To help encourage conversations and dialogue about the impact and importance of listening to others and oneself, our question for the week is: What strategies help you to be a better listener? Time to Just Listen (Week of 12/13/20) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
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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
After a very full week (although they all feel full, for some reason this one felt particularly that way), it was nice to simply take a step back and have some quiet time over the weekend. This is always an uphill climb for me to #slowitdown and as hard as that can be, I know on an intellectual/metacognitive level that it is just what I need. With the exception of a few errands and plugging away at a few things, it felt good to just be. This (among many) is one of the things I hope to carry forward into the new year.
Coupled with the awareness of a need to #slowitdown, I have been reminded and cognizant of a need to listen - to students, families, teachers, staff, colleagues, family, and myself (I’m sure the list could continue). Last week I shared one of the significant takeaways from the conversation with Cornelius Minor (@MisterMinor) was his statement that ‘Listening to kids is the most important intervention we can do’. As I said last week, this seems so simple and obvious yet it is worth asking of ourselves how often we take the time to truly just do that - listen. This week two other ‘experiences’ (for lack of a better word) held up that mirror once again of the importance and true need for listening - to others and ourselves…
- In a podcast (linked below) with Justin Reich (@bjfr) interviewing Barbara Means from @digitalpromise, Barbara shared that one of the critical things we need to do is to continue to talk and listen to our students - they have direct insight and it is important that they feel heard. The focus of the interview is on the research that Barbara has done on learning before and during COVID-19. From her research and listening to students it is clear that there are three ‘practices’ (no matter what the format of delivery happened to be) that ‘had the strongest relationship with satisfaction, with students' learning, and with the course in general’...
- ...the first one was using real-life examples to illustrate the course content. So having the instructor actually bring it to something that comes from the real world.
- ...the second one was getting personal messages from the instructor, so speaking to that interpersonal piece. Getting those messages, they could have been, are you okay? Are you in good health? Also about, do you have access to what you need in order to get online? And just, I noticed you're falling behind, is there anything I can do to help you?
- ...the third thing, which I thought was interesting was courses where there were assignments or activities that call for the student to reflect on her own learning. What is it you understand? What don't you understand?
- During Thursday night’s Youth Suicide Prevention presentation/workshop for seventh grade framilies with Kelsey Manders from Samaritans for seventh grade families, I was struck once again by the importance of listening as a preventive measure/strategy for helping others. The ‘dos and don’ts’ of listening are ones that apply in contexts and I hope they will stay on the forefront of our thinking and actions…
- Do…
- Let them express their feelings
- Listen without judgment
- Be compassionate
- Put away distractions
- Have open body language
- Paraphrase what you hear
- Validate
- Show you’re present through social and physical affirmations
- Don’t…
- Talk about yourself or reflect on your own experiences
- Give advice or try to solve their problems
- Tell them what they are feeling is unimportant, wrong, or will pass
- Tell them it’s just a phase
- Interrupt or change the topic
- Minimize feelings or experiences
- Do…
Each of these ‘experiences’ brought me back to Jim McCauley’s talk that he gave to our community last year on resilience. Jim is the Co-Founder and Associate Director of Riverside Trauma Center and he shared an acronym that, when practiced pushes one to remember to listen first, had an impact on me…W.A.I.T. - Why Am I talking?
Listening comes in different forms and I have found that the process of reflecting (such as via this blog) provides the space for my own practice of listening - this helps me to lean in and dive a bit deeper with the hopes of some form of resultant action. To broaden and open up some recent listening/reflections with our community, I am re-sharing my notes from the presentation from Jim McCauley’s presentation last year, along with the weekly sharing of responses and posts that I believe directly and indirectly support and validate the heart and core tenets of our work - listening, responding, and learning...
Notes from James McCauley’s Presentation on Resilience, Riverside Trauma Center (November, 2019)
- You don’t bounce back after a traumatic event - you are changed
- This is hopeful work
- You need to start with yourself…
- Ask your child…
- ‘In what situations do you already feel strong or effective?’
- ‘In what situations would you like to feel stronger or more effective?’
- Three Kinds of Responses to Stress
- Positive, Tolerable, Toxic
- ACES Score (Adverse Childhood Experiences)
- Most positive impact against ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) is having one caring adult - keeps them from developing toxic stress
- Need to teach flexibility in thinking
- Gritty people give help and get help
- 4 Techniques of Mental Toughness (‘Borrowed’ from the Navy SEALS)
- Goal Setting
- Visualization
- Positive Self-Talk
- Breathing/Arousal Control
- The Central Governor Theory: Our brains give out before our body
- Celebrate small wins (not miles - yards; not months - hours)
- Small achievable objectives
- Continually reset objectives
- Talk about challenges, not barriers
- Mental Rehearsal…
- Practice, imagine, rehearse
- What is your positive ‘speech’ in support of your goals?
