Blog

Students: Are You Going Through “The Dip” Again? [Video]

“The Dip” is a completely predictable pattern for many outside-the-box students. Here’s how it goes:
  1. The semester starts strong. Organized, optimistic, ready.
  2. Classes seem to go well for a couple of weeks.
  3. A couple of things go wrong, but no cause for alarm. Maybe you forgot to study for a couple of quizzes, forgot to do some reading, forgot to do a couple of assignments.
  4. BAM! 6-8 weeks into the semester, everything suddenly falls a-p-a-r-t. Perhaps teachers just updated a bunch of grades and you have a bunch of 0s or late work. Maybe there was a daunting progress report or conferences that didn’t go well. Either way, grades took a nosedive!
  5. You spend the rest of the semester struggling to swim upstream or dig yourself out of a pit.
The semester ends in one of three ways, and this video will give you ways to make sure you pull out of the nosedive and end up with the best outcome possible. Good luck, you’ve got this! — Seth Pull out of a nosedive
🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Subscribe, like & comment to support my work. 👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 💚 Give: Love my work and want to donate? 🙏 Thanks! — Seth

Video transcript:

Hey, what’s up? What’s up? What’s up for? What I, this video is for you students. This is general for middle high school and college students. And this is about the dip and this is something that I talk a lot about right now. It’s the end of February and that means that it’s basically close to the middle of the semester of second semester in a school year and often times at this point in time students go through the debt. Usually six to eight weeks into any given semester students who are not the best student go go through the dip and what the dip is is the dep is this time when you start off your semester and everything is going strong and then a few weeks into the semester things start to get a little bit weird things might be really high really low really high. I mean things to start to get all over the place. The thing is is that at the beginning of the semester you start off strong you have all A’s and B’s you’re getting everything in generally if you’re watching this video. You’re you’re probably a good starter. It’s the finishing that’s difficult is to follow through and finishing off the semester. So lot of my students will do really well and then something happens right about here six to eight weeks in teacher start to get a bunch of grades in let’s say that you turn in stuff lay their entering those grades or that they do you have a couple of zeros there a teacher’s or entering a bunch of old grades and all of a sudden Boom the dip happens. Everything goes downhill. You might have a big little dip here come back. Boom. Boom. Boom by the centrally everything falls to Pieces all your A’s and B’s just go boom and turn into C’s D’s and ask it can happen really fast all of a sudden 8 weeks in or right now the end of February if you were to look at your grades today, you might see holy cow you have for a stand to a pluses or some crazy combination score. So this is very very very very, Very, very predictable pattern of question is what do you do about it? Well, there are three things to do about it one. Nothing keep avoiding keep procrastinating keep telling yourself. You don’t feel motivated to keep making excuses stay in the dep avoid avoid avoid and you will end up with low grades at the end because it will you will lend a hand to pull it together. But if you don’t do it, it’s not going to happen automatically next thing, you know, it’s a week before the end of the semester and you try to pull it together, but when the actual report card comes and it’s summertime, it’s too late and you have a bunch of apps you have to retake classes go to summer school or whatever. To you work to dig yourself out of the hole. You start swimming Upstream. You start doing what you can sometimes but you aren’t consistent enough to really pull it together in the end up with a bunch of mid-range gray the bunch of seize or you might have an affinity in a couple days and B’s and C’s sort of your averaging mid-range. And then the third thing that can happen is that you really dig yourself out of the pit You Really Turn Around you like I’m not going to let this happen and that’s why I’m making this video. Now the dip is happening. Now if you address it right now today and you start doing good things for yourself. You will make it much much much easier to end up with all A’s and B’s and with actually not very much effort. It really believe it or not doesn’t require much more effort to get your A’s and B’s then you’re probably putting it already but it does require a few things. I’m going to be a give you a couple of ideas that are going to help you and it is if you want to turn Brown you will not be taking yourself out of a giant hole and you want to not swim upstream the whole rest of the semester and you want to make it much easier on yourself Harrison tips, that will help you number one. Immediately in you’re not going to want to do that. Some of you are not going to want to do this advocate for yourself connect with your teachers. Sit down today. Look at your grades write an email your teacher say hey, what’s up, it’s me, Seth or whoever you are. Look I’m getting a c in your class or D or an F. I want to do while my goal is to get whatever if you want to get in there be telling your goal. My goal is to get whatever and can I meet with you during office hours this week or do you have a suggestion for me or what can I do to bring my grade up? I don’t want to be digging myself out of a hole the Restless Messer be honest connect again many of you are going to want to resist and here’s what you’re going to say. How do I know you’re going to say it? Cuz a lot of my students say it all the time. Well, I’ll just talk to them when I see them in class. Bologna, do not lie to yourself. I have been doing this a long time. I work with all kind of students. I get to students I get the ones that say well, I’ll just talk to him when I see him in class and they don’t then I asked him a couple days later. They say no I forgot but I’ll do it tomorrow then they don’t don’t lie to yourself just do it. And then I get the type of student who says okay Seth. I’ll email them and they email them and trust me at work teachers respect us connect with your teachers now today. Don’t wait just do it till your grades and connect them. It says a lot. To overhaul bring home every single paper from your locker your desk, whatever every book ever gum wrapper everything wrote in your backpack cramp in your backpack. Bring home everything from school every molecule of anything that has to do with school. Bring it home dump it on the floor and overhauling go through all of it for recycle papers. You don’t need archive papers. You may need make a pile of papers you need to either turn in or finish and then turn in and then put the things in the folders that you need to keep in your folders get reorganized completely overhaul your backpack your books and everything reset. It’s like resetting your computer resetting the modem do an overhaul a reset and do that today or tomorrow or the next day like just get everything and get it done and you should probably do that every two weeks by the way from now on through the rest of the school year. Trust me that will help a lot just going through something. Here’s what happens when my students Call everything we start going through the papers looking at stuff and then they say something like this. Oh, that’s where that is. I’ve been looking for that. Yeah. I have a zero on that. I thought I turned it in or something like that. So do the overalls. 3 sacred study space if you’re studying on the couch one day and bad one day at the desk one day of the kitchen table one day stop pick a place and create a place to study that is sacred a place that you do not put junk on you do not mess with you don’t put laundry on it. You don’t put a bunch of things that don’t have anything to school at a place for you to study. You want your brain to associated with studying and not other things when you’re not studying you want to be free. You want to enjoy your life you want to be present for whatever the things are that you enjoy not thinking about school and when you’re thinking about school and studying you want to just do that. Okay, so I see a lot of people who take an hour’s worth of homework and turn it into four hours because they screw around a lot and they don’t have a good safe and study face. So next make a sacred study space a good spot in your house or wherever to study that, you know is distraction-free. Make a routine. You don’t have to follow the routine. That’s the trick of the routine. But if you think that it is best for your brain to focus on homework from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Make a routine post it put it up on the wall. So you remember what routine you wanted to do if it’s good for you to study from 8 to 10 p.m. I don’t care what it is just be honest with yourself and make a routine when you’re not routine you tend to get more discombobulated more forgetful you lose track of details. So just try your best to make everything doesn’t have to be perfect and you don’t even have to always follow it make it consciously make it. finally prioritize look What’s the priority you creating? Awesome future for yourself creating an awesome life for yourself. You are the priority K prioritize delete the stupid video games from your computer throw away the Xbox get rid of the TV. Whatever is distracting you get Facebook off your phone. I don’t care what it is. It’s for you like get rid of things that are not priorities that are distracting you from creating an awesome life now and in the future, there’s a lot of distractions in our world, okay? Prioritize prioritize yourself in and just be like I’m not going to I’m not going to allow that it to interfere with my life and get rid of it. Okay. Last time it played a video game was literally 13 years ago. The reason I don’t play them is because I don’t just play one video game. I sit there and play and then 3 hours later I go where did that three hours ago and during that time and would just one more game just one more games just like look I got rid of them for my life. I don’t want them. They interfere with my life. I don’t have cable TV because I don’t because if I have it I watch it and I don’t really watch I just flipped channels. Like I know myself get to know yourself be very honest or something get rid of the Clutter from your life. Whether it’s Electronics weather toxic people in your life. I don’t care what it is prioritize you and having a great future where you can contribute to the world and bring your skills and your gifts in your awesomeness to the world to do some good. Okay. Get rid of those toxins. All right have an awesome day get to it. You’re probably in the dip right now. Get out of the dip do few things for yourself that’s going to make that happen and have an awesome week. I’ll see you soon.

