To help encourage dialogue and reflection about summertime, our question for early summer is: What are your hopes for Summer 2021? Some Early Summer Reflections (July 7, 2021) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
Blake's Guiding Lights
Our Students
Blake's Core Values: Respect, Responsibility, Resourcefulness, Reflection
Our Essential Question: How can we cultivate and curate the progression of student learning and growth?
Our Mission: Blake Middle School believes in a living mission statement, based on the concept that our community seeks and respects knowledge, integrity, character, wisdom, and the willingness to adapt to a continually evolving world.
The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning. - John Dewey
You cannot teach today the same way you did yesterday to prepare students for tomorrow. - John Dewey
As we turn the page on the long holiday weekend, I hope that the first couple of weeks of summer have proven to be restful and relaxing for everyone. Although the time seems to be moving quickly, I am reminding myself to #slowitdown and that we often think of July 4 as the official start of summer! Our family has had a nice start to this much-needed summer break with strawberry picking, trips to the beach, bike rides, yoga, celebrating Owen’s 15th birthday (wow!), summer ball, and some nice afternoon naps. A real ‘work’ highlight was being asked to attend LearnLaunch’s K-12 Innovation Summit at Fenway Park - stay tuned for reflections and learning in a future post!
Student and Staff Reflections
At the end of each school year, I ask both students and staff to highlight positive aspects of their learning experiences. With full recognition that these sentiments are not shared by all and that challenges were faced by many, it is important to take some time to read through a sampling of responses - the very nature of ‘naming the good’ helps us to highlight growth and learning that has taken place. To balance this perspective, we can not ignore the challenges and will continue to work on those as well.
For students...
Reflecting on your learning and experiences this year, what are you most proud of? (Sampling of responses)
- I’m most proving of how we all stuck together and got through this year
- Being able to adapt
- How my essays have improved
- I am most proud of how even during remote learning I put so much effort into all my work.
- Making new friends
- I’m most proud of completing all of my work and trying my hardest
- I’m most proud of my ability to debate about a topic given to me
- Learning about myself
- Being resourceful and responsible
- I learned a lot about reasoning and real life problems.
- I am most proud of trying my hardest on all of my assignments.
- I’m most proud of improving in many areas of my learning.
For staff...
What was meaningful this year? What made teaching worthwhile? What mattered? (Sampling of responses)
- Support, understanding and flexibility from our school, staff, students and parents made this year so meaningful.
- The students. It is always, always, the students and the relationships and connections with them that make teaching worthwhile. This year, more so than others, highlighted the importance of getting to know students as individuals beyond the academic realms of our classrooms. With the challenges faced by both students and staff this year, relationships remained constantly at the center of our work. Students are the reason I became a teacher, and the reason that I enjoy getting up and teaching each day.
- The kids are always the meaningful part, the part that makes teaching worthwhile and the part that makes it matter.
- I remain committed to the idea that things can improve and be made better. The relationships with colleagues that have a similar belief that things can improve were critical and what I fell back on.
- This year further cemented the importance of having great colleagues. I was blown away by the collaboration and commitment of my peers this year.
- So much was meaningful this year. In particular, I found it a special year of bonding with students and staff. Through so much uncertainty we were able to share a historic experience. Seeing students succeed under these almost impossible circumstances gives me endless hope for the future of education. We can adapt and thrive.
- Working together to ensure students were "set up" to be successful.
- The relationship with the kids mattered more than ever this year.
- Connections with teachers and staff.
- The kids. As they always are. It was so different being on Zoom with them but seeing them still struggling and trying and growing was rewarding as it always is.
- Supporting children
Quotations
At our end-of-year lunch as a staff, these quotes were shared in the slide deck - they are ones that we have highlighted at different times throughout the course of this past school year (and in other years), and they speak to me (and hopefully others) on many levels…
“It is institutions,” he wrote, “that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of ‘our institutions’ unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning.
Stop and think, though, of what institutions have done for you.
-- Marty Baron
Working with kids every day is rarely boring. Kids are naturally fun. Their curiosity and energy rub off on me and keep me coming back for more. No matter how much education changes, kids will always need good teachers, and we will always need them right back.
-- Pete Barnes
Some Posts/Clips that Resonate
As We End the Year…
** The posts and clips below are a representative sampling of tenets and core values we hold at Blake - pushing ourselves and our students to further our own learning in a collaborative and supportive environment.
