We Are Parrotclete

We are educators committed to bridging the gap between character and academic learning. In ancient Greek – a Paraclete is one who comes alongside – in ‘aid’ of others.  In Christian theology, a paraclete is an advocate or counselor. 

What about a parrot? Many of these 327 brightly colored birds are known for high intelligence and the gift of imitation. Michael Schindlinger, an assistant professor of biology and contributor to Scientific American suggests that “playback studies of geographical dialects from wild parrot populations have shown that birds react more strongly to their local tongue.  Maybe this is one reason for these parrots to imitate: to better command the attention of a potential listener by producing sounds for which the listener already has a memory.”  Schindlinger explains that imitation helps to get the attention of others in a “noisy environment.”

Our world is noisy!  Parrotclete aims to provide curriculum and tools that teach foundational social-emotional learning skills to be imitated, adapted and shared for the growth of our children to adulthood.