Look for the Helpers

Happy Friday Everyone, Sometimes, when you are having a bad day, one strategy you can employ is to just show up.  When you show up, you've conquered the first big hurdle, and maybe just maybe things will work out better than you expected.   Once you show up, reach out for support, use your resources - don't be afraid to ask for what you need.  Because of the way our brains work - jumping to the worst possible scenario the moment there is a problem or conflict - the hardest part can become taking the first step.     I am proud of you all for showing up this week - keep up the good work Cougars!  See you back here on Monday.  Be Well, Mrs. Hempey   

Happy Thursday Everyone! Just in case you've not been tuning in, I'll plug the videos Nurse Saunders has been posting in the morning announcements lately.  There are some great ones!  Today's video was super important and is worth posting here too.  Have a look...  In the interest of finding silver linings, I'll say that the COVID pandemic has really helped bring attention to mental and emotional health.  In many ways, it has reduced the stigma around depression and anxiety. Because so many people have struggled over the past year, the door has been opened to conversations with friends and neighbors about how individuals are truly fairing.   The pandemic has helped to normalize feelings of helplessness and isolation, which we all feel at times.  For some folks, these kinds of feelings interrupt the ability to function well within everyday routines like coming to school and going to work.  With so many people feeling anxious about our current ...

Hi Everyone!   Happy Wednesday!  I know you have probably all heard of the song All of Me , by John Legend.  The song is about loving someone despite their imperfections.  No, I am not here to talk about crushes and finding your soul mate...I actually think that this song and the video I am posting below give a great illustration of how we need to love our own perfect imperfections.   The Gifted Teacher, the YouTuber featured here, is attempting to show how vocals that are digitally edited are different from raw vocals.  With his demonstration about signing and vocals, which I admittedly know nothing about, the teacher, unknowingly, gave a great little SEL lesson.  We...that is humans - middle schoolers especially...spend a lot of our daily existence thinking about how we measure up.  Unfortunately, a lot of the measuring we do is against an unrealistic yardstick.   We measure ourselves against airbrushed photos, digitally enha...

Happy Tuesday Everyone, Over this last year, it has become very evident to most folks who the important people are in our lives.  The important people have become evident because they have been the people that have been closest to us during the pandemic.  They have been our rocks (think parents, siblings, children, and other immediate family members).   Also, folks at school who we have been lucky enough to connect with since last September have become part of our close circles.   Because of imposed distance, our eyes have also been opened to those who are most important to us that we haven't been able to physically connect with.  We've had the chance to understand the value that these folks add to our lives and how they change us for the better.  For myself, because I haven't been able to see some folks for an extended period of time, I have been able to reflect on just how much they mean to me.  I so look forward to reconnecting with them, ...

Good Afternoon to you all, and welcome back to the home stretch!   Today seems like a good day to share some simple wisdom that you can tuck away and use when you need it in these last 33 days of school.    When students started arriving this morning, despite it being day 137ish of school, it kind of felt like the first day of school all over again.  I think it felt this way for me because it was the first day in such a long time that everyone came into the building together to be a full Cougar community.  (And I didn't have to ask anyone if they were having diarrhea today....haaaaaaaaa!!!) Generally, on the first day of school, most of us are psyched and ready to put our best foot forward.  We're ready to make the most of the fresh new school year.  Oftentimes, by day 137, we are all a bit tired and draggy - were ready for a prolonged break, and we've had our fill of tired old routines.  So what luck.  We get a mini fresh start!...

Happy Friday Everyone! I am happy to report, to those of you that read yesterday's blog, that I screwed up the courage to chat with my hygenist yesterday at my dental cleaning appointment, and the result was great!  I still don't like to get my teeth cleaned, but she gave me some really good ideas for reducing the pain, handed me two Advil to take prior to any scraping, and was able to rub numbing gell over my gums as she worked. Even though it didn't make it pain-free, it made it tolerable.  I am so happy I decided to speak up and advocate for what I needed.  Let this be a lesson...when you ask for what you need in respectful, mature, and appropriate ways, you can often come to, at least a compromise, but hopefully a solution that works for everyone!    Okay...enough about my teeth!   Let's move on to more important things like getting excited for the break next week, and gearing up for a four-day-a-week in-person learning scenario for our 7th and 8th...

