Nat Vaughn, Blake Principal
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Recognizing and Sharing Our Learning

9/28/2020

 
September 29, 2020

To help encourage conversations and dialogue about reflecting upon our own learning and what we have learned, our topic/question for the dinner table is:  What have you learned about yourself as a learner since the school year started? Recognizing and Understanding Our Learning (Week of 9/28/20) 
 
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

Although the ‘cycle’ of this school year feels very different than in past years, I feel as though I am slowly beginning to acclimate to our new ways, routines, and structure in school.  In many ways it feels as though the school year has just begun, while also feeling as though we have been back for a long time!  We have had a pretty quiet weekend, trying to take advantage of the lack of scheduled events, with some time outdoors, enjoying the NBA playoffs, and trying to simply step back and just be.  Oh yes - we also got a new kitten - so adorable (almost forgot to share a picture)!
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While trying to take some time to step back from school/work, I am also working on establishing or renewing some time to practice intentional reflection.  With what feels like ‘so many moving parts’ at all times, I have found that this ‘scheduled reflection’ each day has helped for centering, listening, and pause.  Through conversations with students, staff, and families this week my reflections seem to be centered or coming back to some of these questions…
Why are we doing what we are doing? What’s really important? What do we really want, and why? What do our students need? How can we get there? What have we learned about ourselves and our students? Where are we headed?
These questions are ‘big picture’ and broad in nature and can feel overwhelming at times; however, I have found them to be ones that help with the day-to-day decisions and interactions with our students and one another.  And each one of them led me back to a focus on our learners.   

As part of this reflective process, I also hope to share and engage with our community in fostering our theme of curiosity in all experiences - classes, remote learning, in person learning, meetings, lunch time, hallway chats, etc.  This theme is one that I also believe will help us to stay active in our learning for ourselves and with one another.  Two experiences that helped me do just that were webinars facilitated/led by Lynn Lyons and Justin Reich.  I highly respect both individuals and the focus (although different in scope) of these webinars were reflective and centered on ‘lessons learned’ in the name of educational growth for our learners.  I’ve shared some notes below (spoiler alert - we will be coming back to them at future meetings, parent/family info sessions, etc.)...

Back to School Worries: Helping Your Family This Fall
with Lynn Lyons (@LynnLyonsMSW)
  • # 1 impact during the pandemic has been loneliness
  • Silver Linings as a phrase during the pandemic is not helpful (too much suffering has taken place)
  • What have we learned? What must we do?
  • What do you feel proud of? (Keep asking students and ourselves)
  • Academic rigor is not the most important thing; we need our priorities in the right place
  • Our goal right now:  to increase emotional management, emotional literacy, and genuine social connection


Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education
with Justin Reich (@bjfr) - failuretodisrupt.com
  • Lots of claims are that the learning will be better via technology - most new technologies are minor adaptations of things that already exist; When initially used, they are used to extend existing teaching practices
  • Most tech supports/ed. technology have not worked really well for our most vulnerable learners
  • ‘Curse of the familiar’ - build technologies that replicated practices that are currently happening in schools (i.e. Quizlet - Flashcards)
    • Do things well known, it won’t make a difference; it will get adopted
    • Do things that are unfamiliar, it will make a difference; it won’t get adopted
    • Digitizing flashcards is not going to move the needle
  • DESMOS and Scratch are the ones that have made a difference
    • Desmos starts with the familiar and builds off of it
    • Distribute a set of pedagogical ideas and build community across the country
    • Scaling by building communities of educators, advocates, and partners - only way to get technologies to ‘get to different’ and better kinds of practice
  • Important Question: Who is sequencing the learning activities that learners pass through?
  • Prediction of Success in Technology…
1. Instructor-Guided/Driven (MOOC)
2. Algorithm-Guided/Driven (evaluate proficiency - offer sequences, adaptive tutors, Assessments, Khan Academy)
3. Peer-guided/Driven learning environments (Scratch, connectives MOOCs, rainbow loom societies)
  • New technologies tend to benefit affluent learners —> expands inequality
  • We are still captive to social and cultural barriers in broader contexts
  • Google Classroom made things replicated for teachers for what they did (pass worksheets, put out announcements)
  • Arrival of 1:1 computing and learning management systems have not shifted the needle
  • Importance of community-driven efforts -- it’s not up to schools to get fiber optics
  • EdTech Matthew Effect - For those who have much, much will be given; for those who don’t have much, much won’t be given
  • Teachers and Machines - Larry Cuban; Tinkers vs Charismatics (Tyack and Cuban)
  • How is online learning being experienced differently by students?
  • We should be looking at self-paced classes and learning
  • RBG: Transformational change comes very, very slowly - it is a slow-moving phenomenon
  • Belief in importance of tinkerers; tinkerers have helped to move educational technology along; incremental improvements are the best
  • Incremental improvement - how do we continue to get better year after year?
  • Goal is to support families with ‘pandemic academies’
  • Some of what parents want is child-care and babysitting and that is completely understandable
  • Keep sending the message that asynchronous learning is working
  • Give 40 hours of worksheets or 40 hours of Peg plus Cat (40 hours of TV would be better mathematicians)
  • School Admin: we build values and communicate our values; try and experiment and some will work and some will not; we are going to do the best we can; we are going to keep trying to learn from our mistakes, especially those with fewer opportunities
In a continued effort to keep our culture of reflection, shared learning, and dialogue both real and active, I hope that perusing the sampling of recent Topic/Question responses and posts below will help to further our conversations and actions for our community of learners...
 
Sampling of Responses from Our Last Topic/Question (Week of 9/21/20): What are you hoping to learn this year?
  • Reading
  • I would like to learn about history and get better about every subject.
  • responsibility
  • Something I hope to learn this year would be just more knowledge. The ability to learn is a gift, and I cherish it.
  • I am hoping to learn more about math
  • different science topics
  • How to keep track of my work better. And organize it better.
  • I am hoping to learn more about teaching online and still being an effective and engaging teacher.
  • One of the things I am hoping to learn more about is natural disasters.
  • About science And math and English and ss
  • I want to learn how to do dirt bike jumps.
  • How the universe was created
  • More Spanish because I want to be able to talk in a different language.
  • This year I am hoping to learn how to adjust to the new learning situation and the new schedules as I move through 7th grade and into the future of my learning.
  • I am not hoping to learn anything in particular, but I hope to keep moving forward from where I am in school.
  • I want to learn about the Supreme Court Judges.
  • I am hoping to learn about history, social studies, and insects/bugs.
  • I am hoping to learn more challenging problems
  • I am hoping to learn more math and get really good at it.
  • I want to learn more about online learning so I don’t have any hard time when we need to do online learning.
  • New things that I have never heard of before
  • I want to learn more space ⭐️ this year in science.
  • I am excited for the opportunity to experience a very different school year that will be filled with new and different opportunities for learning.
  • I would like to learn about animals and geography.
  • I am hoping to learn more about the ocean.
  • I am hoping to learn about the world and the way it works.
  • I’m hoping to learn well and not differently than the past seventh grade years
  • I am hoping to learn information that can help me in the real world.
  • Science
  • This year I am hoping to learn more about different cultures, more reading and writing skills, animal behavior, and more!
  • I’m hoping to learn how to cope with too many problems and stress all at once. And how to keep away from bad behavior.
  • I am hoping to learn more about fractions in math, and space in science.
  • I want to learn about ancient civilizations
  • I am hoping to learn about math and space.
  • I really like math because I have always been really good at it so when there is a difficult problem, I like thinking about it and answering it correctly(or my best shot)
  • The reason why I like space is it is waaaaaaaaay bigger than earth so that means there is much more to explore than earth. Also I think that there are other life forms out there because why would god make such a big universe with no other life forms?
  • How to run zoom calls smoothly and efficiently

Kids Continued to Cope Well Two Months After Schools Closed
by Peter Gray in Psychology Today
In this post Gray, author of Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life, summarizes the findings of two surveys of parents and children (one in April and one in May) during the period of emergency remote learning this past spring.  The conclusions are worthy of consideration and should guide our work this year and in the years to come.
Conclusion 1: Overall, children’s psychological wellbeing seemed to improve after school closure. Conclusion 2: Children appeared to gain a greater sense of independence and personal responsibility after school closure.
Conclusion 3: Parents gained a heightened appreciation of their children’s capabilities.
Conclusion 4: Contrary to what many might expect, parenting for this sample was not notably more difficult than parenting when children were in school.
Conclusion 5: Regardless of everything else, most children were looking forward to going back to school—because they missed their friends.

...these two surveys indicate—contrary to many reports that are not based on systematic studies—that the closing of schools and other adult-organized activities for children, overall, benefitted more children than it harmed. 

I hope that we, as a society, can derive a lesson from this. Let’s realize that the “normal” that people talk about when they talk about getting back to something like what we had before the pandemic for schooling is not “normal” biologically. We have, over decades, gradually turned children’s lives into something that is not at all normal for children. Normal means time to get bored, daydream, play, discover, find and pursue your passions, and, yes, help out at home.  

Do We Have the "Situational Awareness" to Navigate Into the Future?
by Homa Tavangar (@HomaTav) and Will Richardson (@willrich45)
Both Tavangar and Richardson are ‘must follows’, as they always challenge themselves while challenging others.  This concept of ‘situational awareness’ is one that I hope we can foster in our students and ourselves as we are re-examining and hopefully re-shaping our practices and the ‘way we do school’:  As with K-12 education, more and more are asking the existential question of what, exactly, is school for, and what does this moment demand in terms of what it becomes.
In our work with leaders over the past six months, we’ve been deeply focused on one particular aspect of “situational awareness,” namely building the skill of “reading the signs” in this moment more effectively to make better decisions about the future for students and school communities. One of the “big questions” we’re asking is what are we seeing happening now that gives us strong clues as to what’s coming around the corner? Obviously, we can’t predict the future with 100% certainty. And actually, as situations can change in a heartbeat, that shouldn’t be the goal. What we can do, however, is get a clearer sense of where we’re going by being more fully aware of where we are. In an education context, many of the signs are pointing to some big changes that require a greater sense of awareness in this moment.

In terms of work, more and more employers are losing their reverence for traditional education paths and, instead, either hiring based on an applicant’s ability to problem solve and think creatively or on their ability to learn on the job or in corporate sponsored training programs. 

Rather than preparing three or five year plans, educational leaders need to be building resilient school cultures and communities that can respond to ongoing change and are ready to learn their way through whatever future evolves.

Our “situational awareness” right now suggests that we should no longer rely on traditional anchors or narratives as to how the world will act moving forward. That, as futurist Marina Gorbis writes, “we are all immigrants to the future; none of us are natives to that land.” 

The last six months have thrown so many of our mental models about learning in schools into flux that if we’re not willing to learn, to gain a greater awareness of what’s happening and the consequences, we will have real trouble landing this metaphoric plane called “education” in ways that don’t disrupt all of our lives even further.

With so much in a continual state of flux (maybe that is the one constant - our state of flux?), it will be important to hold onto our mission, values, and guiding lights to steady the course as best we can...
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I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
Please click here for Blake Updates.
Please click here for District Community Notices.
Take care.
Nat
#willfulhope #willfulaction #longasIcanseethelight

Opening and Providing Space for Learning

9/23/2020

 
September 23, 2020

To help encourage conversations and dialogue about learning together as a community, our topic/question for the dinner table is:  What are you hoping to learn this year? Opening and Providing Space for Learning (Week of 9/21/20) 
 
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

After an exciting, emotional, and rejuvenating (insert other feelings, here, for sure!) first few days of school, I hope that everyone found some time to step back, breathe, and relax.  Our own kids started in fully remote (the hybrid plan in Holliston has been delayed) learning, and we are doing our best to fully adapt - I know we are not alone in this reality, as we are all trying to navigate schedules, routines, and changes.  At the risk of projecting or over-personalizing, I fully empathize with families, students, and schools - it isn’t easy.  The weather this past weekend was absolutely lovely and we did our best to be outside and ‘soak it in’ - taking walks, gardening, and enjoying some bike rides.  As one who is far better at preaching the importance of balance than practicing it, I am doing my best to not let self-care get pushed aside - it sure is an uphill climb for me and a constant work in progress.

