development before diving into the details of group therapy for kids. The basis for success in many facets of life is emotional intelligence, which includes self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and interpersonal skills. Like adults, children experience pressures, anxiety, and emotions that can be difficult to deal with on their own without the right assistance and direction.

Advantages of Children's Group Therapy

Social Skill Development: One of group therapy's most important benefits is that it helps kids develop their social skills. Rhythm Play School understands how important it is to give children the chance to socialize with their peers in a safe and encouraging environment. Children practice and acquire vital social skills via group projects, conversations, and activities.

Emotional Expression

Youth group therapy provides a safe and regulated space for children to express their emotions. Rhythm Play School is conscious of the fact that not all children find it easy to verbalize their feelings. As a result, play therapy, art therapy, and storytelling are among the additional modalities incorporated into the group sessions. These creative, nonverbal games let kids explore and communicate their emotions. Seeing and participating in these manifestations teaches children that their feelings are real and valid, which fosters a sense of emotional understanding and validation within the group.

Coping Strategies

Children are exposed to a broad variety of coping mechanisms through various forms of group therapy. Rhythm Play School understands how important it is to give kids the skills they need to deal with stress, anxiety, and other difficult emotions. Through role-playing, guided discussions, or mindfulness exercises, children can acquire good coping mechanisms for life's challenges. These coping strategies help kids overcome obstacles with resilience and confidence, which improves their mental health in general.

Types of Group Therapy for Kids

Art Therapy

Art therapy is incorporated into Rhythm Play School as a potent way to let kids express themselves creatively. Drawing, painting, and sculpting are examples of art therapy exercises that give patients a way to express feelings that could be challenging to express orally. The children's works become concrete expressions of their emotions, promoting group discussions and a sense of understanding and connection.

Play Therapy

Play therapy, which works especially well for younger kids, is the foundation of Rhythm Play School's group therapy methodology. Play therapy is a communication approach that uses play to help children process their feelings in a safe and supportive setting. The skilled therapists at the school watch and analyze the kids while they play, leading conversations that aid in processing and understanding what they have gone through. Kids can express themselves and explore their feelings in a way that seems interesting and natural by using imaginative play scenarios.

Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy

Rhythm Play School understands the value of systematic methods such as cognitive-behavioral group treatment. The goal of this type of treatment is to recognize and change harmful thought patterns and behaviors. Children in a group environment get knowledge from one another's experiences and develop the ability to question and rethink ideas. Cognitive-behavioral group therapy supports the school's mission of holistic emotional development by giving children useful strategies to handle stress and enhance their general mental health.

Rhythm Play School: Making a Difference Through Group Therapies

Fundamental to the healing potential of group therapy for children is the dedication of organizations such as Rhythm Play School. This school is unique in that it recognizes the critical role that emotional health plays in determining children's futures and is committed to supporting holistic development in young learners.

The methodology of Rhythm Play School goes beyond conventional teaching methods by recognizing the unique needs of every kid. By utilizing creative teaching strategies, providing a supportive environment, and holding frequent group therapy sessions, the school hopes to establish a setting in which each kid may flourish socially, emotionally, and academically.

Regular Group Therapies at Rhythm Play School

A key element of Rhythm Play School's comprehensive approach is the curriculum's integration of group therapy. Frequent group therapy sessions, facilitated by skilled and qualified therapists, offer kids a controlled setting for developing their skills, expressing their emotions, and interacting with their peers.

A variety of therapeutic methods are used in these sessions, including as play therapy, art therapy, and cognitive-behavioral group therapy. The variety of these methods guarantees that every child's unique needs are met, encouraging a thorough and customized approach to emotional development.

Creating a Supportive Environment

The establishment of a welcoming and supportive environment is essential to the success of group therapy for kids at Rhythm Play School. The school is aware that each child is different and has different emotional requirements. Children can feel comfortable expressing themselves and taking part in therapeutic activities at Rhythm Play School because of the environment that is created to promote acceptance and encouragement.

Each kid receives individualized attention from licensed therapists, who also make sure that the group dynamics promote constructive relationships. Through the thoughtful arrangement of the therapeutic setting, kids can establish bonds, cultivate empathy, and grow to feel like they belong.

The Impact on Children's Lives

The youngsters who attend Rhythm Play School attest to the beneficial effects of group therapy. Improvements are noted in social skills, emotional control, and general wellbeing by both parents and educators. Kids who attend group therapy sessions on a regular basis frequently show signs of enhanced problem-solving skills, increased empathy, and confidence.

Early emotional support is a key component of Rhythm Play School's mission to provide kids the resilience and life skills they need to effectively navigate the complexities of adulthood. The advantages are not limited to the school environment; they also affect how the kids interact with their friends, family, and the larger community.

Within the constantly changing field of education, Rhythm Play School is a shining example of creative, all-encompassing methods for child development. Including group treatment

Group therapy, with its diverse modalities, provides a unique and powerful avenue for children to explore, express, and understand their emotions. Rhythm Play School's proactive approach in integrating these therapeutic sessions into its curriculum reflects a recognition of the intricate connection between emotional well-being and overall success in a child's life.

Dedicated schools like Rhythm Play School serve as role models for developing environments that support emotional intelligence, resilience, and compassion as we continue to recognize the significance of mental health in children. These schools are influencing children's academic performance and helping to create emotionally stable adults who will carry these qualities into adulthood through group therapy.

[kidskingdomgo]

NURSERY IN DISCOVERY GARDENS

If you are looking for the best Nursery in Discovery Gardens for your child then you are at the right place.

For many years we have been nurturing children and giving them an elegant environment so they can shine in the future. Whether it’s a nursery, daycare, preschool, kindergarten, or Early Learning Center you can opt for Kids Kingdom.

90% of brain development happens before the age of 6. Hence, early childhood education is the key to a flying start for every child.

So what are you waiting for? Just call or WhatsApp us to enquire about a joyful place for your child.

DAYCARE IN DISCOVERY GARDENS

Our curriculum and teaching methodology at Kids Kingdom are carefully designed to create stimulating learning experiences that boost neural connections, allowing children to develop higher levels of observation, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, making us the best and most awarded Daycare in Discovery Gardens.

Also Check: Nursery in JLT

PRESCHOOL IN DISCOVERY GARDENS

Preschool helps children prepare for a lifetime of learning.

It teaches children how to read, write, and build math and science skills through holistic brain development, preparing them for school.

It promotes the growth of the mind, body, and spirit through the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains, which are organized in a hierarchy to accommodate different levels of learning.

You can opt for the best preschool in Discovery Gardens i.e. Kids Kingdom.

Also Check: Nursery in Dubai Marina

KINDERGARTEN IN DISCOVERY GARDENS

A reputable Kindergarten in Discovery Gardens lays a firm foundation for each child in order to prepare them for official primary learning.

The environment in our Discovery Gardens Kindergarten develops independence and teaches children the value of sharing and giving.

Children learn about their environment with the help of their teachers and guides, and this offers them the opportunity to realize that there are different types of people in our society that have different demands than their own.

Also Check: Nursery in JVT

EARLY LEARNING CENTER IN DISCOVERY GARDENS

The first year of a kid's schooling can be difficult and emotional, and as a parent, you want to offer a safe and secure environment for your child. So we at Early Learning Center in Discovery Gardens provide the safest environment for kids and nurture them in a respectable manner. Join us now to get benefitted from Kids Kingdom’s special early learning center in Discovery Gardens that exclusively takes care of your child.

CONCLUSION

Apart from parents, teachers play an important role in a child's emotional development. The teacher should treat all students the same, no matter what their race, religion, or skills are. Children and their peer groups can benefit from positive reinforcement and an inclusive environment.

Apart from that, the best nursery in Discovery Gardens provide a state-of-the-art campus to children as young as the nursery age group, with specific facilities designed to meet the needs of these children. Kids Kingdom Daycare in Discovery Gardens has smart classrooms and virtual labs to help kids learn faster and in a more interesting way.

FAQ’S

What benefit will a child get from going to a Nursery in Discovery Gardens?

Nursery will aid your child's social and emotional development. Your children will learn how to compromise, be polite of others, and solve problems in Nursery. Nursery in Discovery Gardens will give an environment for your child to develop a sense of self, explore, interact with their classmates, and gain confidence.

What safety precautions are taken to guarantee a child's safety in the premises?

