Author Archives: Claire Rietmann-Grout

This semester we have been working with our students to learn to connect to and trust their intuitions. At Coastside Leadership Academy we talk about how our bodies and minds already have all the information we need inside us, but in the information age, we have been trained to listen to ourselves less and relyContinue reading “Helping Teens Trust Their Intuitions Through Imagination and Mindful Meditation “

The holiday season is here, and I have been thinking about ways to help my students think beyond themselves to help the community. I want to guide my students to become compassionate leaders who lead with kindness, empathy, and genuine concern for others. The best way to do this is to identify who or whatContinue reading “Compassionate Leadership: Helping Others Through Service Learning”

Teaching students to be self-advocates is a common outcome goal in high school programs. In working with my students at Coastside Leadership Academy, we realized that in order for students to build this developmental skill, they have to believe that they are worthy of having their needs met. To do this, we learned about self-worth. Continue reading “Self-Worth Reflection for Teens”

With the upsetting and horrifying news coming from Palestine and Israel recently, we chose Global Awareness as the theme of our second unit at Coastside Leadership Academy. Our goal is for our students to understand how to find accurate information, think critically about their findings, and then communicate their findings effectively. The learning target forContinue reading “Global Awareness from a Journalist’s Perspective”

This year at Coastside Leadership Academy, we wanted to find ways to encourage our students to delve deeper into our units and read independently. Our goal is to develop our student’s curiosity while giving them the tools to find out more for themselves by following their own interests. During our Environmental Literacy unit this fall,Continue reading “Independent Student Inquiry Projects”

Over the summer Coastside Leadership Academy officially became a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and this week I led my first Board of Directors meeting for CLA. While my title has changed from Founder to President, my role feels the same, but this is proof that CLA is growing. Lindsay and I invited three women with differentContinue reading “Ask For Help and Then Trust”

I am new to practicing yoga. I started going to classes this summer because my husband and friends enjoy going, even though I have never liked stretching. I felt like yoga was too slow of a workout for me. I have always done high intensity exercises as a former Division I athlete, and my mindContinue reading “Lessons From Hot Yoga”

The phrase “advocate for yourself” is commonly used in social emotional learning curriculums, and this week at Coastside Leadership Academy, we took a deeper look into what it means to be self advocates. At CLA being a self advocate means identifying your personal needs and then communicating them effectively. This week we began talking aboutContinue reading “Maslow Then Bloom”

Our first unit of the year at Coastside Leadership Academy is Environmental Literacy. Last week our students started to learn about ecology surveys and the tools used to help the process. One tool is called a quadrat, which can be used to observe plants, animals, fungi, or other natural matter in a certain area. AContinue reading “Empowered By Power Tools”

For the past month, my cat Arthur’s eating schedule has been off. I usually feed him breakfast at 5am when my alarm clock goes off, but lately he has been waking me up at 2am wanting to eat. Arthur is very persistent when he is hungry, he will bop me in the face with hisContinue reading “Learning Boundaries From Arthur”