Arkansas A.W.A.R.E.

Betsy and Nicole have spent a lot of time so far encouraging you toward empathy, understanding and self-care. Now we’re going to talk about self-care from a completely different angle. Defensive dehumanization. Wow. That sounds terrible! It sounds like something we should be fighting against. It’s true, dehumanizing people is a step towards things like slavery, murder, violence or genocide. In ord...

Mirror mirror on the wall – who’s the fairest of them all. Fair. Like nice. Like approachable and safe. Did you know kids are looking for that? The kids with several ACEs under their belt – they’re experts, professionals, when it comes to looking for this. Lots of kids who have been through a traumatic experience, or persistent adversity, are uniquely attuned to the non-verbals of people around th...

In the our last episode (Soldiering Through), Betsy and Nicole talked about what happens in our bodies when adrenaline is released. We enter into a state we often call "fight, flight or freeze." In this episode, we take a look at what happens when cortisol is released. Nadine-Burke Harris does such a good job of explaining this in "The Deepest Well" (referenced in episode 2 "ACES".) Cortisol is re...

We don’t learn when we’re stressed. We simply can’t (biologically) take in new information. Let’s walk through the biological process of a stress response. Sometimes called fight, flight or freeze. A danger presents itself and our bodies begin to respond even before we have conscious thoughts about the danger. Adrenaline is released and our heart starts racing, breathing increases as our airways o...

This episode is titled "Quick Fixes", however, it has also been affectionately referred to as "Nicole's RANT!" Nicole: "Okay – I hate the idea of providing quick fixes. When we started this podcast, our team sat around the table and talked about what the format might look like. We looked at a draft and the 2 educators in the room said we needed to end each podcast with a couple of quick techniques...

I can’t help it if bad things happened to you when you were a kid. I have to teach you to READ. Regardless of your history, background, color, race or creed. I have to teach you to add and subtract,to hypothesize and analyze. Why can’t I just TEACH??? How many of you out there have thought that.........muttered it under your breath.........maybe even yelled it at your principal? More than one of y...

Nicole Fairchild welcomes special guest Reggie Dabbs to the podcast to remind us that "knowing the story" is powerful. Thanks to Reggie Dabbs for taking a moment to send this encouraging reminder out to our listeners! You can find Reggie Dabbs, and many other phenomenal speakers, at The Youth Alliance. The Youth Alliance website Arkansas A.W.A.R.E. website   Produced by Donnie Lee Music: https://w...

Adversity in childhood. Think about that for a moment. Can you think of students who face adversity on a daily basis? Okay – let’s break this down… What qualifies as adversity? Hungry in the morning? Homeless? Shoes don’t fit? Abuse/neglect? Gets picked on by peers? Parental death? Learning disability? Drug abuse by caregivers? To be clear – adversity is more serious than some of these things on t...

Have you heard of ACES? The research has been out for a decade or two but the word is still getting out. If you haven’t yet, please plan to watch the TED talk on ACES by Nadine Burke-Harris. . If you watch that and want to learn more, she has a book called "The Deepest Well" that is really fascinating. Just in case this is a new topic for you, we’ll spend our time together giving a brief synopsis...

This is the first episode of the Arkansas A.W.A.R.E. podcast series. Join Betsy Kindall and Nicole Fairchild as they discuss issues related to mental health in education. Their conversations are witty and relate-able, simultaneously shedding light on issues that can sometimes be hard to confront or understand. These episodes are packed with information that would be helpful to educators, parents,...