#siyli

SIY @ Anoka-Ramsey Community College. January 2019. Coon Rapids, MN

SIY Practicum 3, at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, with Sheila!: Had an amazing first time in Minnesota - thank you for the warmth, welcome, friendship, and for a beautiful co-teaching experience. With gratitude and breath 🙏🏽📿 @searchinsideyourselfleadership @anokaramseycc

Arriving: 

Day 1:

Day 2: 

Exploring Minneapolis: 

SIY @ Marin Academy. January 2019. San Rafael, CA

Another Hip Hip Hooray 🎉🎈🎉 for SIY Practicum 2, at Marin Academy: A beautiful experience, tremendous growth edge, and so much FUN! ⭐️✨✨ T’was great to get to know Marin Academy’s faculty & alumni! And getting to work with Stephen again was pretty darn remarkable, too 🙌🏽 With gratitude and breath 🙏🏽📿 @searchinsideyourselfleadership @marinacademy​

SIY @ La Jolla Country Day School. December 2018. La Jolla, CA

A Hip Hip Hooray 🎉🎈🎉 for our first SIY practicum at La Jolla Country Day School! What a tremendous experience, with incredible staff, teachers, and administrators from the LJCDS community. Thank you Ms. Nordenger, for making it all possible, and thank you Stephen, for being an incredible co-teacher; With gratitude and breath 🙏🏽📿 @searchinsideyourselfleadership @lajollacountryday

La Jolla Country Day School. November 2018. La Jolla, CA

Over the past decade I’ve become fascinated by the characteristics of high-functioning school sites & organizations, and how we can create and sustain cultures of respect, curiosity, mindfulness, innovation, integrity, risk-taking, and healthy challenge.

“Do the students want to be here?” I’d always ask myself when working with a site. “Do the teachers want to be here?” “Is every child, regardless of background, or behavior, being treated with respect? Even when it seems like no one is looking?” And is this a place where truly *Everyone* feels safe speaking their mind?

One of the reasons I’m so exited about working with LJCDS @lajollacountryday is not only because it’s my Alma Matter (Woot Woot! 🤗) but also because of the school’s focus on Dignity — the commitment to cultivate a community of individuals who are able to see the worth, and value, in every person, and the worth and value in themselves. Beautiful.

I’m thrilled to be teaching my first SIY @serachinsideyourselfleadership practicum there with Stephen, next week! What is SIY, you might ask? — SIY is a neuroscience & mindfulness based emotional intelligence program developed within Google. It’s designed to help people manage stress, build focus, and sustain high performance, as well as support resilience, leadership, collaboration, and teamwork through empathy and compassion training — And we get to share it with Country Day! AND, I get to practice & develop my presentation skills :)

While my introvert-self got (maybe too) comfortable teaching dance over the past 7 years in the SFUSD @WEAreSFUSD, the idea of giving talks, or power point presentations has always felt a little intimidating —  it’s new, and different territory for me, indeed. However if there’s one thing I’ve leaned, it’s that I have a lot to say about what I’ve seen & experienced. And that through getting to work with & observe so many creative children over the years, the best way to work with fear is to do the things you’re afraid to do - over and over and over again. Until you’ve befriended them, until you’ve befriended your fear - and it no longer frightens you anymore.

That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to go from being a dance-teacher / introvert-down-low-researcher-and-ethnographer / person-who-only-shares-my-real-thoughts,-insights-and-observations-through-blogging to being a BOMB blazer-clad presenter! 👔👗💼💻👠 

It might take a few practicums to find my flow, and that’s OK. 

SIY. The Faculty Club. UC Berkeley. September 2018. Berkeley, CA

Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. September 2018. San Francisco, CA

Dear SIY Teachers & Teachers-In-Training,

Looking forward to seeing you all at our SIY Community Gathering on Thursday!

Two colleagues and myself will be leading a session titled “Creating A Culture Of Mindfulness Within An Organization”. In it we’ll explore what "Mindfulness" means in the workplace, and how it can help increase awareness of the gap that often exists between an individuals’ pursuit of wellbeing within an organization, and the organizations’ goals, often driven by productivity & profit. We will explore whether, and in what capacity, there can be alignment, and if so, how it can be cultivated and supported. 

We will also look at how we can respond to attempts of Mindfulness being used in organizations to assuage reactions to toxic work environments, and unhealthy work schedules & demands Vs. attempting to address & change the root causes of these problems….. And particularly in the field of Education, are we bringing mindfulness & Yoga into the classroom to get students to be more at peace with, and generate less push back to, unhealthy environments, unfair treatment, and bias teaching practices? How do we create better experiences for them, as well as for teachers, and simultaneously not gloss over “mis-behaviors” that are often a response to feeling unsafe, unheard, and not respected?

This session will take place at 1:30pm. 

Before hand, I will be teaching a dance called Freedom, for anyone interested. This is the same dance that was taught in April, during our in-person teacher training at Futures Without Violence. 

I look forward to seeing you there! :)

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The Program: 

.....

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A Few Photos From The Event. Thanks Miroo & Laura, for being wonderful co-teacher! 📚💡📿💪🏽

Dear SIY Teachers & Teachers-In-Training, 

I will be teaching the choreography to a dance called “Freedom”, set to the song Freedom by Pharrell Williams. We will dance for half an hour, for the latter part of lunch, beginning at 1pm. 

This is the same dance that was taught at the in-person teacher training back in April.

While there’s no need to prepare anything ahead of time, below is a video of the choreography, if you’d like to see the kind of movement we’ll be doing. 

Later in the afternoon, two colleagues and myself will be leading a session titled “Creating A Culture Of Mindfulness Within An Organization”. In it we’ll explore what "Mindfulness" means in the workplace, and how it can help increase the awareness of the gap that often exists between an individuals’ pursuit of wellbeing within an organization, and the organizations’ goals, often driven by productivity & profit. We will explore whether, and in what capacity, there can be alignment, and if so, how it can be cultivated and supported. 

We will also look at how we can respond to attempts of Mindfulness being used in organizations to assuage reactions to toxic work environments, and unhealthy work schedules & demands Vs. attempting to address & change the root causes of these problems….. And particularly in the field of Education, are we bringing mindfulness & Yoga into the classroom to get students to be more at peace with, and generate less push back to, unhealthy environments, unfair treatment, and bias teaching practices? How do we create better experiences for them, as well as for teachers, and simultaneously not gloss over “mis-behaviors” that are often a response to feeling unsafe, unheard, and not respected?

I look forward to seeing you there! :) 

Freedom:

Dance Notes For Freedom:

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