"Children's safety precautions are meant to safeguard them from accidents or illnesses caused by hazardous situations or activities." There are numerous threats that can be found but we take care of all that at our nursery in Discovery Gardens. Here are few things we do regularly:

- We check that all electrical outlets are protected by plug protectors.

- We store fragile goods on high shelves.

- We use baby-proofing goods to child-proof drawers and cabinets.

- We use toppies to keep hot water taps out of reach.

- We place safety gates at the top and bottom of the stairs.

[plannedparenthood]

Homeschooling Help: How Parents Can Teach Sex Education While COVID-19 Keeps Families at Home

Even though schools around the country have begun opening back up, parents and caregivers still play an active role in their children’s education. 

We’re here to show you how to be your kid’s go-to resource for answers and advice on bodies, sex, sexuality, gender, relationships, consent, and more — from pre-K through high school. Here’s our top 5 tips from the Planned Parenthood experts. 

Incorporate Learning Into Daily Activities

Not all sex education needs to be formal. There’s a lot to be learned from TV, books, and other media around the house.

Use storylines from TV and movies to spark honest conversations with your kids. 

While you’re watching a TV show or movie together, play Healthy Relationships Bingo. Compare which boxes you check off and talk about what’s similar and different.

Follow our TV watching guide and pause the program at key scenes to ask what your kid thinks. This could include when you see romance, sexual activity, pregnancy, peer pressure, or sexting.

After you watch something, discuss the relationships in it. Is the sexual activity consensual? Are the relationships healthy? Are characters communicating clearly and assertively with each other? Who is and is not getting represented (i.e. are there LGBTQ characters/relationships, a diversity of race/ethnicities), and how are they being represented? Ask their opinions and share your own as well.

Read together, and use stories to spark conversations. 

Reading together can look a lot of different ways: You can read a children’s book to your kid, read a short story over their shoulder, or read the same book on your own, checking in after each chapter.

After reading, discuss the characters and storylines, asking their opinions and sharing yours. You can use the same questions suggested above in the TV and movies section. When it comes to consent and healthy relationships, you can share messages like these to help your kids better understand these topics. 

Get Formal: Plan a Time and Set a Place

If you’re homeschooling on a more formal schedule, it’s helpful to have time set aside for sex education at the same times and in the same part of your home. 

 Keep in mind that even if your local school has implemented an online learning program, it might not include the vital sex education your child needs. You can ask your kid what subjects are being covered to help guide you in what you may want to supplement.

First Step: Do Your Homework

Watch our videos for parents (también en español) and read through plannedparenthood.org/parents to help prepare you. These videos help you tackle important topics in age-appropriate ways, from preschool to high school. Topics include gender identity, healthy relationships, porn, and more. Choose a topic that you’d like to start with and set a time to dig into it.

Activities: Using Educational Videos

You know your kids. If they’re visual learners, then watch these educational videos together: 

For high school-aged teens:

Consent 101 Videos: This four-video series is all about consent — what it is, how to know if someone wants to have sex with you, and what to do if they don’t. We also have a lesson plan you can pick up and use along with the videos.

STD Communication Videos: This three-video series models how to have conversations about safer sex, STD testing, and being honest about your status. We also have a lesson plan you can pick up and use along with the videos.

Sexual and Reproductive Health (también en español): These 16 short videos give you the basics on birth control, how pregnancy happens, abortion, and more. 

For middle school-aged kids:

AMAZE Videos: AMAZE has a whole bunch of sex education videos for tweens and younger teens that you can watch together and discuss. They also have resources for parents and educators on how to use the videos with kids. 

Activity: Digital Education Tools

If you’re looking for some interactive activities for your middle- or high school-aged teen to help them think through preventing unintended pregnancy and STDs, we’ve got plenty for you! Our games for teens are interactive and based on science, helping them think through decision making around things like peer pressure, deciding when they’re ready to have sex, and using birth control and condoms to prevent both unintended pregnancy and STDs. We also have some lesson plans you can use towards the bottom of this page that go along with some of the games!

Activity: Start a Conversation Whether it’s a follow-up to one of those educational videos or bringing up another topic that’s important to you, it’s essential to get the conversation going. Don’t worry — you don’t need to be an expert. You just need to be willing to talk AND listen. 

Once you’ve talked it out, use what you discussed to inform your next topic. Research tells us that kids and teens who have regular conversations with their parents and caregivers about sex and relationships are less likely to take risks with their sexual health, and more likely to be healthy and safe. So keep the conversation going!

Give an Assignment: Something to Read or Watch On Their Own

Some children thrive in group learning environments, and others flex their learning muscles better on their own. If you know your kid works better independently, support that. And if they learn best by taking in new information slowly, give them time to process. 

Books and activities: Check out the sex education word find and books for children on this resource page. Pick one of the resources, let your child engage with it on their own, and encourage them to ask you questions.

Videos: If you watch one of the videos above and feel that it’s appropriate for your child to watch by themselves, then share it with them. If you have tweens or teens, send them to our Roo High School video series or AMAZE. And if you have younger children, try Amaze Jr.’s videos for kids 4 years old and up. 

PlannedParenthood.org/Teens: We have a whole section on our website just for teens! You can pick sections for them to read through, and then talk about them together later.

COVID-19 on the Planned Parenthood website: If you have an older teen who has questions or concerns about COVID-19, they can read our COVID-19/New Coronavirus website — particularly the page on ways to protect your sexual health while protecting yourself from COVID-19. 

Seize the Opportunity: When Issues Come Up, Use Them as Teachable Moments

With more time at home, you may find that your kid is asking you more questions about all kinds of things, including bodies, sex, and relationships. And while you’re spending more time with your kids, you may notice more things about their physical and emotional development — like their romantic interests, social media habits, or changing body. 

These little experiences throughout the day are great teachable moments. You can use these moments as opportunities to ask questions and share your values. AMAZE's Askable Parent Challenge can help you navigate your kid’s questions and your own observations while we all adjust to social distancing.

If your child responds to more downtime by exploring their own body and discovering masturbation, this article has tips for parents on what to do (mainly: relax, talk about it, and set some sensible privacy boundaries and hygiene practices!). 

Outsource: Show Kids How to Find Accurate Answers from Other Sources

The suggestions above will help you become your kid’s go-to resource for questions about bodies, sex, and relationships. But kids may have questions that they don’t feel comfortable talking about with you, and that’s OK, too. So it’s helpful to point out trustworthy resources they can go to.

PlannedParenthood.org

Our website has a ton of information on all things sex and relationships, including a section just for teens. They can find all kinds of commonly asked questions on our Ask The Experts blog, as well as ask questions of their own!

Roo

Roo is Planned Parenthood’s free, private, sex ed chatbot that can answer all of your kid’s questions about sex, relationships, puberty, and more. No question is too awkward for Roo! 

Chat/Text

For those times your kid wants to talk with a real person, our Chat/Text program connects them in real-time with trained health educators. Your child can text or chat with these health educators about pregnancy, STDs, birth control, and more. Like Roo, it’s free and confidential.

Spot On

Spot On is our period and birth control tracker app, available to download for free on iOS and Android. It’s a great way for young people with periods to get to know their cycle, learn about reproductive health, and, if they’re on birth control, help them stay on top of it with personalized support.

For More Information

Remember: You can make a big difference in helping your kid navigate sex and relationships throughout their life! The conversations you have with your child about bodies, sex, and relationships will help them stay safe and healthy as they grow up.

Here are more resources for you to use while you’re sheltering in place, or any time:

Planned Parenthood’s Guide for Parents

Tumblr Blog on Sex Education at Home

— Miriam at Planned Parenthood

[ganymedesclock]

Do you have any headcanons for the Voltron teams child selves?

Honestly, anon, I’m really glad that you asked this because I think that people often... really underestimate the amount of personality and autonomy children have? I’ve seen fics and RPs of younger versions of the paladins that seem to sort of assume there is a single default “child personality”, or maybe like... two or three of them, that are consistent from age 2 to age 13 when being a kid is pretty much just the first part of the process of being a person.

Shiro

My impression of a younger Shiro is really... earnest? Kind of a ‘teacher’s pet’ in the sense of, with an authority figure he really looked up to I can see him being very eager to please because he wants to be Good and Responsible, he wants to be a hero and a role model. At the same time, I get a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason Shiro in present is so drawn to Keith is because they had some things in common in the past, which... a glaring similarity between them is temper.

