HWIS Head of School Blog
May 16, 2022
Parents have asked about technology and their children, particularly the use of smartphones, video games, and sites like TikTok. The New York Times is publishing a very good series on adolescent health. While direct proof is scarce, there are strong correlations between the rise of technology, less sleep, less in-person social life, and less outdoors with more depression among kids.Â
April 30, 2022
Read useful articles from a compiled list of informative resources from our Head of School, Nelyda Miguel.
January 30, 2022
On January 5, we held a webinar for parents led by Donna Skolnick, to discuss HWIS’ approach to developing writers. She discussed ways teachers and parents can encourage students to express themselves through writing and outlined a 4-step process whereby students pre-write, draft, review and edit in completion of a final piece. We highly recommend all parents review the video.
December 30, 2021
How do we teach our children to be successful? What does success look like? How do we help our children "function on the highest end of their scale (Dr. Vivek Murthy, Surgeon General)"? Watch this TED talk "The Happy Secret to Better Work".
December 6, 2021
In defining well-being, Dr. Murphy considers that part of thriving in life is doing the things that allow us to function on the highest end of our scale. These include being true to who we are, enjoying life, and contributing to society.
November 29, 2021
We want to celebrate, we want to honor people and history, and we want to be grateful. Yet, history is complex. Many holidays and celebrations overlook this fact. Understandably, it is easier to celebrate the surface story than it is to try to figure out how to incorporate context, and still celebrate. It is particularly difficult to do this with young students.
September 15, 2021
Tantrums are a stress response involving the "lizard" brain. The amygdala (emotions), and they hypothalamus (heart rate, temperature). Adults have similar responses, but our developed pre-frontal cortex helps us to regulate our reactions (most of the time).
September 10, 2021
For this Edutopia article, Stephen Merrill checked with a number of highly proficient teachers and collected seven comments they use to empower students and create a supportive classroom environment.
September 5, 2021
In a well-researched and well-linked opinion piece from NYT, Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist from NYU Stern School of Business (who I had the pleasure to hear at an NAIS conference a while back) and Jean M. Twenge..
September 1, 2021
As I watched our students joyfully and tirelessly playing with the bubbles emitted by a bubble machine on Saturday in our pumpkin festival, I remembered this TED talk about joy.