Understanding and deconstructing racial ideas and divides Amy Edelstein interviews Kori Hamilton Biagas from JustEducators about what racial literacy is, how to work in classrooms to lessen racial stress, and how to engage in a positive way to deconstruct our culturally inherited (and often outdated, false, misguided, and even dangerous) ideas about this issue. “As long as there is a …
Transformation through Mindfulness Practice
Enhancing teen development and wellness through contemplative learning [The following is an interview with writer and educator Amy Edelstein, conducted by the Omega Center. Amy is the author of The Conscious Classroom: the Inner Strength System™ for Transforming the Teenage Mind and founder of an innovative high school program promoting teen development and wellness through mindfulness practice and contemplative learning. The interview was originally …
Love in a Fractured World: Wholeness in Education
A contemplative approach to self regulation [This article was written for The Omega Center blog, run by Ilia Delio of Villanova University. Please visit the blog here to read more inspiring voices curated by Ilia Delio, award-winning author of 17 books.] When I was asked to write for the Omega Center on Love in a Fractured World, I could think of no better …
Diamonds in the Rough
The following was originally published in the ISF January 2018 newsletter. Join our mailing list here to receive upcoming newsletters. Reflections on potential During the Fall I piloted the program in a new school. It is a turn-around school, one that had been on the persistently failing, persistently dangerous list for many years. Over the last few school years, a …
Mindful Me | Digital Badge for Teens
We are happy to announce the first digital Mindfulness Badge for Teens! If you have completed a mindful breath training, complete the activities of the badge. Once you’ve successfully illustrated your skills, you will be able to add this digital badge to your resume for colleges and future employers. The Inner Strength Mindful Me Digital Badge was created in cooperation …
Relax, Heal, Learn by Dale Mezzacappa – The Notebook
The Inner Strength Teen Program just received some insightful coverage in the April 11th issue of The Notebook, Philadelphia’s Education weekly. You can read the article Relax, Heal, Learn by Dale Mezzacappa @dalemezz in its original with comments and more on The Notebook’s coverage of Behavioral and Mental Health initiatives in the schools here. Images by Darryl Murphy of The Notebook. I encourage you to make your comments …
Changing Our (Relationship) to Our Minds
People talk about needing to change their minds. We all wish we could change the channel in our brain as easily as we change playlists on our music players. In this 10 minute clip Amy Edelstein talks about how we use our mindfulness practice to change how we relate to our minds. This has a powerful effect on our experience. …
Creating Stability
How do we use our mindfulness practice to create stability? What are we looking for and how are we orienting ourselves so that the time we spend being still and paying attention begins to have a strengthening effect? Download this 13 minute audio with Amy Edelstein Click here
ISF at the Haverford Middle School Diversity Conference
This year’s Haverford Middle School Diversity Conference focused on the theme “Brave or Blind.” Over four hundred students came together from four states – Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware to meet each other and practice dialogue across difference. In sessions that role-played common scenarios between friends that created racial tension, students were asked to model alternative ways to …
Teenage Brain: Risks, Peer Pressure & Our Modern World
Being in high school is challenging. I remember the awkwardness and the bigness of the world to my smallness. And in my smallness trying to be big and sometimes getting away with it. Being one of two thousand students in my city high school didn’t help. I wondered if any of the teachers knew my name and I remember going …