Happy Thursday Everyone, Today, I have to do a hard thing... I have to go to the dentist's office to get my teeth cleaned.  😟  I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, and I feel like I am a pretty brave person, willing to face hard things, but I greatly dislike going to the dentist's office.   The last time I was there, tears were running down my face as my teeth were being cleaned because the scrapey-sharp thing hurt as it was gnashing into my soft gums.  (Yeah, you can imagine it right?)   I think I build up lots of plaque, so the hygenist has to scrape pretty hard.  I am doubly worried today because due to appointments I had to cancel and COVID, I haven't been to the dentist in a couple of years.  I hate to think how much plaque is in there even though I brush regularly, floss, and use mouthwash.   Ugh...I am just dreading it!  But I know it has to be done, I would like to keep my teeth, and it's good for my overall health...

Happy Wednesday Everyone,  First, let me say, I broke my streak...😢...and it didn't take long.  I failed to post yesterday.  I had the blog page open, I even clicked on "new post," but then I never wrote anything.  And it's all because you are all growing up too darn fast!  That's good...but hard for us adults all at the same time.  Let me explain... This time of year in my office I am very focused on transition efforts.  Thinking about transitioning 8th graders to the high school, welcoming 4th graders to CBMS, and helping our 6th graders move upstairs.  I also start to see, in very real-time, how much you've all grown this year.  Our 5th graders no longer look so little and seem capable of becoming the downstairs leaders.  Our current 6th graders totally look ready to wander the upstairs hallways, and our 8th graders seem ripe for more responsibility and a move to new adventures.  I am sure that the 4th graders in our district lo...

Happy Monday Everyone, I have a long-ish video to share with you...it's about 10 minutes, so you may have to watch it at home, but here is the link  if you have a few minutes to spare.  If you don't have time to check it out right now, I'll give you a quick synopsis.  It is about a biologist who was reunited with a humpback whale who once saved her from a large tiger shark when she was in the water filming a piece about whales in the Cook Islands.   (This isn't the video of that...just thought we all could learn something about this beautiful species...) I wanted to share this story of the humpback that took time to care for another being because I think it highlights how we as humans can learn from the behaviors of the animals that inhabit our planet.  While I know there are animals out there that are aggressive at times, it's usually only in response to a threat to their habit, food, or young.  In general, animals simply want to co-exist peacefully, ...

Happy Friday, I felt like you guys were deserving of a little musical serenade this morning, so I cued up one of my favorites, Neil Diamond, and found this little gem.   Love is about WE...I love that.  I hope you spend a little bit of time today considering we over me! :) So while we are all about Neil this morning, how about some more of his greatest hits?!?  (BTdubs...Neil is great for road tripping, so if you are planning any adventures by car this summer, make sure you add him to your road trip playlist).   And you can't not add a little Sweet Caroline!  Hey Red Sox fans, sing it out loud!   Okay, okay, I know we have lots of Yankee fans out there as well...here's something for you... Here's to a springtime of "WE", baseball, the promise of road trips, and a Friday filled with good music!  I hope you all have a great day!   Mrs. Hempey  

Good Thursday morning to you all! I saw a couple of things about happiness yesterday that I wanted to share.   Often times we talk about things that trigger us.  Meaning things that can happen to us or around us in everyday life that make us feel negative in some way.  "Triggers" can make us feel sad, worried  or angry.  Triggers could be things like being judged, being left out, being called a triggering name, failing at something we care about or being held accountable for poor choices.  We should know these triggers so that we are not blindsided by our emotions when they happen.   We can prepare for the feelings and emotions we will experience when we encounter them.    Equally important, however, is the idea that we should also be in tune with our happiness triggers.  If we can be in tune with these triggers then we can practice self-care when the chips are down, or before they are down, to stay in a positive place mentally...

