We all feel connected through play. It starts when you are young, and with other children. It continues as we discover sports and extracurricular activities. Even gamers connect with others! It is only when we become adults that we might lose our sense of play, but wouldn’t you say that’s part of the reason we age? For the educators at Alpha School, it may be the key to enhancing their ability to work with students.
Howard Moody
On March 20th, Howard Moody, a seasoned Play Specialist, will be bringing his workshop to our school in the form of a seminar covering topics such as emotions, social enhancements, and other motivational aspects.
Child study teams from various other districts have been invited to attend as well. Howard has been facilitating workshops for over 25 years. His presentations are fun and focus on play, mindfulness, social emotional learning, communication, and cooperation.
Howard’s goal is to help people be fully inspired, creative and playful in all that they do. His work draws from the fields of positive psychology, mindfulness, leadership development, and holistic health. Specifically, in educational environments, he prefers to focus on skills that help educators create inclusive, energizing, and meaningful play experiences that tie into social-emotional learning, character building, or mindfulness-based curricula.
This spring, we are thrilled to welcome this teacher and successful coach of numerous sports to speak to our staff about the value of creating effective teams and how to achieve peak performance. His programs are helping to transform the 21st-century workplace into an environment that encourages people to be themselves and operate at the highest level of insight, creativity, and teamwork. With our brilliant staff to work with, we have no doubt that Mr. Moody will be ready to play.
Howard is a certified Advanced Trainer for the Nurtured Heart Approach ®.
After he and its creator, Howard Glass realized how alike they were in their work of nurturing the spirits of children, they collaborated on the book, Nurtured Heart Play. The Nurtured Heart Approach is a success with schools and clinics, as well as parents and counselors worldwide. It is a new way to deepen the social emotional learning that takes place during play and will support any adult who works closely with children. He followed this up with a companion book, a collection of games, entitled The Heart of Play. Now, he leads workshops for nonprofits and companies focusing on the concepts of effective communication, innovation, and teamwork. He refers to this as Organizational Play. Sessions are full-day, half-day or even one hour, and involve comprehensive training on stress management, conscious communication, teamwork or innovation, and creativity.
Howard has been a faculty member at the Omega Institute for Holistic studies and is the co-founder of The Adventure Game Theater. The Adventure Game Theater is an improvisational learning process for teens that has been featured on PBS and NPR. It combines experiential learning with creativity, improvisational theater, play, community building, mythology, and storytelling.
Alpha School an private special education school in New Jersey
Our Mission at The Alpha School is to help all of our special needs students with the learning, social, language, and behavioral support they deserve. Our highly skilled staff are committed daily to helping each student to becoming the best they can while providing a safe and nurturing educational environment.
We would be more than happy to discuss your child’s specific needs and challenges, so please call us at 732.370.1150, or request a tour of Alpha School of Jackson, NJ located just minutes off of Route 9 and Route 195 in Ocean County.
— Monica DeTuro, Principal-Alpha School, Jackson, NJ
About RKS Associates
At all the RKS Schools we pride ourselves in discovery the hidden treasures of all of our students. Our academic and support services are appropriately customized for a student unique and diverse needs so that they can reach their full potential.
Alpha School is part of special needs network of schools located in Monmouth, Middlesex and Ocean County New Jersey. Since 1980 the RKS Associates schools have been leaders in helping special needs helping students with various disabilities including autism, Down's syndrome, communication, learning, social, behavioral and emotional disabilities. The range of services RKS schools provide is academic instruction and speech, occupational and physical therapies. In addition to Life Skills, Technology, and a full complement of Support Services.