** The words/reflection/thoughts/sharings below hope to serve as a framework for our learning community for the school year.  As has been the practice in past years, my hope and intention is to open up and provide a space for dialogue, engagement, and collaboration - I welcome dialogue, engagement, and questions - it will be important to continue our collegial, communal, and professional culture as we aim to provide a rich and meaningful learning experience for our students...
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Reading and reflecting upon Rilke and Ryan’s words together seem to be a fitting framework for the beginning of our school year.  I have always cherished and appreciated the ‘cycle of a school year’, with Labor Day traditionally marking our New Year’s Day in school.  With a nod to James Ryan’s sentiment of an ‘imperfect journey’, we know this year will be different than any other - and, most likely, different than we even anticipate it to be!  This is not, by any means, meant to imply that we will not be continually ‘diving in’, adjusting, and adapting or to absolve me (or us) of mistakes and missteps - rather, it is to put a ‘stake in the ground’ regarding the importance of always striving towards the intersection of aspirations and realities.  The period of emergency remote learning this past spring and current structure of hybrid learning have shown and manifested the interconnectedness and intersectionality of all decisions and structures - and, these are important to acknowledge as well.  The two images below along with Ted Sizer’s prescient words help me (and, I hope you as well) to visualize both our aspirations and realities, while also providing a centering structure (thanks so much to Diane Horvath for her ability to synthesize these thoughts, ideas, and plans in a visual format)...
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At the outset of each school year I share these sentiments/thoughts (and, although this is a very different year for all of us, the foundation of belief remains steadfast and true)... 
As we work to establish a foundation for our work, a continued goal that I have (and one that I hope is shared by our entire community - students, staff, and families) for both myself and Blake is that we purposefully, intentionally, and actively strive to maintain a culture of learning, sharing, and transparency with one another and the community.  It is critical that we take the time to highlight our work and progress, both the good and bad, in a reflective manner so that we are all held accountable to both our mission and our essential question...
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. 
Essential Question:  How can we cultivate and curate the progression of student learning and growth?
 
Guiding Premises for 2020-2021
These guiding principles/beliefs/convictions are ones we articulated as a staff back in June, with so many unknowns for this school year.  I have shared them with students, staff, and families and will continue to do so in the days/weeks/months ahead as I believe and know that they will be the ‘posts’ and ‘guard rails’ that we can (and need to) lean on for ourselves and one another…
  • This school year will certainly be different than any other - our mission, core values and beliefs, mantras, flexibility, and grace will guide our work and all of our decisions to best meet the needs of all of our students.  I care deeply for every member of the Blake community and know that when we return (whatever it looks like), we will care for our students and one another
  • When we return in the fall...we will meet students where they are at, we will meet one another where we are at, and we will all learn and move forward together
  • Safety, Health, and Shared Responsibility will be guiding principles throughout this coming year (they have always been guiding principles, but they will be emphasized and articulated more than ever).  
  • Your well-being is most important - please take care of yourself, your family, and one another.  Let us (the 'royal us') know if we can be of any help/support.
  • Please take/make time for yourself, your family, and your loved ones - at night, mornings, weekends - this will be helpful for our students/families as well throughout this coming year.
  • Relationships, relationships, relationships - that is the most important thing we do and will continue to be the most important thing we do.  Everything else is secondary (important, but secondary). 
Our extended professional development to start the year provided a structure for learning, collaboration, visioning, and community.  I want to thank our entire staff for 
their help in making it happen and willingness to ‘dive in’ - professionalism, care, and commitment to our students and one another was certainly present and felt. John Hattie’s research and findings emphasizes the importance of professional learning and intentional learning of teachers -- ‘...the greatest effects on student learning occur when the teachers become learners of their own teaching and...when students become their own teachers.’  This is our true goal - to be a community of active learners. My intent for our learning community is to take both the proverbial 40,000 foot view and ‘rubber hits the road views’ during these days to ask questions, plant seeds, frame the year, and foster dialogue in an effort to grow and learn.  It is through the questions and ideas that we discuss and explore that our beliefs will be formed - these beliefs will then guide our actions.
 
As we embark on this year of learning, I am highlighting some of the ideas that were shared/posed/discussed (questions, video clips, posts, and quotes) so that they stay current.  I hope that our work each day with students (both in person and remote) will align and help us towards our mission - please help me to articulate and examine these together. Much awaits us - hopes for our students and community, ups/downs, successes/challenges, theme of curiosity - and I am hoping we can continue to be learners together and reflect as a community, pushing and supporting our individual and collective growth...  
 
Questions/Prompts to Frame/Consider the/this Year...
  • What hopes do you have for this year?
  • What fears do you have for this year?
  • I am curious about…
  • Curiosity in our students looks like and is important because…
  • What do our students need from us?
  • Why did you become an educator?

Videos/Clips…
Argo - The Best Bad Idea
(0:57) - A clip from an excellent movie - shared with staff that this is what planning felt like for this school year!
Congressman John Lewis "Good Trouble"
(1:38) - Shown to frame discussions on race, racism, equity, and social justice
CHRIS WEBBER "IF NOT NOW, WHEN?"
(3:06) - Shown to frame discussions on race, racism, equity, and social justice
Charlie Wilson's War - Zen master and the little boy
(0:50) - Clip from movie - has profanity within (do not share with students); shown as 'We Shall See...' is a mantra we will be living every day as we just don't know…
The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers 
(15:24) - A TED talk by Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant)
Jesse Jackson - I am Somebody
(1:25) - Clip shown at end of 2020 school year to Blake staff and important to come back to

Quotes…
Our job is to educate their (our students) whole being so they can face the future.  We may not see the future, but they will and our job is to help them make something of it. - Sir Ken Robinson

If we look at the schools that have grown the most in the last five or ten years, schools that have made really significant improvements for their students in learning, these are the places that have had teacher communities that have been willing to come together and pull their oars together towards the same coherent goals. - Justin Reich

My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered the interruptions were my work. - Henri Nouwen

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. - Bertrand Russell

Do we ever ask how young is it too young to talk to a kid about kindness or love or respect? No. We read books to kids about love when they’re coming out of the womb because we want them to love! That’s what we want. We should be doing the same thing with being antiracist. - Ibram X. Kendi

Racist ideas love believers, not thinkers. - Ibram X. Kendi

Hope will never be silent. - Harvey Milk

Sharing knowledge is not about giving people something, or getting something from them. That is only valid for information sharing. Sharing knowledge occurs when people are genuinely interested in helping one another develop new capacities for action; it is about creating learning processes. - Peter Senge

Each and every school day will bring tens of thousands of reasons to celebrate in schools across the country. - Bill Ivey

The Aims of Education - To enable students to understand the world around them and the talents within them to become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens. - Sir Ken Robinson
 
Three Posts of Interest…
What If We Tried “Radical Acts of Education”?
by Homa Tavangar and Will Richardson in Big Questions Institute
This post is one that I first read back in June - I find myself coming back to it on a frequent basis.  By looking at the etymology of the word ‘radical’ (proceeding from a root) and then applying it to our work and vision, we can embrace the openness that it allows in all of our efforts.  It speaks to the importance of continually keeping this ‘radical lens’ in place.
As the corona virus rages on, and calls for social justice globally become louder, clearer, and more universal, why do we remain so afraid of being radical? Are the things that matter most to us mutually exclusive of radical acts, or might it be the reverse? In order to realize what’s vital: justice, equity, relationships, stewardship, community, creativity, joy – perhaps thinking radically is precisely what we need?

In our work we are constantly looking to the etymology of words to get to the root of messages and excavate the stories. “Radical” is a good case in point. The Latin origin of the word “radical” refers to “proceeding from a root.” This reference continues in math, where radical, symbolized by √, denotes a square root, cube root, etc.
 
As UCLA’s Distinguished Professor Emerita, Angela Davis, who embodies “radical,” in whatever way you interpret the word, explained, “Radical simply means grasping at the root.” And: “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”
 
Thinking radically helps us imagine a new world, but if it’s overwhelming to begin imagining globally, then “radical” also helps us begin at the roots, or locally. And we get to do it over and over and over again (“do it all the time”), because iteration is a key to trying, adjusting, failing, starting again, taking a risk, and continuously learning.
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Applying the “radical” lens can start off as an exercise in unsticking our minds, as we imagine new approaches to replace tired, expired structures. Try it with your colleagues. If you could dream, where would your dreams go? If you could remove one element of incoherence, what might it be and what could result? You will learn a lot about each other, and once you start to imagine, you can begin to construct reality from your thoughts.
 
A School Year to Make a Difference
by Anthony Rebora in Educational Leadership
This month’s issue explores grading, assessment, and feedback - a topic near and dear to my heart!  This brief post from Rebora provides an overview of the issue, referencing the necessity for us to ‘overhaul’ practices in light of the lessons we have learned.  I could not agree more.
The pandemic, along with recent incidents of racial injustice, has exposed deep-rooted inequalities in our society and school systems and created tremendous hardships for many students and families. It has also forced us to adapt to new and ever-changing formats and structures for teaching and learning. It's important for all of us to ask ourselves whether we might need to break free of some inherited practices and preconceptions to make a difference in these new conditions.
 
...to better reflect and support student learning, conventional grading systems and practices need an overhaul. Especially at a time like the present, this is an area where school leaders and educators can make schools more responsive and meaningful to students.
 
Emerging from the Crisis
By J. Peter Scoblic in Harvard Business Review
Scoblic details the concept of ‘strategic foresight’ as a way to move forward from a period of crisis and uncertainty - periods that have been labeled with the acronyms VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) and TUNA (turbulent, uncertain, novel, and ambiguous).  We are certainly in the midst of such a period, and this post provides a ‘roadmap’ for the ways we can support our students and provide a more productive and beneficial framework to move forward.  
Strategic foresight—the history, theory, and practice of which I have spent years researching—offers a way forward. Its aim is not to predict the future but rather to make it possible to imagine multiple futures in creative ways that heighten our ability to sense, shape, and adapt to what happens in the years ahead. Strategic foresight doesn’t help us figure out what to think about the future. It helps us figure out how to think about it.

...uncertainty is marked by novelty, which, by definition, lacks antecedents. At the very moment when the present least resembles the past, it makes little sense to look back in time for clues about the future. In times of uncertainty, we run up against the limits of experience, so we must look elsewhere for judgment. That’s where strategic foresight comes in.

As the current pandemic has made clear, needs and assumptions can change quickly and unpredictably. Preparing for the future demands constant reappraisal. Strategic foresight—the capacity to sense, shape, and adapt to what happens—requires iterative exploration, whether through scenario planning or another method.

...strategic foresight also enables us to identify opportunities and amplifies our ability to seize them. Organizations don’t just prepare for the future. They make it. Moments of uncertainty hold great entrepreneurial potential. As Wack once wrote in these pages, “It is precisely in these contexts—not in stable times—that the real opportunities lie to gain competitive advantage through strategy.”

It takes strength to stand up against the tyranny of the present and invest in imagination. 

Curiosity, Care, and Inquiry
At the conclusion of our staff meeting on 9/15, we took the time to watch the end of James Ryan’s well-known HGSE graduation speech from 2016.  Although we have watched it several times as a staff before (and I have watched it countless times!), I found that it ‘hit home’ and resonated with me on a much deeper level than in previous viewings.  Through his eloquent and grounded message, Ryan emphasizes curiosity, care, and inquiry through the process of asking questions - let’s all work together to keep this framework for our students, ourselves, our families, and our community...
 
Dean James Ryan's 5 Essential Questions In Life
(6:49)
  1. Wait, what?
  2. I wonder...why/if
  3. Couldn’t we at least?
  4. How can I help?
  5. What truly matters (to me)?