Shiro is frankly really short-tempered and snappy in the present so I figure any younger version of Shiro had kind of a worse handle on it, especially if he felt like something was really wrong. He’s the sort of person who would stand up to bullies no matter who they were, and with that kind of fearless I can see him actually getting into fights on occasion himself.

The real interesting thing with a really young/ “kid” Shiro would I think be watching him assembling that moral viewpoint and sense of values that are so dearly important to him. I like Josh Keaton’s headcanon that Shiro was raised mostly by his grandfather and a lot of that sense of old familial wisdom that he tries to piece together into something cohesive with his day-to-day life. As he gets older, I can see him being not quite so eager-to-please but in other ways, emerging even more as a peer leader and someone who’s quick to take responsibility for others, especially those younger than him. He was probably good at sports, too!

Another thing that I expect would be a factor here is Shiro as a quick study and someone who performs well academically, and with that and his sorta natural leader attitude and desire to make people proud, he’d come to put a lot of emphasis and effort onto his education. I can see him being a sort of student council figure in school but then, once he gets to the later grades and things get tougher, him going through a really difficult phase in late middle/early high school where he stresses out a huge amount and pushes himself way too hard trying to keep up that Straight-A reputation and his relationships/social life suffering, and that being kind of a dark chapter in his life that he worked through and let his hair down a lot in the timeline of the main show. Especially if he lost his grandfather around this time.

Though, Kerberos and its missing year would probably bring some old bad habits out of the woodwork for him...

Keith

Honestly I can see younger Keith as really, really subdued. Before meeting Shiro I don’t think he had much of that confidence to assert himself, at all, and being shuffled between foster houses, after losing his father I can see Keith having kind of shut down a lot. Just sort of keeps all of his limbs inside the vehicle and waits for everything to stop moving, doesn’t try very hard to connect with people because it’s not going to last.

Keith is super sensitive, emotionally, and, like what I said with Shiro and anger, I think the younger you’re spinning Keith the easier it’d be to get under his skin and upset him, especially around or before the age where he lost his dad because the implication we have is that Dad Kogane was a very soothing presence- Keith related to him mainly in that he was someone Keith looked to for comfort, so I think Keith at that age where, if he was upset, he’d be loud and proud about it, none of the internalizing and burying that he got into later- just plunk on your butt and bawl because that alerts Dad and Dad will make it better.

Of course, after losing his dad, I sorta feel like that crybaby inclination can’t go away- he’s still really sensitive, and easily overwhelmed, and his world has become very volatile and very upsetting so he’s overwhelmed a lot, and nobody will leave him alone but nobody’s filling that consistent comforter role that his father lived in, so he starts lashing out. I can see him having some really awful meltdowns, that he’s scolded for more than the grief and loss of security at the root of it is recognized.

So he internalizes it as he’s a “problem child”, he’s “angry”, he has “too much of a temper” and that makes him bury feelings of discomfort and fear, while, a certain amount of living up to expectations means he gets more comfortable expressing frustration. And that just gives him his tendency to explode that he has in canon- because he keeps stuffing his emotions until he can’t handle it any more and it overwhelms him.

I can see him taking up a lot of outdoorsy hobbies, his interest in photography and exploring areas just because he’s gotta get away from it all, and especially with how much I read Keith as an autistic kid who was diagnosed pretty late/close to the start of the show, and his alien heritage, Keith just feeling this profound awkwardness and sense of disconnect- but conversely, he’s athletic, and the natural world, compasses, weather follows fairly predictable patterns, they’re things he can deal with and prepare for. And with that, he starts to get his legs under them, a bit of a sense of confidence that maybe he’s not awful at everything, there’s safe places where if he explodes it doesn’t hurt anybody but him.

I think he met Shiro at around this point, a few years before his canon age, and sort of the work he’d done connecting with the outdoors and building confidence there gave him a better foothold for Shiro to just start towing that confidence into more populated environments, into school, towards accommodations where he can apply himself and start feeling more positive and in control of his life. Leaving the foster system, and thus not being reassigned to new houses, actually makes him feels like he has a consistent environment so that helps too.

Lance

I can see Lance just, being kind of a total ray of sunshine as a kid? Like, he’s the youngest but he’s totally his mom’s favorite, just a little, he’s kind of spoiled and he knows if he has an argument with his siblings he can leverage the advantage of running crying to mom.

He’s super squirrelly too, and impulsive, and it makes him a little difficult to manage and he probably has a lot of bumps and scrapes and broken bones, but he loves swimming, he’ll scrabble over everything and fidget and jump around and tackle people and he’s just this overly physical kid who doesn’t ever actually want to fight anybody he just loves everyone and it takes him a while to figure out how to be gentle with other people (and his own body). He might feel a little under pressure because there’s this really big family and all these different people, and he’s not sure he can keep up with them sometimes.

Personally I like the idea that he was influenced a lot by movies since that was one of the main bonafide ways to make him stay in one place, he’d just sit and watch movies for ages, in Spanish, and in English with subtitles, and while English isn’t his first language he grew up hearing it thanks to a lot of his favorite films and that affected his pronunciation when he did start learning. Just imagine kid Lance, lying on his stomach with his head propped on his hands, kicking his legs and watching old action movies.

He probably started going to school in the states before the Garrison. Initially it was part of a school exchange thing and he stayed with a host family (that he’s still really close friends with) but just, his whole sense of adventure and excitement going into it. And nerves, of course, because he’s new kid in the country, and I think a lot of the, wanting to be liked and seem cool is what really got him trying to take up a lot of the traits of his favorite action stars, because even if he didn’t have his family and especially his mom there for comfort, his heroes were still with him. He could’ve even had dreams of becoming a movie star himself.

It didn’t always end well, there were people who took advantage of his trust and newness and made fun of him or teased him, but, that’s also when he met Hunk, who, honestly, I really can see their friendship starting with Hunk standing up to Lance’s bullies because he’s seen this happen before and Lance just keeps trusting them and he doesn’t get it but not on his watch. That could even be the thing that pointed Lance towards the Garrison, and that pupates into the mostly-fearless Lance we see in canon.

Hunk

I’m going with the headcanon/theory that Hunk is related to Commander Hawkins and, like Pidge, he’s a Garrison Brat through and through.

From the start, there’s a certain amount of stress because there’s this clear Expectation of Greatness and, is he gonna live up to that? Sure, his dad is the coolest guy ever and he’ll totally tell everybody about that, smugly, but, he’s not his dad, he’s a lot smaller than his dad, and he cries a lot.

But he’s really curious and also kinda spoiled and can cute his way out of getting punished that time he took apart the TV and broke something important, so as much as it stresses him out to be in such illustrious company and inevitably greeted with “Oh, you’re Hawkins’ boy! He’s told me so much about you!” at every turn by strange and very important adults, he’ll keep soldiering on.

He gets into constructive toys and simple dishes and science fair projects and then starts playing with real ovens and motors, since he’s good at that, and that makes him confident, and he’s not so sure about talking to strangers because he’s a chubby kid who cries a lot, but, the more he studies and the more he tinkers, the more confident he gets and the more he starts to resent things that get in the way of him and really cool stuff.

And then happens puberty and a particular eventful growth spurt he hits faster and stronger than most of his peers and Hunk starts to realize he has some real power here. The smart aleck bully kids hesitate to mess with him or steal his books, the football coach and the boxing coach are having a small-scale personal war over him and are a little heartbroken when he joins the cooking club instead. And so begins a long quiet creep towards nearly unstoppable when he’s confident about his position, which starts to head towards a lot more situations.

I said before that I think that Hunk met Lance by confronting his bullies but after that, I can see Hunk being kind of charmed by Lance’s sense of adventure, only, they’re getting into the Garrison at that point and suddenly Hunk is reminded that there are, in fact, gods he fears, like his dad and the people who employs his dad.

Pidge

Personally my image of really young Pidge is absolutely nothing so much as this triumphantly beaming kid in overalls, absolutely covered in mud, showing you that she just caught a frog. Her dislike of the outdoors is a recent addition because at first she’s super excited by any new thing, as a pre-verbal infant I just imagine her as a bright-eyed fountain of happy babbles and noises and flailing.

