With the fall weather now upon us, I hope everyone enjoyed a nice relaxing weekend. After a late night Friday evening (greeting our guests from Bengbu at midnight Friday evening - way past my 9 p.m. bedtime!), we celebrated my mother's birthday Saturday evening. Sunday's crisp weather included a family bike ride in the afternoon before gearing up for the week.
It was great to see the 7th grade students and Blake staff arrive safely Thursday afternoon from their trip to Nature's Classroom. I would like to thank all of the chaperones for volunteering their days and nights to provide a wonderful experience for our students: Maura Batts, Susie Boulos, Kelly Campbell, Shawn Carrigan, Sara Donovan, Mike Gibbs, Mike Gow, Gabby Harvey, Jon Haycock, Eileen Hurley, Cori Jacomme, Greg Keohan, Kerrie Krah, Deb Manning, Matt Marenghi, Matt Millard, Kristen Musto, Judy Silva, and Sandy Spierdowis. I want to extend an extra thank you to Judy, Kelly C., Matt Marenghi, and Tricia for their tireless hours preparing for a safe, productive, and smooth week. A thank you as well to the 7th grade teachers and other teachers back at Blake this week who helped provide a rich experience for students staying behind and also assisted with the necessary coverage throughout the week.
This week we crossed our 'one month in' mark on the calendar, and in my preparation for our faculty meeting and professional day this week I took some time to reflect upon the initiatives we are working on and goals for the Blake community. One fear I have, if I'm being honest, as educators is that we may 'lose sight of the forest for the trees'. Our day-to-day (and in reality sometimes minute-to-minute work) is so important and the details are critical for preparing lessons, and as a result we do not always have time to take steps back to observe and recognize the connections and themes that produce opportunities for learning. This week I am sharing a few articles that I found centering as they highlight key factors that foster motivation and 'drive learning'...
Liking Work Really Matters
by Paul A. O'Keefe in The New York Times
O'Keefe has worked with colleagues researching task completion and the impact that 'interest and relevancy' play in regards to one's work.
"...researchers found that, compared with those who simply summarized the material, the ones who reflected on its personal relevance reported more interest in science — as well as significantly higher grades, on average by almost a full grade point. This was particularly true for those with the lowest expectations for performing well in their class. Research also shows that social engagement in activities can foster interest."
"Taken together, interest matters more than we ever knew. It is crucial to keeping us motivated and effective without emptying our mental gas tank, and it can turn the mundane into something exciting. Teachers, managers and parents must play an instrumental role in fostering interest in their students, employees and children — interest that will help them achieve their most important goals."
Voice and Choice in the Classroom
by Anthony Conwright in Education Week
In this post Conwright shares the adjustments he has made in his teaching to incorporate student voice and choice into his lessons.
"As a teacher, I have been plagued with the anxiety of wondering if students are engaged and if they find my class interesting. One way I alleviate this fear is to ask students what questions they are interested in, which takes pressure from my shoulders because the students provide a blueprint for me to follow to capture their interest."
"I have learned that my role as a teacher is not to simply give information but to facilitate discovery, which sometimes means I have to give up some of my control and hand it over to my sixth-graders. If we are preparing students for the real world, we must prepare them to be citizens in a democratic society, which starts in the classroom."
Why You Lead Determines How Well You Lead
by Tom Golditz in The Harvard Business Review
We are always looking for the right ingredients to inspire our students and spark an interest, and we often talk about the 'push-pull' between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Golditz writes about a study of Army leaders, following the path of West Point students from matriculation to the actualization of their careers and the factors that had the most significant impact on their growth and development.
"As one might predict, we found that those with internal, intrinsic motives performed better than those with external, instrumental rationales for their service — a common finding in studies of motivation. We were surprised to find, however, that those with both internal and external rationales proved to be worse investments as leaders than those with fewer, but predominantly internal, motivations. Adding external motives didn’t make leaders perform better — additional motivations reduced the selection to top leadership by more than 20%. Thus, external motivations, even atop strong internal motivations, were leadership poison."
"One of the longstanding dichotomies in the field of leader development is whether to teach leadership as skills that lead to higher performance (a competency-based model that is relatively easy to metric), or to teach leadership as a complex moral relationship between the leader and the led (a values-based model that is challenging to metric). Our study demonstrates that those who lead primarily from values-based motivations, which are inherently internal, outperform those who lead with additional instrumental outcomes and rewards."
The Connected Educator: It Begins With Collaboration
by Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby) in Edutopia
As October is Connected Educator Month, I found this post by educator and avid blogger Tom Whitby to be particularly relevant. Collaboration is at the heart of true learning and growth, for students and staff alike, and I hope we can find more ways to learn from others while sharing the good work we have in place here at Blake.
"The idea of collaboration requires a mindset of believing there is room to learn and grow. It is also a belief that we are smarter collectively than individually. The term connectedness applies to those using technology first to connect with others for collaboration, and then to use that collaboration to direct their own learning. While it's true that we don't know what it is we don't know, if we're ever to discover that unknown, we need to connect with those who do know it. This is the benefit of dealing with many other educators. There is always a more knowledgeable educator who can teach other educators what they need to know."
"In a society where digital has replaced analog and the country's infrastructure is being retooled to accommodate information technology, we are preparing citizens for a world of continuous technological evolution. We, as educators, need to understand that dynamic and evolve at a pace that keeps us from falling behind. The tools of communication, collaboration, and creation have radically changed and will continue to transform. The connected educator is a model for all educators as we move forward. A connected educator is as much a learner as a teacher. A connected educator is digitally literate, adapting as needed to inevitable changes. A connected educator is relevant in a world where rapid change is already a constant for our students."
Focusing on interest and relevancy will help our students to find their passions, persevere, and develop a sense of internal motivation to learn and grow. For us to do this as educators and invested adults, we must continue to have conversations - not just the easy ones, but difficult and uncomfortable ones as well - with one another in a true spirit of connection and collaboration. I look forward to our connections this week and in the weeks ahead.
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Take care.
Nat Vaughn