You Are Going With You
By Kate Peltz in NAIS
When soon-to-be graduates express trepidation about their transition to life beyond high school, together we reflect on other times they have navigated change. Some students fear leaving friends and worry about finding their people in college. Others wonder how they will adapt to new school culture or rise to meet increased academic expectations. Not every student is off to adventures or work about which they are certain or proud.
Without trying to fix their anguish, I listen calmly. My students have been proud architects of their own success. Together, we remember their many personal and academic triumphs. Then I trot out the best advice I have for inspiring confidence, “You are going with you,” I say, confident in my students. Their achievements are not particular to high school but transferable to numerous environments.
We all have naysayers inside of our heads. These voices make us feel inferior and inadequate. I’m so grateful Mr. Mechem modeled for me how to be an educator who helps young people remember their worth and summon the temerity to talk back.
A Note to the Class of 2021
by Dan Rather
It is easy to plough forward when times are bountiful and full of hope, when obstacles look like mere speed bumps, when one’s future seems much longer than one’s past. That is often how graduates feel, but I suspect you know differently. Your educational experiences will forever be marked by struggles of historical proportions. You have had to persevere. That has been your destiny. It will forever mark your journey through life. By definition, perseverance earns its value because of (not in spite of) its difficult surroundings. In times of hardship, of difficulty, of yes even fear, this is where perseverance shines. You have shone. Own it.
Youth is hope, even if that hope is tempered with a healthy dose of skepticism. Education amplifies these cleansing tendencies. And youth, plus education, plus hope is the secret formula for social progress.
Take all that you have learned, endured, and conquered. Breathe it in deeply and let it fill your lungs with the oxygen of action. We need you. Your communities, your country, and your planet need you. We need to hear you whisper, “We got this”… because tomorrow and the future is yours to shape and to make.
End of Year Video - 'Tell me without telling me...'
(Video put together by Blakers - thanks to coordination/editing by Diane Horvath)
Jesse Jackson - I am Somebody
(1:25)
Jaylen Brown Comments on Racism in Boston
(4:33)
Marty Baron Commencement Address
(18:29)
What Will Schools Look Like in the Future?
(6:29)
Sir Ken Robinson and the role of the teacher
(3:38)
Areas of Focus as We Move Forward...
Striving or Thriving? Steps to Help Kids Find Balance and Purpose
by Deborah Farmer Kris (@dfkris) in Mindshift
Borba, an educational psychologist and character development expert, recently published the book “Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine.” From her research and field experience, she identifies seven character strengths that help kids and adults flourish across their lifespan: self-confidence, empathy, self-control, integrity, curiosity, perseverance and optimism.
As we emerge from the pandemic, there’s a lot of talk about “getting back to normal.” But perhaps the old normal isn’t what we should aim for. “If one in five of our kids were struggling with a mental health disorder prior to the pandemic, this crisis has only amplified it. We need to start raising them from the inside out.”
The good news is that none of us are born with these seven traits, says Borba. Children develop them over time, and it helps when adults in their community serve as role models and cheerleaders.
Borba says her optimism for the future is rooted in the hundreds of teenagers she interviewed while writing this book. “I can't tell you the amount of wonderful things kids were doing during COVID, how concerned they were for each other, the simple, ordinary things they were doing to help their friends,” she said. “That's what gives you hope. Now adults need to step up to the plate, listen to the kids, and give them what they said they need – because here’s what every kid said they needed: ‘If we're the most stressed out generation on record, somebody better teach us how to cope.’”
Grading Has Always Been an Imperfect Exercise. COVID-19 Made It Worse (Opinion)
by Lori Walker Peroff in Education Week
How can we create a more equitable way to record student learning? In what ways is bias present in my own grading practices? How can reporting systems used in public schools across our nation increase (not decrease) opportunities for all our students?
Teachers, administrators, and policymakers need to take a deeper look at how to promote equity in our reporting systems to best meet the needs of all our learners. There are many things that this year will be remembered for; ignoring the opportunity to deeply rethink attendance and grading policies recorded on report cards should not be one of them. If we don’t all come together to do what is right for all our children, this lack of action will be a stain on our own permanent records.