About the time she goes into kindergarten she starts getting more discerning, and more disappointed, and a little more inclined to run wild because things are obviously wrong and people can be mean and what do you mean she has to share, these people don’t know the right ways to play or the important things like Matt does-

(and Matt is older enough that they don’t often want the same toys at the same time, at least, in the same way- and he’ll compromise when it comes to Pidge because he just adores her, right from the start, even if they squabble sometimes and he never quite forgave her for that one time she puked on his favorite shirt)

-but suddenly there’s these other kids, and she doesn’t like this at all and she wants to go straight home to Mom and Dad and Matt because she wants a refund on her entire peer group.

School is hard and frustrating and stressful and she usually doesn’t focus on projects or assignments because she’s too busy being upset at first and this warrants a pretty major response from the Holts because their baby girl is unhappy, and this gets a whole bevy of tests and observations and the conclusion is, yeah, she’s definitely autistic and probably ADHD, and adjustments are made and accommodations but there’s still this awkwardness, this difficulty between her and the other kids.

Free time becomes important, computers become super important because nothing is more important than having environments that are Just Hers, she wants her own room and her own things and her own space and that’s when she withdraws from the outdoors, grumbles about family camping trips more even though when her mom talks about types of flowers, the way that leaves works, soil and its properties, she still hangs on every word, chatters back fast and excited and happy. Because it’ll still be okay, as long as she has this, as long as the safe place is here- it’s her greenhouse, her safe place away from the wind and the cold and the elements.

And then it’s still safe, but it’s not full enough any more- and then she needs to go find them.

[ihtspirit]

Palmer takes students on virtual journeys

Palmer takes students on virtual journeys Originally published May 7, 2020 in the Bonner County Daily Bee. By Aly De Angelus Once upon a time Rebecca Palmer would be leading her 98 Clark Fork High School students across Elizabethan England. Her students would marvel at the clothes they fancied and entertain themselves by imitating Shakespearean language during the reading of “Romeo and Juliet”. https://ihtusa.com https://ihtusa.com/palmer-takes-students-on-virtual-journeys/

Originally published May 7, 2020 in the Bonner County Daily Bee.

By Aly De Angelus

Once upon a time Rebecca Palmer would be leading her 98 Clark Fork High School students across Elizabethan England.

Her students would marvel at the clothes they fancied and entertain themselves by imitating Shakespearean language during the reading of “Romeo and Juliet”. Though her classroom was abandoned for the safety of her students during the COVID-19 outbreak, her creativity and technological aptitude has managed to keep her students engaged, even when they spend most of their days curled up on their couch cuddling their pets.

“It’s hard being away from the kids,” Palmer said. “It’s hard not having interaction with students in the classroom, but I think we are all doing the best we can to maintain the safety for what we need to do.”

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Once upon a time Rebecca Palmer would be leading her 98 Clark Fork High School students across Elizabethan England.

Her students would marvel at the clothes they fancied and entertain themselves by imitating Shakespearean language during the reading of “Romeo and Juliet”. Though her classroom was abandoned for the safety of her students during the COVID-19 outbreak, her creativity and technological aptitude has managed to keep her students engaged, even when they spend most of their days curled up on their couch cuddling their pets.

“It’s hard being away from the kids,” Palmer said. “It’s hard not having interaction with students in the classroom, but I think we are all doing the best we can to maintain the safety for what we need to do.”

Palmer has spent 19 years in a classroom and she is the only English teacher for the entire Clark Fork High School, Grade 9-12. She describes her normal teaching style as interactive and personal.

“I like to have kids up moving and doing things, so trying to find innovative ways to do that online, where they can get some of that same ability of interacting with their peers and interacting with me has been a challenge,” Palmer said. “But I am kind of a techie anyway so I’ve spent a lot of time going through and trying things that students could do to be able to have that interaction and are able to do some of the fun things we do in class.”

When she’s not recording a lesson or making checklists for her students, she’s exploring new tools for technology. She says technology is her fun place.

One of her most used teaching tools is Actively Learn, where her students can annotate and insert questions when they watch her videos. She also uses Adobe Spark for creating powerpoints that transform audio and script into a movie, which allows the students to have more engagement than a traditional lecture-style lesson.

Palmer has been juggling multiple jobs as a student and staff educator. Her advanced knowledge of technology has enabled her to troubleshoot many issues that school staff has experienced during this pandemic. As the technology integration coach for Clark Fork High School she has put together tutorials for teachers on how to film Zoom videos, how to use Loom, how to make PDF documents interactive and more.

“I think often there are people thinking we sit at home all day, but I am working from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day and then usually beyond that,” Palmer said.

Aside from her role as a teacher, her goal is to put the emotional needs of her students before academic expectations. Palmer and other staff members put together a video compilation of Bill Withers “Lean On Me” so students could feel connected with their school environment.

“The kids social and emotional wellness is far more important to us right now and we just miss our kids, we really miss our kids,” Palmer said. “We don’t want to be home staring at a computer any more than they do, but it’s what we’ve got to do for now.”

Though the time apart from her students has been hard, she has managed to expand her relationship with the students. She said seeing her students at home gives her a whole new perspective on an individual’s life and personality.

“When kids get to show their pet that they’ve been talking about at school all the time or when you get to see their little brother or sister or when mom pops in to say ‘Hi,’ things like that are positive and fun,” Palmer said.

Palmer has previously dealt with remote learning as a Communications 101 (speech) instructor. Despite the familiarity, she said working in a rural area has created a new challenge — wifi connectivity.

“Not all of our kids have access to the internet and most of what they do have is satellite internet which is really spotty,” Palmer said. “Even though we are a one-to-one school and every student has a Chromebook that doesn’t mean they can necessarily connect to the internet.”

Clark Fork High School has increased their Wi-Fi connectivity so students who are able to drive can use the parking lot to complete school work. In addition the school follows a paper packet policy, handing out new lessons every two weeks just like the neighboring elementary schools do.

Palmer also uses an app called Remind for students who don’t have wifi but have a cell phone. This app enables them to receive text messages about assignments without having to exchange personal phone numbers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Palmer has been able to keep in weekly contact with 92 out of 98 students. Her strategy is to send notes to parents at the end of the week if their child has not submitted assignments or reached out to her on the various platforms.

For teachers struggling to match educational needs, she has two pieces of advice. The first is to stay organized by hyperlinking everything in one file. This will help students not feel overwhelmed, she said.

The second tip is to get an education license to use online software for free. “Most educational sites that I have gone to have waived any subscription fees for the rest of the school year and most of them until September in order to help for the pandemic,” Palmer said. “If they are concerned about trying something because of the cost this is a great time to jump in and try something because it’s free.”

Some education subscriptions include Actively Learn and Goosechase, an app that creates scavenger hunts. “I am in the process of setting up a scavenger hunt that is obviously quarantine safe with just fun things that as a school we can do together to bring about that family atmosphere,” she said.

When Palmer is not working she tries to get up, eat and throw the ball outside for her dog to relax. She said there have been a few perks from staying at home.

“It’s been nice being forced to have the time to look at new tech tools,” Palmer said. “Normally during the school year it is so, so busy. I teach six different levels of English and speech and because we are a small school I am the English teacher for grades 8-12 and dual credit so being able to actually have time to explore those tools and get some new ideas will definitely influence me.”

“And getting to go to the bathroom whenever I want is a big positive,” she joked.

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[zipgrowth]

Counselors Couldn’t Keep Up With Our Growing Mental Health Crisis, So Peers Stepped Up

It’s 7:30 a.m. on a Monday morning. I welcome students into the building with an optimistic smile on my face while teachers give an endless supply of high fives, and students yawn and find a corner to sit with their friends. The bell rings and I head to make my coffee, eager to hunker down and prioritize my tasks for the week. Before I make it to the coffee pot, I hear my name over the walkie talkie and off I go—without caffeine. A student needs me, and so it begins. By the time I return, two students are waiting outside my office and I’ve got two notes on my door. Before I know it, it’s Thursday afternoon and I’ve done little more than triage.

As an assistant principal with a social work background, my experience is similar to that of many school counselors and mental health professionals today. Between the influence of social media, the tragically extreme pressure to succeed and our fast-paced world, our kids need us more than ever—and yet, as we are stretched thinner and thinner, there is less support to go around. How do we address the mental health and social-emotional needs of our students with a severe lack of professionals available? At Westgate Community School, a K-12 school in Thornton, Colo., we responded to this dilemma by leveraging and training our student leaders to offer mentorship and mediation for their peers.