The Most Important Thing of All

The Most Important Thing in the World…

It’s not grades, SAT scores, college readiness. It’s not staying out of trouble, perfection, getting a job. It’s not extra curricular, resumes, letters of recommendation. It’s not “out there” anywhere. It’s so easy to get lost in the other stuff, but it’s right here and now. The most important thing is quality time with the people you care about. Connecting with our children. Playing with them. Laughter, fun, smiling freely, joy, gratitude, getting lost in the moments. Hearing them. Talking, listening deeply, truly hearing. Seeing them. Seeing and valuing their unique strengths, curiosities, talents, passions, interests, gifts. Seeing their best and noticing. Again, noticing. Unconditionally loving them. Holding a safe space for our children to be loved and supported exactly as they are at this moment. Holding space for one another to feel and process all feelings openly and safely. Creating experiences of belonging. It’s what we all need. Simply connection and presence. Presence. Presence. Every day of this life is precious. Our actions reflect our priorities, so take real time every single day to connect. And make time every single week to do something really fun. During these times, no school talk, no lectures, no electronics, no shame, no negativity. Just connect meaningfully. Today.
“Every moment is made glorious by the light of love” – Rumi
  *Share* by clicking below

An Excellent Way To Evaluate Curriculum

Content, Process, and Product Parents and teachers, this video breaks down three extremely helpful concepts used to build curriculum – “Content, Process, and Product”. This will give you a useful filter to can use as you contemplate how well the curriculum meets the needs of your child.

Content – What we learn

Usually the curriculum.

