Meri Jade Piltser

Teacher and Security: MIT Educational Studies Program – 2009 to current

MIT Educational Studies Program (ESP) is a student group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that recruits MIT students and community members to teach classes for high school and middle school students from the Boston area and beyond. Splash and HSSP are two of their reoccurring programs.

Effective Communication and Conflict Resolution – Splash November 2010

• Taught communication techniques and conflict resolution skills for negotiating social difficulties and everyday situations in a positive and constructive manner.
• Led and facilitated role-playing exercises to give students practice and examples of how to apply these skills.
• Special focus on communicating personal boundaries and being at choice.

Stress, Anxiety, and Depression Management - Splash November 2010

• Researched, planned and gave a presentation about the physical, emotional, and social impacts of depression anxiety and stress.
• Led discussion group on coping strategies for increasing emotional stability and reducing the impact of depression, anxiety and stress in everyday life.

Introduction to Website Design using WordPress - HSSP Summer 2010

• Taught the process of website design using WordPress structure from initial concept through at least two drafts, including customized plugins, widgets and graphics.
• Facilitated peer review and encouraged linking sites created to the outside wold, including search engines, Facebook and other social media

Mind: Evolve! Patterns, Decisions, and Sustainable Change - Splash November 2009
Taught about the process and failure modes of goal setting and goal achievement.  Focuses included:

• Awareness of present conditions
• Positively focused goal setting
• Learning how to design and implement sustainable changes.
• Why you must track progress toward your goals, and why you want to enjoy it, too.
• Why “Evolve Now!” is often ineffective, while “evolve over time” works.
• Also covered: the nature of habits, the inconsistency of memory and personality, plasticity of the brain, the importance of simplicity, choice, and freedom, the nuances of motivation and feelings.

Life: College, Career, and Money and a few other thoughts - Splash November 2009
Taught a class to reduce inaccurate assumptions, insufficient information and inability to envision the future clearly in order to facilitate more optimal choices about life. Topics included:

• A few thoughts on how not to pick a career or a college, and what works better.
• What are musts in choosing employment and what may helps you get hired.
• Basics of budgeting and finance. Why it is not (very) complicated or scary. Why it is important.
• What can you be when you grow up? Some interesting and overlooked choices.
• Student Loans, Credit Cards, Annual Fees, Credit Rating
• Scholarships and why a cheaper college may be a better option for a first degree.
• Why should you have a bank account, credit card, library card and a passport.
• Sharing finances, personal loans and the sanity meter.

Body: An eclectic guide to Metabolism, Nutrition and Fitness - Splash November 2009
Taught with the goal of dispelling misconceptions about how our bodies function and providing quality information with which to make decisions to minimize the damage done by everyday living. Concepts covered included:

• Impact of exercise and food on happiness and health.
• Creating an accurate understanding of how metabolism works and what it means. Meaningful indicators of health and fitness; why they can not be based on weight, size, and strength alone.
• What real food is and isn’t, and how to tell the difference.
• How to make food tasty as opposed to slimy or crunchy in all the wrong ways.
• A look at some specialized diets, from vegan to high protein.
• How to go from un-athletic to fit in a way that feels good. Achieving specific fitness goals, such as endurance, strength, flexibility, weight loss/gain, lung capacity, and bulk. Progressive training and avoiding injury.
• Other topics included: base metabolic rate, some physiological difference between genders, blood sugar, hypoglycemia, allergies, food sensitivities, cooking, sleep, substances and moods.

Workshop Presenter and Volunteer: BeyondIQ  - 2009 to current

The Road Less Traveled: Kids and Adults Who Must Find Their Own Way – Spring 2009

• This class explored how a child can grow and learn without classes, without a curriculum, even without a structure at all, for children who don’t fit in any school situation, even home-school.
• Led discussion on how to survive and thrive in the adult world without the 9 to 5, for those who have already grown up, or who have children who plan on doing so.

Exploring Gender – Spring 2009

• Presented and led discussion on the impacts of gender on development, identity, and relationships.
• What is defines gender? Which of these characteristics are essential, and which are created by the culture we live in?
• What effect will growing up in a strongly gendered society have on our children?
• How does giftedness provide both additional challenges and additional resources with regards to gender?