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Tag Archives: Psychology
Optimism About Positive Psychology
By Sarah Eslick, Associate Director of The Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning
Optimism About Positive Psychology
What allows humans to thrive? What conditions, actions, or qualities contribute to well being? How do we help kids become resilient?
Historically, the field of psychology has focused on mental illness. Depression, schizophrenia, and other disorders of the mind carried far more intellectual gravitas than the psycho-emotional characteristics that lead to happiness. Certainly these illnesses are less subtle, easier to categorize, label, and examine. In striking contrast, the field of positive psychology studies how people do well: how we cultivate positive emotions and optimism and how we develop grit and self-regulation. It explores how we benefit from resilience and gratitude while recognizing our (more…)
Makeup: Because You Are Worth It?
By Riona Reeves, VI Form
We live in a world of oxymorons. There is jumbo shrimp, bittersweet chocolate, civil war, so on and so forth. These types of amusing contradictions are harmless. Yet more concerning paradoxes are becoming increasingly apparent in daily life, especially for women.
Is it really so surprising that women have been deemed “complicated,” when they receive so many conflicting instructions on how to behave, look, and feel each and every day? Society tells them to stop (more…)
The ‘Cause’ in Teenage Angst
By Chris Wong, VI Form
“What’s your biggest fear about being a parent?” I naively asked, as my father and I were on our weekly father-son jog. My dad stopped jogging, and sighed. He wiped his brow of sweat with his shirt, before putting a hand on my shoulder. I looked up into his eyes with naïveté.
“叛逆期,” (Pànnì qī) he responded simply in Chinese, before continuing on with the jog.
The English translation for this word is ‘rebellious period’, or, often in colloquial terms, ‘teenage angst.’ (more…)
Stand Up and Be Counted: The Butterfly Effect
By Jeniene Matthews, English Faculty
If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything. ~Chaplain Peter Marshall
It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act. ~Dalai Lama
Can the flapping of a butterfly’s gossamer wings, which occur over a flowerbed in Texas, result in a snowstorm in Ireland? While I know it sounds like a ridiculous question, experts on the theory of chaos say yes, it can. This phenomenon even has a name: The Butterfly Effect. The flapping of the wings represents a small change in the initial state of the system (the weather), which causes a chain of events that can lead to a large-scale phenomenon (a snowstorm). This “Butterfly Effect” can also be analogized, I believe, to those little acts that we do that ripple out and make a difference whether we know it or not. It is the idea that everything is (more…)
Why You Should Study or Take Anthropology!
By Dr. Laura Appell-Warren, Director of Global Citizenship
Ever since I graduated from college I have been faced with the challenge of explaining what it is that I do. When I tell people that my field is anthropology, they almost always say something like this: “Wow, that is cool, what do you dig up?” or (and this is even worse) “Oh, just like Margaret Mead.” Now, I am NOT an archeologist so I never dig anything up (well maybe some worms in my new garden in Maine). And, while Margaret Mead may be a well-known female anthropologist, she is very controversial within the field and I would rather not be associated with her. Sometimes when I have energy I say that I am a psychological (more…)
Working with Working Memory
by Andrew Watson, President of Translate the Brain and Contributor to St. Mark’s Professional Development Through Sponsorship by The Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning
Here’s a quick exercise: think of a phone number you know well and say all ten digits out loud. (Go ahead, say ‘em. No one’s looking.) Now, say those ten digits in the reverse order. (Yes, you can do it.) Okay, say them in the reverse order: AND, add 1 to the first digit, 2 to the second, 3 to the third, and so forth…
Don’t feed bad that you couldn’t get all ten digits; Rain Man could, but practically no one else can. When you tried to do that mental work, you were using your working memory: a specialized cognitive capacity that simultaneously (more…)
iFortune
by Val Kessler, VI Form
Every coincidence is scientifically proven to be an outcome of probability. However, I do believe humans can interpret events into something meaningful. A given meaning will vary from person to person, depending on how he or she thinks and what is happening in his or her life at the moment of a coincidence. For instance, if someone is having a bad day and, as soon as the radio is turned on, a sad song plays, he or she may think of this as synchronicity, or the viewing of two events as connected, albeit they do not have a causal relationship and would not normally be related as meaningfully connected. Yet, if someone who was having a great day heard the sad song at the same time, also after (more…)
When “Critical Friends” Are Actually Appreciated
by Samantha Wilson, English Faculty
Who would ever want “critical friends”? Why would you willingly put your work out there when everyone could tear it apart? How could you listen as others discussed your lesson plan or assessment as if you weren’t even there?
These are just a few of the questions that might race through a teacher’s mind when faced with what are known as Critical Friends Groups, which bring anywhere from six to ten teachers together to critique and improve each other’s work on a regular basis using protocols. CFGs have been around since the mid-1990s and were first promoted by the (more…)
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