I look forward to the success, challenges, and opportunities for growth that await us.  It is my steadfast hope that we can keep our Guiding Lights (students, core values, mission and essential question) at the forefront of actions with strategic foresight, grace, and a willingness to adapt so that our precious children (and all of us) feel beloved and supported - I would also be remiss if I did not acknowledge the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and shared some of her wisdom along with words that help to guide our work at Blake…
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I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
Please click here for Blake Updates.
Please click here for District Community Notices.
Take care.
Nat
#willfulhope #willfulaction #longasIcanseethelight

MidSummer Reflection - August 2, 2020

8/2/2020

 
August 2, 2020
To help encourage conversations and dialogue about PDF (Playtime, Downtime, Family Time), our topic/question for the dinner table is:  What are you looking forward to and enjoying most about summer?  Enjoying Summer (Summer 2020) (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
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** Full disclosure - it has been a particularly reflective summer thus far :)
In the spirit of cultivating and fostering discourse, I encourage everyone to find/make time to read through the notes, resources, and posts that are within this reflection.  Although they may read as ‘tangential and theoretical’, I firmly believe that the sharing of ideas, theory, and learning align with the core values of the Blake community.  Please know that I am always happy and eager to process, listen, discuss, and share - my door (physical and remote) is always open - and I encourage everyone to do the same with one another.  

When I sat down to update my blog with a mid-summer reflection, I looked back at ones I had written in past years.  As one who loves to examine our traditions in the context of relevant learning, I found myself wanting to find a different quote than ones I have referenced in the past as a ‘starting point’.  Although Thoreau’s words are not new to me (or to this blog), they hold a very different meaning (a deeper one, in fact) than in past years.  With many of the phrases we are now all too familiar with to categorize our current reality (unprecedented, unique, unknown, surreal, ‘new normal’, ‘new abnormal’, etc.), this summer and the days/weeks/months leading into summer have felt for me like a winter.  
 
With the increased time of solitude, reflection, ‘forced slowing down’, and feelings of bleakness (speaking from the ‘I’), I have felt as though we are in the midst of a long winter without the cold and snow.  With all of these feelings on the forefront of my thinking and reality, while giving myself #permissiontofeel, the notion of maintaining summer - at least the notion of summer that I romanticize - feels more important than ever.  July was certainly a busy month and I have enjoyed the time with our kids and family (they may feel like we need a break from each other!) and, although the work schedule has been intense, I have made a concerted effort to practice self-care with yoga, bike rides, reading/podcasts, and gardening.  We enjoyed a lovely 4th of July weekend in the Berkshires and are hoping for some time on the Cape and to continue practicing #slowingitdown. Last year I shared this paragraph in my blog and I aim to carry them into my day-to-day reality for the month of August...
Summer is a wonderful time for many reasons, one of my favorites being the time that is ‘allowed, permitted, and/or encouraged’ for reflection and growth.  As I think about our roles as educators and caring adults for our students and community, that is a mantra and goal for us throughout the year as well. We want our students, families, and selves to continually find the time to reflect and grow - and, in turn, learning will take place.  
 
It does not go unnoticed for educators and school administrators to name and highlight the differences between the feelings of ‘August angst’ that we have in 2020 in comparison to past years.  With so many unknowns the ‘August feels like a month full of Sundays’ phrase does not serve our feelings, emotions, and thoughts in quite the same way.  Knowing that some of our questions about this fall will have answers soon (answers that we know may change), it is important to name and articulate the elements of our school and community that we all can lean on. 
 
Last week I offered a time for our staff as an optional Zoom check-in to simply do just that - listen, check in, and provide a space for questions.  I was once again affirmed (important to note that I was not surprised, but affirmed) by the care, commitment, and professionalism as students, well-being, families, and relationships were at the core of every sentiment.  We will continue to check-in as we navigate these days together as a community.  In my follow-up e-mail I shared (excerpted) the following - and I know I will continue to share them in the coming days/weeks/months as I believe and know that they will be the ‘posts’ and ‘guard rails’ that we can lean on for ourselves and one another (these messages are ones that will be conveyed to students and families alike)…
  • This school year will certainly be different than any other - our mission, core values and beliefs, mantras, flexibility, and grace will guide our work and all of our decisions to best meet the needs of all of our students.  I care deeply for every member of the Blake community and know that when we return (whatever it looks like), we will care for our students and one another
  • When we return in the fall...we will meet students where they are at, we will meet one another where we are at, and we will all learn and move forward together
  • Safety, Health, and Shared Responsibility will be guiding principles throughout this coming year (they have always been guiding principles, but they will be emphasized and articulated more than ever).  
  • Your well-being is most important - please take care of yourself, your family, and one another.  Let us (the 'royal us') know if we can be of any help/support.
  • Please take/make time for yourself and your family - at night, mornings, weekends - this will be helpful for our students/families as well throughout this coming year.
  • Relationships, relationships, relationships - that is the most important thing we do and will continue to be the most important thing we do.  Everything else is secondary (important, but secondary). 
Although I struggle with the phrase ‘silver linings’ in the context of a global health pandemic, I do believe and know that this period of emergency remote learning and our current individual and shared realities of our world (locally, nationally, and globally) have collectively shone a necessary light on our ‘systems’.  There are lots of things we do well in school and there are lots of things we do not do well.  It is important - critical, in fact - that we listen closely, hold up the mirror to our own systems and beliefs, do not ‘sleep through this wake-up call’ (a phrase I have referenced a great deal from a dear friend), and take real actionable steps to make necessary changes for our students - some that have been ‘a long time coming’.  
 
One practice that I have maintained throughout this summer has been that of reflection, always striving to make connections between and amongst my inner and outer self, my beliefs and actions, and my personal and professional life - articulating the connections, naming the gaps, and working to bridge or allow the gaps, as appropriate.  As part of my own learning and growth this summer, I have been reflecting via different means and continued my focus on a few areas (these certainly are not siloed areas and are overlapping and interwoven in many, many ways with implications across several domains)…
  • Practicing true intentionality and deliberation with self-care 
  • Reading and listening 
  • Mindfulness and reflections on our theme of Curiosity for 20-21 - what are the connections?  What does curiosity mean? What does it look like? How can we embed it into our culture? 
  • Diversifying my own learning 
  • Sustainable change - what does support look like? What is needed? How can I/we support students and staff?
I aim to continue (during on- and off-time from the days of school) to foster connections, questions, thoughts, and discussion by openly sharing reflections from Blake, posts, readings, and personal 'learnings' that reflect our work and growth.  Below I am highlighting a little bit of each that directly and indirectly relate to our mission - innovation, the process of change, the needs of our students, and reflection…
 
Staff Reflections
One practice that truly helps me to enter this reflective and productive mindset each year is reading the responses from the prompts asked of the Blake staff as we enter summer...
  • What was meaningful this year?  What made teaching worthwhile? What mattered?
  • Describe a positive interaction or experience you had with a student during this academic year.
  • Describe or explain an accomplishment you attained or something you are proud of taking place during this academic year.
  • Describe a particular student or situation during the school year who or that you feel you could have handled in a way that would have resulted in a more positive learning experience.
  • How have you 'lived' our mission statement in your work and growth this year?
  • What is an area that you would like to grow professionally?
  • What have you learned this year from a student? 
  • What messages do you want to leave for our students?  What do you want them to remember? (A humbling but important and centering question)
The responses are insightful, honest, professional, personal, and meaningful.  They provide a lens into our day-to-day work, compass points for reflection, food for thought, and a directional path for the upcoming school year.  
 
Race, Racism, and Social Justice
I have shared this sentiment with staff and our community and would feel remiss if I did not continue to keep them at the forefront of thought, reflection, and action...
...as one who identifies as a white, heterosexual male I have been given many privileges and I have a responsibility to engage and act on my beliefs - although I have felt and known this, I know more than ever that I have an ethical and moral obligation to not only talk, but act on my anti-racist beliefs and convictions.  I must continue to 'hold up a mirror', acknowledge my implicit biases, examine them, and truly listen.  It is important for me/us to start, continue, and push these conversations.  
With a number of staff throughout the district, we have been meeting on a regular basis to discuss these important issues with Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to Be an Anti-Racist as a focal and centering anchor.  I encourage each of us (individually and collectively) to think about and articulate steps towards work around race, racism, and social justice.  Action steps I am committed to (not a final list, by any means)...
  • Making time (time/endeavor will vary, but committing to something) at every faculty meeting for discussions/work
  • Talking to Admin Leadership Team
  • 'Broken record' messaging
  • Connecting with Parents/Families to open up dialogue/action outside the walls of Blake
These posts are ones that continue to guide me and hopefully our work with ourselves, our students, and one another.  We must engage in these conversations and make sure that we are acting on them as well.
 
Being Antiracist Is Work, Even for Ibram X. Kendi
by Donovan X. Ramsey in WSJ Magazine
“I think it’s easy for people to come to my work and not think that I had a tremendous amount of resistance and even struggle in order to be able to write the type of books and even talk about the type of issues that I feel are necessary to talk about,” Kendi muses. “Most of my career has been rejection. It has been a career of people telling me no.”

“You’re constantly assessing to make sure you’re expressing antiracist ideas, to constantly make sure you are supporting antiracist policy,” Kendi says. “And to be antiracist is to admit those times in which we’re being racist and to commit to, of course, changing.”

“It’s not the type of thing in which you can just say, I read a book, and so I’m an antiracist. There’s no such thing as someone becoming an antiracist,” he says. “We can only strive to be.”
 
Opinion | John Lewis: Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation
Mr. Lewis, the civil rights leader who died on July 17, wrote this essay shortly before his death, to be published upon the day of his funeral.- in The New York Times
Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.
 
Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble.
 
Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring. When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

Patience Is a Dirty Word
by Ibram X. Kendi in The Atlantic
It is one thing to recognize racism. It is yet another thing to be anti-racist. Are Americans recognizing the colossus and fixing to run away from it out of fear of getting into trouble? Or are Americans readying, like Lewis, to get into trouble, “good trouble”?
 
But the gradualists of today admonish the gradualism of yesterday, condemning all those who opposed immediate emancipation, all those who told Lewis to tone down his speech in 1963. Reformists don’t age as well as revolutionaries. How could anyone say in 1829 that slavery should live another hour? How could anyone not have demanded a “scorched-earth policy” that burned “Jim Crow to the ground—nonviolently,” as Lewis was prevented from saying at the March on Washington?
 
A century from now, when almost all of us are dead, if we don’t act with urgency and boldness, I can only imagine what our descendants will be saying about us. How could we allow the evil of racial inequity to live another hour? How could we not support a scorched-earth policy to eliminate racial injustice? The revolutionaries of today will age well, as those revolutionaries of yesterday aged well.

To be anti-racist is to believe in the word now. Patience is a dirty word to those incarcerated by inequity. Patience is a nasty word to those with injustice kneeing down on their neck.

