Youth Advocacy
Youth Advocacy
Year 3, Week 341 (231 total reports)
12.11.2024-20.11.2024
REVIEW and ANNOUNCEMENTS
Curiosity… that’s the primary theme this week, how do you awaken it? How do you pass it on to a new generation?
Song of the Week
If you haven’t had the time, I hope you will take a moment to review my latest musical compilation, “Resistance, Resilience.” The songs are designed to build hope, and yes… to fortify resistance to the election results we have just witnessed. Many of the songs are designed to help co-regulate young people negotiating their emotions, others were made to offer an emotional support for those feeling down or oppressed at this time.
You can get the compilation for free at the following link:
Top Links of the Week
20.11.2024
How the Science of Curiosity Boosts Learning
Imagine the goal of education to be “creating wonder.” How would that change the entire system? The way we hire and evaluate teachers—and students? It’s important to remember that healthy children come to us full of wonder—that is their gift to us. It should be the goal of every school to graduate students that say, “I’ve learned a lot, but there’s so much more to find out!!!”
19.11.2024
Traffic on Bluesky, an X competitor, is up 500% since the election. How will it handle the surge?
If, post-election, you are looking for an alternative to X (formerly—and still really known as—Twitter) try Bluesky. I have found it is an exceptional alternative without the messy fingerprints of E. Musk on every link. If you want to connect with me on there, my username is @docjerr.bsky.social. Hope to see you.
18.11.2024
Why Simon Sinek Is Obsessed With Friendship
Isolation and loneliness, the upcoming administration has reveled in these twin weapons—and yes, they are weapons. The more isolated we feel, the more helpless we feel and the less we want to involve ourselves in true acts of justice, or even simple acts (like voting). Simon Sinek has a credible answer, form communities. Communities of compassion, not built upon the “likes” of social media, but upon the deep intimacy of sharing. This is a critical time to seek out Givers of Hope and bond to them. Who will be in your community? Sadly, churches used to fulfill this role, but they chose dogma over community and lost their relevance. However, we still need to gather, not to trade myths, but to deepen hope and compassion.
17.11.2024
Trump’s New York Sentencing Must Proceed
Is a criminal above the law because he has money? Is a criminal above the law because he has power? We are about to see. Will the charges against Trump be dropped because he is President-Elect? How would that make the US Government any different than a dictatorship? It wasn’t Democrats who found Trump guilty, it was a jury of his peers. The rest of Americans would be sentenced for the crimes he committed. Is this man different? Is he indeed above-the-law?
16.11.2024
Get Ready for Higher Food Prices
Apparently, a lot of people—when they voted for T-Rump—didn’t understand the deceptions of his economic policies, if not the outright “kindergarten” approaches to economics and international relationships. Given that, we need to prepare for an economy where food prices are going sky high, as well as prices for other necessities—housing, automobiles, taxes. A trade war will soon be ignited, medicare and social security will go bankrupt. Most people will lose their health care and education will become Christian Nationalist dogma. The GOP will have no one to blame because they control the administrative, congressional, and judicial branches of congress. Tighten your belts folks, this ain’t gonna be pretty.
15.11.2024
The Benefits of Dopamine
Short-Term dopamine rushes are what keep people glued to their social media. The ability to substitute these rushes is essential to a healthy life. This article looks at how to help yourself and others replace the compulsive need to keep “clicking.” Notice the words I’m using here, Substitute and Replace, not cease and desist. Compulsive or addictive behaviors are not terminated without a substitution. This article looks at long-term solutions (replacement therapy) to the constant nagging demands of dopamine rushes.
14.11.2024
Steve Jobs Said Great Ideas and the Success That Follows Come Down to 2 Simple Words
I wont ruin the surprise “Two Words” the author quotes, but they are timeless and applicable to all learners and leaders. A great read…
13.11.2024
Storytelling, Not Stages, to Combat Grief
The work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross provided a watershed for understanding the process of grieving. The key was that the stages were never meant to be concretized and some people interpreted them that way believing, “You must go through this stage to get to the next stage.” The messy reality of grieving is that it is not that simple, people may wander from stage to stage as if they were permeable and nothing in human behavior is truly linear. It doesn’t account for outside forces that can send shockwaves into the pretty patterns of stages in which we would like people to fit and thus some see those grieving from a lens of “how do I move this person to the next stage—and finally out through the final stage of Acceptance. The research in this article reveals that the key to helping those grieving is storytelling. In truth, all of life is a narration—including and especially—our own self-concepts. Helping someone grieve is helping them narrate a new story of life without the object of their grief. What is my new story going to be? What will my life look like now? How do I cope with this loss? All of these questions are answered in story form before living them. Our role (if we are assisting) is to co-narrate the story through patient and focused listening. It is not pretty, it is not linear. It takes time and attention to help someone narrate a new story that encompasses their loss.