To help encourage conversations and dialogue about recharging, staying centered, and finding meaning in one's work, our topic/question for the dinner table is: What are you looking forward to learning about this week? Seeking Out Learning (Week of 3/5/17) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
With the frigid and windy weather this past weekend, I am sure looking forward to some (hopefully) milder temperatures this week! Our weekend was pretty full, with a fundraiser Friday evening for friends running the Boston marathon and what felt like 'sportsapalooza' with basketball and swimming on Saturday. On Sunday we did our best to have a quieter afternoon with some time to 'just be' - always a good goal and one we want to keep trying for.
I am sure I say this every time, but it is hard to believe we were on vacation one week ago as the pace and 'feel' of this past week sure was fast and furious! It is also hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that it is March and we are beginning the planning phases for the 2017-2018 school year. I know that the pace ebbs and flows and this past week had other commitments, as seen below in 'note form' as a recap of the afternoons/evenings...
Monday - interviews for Director of Student Services
Tuesday - Michael Delman talk as part of Medfield Talks series
Wednesday - professional development sub-committee meeting, Incoming 6th PIN
Thursday - Medfield/Medway basketball game at Medway with the boys
We all have our own versions of these weeks with personal and professional commitments, and none is more important or 'busier' than the next but it does make me reflect and recognize what we each bring and carry every day. This is true for both students and staff alike. And I also am fully cognizant that I can be my own worst enemy, as some of these commitments are voluntary - something I need to make sure I keep in mind. Some of these items are cyclical/annual, and others are ones that simply 'pop up'. To continue my practice of sharing from events/speakers/conferences, here are a few notes that resonated from the Michael Delman talk Tuesday evening (some good reminders and alternative phrasing of beliefs that hold true)...
- Relationship before task
- Empathize, Normalize, Knock before entering
- Establish a purpose
- There is a reason behind the no
- Change takes effort
- Intellectual resistance vs emotional resistance
As I reread these six bullet points from my notes, I find as many connections with my personal learning as I do when thinking about the Blake curricula for our students. It is important to ground ourselves in beliefs before putting the next step forward and I am reminded that questions and a spirit of inquiry (in both academic and social/emotional realms) will certainly help to open up the learning. I so enjoy our incoming parent evenings that take place each March as they present an opportunity to reflect, highlight, share, and also question (in a healthy fashion) our mission, practices, and outline of programming we have in place for our students. Much of what we talk about is the hope and desire we have to foster lifelong learning and to build connections. As I think of what we want for ourselves as educators, I find it to be the same - continuos learning, a culture of support, and healthy and supportive connections. The three posts I am sharing this week support these principles and I hope they hold meaning for you as well...
How Workers In Their 50s And 60s Can Thrive In Today's Fast-Changing World
by Richard Harris in Forbes
I came across this post from Beth Holland's tweet (@brholland) and it speaks to the fast-paced changes that are taking place in the world and in our schools. The post highlights an interview with Pulitzer Prize-willing New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, author of Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations, who has stated that we are experiencing three 'accelerations' (technology, globalization, and climate change). The interview presents some great opportunities for discussion, conveys optimism for the future, and shares some insight from AT&T's model for preparation and innovation.
If you think of new technology as moving up in steps — mainframes to desktop to laptop to handheld — with each one of those steps, you get a set of technologies, they diffuse, they scale and they give birth to the next one. The new capabilities keep coming. We can store more stuff, we can compute more stuff faster and we can send it down pipes faster. When you put it all together, it's staggering what's going on in the change of the pace of change.
If you're ready to do the learning, they're ready to do the hiring. But if you're not, they have a nice severance package. You're not going to work there any longer. That kind of social contract is coming to the rest of the country. And so you have to have more grit, persistence and self-motivation. A lot of people don't have that.
When you're at an intersection like this one of rapid accelerations, there are only two ways to survive. You have to be really open, so you get the signals first. And you want your skills to always be moving ahead. Be open and be moving up. Do those two things and good things will happen.
The Importance of Connected Learning Leadership
by Howard Rheingold (@hrheingold)
This quick post captures a conversation with Emily Vickery (@ehvickery), a '21st Century Learning Specialist', about the importance of being and staying connected. I particularly like the direct message that is shared that we must be both connected educators and connected learners.
It was as a professional whitewater river guide and she found herself teaching people not just how to paddle a raft or a kayak, but teaching a diverse group of strangers how to connect into a highly collaborative team in a short period of time. “I was a teacher,” she realized.
When she learned about Teacher Leaders Network, Center for Teaching Quality, Vickery knew she had found what we would now call her PLN. Through email, Twitter, and other media, Vickery understood that teacher leaders have to be both connected educators and connected learners: “While connections are important for improving practice and sharing best practices, I find them extremely important in understanding the ‘shaping trends’ that impact curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and new ways of learning. Moreover, connected networks are increasing in importance as learning is being redefined, remixed, and hacked. Growing interests in learning studios, learning regions, collaborative learning spaces, coding, gaming, and the mobile distribution of opportunity are only a few trends I follow in my professional learning network.”
We Have to Prepare Students for the Next Level, Don’t We?
by Rick Wormeli (@rickwormeli2)
Wormeli is a must follow in education as he poses excellent questions, shares insight, and focuses on 'the present needs of our students'. It is a post that is worth reading, rereading, and rereading once more - I know it will be one that I will come back to on a regular basis.
Some universities blame the poor academic performance of their young adult students on the poor quality instruction they think students received in high schools. High schools blame the middle schools, middle schools blame elementary schools, and elementary schools blame their students' gene pool. It is stunning how similar their commentaries are to those recorded by educators 100, even 1,000, years ago, and yet, here we are, still progressing.
Let's stop the nonsense that we cannot differentiate or assess with nontraditional formats because teachers in levels above do not provide those experiences, and thus, students will be unprepared for the unfamiliar. Instead, let's live up to what actually works: teaching students the course content and skills in whatever ways lead to their continual development, and helping them mature as individuals and learners so they can flourish in varied learning situations, even those devoid of effective teaching.
Many high school teachers and college professors are making significant efforts to be developmentally appropriate for the age groups they teach, but some are not there yet. That's okay, though: We do not sacrifice good instruction because those in upper levels are not there yet. Instead, we employ what we know works, and we spend time mentoring those above us in what we do.
Middle level schools are vibrant, intense environments with unique needs that are very different than those of high schools, colleges, or the working world. Perpetuating the factory model of schooling by importing policies from high schools and colleges to our middle level schools because we think it prepares students for what is to come is uninformed and ineffective. Let's be experts in 10- to 15-year-olds instead, and even better, let's manifest that expertise in our classrooms daily.
I encourage everyone, myself included, to set aside a few minutes early on this week to identify one or two things (that will look different for all of us) that you are hoping to learn more about this week. As a staff and site council on Monday afternoon we will be looking in more depth with Colby Swettberg and Zach Kerr as to how we can better support our LGBTQ students and families to foster a safe and supportive learning culture/environment. On Wednesday #DLDMedfield we will have a wonderful opportunity to make connections with both concepts and individuals, validate the work that is taking place, and grow as learners. Each day and week presents different opportunities for learning, from an individual to group perspective but I think the 'naming of the learning' will help us seek it in a more purposeful fashion. As we look at the needs of our students and the learning goals we establish, let's be sure to continually focus on their current needs, meet them where they are at and bring them forward, and foster the continual seeking out of learning with a 'willingness to adapt' - after all, that is what we want for ourselves as adults, right?
I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
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Take care.
Nat