Process – How we learn something

One model: AVK

  • Auditory
  • Visual
  • Kinesthetic

(This is just scratching the surface, there are many more ways to describe processing)

Product ideas – How we show our learning

Alternative assessments. Alternatives to tests and papers. Here are a handful of ideas:

  • Graphs and charts
  • Portfolio
  • Drawings, blueprints, maps
  • Videos
  • Audio recordings, songs, podcasts
  • Magazines, articles
  • Blogs
  • Games
  • Arts: drawings, paintings, performances
  • Newscast
  • Speech
  • Museum exhibit
  • Diorama
  • Model
  • Conics
  • Posters
  • Inventions
💚 Give: Love my work and want to donate? 🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Please subscribe, like & comment to support my work. 👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 🙏 Thanks! — Seth
Video transcript: Hey everybody, this is Seth with SethPerler.com and I’m making a video today for parents and teachers. This one is on content, process, and product. Excuse me for the lights here, this is not on my normal studio and this the pretty high-glare board, sorry about that. Anyhow, I want to talk about something called content, process, and product. The value in this for teachers is that it’s one of my favorite ways to break down the curriculum in my head and really understand if it’s serving kids, and how to maximize how it serves the kids. For parents, this is a great way for you to be able to evaluate curriculum and evaluate lessons and homework and put it through a filter in your head to see if there’s anything that can be tweaked in order to make modifications so that it better service to your child and they get more out of the educational learning experience. So, content, process, and product. In a nutshell what this means: content is what you learn, the process is how you learn, and the product is how you show what you learned. Content could be, for example, learning to multiply two-digit by two-digit numbers. That could be content. Content could be reading Of Mice and Men and learning about fiction, for example. Or, the content could be learning about space, or whatever. So content is what you’re learning. It could be anything that you can think of in a curriculum. It’s basically the objectives, the goals, or what they’re supposed to be learning. The process is how you learn it. Oh, by the way, content can be a small lesson, a mini-lesson that’s three minutes long, it could be an entire class, or it can be an entire unit. So content can be looked at in many different ways. Process is how you’re going to learn something. One great way to look at processes ABK: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. People who are more auditory, they can process information more by listening, these are kids often who memorize song lyrics like awesomely. That’s just one example of that, there are many ways that you can learn auditorily. Visually, these are kids who might be very visual-spatial and they might be awesome with legos, imagination, and seeing things in their head and coming up with these visual ideas and remembering visually what every detail looks like of something. Kinesthetic would be touch. A lot of times the ‘super athletes’ are very kinesthetic people. For example, dancers, people who use their bodies in their careers when they’re older, that’s kids that are very kinesthetic learners. So that’s just one way to look at process. Everybody uses all three, everybody uses auditory, visual, and kinesthetic but some people are really dominant in one or two of these areas, and really depend highly on them. I tend to be mostly visual, and then I said to be kinesthetic (as you can see I use my hands a lot and I move a lot when I am teaching, for example), and my auditory is the one that I use the least. But I use all three, everybody does. So that’s a little bit about how you can look at process, but what you want to know when a kid is sitting in a class is that they’re processing information. So are they processing their learning through experiential learning, through listening to a lecture (which is known to be pretty much the worst way to learn), through conversation, through dialogue, through video, through seeing displays, through seeing experiments and experiencing experiments? How are they processing the information? Are they reading? Are they listening? Are they watching? What’s going on to process the information, the content? How are they processing it and how are they learning it? And then the product has to do with how they show their learning. What tends to happen in American schools is that we have two main products: tests and papers. We’re very stuck, way in the box, with these blinders on. We seem to think that the only way that we can evaluate kids is through testing and writing papers. So we see, you know, you got your multiple-choice test, you got your short answer tests, you got your essay tests, all these different types of tests and quizzes and exams, and that is supposed to show that the child or the student, whatever, has processed the content and learned it. So the product is supposed to show that. When you are looking at content, a lot of teachers will use curriculum to build their content. They’re not really encouraged to get to create a creatively differentiated curriculum, but they’re encouraged to do what the curriculum tells them to do, to basically read the script. So the content can often be dictated, but if the content is really not engaging to your child, then what you want to do is try to figure out how can you make that content engaging? Now, teachers, you can do this in many ways. What I used to do when I was teaching was to create units based on figuring out what the ‘main things’ I wanted the kids to learn were, and then as far as when we did what I call ‘passion projects,’ they would have complete choice over what detail they chose to learn. So for example, let’s say that we were learning about the Roman Empire. Then I would have certain things that I wanted everybody to learn that were key concepts for whatever reason, and then when they did the passion project, i.e. if somebody was particularly interested in the armor that the Romans use, they can do a whole study on that and then in-depth study in that particular area. Or if they were interested in how they utilized water, they can completely study that. The product, again, is often a test, or a paper of some sort, and what you want to do is understand that there are many many many many ways to create a product. If you’re a parent advocating for your child and you know that they will learn the content but they’re not able to show it on the test effectively, but you know they’ve learned it or that they’re capable of learning it, then you want to advocate for them to be able to show their learning in different ways. You can really think outside the box. This video you’re watching right now is a product. My outline is three words long, the rest of it’s coming from my head. This is my guide right here, that’s my product. The blog post that goes with this could be a product. Creating a model could be a product. Singing could be a product, any form of art to be a product. If you are looking at the armor from the Roman era, for example, if the child created a drawing of that armor, or created the armor and taught about it to people, teaching that to the other students would be a product. Anything that shows the learning that has taken place can be the products. So there are hundreds of types of products that you could use. Anyhow, if you’re a teacher, this can help you to really look at ‘What am I teaching them and why?‘ Why am I teaching the content? Really question yourself and check yourself, and ask how valuable is this for the long-term for the child. There could be many reasons for this, but you want to have clarity about it. You don’t want to just follow the prescription of the curriculum and just regurgitated. You really want to think, ‘How does it matter? Why does this matter? And how can I enhance this?‘ When you’re looking at process, you want to look at all these different ways that kids process, the differentiation, and giving kids opportunities to process in many different ways. And then the product I think is the real key here. Give them as much choice as humanly possible in terms of how they’re going to show their learning. So, that’s all I got, a real quick one. I hope you have an awesome day and I’ll see you soon. Take care.