Excerpt from The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson-Billings
Teachers who practice culturally relevant methods can be identified by the way they see themselves and others. They see their teaching as an art rather than as a technical skill. They believe that all of their students can succeed rather than that failure is inevitable for some. They see themselves as a part of the community and they see teaching as giving back to the community. They help students make connections between their local, national, racial, cultural, and global identities. Such teachers can also be identified by the ways in which they structure their social interaction: Their relationships with students are fluid and equitable and beyond the classroom. They demonstrate a connectedness with all of their students and encourage that same connectedness between the students. They encourage a community of learners; they encourage their students to learn collaboratively. Finally, such teachers are identified by their notions of knowledge: They believe that knowledge is continuously re-created, recycled, and shared by teachers and students alike. They view the content of the curriculum critically and are passionate about it. Rather than expecting students to demonstrate prior knowledge and skills they help students develop that knowledge by building bridges and scaffolding for learning.
On 'Revisionist History,' Malcolm Gladwell Unfiltered
by Reggie Ugwu in The New York Times
...I’ve always been overwhelmed with how nuts the American system of higher education is. And it strikes me that the U.S. News rankings are so emblematic of that nuttiness, a marketing ploy 30 years ago that has somehow been lodged in everyone’s brain ever since. And when you interrogate the criteria they use to decide whether one school’s good and one school is not good, it makes no sense. I simply can’t get over the fact that people take this seriously.
I am a creature of enthusiasm. There are things I really love, and there are things that drive me nuts, and I think it’s important in a good season of “Revisionist History” to have a little bit of both.
Are Our Schools Any Closer to Equity?
by Sean Slade and Alyssa Gallagher in Education Week
...2020 really only resurfaced many societal issues that we have been trying to confront for years, even decades. True we aren’t faced with the same opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion that those students received in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957, but we are still having to battle inequity and systems that supplement that bias.
Struggles rarely move smoothly or in one direction only. Societal change takes steps forward followed by steps back until what is being sought becomes the normative and expected consideration and behavior.
And while we have focused here on racial bias and gender bias, there is discrimination and inequity apparent across our society and across its schools and systems. Whether that be racial, gender preference, gender identity, nationality, cultural, or disability. Inequity is inequity, inclusion is inclusion, and belonging is belonging.
Equity is not only good educationally—it is also fundamentally just.
The Rise Of Skills-Based Hiring And What It Means For Education
by Barry Fishman (@barryfishman)
There is abundant evidence that grading isn’t about learning, it’s about ranking and sorting. That grading is detrimental to motivation. And that it perpetuates systemic inequality. So we look to do something better for our students, whether that is using feedback, conferences, mastery-based learning, contracts—there are many approaches to explore.
As teachers, we have some control over how we approach grading in our own classrooms. Many of us on the ungrading journey engage in subtraction, by removing traditional letter or percentage-based grading from our classrooms. We also engage in addition, introducing new practices and routines centered around feedback and growth. In this post, I argue that we need to work on the addition of something even bigger. We need new infrastructure to connect our individual efforts to the larger educational systems our students must navigate.
In my roles as learner, teacher, and parent I’ve observed an acceleration of the cycle shaped by the current infrastructure of GPAs, transcripts, and standardized tests. When I was a student in the early 1980s, high school was viewed as preparation for college-level courses. Today, high school might more appropriately be characterized as preparation for applying to college, not applying oneself in college.
But ultimately, developing a new and better approach to learning requires building new infrastructure, so that students, parents, teachers, administrators, and policy makers can clearly see how approaches to learning that reject grading enable their full participation and success in society. Let’s engage collectively in the crucial work of infrastructuring, to ensure that the next fifty years see progress towards the creation of new and better systems to support and communicate learning.
We cannot innovate if we're tied to yesterday's "normal"
by Laura Ascione in eSchoolNews
Talks of learning loss have peppered conversations for the better part of the past 15 months, with some predictions and assessments more alarmist than others. And while some worry about learning loss, other educators wonder if, just maybe, students have learned different–and possibly more important–lessons this year.
“What we lost in math worksheets we gained in innovation. What we lose in seat time we gained in time spent in service, in empathy, and in understanding. There is no rubric that can measure the magnitude of what we have done this year. We had to reimagine everything. We learned first-hand that innovation is soulless if it does not speak to the human condition.”
Education, Minor continued, is about two things: Teaching our young people to create opportunities for themselves, and teaching them how to do that work responsibly, with respect to our environment and the myriad communities of people who share our planet.
“The work about being an innovator is not only about changing technologies. It is about changing ways of doing things. Systems. Because systems of oppression continue to work against children,” Minor said. “We can make school work for everyone. That’s what innovators do. But we cannot do so if we’re tied to yesterday’s doctrine.”
