Leading With a Culture of Caring: Ways to Create Identity Safe Spaces at Home and School

Debbie Zacarian and Becki Cohn-Vargas When Francisco Lopez was twelve, he and his parents moved from Santiago, Brazil, to a small town in Massachusetts, where his father began working as a Portuguese professor at a university.  Accompanied by his parents, Francisco enrolled in a local middle school, where his father …

Introducing Identity Safety at Home and School: Partnering to Overcome Inequities

Becki Cohn-Vargas and Debbie Zacarian The practice of identity safety is critical to educators’ ongoing quest to create spaces where every child feels welcomed, supported, and validated, and where they can embrace and celebrate their diverse social identities. Renowned social psychologists and educational scholars have heralded this transformative approach- which …

Teaching MLs Podcast with Tan Huyhn on Identity Safe Spaces

Tan Huyhn, Becki Cohn-Vargas, and Debbie Zacarian This podcast, hosted by Tan Huynh, provides a window into the book Identity Safe Spaces at Home and School: Partnering to Overcome Inequity. Co-authors Becki Cohn-Vargas and Debbie Zacarian discuss the research on identity safety as it applies to multidiverse students. They also …

5 Essential Trauma-Informed Priorities for Remote Learning

By Debbie Zacarian, Lourdes Alvarez-Ortiz, and Judie Haynes As the COVID-19 pandemic upended communities worldwide, millions of educators moved at warp speed from gathering face-to-face to sheltering at home. In a matter of days, human connection required some type of device or a six-foot distance. Against this backdrop, children continue …

SUDDENLY TEACHING AND LEARNING FROM HOME DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

This was a week of online firsts- jumping into the deep end of our ‘online’ selves in ways familiar and new.  It leads us to a discussion about the virtues of students having a voice and choice in their online learning. experiences. Debbie: I had my first tele-health conference. It was …

Teaching and Supporting Students Living with Adversity

This new publication is being released in January 2020! “Teaching and Supporting Students Living with Adversity,” is a Quick Reference Guide. It includes six pages of key easy-to-implement K-12 instructional strategies for students living with trauma, violence and chronic stress. Filled with examples, it is now available for pre-order! TinyURL.com/yx52hn33

Five Elements of a Positive Classroom Environment for Students Living with Adversity

How many of us have been formally trained to teach students living with adverse childhood experiences? When we ask this question throughout the U.S., few educators raise their hand. However, according to the National Survey of Children’s Health, almost half of all U.S. children have experienced one or more types of serious …

Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students living with trauma, violence & chronic stress included in Hurricane Relief Effort

Honored that ASCDs Hurricane Relief Initiative includes our book. Here is information about it from ASCD.  “Purchase an ASCD book from our online store from now until October 31 and use promo code “RELIEF,” and ASCD will donate one trauma-related resource, such as Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, …

Teaching to Strengths: supporting students living with trauma, violence & chronic stress

TEACHING TO STRENGTHS:  SUPPORTING STUDENTS LIVING WITH TRAUMA, VIOLENCE, AND CHRONIC STRESS.  (co-written with Lourdes Alvarez-Ortiz and Judie Haynes) Half the students in U.S. schools are experiencing or have experienced trauma, violence, or chronic stress. Much has been written about these students from a therapeutic perspective, especially regarding how to provide …