Frustrations

frustration with parents, school, self1/3 – What frustrates your kids most about YOU?

2/3 – What frustrates your kids most about SCHOOL?

3/3 – What frustrates your kids most about THEMSELVES?

Last week I asked my students what frustrated them most about:
  1. Parents
  2. School
  3. Themselves
The responses were really interesting and I made 3 short videos with some insights for you. Please *click* to SHARE below. Thanks!

“He’s not motivated by much of anything”

Here is a set of 3 videos based upon the following email I received from a reader:
Hello Seth,
I have an 11-year old son in 6th grade, a 2E-type boy (in a “GT” program since 3rd grade and also on a 504), who is not motivated by much of anything. When he wants to, he can do great work, but only when he wants. And, it’s never clear what motivates this uptick in more attention to his work. Sometimes, it’s the subject matter, as he definitely has his passions. He’s very much an out-of-the-box thinker. He’s been this way since he was a toddler — not even motivated by potty-training stickers or treats…  🙂  How can I help to “light his fire” without grand bargains? At this point, I sound like a broken record… “Have a great day! Remember, neat and complete!” Part of the problem surely rests with my ability to handle the issue. Argh! Help!  BTW, his twin sister is highly self-motivated, gets straight A’s because of her strong work ethic and did not qualify for the GT program (which is fine by us). We have never and will never compare the two. They have very different learning styles and outlooks. We also do not put a premium on letter grades, but on doing the best that they can. It just comes out differently for each them. So crazy!
If I could wave a magic wand, I’d make my son’s work output and motivation reflect the visions he has articulated for himself in the future: he’s in love with the Air Force Academy and, at this point, wants to be an engineer or a pilot. He’s got big dreams, and of course, as a parent, I just want him to be happy pursuing something he loves.
Thank you!
Videos 1 & 2 are for parents and will help you understand my unconventional perspective on motivation and students. These should give you some great insights. I made video 3 for middle and high schoolers, to give them some of my most important advice on the matter.

Video #1: Unmotivated Students: The Reason WHY (For PARENTS)

Video #2: Unmotivated Students: How to Help (For PARENTS)

Video #3: How to “get motivated” (For STUDENTS)

💚 Give: Love my work and want to donate? 🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Please subscribe, like & comment to support my work. 👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 🙏 Thanks! — Seth

Video Transcripts:

