The Braemar Life Skills Academy Podcast

BLSA Podcast: Kate Mossop, Long Pham and Martha Nguyen – Community

Kate Mossop, Long Pham and Martha Nguyen – Community Episode Guests: * Kate Mossop: Director, Community Programming * Long Pham: Recreation Supervisor * Martha Nguyen: Children’s Program Coordinator One of the things most educators learn early in their careers is that the school is not an island. It is a nexus that connects the families, organizations, natural environment, values and history that comprise the culture in which it resides. If the stability or health of one of these suffers, the whole network suffers, and must martial resources to support the flagging member. Different communities have different nexuses; locations where their various subjects, interests and expressions meet. Sometimes these forces conflict. Sometimes they combine. At our best, we find compromise and coordination between them. But the interaction often relies on the quality of the space provided for it. These spaces come readily to mind: parks, town halls, pubs, sites of worship, and the afore-mentioned schools that most of us grew up in. In the early 20th century, the value of spaces like these was made explicit when Community Centres began to appear in the north-eastern U.S. (and maybe it’s not so coincidental that the first of these were hosted in school buildings [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_centre#:~:text=In%201916%2C%20with%20the%20foundation,four%20million%20people%20regularly%20attending.]). Since then, the presence of Community Centres in even small towns and villages has become nearly ubiquitous. It’s a real joy, and a lesson in humanity, to speak with the folks who give their time, energy and care to the operation of these centres. Listening to people like Kate, Long and Martha talk about the truly dizzying range of services, resources and spaces they offer our community is both humbling and inspiring. In this episode, we discuss how the University Settlement Community Centre in downtown Toronto strives to meet and adapt to the needs of our unique neighbourhood. The proportion of our neighbours who are newcomers and/or English-Second-Language (ESL) is larger than in most places, and the challenges they face are wide-ranging. Kate, Long and Martha spend their lives providing for these people, offering them routes to participation, contribution, recognition and, ultimately, belonging in our shared home. Anyone interested in community-building, whether in an educational context or otherwise, will find some actionable ideas and general wisdom in this episode to help them move their community in the direction of health, interconnectedness, openness and reciprocal care. And if you’d like to learn more about some of the specific ideas discussed in this episode, you can use the links below as your starting point: * University Settlement Community Centre [https://universitysettlement.ca/] * Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles [https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/neighbourhoods-communities/] * Maslow’s Hierarchy [https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.simplypsychology.org%2FMaslows-Hierarchy-of-Needs.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.simplypsychology.org%2Fmaslow.html&tbnid=v_QkQcP_CbtQ8M&vet=12ahUKEwi0vM_f4fn7AhWavHIEHVc8AlcQMygAegUIARDdAQ..i&docid=QfRGk3IYD817sM&w=2000&h=1052&itg=1&q=maslow%27s%20hierarchy%20of%20needs&ved=2ahUKEwi0vM_f4fn7AhWavHIEHVc8AlcQMygAegUIARDdAQ] * Dr. Susie Wise – Design For Belonging [https://www.designforbelonging.com/] * “Design for Community” [https://www.forbes.com/sites/nelldebevoise/2020/07/29/what-is-community-design-and-how-can-it-build-brave-spaces-with-heart/?sh=63c3ff7b35e6] WATCH ON YOUTUBE [https://youtu.be/fX1pgM1xbnM]   If you haven’t listened to our previous Podcast click here [https://braemarcollege.com/2023/02/08/blsa-podcast-2022-review-challenge-and-change-at-braemar-2/]

BLSA Podcast: Dr. Diana Brecher-North of Neutral

Dr. Diana Brecher – North of Neutral Dr. Diana Brecher is a clinical psychologist who has been working in the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Centre for Student Development and Counselling (CSDC) since 1991.  Diana’s long-standing interest and certification in Positive Psychology led to a shift in her role in 2016, whereby she started the ThriveTMU (formerly ThriveRU) [https://www.torontomu.ca/thriveru/] initiative and co-founded the Thriving in Action  [https://tia.ryerson.ca/]program. She is adjunct faculty in the Psychology dept. and in the MBA program. In this episode Dr. Brecher helped us to cover a range of topics that fall under the umbrella of Wellness theory, many of which are framed within the context of the recent global pandemic. Among these, we talked about the nature of Positive Psychology vs. Pathology-Oriented Psychology, the concepts of Languishing vs. Flourishing, the PERMA-V framework for wellness, Dr. Brecher’s Five-Factor model of Resilience, willpower strategies to help overcome procrastination, and how one might distill an awareness of one’s strengths using the example of previous challenges. Other topics and figures referenced in the episode can be found below, linked to resources for further exploration: * Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Founders of Positive Psychology) * Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis [https://www.happinesshypothesis.com/] * Emilia Zhivotovskaya – The Flourishing Centre [https://theflourishingcenter.com/about/your-tfc-team/emiliya-zhivotovskaya/] * Tim Pychyl – Procrastination [https://newsroom.carleton.ca/archives/2012/09/20/what-are-you-waiting-for-procrastination-deconstructed/] * Kristin Neff’s work on Self-Compassion [https://self-compassion.org/] * Angela Duckworth’s concept of Grit [https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-book/] * Christine Padesky’s “Personal Model of Resilience” [https://www.padesky.com/] from Mind over Mood [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108380.Mind_Over_Mood] * Dan and Chip Heath – The Switch [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6570502-switch] * Anti-Procrastination device: Assignment Calculator [https://www.torontomu.ca/tedrogersschool/success/learning/grade-calculator/]s Delving into the psychology of wellness, learning and personal growth can be daunting, but we’re lucky to have experts like Dr. Brecher to help guide us through the wealth of materials that are proliferating in these fields. The BLSA podcast is committed to providing as many conversations in this area as possible, and we look forward to much useful learning to come!   WATCH ON YOUTUBE [https://youtu.be/oYd-mL8Yhxg]   If you haven’t listened to our previous Podcast click here [https://braemarcollege.com/2023/01/18/podcast-rebecca-bitton-on-chronic-stress/]

