S7:E6, Bedrock Series Layer 5: Empathy & the CNS

S7:E8, Bedrock Series Layer 7: Attachment in School

The big idea I’ve had for ages is that lucky kids—and perhaps also the adults who raise and teach them—might think about their school where they feel safe as an attachment figure.  It seemed to me that a school that is there for kids when they’re in emotional need—a school that kids feel like turning to when distressed because they're confident that people will help—this would be the kind of school a child would develop an attachment bond to.  SPAN seeks to create networks of such schools, and my PhD investigated whether there were empirical arguments for doing so.  There are.  You’re about to find out why.  We hope you enjoy this episode.

S7:E7, Bedrock Series Layer 6: Unresolved Grief

This sixth layer of bedrock tackles a difficult topic.  What is unresolved grief and loss?  How does it happen, and how does it get transmitted from generation to generation.  And most importantly, what can you do about it?  In this layer, we hope you’ll find out how your feelings are like rivers, how they can become blocked, and what you can do to allow them to flow in healthy ways once again.  We hope you enjoy this episode.

S7:E6, Bedrock Series Layer 5: Empathy & the CNS

This fifth layer of bedrock looks at the neurological structures and pathways involved in empathy.  Why would you need to know about that?  Because you can use your voice to access and soothe those very pathways.  Mothers have been doing it for millenia, instinctively.  But they—and you—can forget to do it, too.  We sometimes raise our voices or let them harden—which has an opposite effect on another person’s nervous system, as well as our own.  Come find out where your stapedius muscle is.  It’s going to be fun.   We hope you enjoy this episode.

S7:E5, Bedrock Series Layer 4: The Students

Today we land in the fourth and central layer of bedrock in this seven part series: the students.  Sandwiched right in the middle of all this theory, right in the heart of the bedrock, is the layer that we do it all for: the young people in our charge, whose minds and hearts are being formed on our watch.  This is a special episode where I get the opportunity to interview a young man in front of a live audience, a young man whose story touched me deeply when I first heard it four or five years earlier.  In fact, I think it was the roughest story of mobility and transition I ever heard.  And yet this young man is now doing fine—better than fine, in fact.  Because of the importance of this episode, we dedicated 30minutes longer to it, to do justice to this young man’s story, and all the other stories which remain untold and unheard.  We hope you enjoy this episode.

S7:E4, Bedrock Series Layer 3: “The Baton”

Today, we drill down to the third layer of bedrock: the baton.  The baton used in a relay race metaphorically captures the central problem in high mobility schools: who is responsible for the baton if it keeps moving from runner to runner.  We all are.  Come join us in finding out why, including listening to expert presenter Nikki Muller explore the implications of "the baton" with Dr. Doug after his brief opening overview.  We hope you enjoy this episode.