 Learning how to regulate our emotions is a critical skill that can help us in all areas of our life. We cannot control things that happen to us or the actions of others, but we can learn strategies to control and calm our reactions to them. The earlier we are able to practice and learn this important skill the better. Often when we help our youth to develop tools for self-regulation, it improves our ability to do this as we navigate our relationships with other adults.
At school and home we can develop a framework that encourages children to notice and name their feelings which then lays the foundation for this important skill. Using favorite characters in children's areas of interest, makes this work meaningful for them. Once children know how to name their feelings, they can then develop a toolbox of calming strategies that can help to bring them back to balance. Please visit our Self-Regulation for Success Page for some resources to support your work in teaching and developing these skills in the classroom or as a family at home. Dana Cope, President of Cope Consulting LLC is taking the leap from Summit Center to focus on her educational consulting practice full-time. Summit Center was her first experience working as a consultant in the private sector after spending 20 years as an educator within the public school system. She is appreciative of all that she has learned and the connections she has made during her collaborative partnership with Summit Center. If you would like to contact Dana, you can visit her website at www.danacopeconsulting.com or email her at danacopeconsulting@gmail.com  Cope Consulting will have a table at this NVUSD event on Saturday, April 16 that celebrates all of the resources our community has to offer. Together We Can Make What Seems Impossible, Possible! Please stop by and say hello.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1678413895759974/
HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND NEW YEAR FROM COPE CONSULTING LLC.
 Making the Vision of Advancing Learning for ALL a Reality
Monday, October 19, 2015, 7-9 p.m. BUSD Administration Building 2020 Bonar, Room 126 (enter Addison) FREE and open to all. Childcare and Spanish translation provided! Is it possible to create an educational system that can advance learning for ALL? Dana Cope believes, "Yes, we can!" Dana will share her story of how Napa Valley Unified's Advanced Learner Programs and Services was born and how it has evolved over the past 6 years to create a common language of how we can support the needs of the diverse learners in our classrooms. Join parents of BUSD staff for a conversation with Dana Cope about ways we can work together to support the needs of ALL of the students in ALL of our classrooms.  I believe we are at a pivotal time in history when educating and providing support to our youth needs to be thought of differently. To be able to change our educational paradigms created over the past 250 years we need to ask ourselves what problems keep coming forward. When it comes to labeling, we should ask, “What are the benefits of labeling?” “Is the label connected to a funding source that provides access to a needed resource, intervention, or opportunity?” “Does our labeling create an advantage or disadvantage for a child?” “Is a label needed to help bring about understanding of a child that has been misunderstood?” “If we apply a label, is it based on equality or equity?” Many families fight a diagnostic label because they feel that it creates a social disadvantage for their child. Other families seek a diagnostic label to receive help or access even though they aren’t sure what that support would look like or they want the status that comes with what a particular label provides. Either way adults are spending time in search of understanding and access to resources to help a child move forward academically and social-emotionally. The big idea from my perspective is that if the child has a need that is holding him or her back from moving forward, a system of understanding and support should be accessed. We spend so much time seeking a diagnosis or defining a qualification procedure to help decide whether resources should be given. Often feelings are hurt and time is spent showing ALL that is being done or blaming others for ALL that hasn’t been done. At the end of the day, we still have a child that is not moving forward. I have found that the best question to ask is “What is keeping you up at night?” We can then work as a team to find a resource or opportunity that can best address what is being reported by the child, parent, or teacher. We then can use our Student Success Team members to help come up with a plan of support that can be monitored and adjusted over time. Often if that layer is needed for one student, it is needed for others- so we are actually able to multiply support through this process! Our greatest challenges are the flip side of our most paramount gifts and strengths. Part of the journey of realizing our potential is to access support to conquer the challenge while at the same time having opportunities to move forward as needed. Flexibility is the key here and needs to be based on the needs of the child rather than conform to an established rule that is placing a road block to support or access. It is unfortunate to see families and schools at odds over a label. The time that is spent in meetings, writing reports, and documenting for fear of litigation takes away from the time that can be spent helping the child access resources to move forward. You may ask yourself, “How can this be done when most of our ‘out of the box’ thinkers are overwhelmed by all of the children they are trying to serve according to the laws and compliance pieces that are currently in place?” This tells me that our current system of providing support is not working and needs to be redefined.  As Albert Einstein said, "Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” I do understand that this is a complex issue where perspectives need to be looked at from all angels. This then brings us back to our questions about labeling. “What are the benefits of labeling?” “Is the label connected to a funding source that provides access to a needed resource, intervention, or opportunity?” “Does our labeling create an advantage or disadvantage for a child?” “Is a label needed to help bring about understanding of a child that has been misunderstood?” “If we apply a label, is it based on equality or equity?” Let’s take all of the effort we are spending in proving each other wrong and work together to find a structure of support that can ensure ALL of our children access. If we do this, together we could go beyond our limits and make what seems impossible, possible!
