To encourage dialogue and reflection about the role that values play in our actions and lives, our questions for the week are: What are the values you hold that help guide your decisions and actions? How can values help to do that? Driven by Values (Week of 3/10/24) (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
I hope that everyone is doing well and having a nice week. As much as I really enjoy extended light at the end of the day and am looking forward to it, the loss of an hour of sleep and ‘springing forward’ was definitely felt!
What ‘leaning in’ looks like for me is the process of reflection, listening, and learning - to myself and to others, both formally and informally. One of the specific steps I take is to listen and read. All of the shares below speak to the importance of influences/factors that can serve as compass points - and a common thread is the importance of well-defined values…
- What guides us and our decisions making?
- What can we ‘hang our hat on’?
- Values as a compass point
In different ways, the shares encourage all of us to ‘dig in’, reflect, and increase our understanding of ourselves - a shared goal that we have for our students as well.
Leading from Your Core Values
by Elena Aguilar in ASCD
With clarity on our values and what it looks like to live them out, we gain a compass for our actions. When we’re acting in alignment with who we want to be in the world, we feel better. We have more energy. We feel a sense of meaning and purpose.
Our values drive us and anchor us. We experience integrity when we act in alignment with them. And when our actions aren’t aligned with our values, we feel bad—emotionally, and sometimes physically. We might even think, It makes me feel sick to my stomach to have to do this. Psycho-neuroimmunologists have found that our immune systems are strengthened or depleted by the degree of integrity with which we live our lives.
Another key concept about values is that for many of us, what we determine to be our core values are espoused or aspirational values rather than enacted values. For example, I might say I value courage, but rarely take any risks. Acknowledging the discrepancy between espoused and lived values can allow a person to shift their behavior.
As educators, we often get pulled into behaviors that may not align with our values. But by identifying our values, we can use them as a filter to make decisions about our actions. Our goal should be alignment between our daily behaviors and our vision for who we want to be.
US 2.0: Lincoln's Dilemma
(52 min) from Hidden Brain
Over the past few weeks, we've been exploring the psychology of partisanship, and how to effectively handle disagreements with those around us. This week, we conclude our US 2.0 series by turning to the past. We’ll explore how one of the most important leaders in American history — Abraham Lincoln — grappled with the pressing moral question of his time. When, if ever, is it worth compromising your own principles for the sake of greater progress?
Are You Good at Embracing Uncertainty?
(46 min) from The Anxious Achiever
Uncertainty and anxiety are highly linked in our brains: when we aren’t sure what will happen, we often go into planning, defensive mode, trying to come up with every possible scenario and ensure a good outcome. Author Maggie Jackson looks at the ways that better managing uncertainty - like anxiety - is an essential skill. Reframing uncertainty helps us perform in challenging times. Jackson shares the latest brain science and shows being more comfortable in the unknown can help our careers and our success.
Why Emotional Intelligence Matters for Educators
(26 min) from The Harvard EdCast
Robin Stern and Janet Patti discuss the critical need for emotional intelligence among school leaders.
How to be productive without burning out, with Cal Newport
(41 min) from WorkLife with Adam Grant
Cal Newport knows a thing or two about productivity: when he’s not teaching computer science at Georgetown, he’s writing for The New Yorker, hosting a podcast, or authoring New York Times bestsellers like Deep Work and Digital Minimalism. In his new book, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, Cal proposes that we trade current standards of rapid output for slower, higher-quality, and sustainable ways of working. Adam and Cal dig into the data on productivity, debate the benefits and drawbacks of doing fewer things (and spending less time on email and social media), and discuss individual habits and organizational practices for preventing burnout and promoting worthwhile work.
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: Share a practice, opinion, or belief that you have recently adjusted, reconsidered or changed. What made you adjust or change?
- I have been working on being kind to everyone no matter what they say to me because two wrongs don’t make a right
- I am working on being myself and real friends will accept me.
- "I believed eating meat was essential, but now I eat less meat after learning about its environmental impact."
- I am trying to be more okay with making mistakes and learn from them.
- I find studying in groups helps me understand topics better.
As Women's History Month continues, the words below will hopefully serve as compass points for ourselves and our collective work…