Adolescence can be a perilous time. Stress, for example, is on the rise. A 2014 report by the American Psychological Association found that adolescents report stress levels that are higher than what they believe is healthy, and most believe they are not doing enough to cope. Teens who experience a lot of stress are more prone to mental illness, including depression, and perform worse in school. And despite a mature capacity for logical reasoning, risky decisions—having unprotected sex,...
We are living in the middle of an obesity epidemic, with approximately 68.5 percent of American adults classified as overweight—meaning a body mass index (BMI) range greater than 25—and 35 percent of those classified as obese, with BMI greater than 30. Obesity is associated with numerous chronic diseases and with an increased risk of mortality, and disproportionately affects minorities and those with low education and income. It remains an urgent health crisis and one that the School of...
Innovation, openness, collaboration, wonder, kindness, engagement, action. Can we teach our children these important attributes? At the University of Pittsburgh’s Falk Laboratory School , specialized programming endeavors do just that. For example, on February 2, 2017, Falk hosted an evening of Mindfulness and Making to highlight curriculum and share practices in action. The night was one installment in a series of events sponsored by the Pittsburgh Alliance of University School...
In Italian there is a saying that is hard to translate into English, “anche l'occhio vuole la sua parte.” Literally it translates to, “The eye also wants its part.” It means that we love or crave visual beauty and aesthetics. In the course of writing my dissertation, I heard an Italian colleague suggest, “anche il cuore vuole la sua parte”: that the heart also wants its part. This rang true for me. In fact, I had been searching for my heart’s longing in my work as an educator and schola...