Blog
We totally blog! Just when we thought blogs were outdated and uncool, we realized that we don’t care! Longform writing has always been fun for us and we believe it is our responsibility to populate the interwebs with our knowledge and our joy!
What I learned from 2020: A School Psychologist’s Introspective Retrospective!
Dear Totem Community! I hope each of you are safe and well in these first few weeks of January 2021. (It's also okay if you are feeling a little anxious, overwhelmed, and even depressed. It happens to all of us! Remember to reach out to friends, family, and even...
Totem PD Stands in Solidarity with the Black Community
Every child deserves to be happy. We work within systems to make it happen. This is the belief and mission of Totem PD. Totem PD was created by three white guys with Ph.D.s from universities founded by white guys. The textbooks and papers we read (for the most part),...
Parenting in the Age of COVID-19: Fighting the Guilt Toxin
As I sit to write this message, we've endured 16 days (or so) of the official COVID-19 school closures. In my role as manager for Totem PD, we've seen a dramatic increase in our online course completions, (like, 913% increase). The dedication to learning and work of...
Quality Implementation is Sexy…
When you see it, you can feel it. You're drawn to it. It's almost hypnotizing. What is it? It's quality implementation and it's irresistible. Once you've fallen under the spell of quality implementation, it will make you do things you never thought possible! Quality...
Dear Autism,
Dear Autism, My name is Ben Springer and I wanted to drop you a note, to tell you why I’m grateful for you. We first met in a textbook. You were surrounded by a lot of medical-sounding words that made you feel like something broken. The second time I met you, was in...
Give Your Students the B.I.R.D.
Ah, the springtime. Birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, and oh, yes, the kids in school have become a pungent, noisy behavioral soup of chaos. That’s right, a hot, (sometimes smelly) hoard of bubbling goo, poor impulse control, and noise. Of course I love kids...
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