Summer and Staying Present…
Eight Tips To Slow Down Summer – The Teacher And The Admin
by Emily Boudreau in HGSE’s Usable Knowledge
In summers past, here at Usable Knowledge we’ve covered everything from summer camp to summer school to the importance of downtime. As educators, students, and families start to wrap-up an unprecedented school year, we’ve looked through our archives and selected some timeless summer reading (and listening) material to help you think about how to use this time.
How Do You Recover From the Longest School Year? You Rest, Relax, and Then You Recharge
By Kimberly Rues in EdSurge
One thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt: in order to support my teachers, in order to make a difference for kids, in order to bring my best self to the job and support my administration, I have to take time to recharge.
Down time is necessary, but it’s not enough. In order to come back stronger and better than ever, I have to seek inspiration. I have to figure out what will light my fire next year. I would argue that educators of all stripes need the same. We need the fire that makes the first day of school something to look forward to, the spark that makes next year something full of hope, optimism and potential.
My goal: be well-versed, prepared, and inspired to lead in the direction that is best for kids.
I’ll be turning lots of pages this summer—some for pleasure, some to learn—but each and every one will serve its intended purpose: reminding myself of what it means to be a reader, expanding my own horizons and, maybe most importantly, lighting that fire so I’m ready to dive right back in when the calendar turns to August.
Reclaiming Downtime
by Bari Walsh in HGSE’s Usable Knowledge
This post from 2017 highlights the work of Denise Pope and her colleagues at Challenge Success, emphasizing the importance of fostering and carving out PDF (Playtime, Downtime, and Family Time) - something we should all keep in mind for our children, students, and ourselves. Making PDF a reality is oftentimes a challenge, but a challenge worth pursuing and this post offers some concrete suggestions for families.
...the prescription for fast-track summers may be a mid-summer dose of PDF — playtime, downtime, and family time — and a reminder that children of all ages need all three, every day, in order to thrive. The PDF framework — a handy reappropriation of a common initialism — was devised by Denise Pope and her colleagues at Challenge Success, which helps families and schools restore a sense of balance in kids’ performance-driven lives. Pope and her team created the PDF shorthand after surveying the research on factors known to protect kids from risky behaviors, mental health challenges, and poor academic outcomes...The three broad categories of wellbeing that emerged — playtime, downtime, and family time — are not just extras or niceties; they’re closely connected with building “crucial life skills that kids need in order to become happy and healthy adults,” says Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. “Kids are getting to college today without a lot of the important noncognitive skills they need, without the ability to communicate and collaborate, because they’ve been so focused on resume building."
If you’ve already enrolled your child in a full slate of summer experiences, fear not. By protecting and prioritizing downtime in your child’s off hours, you’ll be providing the space she needs to rest and to sustain her growth.
Finally, I am sharing a post that was from a year ago that I shared with both families and staff - I re-shared it last week with staff as I think the message rings true and is still relevant and pertinent...
The Kids Are All Fried
by Jason Gay in The Wall Street Journal
Gay’s brief post is one that I found heartening as a parent and an educator - acknowledging the feelings that he has (reads as a ‘truth serum’ reflection) and that I must admit I share - feeling tired, fried, and simply wanting my kids (and me) to have a break - namely, a summer.
I begin this column with a request: If you know any teachers, buy them a drink. Buy them all of the drinks. If they do not drink, buy them an ice cream. If they do not eat ice cream…just thank them. It’s the least we can do. Just don’t ask: What’s going to happen with school next year? Because they almost surely do not know. Teachers are wrapping up the craziest, most challenging spring of their careers, and no one has a clear idea of what’s coming in September.
...this summer I’m taking the brakes off. This summer we’re going rogue. I want my kids to do what they want to do. I want them staying up a little too late. I want water balloon fights and squirt gun holsters. I want ice cream before lunch and pizza for breakfast.
The point is I want my kids to be kids. There’s been a lot of talk over the past few months about adult anxieties, the impact upon adult lives. Every other story in the paper seemed to be about how work-from-home parents were being driven crazy by their demanding children. I wonder if we haven’t been thinking enough about the impact this has had on children, because they’ve been feeling it, too. How could they not? You think hanging out with adults is some kind of picnic? Adults are the pits!
Enjoy these days of summer!
#lovingsummer
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Take care.
Nat