 "Over and over and over again, patterns are like that, like that my friend."
While teaching kindergarten I would sing this to my students so that they would start noticing all of the patterns that surround us in life. Patterns can be comforting as they are predictable and help us to know in advance what to expect. A type of pattern that we all experience at various times throughout our lives is transition. Transitions are changes to the predictable patterns that we find comforting. We leave our pattern of knowing to a new environment where we have to figure out a new pattern. One place that we can practice gaining comfort with transition is when our children are in school. Children enter kindergarten and move through the grades to middle school, high school, and beyond. Each school year brings a new teacher, new friends, new procedures and routines, and sometimes a new campus. What can we do as parents to ease the anxiety that surrounds transition?
Transitions represent the impermanence that life’s journey brings. Your child has you as a “guide on the side” for a short period of time. Each new school year offers an opportunity to practice. Let’s help our children see transition as a predictable pattern that they will experience over their life-time. Soon they will be singing, “Over and over and over again, transitions are like that, like that my friend.”  What are the educational and societal ramifications for comparing one individual to another? Children are born exuding their own unique sparkle and brilliance. Could all of our brilliant children be at risk for becoming ordinary unhappy adults because we try to fit them into a neat, tidy measurable box? This connects to a story that was once shared with me by one of my beloved mentors, Dr. Ashley Halliday. His story leans on our animal world to ponder these questions.
Sitting in an animal behavior class at Berkeley many years ago, and one of the students asked, "...So which is more intelligent, a dolphin or a dog?" And the instructor said, Remember that intelligence is a human construct. Right now, we think of intelligence in terms of a score on a test, called an IQ test. And we are all aware of shortcomings with that test in terms of cultural norms, population norms and things like that. So the real answer to your question is that a dog is much more intelligent at being a dog. And a dolphin is much more intelligent at being a dolphin." Looking at the cartoon above we can see how silly it is to ask all animals to take the same test. The monkey would look brilliant climbing that tree in this context. The bird would look amazing as long as she was allowed to fly to the top. Unfortunately, the exam says that she has to climb. That poor elephant, wolf, penguin, and seal would be best to hang out and avoid being seen as their physical characteristics would inhibit them from even attempting such a feat. And then you have the unfortunate little fish that could lose his life by being asked to take such an inappropriate test. Isn’t it silly that we ask all of our children to take the same standardized tests? If we continue to compare our youth to each other within the same context as the cartoon above illustrates, we will always have one that looks brilliant and another that looks striving. Could we be creating and perpetuating a self-fulling prophecy where one child leaves our educational system empowered and confident while another leaves hopeless and unsure of the gifts he/she has to share with the world? Even if a student leaves the system feeling confident based on their ability to pass a test, does that mean he/or she will be successful and happy in life? If we neglect the importance of supporting and guiding our youth to realizing and building their strengths and interests, we may lose the opportunity to delight in the potential gifts they have to share with the world. As a community we can redefine our educational constructs so that they nurture, develop, and highlight unique interests, strengths and passions each brings to this world. These self-actualized, autonomous learners might then be empowered to do their part to make our world a better place. |
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Cope Consulting LLC
To make an appointment, call 707-337-2940
or email danacopeconsulting@gmail.com
Together We Can Make What Seems Impossible, Possible!