Video #3 for STUDENTS – How to “get motivated” Hey, what’s up? This is Seth Perler.  If you are a middle schooler, a high schooler, or a college student who struggles with motivation, this video is for you. I’m going to give you a couple of tips on how to motivate yourself to do stuff you don’t want to do. I know, I know, I know. Parents bug you, they try to motivate you, your teachers try to motivate you it gets annoying. Everybody’s trying to motivate you. You probably want to be doing certain things and be able to just sit down and do it, but you can’t motivate yourself to do it. You procrastinate, you avoid, you resist, you get in arguments about it, you make excuses. You just don’t want to do something that’s not fun, that seems meaningless, that seems to be a waste of your time. You’re asking yourself, “Why do I have to do this?” So, how do you get over that? Like, how do you motivate yourself? How do you actually get yourself to do these things if you want to be able to start to get in the habit where you’re able to do things you don’t necessarily want to do, but you know you need to do? Or if you know that regardless of what path your life takes you will have to do things you don’t want to do and you have to override that resistance in your brains. So how do you do that? I’m going to give you a quick tip that you can use. This you can use for studying, for homework, for whatever you have to do, for cleaning your bedroom, cleaning your backpack, whatever you have to do. I’m going to give you a quick tip on this. The tip is this. What you want to do is you want to chunk it down. My dad always says, “How do you eat an elephant? You eat an elephant one bite at a time.” You can’t do the whole thing. And what happens with you, is you feel overwhelmed because there are so many tasks nowadays that kids are required to manage. You have so many classes, so much homework, so many tests, so many papers to manage, so many things in your bedroom to manage, so many things to take care of. It is absolutely overwhelming. So what you have to do is you have to chunk it down so that it feels not overwhelming. Okay, there’s two ways to chunk, I’ll explain this to you. Number 1: One way to chunk is by tasks. Let’s say that you have a huge math assignment, you know it’s going to take you a long time and you’re procrastinating. You don’t even want to start on it. In order to chunk it down by task, you’re going to make it into very small pieces. For example, your task might be to do the first five problems only. Or your task might be that you’re only going to do the easiest ones first. Or your task might be that you’ll do half of the math assignment. If you’re writing a paper, your task might be that you’ll just write the outline, and then take a break. Your task might be that you just free-write. Your task might be that you just have a conversation with a friend in the class about the paper and talk through where you’re going to go with your paper. So you’re going to chunk it into tasks that feel manageable. You’re not going to say, “UGHH I have to write that paper. It’s going to take me forever. I don’t even want to start!” You’re going to say instead, “Okay, this paper is a big thing with a small task I can do that feels manageable.” If you have to clean your old bedroom, a task will be to just do the floor, just to do the clothes, just to organize the bookshelf, just to clean your desk. A task is a small thing that will feel manageable to you. You decide how big the task. Number 2: The other thing is time. You can chunk by time, so this is awesome. Let’s say that you have to clean your room. You can just set this timer for 3 minutes, or 5 minutes, or 10 minutes, whatever feels like a reasonable amount of time. It makes noise so it’s very audible, when it’s done it’s done. If you want to clean your room for 5 minutes. You set it and go for 5, when the timer is done, you can quit cleaning your room, or you can keep cleaning your room. A lot of time doing this will just help you trick yourself into actually getting the ball rolling. Same with this, by the way (number 1). The object with both of these is to trick yourself into keeping the train moving. We’re just trying to get through the overwhelm of self-starting, of getting started. A lot of times that’s the biggest problem is just starting it. So you want to chunk it down so you don’t feel overwhelmed. But set the timer for an amount of time that feels manageable. You’re writing a paper? Set it for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, a half-hour, whatever you want. But a manageable amount of time that you can devote to the paper. If you have to work on the math assignment, set it for 5 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, it doesn’t matter. But you want to junk it down to an amount of time that feels comfortable. So again, you chunk by task or time. Task is breaking it into micro-tasks, one big task into many micro-tasks. Pick a micro-task to get the ball rolling. You’ll probably trick yourself into continuing. Same thing with time. Just pick an amount of time that you want to work on something. Set it, and when it’s done, you can keep going or you can stop. But you need to learn to trick yourself. It’s not like the motivation fairy is going to come and give you some motivation fairy dust and you’re going to be like, “Oh, yeah, this is exciting. Now I’m ready to do my homework.” Don’t fool yourself. I’ve heard a lot of students say, “I’m just waiting till I’m ready. Until I feel ready.” You’re not going to feel ready. That’s not reality. They don’t wait for that. Look for strategies that you can trick yourself into getting started and doing things piece-by-piece. Slowly you’ll build your threshold where you can be more focused for longer periods of time, have less distractions, and be a more serious student so that you can create whatever future you want. So that you can follow your dreams and your passions. If you don’t get this down, you’re going to have a lot of trouble following your dreams. Okay, you need to figure out how to do the things that you’re responsible for. All right. I hope that helped you, go try it out. Please CLICK below to share.

2016 – How To Create The Best Year Ever For Your Family

2016 Simple but not easy: If you want to make 2016 the best year yet, begin with crystal clear intentions. There are many ways to do that, but I have outlined a solid strategy for you here. The idea is that you will free yourself from those things which block you so you can have space for the things you value most. Feel free to modify these ideas any way you wish. Here we go…

Get Started

  1. Get a journal out. You can use anything you want, an old notebook, a fancy moleskin, your computer, etc..
  2. Set aside some time when you won’t be disturbed. An hour or two should do.
  3. Begin with 10 deep breaths to relax into the process.
  4. Write the date and time at the top of a page.
Now here are guiding questions for you to respond to. You don’t have to respond to all of them, just choose the ones that resonate. You can write in paragraph form, bullets, draw pictures, anything that feels right. The important thing is that you don’t rush the process, that you write as much as you need to for each one. Here we go…

2015 Reflections:

  1. What went well last year year in our family? What am I grateful for?
  2. What didn’t go so well? What can I learn from these things? What was holding me/the family back?
  3. List any unfinished business I have from last year that I want to resolve? How might I resolve each of these?

2016 Manifestations and Intentions:

  1. What are my goals for this year with the family? Personally? Physically? Mentally? Emotionally? Spiritually? Other?
  2. What 3 words do I want to focus on for the upcoming year? (Put these somewhere that you will see them every day)
  3. What do I need to let go of this year?
  4. What matters most to our family? How can we honor this more fully?
  5. What is the most challenging thing in my life/our family right now? What would be the most ideal way for me to handle this?
  6. What would make 2016 the best year yet for the family??? If it was 100% ideal, what would it look like, feel like, what would we say, do, be? Be as specific as possible.
  7. Write a letter to yourself that you will read one year form now. Discuss anything that is important to you.

Plan The Year

Now we are going to get some things into your calendar. Go to the first day of each month and write your most important goal or intention for each month. Keep these simple and clear.