I became assistant principal in 2018, but served as dean of culture at Westgate for three years prior. I was originally hired in 2015, to support the only counselor at our school, which served 500 students at the time. Even when I came on and there were two of us counseling, it wasn’t enough to support that many students. When you have a 6-year-old coming to school hungry who doesn’t understand why he can’t eat dinner every night, a 12-year-old feeling isolated by her peers and wondering what life would be like if she had never been born and a 17-year-old trying to navigate FASFA so she can attend college, every student is a priority. But let’s be real, we could only do so much.

We had a capacity issue: too many kids needed support, but there weren’t enough adults or hours in the day to provide it.

We spent our days working with as many students in crisis as we could manage. Naturally, we prioritized students based on the extent of their needs, the level of risk they were facing and the degree of crisis they appeared to be experiencing. What we noticed, however, was that the students who were not in crisis initially, eventually entered a state of crisis because no one was there to support their needs in a timely fashion. This is where the trouble began for us and it turned into a vicious cycle.

We knew we had to get creative about how we offer resources to students. We needed to acknowledge the steep, and growing, demand for counseling services, and we had to create time and space for every student reaching out to receive support. Every student is fighting a unique battle, and every student is a priority.

Leveraging Students as Peer Mentors

Peer mentoring and peer mediation are not new concepts. In fact, I was a peer mediator when I was in high school, though truth be told, I became a mediator so that I could opt out of health class. I remember sitting in rows of desks with other mediators, practicing a script that was written for conflict resolution. We set norms and ground rules, we gave each person involved a fair opportunity to speak and we followed that darn script. That is not how we approach peer mentoring at Westgate.

So, what makes our peer mentor program so different? We intentionally select and educate young adults, we give them time and space to observe mental health professionals in action and ask questions and then we set them free to work with their peers in an authentic, unscripted way.

Over time, we’ve seen this approach prove effective. Take Jessica for example, whose eighth grade year was an emotional rollercoaster. Depression and anxiety consumed her, and frequent suicidal ideation left her constantly questioning her self-worth and her place in society. Jessica and I checked in often, almost daily. Sometimes she needed to practice basic coping or social skills, and sometimes, she just needed to take a break in a quiet place because a situation had caused stress. But other times, our meetings were less formal—she just wanted to talk about her dog or share her writing.

After our most casual meetings, Jessica seemed a little bit lighter, a little bit stronger and better equipped to take on the rest of her day. It occurred to me that creating a safe space for her to share what was happening in her life was perhaps the most important thing I could do for her—and it didn’t need to be me.

Many schools operate within rigid structures often driven by strict academic standards and tight schedules packed with instructional time focused on math and literacy, which simply leaves less time for authentic human interaction. Across the country, we have lost time in school to just talk to each other. We have become increasingly disconnected, and what Jessica needed on most days was authentic connection and relationship-building.

In December 2015, Jessica’s eighth grade year, we launched our peer mentoring program after five months of planning. We launched the mentoring program as a strand of our existing service learning course at our high school. It was a way for students to provide an additional service to our community and mentors would receive service learning credit toward graduation requirements. Service learning occurred as a scheduled class on Fridays, which allowed for consistent and reliable time and space for mentoring. Through an intensive application and interview process, we selected a handful of high school students who lived out values of compassion and integrity. They were strong listeners who cared deeply for their peers in the school.

We embarked on a journey that was quite vulnerable for me. Instead of giving these students a script, I resolutely believed that this group of mentors had the ability to lead the way. We wrote our own training program focused on developing listening skills, empathy, affirmation and mentee-led goal setting practices. We talked about the importance of self-care and discussed how to tell when it’s time to gently stop a session and report to a counselor. We explored issues related to confidentiality and setting boundaries, we watched and read Dr. Brene Brown—esteemed author, researcher, and expert in vulnerability and shame—and we role played for days. Mentors even sat in on counseling sessions to observe our counselor and I during sessions. As February finally approached and we were ready to start sessions, we spoke to the parents of all of our mentors to share about the work and get consent for students to begin mentoring their peers.

In the beginning, we intentionally selected mentees based on their need to speak with the counselor. The students that had sought us out for weeks, but had not gotten the chance to see us because of obvious limitations, were the first mentees to meet with a peer. We also selected students who we believed would benefit from weekly check-ins alongside some more formal work with professional mental health providers. Jessica was one of these students.

We paired her with an incredibly passionate junior named Katie. Katie and Jessica began meeting weekly and their relationship developed quickly. As we fell into the routine of mentoring, Jessica was leaving class less during the week to seek a counselor. Her school work improved, and she was more courageous in social situations. Like Jessica, many mentees started counting on Friday meetings and stopped running to the office throughout the week.

Our Program Expands to Serve More Students

Three years into our program, we now have 18 trained high school mentors, two senior interns leading the program and about 65 impacted students, 50 of which are meeting mentors on a weekly basis.

As our program has expanded, the process for identifying mentees has become more robust. As we demonstrated success, we began partnering with our special education department to enhance mental health services. Today, many of our mentees have peer mentoring written into their Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and 504 plans as a social-emotional accommodation or service, along with other mental health minutes in some cases. Additionally, peer mentoring has become our most effective Tier 2 intervention for behavioral Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), a national framework which identifies students who would benefit from targeted interventions, so some mentees are referred by our MTSS team. Others are recommended by parents or teachers based on their needs.

Today, Jessica is a sophomore, and she is a second year peer mentor. When she applied to be a mentor her freshman year, she shared how her experience meeting with Katie changed her middle school experience—she also shared that it may have saved her life. She didn’t have a consistent positive relationship prior to meeting Katie. She now considers herself an expert in middle school conflict and mentoring, and she spends her Friday afternoons talking with students that are on a very similar path to the one she once walked.

Jessica can relate to these middle schoolers in a way that I simply cannot. Peer mentoring has without a doubt shifted our school culture. We too often underestimate the power of peer interaction, and it is time we raise up our most powerful force to address mental health in our schools—our students.

Counselors Couldn’t Keep Up With Our Growing Mental Health Crisis, So Peers Stepped Up published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

[how2to18]

I.

THERE’S A PHOTOGRAPH my mother can’t stop thinking about. She is about nine years old in it, dangling from her father’s arms as he dips her low to the ground, a blissful moment she can’t remember, one of the few they shared together. She texts me a picture of it one afternoon, its corner creased from an antique vanity mirror where she keeps it tucked up against the glass. She stares straight at the camera, and I can tell she is laughing, even though her upside-down figure is a blur. My grandfather leans too far forward; I can’t see his face. My mother tells me the photograph still makes her cry, but I wonder: For whom? The girl she once was, or the man he is no longer? That smeary snapshot is a substitute for other memories she’d prefer to forget. Its truth is a necessary fiction.

  II.

Ezekiel Hooper Stark is obsessed with family photographs. The narrator of Lynne Tillman’s Men and Apparitions — the author’s first novel in 12 years — pores over them, scrutinizing their subjects, often to the exclusion of his real family. A cultural anthropologist by profession, Zeke ricochets between detached analysis of heirloom pictures — his own, or others fished from flea-market albums — and theories of photography in a 400-page monologue packed with observations on gender, sex, and death. “My self is my field, and habitually I observe, and write field notes,” Zeke proclaims. His book, MEN IN QUOTES, a loose ethnographic study of contemporary masculinity, is excerpted at the novel’s end. Photographs here provide a basis for self-image and self-reflection, and Tillman seesaws between an analysis of physical pictures and an examination of the ways we picture ourselves and others.

“Photographs render worlds,” writes Tillman, and so from the outset Zeke’s world is constructed from photographs — or rather, from the medium of photography itself. “I wished upon the first star that winked at me in a black sky: preserve me, keep me safe,” he recalls, in the hope he might never grow older. Zeke soon learns that photographs cheat the aging process: “At nine I stared at pictures of Mother when she was nine, so cool, Mother, Ellen, a girl, and only I alone could force a Mother into Being.” They give him the power of time-travel, the ability to surround himself with people plucked from the past, like bugs encased in amber. His mother deems him morbid, for she understands photography’s relationship to death, something Zeke discovers only later. The episode recalls Roland Barthes’s photograph of his mother as a five-year-old, which he describes in Camera Lucida (1980) as collecting “all the possible predicates from which [her] being had been constituted,” a total image that rehearses her eventual death while freezing her in suspended animation.

