On this episode we talk about what it means to be an “upstreamist”; teens and what is most important; social conditions and their impact; how colonialism got it all wrong and the brilliance of indigenous ways of knowing and learning; a gardener versus a carpenter approach to parenting; and so much more.
My guest today is a Clinical Professor at McMaster in the Dept of Psychiatry and Behavioural neurosciences. She was appointed the education advisor to the Premier of Ontario and the minister of Education from 2014 – 2018. She has cross-appointments in family medicine and pediatrics, the department of child psychiatry at University of Toronto and sick Childrens Hospital. She has been a consultant on youth and mental health programs, child welfare and primary care for over 35 years. She is also a mom of 5 and a grandmother, too.
At one point, in her excellent and informative book, “Love Builds Brains”, she boils it all down to this. She says (in chapter ONE mind you) that “At the core of everything I want to convey is the power that one person can have on another person. That power is conveyed through serve and return – of listening as much as we talk to out infants, toddlers, older children, and adolescents. Our capacity for serve and return is what we need to take into our own work and work we do with kids and communities.” You will love this conversation! Get ready to learn and laugh and be inspired.
RESOURCES:
“Love Builds Brains” by Dr. Jean Clinton
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/love-builds-brains/9780981014968.html
“And Grandma said: Iroquois Teachings as passed Down Through the Oral Tradition” by Tom Porter
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/and-grandma-said...-iroquois-teachings-as-passed-down-through-the-oral-tradition/9781436335652.html