Plan The Upcoming Month

Finally, for January, make a list of all the specific things that need to happen in order to make your intentions for January a reality. The more detail the better. You might print an post the list or you might put these action items into your calendar. Each month, repeat this planning process. That’s it! I find that going through a process like this is remarkably powerful. It really sets things in motion. I hope this helps you gain clarity and have the best year yet! Seth Please share below and tell me what you think…

The “Organizationally Challenged” [Video 3/3, The Overhaul]

Please CLICK above to share. Here’s part 3/3. In part 1, I mentioned the following: I recently received this email:
My youngest (age 11) is challenged by organization. We’re working together to figure out systems and tools that help align her success in this area.
In part 2 I broke down how and why you need to have labeled “homes” for everything. Here, in part 3, I discuss the difference between “maintainers” and “overhaulers” and tell you how to do regular overhauls. Enjoy, and please share.

The Overhaul Weekly Challenge:

Try this and let me know how it goes:
  1. In your planner, schedule a weekly 30-minute overhaul (although it may take less time).
  2. Do an initial “reset” or “overhaul” of everything related to school!
  3. Each week, repeat the process for 1 semester.
  4. Email me or leave a comment here to let me know the results.
Good luck!
Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you — Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

Alright finally were onto video three out of three on challenge by organization. If you were challenged by organization in your students or your parent in your childish and very ization that are three main things that you’re going to do that are going to help you to get over to his first of all, the first one was in video number one was to minimize get rid of stuff get down to the essentials declutter. Okay, get everything cleaned up. The second one was for the things that you do. Keep you want to have home for everything like this is a home for paper clips. Okay, when a very clearly labeled simple home for supper, very simple, very easy to use you need homes for things third is the overall okay people who are not naturally organized or are not good at maintaining. Okay. I call it maintainer is an overhaul Earth maintainers are people who maintain things very easily. They brush their teeth. They learned about should see the young and they get in the habit and it’s a habit is done. They actually Like making the bed they’re maintaining making their beds. They actually will do their own laundry at an early age. They they maintain things they’re taken care of things things. Don’t get out of hand. Their deaths can get out of here in their backpack doesn’t get out of hand their locker doesn’t get out of here in their bedroom doesn’t get out of hand. The bathroom doesn’t look like an explosion happened. Everything doesn’t get out of hand because they’re maintainers. They’re constantly maintaining and refining and they’re the type of people who put things away when they’re done with them. They don’t need to be reminded. They put their dishes in the sink after they’ve eaten things like that. Okay, but if you’re watching this video, You’re not a maintainer. You’re an overhaul are okay. So if you’re a student who is in a maintainer, you’re an overhaul or which means that periodically you will go to town and completely redo your whole bedroom or completely redo the whole backpack or completely clean something or all your video games are all your that so that so generally speaking you’re someone who likes to overhaul when some other problem is that I see with the students I work with is they don’t over how regularly and then things do get out of hand and then they get behind on their homework and then they’re swimming Upstream for the rest of the semester trying to catch up with grades and their grades are not reflecting with are truly capable of nor are they enjoying school as much as they should and this also affects other areas of life. Either way. The point is you need to get a weekly habit of overalls. Okay, you need to overhaul certain things on a weekly basis and you’ll be fine. Trust me on this the most important thing to overhaul is your school materials your backpack General. Speaking with you’re going to want to do in a very easy ways every single Friday everything in your backpack from your locker or your desk everything that belongs to you from school and just bring it home dumped it all over the floor at first it might take you a while to do the overall black as you do this on a weekly basis it all eventually only take you five to ten minutes a week to maintain everything and what you’re going to do is you’re going to pull everything out of the backpack every single thing every gum wrapper every pencil shaving everything out of the backpack go through all of it reorganizes papers recycle everything. You don’t need throw away the trash you don’t need me when I’m doing overalls with my students. I’ll find sandwiches in there and old drinks in there and crumbs of food in there and papers from from months ago and things that are just not important. So you want to do this overhaul. I’m really be doing this on a weekly basis make it habit just that every Sunday night’s my favorite time do this because it helps you close out the free. This week and prep for the upcoming week, but every Sunday night or whatever you want to do a dune overhaul 5 or 10 minutes will everything out go through all your papers get them back in the right folders anything that needs to be done get it in your queue or your homework folder or your planner. I write things in your planner update your planner cross off everything from the week before right in the assignments that are coming up in the upcoming week. The overhaul is designed to be a maintenance type thing. Since you’re not a maintainer you need to have regular overhauls so that you’re maintaining so that you’re having maintenance to do a thorough check and make sure that you’re not leaving any important business. I’m done. Homework that you need to turn in the homework you need to do whatever so once you get those three things you are well on your way to developing better habits with organization. You’re not going to be perfect North should you ever be perfect with organization? You will probably never look like a naturally or a nice person that doesn’t matter. If you get in the habit of the first video of eliminating the stuff you don’t need and then the second video which is creating homes that for the things that you do need in actually using those homes. And then on this video doing regular maintenance overalls, you will be in really good shape. Now I mention the overhaul for the backpack, you can also over call your bedroom and clean it once a week or the laundry once a week or whatever other areas of your life your art area and whatever your things are. You will probably want to get in the habit for that as well. But at least if you start with his backpack overall once a week, you’re going to be in much better shape. All right, get to it have an awesome week. I hope this helps you. I’ll see you soon.