Boy Zeke is a loner, more content to keep company with the dead. Close family and friends appear in static snapshots: “I see the barbecue pit, my father disdainfully flipping burgers.” His narration grows so detached, he calls his kin “the family,” and he refers to his sibling as “Little Sister” in a tone less autobiographical than anthropological. When Zeke’s father dies, his ambivalent eulogy is abruptly intercut with a paean to Polaroid film, which ceased production that same year; he understands his father’s impatience and materialism through the immediacy of the film he once favored.

Zeke’s one close live friend, Mr. Petey, is a praying mantis he spots in the family garden. A flighty endangered species with a talent for camouflage, Mr. Petey is the consummate observer, seeing more than his human neighbors while remaining unaware of ecological threats to his survival. If photography allows Zeke to trap metaphorical bugs, Mr. Petey is one he cannot catch (praying mantises are protected by federal law); but he keeps him in plush effigy, a stuffed witness to the Stark family drama. Mr. Petey might just stand in for a film camera, a mute super-eye threatened with extinction.

When Zeke finally gets his own camera, it gives him a sense of dominion over the world — the feeling it can be captured, developed, cataloged. “I wasn’t into the mechanics of cameras — lenses, focal length, speed — just the imagination behind the camera — me,” he recalls. “I was engaged in me, what was before me, which became a strange ownership, probably symptomatic or evidence of a little person’s pride in what he believes he controls. Silly tot.” His recollection of childish entitlement, which could portend an artist’s ego, is actually the admission of someone terrified by fate’s unphotographable power. What lies beyond the frame always determines what fits within it.

  III.

Framing, and the framed, are central to Lynne Tillman’s writing, which ranges freely across genres, from fiction to art to literary criticism. Among my favorite of her creations is Madame Realism, a sage proxy who browses exhibitions at art and historical museums, often addressing the signage and lighting with the same perspicacity as she does the objects on display. From the moment she appeared in a 1986 column in Art in America, Madame Realism made criticism personal, its analysis situated in real space trafficked by real people. In a form of critique reminiscent of Andrea Fraser’s early performances, her observations at once lance visible institutional biases and the hidden forces that instill them. She teaches us how to look, while revealing why we see what we do. Zeke Hooper might be Madame Realism reincarnate: his monologue is an essay, a theory of photography, that reveals as much about its author (Zeke? Lynne?) as it does about our acculturation by images.

Thirty-seven, white, male, and heterosexual, from an upper-middle-class family in the Boston suburbs, Zeke is the kind of guy who likes to hear himself talk. He often concludes self-lacerating statements with “kidding,” a verbal tic that seems somewhat insincere. As he considers the “glut of images” in which we live, his own mind comes to resemble that glut. Personal digressions suggest an intelligent polymath with an empathy problem, too aloof to relate to those closest to him. The novel’s facts start to seem suspicious; Zeke’s research for MEN IN QUOTES is strung through with joking asides and anecdotes that would surely invite academic scorn. Men and Apparitions is a work of fiction as ventriloquy by a winking puppet. If it is criticism, too, it knowingly undermines its own arguments. “A photograph doesn’t speak,” notes Zeke. “If it did it would be just another unreliable narrator.” What else is there?

Good writers are always ethnographers of a sort. They study human behavior in minute detail, connecting actions with their motivations, cultural forms with their social function. Writers are also always untrustworthy. Bias is a fact of writing as much as perspective is a quality of sight. “I don’t pretend I’m ‘just’ an observer,” Zeke proclaims. “In the field, ethnographers become engaged, entranced, involved, even entangled.” Tillman, Zeke, and their readers are both looking and being looked at. This book’s lens is also a mirror.

  IV.

Am I a “New Man”? A list of possible criteria, drawn up from Men and Apparitions: self-avowedly feminist, emotional, alienated, resistant to stereotypical gender roles, intimidated by machismo. Perhaps. “New Men” are Zeke’s subject of study for MEN IN QUOTES, though he clearly counts as one, too. He sets out to explore “what are ‘men’ now, after the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s, feminism, generally, how has that changed us, in what ways, and the women we know and love or hate, and what do we want from women.” The sample of men he interviews is self-selecting, composed of familiar peers. His true subject, it seems, is himself: “I could shape myself into an ethnographer without a knowing attitude, and could learn as much about my own as ‘the other,’ or discover the other inside.” At his core, Zeke feels alienated by society’s expectations of men, as if his privilege affords him no feeling of ownership over the world he was meant to master.

Zeke craves intimacy with women and is drawn to their strength, but he is ultimately more comfortable keeping them at a distance. The women he understands best live in silver gelatin: a long portion of the novel is dedicated to Clover Hooper Adams, a distant relative and amateur photographer, whose work was much acclaimed by her circle of New England patricians, including close confidant Henry James. There’s evidence James based his “Pandora” (1884) on her, a whip-smart, creative “New Woman” to match Zeke the New Man. Several of Clover’s photographs appear here, along with excerpts from letters she wrote to family and friends. Zeke wonders if he inherited his love of photography from her, though they more clearly share a sense of alienation from the world around them. Unappreciated by her husband, who disapproved of her practice, Clover killed herself one morning in 1885 by drinking photochemicals. Zeke suggests many causes for her gruesome suicide, but we are left to wonder if she wasn’t killed by photography itself, and the emotional space it forced between her and the people she captured. “Like a pair of binoculars with no right or wrong end, the camera makes exotic things near, intimate; and familiar things small, abstract, strange, much farther away,” Susan Sontag wrote in On Photography (1977). “It offers, in one easy, habit-forming activity, both participation and alienation in our own lives and those of others — allowing us to participate, while confirming alienation.” For Clover, as for Zeke, that psychic distance becomes too great to bridge.

Zeke’s infatuation for Clover grows when his wife, Maggie, leaves him for his best friend. Maggie appears throughout the novel only as a kind of cipher, thinly described, an image lacking true life. Zeke cannot perceive the emotional needs of the woman beside him and so returns to the company of a woman who cannot object to his advances. “I fell in love with an essentially always unavailable woman, the image of a beloved,” he laments. Photographs, unlike human beings, can’t betray us.

Recent conversations around sexual harassment and assault have focused on men as individual perpetrators but rarely have examined the broader cultural conditions that shape their relationships with women. It’s worth treating the first post-feminist generation of adult males as a test case for long-term solutions to the problem. If Zeke is a New Man in search of New Women, his notional feminism isn’t backed up by behavior. He still lacks empathy. He hates having his intellectual authority questioned. He idealizes a certain image of femininity, but lays blame when women don’t conform. The New Man is a paradox: self-aware of his privilege, and evaluative of his masculinity, but forced by analysis into a state of detachment that strains emotional engagement. He can talk the talk, but so what? All leftist politics face this same challenge, to move beyond the mere assimilation of radical discourse and into the realm of real action.

Tillman is 71, but she delves deeply into the psychology of a man half her age. In many ways, Men and Apparitions is a portrait of Generation X: caught between the analog and the digital, economic prosperity and recession, the sexually objectifying gender stereotypes of the Bush-Clinton years and the Obama-era gender revolution, Gen-X men are cleaved by history, left raw and ready for the malaise of middle age. Zeke’s world, and its expectations of him, have changed as rapidly as photography. He feels endangered, a Mr. Petey past his prime. The part of him left behind, wounded by cultural obsolescence, is perhaps his true “other inside.”

  V.

One recent gray afternoon, I found myself on the fifth floor of the Whitney Museum, in New York, browsing Zoe Leonard: Survey, an exhibition of the American artist’s nearly 40-year practice. On a quiet wall facing the Hudson River, as bright and colorless as a mirror, hung five photographs of photographs: portraits of a woman in a dark coat, silhouetted against the deck railing of a ship as it passes the Statue of Liberty. Across these five frames, the same two pictures repeat, as though Leonard’s film had been jammed. In one, the woman faces Liberty, while in the other, she looks slightly askance. Photographed on tables wrapped in crinkled white butcher paper, they appear worn by human touch, as if cut from the jaundiced innards of a family album. Leonard found them while looking through her mother’s pictures, and they show her grandmother as she first arrived in the United States after the long sea voyage from Poland. I think of my mother’s text message: a photograph of a photograph, its physicality preserved while also flattened. Leonard’s photographs have a metonymic quality, like tender relics of a relative she hardly knew, realer now than the person they capture.

