At the Life Skills Academy we are deeply grateful and indebted to our friend and supporter Dr. Deena Shaffer. Dr. Deena brings decades of experience as an educator, researcher, administrator, speaker, education leader, author and parent to each of her conversations with us, helping us wade into the massive complexity of our learning lives and understand them more clearly and more compassionately. Her expertise is rivalled only by her extraordinary empathy for the situation of learners in today’s educational climate.

As the founder and CEO of Awakened Learning, Dr. Deena leads a team of expert educators who offer a diverse range of perspectives and skills to the students and parents they support each day. We’re lucky to have a number of Awakened Learning educators helping us to elaborate on our various themes this season, and will look forward to many of their insights on how we can bring holism and authenticity into our learning journeys.

In this episode Dr. Deena shared some of what she’s learned from past mentors, lived trauma, travel and teaching, and she really hit home some of the ways we can think of ourselves and care for ourselves in and outside of school, absent of toxic comparison or competition with others. If her words resonate with you, you can take some meaningful steps forward into her world of wisdom by finding her on Instagram @AwakenedLearning , or by reading her recently-published book Feel Good Learning.

Some topics and resources to listen for and take further:

• Processing long-held emotions (esp. re: the Pandemic)
  
• Daily and Yearly Rhythms of Life
  
• Self-Esteem vs Self-Belief
  
• Dr Kristin Neff and Self-Compassion
  
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Model
  
• The steps that come before asking for help
  
• How “the system” makes us feel broken
  
• Self-Compassion as an antidote to Perfectionism
  
• Dr. Shawna Faber – Coaching Pedagogy
  
• Noticing tension and cultivating ease in our educational lives
  
• Naomi Klein
  
• On Being with Krista Tippett
  
• Paul Taylor’s Evenings and Weekends
  
• Trevor Massey and Leadership by Design
  

If you haven’t listened to our last episode click here