To encourage dialogue and reflection about the ways we grow and learn, our question for this week is: In what areas of school do you find success? Paths for Learning and Growth (Week of 3/20/22) (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
The gorgeous start to last weekend sure felt like a gift! Katie and I went for a nice walk around the neighborhood with Lila on Friday evening - so nice to see kids playing outside and the sun shining at a later hour. The rest of our weekend was pretty relaxed - doing some errands/chores, taking time to rest, and watching lots of basketball.
- Thinking about our Neurodiversity week assembly and some of the ‘talking points’ that were highlighted (recognizing that everyone’s brain works differently, no brain is exactly alike, our struggles are ones that others may find easy, what we find easy others may find to be struggles, differences should be acknowledged as just another way of being or doing things, the school environment can often be a place that is challenging for many of our students, we all have the power to make a positive difference for others)
- The work we are doing with our IEP Early Adopters team
- Thinking about the implications of a strengths-based approach vs a deficit-based approach
- Thinking about the implications of a strengths-based approach vs a deficit-based approach
- The adaptations and changes to our systems of feedback and reporting
- Implications for students, families, and our staff
- Implications for students, families, and our staff
- The Incoming Info Nights for families that took place over the last week
- The two slides below have become two of ‘my favorites’ - they hold up a mirror to our work and keep me honest…
- The two slides below have become two of ‘my favorites’ - they hold up a mirror to our work and keep me honest…
- March of 2020 - this past week marked the two year anniversary of the ‘shut-down’
- Thinking and reflecting upon the challenges and learning we all faced, and understanding that sometimes we learn most from our most difficult times
- Wondering and thinking about our ‘lessons learned’ - What were/are the learned lessons? Have we held onto these lessons? Did we generalize the lessons and apply them to our practices? Why or why not?
- Thinking and reflecting upon the challenges and learning we all faced, and understanding that sometimes we learn most from our most difficult times
It was this last bullet point that has stayed with me for the last couple of days - and on Saturday I took a deeper dive and looked back at communication, notes, and ‘shares’ from that time period. I’ve highlighted some below (e-mails, quotes, ‘shares’, and a post) with the hope of actively engaging with the questions above, as I believe they are ones worthy of our time and action…
Over the Last Year…
(blog post shared from last year at this time)
Notes/Mindsets/Take-aways from some recent podcasts...
** These notes/ideas/thoughts are from different segments from the Modern Learners (The Modern Learners community was established by Will Richardson and Bruce Dixon) podcast (I highly recommend it) along with some notes taken from a Modern Learners ‘webchat’ with administrators across the country. The segments referenced below were recorded over the last year - again, timely and relevant now more than ever...
- Student-centered learning rather than Student-centered assessment
- We should practice and embrace being ‘expert learners in the community’ rather than ‘expert teachers in the community’
- The ideas and principles of Personal Learning Plans (PLP)
- We are all identifying ourselves as learners pretty quickly
- We need to establish and formalize an ethic of care
- Vulnerability - start there and move forward (scaffold up)
- We need to remove the adjectives in front of learning (take away the COVID-19 in front)
- It’s ok to give ourselves a minute…
- What makes school special (social aspect, relationships)
- What story are we telling in our communications?
- What will be the new normal?
- If this doesn’t force us to ask ourselves - ‘What the hell are we doing?’ Then we have a problem…
- Build freedom into what we do for kids…
- We need to give parents the permission to look at things differently
- The things that drove us a week ago don’t drive us any more…
- In the service of learning - a ‘compass point’ mantra...
- We now have a culture and climate of 24/7 learning and yet our ‘norms of school’ - learning should be thriving
- A single better day in the classroom goes a long way
- Include your students in your learning and the value of including them in your learning
- Schools are ‘central reference points’ like the Beatles or Motown
- We need to make sure that schools maintain because that’s what we have - they need to reflect our current ideas and thinking - they can and should be the central locations of hope ideals and mission
- The learning environment we need is already realized - go into a library and look - it’s just not theorized yet
E-mail to Blake Staff on 3/26/20 (excerpted)
Good evening/morning -
…Lots of questions remain, but I know we will work together to continue a culture of care and support for our students, our families, and one another. It is important for all of us to remember that our 'new reality' is ever changing for students, staff, and families and that supports that may have been in place are evolving and changing (financial, emotional, physical, etc.) - we will continue to lean on one another and each other and will be 'the ones to lean on' for students/families as well.
I would be remiss by not sharing my deep appreciation for our staff and want to reiterate what I have said to Blake families and can't say it enough...
- You (you, your children, our students, your families, our staff, your/our loved ones, and our collective community) are all very present on our minds and your health, safety, and well-being are the top priority.
- Our collective focus and message (to students, families, and staff) is on taking care of one another and ourselves - so, please do just that and let us know if there is anything we can do for support.
I have shared this with Department Chairs/Teamworks this morning - there has been a weekly Modern Learners chat with educators across the country and it has given me a great perspective and sense of connection. Here are some notes I took from last night…With full understanding of the pandemic and scary reasons for this 'remote learning', this is a time in education to capture, be creative, and move forward. Here are a few notes...
- We need to build in reflection for students/families - this is a pivotal and critical
- If there ever was a window of opportunity, it is now
- What have we learned about learning? What is our new normal going to look like?
- Asynchronous learning is really ideal for agency and empowerment
- What do you want to do differently now that we can?