The “Organizationally Challenged” [Video 2/3]

Please CLICK above to share. Here’s part 2/3. In part 1, I mentioned the following: I recently received this email:
My youngest (age 11) is challenged by organization. We’re working together to figure out systems and tools that help align her success in this area.”
Well, here in part 2 I will break down how and why you need to have labeled “homes” for everything. Enjoy, and please share.

The Homes 7-day Challenge:

Try this and let me know how it goes:
  1. List the categories of things you want homes for. Use your own words. This might include things like School Supplies, Art Supplies, Sports, Electronics Misc., Memorabilia, Random Junk, Valuables, Tools, etc..
  2. Find or buy a good “home” for these things. You might use storage boxes, Ziploc baggies, drawers, shelves, etc..
  3. Clearly label everything. Label all sides.  Use sharpies, stickers, label makers, whatever. Do not skip this step.
  4. Give yourself 7 days to make homes for all relevant categories.
  5. Email me or leave a comment here to let me know what happened. Share a before and after photo if you want and I’ll include in a future post.
Good luck! Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth

Video transcript:

The “Organizationally Challenged” [Video 1/3]

Please CLICK above to share. The “Organizationally Challenged,” Video 1 of 3 I recently received this email:
My youngest (age 11) is challenged by organization. We’re working together to figure out systems and tools that help align her success in this area.
Well, all the students I work with are “organizationally challenged.” But what can we do about it? Here is the first in a 3 part mini-series about what works.

30-Day Challenge:

Try this and let me know how it goes:
  1. Download the free Quick Decluttering Guide right here.
  2. Print it and overhaul everything on it to the best of your ability.
  3. Give yourself 30 days to make as much of a dent as possible.
  4. Email me or leave a comment here to let me know what happened.
Good luck! How to organize students
Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

Everybody that’s the stuff the stuff for the.com and this week. I’m going to share with you a quick email from a parent and she writes my youngest age 11 is challenged by organization. Working together to figure out some system is in tools to help align her success in this area. Challenge spy organization 100% of the students that I work with are challenged by the by organization. It wouldn’t be coming to me if they weren’t challenged by organization. So I’m going to dive into this topic and I’m going to make three videos for you. This is part one where I’m going to discuss three ways that you can really help tackle getting more organized and help kids who are challenged by organization. Before we get into it, let’s look at why. Somebody would be challenged by renovation the first place and what it comes down to is the bring executive function in the brain the prefrontal cortex the front part of the brain, the brain’s ability to execute task organizing requires organizing is part of the executive function it part of the ability to execute ask you must be able to organize things in order to execute ask let’s look at to tasks one with the writing a paper into we’ll look at cleaning a bedroom. Okay. So if you’re writing a paper cleaning a bedroom in order to do either of those you have to organize you have to organize your thoughts to organize your space. We have to organize the materials. You have to organize the Clutter you have to organize stuff. So if you’re writing a paper you have to organize the paper organizer thoughts and do a good outline to a good plan, which these kids do not like to plan their Take me to start riding in vomit all their words out and then that it goes all over the place and it’s very disorganized. Right and if you look at cleaning a bedroom that you have to organize space you have to be able to think categorically in systematized and think about where the places are four things. So what I’m going to do is I’m in these three videos. I’m going to look at 3 things that you can do either as a student to get more organized in life in general or as a parent to help these students who are not organized again. This has to do with the brain the brain is still developing the brain will continue to develop with executive functioning to kids about 25 years old. So there’s a lot of growth in the brain that still going to happen and the more you can help these kids to have habit that really support this the better executive function will develop So today I’m specifically going to talk about the first tip to help people who are challenged by organization in the first thing you want to do is declutter. You want to get rid of clutter? You want to minimize you want to get down to the essentials. He want to get rid of everything. You don’t need there’s some different domains you want to do this. You want to go through all your stuff all the closet under the bed all the old books. All the old toys all the old things that you don’t need any more. You want to get rid of so long time ago. I met this guy named Lou and he was a multi multi-millionaire. He lives in this big mansion in Indiana and Every once in a while you’d have people over and is this place is huge. There were four wings to the house. And one of the things that Lou said to me is he said that the more stuff you have the more stuff you maintain because he had a lot of stuff actually had somebody we was living on the grounds just to maintain the lawn. He literally lived at the house just to maintain the exterior. So this is the more stuff you have the more you have to maintain now for these kids the more stuff. They have the more they have to maintain the more shoes. They have the more shoes that the track the more stock the more they have to track them or clothing the more bucks. The more toys the more stop whatever their hobby is the happiest snowboarding and skiing the more stuff that has to do with that the more they have to maintain there’s so much stuff stuff stuff. Your first step is to declutter and I will put a downloadable declutter. Checklist on the blog post for you. So you can download that print it and use it to help you declutter in a systematic way so that it’s not overwhelming but when you don’t declutter your coloring and there’s so much stuff that it creates not only clutter in the physical space, but it also creates clutter in the mind. So these kids were not great at systematizing. They have a lot of it when they have a lot of clutter. They’re even more overwhelmed mentally it takes up mental space when there’s a lot of physical stuff that’s unnecessary. And so you want to recycle it give it to Goodwill sell it throw it away, whatever you need to do declutter. So that’s the first step. Now as you declutter your mind begins to be able to clear as your space to give the clear your mind against the clear but it’s not just a sin stuff. It’s also on the computer. So I also want you to declutter your computer. That means getting rid of emails unsubscribing from email list deleting any and all photos that you don’t need. So many people have thousands of photos 17 photos of the same thing like get rid of the Clutter that stuff now teach kids to do this early so that they’re not coming up their minds and their space in their computers with all of this before. Company email list that I was working with a student the other day. We were going through his head about seven thousand emails. We’re going through the emails unsubscribing from all these lists because we would look up he was he’s in snowboarding and we would look up a particular company that he had described to there be a hundred emails from them and he didn’t never opened any of them. So we deleted him an unsubscribe. So you really want you to be thinking those three things one de-cluttering space physical stuff to decluttering the computer very important to get in that happened with the technological world. We live in 3 declaring your mind. And when you do these things that will help declutter your mind, but also when you resolved internal issues and conflicts and things like that that also helps to declutter the mind so you like what I’m doing go ahead and share this video with somebody had really appreciate that and I will get on to the next video, but for now go to the block if you want and you can I’m download that free worksheet checklist to help you declutter. They’re just make it very clear. So have an awesome day. Take care.