- Slow breathing is a great focusing strategy
- Practice Gratitude - gratitude journals
- Biggest protective factor is strong social connections
- Social connection is the greatest predictor of happiness
- Find 5 Happy Friends
- Importance of play - if it isn’t fun, it isn’t play
- Look for cues in your children for when it’s time to talk
- Strike when the iron is cold - address it later…
- W.A.I.T. - Why Am I Talking? (Listen first)
- Sleep is so important
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: How can discomfort help you learn?
- Since people like to feel comfortable as a default, feeling discomfort can motivate a person to get back to feeling comfortable. If that discomfort leads to growth and learning to get back to a new and improved center, then it is a great thing. If discomfort leads to avoidance, then there really isn't a benefit.
- Discomfort forces us to grow. In discomfort, we may strive to do better or to do things differently. I think the discomfort of this pandemic has definitely shown that. We are teaching in many different ways in order to reach our students. In the long run, it will make us better teachers, but right now it feels hard at times. As Glennon Doyle says: We can do hard things! We can and we are doing the hard things!
- If something discomforts you, you will learn not to do it again.
- It can help me try new things and can help me step out of my comfort zone
- It can help you get more comfortable
- If you are out of your comfort zone you learn to try new things.
- It can help you try new things, and you can make new friends you normally wouldn't make if you put yourself out there.
- Discomfort can help you learn to take a step out of your comfort zone.
- By showing me to new places I wouldn't have tried before.
TeachLab with Justin Reich - Barbara Means
(52 minutes)
Justin Reich is joined by Barbara Means, author and executive director of learning science research at Digital Promise to discuss her research with digital learning before and during COVID.
In this episode we’ll talk about:
- Barbara Means’ edtech story
- In-class vs remote learning research
- Three helpful practices
- The importance of a personal relationship in teaching
- Balancing synchronous and asynchronous learning
- Self-regulated learning
- Implementation models
The Secret to Learning Anything: Albert Einstein’s Advice to His Son
by Maria Popova in BrainPickings
I have seen this referenced before and fortuitously came across it this week once again. It is a quick read and is simply wonderful - the advice is poignant.
In 1915, aged thirty-six, Einstein was living in wartorn Berlin, while his estranged wife, Mileva, and their two sons, Hans Albert Einstein and Eduard “Tete” Einstein, lived in comparatively safe Vienna. On November 4 of that year, having just completed the two-page masterpiece that would catapult him into international celebrity and historical glory, his theory of general relativity, Einstein sent 11-year-old Hans Albert the following letter, found in Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children (public library) — the same wonderful anthology that gave us some of history’s greatest motherly advice, Benjamin Rush’s wisdom on travel and life, and Sherwood Anderson’s counsel on the creative life. Einstein, who takes palpable pride in his intellectual accomplishments, speaks to the rhythms of creative absorption as the fuel for the internal engine of learning.
That is the way to learn the most, when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes.
Learning Uncertainty
by Pasi Sahlberg (@pasi_sahlberg) and Saku Tuominen (@sakuidealist)
The title of this post is as relevant as anything I have read this year - learning uncertainty, whether we have liked it or not, has been the reality for all of us this year. And, as Pasi and Saku share, it is ‘the norm’ and a necessary skill/mantra/reality for our students and ourselves to understand and accept - particularly, these three ‘things’...
- Education is a complex ecosystem and learning as an organic process is part of it. In practice: We should move from ‘one-size-fit-all’ teaching towards individualised learning.
- Making mistakes is an integral part of successful learning. In practice: We should move from assigning tasks or question that have one right answer towards working on genuine open-ended problems that require divergent thinking.
- Nobody knows exactly how best to cope with uncertainty, but everybody has something to contribute to the solution. In practice: We should move from an individual ‘winner-takes-it-all’ mentality towards collaborative efforts towards new ideas.
School is a complex social system and one of the key features of complex systems is uncertainty.
Whether we like it or not, nothing is certain (except death and taxes as they say). Education is also risky business. We know from research as well as from our own experience that the link between teaching and learning is often uncertain.
...in an uncertain world we often look for a bullet-proof solution that would fix the problem. By now we should have learned that this is often the wrong way. The better way – in improving education and beyond – is to accept uncertainty as an ingredient of life and try to use it for positive renewal of current situations.
Let’s see this painful crisis as an unique learning opportunity. This year 2020 has been like no other year we remember. How are you doing? Are you frustrated or grateful? Do you wish we would soon go back to ‘old normal’, or are you excited about the emerging new era? We hope that you are still passionate and flourishing in the uncertainty. If you are, you can help your students to feel the same.
As I shared earlier, this is really hard - all of it. I want to lean in and listen and allow myself to lean into all of it. My continued hope is that our mission, guiding lights, and core values will serve as our compass points together as a learning community. Marc Brackett’s words below are ones that speak to me this week, along with some quotes that I believe speak to this moment, our shared feelings, and our work. If they strike a chord with you (or even if they don’t), my door (real and virtual) is always open and I welcome the opportunity to listen.
We are going to make the path by walking it. - Colby Swettberg
We can't teach what we don't know. We can't lead where we won't go. - Malcolm X
If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. - Charlie Parker
As always, let me know of any questions/concerns.
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Take care.
Nat
#willfulhope #willfulaction #longasIcanseethelight