Some Recent Learning/Thoughts/Notes/Mindsets
Over the last five weeks I have ‘dove in’ and tried to soak up as much learning as has been offered - through podcasts, webinars, book discussions, job-alike meetings, resources made available from colleagues and social media networks.  Below are some ‘learnings’, thoughts, and notes that have been percolating and bouncing around in my head - they range in topics (the first set is focused on 2020-2021 schooling and the second set are a few notes on race/racism - however, the notes apply to many (if not all) contexts of our work.  I look forward to discussing, sharing, and engaging further with our community…
  • Most defining characteristic of the new school year is uncertainty
    • Variance is a guarantee
  • Be clear on your mission and direction you want to go
  • Only one generation of students have been educated during a pandemic
    • Include our students and families
  • Starting point needs to be relationships; connections between students and teachers are where we start
  • Jal Mehta: It seems like a really good opportunity to build in student agency. Students have had to take more control of their learning when at home, and we should build on that when we come back. It also increases the likelihood they will do the work when at home.
    • Talk to them. Rebuild the relationships. And then think about what the major things are for next year, and leave space to go into them in depth. Resist trying to stuff all of what they missed this year into next year.
  • We are compiling a new body of knowledge as to what is effective for learning
  • Deep, Powerful engaging instruction:  Purpose (why we are doing this); Choice (control over what I am learning); Agency (goes with choice); Building a community where people are trusted, yet challenged
  • Schools rely on invisible coercion (can’t happen in remote learning)
  • Need to lean into our values; our values will get us through uncertainty
  • Students: it was so hard to lose the social elements of schooling
  • Make planning decisions through the lens of the least well-served students in your building
  • Always have to have flexibility and grace
  • Asynchronous options need to be available and ‘at the ready’
  • Parents/families/communities need to be really involved
  • Three ways to ‘engage’...
    • Compel, Persuade, or You are Needed (Outward Bound)
    • Let’s make people feel needed
  • Borrow more ideas from competency-based learning and mastery-learning
    • Provide lots of pathways to mastery
  • Most important skill for teachers:  Double down on our ability to build relationships; Practice our empathy; Care for most vulnerable learners
  • Key Take-aways:
    • Make planning decisions through the lens of the most disadvantaged population in your schools. That is how to establish equitable learning experiences for students.
    • Consider hosting stakeholder design meetings, where students, parents, teachers, and administrators can list challenges, define values, and make decisions about new ways of working.
    • Try to avoid squeezing all the things that weren’t learned in the spring. Identify the most critical curriculum and focus on that, while also allowing time for students to readjust to in-person time meaningful. Zero in on the parts of school that students love, where relationships can be sustained.
  • Normal didn’t work for a lot of kids’; we should not revert back to normal
  • 3 Questions:  What do you value most from school?  How could you start to imagine those things you value appearing in a new format?  What can you leave behind - what don’t you need?
  • If you’re not connecting or not succeeding, it’s because we haven’t figured it out for you
  • Ask students:  What needs to change for all of this to work better for you?
    • Need to amplify student agency
  • People still need to feel safe to be learn; can’t just be safe, it has to feel safe
    • Many kids did not feel safe prior to the pandemic in school
  • Need a strong internal locus of control as a teacher and strong locus of control as a citizen
  • People still need to feel safe to be learn; can’t just be safe, it has to feel safe
    • Many kids did not feel safe prior to the pandemic in school
  • A lot of what we know about good teaching is cultivating the space for learning
  • Be aware of the danger in ‘symbolic listening’
  • Trust is built upon reciprocal actions
  • Schools have an enormous well of ‘good will’ to draw on; 72% satisfaction response from the spring
  • Starting over again is good for kids and adults; ‘I can try again’ - allow for that to work as you look ahead; opportunities to reset are really important; There may be some plans that don’t work as well - but if we let them run through, that’s ok
  • Pandemic has revealed vast inequalities in our learning structures
  • Schools should be places to spark joy!
  • Doing fewer things more deeply creates the simplicity
  • How do we use student interests to guide our work?
  • Kids who are already anxious and frustrated and traumatized by the spring experience should not be welcomed back by a list of what they are behind on or lacking.
Race/Racism
  • ‘You might be awake, but are you ready?’ (Analogy to waking up in the morning, but are you ready for school?)
  • How we view things is critical
  • Empathy gap in race (Covid-19)
  • Use Design Thinking Process — start with empathy
  • Empathy:  The Most Important Back-to-School Supply (Home Tavangar)
  • Racial Literacy provides opportunities to iterate
  • Empathy allows us to iterate
  • Whiteness is always present, but sometimes it’s hard to see
  • Seeing racial difference is not racist

Some podcasts…
I ‘discovered’ podcasts in the summer of 2019 and wondered where I had been hiding to have just come across this incredible resource!  The challenge for me (just like with books, posts, shows, etc.) is that information abounds and there simply is not enough time.  Here are a few podcasts that I have enjoyed - they have pushed, challenged, enlightened, and entertained me (often all at once)...
1619 Podcast - The New York Times
In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the 250 years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is time to tell the story.  “1619” is a New York Times audio series hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones. You can find more information about it at nytimes.com/1619podcast.

‎Unlocking Us with Brené Brown on Apple Podcasts
I’ve spent over 20 years studying the emotions and experiences that bring meaning and purpose to our lives, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this: We are hardwired for connection, and connecting requires courage, vulnerability, and conversation. I want this to be a podcast that’s real, unpolished, honest, and reflects both the magic and the messiness of what it means to be human. Episodes will include conversations with the people who are teaching me, challenging me, confusing me, or maybe even ticking me off a little. I'll also have direct conversations with you about what I’m learning from new research, and we'll do some episodes dedicated to answering your questions. We don’t have to do life alone. We were never meant to.

Class Disrupted
The coronavirus pandemic disrupted education across the U.S. and changed our assumptions about what it means to go to school. When kids return to the classroom, things won’t be the same. Diane Tavenner and Michael Horn answer questions from parents and talk with educators and leading thinkers about how we can approach teaching and learning differently to better meet the needs of all students.

Have You Heard Podcast – Have You Heard
Join journalist Jennifer Berkshire and education historian Jack Schneider as they explore education policy and politics, one hot-button topic at a time. 

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Hi, I’m Dax Shepard, and I love talking to people. I am endlessly fascinated by the messiness of being human, and I find people who are vulnerable and honest about their struggles and shortcomings to be incredibly sexy. I invite you to join me as I explore other people’s stories. We will celebrate, above all, the challenges and setbacks that ultimately lead to growth and betterment.
What qualifies me for such an endeavor? More than a decade of sobriety, a degree in Anthropology and four years of improv training. I will attempt to discover human “truths” without any laboratory work, clinical trials or data collection. I will be, in the great tradition of 16th-century scientists, an Armchair Expert.

Code Switch          
What's CODE SWITCH? It's the fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for! Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between. This podcast makes ALL OF US part of the conversation — because we're all part of the story.

‎What's the Big Idea? on Apple Podcasts
We're a podcast about big ideas in progressive education. Tune in to listen and think, then respond on Twitter or Instagram @BigIdeaEd

‎The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos on Apple Podcasts
You might think you know what it takes to lead a happier life… more money, a better job, or Instagram-worthy vacations. You’re dead wrong. Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos has studied the science of happiness and found that many of us do the exact opposite of what will truly make our lives better. Based on the psychology course she teaches at Yale--the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history--Laurie will take you through the latest scientific research and share some surprising and inspiring stories that will change the way you think about happiness. 

TeachLab with Justin Reich - Podcast
TeachLab is a podcast that investigates the art and craft of teaching. There are 3.5 million K-12 teachers in America, and we want to explore how they can become even better at what they do. Hosted by Justin Reich, MIT Professor and director of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab. 

Getting Smart
Welcome to the Getting Smart Podcast. Episodes cover a variety of education topics in K-12, HigherEd and lifelong learning. Listen in as our team shares interviews with today's top educators, learning organizations, and thought leaders discussing the future of teaching and learning.

‎Flying Coach With Steve Kerr and Pete Carroll on Apple Podcasts
Steve Kerr and Pete Carroll discuss their respective coaching and leadership experiences, how they run their teams, where the NBA and NFL overlap and differ, and the formative influences in their careers.

Let's K12 Better
Mom Of All Capes 
How should we prepare kids for life in the 21st century? We're sharing insights, asking experts, exploring new ideas, and actively pursuing an improved K12 experience for the kids, the parents, and their educators. Join us!#LetsK12Better
 
Some Posts That Resonate
The posts below resonate with me as I/we look ahead to tomorrow and what awaits our students, staff, and families.  As with the connections I referenced above, the personal/professional overlaps are clear - it is important to listen, grow, and push one another.
How Might Change Be Driven by Coherence?
by Will Richardson (@willrich45)
In our best world, all of our actions center the greater, or public good. We share a vision for a just, equitable, thriving society, and we contribute our ideas and our work in service to that. We are a community. We are truly neighbors who care for and support each other’s aspirations because we know achieving them will serve us all, not just the individual.
 
In our current world, however, most of our actions serve the private good. We seek to “win” at the expense of others. We value the tangible things upon which we can measure our success. We put ourselves in the center of the story, and we feel impacted only by what we see in front of us.
 
In our future world, neither of those will sustain. In order for our species to survive and thrive, we must act for the global good. It’s not so much about  allegiance to our cities or towns or nations as it is the collective of humans on the planet. This moment is telling us that how we act impacts all others and the world itself. It should just be a reminder, but for some it feels like a brand new lesson.
 
...the way we think about change needs to be driven by the idea of  “coherence” as in “the quality of forming a unified whole.”
 
Change conversations can no longer be focused on how we might live differently in our schools but how we might live differently as schools in the world. We must start with a commitment to shared values that contribute to the global good, and we must fiercely inquire about and interrogate the gaps between those values and our practice...If we want to become helpful instead of helpless, if we truly want to live lives that nourish the global good, we must first be coherent in our motivations and our actions, not just with one another, but with the world.
 
Marie Kondo the Curriculum    
by Jal Mehta and Shanna Peeples
...spending time with these two questions works as a kind of Swiss Army knife for cutting to the essential heart of the learning experiences we want for our students: What do you want your students to love? How can your students use what you’re teaching them to understand the world and respond to its problems? 

We also should think about the implicit messages we are sending. If, when students return to school in the fall, our primary message is that they are behind and need to do double doses of eat-your-broccoli type schooling, then they will rightly intuit that we don’t care much about them in the present and see them only as vessels into which we deposit knowledge that we think is important. If, instead, we welcome them back as whole human beings, as people who have had a life-defining experience and survived it with resilience and verve, and invite them to inquire with us about topics of mutual interest, we are much more likely to sustain their energy and attention.

To put it another way, everything in our curriculum has a purpose—or had a purpose when it was first introduced—but not everything in our curriculum needs to stay. Much like yesterday’s wardrobe or old souvenirs, things that were once important are now obstacles to living our best life.  We can let these go with gratitude for their marking of how we have grown in our practice, while creating space on our educational shelves for what we need today.

How to Plan When You Don’t Know What to Plan For 
by Katie Hicks and Sarah Schroeder in Edutopia
Build a Communication Plan
Organize Content
Constantly Evaluate Your Toolbox
Plan Activities to Build Relationships in Any Space
Design Discovery Activities for Key Technology Tools
Create Routines that are Consistent Across All Spaces
With so much uncertainty about what next year looks like, it’s easy to be overwhelmed. Start with the pieces you have control over.

Three Lessons for Teachers from Grant Wiggins 
by Jay McTighe in ASCD
(Jay McTighe's tweet about this post - 'While the new school year promises to be anything but normal, there are certain enduring qualities of great teachers and teaching that can be applied in virtual and blended environments. Here are three valuable reminders from Grant Wiggins. Please share!')
Lesson #1 - Always Keep the End in Mind
Lesson #2- Feedback is Key to Successful Learning and Performance
Lesson #3 - Have Empathy for the Learner

What if Kindness Is the New Normal? A Call to Re-Imagine the Purpose of Education in the Post-COVID World
by Vishal Talreja and Sucheta Bhat in WISE
As we start preparing ourselves for the post-pandemic world, our invitation is to use this pause to re-imagine how schools and learning ecosystems can be truly transformative for all children. 
For example, what if learning ecosystems decide to:
  • Spend the first three months when children come back to school only on re-integrating them into the post COVID-19 world, while deprioritizing academic subjects.
  • Have no examinations across the board for one year.
  • Invest in targeted trauma-healing of teachers, resulting in schools becoming more trauma responsive.
  • Support school leaders to re-imagine the school calendar to integrate life-skills and SEL as core components to prepare children for future uncertainty.
  • Change the metric of success of our education systems from academic and economic outcomes to well-being and thriving of all students, communities, and the planet.

