Ashley Marie's EDU3650 Blog!

"Mental health is all too often one of the last things that we pay attention to, even though we know how immensely important it is"      - David Anderson, expert on schools and mental health at Child Mind Institute (  Nadworny & Drummond, 2016)  Learning about mental health this past week has brought up essential topics for a future educator. While listening to the podcast For Kids, Anxiety about schools can feel like being chased by a lion!  Shared firsthand how severe anxiety does not only affect the student but the families of the students as well (Cardoza, 2016). Hearing the teenage boy describe how he wanted to join friends was heartbreaking because he was too nervous to follow through (Cardoza, 2016.). Though, it was inspiring to know there are programs like Aspire that are full of professionals to help students daily with their anxiety and help in finding techniques and methods to make learning and going to school easier for them ( Cardoza, 2016)...

https://blogs.houstonisd.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/10/shp-swhw-fb-2018-768x401.png "I am starting to think I don't feel anything at all anymore," Alex expressed, sitting across the table from his mother (Hirsh,2012). These profound words were spoken during the 2012 documentary Bully directed by Lee Hirsh. Hearing Alex, a 14-year-old boy, explain to his mother how he feels numb from the bullying he experienced is something no parent ever wants to hear (Hirsh, 2012). Nevertheless, as a parent, watching several parts of the film sparked emotions, frustration, and determination to help spread awareness and stop bullying in schools (Hirsh, 2012). In addition, it was evident in the documentary of parents' frustration and anger toward school administrations and law enforcement (Hirsh, 2012). I was relieved at a pivotal moment within the documentary when the filmmakers showed the parents a video of what was going on to Alex during his bus rides to and from scho...

https://www.nsca.org/congress-approves-new-school-safety-funding-what-it-means-for-the-systems-integration-industry/      In 1999 I was a sixth-grade student in a small town on Long Island, New York, and I remember my mother hugging me tightly after April 20, 1999. The tragedy of the mass school shooting at Columbine High school sparked the conversation of how and why such a tragedy could have occurred in the first place and the safety of our schools.       As a middle/ high school student in the early 2000s, there was an awareness of school violence and the fear our parents felt as security increased as we attended school each day. I had not seen Bowling for Columbine, written and directed by Michael Moore two years after, though I have memories of hearing people talk about it when it was first released. The documentary brought up topics many people still did not feel comfortable discussing. Watching Bowling for Columbine as an adult, mother, and futu...

          What makes us as human beings diverse?   Image from https://www.aauw.org/resources/member/governance-tools/dei-toolkit/dimensions-of-diversity/gender-identity/      There is a multitude of ways we are all different; from how we look to the language we speak or even our preference types or styles. It is our differences that make us all individually spectacular. So why in a world where so many choices and options encourage individuality, there is a parallel component that wants to do just the opposite? It is how we embrace different individual cultures, stories, and life experiences that define our society as a whole.      Watching the Laramie Project struck a chord as a person, and even more so as a mother. The documentary provided the heartbreaking details, and testimony of the people in Laramie, Wyoming. Throughout the entire film, I couldn’t help getting emotional trying to imagine how I would have felt if such an...