Zeke Hooper is a picture of pictures, an amalgamation of the images he so hungrily consumes. “I’m a picture to myself, a mental image,” he remarks, “but when I look in the mirror, I don’t know that person.” The central crisis of Men and Apparitions is Zeke’s inability to match his own self-conception, a crisis that pervades our social media age. The self-representation Leonard so poignantly foregrounds has since been sapped of its agency, subjected to the manic expectations of a society reprogrammed by digital images’ instantaneous circulation. Our public personae are now simulacra, crafted to appeal to specific audiences and subject to constant reformulation. We snap, we look, we share, we move on. “For ethnology to live, its subject must die,” Jean Baudrillard wrote in Simulations (1983), and so now we die every day. Zeke’s melancholic obsession with analog photographs is also a refusal to let a part of him go that must expire so that photography can survive. New Men need New Pictures.

I return to my mother’s photograph, or my pixelated version of that glossy object. How does it suggest I can emulate my grandfather, while learning from his mistakes? He belonged to another era of masculinity, and so the image makes me think of my relationship to my mother, my mother’s to my father, my father’s to my sisters. Each time I look at it, I force my nine-year-old mother into being, hold her, giggling, all to myself. I imagine how Barthes felt about that portrait of his mother, how he saw her whole life in its fragment. Zeke would cherish my photograph, too, and its false promise to make sense of the past. “The self is a necessary fiction,” he observes. I love that fiction; I need it. It is Lynne Tillman’s true genre, her subject, her muse.

¤

Evan Moffitt is a writer and critic based in New York. He is the associate editor of frieze.

¤

Banner image from Diego de Silva.

The post A Necessary Fiction: Photography and Self-Image in Lynne Tillman’s “Men and Apparitions” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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[thelondonfilmschool]

LFS provided the creative environment and network of mentors and peers who helped me find my voice, and taught me to trust it.

Monica Santis graduated from the London Film School in 2016, and her graduation film ‘Hacia el Sol’ (Towards the Sun) is currently touring the festival circuit, the highlight of which has been a double win in her home town at the Academy award-qualifying Austin Film Festival. Following a recent screening and nomination for Best Editing at London’s Underwire Festival, we caught up with Monica while she was back in town to talk about making a film about unaccompanied migrants in Trump’s America, why we need festivals like Underwire now more than ever, and what it’s like when your producer is also your Mum …

Sophie McVeigh: Could you explain the story behind Hacia el Sol?

Monica Santis: It’s about a 12-year-old girl named Esmerelda who has recently been placed at a shelter for unaccompanied immigrant children in Texas, and the film is about how she reclaims her voice through her artwork in the midst of the looming threat of deportation. She’s gone through a very traumatic border crossing and we see her confront her scarring past and take the first steps towards healing. She’s a girl whose voice has been silenced by violence, so she doesn’t open up because she’s traumatized. This was my graduation film, shot in Austin, my home town, and I got to work with a fantastic local cast and crew, and I brought several key LFS crew members because I love them and we work really well together, so I wanted them to be a part of this journey with me. My first AD was Andres Salas who is extremely hardworking, talented, and so positive. He has a great attitude, so I knew he would take on the challenge of running a set with up to 100 extras at one time! I’ve got to give a major thanks and congrats to the entire production team for working hard to coordinate that scale of a shoot. My DOP was Zeta Spyraki, and she was so grounded, disciplined, and creative. It was so special to work with a strong woman; Zeta is a true leader and artist and I loved collaborating with her.  The film’s camera operator was the wonderful Mark Kuczewski, who directed ‘Happy Anniversary’, the first AC was Stephen Glass, the gaffer was Sebastián Lojo and the sound recordist was Heikki Simppula … so all phenomenal filmmakers. I was truly blessed to have a lot of talented fellow LFS students/friends there! I co-wrote the script with Elie Choufany, who is an alum of the LFS Screenwriting program (Cohort 9). We met my first year at LFS, and we just clicked and became really good friends and collaborators. We had worked together on several LFS course exercises, so we had developed a good working relationship and I admire him as a writer. I was so lucky to work with a cast and crew who poured their heart into this film.

S.M: What inspired the story and why did you want to make it?

M.S: In 2015, I visited a shelter for unaccompanied minors who had been placed there after being detained by border patrol on the United States-Mexico border. I went with an organization that runs shelters throughout Texas/Arizona—their aim is to reunify kids with their family members in the USA and provide humanitarian services. The shelter supplies housing, educational courses, legal representation, medical attention and emotional support. Their goal is to provide a home-like environment. I was moved by the sense of community and support from both children and adults. The majority of the kids are fleeing violence in their home countries and are desperately trying to reunify with family in the USA and seek refuge. As I sat and spoke with kids and shelter staff, I was particularly moved by stories about healing. A majority of children had survived an extremely traumatic border crossing and encountered violence and abuse along the perilous way. It broke my heart and motivated me to write this story; what I observed truly stirred me into action. I observed how a lot of children were in limbo as they waited - waiting to see what the uncertain future holds for them, waiting to hear from family, waiting for good news, waiting and anticipating bad news. I wanted to explore the point of view of a girl who had recently arrived, and I wanted to take the audience on an emotional journey with her as she takes her first steps towards integration and healing---in doing so, I wanted to humanize and create compassion around the immigration debate, which is being heavily politicized in the US. I wanted to shed light on a resilient community of children who deserve our support and deserve to feel safe.

S.M: What made you choose art as a way to tell Esmerelda’s story?

M.S: I remember walking through one of the shelters, and I thought that it would look bleak like the horrible detention centers that I’ve seen in the media. But it didn’t. It popped with color. There were murals, decorations and artwork that kids had drawn adorning the walls. I paused and looked at a drawing that caught my eye - a ten-year-old girl had drawn a beautiful, colorful hummingbird and she had written ‘May joy find you wherever you are.’ And I thought, my God, in the midst of all of this, all the struggle, the fear about an unknown future, this girl had drawn something really beautiful and hopeful. I thought, where is she now? What’s her story? Is she ok? I hope she’s safe, I thought. As I observed and connected with staff at the shelter, they told me heartbreaking stories of kids enduring physical and emotional abuse, of survival and facing death, of kids almost dying in the desert, running away from human traffickers, and crossing the border alone which appears in the film at one point in the drawing reveal sequence. We incorporated these details into the story. Since film is a powerful visual medium, I thought the drawing process would be therapeutic for Esmeralda’s initially withdrawn character, and that the drawings could speak for her.

S.M: Had you started working on the film before the current administration came into power, and do you think it’s had more resonance with audiences as a result of Trump’s presidency?

M.S: Story development and principle shooting took place during the Obama administration, but as we entered post production, and as the election fervor was gathering momentum, yes, I changed my approach because of Trump’s anti-immigrant, racist campaign rhetoric. I thought, should I discuss deportation very directly? Do we call out the monster or do we examine that in a more subtle way? But then I decided to insert the word ‘deportation’ in post because I saw that Trump was probably going to be the next president. To clarify, the Obama administration deported thousands of people, but Trump has run a campaign that cruelly depicts immigrants as the ‘other’, ‘the rapists’, ’the bad hombres’, and he has used that fear to stir up his supporter base. It’s a scary time in the US for undocumented kids/families, and I remember sitting with James Hynes, the film’s sound designer, and we just looked at one another somberly and said ‘yep, the word deportation needs to be included because it’s a palpable fear now that’s going to get worse’. In the festival circuit, during Q and As, we’ve had really good discussions where people are genuinely distraught and had no idea that thousands of kids were fleeing violence at immigration shelters. Generating this discussion about immigration is important because we’re talking about vulnerable kids, so actively creating awareness, compassion and understanding has become more crucial than ever now.

S.M: Was this your mom’s first time producing?

M.S: She had helped me produce a couple other smaller scale short films – as an independent filmmaker, you can’t help but get everyone you know on board in some capacity! (laughs) So, she had helped before and she’s a strong business woman; she’s CEO of a company, so she’s very on it! Those management and leadership skills came into great use, and she deeply cares about the kids at the shelters and knows the topic well, so she was outstanding. We learned a lot together throughout the process. I think she finally understands why I would be exhausted at the end of every shoot (laughs). She was super-Mom, always making sure plenty of food was provided and she recruited a huge amount of extras so I was really impressed. She did a really amazing job, especially for her first big producing role. I love my mom, she’s the best.

