What is Something That Requires a Saw to Cut Through, But Can Be Eroded By Water? We know that your main goal as a teacher is to set up your students for success, both inside and outside of the classroom. At Be the Change, we are veteran educators who encourage children to intentionally navigate their world in order to learn and grow as students and as people. That’s where Big Rocks comes in. Big Rocks is an exercise that teaches time management tools for kids, as well as prioritization, and personal choices. You may also pick up a nugget or two of gold that you can apply to your own schedule ..read more

Emojis have overtaken our digital communications. Social media, emails, text messages — no matter what digital platforms you use, chances are you’re only 1 click away from an emoji (or 20). Emojis even transcend language. Oxford Dictionaries’ “Word Of The Year” in 2015 was the “crying from laughing” (?) emoji. Emojis are fun pictorial symbols that help us communicate more effectively. For example, you’ve probably used emojis to lighten up an otherwise serious communication exchange or to clarify your tone to prevent hurt feelings from a misunderstanding, like using a winking emoji at the end ..read more

Of course, we all want greater equity and inclusion in our workplace.  Ideally, focusing on inclusion results in everyone on our teams, regardless of race, class, gender, physical or mental ability, spoken language, immigration status, or age (to name a few) feeling a sense of belonging at work. The recent racial justice movement in our country gave particular light to injustices caused to black, brown and indigenous communities.  This gave rise to organizations everywhere asking themselves – are we racially inclusive?  Where do our workplace practices create disproportionate ..read more

Dominant Culture: Who is Considered Normal, and Who is Diverse? In our culture, there are dominant narratives that create a narrow box of what is “normal”, which is called dominant culture.  Everyone falls outside of that “normal” box sometimes- perhaps because of how we look (my skin color, how large, small, masculine or feminine I present), what skills we have (if I can dance, play basketball, write well), or how systems are structured (if I can get a bank loan to buy a home, if my teacher calls on boys more than girls during class, if I get pulled over or arrested more than my white c ..read more

In 2020 our organization launched an initiative called Becoming an Antiracist Organization, designed to respond to the overwhelming inquiry: if we believe Black Lives Matter, what do we do? Remember the months in the wake of the killing of our ancestor George Floyd? Every day we’d open our emails and read yet another organization releasing their BLM statements. Widespread awareness of systemic racism didn’t end with companies. I had dinner at my friend’s house and her 80-year-old father told us a story about being at WalMart and hearing the corporation’s commitment to Black Lives and Equity ..read more

Remember the United Colors of Benetton clothing brand? Their models featured skin tones, eye colors, and hair textures that were as varied as their rainbow-hued fashion catalog. They were amongst the first companies that openly celebrated multiculturalism, putting it front and center in many of their ads. Back in the 90s, showcasing an abundance of Black and Brown models in your fashion campaigns signaled to the outside world that you cared about diversity. The business model followed this same logic: when you hired Black and Brown employees, you communicated to onlookers that you prioritize ..read more

When your students get into disagreements, and you intervene and instruct one student to apologize, do you stop to think about how the person receiving the apology feels? Did the apology feel sincere? What about the apologizer? Did they offer up a half-hearted apology because they thought it would help them avoid a talk from you or was it heartfelt? Quickly de-escalating tensions between students makes sense as a short-term solution. However, down the road this may inadvertently lead to unresolved issues that resurface later. We believe that you can structure an apology that allows all parti ..read more

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together.”    – Chief Seattle What if we saw ourselves in animals? How much more connected would we feel to nature if animals became extensions of us? Indigenous cultures around the world have attributed wisdom and meaning to animals. For example, a cheetah helps one to focus on effectively achieving goals, while a horse represents freedom and inner strength. Today, we will consider the Animal Wisdom that lives in each of us and how this a ..read more

Navigating a global pandemic for the last 1.5 years has been exhausting for most of us, upending our day-to-day routines and eroding the perceived sense of control that we had over our lives. If COVID is emotionally taxing for adults, think about how traumatic it is for kids who are still developing their coping mechanisms. Social-Emotional skills account for this development gap and teach students how to overcome adversities. SEL doesn’t just afford students with strategies to process our ever-changing reality, it equips them with lifelong skills to develop empathy, thoughtfulness, well-ba ..read more

What does liberation look like in 2021, amidst COVID-19, Black Uprisings, politicians continuously stripping away our bodily autonomy, a polarized nation; one side seemingly striving to protect their neighbors and contain a deadly, novel virus; the other, selfishly fighting tooth and nail for the “freedom” to spread the illness to anyone within breathing distance? What does liberation mean today? How can we keep our inherent connection to one another intact and harmonious as we face these complex and complicated issues head on? How do antiracism and critical race theory support our efforts ..read more