Teachers Archives - Sound Discipline

It’s Teacher Appreciation Month and We See You

Teacher Appreciation messages from Sound Discipline Facilitators!

What a school year this has been! By many accounts, this year proved even more challenging than the previous two years, leaving many educators exhausted and discouraged. And yet, you keep showing up. You continue to be present and attentive to the needs of your students. Even though you may feel depleted, you keep dipping into a deep well of patience and commitment.

At Sound Discipline, we see you! We are grateful for all that you do. For Teacher Appreciation Month, we celebrate you for the heroes that you are!

Hopefully, your …

5 Simple Ways to Show Appreciation for Teachers (Anytime, Not Just the First Week of May!)

The first week of May is Teacher Appreciation week. It’s a great reminder to take a moment and show support for educators. They have such a profound impact on our kids and our world!

Ask any teacher and they will tell you that simple, heartfelt gestures go a long way. Here are several ways to show your appreciation, during Teacher Appreciation Week, or anytime:

1) Give them a handwritten a letter. In this difficult year, put your heart-felt thoughts in writing. What about your child’s teacher stands out? What does their work mean to your child and your family? Ask …

20Apr 2022 by Mary Power

Rooted Relationships

Connection, In the News, Relationships, Teachers

Everywhere I turn, now, I see the topics of trauma, restorative practice, and liberatory pedagogy, like mushrooms springing up in the deadwood and the decay of the factory model of education. I also see fear – of culturally responsive teaching, critical race theory, and even social emotional learning. The most neutral way to describe it is as a conversation about values. At Sound Discipline, we are in that conversation, about values, and about how to go deeper and be braver, how to show up with a vision that is big and powerful enough to meet this moment and accelerate change.…

07Apr 2022 by Mary Power

Orcas in the C’s at Lakeridge Elementary

Inspiring Stories, School Partners, Teachers

Lakeridge Elementary 1st grade Orcas who participate in the ‘Orcas in the Cs’ program.

For so many schools, it has been a tumultuous two years from school-on-a-screen to in-person learning. This is definitely the case for Lakeridge Elementary in the Renton (Washington) School District. For new 1st graders, school was in constant transition. Starting kindergarten on Zoom, they learned what it meant to be part of a classroom community through a screen. Later, when welcomed back into the school building as 1st graders for the first time in the fall of 2021, they began learning how to be part of …

The Surprising Benefits of Play in the Classroom

“Play is a strategy for learning at any age. While older students and their teachers might have more curricular demands than younger students, playful learning still has an important role to play…”

– Project Zero Researcher Mara Krechevsky, Harvard Graduate School of Education

After years of pandemic disruption, are we feeling pressure to catch students up? Are you wrestling with the gap between what you feel you must do, and what you know is best for your students?

Here are some ideas to hopefully lighten that load and remind you of something you probably already know. Learning is …

Developing Firmness Tools for Educators

When we can respond to students in ways that are both connected and firm, both adults and students benefit. But how do we do that?

Children need compassion and boundaries, connection and high expectations – at the same time. But most of us did not grow up with this model or learn it in our teacher training. The good news is that this is something we can learn, practice, and get better at until it’s second nature.

During COVID, we have been refining our course on this topic — our new online workshop Reimagining Resilience 2: Developing Firmness Tools offers …

Celebrating Black History Month with Tymmony Keegan

Tymmony Keegan, 10th Grade Humanities and Black Studies Teacher, Cleveland High School

What is your current position?

I am a teacher at Cleveland STEM High School in Seattle Public Schools. Previously I was a teacher at Dimmitt Middle School in the Renton School District – which had been great and I wanted new challenges. I am currently piloting a Black Studies class, which I jumped at the opportunity to teach. I also teach 10th grade Humanities.

I’m a member of Cleveland’s racial equity team, building leadership team and am the social studies department chair.

I started working with Sound Discipline …

16Feb 2022 by Mary Power

Lakeridge Elementary’s Journey

Inspiring Stories, Problem Solving, Race and Equity, Racial Justice, Teachers

What is it like to transform a school into a place where all young people feel they belong, they matter, and they can grow as learners?

Lakeridge Elementary, in the Renton School District, has been on just such a journey. In the spring of 2020, while navigating remote learning during school closures, the skilled Lakeridge data team, supported by Sound Discipline facilitators, decided to focus data collection on identifying patterns of racial disproportionality in discipline and identifying ways to develop a truly inclusive school community.

Analyzing Data and Looking for Patterns

A typical data team is made up of members …

Celebrating Black History Month with Anthony Ase

Anthony Ase, Secondary STEM Facilitator, Renton School District & Sound Discipline Board of Directors

What is your role in your school district?

I am a Secondary STEM Facilitator for the Renton School District. Essentially, I spent a lot of time in my own classroom getting things together for some years, and now I get to help other teachers set up their classrooms to achieve their goals.

My really big push this year is to help teachers to act as a facilitator – trying to facilitate conversation with students instead of conversation at students. I love being in the classroom …

The Great Reset

Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering, encourages us to enter into 2022 with conscious intention and in community. Recently, she discussed what she calls “the great reset” on Brené Brown’s podcast. What is the Great Reset?

Parker describes it this way: “We are in a moment of creation. And that is something that few generations get at this level…We are entering and building this new world…It is a radical time of makeover, of invention.”

What does radical reinvention look like in classrooms?

As overwhelming as that sounds, radical reinvention means small, simple; Like …