Good Morning Everyone! Happy Wednesday!   I have a person that I am connected to on Facebook who is someone that I crossed paths with about 17 years ago when I worked with her child (now adult) at a different school in VT.  I then also coached her child for a few years on a travel AAU basketball team.  This mom was also a teacher in a VT school.  These days, we don't really have any occasion to connect in person - our lives have moved on, and our former common link - her child - is grown and has moved into an amazing life outside of VT.  But I stay in pretty close contact with this woman on Facebook because we have discovered that we share a love of the same kind of humor.   Our style is very clean and very mild, and usually has something to do with child-rearing, being a teacher, or just stuff about life lessons that we, sometimes hard-headed humans, have to learn.  We share little vignettes and subsequent quick snippets of conversation, but...

Happy Tuesday Everyone! Here's a little Strange Planet for you today... I wanted to share this funny because it represents where our brains tend to go when we are worried about something.  Our mind-matter tends to go to the least reasonable explanation for things that we stress about instead of the most logical explanation.  In this funny, the simple logical explanation is that the life-giver opened the portal!   This funny to remind you that your brain likes to play tricks on you sometimes, so you need good strategies for getting your irrational thoughts under control when they start to run away from you.  Stop, breathe, talk to your brain, think about the logical explanations or reasons.  Don't jump to a conclusion or catastrophize a situation.  Remind your brain that there is no reason to go into fight, flight, or freeze mode when mild curiosity and logical explanation mode will suffice.   As an aside, there is a national talk like a pirat...

Happy Monday Everyone!  Coming at you with a late afternoon post about being a "Doer."  What is a doer you ask?  Well, it's someone who isn't afraid to do something even when there is some risk involved.  I'm not talking about life or death risk but more social risk or academic risk, or even some small physical risks.  If you never risk, can you ever truly live?     Here are some examples:   Social Risk Wanting to try a new activity but worrying about joining for fear of how those who are already good at the activity might respond to you.  I, for one, worry about running in public spaces and in partnerships with others because I feel that people will think I am too slow and subsequently won't want to run with me.  This is a time to take a risk.  The reality is that people will probably really appreciate you coming out to participate with them, and will enjoy your company whether you run slowly or not.  Don't let other...

Happy Friday all! We've made it to the end of another week, and man are the weeks just flying by!  Despite the snow yesterday and the gray skies today, the forecast for the next big stretch of days looks sunny, dry, and relatively warm, so hopefully, spring is really on the horizon!  I was planning today's blog posted yesterday afternoon as I wrapped up my remote day in my home work corner (no real home office for me), and I was thinking about the idea of getting back up when we fall, so I started digging for a little bit of inspiration.  What I came across really surprised me.  I am actually not even sure how it popped into my view, and I am even less sure why I decided to click on it, but it did, and after watching it realized that the person giving us the tips for getting back up into a tipped kayak unknowingly gave us so real valuable tips for life at the same time!   Check out this video about how to get back up into a Kayak if you tip it over. ...

Happy Thursday Everyone, Thanks for tuning in today folks on this out-of-the-ordinary Thursday at home.  (Wait, what even is ordinary anymore?!?  🤷) Moving on...this week I spent some time with the sixth-grade Brookies team to talk about kindness.  I was really psyched to join each of the core pods for a little refresher on kindness.   It's a long year, and around this time, we tend to be in our silos...we focus on our friends and ourselves, and tend to forget that those around us that we don't tend to connect with as much need our kindness and compassion too.   In our lesson, we talked about how kindness is the most powerful, least costly agent of human change.  Kindness can come in all kinds of ways, and it doesn't have to cost you anything monetarily or even socially.  If you are someone who displays kindness to the "least among us," your personal reward will be strong.   When I have the opportunity to drop my kids off at school...