To encourage dialogue and reflection about learning with a focus on progress and moving forward, our question of the week is: What skills do you see as your strengths? What skills would you like to improve? Learning Forward (Week of 5/15/22) (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
With what felt like a very quick arrival of summer weather, I hope that last weekend was a nice respite for all. It’s such a busy time - prom season, graduations, spring events, etc. We spent a lot of time in the garden and enjoyed watching Game 7 of the Celtics-Bucks series as a family - a great win!
Among the different ideas and thoughts that came to mind on the run, these are a few that have stayed with me…
- Messages from our Career Day keynote and presenters for our 8th graders
- Busy time of year - ‘counting down’ while also knowing there is much still to be done
- Balancing the various needs and desires of all - what does that look like?
- Concerns about the emotional well-being of our students and families
- Discussions we have been having about meaningful feedback
With each of these thoughts, I find my head continuing to come back to the areas of focus and skills we emphasize and place importance on for our students, ourselves, and each other. What are the ‘intangibles’ and ‘tangibles’ (as a side note, the term ‘intangibles’ can be challenging - I know what I mean when I say it, but when diving deeper to ‘get there’, I want to hopefully make the ‘intangibles’ ‘tangible’ - does that make sense?!?) that will help us to move the proverbial needle forward for learning? The latest edition of ASCD’s Educational Leadership has a focus on this very topic - ‘Ready for the Real World?’
With the intent of opening up this dialogue, I am sharing a few notes I took during the Career Day keynote along with two posts that I believe will help us and our students along this path. Along with some responses from last week’s question of the week, I hope that they may serve as some ‘touchpoints’ for the work with our students and one another as we establish and adapt our systems to help all of the learning move forward. A threadline that consistently jumps out at me is the role that ‘inner work’ plays while we examine, adapt, and refine the ‘collective work’...
Some notes from our Career Day Keynote
Alex Richardson (@ACRichardson21), Manager of Ballpark and Community Relations for the WooSox
- Well rounded individuals are important
- Relationships matter
- Relationships we have with teachers - recognize and establish them
- Practice your elevator pitch
- We can change a community
- You don’t need a script to know who you are
- Know your journey
- It’s either a job, work or a combination of the two - job is what you do to get paid; your work is what makes your heart beat a little faster;
- Community relations - can’t lose sight of that
- Family and how you treat others - most important things
- Look for things that can enhance you as a human being
- Advice to himself as an 8th grader…
- Get involved
- Expand your comfort zone vs step outside of your comfort zone
Future-Proofing Students
by Michele Borba in ASCD
Robots, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality once sounded like science fiction; but they will be a routine part of our students' lives going forward. Drones will deliver purchases. Autonomous cars will replace driving. Jobs will constantly change. This generation will need more than grades and scores to thrive in an automated, accelerated, unpredictable new world. To prepare students for a tech-intensive future, we cannot hold on to 20th-century learning practices. We must reimagine education and cultivate an updated skill set.
Which competencies and practices will "future-proof" students—or at least prepare them to the best extent possible?
1. Self-Confidence
Abilities: Self-Awareness, Strength Awareness, Finding Purpose
2. Empathy
Abilities: Emotional Literacy, Perspective Taking, Empathic Concern
3. Self-Control
Abilities: Attentive Focus, Self-Management, Healthy Decision-Making
4. Integrity
Abilities: Moral Awareness, Moral Identity, Ethical Thinking
5. Curiosity
Abilities: Curious Mindset, Creative Problem-Solving, Divergent Thinking
6. Perseverance
Abilities: Growth Mindset, Goal Setting, Learning from Failure
7. Optimism
Abilities: Optimistic Thinking, Assertive Communication, Hope
The world is changing and so must our instructional practices. Our moral obligation is to equip this generation with the content and abilities they will need to handle an unpredictable future and thrive. Doing so may be our most important educational task.
Writing a New Narrative for a New System
by Benjamin Freud in Education Reimagined
…what if we started by asking a different question: What would it take for things not to snap back? This framing of the issue might encourage us to take a more systemic view and avoid peering into our crystal balls.
The dominant education model believes learning can be precisely measured and referenced by age, that a professional field of experts can use a defined curriculum to drive student learning, and that a diploma is the proof of success through achievement. This model is what some of us are supposedly trying to escape, yet, this seeking of something new is not new unto itself.
No matter what happened during the pandemic, no matter how much we think the world may have changed, if we continue to hold the same values that make the old system thrive, nothing will change. Innovation is not enough: improving upon what currently exists might bring hope and excitement for a while, but it won’t change the system. We will not escape the system’s magnetic pull if we continue to value—above all else—merit, external assessments, sorting, hierarchies, competition, and learning as an individual experience.
We need a new set of values so that the new system of education, the re-designed system, will thrive. That starts with our local system, very local; ourselves. This is where we need to do the inner work, but it can only be called inner work when we understand our place in the world and make choices with intention. From this intention, new values emerge and, thus, a new system that will thrive under new conditions, which are its new values.
Recognizing that when we create new conditions of thriving, based on new values, we break away from the magnetic pull of the old system. This old system will continue to exist for a while, and that’s okay. So long as we remain authentic and live by our values, it can do what it wants until it is replaced. If we continue to be fettered by old values, then yes, we will snap back.
This is not easy. It starts with the inner work.
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: What are the most important things in your life? Why?
- Family and living life in a way that I am proud of.
- My relationships - because they matter and are precious to me. And I'm so grateful for them.
- Family, self-care, but also remembering being good at my job and caring for students is also self care. #teachingisthebest
- Dance and my family and friends because they are the things that matter the most to me and I love them
- The most important things in my life are my friends and family beaus they make me feel loved.
- My dog since without him I would've never gotten another dog
- My family, sports, education.
- My Xbox because I love vid games
- family, friends, shelter, food and water.
- Family and friends
- My family and friends
As always, let me know of any questions/concerns.
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Take care.
Nat