I Was a Screen–Time Expert. Then the Coronavirus Happened.
by Anya Kamanetz in The New York Times
Before the pandemic, I was a parenting expert. It was a cushy gig...Now, like Socrates, I know better. I know that I know nothing.

Parenting expert? Please. I took only 12-week maternity leaves, and for the second baby, I had both the nanny’s help and the big girl in pre-K five days a week. I finished my parenting book about screen-time on that maternity leave, which was kind of like writing up lab results before the experiment was finished.

I want to take this moment to apologize to anyone who faced similar constraints before the pandemic and felt judged or shamed by my, or anyone’s, implication that they weren’t good parents because they weren’t successfully enforcing a “healthy balance” with screens, either for themselves or their children. That was a fat honking wad of privilege speaking. But on reflection, some of the ideas and principles I used to intone so confidently have actually shown their mettle in new ways in this new world. I offer them to you now, humbly. I speak softly and do not carry a mic.

Connect with other people
Go slow
Reduce and repair, don’t eliminate
Focus on feelings, not on screens

The State of Play 
By Jessica Grose in The New York Times
… even in the most difficult times, our kids are capable of boundless joy, and that their fertile imaginations provide solace when our grown-up world falls short.
 
Eight Tips To Slow Down Summer
by Kris Felicello (@kfelicello)
This post by Felicello is one I have shared in the past - it offers 8 tips for how we, educators and families alike, can slow down the pace and our heads in an effort to enjoy, relax, regroup, and refresh for the coming school year:  Create a Summer Bucket List; Create a New Habit; Read; Reconnect; Day Trip; Play the Notice Game; Learn Something; Do Something New.
If you are not in the education field, you may begrudge teachers for what you see as a two month glimpse into retired life, but, for us in the field, we know when you do it right, you often leave it all on the field so to speak and need time to reinvent yourself for the challenge that the next school year and next group of students will bring.  No matter how much you love teaching or being an administrator, no matter how much you love kids, the challenge of changing lives, and/or of inspiring the next generation of leaders, you would be hard pressed to find an educator who doesn’t wish they could slow down the clock to make summer last just a little bit longer.  
 
We have settled into the summer mode, the relaxation and good vibes of summer and its inevitable end is far enough away that the negative nellies are not yet signaling its impending doom. It is not too late, you have the opportunity to slow down your summer, to make the most of it.  From one educator to another–I know how hard you work; I know how you lay yourself on the line each and every day. You deserve a long summer that will get you ready to do battle and fight the good fight for our kids come September.
 
Holding on to Summer…
As we await more information regarding the start of the upcoming school year, I will keep reminding myself that it is important to hold onto these summer days, afternoons, and nights.  As a family, we hope to find time for some trips to the cape, Blueberry Hill Farm, some more Farm Pond swims, gardening, yoga, and cooking.  Most important, though, I want to be present and take it one day at a time.  I am sharing some quotes that I share each summer that help me to #slowitdown, #leantowardsyes, and practice #willfulhope - I hope they can do the same for others (although it is a different kind of summer and I recognize the privilege I have to ‘entertain’ these quotes, the sentiments are ones that are important and worthy of reflection)...
Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds. -- Regina Brett
Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience:  this is the ideal life. -- Mark Twain
Summer afternoon-summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. -- Henry James
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. -- John Lubbock
Aaah, summer - that long anticipated stretch of lazy, lingering days, free of responsibility and rife with possibility. It's a time to hunt for insects, master handstands, practice swimming strokes, conquer trees, explore nooks and crannies, and make new friends. -- Darell Hammond
 
As I share each year at this 'midpoint of summer', I hope everyone enjoys a relaxed, restful, reflective, and fun second half of summer, full of both 'everything and nothing’ at the same time.  Stay tuned for the 'Opening Letter' to all Blake families in mid-August. And, as Kris Felicello shared at the end of the post referenced above...
There is no reason a late August day can’t be just as much summer as a late June one.  Don’t start the countdown; just enjoy each day for what it is.
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#lovingsummer
#willfulhope
I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
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Enjoy these summer days, stay safe, and take care.
Nat

Enjoying Summer - Reflections Thus Far...

7/1/2020

 
July 1, 2020

To help encourage conversations and dialogue about PDF (Playtime, Downtime, Family Time), our topic/question for the dinner table is:  What are you looking forward to most about summer?  Enjoying Summer (Summer 2020) (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

July 1, 2020 - wow - hard to believe that July is here!  With the blurred lines between home and school, weeks and weekends, etc., the typical transition from school-mode to summer-mode has not felt as stark as in past years; and, of course, the questions that we all have regarding next year in regards to school are certainly present on my mind.  So many unknowns have now become a reality, and the societal unrest that is very real (impacting all of us personally, communally, and globally) certainly contribute to feelings I have not felt or experienced before, and I am sure I am not alone with these thoughts and sentiments.  Although I feel I have become accustomed to the ‘relative nature of time’, given the ways in which we have all been adapting to our ‘new normal’ on a daily basis over the past few months, I still am struck by how quickly the last two weeks have gone by.  It really does seem like yesterday that the ‘last day of school Zooms’ were taking place and we came together as a staff for our end-of-year check-in.  With all of these feelings/experiences/emotions as a backdrop (front drop might be a more accurate description), Katie and I have been doing our best to make self-care a priority and down shift a bit to be outside, garden, and relax - some days we are more successful than others, for sure.
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Several years ago one of our former teachers, Sandy Ayers, sent this quote to be in mid-July - she knew I loved quotes and also sent it to encourage/remind me to #slowitdown - encouragement and advice I can certainly give to others, but have a hard time following myself.  One aspect of this ‘down-shift’ of the summer months is the time that opens up for intentional reflection and exploration. Whether it is through catching up on reading, listening to podcasts, having dedicated time for conversations, and/or getting to the lists/ideas/readings that have been ‘set aside’ for a later date, I relish the time that is allowed for introspection and deeper levels of thought.  As a side note and one I find myself working on each year, I maintain that I will continue striving to build in some ‘structured time’ for these same endeavors during the school year as well - a work in progress, for sure.
 
In my last blog post (Reflection and Action), I prefaced my ‘sharing of thoughts’ with the words below - I will continue to keep them as part of my blog posts for ‘the time being’ as I believe it is critical that I keep them at the forefront of thought, reflection, and action...
...as one who identifies as a white, heterosexual male I have been given many privileges and I have a responsibility to engage and act on my beliefs - although I have felt and known this, I know more than ever that I have an ethical and moral obligation to not only talk, but act on my anti-racist beliefs and convictions.  I must continue to 'hold up a mirror', acknowledge my implicit biases, examine them, and truly listen.  It is important for me/us to start, continue, and push these conversations. 
 
In the spirit of cultivating and fostering discourse, I am sharing some recent reflections from both students and staff along with a few quotes and posts that resonate - directly aligning with our core values and areas of focus for the Blake community.  
** As you will see, it has been a very reflective couple of weeks for me - I encourage everyone to make time to read through the resources below - they are important.  Please know that I am always happy and eager to process, listen, discuss, and share - my door (physical and remote) is always open - and I encourage everyone to do the same with one another.  
 
Student and Staff Reflections
For the past few years I have asked both students and staff to highlight positive aspects of the past school year.  With full recognition that these sentiments are not shared by all and that challenges were faced by many, I encourage everyone to take time to read through this sampling of responses - the practice of ‘naming the good’ helps us to highlight the growth and learning that has taken place, providing a foundation for more potential as we look forward to the next school year.  We must, however, also acknowledge and open up doors for the dialogue regarding the challenges our students (and we) have encountered for us to look towards improvement.

For students...
How/why was this a good year for you as a learner? (Sampling of responses)
  • This was a good year for me as a learner because it gave me new experiences that could help me out in the future
  • I / all of us were forced to adapt to a situation no one would have predicted at the beginning of the school year. 
  • It helped me realize you need to work extra hard.
  • It helped me adjust to new environments.
  • This was a good year for me as a learner, because I was put into a situation that I wasn’t totally comfortable with. The experience not only highlighted what techniques and strategies work best for me when I am learning, but also furthered my understanding of what learning style I prefer. This will help me next year by providing me with a stronger foundation to start my learning experience. Through understanding more about myself in regards to learning, I will be better able to study for assessments, complete assignments, and participate. It is my belief that discovering what works for you is the best way to succeed in any field. This was also a good year for me as a learner, because I acquired the skills to adapt to new circumstances. As I enter the high school, this will be important, because I am going to be in a new environment. It will be necessary for me to find my own way, so as to not get overwhelmed.
  • I got to learn how to create my own schedule to follow, and learn how to stay responsible while this is all going on.
  • This was a good year for me because I feel like I improved as a student, and I learned some valuable learning skills, like how to study.
  • It was a good year for me because I knew where to answer my questions. It will help me by making me feel like I know what I need to know for the year.
  • I learned that I can do well in school while there is so much going on in the world. I also learned all the study hacks I can use for next year.
  • More tech
  • This was a good year for me as a learner because it helped me see how school helps my mind stay active and healthy. This information will help me next year because it will teach me to not procrastinate as much, and to do a portion of my work every day, instead of just on one day.
  • During quarantine, I was able to work at my own pace which helped me a lot. I am a learner who goes at my own pace and it’s hard to do in a classroom with 15+ other kids.
  • I feel like I learned a lot of new stuff that I will most likely be using in my adult life. It will also help me understand a lot of the new topics that we will learn next year.
  • I feel a schedule is important for my learning.
  • I learned and improved in my work a lot this year and hope to use those skills next year.
 
For staff...
Why was this a good year for our students? (Sampling of responses from our end-of-year Zoom check-in on 6/16)
  • The relationships they built with peers and teachers
  • Students were put in a position where they had to take more ownership over learning
  • We grow from adversity 
  • they had adults that were supporting them no matter what
  • Lots of opportunity to think about how to be themselves
  • Learned about themselves
  • They learned what true independence means.
  • They learned the value of being flexible and quick to adapt
  • it was a chance to practice resilience and flexibility!
  • they had the opportunity to overcome a big challenge
  • Many of them learned that they can be more independent than they believed.
  • They found out they could do something difficult, and how important community is.
  • Many were able to really demonstrate their resilience and independence.
  • They learned a lot about themselves.  They learned how to learn.
  • What we've been through gave students a new perspective on learning
  • They knew they were cared for and could make strides in learning
  • They have been challenged academically and emotionally. What you expect is not guaranteed to happen.
  • Connections and perseverance was ever present
  • I have to imagine they learned more about themselves this year than in any other
  • they showed what true courage is
  • it prepared them in ways to take ownership of their learning and grow in independence
  • learned in a new environment, persevered
  • They definitely learned a lot and maybe appreciate being in school now more than ever.
  • They saw teachers learning and struggling at times.
  • This was a good year for our students because they learned some valuable life lessons/skills. 
  • As difficult as things were it was the most authentic way for them to learn some important life lessons; resilience, patience, kindness, respect and see them in practice every day in their own lives
  • They found our what works and doesn’t for them. Some of them learned to ask for what they need.
  • They learned what they are truly capable of, despite challenges, and that our community really cares for them.
  • worked as a team with parents, teachers, and other students
  • Learned what they are capable of - tried a level of independence
  • Students learned what they are truly capable of
  • a different perspective
  • the challenge created opportunity for grit-growth
  • Students had an experience like none other
  • They were brave, flexible and showed resilience in the face of so many unknowns.
  • Independence immersion
  • They learned how to be successful in an entirely new situation, a situation with no playbook. 
  • They got to experience a whole new way of learning that I think helped some of them learn some independence and resilience
  • Learnied problem solving, independence and resilience
  • they were able to overcome a difficult challenge
  • they learned to  be resilient and flexible and they got to watch the adults around them do the same
  • They had to take more ownership of their learning while we were remote - I saw growth in them in some life skills
  • They were challenged in a completely new way 
  • They learned to appreciate what they have
  • I think they learned most about themselves. How did they each face this challenge?
  • For some students, they were given an opportunity to shine when they sometimes can’t…they had an opportunity to learn about themselves.
  • They learned that they can succeed even when the world is changing around them.
  • they can feel good about what they had to overcome
  • Our students were able to see (sometimes forced by circumstances) how much they were capable of, even when they doubted themselves
  • They will walk away with a common uniting experience (positive or negative…they did it together) - and have had a difficult experience through which they’ve persevered.
  • They were able to become more independent people and learners but also feel the care and support of adults from school, they probably tried a lot of new things that they never would have— more time outdoors. . . etc
  • They had to learn how to adapt.
  • They learned that school is essential and that connections and being present with their peers and teachers may mean more than they realized. We all took our connections for granted before this!
  • the lessons in adapting and evolving and perseverance were so valuable to students and all of us
  • So many of them showed up and engaged these past few months- knowing that things were different (grades, etc.)- There was a connection and buy-in
  • They put their strength to the test with fabulous teachers
  • It was unforgettable and so many showed great resilience in the face of adversity. A quality they will continue to develop!
  • Flexibility, adaptability... Some students learned new things they wouldn't have had a chance otherwise.
  • A new appreciation of how school/teachers/peers that aren’t “friends” enriches their lives
  • Anytime we/our students have to adapt to changes, challenges, we grow stronger and develop new perspectives. We also learn a lot about ourselves and come together!
 