The Email You Should Definitely Send Your Teachers This Week

Student advocacy at the end of a semester helps!
Student advocacy at the end of a semester helps!
The end of the semester is always a time to be cautious, because, as far as grades are concerned, it’s a make-it-or-break-it time for many right brained students. In my years of working with these students, I’ve noticed a very predictable pattern throughout the semester:
  1. Student starts the semester off strong, they are often excited for the fresh start.
  2. A few weeks in, things seem to be going “fine,” but you may have a sense that something is off.
  3. “The Dip” happens 6-8 weeks into the semester (usually mid October or late February). This is when, all of a sudden, big red flags pop up. This usually involves falling grades, scary progress reports, alarming conferences, etc..
  4. Students spend the rest of the semester swimming upstream… or, avoiding the overwhelm, resisting help, and getting further behind. Either way, they are often stressed, anxious, avoidant, resistant, frustrated, defensive, and generally unrealistic about what needs to be done. Sooooooo…

Grade nosedive

The reason I call it a “make-it-or-break-it” time for grades is because there is another common aspect to this pattern: something happens at the end of the semester that crushes grades overnight. It’s usually one of four things:
  1. An exam, test or quiz
  2. A project
  3. A paper
  4. A teacher inputting a bunch of grades late (Note – I am not saying this is the teacher’s fault. Although teachers are all over the place as far as how on top of it they are, grades are often inputted late because the student turned work in late. It takes even more time for the teacher to evaluate the late pile… they have enough trouble finding time to grade work that came in on the due date.)

What to do about it?

Since we know the pattern, what can we do to finish as strong as possible? I recommend that you be proactive! This means that you communicate with your teachers before things fall apart, that you cover your bases. I recommend that you email your teachers to ask them how you are doing and what you need to do to make sure you finish strong.

Resistance

Many students resist writing emails and say to me, “yeah, I’ll just go in to talk to them about it tomorrow.” Then when I ask them about it, they often say that they forgot. The reason this email is so important is accountability! It helps you to communicate clearly to your teacher and to make sure that you follow through with whatever you need to do. Soooo, let go of your resistance for 10 minutes and just email your teacher proactively! I’ll make it even easier for you… just steal the template below. By the way, this can be adapted for parents or students to write.

Here’s a template you can use to craft an advocacy letter to your teacher

Below is an example of a template I might teach my students to write. Feel free to cut and paste it into your email and change it however you need to. Parents, you can definitely change it to make it from you. Do whatever is best in your situation.
Subject: IMPORTANT- Jim McDonald (use your name) Tuesday, 11/17/15 Hey Mr. Jones, Quick question. I’m working hard to do well in your class and my grade is a 72%. I want to make sure I finish this semester as strong as possible, so I want to ask you how am I doing. Here are some things I am wondering:
  1. Are there any upcoming papers, tests, or projects that I should be working on?
  2. Am I missing anything that is not already in the online gradebook?
  3. Do you have any tips for me to finish strong?
  4. What am I doing well in your class?
  5. Would it be good for me to come to your office hours to chat?
Thanks for your time, Seth Perler, Period 3

Teachers love this

One thing I have seen over and over, is that teachers appreciate proactive students. Writing this type of letter says a lot about you. Students are often resistant to try a letter like this at first, but, inevitably, after they do it, they are sold. It deepens the relationship with the teacher, the kids get awesome tips, and they have clarity on how to finish strong. Good luck! Seth
  Please *click* below to share. Thanks!