Dear Morningside Center friends,

If you find our lessons and guidelines helpful, now would be great time to support us in creating them. With our school contracts canceled for the rest of the year and our staff developers on layoff, we're hard pressed to cover the cost of these lessons right now. But kids and teachers need them, so here they are!

Please share them widely, and if you can, give to our Emergency Fund for Caring Classrooms. Thank you for being part of our community!

Students hear the voices of the food workers who harvest, deliver, serve, and sell our food, and consider the lives and needs of people who are on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic.

This activity, aimed at caregivers and their middle or high-schoolers, provides a student-driven process for young people to think flexibly and creatively about their opportunities for learning during this period, formulate ideas, and follow through on them.

We've added to our grade-specific series, with lessons on feelings, change & loss, and fun activities for remote learning.

"We now have the opportunity not to just reimagine schooling or try to reform injustice but to start over. Starting over is hard but not impossible; we now have a skeleton of a playbook. It starts with creativity, teacher-student relationships, and teacher autonomy." By Bettina L. Love at Education Week

"'Engaging students back in school is going to be very challenging,' the social worker said. 'We have just experienced a sort of collective trauma.'" By Michael Elsen-Rooney at the New York Daily News

Covid-19 shines a light on racial, economic, and healthcare inequities that existed long before the pandemic. From the Washington Post:

"I am disappointed with leaders and educators who want us to push through this pandemic with children as if it is not happening. There has been such a focus on trauma and trauma-informed schools—but when trauma is at the door, everyone seems to forget their training. " By Dr. Tawanna Jones Morrison at Ms. Magazine

"The job of the school counselor has evolved over the years, from academic guide to something deeper: the adult in a school tasked with fostering students' social and emotional growth, a mental health first responder and a confidant for kids, especially teens, who often need a closed door and a sympathetic ear." By Cory Turner at NPR

-- Fast food worker, from our lesson on Unsung Heroes