Quotations
As we end the year, these quotations are ones that hold particular meaning as we look ahead to the coming year for our students, staff, and community...
There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story. -- Frank Herbert
You cannot swim for new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. -- William Faulkner
We are going to make the path by walking it. -- Colby Swettberg
The students watch us, all the time.  We must honestly ponder what they see, and what we want them to learn from it. -- Ted and Nancy Sizer
 
Some Posts that Resonate
As we end the year (and look ahead to next year)…
Just because we didn’t teach it, doesn’t mean they didn’t learn it
by Katie Martin (@katiemartinedu)
Martin’s brief post offers her perspective as a mother and educator, as she reflects on the period of remote learning for her students and daughter.  Within the post she offers three steps we can take to shift both our thinking and practices away from coverage and towards mastery...
1. Move from a deficit mindset to strengths-based mindset
2. Teach the skills needed to be independent learners
3. Use a mastery approach to learning to move forward
 
In this article, Shining the Competency Education Light on Education in the Time of COVID-19 Chris Sturgis reminds us, “That is true, every student will start the next school year in a different place. As they have every year. What’s different is that they may have received different exposure to the curriculum and spent different amounts of time on task. The pandemic is forcing us to look at a truth that has always existed. Our traditional system mistakenly equates the delivery of curriculum with learning.”
 
What any teacher will tell you is that these gaps have always existed in our classrooms and as we go back to school in the fall, we now have wide acknowledgment from families, administrators, and policymakers that students will be in different places. As we redesign systems, policies, and curricula for remote, hybrid, and in-person instruction, this is an opportunity to shift our thinking about pacing guides and curriculum coverage to demonstrations of learning. 
 
If we shift our focus from teaching to ensure learning and mastery of key knowledge, skills, and habits are at the heart of our work, we can acknowledge where students are and help move them forward. Or more simply in the words of a Hayden, a high school student, “Less assigning, more learning.”
 
3 Different Approaches to Teaching When Schools Reopen
By Peter DeWitt (@PeterMDeWitt) in Education Week
I have always admired DeWitt’s work for his honest, student-centered approach.  This post highlights the elements of the 3 modes of instruction we are planning for (In Person, Hybrid, and Remote), providing a description and a vision of ‘what instruction may look like for each’.  His focus on PLCs (Professional Learning Communities) and the opportunities we now have to benefit our students are inspiring, centering, and necessary.
Everyone can still be creative in their own way, but PLCs will be vital to make sure instruction is tighter and that each grade and content area is offering equitable ways to engage all students. PLCs also need to remain to be the venue teachers use to gather evidence about what is working in both in-person classrooms and remote learning experiences. We have to get past the trauma that the pandemic has caused to our teaching and look at the ways this whole experience will enhance what we do in the fall, and PLCs are the places to have those conversations.  

Many people have remarked about how the past few months have "sucked." One thing is for sure, if we go into the fall with the same attitude (and yes, I understand why it happens), it will certainly continue to be the same way. Although all of this is hard, it is providing us with an opportunity to imagine school a bit differently, which is good because public schools must stay competitive considering how many online schools, charter, and private schools are already available to students.

If we have learned anything over the last few months, it's that we do not have to do as much talking as we do in the classroom (which is not new), and we do not have to have as many activities to entertain students. We can go deeper with fewer activities, and this may be the time to do it. 

Seventeen reasons why football is better than high school
By Herb Childress in Phi Delta Kappan (1998)
Brian Gavaghan shared this post and it is a ‘must read’, in my opinion - the title (as noted below) does not represent the intent of the article, as it is not focused on football.  Rather, the focus is on what we should be learning from activities outside the context of the classroom that provide a true model for learning different skills.  It is eye-opening to me that it was written 22 years ago.  As I have shared - the research supports changes in our structure of school, and we should lean on this science to provide a more meaningful and relevant experience for our students.
WE DEFINE SCHOOL as a place of learning. But as I visited classes in the high school in which I was an observer for a year, what I saw mostly - and what the students told me about most frequently - was not learning at all but boredom. I saw students talking in class, not listening to lectures, having conversations instead of working on their study guides, putting their heads on their desks, and tuning out. Teachers talked about what a struggle it was to get students to turn in their homework at all, much less on time. Students picked up enough information to pass the test, did their work well enough to get the grade, and then totally forgot whatever it can be said that they had learned.
 
In the school that I observed, I saw striking - and strikingly consistent -- differences between the perfunctory classroom sessions and lively extracurricular activities. The same students who were emotionally absent from their classes came alive after school. We say, "If only she'd spend as much time doing her algebra as she does on cheerleading..." with the implication that students blow off algebra because they're immature. We don't usually think to turn the question around and ask what it is about the activities they love that is worthy of their best effort. We don't usually ask what it is about school that tends to make it unworthy of that kind of devotion. But if we're interested in looking at places of joy, places where students lose track of how hard they're working because they're so involved in what they're doing, places where teenagers voluntarily learn a difficult skill, places that might hold some important lessons for schools, football is a good choice.
 
Let me give you 17 reasons why football is better for learning than high school. I use football as my specific example not because I love football; I use it because I hate football. It's been said that football combines the two worst elements of American society: violence and committee meetings. You can substitute "music" or "theater" or "soccer" for "football," and everything I say will stay the same; so when I say that football is better than school, what I really mean is that even football is better than school.
 
No single one of these 17 patterns taken individually constitutes a magic potion for a good learning environment. But when we look at these patterns taken together, we can see that football has a lot to recommend it as a social configuration for learning. I'm not going to argue that we should give up on school and focus on football. What I am saying is that we have a model for learning difficult skills - a model that appears in sports, in theater, in student clubs, in music, in hobbies- and it's a model that works, that transmits both skills and joy from adult to teenager and from one teenager to another. We need a varsity education.
 
What too many white people still don’t understand about racism
by Linda Chavers in The Boston Globe
This post is one (among many) that I hope will continue to guide my and our work with ourselves, our students, and one another.  We must engage in these conversations and make sure that we are acting on them as well.
What I’ve learned teaching a course at Harvard on African-American literature is that society at large considers Black history to be this, and only this: slavery – Abraham Lincoln – Martin Luther King Jr. – President Barack Obama.  Those four topics are what’s collectively taught, discussed, and shared as the entirety of what took place and continues to take place in this country. By the time students reach me — and my course, like many of the same nature, is an elective — their knowledge about this country’s past and present terrorization of Black people is grossly insufficient.
 
After all, we’re supposed to have moved beyond race — slavery-Lincoln-MLK-Obama is supposed to be a progression. But white Americans cannot deny the truth and reality of lethal violence toward Black people. They cannot say, “Oh, that doesn’t happen” or “That’s only a few bad apples” or “Let’s wait until we have all the facts.” We have literal bodies of evidence now in plain sight, a grim parade of them so large that to deny its occurrence becomes ridiculous.
 
Here is where I see some hope: When my students realize how little they actually know, they don’t take it lightly. They get angry, righteously so. I’ve had students write to me months and years after my course to express their continued outrage that they didn’t know and that, as they walk through life, most folks still don’t know. And they feel compelled to take the extra time and energy to make it known.  This is what I tell them: Keep going. And for the rest of you, start listening instead of arguing, and be ready to live with being uncomfortable.
 
** The two posts below are ‘annual shares’ - good reminders as we ‘close out’ a school year together.
We've Said Goodbye to This Year's Students. Now It’s Time to Take Care of Ourselves
by Justin Minkel in Education Week Teacher
Minkel's post is a great one for all educators, no matter the place in one's career.  The suggestions within are good ones.
All teachers have experienced that odd interlude after the end of the school year but before the beginning of true summer: a moment comprised of equal parts finality, sorrow, and release. For 10 months, we have existed in relation to our students. Our own time, talents, wishes, and wants have bent again and again in service to theirs. Teachers are notorious for taking care of everyone but ourselves. The coming summer provides a perfect chance to change that.
 
Every teacher, even those of us in the throes of summer school and professional development, should make time to answer an existential question: Who are we when we’re not teaching?
1. Become the learner instead of the teacher.
2. Hyphenate yourself.
3. Be your full self with your loved ones.
4. Join a new tribe or two.
Most of us love what we do. If we didn’t love teaching, we’d find a gig that paid better or demanded less. That doesn’t change the reality that this job is hard. We need deep rest and renewal if we’re going to keep doing it well.  Summer has come. For the next two sacred months, no one will demand a Band-Aid for a scratch so faint it’s barely visible. Nobody will come up to tell us that Alexis laughed at their drawing or Ethan just threw up on the class couch. Our hours will be our own. This time between school years can be a gift. Let’s ignite or rekindle a passion. Take up a new hobby. Spend a whole afternoon building a Lego castle with our daughter. Let’s show ourselves a little of the kindness and nurturing we extend in abundance to our students all year. We have to make sure our bodies are rested, our minds are clear, and our spirits are strong. Too soon, the season will turn and the time will arrive to do it all again.
 
The Hidden Gems In Our Schools
by Kris Felicello (@kfelicello)
This post by Felicello is simply spot-on and wonderful - speaks to many of the experiences I am so fortunate to have at Blake.  It serves as an important reminder for all of us.
The best part of being in the field of education is that when I am feeling stressed, when I need a pick me up, inspiration, support, and hope always seem to appear, even when you set unreasonably high expectations on yourself and your team. I would like to think that this happens in all schools, in all places, but I am not that naive; I know I am blessed. I know the District I work in is a special place. I know this to be true even in June, even when our patience has run thin. The fact is, after a long demanding year, we get on each other’s nerves despite the mutual respect we feel for one another. One of my favorite parts of my job is when I find or am reminded of those hidden gems, those staff members who make our District a special place, giving to our profession not because they want accolades, not because they want or need my or anyone else’s praise. These are the people that do special things because they are passionate about kids, education, or just simply want to make a difference. This past week I was lucky enough to discover a few hidden gems and was reminded of some others. 
 
It is not that I don’t know how inspirational our teachers are, how much they do, how much they give. But, to see it on display, to see the tears of the students, parents, to see the teachers brimming with emotion is an emotional reminder that there is no more important job in the world than being in the field of education. I am how lucky I am to work with some of the best! It is easy to slip into jaded negativity as a central office administrator. You often deal with the problems. Every profession, every organization has that 5% who make all the good people look bad. These are the people, if allowed to, will be the loudest voices, and the only voices you hear for days on end. The complaints, the negativity, the fear of change, the abuse of sick time, the criticisms of those who put themselves out there or take a risk. If you are not careful these will be the voices that will poison your culture, that will dictate how things are done. They will impede  progress. 
 