- This a time that begs us to engage our communities in explorations re: the purpose of education; we should acknowledge the ways school folks have stepped up to engage in addressing the needs for feeding kids and confronting issues relating to our most vulnerable students and families
- Question to consider: How do we not let the need for comfort/normal allow us to “do school” as we always have? Will we revert back to 'normal' when we return?
7 Ways to Support Kids and Teens Through the Coronavirus Pandemic
from The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds
Christi Barney shared this post with me a couple days after schools shut down - many similar ones were being shared at that time and I found this one to be particularly helpful - and it still resonates for educators, families, care providers, and parents/guardians.
Moving Forward - Finding a Path…
Each day I find more levels of complexity and ‘shades of gray’ in our work with students, families, and one another. The past two years have shone a light (a very bright light) on our systems - systems that foster strength/growth/equity and systems that foster or perpetuate inconsistency and inequity. Many of the ‘shares’ above highlight sentiments of taking the ‘collective learning’ forward into our work - and, ‘speaking from the I’, I have deep concerns that we are not doing that (not necessarily ‘we at Blake’, but ‘we’ as an educational system). I am pushing myself to make more time to actively reflect, ask questions of myself and others, and take some concrete steps towards productive paths of learning and growth - and, this means intentional change.
The post below from Will Richardson came into my inbox this week, and I believe it speaks to the types of shifts that will help all of our learners - individually and collectively. And listening to the responses from our students/staff for Term 3 hopes will also help us to guide students on their individual paths for growth, in the context of our school’s path towards growth…
Ditch Success for Significance: Impactful Learning
by Will Richardson (@willrich45)
When you think about a “successful” student or a “successful” school, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?...I’m sure there’s nuance to the collective answers we might give, but for the most part, my guess is that’s how “success” is defined most often among educators and parents. And we loathe to mess with the recipe that gets us there.
But what if that definition isn’t capturing what’s most important for our students in this moment. What if instead of “success” we sought “significance”?
Sure, significance is harder to measure. It’s a story, not a score. It’s about doing meaningful work in, with, and for the world, not just for personal gain or reputation. In some ways, it’s about getting back to the real purpose of schools, to begin with.
But what if we educators decided to choose that path as well? What if we retired our current definitions of success and instead committed to writing stories of significance?
Imagine a “pedagogy for significance.” It would require that we adults become deep learners of the world with our students, tracking the latest trends and contexts, connecting with others around the world to do work that matters to become “significant” in our own right.
Or imagine a “curriculum of significance,” one that would focus on the development of the skills, literacies, and dispositions to become positive actors in the world. It couldn’t be static, dependent on what’s already known; instead focused on uncovering what needs to be accomplished for the world in which we live today.
So let’s stop striving for “success,” and in all of our interactions with children, let’s strive instead to help them and our school communities become significant, if for no other reason than we need them to be.
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: As we begin Term 3, what is one hope you have for yourself as a learner?
- I hope that I can grow in the areas where I am not so strong.
- I hope I get all 4s and 3s
- To get ready for high school
- To not get distracted
- To get 3s and 4s
- I hope to grow my curiosity.
- Homework, and working on waiting to talk
- Get a little bit better grades on tests
- One hope I have for myself as a learner is to take my time a little more. Sometimes I go a little too fast and then I make small mistakes I could have avoided making.
- To get good At math
- Get better at math
- I hope to notice something that I didn't notice before!
- To be more productive
- I hope that I will be able to finish my assignments well.
- To get some 4's on tests.
- To do good in school
- Keep up the good work
- I hope that I can get my grades to a 4, now that the grading is 1 - 4.
- Learning never exhausts the mind - Leanardo da Vinci
- I hope I bring more art into my life
- I hope to crush all of my enemies.
- Being better at Spanish.
- I hope to apply some new ideas for the classroom that I have picked up in classes and trainings over the course of the year.
- How to be more me and confident
In keeping with the theme of highlighting words each week in honor of Women's History Month and #willfulhope/#willfulaction, these words from Emmeline Pankhurst and bell hooks point us towards progress, growth, and learning…
E-mail to Blake families - 3/17/20 (excerpted)
As a follow up to Dr. Marsden’s e-mail to all families, I am writing with Blake-specific information, reminders, and a few follow-up items. It is rare to find myself at a loss for words, but I am feeling that way right now as we are all adapting and ‘norming’ to our current reality that feels as though it is changing ‘by the minute’. First and foremost, you (you, your children, our students, your families, our staff, your/our loved ones, and our collective community) are all very present in my mind and your health, safety, and well-being are the top priority. Our collective focus and message (to students, families, and staff) is on taking care of one another and ourselves - so, please do just that and let us know if there is anything we can do for support. There are lots of unanswered questions, but I do know we will adapt, support one another, and continue to be present. As Jeff conveyed in his e-mail to all staff yesterday, ‘Our work will look very different during the days and weeks to come, but our goal of doing our best to support kids remains the same. To be clear, this should not be seen as replacing the traditional school day...it just can't be done.’ Equity and support for all of our students and families are at the forefront of our thinking, decisions, and actions for students, families, and one another - expressing care, perspective, and an understanding of what is truly most important. Our Guiding Lights, mission, and core values will serve as our collective compass points - as Colby Swettberg shared with us, ‘We will make the path by walking it’.
I sincerely care a great deal about this community (students, staff, and families) and my (now virtual) door is always open. I fully recognize that I do not have the answers, but I can do my best to listen, process, brainstorm, and offer support.
As always, let me know of any questions/concerns.
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Take care.
Nat