S.M: Has she been on the festival circuit with you?

M.S: She’s extremely busy, but we went to the Austin Film Festival screenings together which was great and a very moving experience for both of us. Zeta, Elie, and I got to attend the world premiere at Palm Springs ShortFest together which was truly awesome and memorable. Elie then flew in for the Austin Film Festival. Karen Garcia Cruz, the phenomenal leading actress, and her sister, the super talented Daniela Garcia Cruz, who plays Maria the new girl, got to watch the film with their whole family and with a full house at AFF. The screening was sold out, so that was a special day for all of us. We won the Jury Award for Narrative Student Short and the Hiscox Audience Award for Narrative Student Short at AFF. We won twice which was amazing – the best a student film could hope to do there. It means that people truly connected with Esmeralda’s story, and I am so grateful to the AFF jury, programmers, and audiences that supported us. What a surreal and truly wonderful experience. I’m so proud of our team.

S.M: Did it mean even more considering it’s your home town?

M.S: Yes! My heart was just so full. My passion for film grew there. The Austin film community helped develop my creativity, and to win at AFF was such an honour. I used to go to their screenings and dream about being a part of it someday. ‘Towards the Sun’ is still on the festival circuit now. We just got into another really great festival that I can’t announce yet! We still have a couple to hear back from, so stay tuned - some that are in US border states, which I’d love to screen at since I feel like audiences would particularly understand and connect with the story. I’d really like to be there to generate discussion and help create awareness about the plight of unaccompanied minors, so fingers crossed.

S.M: Could you tell me a bit about your background before you ended up at London Film School?

M.S: I’m first generation in the States, so my mom immigrated from Peru and my dad immigrated from Chile. I’m proud of my South American roots, and I was born and raised in Austin, Texas. I worked at the Austin Film School for several years as the Director of Outreach and it further sparked my passion for filmmaking. While I was there I helped develop the Cine Joven: Filmmaking in Spanish program for young filmmakers. I met a lot of talented kids, and I’ve always been an advocate for children’s rights so after working with them, I followed that interest and my interest in US-Latin America international policy and decided to attend The George Washington University Elliot School of International Affairs to get my Masters in Latin American & Hemispheric studies, focusing on anthropology, sociology and history. My thesis capstone project had to do with researching/creating awareness about human/child trafficking in Puerto Rico. I went into it thinking I might want to go work for the State Department or Unicef, and I respect everyone who went that route, but then I missed writing creatively. I watched a lot of documentaries about human rights while I was at GW, and I realized how powerful films are and I wanted to make an impact that way.  So, I went back to filmmaking and joined the Documentary Film Institute at George Washington University. I learned a great deal there, and I’m still in touch with peers and the amazing mentors who jumpstarted my return to filmmaking. From there I thought I really needed to catch up and get more technical training because I was making a big career change.  So, while I was visiting a friend in London, I immediately fell in love with the creative energy of the city, so I started researching film schools and found LFS. I loved LFS’s mission, and I highly respected the filmmakers that have come out of LFS, so I applied and was so happy to get in. I really liked this idea of organically finding your voice, getting to try out different roles and shooting on film stock.  So I thought, ok, let me give this a whirl. It was the best decision I’ve ever made because the amount of personal and creative growth I experienced during my time at LFS was just amazing.

S.M: How did you find adapting to life in London, coming from sunny Texas?

M.S: It’s a little drearier, obviously, but I didn’t mind it! I did miss my family, but thankfully I was able to make friends quickly. I openly embraced London, and I really loved the creative, bustling lifestyle here. I felt an instant click from the moment I landed, and I miss the film community here obviously, hence why I try to come back so often!

S.M: What’s the most important thing you learnt at LFS?

M.S: LFS provided the creative environment and network of mentors and peers who helped me find my voice, and it taught me to trust that voice. It brought out a confidence in me, towards the end there especially, that I didn’t know I had and that I was searching for.  Being supported by teachers and peers that love the craft as much as I do created a strong sense of community to collaborate and grow with. I loved analyzing and being exposed to new films, styles, techniques.  As a result, I was able to expand my mind, really open my heart and put it into the work. That invaluable network of storytellers/collaborators continues to inspire me, and I truly cherish the LFS community.

S.M: Your background has obviously had a lot of influence on the kind of stories you want to tell, but did you find that the people you met at LFS also had an impact on how you tell them?

M.S: Yes, I was constantly learning from my teachers and peers. I loved the fact that LFS is so international, and I wanted to meet people with different perspectives and different backgrounds but with a similar passion for filmmaking. I wanted to meet and learn from fellow story tellers from all over the world. That was a big selling point for me and why I chose to apply to LFS, because I value diversity. I found it incredibly enriching.  

S.M: You’ve recently screened Hacia el Sol at Underwire in London, which is a festival that promotes the work of female filmmakers. Do you think it’s even more important, given the current climate, that we have these kinds of festivals?

M.S: Yes, definitely. The patriarchy is real and we gotta take it down! The industry is extremely unequal, and women have been systemically undervalued and denied the same opportunities that men get; women deserve representation and to have their voices amplified. At the opening screening at Underwire, I heard someone say something to the effect that, as a woman, it’s important to remember that you have a right to claim your space in the filmmaking industry. To be honest, I got chills. It was a good reminder that we don’t have to make ourselves small, we can claim that space and demand respect. I felt such a surge of empowerment, and I felt so happy that Underwire exists, because they’re creating a space to recognise, support, encourage and celebrate female filmmakers. By the way, we need more female directors and DPs! It was so inspiring to be at festival screenings with up to 80% women in attendance; I felt so honored to be in solidarity with such talented women. When there’s an unequal power dynamic and when abusive men like Harvey Weinstein exist, I believe festivals like Underwire are crucial in helping bridge that inequality gap and creating a safe space for women to learn and grow.

S.M: Do you think that had an influence on the atmosphere at the festival, coming so soon after what’s been happening in Hollywood?

M.S: I think it must have. This was my first time at Underwire so I can’t compare, but I felt that beautiful feminist warrior spirit in full force. In line with the #metoo movement, there were a lot of women fearlessly speaking their truths and sharing their stories on screen. One of the filmmakers at the festival noted how it’s important for women to feel more empowered to just express themselves freely, not be perfectionists as society has conditioned many to be, and just say what you’ve got to say! That spirit of speaking your truth and being your authentic self was really shining through at screenings and in discussions.

S.M: What are you working on at the moment?

M.S: Right now, I’m working on a short script from a similar world to Towards the Sun, so another kid’s perspective in a shelter. And then I’m slowly developing the idea of a feature length story within that world, about unaccompanied minors. That’s in early stages of development, and otherwise I freelance edit. I edited a short documentary that’s currently in the festival circuit called ‘An Uncertain Future’, which was directed by Chelsea Hernandez and Iliana Sosa, produced by Firelight Media and Field of Vision, which is Laura Poitras’s production company. So that was a really cool experience as an editor, to be getting notes from Laura Poitras! I learned a lot!

S.M: Was editing a skill you learnt at LFS?

M.S: I began learning on Final Cut Pro at the GW Documentary Film Institute. LFS gave me many opportunities to edit, and I learned a great deal from the amazing teachers in the editing department. I edited in terms one through three, but I learned the most in term 3 when I edited ‘How We Are Now’, directed by Andrea Niada.  Since there’s so much footage to work with in documentary, the editing process was a true lesson in how to craft the story through the edit.  

S.M: What’s your process as a writer? How do you balance your work and your time to be creative?

M.S: I’m actually in the writing process right now. It can be tricky to fit everything in, so I make sure to write something every day, whether that’s a line or a scene. I try to make sure I keep the inspiration flowing, because writers’ block can happen so easily! I aim to find that kernel of inspiration and make sure that I’m constantly reminding myself why I’m telling a certain story. When things get hard, I remind myself what the heart of the story is and that motivates me to keep going.

 Keep up with Hacia el Sol’s progress on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HaciaElSolFilm/ and Twitter: https://twitter.com/HaciaElSolFilm and watch the trailer: https://vimeo.com/226004442