What We’re Thinking About
We love sharing ideas and information that will help build better places to learn and work.
Hope for the Hopeless
For the month of April we are celebrating the character strength of hope. VIA describes hope this way; “If Hope is your top strength you expect the best in the future, and you work to […]
From Sit and Get to Empower and Go!
With new technology, new ways of organizing, and new system potential, placing students at the center of learning is finally a realistic possibility. But what about learning for the educators in our schools? Shouldn’t we also be […]
Don’t Take Yourself So Seriously
by Joe Moorman
I need humor to thrive. That may sound a little dramatic, but it’s a part of who I am (humor is my top character strength). When I think about my best relationships, work experiences, and […]
Deer Park Community City Schools: Embedding SEL Across the Curriculum
In a recent Education Week blog “Embedding SEL Across the Curriculum,” Tom VanderArk and Mary Ryerse offer examples of schools working to embed social and emotional learning deeply within the curriculum. Character is caught as […]
Intentional Day of Happiness
Today is International Day of Happiness. In American society, happiness is considered a sport—something elusive to be pursued—something to strive for and attain at some future point in time. But is that really happiness? Today might […]
Positive Education: 3 Big Ideas from 7 Global Leaders
New Zealand held its first-ever Positive Education conference this past week and what an extraordinary event it was! Nearly 300 educators traveled from as far as the US and Singapore to hear global leaders in […]
Humor Me
The strength of the month for March is Humor. This is what VIA says about Humor, “If Humor is your top strength you like to laugh and tease. Bringing smiles to other people is important to you. You […]
Webinar: Build a Positive School Culture in Just a Few Minutes a Day
Join us for this informative 20-minute session highlighting Thriving Learning Communities, an engaging, schoolwide program designed to build social and emotional learning skills through the lens of character strengths. Hear from current principals on the […]
Learning Leads the Way in Understanding Strengths-Based Community Building
An advisor to one of my projects recently said to me: “We know what impact strengths have on an individual, in family settings, in schools, and organizations… but what we don’t know is what that […]
When Using Character Strengths, It’s All Well and Good
I recently had the opportunity to visit an extraordinary school for boys in San Francisco. The school is special for many reasons, but I will stick to just two here. First of all, with the […]
Character Strengths: A Helpful Resource
Mayerson Academy offers schools, districts and organizations a full range of products that support our Thriving Learning Communities work. One very popular item is our Character Strengths Chart – an easy to read and navigate graphic display of the […]
Combining Strengths to Get the Most Out of Your Leadership
Let’s start with something I’m sure we can all agree on – leadership is hard. While there are thousands of articles, books, models and approaches to leadership out there for us to consider, digest […]
Building a Positive and Productive School Culture, One Relationship at a Time
In a recent Getting Smart blog post, School Culture and Relationships Thrive with a 5:1 Positivity Ratio, Mary Ryerse teases out the premise that positive and productive cultures are built one relationship at a time. What distinguishes […]
A Day for Love, a Week of Kindness
by Karen Graves
As mentioned in a previous blog post, February is the month in which we at Mayerson highlight the strength of “love.” This strength is reflected in the valuing of close relationships with others, especially when […]
TLC Evaluation Report: Thriving Learning Communities program in 54 middle schools in the United States
This week Mayerson Academy published evaluation findings for the Thriving Learning Communities (TLC) program from 54 middle schools in the United States. Through our partnerships with research and evaluation experts at Fairleigh Dickenson University and Miami […]
Love: It’s All Greek to Me
I love coming across foreign (to me, as in non-English) words used to describe things that the English language doesn’t have words for. The Japanese have a word for looking worse after a haircut, Age-otori. […]
Deer Park Community City Schools Highlighted in Getting Smart
In a recent Getting Smart blog post, Increase Social Awareness and Build Culture: Action Steps from Four Schools, Mary Ryerse profiles schools that have embraced social awareness as an integral component of social emotional learning – […]
Love is a Verb
The strength of the month for February is Love. This is what VIA says about Love, “If Love is your top strength you value close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and […]
Research Says, Change Begins Here
According to McKinsey & Company, Harvard Business Review, IBM, Connor Partners and Forbes, 70% of organizational change efforts fail. Whether it’s personal, organizational, or social, change is a complex and tricky endeavor. Coupled with the […]
Self Management Improvement Can Begin with Just 5 Minutes Each Day
In Improve Your Self-Management Strategies 5 Minutes a Day, Lynn Ochs, Senior Program Director for Mayerson Academy, shares three simple, concrete actions that can easily fit into the crazy tempo of a school leader’s day on the Getting […]
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Thank You To Our FY22 Donors and Sponsors