BLSA Podcast: Rebecca Bitton on Chronic Stress

Miss Rebecca Bitton is an entrepreneur, educator, and mental health speaker. She has been the panelist speaker and former President of the MDAO (Mood Disorders Association of Ontario). She’s also been a panelist speaker at the OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) Work Life Balance Conference, Sunnybrook Hospital and many others. Rebecca addresses student and client needs by leveraging their strengths, building confidence, curing overwhelm and preventing burnout. In this episode, Rebecca unpacks the concepts of overwhelm and burnout, two expressions of what is increasingly understood as Chronic Stress. The conversation focusses on definitions, causes, symptoms, consequences, and a variety of solutions available to help anyone heal from these conditions. Especially as our students head into assessment periods, it is crucial that we know how to identify the indicators of inordinate, toxic stress in their lives, and to be able to intervene effectively. It could mean all the difference for an aspiring student in an increasingly complex world. We hope you find this episode useful in your ongoing efforts to care for your students and create positive change in their lives! WATCH ON YOUTUBE [https://youtu.be/DMQ6OYpuZp8]   If you haven’t listened to our previous Podcast click here [https://braemarcollege.com/2023/01/11/blsa-podcast-two-german-students/]

BLSA Podcast: Deutsche Education

Nike, Lucy, and Moritz – Deutsche Education It’s always enlightening to be around people with a different cultural background than oneself, getting a daily sense of how your attitudes, values, expressions, assumptions and identities compare with theirs. One of the countries that Braemar regularly welcomes students from is Deutschland, known to many of us as Germany. And this year we’ve been lucky to be able to compare our Toronto culture with those of our German students Nike, Lucy and Moritz. Each of these young people brings an energy and a maturity to their academic lives which can impress and even intimidate those of us who work with them. They are remarkably outgoing, well-spoken, enthusiastic, healthy and motivated. We sat down with them for a podcast conversation to dive deeper into their previous experiences growing up and going to school in Germany, and comparing their academic system with our own here in Canada. As always with folks like these, the conversation was lively, informed and helpful, especially for those of us looking for indications of what we might learn and borrow from the system that produced such admirable students. If you’re interested in what growing up in Germany is like, you’re sure to enjoy this episode!   WATCH ON YOUTUBE [https://youtu.be/hcNtr032yuM]   If you haven’t listened to our previous Podcast click here [https://braemarcollege.com/2023/01/04/blsa-podcast-recipe-for-success/]

BLSA Podcast: AMIR & MATILDA– Learning through Activity

Matilde Vieira and Amir Mousavinejad – Learning through Activity One of the most important contexts in which young people develop a sense of self and a social behaviour-set is the world of games and sport. This is often the first situation where they are able to have a say in the making (and sometimes the breaking) of rules, in the selection of groups, and in the consequences of their activities. Studies demonstrating the crucial importance of unsupervised play in early life continue to proliferate in Education scholarship, but you don’t need to be a social scientist to grasp their conclusions. Play is our first practice for autonomous socializing, community-building, and competing in public, and should be regarded with the same seriousness that we treat the other academic disciplines with. This fact becomes clear as soon as you start talking to young athletes like Matilde and Amir. These two teenagers, one from Portugal and the other from Iran, came to Toronto alone and immediately found themselves surrounded by unfamiliar people and ideas. But where others may have succumbed to the forces of Culture Shock and suffered the alienation and torpor that go with it, these two have used sport as an avenue to identity, health, community and confidence. Today, they are recognized as caring friends, successful students and influential leaders in our school. Check out this episode to learn more about how games and sport can transcend the barriers that divide us and inform a purpose-driven life no matter what level we play at! WATCH ON YOUTUBE [https://youtu.be/jQwHYjtx73Q]   If you haven’t listened to our previous Podcast click here [https://braemarcollege.com/2022/12/14/blsa-podcast-james-olsen-as-above-so-below/]