Are there times I get jaded, cynical, times I let these naysayers get me down?  
Absolutely! 
It is also important to stay grounded. Are there times when I get disconnected and forget how fast paced our schools are, how draining it can be to support students and the ever evolving emotions and hormones
Absolutely!
That is what made opening my eyes to those hidden gems so therapeutic, so motivating, helped to keep me grounded, and remind me why I love my job, my profession, and my District so very much.  
 
As you close out another year, I ask that you try  to remember to open your eyes, look around, and search for all the amazing things that are happening in our schools every day. Finding those hidden and not so hidden gems I suspect will fill your heart with joy as they do mine.
 
Areas of Focus…
Feeling Nostalgic for In-Person Schooling? That May Hurt Our Chance to Rethink It.
by Sarah Pazur in EdSurge
Pazur’s post addresses a dynamic that is very real as we look at our ‘return to school’, keeping in mind the paradox of nostalgia - I like the premise of practicing ‘critical nostalgia’ and I hope that is something our community can embrace in all contexts for our students, school, and community.
Around the world, people are mourning. For loved ones, principally. But also for the rituals and rites of passage from our former lives. Students and parents grieve for lost promotion ceremonies, prom and high school graduations. Yet, in the midst of this widespread longing for school-as-we knew-it, educators are equally relishing the opportunity to reimagine education post pandemic. We seem to be simultaneously mythologizing the past and the future of schooling—or, rather, experiencing a serious case of collective nostalgia.

...disenfranchised students, students of color, students who were victims of bullying, gender discrimination or sexual harassment, and students oppressed by a dysfunctional system aren’t longing for the way things were. For some students, school was a source of pain or alienation. When we evoke nostalgia in a way that replaces the reality of these students’ stories of school with the abled, white, male, heteronormative version of school, we are idealizing a home that for many never existed.

Yet for educators who see the pandemic as a launchpad to educational reform and closing digital gaps, to freeing students from arbitrary and oppressive structures, the work has only just begun. When it comes time to open the doors to the building again, we can’t let ourselves be seduced by the comforts of the past or nostalgia’s strong allure of “history without the guilt,” as the late cultural historian Michael Kammen puts it.

As we are caught between the tension of longing for a familiar structure and the romance of a new and exciting future, I believe it is possible and necessary to practice critical nostalgia—to both feel the equalizing effect of confronting our mortalities together and respond to the way the disease disproportionately affects communities of color; to both support one another through profound uncertainty and hold each other accountable for making radical changes to a broken system. 

When school is back in session, where will we begin?
By Tom Guskey (@tguskey) in ASCD In-Service
This brief post by Guskey (an educator who is a ‘must follow’) provides a framework for schools - focusing on the identification of prerequisite skills in a mastery learning format.  This framework aligns with the work we have done (and will continue to do) with priority/power standards, learning targets, and transfer goals.
Instead of asking “How will we know what our students know?” it could be more productive to ask, “What do our students need?” Let’s admit that we can’t do everything and focus more narrowly on what will best help students succeed.
 
Schools face enormous challenges in planning for the next school year—and don’t have much time to get ready. Our plans must be thoughtful, efficient, and designed to yield the greatest benefits possible for all students. Making our goal to help students master the prerequisite knowledge and skills needed for success in initial instructional units will bring focus to our efforts, help shrink learning gaps, and potentially yield important payoffs for students and teachers alike.
 
Specific, Candid, and Helpful Responses to Expressions of Racism and Bias
By Rick Wormeli (@rickwormeli2) in AMLE
Wormeli’s post offers a set of ‘tools for rehearsing responses to expressions of bias and racism in ourselves and others’: Invite Deeper Conversations; Express Direct Desists; Avoid Blaming, Deflecting, Generalizing, or Being Dismissive; Helpful Dispositions During the Conversations.  For us to ‘practice what we preach’, we must engage in intentional practice and actively address racism and bias in the service of our students and community.
To say the right thing at the right time, especially with something so urgent and affecting as bias and racism, is on conscientious educators’ daily radar, but it can be difficult without rehearsal or versatility. So, let’s rehearse our responses to expressions of bias and racism in ourselves and others so those responses are at our mental fingertips in the moment when they are needed. And let’s build that wide collection of constructive responses so we are flexible and strategic in our statements. 
 
Dylan Thomas admonished us to not, “go gentle into that good night,” and to instead, “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Let’s draw from this welling moral outrage and our all-consuming desire for a just world and find the courage to react in a timely and effective manner to bias and racism, whether it be subtle or overt. Let’s care enough about our students and our colleagues to extend candor and to walk with them –and our own limitations—as we share the path ahead. This courage comes more readily when we have specific and practiced tools, so to simply read a few paragraphs of an article and promise to do better doesn’t cut it. Let’s say these challenging statements aloud and in front of colleagues in rehearsal and in real use, making them our own. Let’s find meaning in those conversations, and with that, the stamina to dismantle our own biases, and the strength to confront that which would oppress another. No more, would’ve-could’ve-should’ve – we’re ready to respond.
 
How to Raise an Anti-Racist Kid
By Tara Parker-Pope in The New York Times
This post offers an excellent framework for fostering and nurturing anti-racist children - a path that I am working on as an individual, father, educator as well.  
“People are overwhelmed and think, ‘I can’t tackle that. I’m one person,’” said Ms. Coleman-Mortley, who writes about social justice on her blog, MomofAllCapes. “But there are spaces where we address racism in our lives — even if you live in a homogeneous community, you can address and attack racism.”
 
“Those who are striving to be anti-racist realize it’s not an identity,” said Dr. Kendi, who is the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. “It’s something they’re striving to be, to be sure in each moment they are expressing anti-racist ideas and anti-racist policies.”
 
“Schools are important because they enable us to reach every child, including white students mistakenly taught that race is irrelevant to their lives,” said Ms. Guo. “Don’t frame anti-racist work as an extracurricular, but rather as an integral part of life — no matter what career you choose,” said Ms. Vulchi. “Art, coding, policy, statistics — all of these can be harnessed for anti-racist work on a daily basis.”
A common mistake some parents make is to say they don’t “see color” and they want to raise their children to be “colorblind.” “To say, ‘I’m colorblind is to say ‘I have the privilege of never having to worry about color,’” says Ms. Lythcott-Haims, a former corporate lawyer and Stanford dean. “Those of us who wear skin of brown don’t have that luxury. The right approach is to recognize that humans come in innumerable varieties of color and hair texture and eye shape and noses and lips and height and weight. There are differences aplenty. The key is to teach our children that differences aren’t bad.”

Making the Grade - The Happiness Lab Podcast with Dr. Laurie Santos
(37 minutes)
This podcast is one that I recommend for all - students, educators, families, everyone! - as it speaks to the science and research behind our continued endeavor to shift away from grades and towards meaningful, action-oriented feedback in the service of learning.
From school grades to fitness trackers, we're all being ranked and rated on a daily basis. This is having a huge impact on our happiness and preventing us from living our lives to the fullest. Can giving up on grades radically improve our wellbeing?
For an even deeper dive into the research we talk about in the show visit happinesslab.fm
 
Can Everyone Be Excellent?
by Alfie Kohn (@alfiekohn)
Last year I shared an abbreviated version of this post by Kohn that was published in The New York Times (Why Can’t Everyone Get A’s?) - it was widely shared over the last couple of weeks and I appreciate, commend, and agree with the sentiments within.  At the core of Kohn’s message is challenging the ‘macho rhetoric’ of ‘rigor’, ‘raising the bar’, ‘tougher standards’ to justify misguided policies that have come out of ‘school reform’. One of the significant challenges in our structures is that we continue to establish a ‘have/have-not’ dynamic and that is in direct contrast to our mission.  A day or so after publication, Kohn shared this tweet: ‘Pleased by the discussion my piece in today’s NYT (is.gd/MUKozy) is stirring up, but wincing at the misleading click-bait headline. I don’t want all students to get A’s! (I want them to be free of grades.) Gist of the essay is that excellence isn’t inherently scarce.'  This ‘expanded version’ and the article from NYT are both worth reading, sharing, and discussing.  The excerpts below are from the NYT article.
The inescapable, and deeply disturbing, implication is that “high standards” really means “standards that all students will never be able to meet.” If everyone did meet them, the standards would just be ratcheted up again — as high as necessary to ensure that some students failed.
 
The standards-and-accountability movement is not about leaving no child behind. To the contrary, it is an elaborate sorting device, intended to separate wheat from chaff. The fact that students of color, students from low-income families and students whose first language isn’t English are disproportionately defined as chaff makes the whole enterprise even more insidious.
 
...my little thought experiment uncovers a truth that extends well beyond what has been done to our schools in the name of “raising the bar.” We have been taught to respond with suspicion whenever all members of any group are successful. That’s true even when we have no reason to believe that corners have been cut. In America, excellence is regarded as a scarce commodity. Success doesn’t count unless it is attained by only a few. One way to ensure this outcome is to evaluate people (or schools, or companies, or countries) relative to one another. That way, even if everyone has done quite well, or improved over time, half will always fall below the median — and look like failures.
 
But boy, do we love to rank. Worse, we create artificial scarcity by giving out awards — distinctions manufactured out of thin air specifically so that some cannot get them. Framing excellence in these competitive terms doesn’t lead to improvements in performance. Indeed, a consistent body of social science research shows that competition tends to hold us back from doing our best. It creates an adversarial mentality that makes productive collaboration less likely, encourages gaming of the system and leads all concerned to focus not on meaningful improvement but on trying to outdo (and perhaps undermine) everyone else. Most of all, it encourages the false belief that excellence is a zero-sum game. It would be both more sensible and more democratic to rescue the essence of the concept: Everyone may not succeed, but at least in theory all of us could.
 
Summer and Staying Present…
How to Entertain Your Kids This Summer? Maybe Don’t
By Alexis Soloski in The New York Times
This post offers a balanced perspective for families as we all try to navigate this unique summer for our children - often easier said than done, but the ideas within are ones worth reading and considering.  
A funny thing about summer: It is long. It is also hot. This one comes in the middle of a global pandemic. And even in a changed and changing world, I have reserved some mental energy for panicking about how my kids, husband and I will make it to September without everyone’s brains turning into Haribo gummies. 

Unfortunately, as Steven Mintz, the author of “Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood,” told me, “The pandemic has exaggerated and intensified the worst features of children’s play today: adult intrusion; the decline of physical, outdoor and social play; and mediation by screens.” Ow.
 
Reclaiming Downtime
by Bari Walsh in HGSE’s Usable Knowledge
I have shared this post for the last few years (originally shared in 2017) at the start of summer, and although ‘downtime’ has been something we all have had more of than in past springs from March-June, the summer brings forth a different energy.  I this this post is important as it highlights the work of Denise Pope and her colleagues at Challenge Success, emphasizing the importance of fostering and carving out PDF (Playtime, Downtime, and Family Time) - something we should all keep in mind for our children, students, and ourselves.  Making PDF a reality is oftentimes a challenge, but a challenge worth pursuing and this post offers some concrete suggestions for families.
...the prescription for fast-track summers may be a mid-summer dose of PDF — playtime, downtime, and family time — and a reminder that children of all ages need all three, every day, in order to thrive.  The PDF framework — a handy reappropriation of a common initialism — was devised by Denise Pope and her colleagues at Challenge Success, which helps families and schools restore a sense of balance in kids’ performance-driven lives. Pope and her team created the PDF shorthand after surveying the research on factors known to protect kids from risky behaviors, mental health challenges, and poor academic outcomes...The three broad categories of wellbeing that emerged — playtime, downtime, and family time — are not just extras or niceties; they’re closely connected with building “crucial life skills that kids need in order to become happy and healthy adults,” says Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. “Kids are getting to college today without a lot of the important noncognitive skills they need, without the ability to communicate and collaborate, because they’ve been so focused on resume building."
 
If you’ve already enrolled your child in a full slate of summer experiences, fear not. By protecting and prioritizing downtime in your child’s off hours, you’ll be providing the space she needs to rest and to sustain her growth. 
 
The Kids Are All Fried
by Jason Gay in The Wall Street Journal
Gay’s brief post is one that I found heartening as a parent and an educator - acknowledging the feelings that he has (reads as a ‘truth serum’ reflection) and that I must admit I share - feeling tired, fried, and simply wanting my kids (and me) to have a break - namely, a summer.
I begin this column with a request: If you know any teachers, buy them a drink. Buy them all of the drinks. If they do not drink, buy them an ice cream. If they do not eat ice cream…just thank them. It’s the least we can do. Just don’t ask: What’s going to happen with school next year? Because they almost surely do not know. Teachers are wrapping up the craziest, most challenging spring of their careers, and no one has a clear idea of what’s coming in September.

...this summer I’m taking the brakes off. This summer we’re going rogue. I want my kids to do what they want to do. I want them staying up a little too late. I want water balloon fights and squirt gun holsters. I want ice cream before lunch and pizza for breakfast.

The point is I want my kids to be kids. There’s been a lot of talk over the past few months about adult anxieties, the impact upon adult lives. Every other story in the paper seemed to be about how work-from-home parents were being driven crazy by their demanding children. I wonder if we haven’t been thinking enough about the impact this has had on children, because they’ve been feeling it, too. How could they not? You think hanging out with adults is some kind of picnic? Adults are the pits!
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Enjoy these summer days!
#lovingsummer
I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
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Enjoy these days and take care.
Nat

Reflection and Action

6/10/2020

 
June 9, 2020

To help encourage conversations and dialogue about reflection, this past year of learning, with ‘an eye’ towards next year, our topic/question(s) for this week is:  How/why was this a good year for you as a learner? How will this help you next year? Time for Reflection and Action (Week of 6/8/20) (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

June is a natural and necessary time for reflection in the educational community - a time to look back, be present, and look ahead - and, with the current realities of our world (the world close to home, nationally, and internationally) I find myself coming back to the principles of how planned and realized ‘action’ must be part of this process.  I have shared this sentiment with staff and our community a number of times this week and would feel remiss if I did not continue to keep them at the forefront of thought, reflection, and action...
...as one who identifies as a white, heterosexual male I have been given many privileges and I have a responsibility to engage and act on my beliefs - although I have felt and known this, I know more than ever that I have an ethical and moral obligation to not only talk, but act on my anti-racist beliefs and convictions.  I must continue to 'hold up a mirror', acknowledge my implicit biases, examine them, and truly listen.  It is important for me/us to start, continue, and push these conversations.  
As we enter our last full week of school, I am leaning once again on the words of Socrates and Peter Drucker - building the new while using purposeful reflection as our guide.  The reflection below is my annual attempt at providing a sense of ‘open closure’ as we end the year - the words, posts, and sentiments are a mix of annual shares along with new ones providing food for thought before we ‘depart’ for summer...
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Our weekend began on Saturday morning in front of the TV (something we rarely do)...Katie and me having our coffee and breakfast, while watching the CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall for Kids and Families - ‘Coming Together - Standing Up to Racism’.  It is one of my, and I hope our, steadfast beliefs that in order for us (students, staff, families, and community) to learn and grow together, we need to share resources, ask questions, and engage in dialogue that prompt reflection and action.  Our core values and ‘Guiding Lights’ will help us to continue living our mission - provoking thoughts and actions (need to keep using this word) both now and in the days to come.  A snapshot of notes/words/messages from the Sesame Street workshop and resources/notes below are intended to serve as 'feeders for reflection', in concert with these discussion prompts that we have engaged in as a Blake community the last couple of weeks (and will continue to engage in as we close the year)...
  • What have you learned thus far about teaching and learning that you hope we can 'hold on to' when we return (either remotely or face-to-face)?
  • Define 'closure' - what does closure mean to you? What elements should be in place to provide 'closure'? What does that mean for our students?  What would this look like?
  • What do you/we hope our students will 'take with them' when they leave us June 16?

Notes/words from CNN/Sesame Street’s Town Hall for Kids and Families - ‘Coming Together - Standing Up to Racism’ 
  • ‘Hurt people hurt people’
  • ‘Believe in a better future for our children’
  • ‘It’s ok to be sad and mad’
  • ‘Need to have honest and realistic conversations’
  • ‘Hard conversations are the most important ones’
  • ‘Our actions are more important than our words’
  • ‘All people can understand the concepts of fairness and unfairness’
  • ‘You are all awesome - don’t let anyone make you feel down’
  • ‘Our actions speak loudly for our children’
  • Question prompt - ‘I’m concerned - how do you feel about it?’
  • ‘We are counting on and need our youth - we need to help them’
  • ‘All skin colors are beautiful’
  • ‘Nothing is preordained - we can change the world’
  • ‘We need to keep expanding who we care about’
  • ‘Don’t be afraid to ask questions’
  • ‘We can do better...we must do better...we will do better’

Traditions and Relevance
Tom Whitby's (@tomwhitby) words and thoughts on schools have served as key focal points for our learning community (Methods: Tradition vs. Relevance).  Traditions and relevance are both important and critical for the institutions and cultures of school and learning.  The key is making sure that the traditions are still relevant and that we allow and make room for ‘shades of gray’ (a balance of the two)...

Traditions
These posts are ones I have shared in the past as we mark the end of a year together - let’s hold on to them...
The Psychological Case for Adult Play Time
by Jared Keller in Pacific Standard
Keller shares information gained from psychologist Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, director of Temple University’s Infant and Child Laboratory and author of Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less, about the nature (and importance) of play time for adults.  We should make sure we acknowledge this need and listen to it.  It is an area of growth for me and I hope you can all help remind me of this need - not only during the summer, but throughout the school year as well.
Recent research has shown that people of all ages benefit from unstructured play time as a respite from the grind of daily life. According to research, play can relieve stress, boost creativity, improve brain function, and improve our relationships with other people by fostering trust with others.

There are three main characteristics that we tend to use when we talk about play: It’s voluntary in the sense that you’re not obligated to do it; it’s flexible and can be changed or manipulated, like Play-Doh for your life; and it’s enjoyable and fun.

Re-ignite the child inside! The stigma around play is there, but it's our job to fight back and understand that we all really love to play.  I believe we’re on the verge of a revolution in how we balance work and play. Imagine a billion people pushing for play time, not in a frivolous way or a way that negates progress, but in a way that supplements and allows us to make even more progress. It's time to put play back into our lives.

3 Things You Can Do This Summer to Be a Better Teacher in the Fall
by Elizabeth Stein in Education Week Teacher
Following the intent of the previous post, Stein highlights ways that we all can improve our practices this summer:  Practice Mindfulness; Read, Reflect, Plan; Connect, Collaborate, Listen, and Share!
It doesn’t matter what grade or subjects you teach, how long you’ve been teaching, or where—there are three universal things that all educators can to do be a better teacher in the fall...The journey of becoming a better version of our teacher self is all about finding balance, joy, and opportunities to learn and collaborate. It’s an ongoing process that creates a spirited commitment that will no doubt guide our students to deepen their own relationship to learning.

Come Back Better
by Rebecca Mieliwocki in Education Week Teacher
This post reflects on the 'musings' of first-year teachers, expressing their thoughts on the first year of teaching as they look ahead  to 'come back better' year 2.  The ideas hold true for all of us - new teachers, veteran teachers, parents, and students.  It reminds me that we are so incredibly fortunate to have the chance to renew and start again each school year.  Let's be sure to take advantage of that.
Leave it to some first year teachers to perfectly sum up our work--work that is full of mistakes, miracles, and all the wonderful little ironies that fill our lives as teachers.

The beautiful dichotomy of our work means that while we are always striving for professional perfection, the complexities of the work and the children we spend our time with make it far too difficult to ever master completely the craft of teaching.

Wherever the next several summer weeks take you, make sure you take time to stop and rest.  Let the lessons of the year sink in. Savor the successes and learn from your stumbles. Be kind to yourself; after all, you're a learner too. Immerse yourself in all the things you love to do that make you the kind of interesting person your students love to learn from. And when you come up for air, pick one thing about your teaching you'll improve for the year ahead.  Then, come back better. 

Relevance
These posts below, along with responses from last week’s topic/question of the week, speak to current trends/thoughts that are worthy of consideration.  As we all (parents/guardians, families, educators, and individuals) are looking to find the ‘right answers’ (are there really any ‘right answers’?), it is helpful to actively read, reflect, and foster a culture of discourse with one another…
 
What It Means to be Anti-Racist
by Anna North in Vox
This post is an important one for me, and I believe, all educators.  It highlights the writing and work of Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram), author of How To Be an Anti-Racist, and provides excellent resources.  It was definitely a ‘mirror moment’ read and I encourage everyone to engage in this important dialogue and work.
As Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, notes in his book How to Be an Antiracist, “When racist ideas resound, denials that those ideas are racist typically follow.” But as Kendi also notes, it’s not enough to simply be “not racist.” “The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist,’” he writes. “It is ‘antiracist.’”

“One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist,” Kendi writes in How to Be an Antiracist, published in 2019. “One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist.” “There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist,’” Kendi continues. “The claim of ‘not racist’ neutrality is a mask for racism.”

The work of anti-racism can’t stop next month, next year, or when the news cycle moves on. Right now, a lot of white people are paying attention to racism and police violence “because they have no choice,” Simmons said. They’re stuck at home because of the pandemic, and the protests are all over the media. But anti-racism can’t be something people think about only while it’s convenient, Simmons said. “It has to be a commitment that you make.”

How Our Language Feeds Inequity 
by Robin Avelar La Salle and Ruth S. Johnson in Educational Leadership
Although written in 2019, this is an important read and could not be more relevant - language is incredibly important and we must continue to examine how we, as educators and schools, feed inequity through our structures and labels.  As noted in the post, the authors provide ‘a framework for understanding the subtle yet powerful relationship between language, beliefs, and inequitable school systems.’  Important concepts and structures are highlighted - ones we will be actively examining as a Blake community:  ‘Wallpaper Effect’, Inevitability Assumption, Normalization of Failure, and Language Mindfulness.
We can legislate policy, but we cannot force people to change their belief systems about students. Thus, the "Wallpaper Effect" is at play in many U.S. schools (Johnson & Avelar La Salle, 2010). Mandated structural changes mask underlying biases that perpetuate long-standing gaps. One way to bring those biases to light, however, is to reflect deeply on the language we use to describe students.
 
The inevitability assumption (Johnson & Avelar La Salle, 2010) is the belief that some students will succeed and others will not, simply because that is how it has always been. Often, expectations are lower for students in marginalized racial and ethnic groups. If asked whether we think that all groups of students can succeed, most educators would say yes. However, if we reflect very privately and deeply, do we really believe that all students can attain the same educational outcomes? We rarely hear, "This group of students is destined to fail." But even subtle comments can evolve into an institutional reality that becomes the basis for decisions that disproportionately affect the lives of students in profound ways.
 
Language mindfulness is the practice of actively listening to the language we and others use, as clues to underlying belief systems. Engaging in language mindfulness as a school or district staff, without judgment, provides a safe forum for educators to discuss their personal and institutional biases, both conscious and unconscious (Avelar La Salle & Johnson, 2019). 

Five Things Not To Do When Schools Re-open
by Pasi Sahlberg (@pasi_sahlberg)
We are at a unique critical juncture in education, and with all of the ‘unknowns’ comes great opportunity.  Sahlberg outlines five important considerations - his ‘dont’s’ - for schools as we look to reopen.
Rather than add more to the already exhaustive list of ideas for schools post-pandemic, I want to suggest five things that we should not do when schools re-open. These five things are collected from my numerous conversations and debates during the past few months about the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for schools, teachers, students and parents. My basic assumption is that schools change slowly, even when pressured by external shocks like the pandemic. I think that the underlying emotion in this devastating turmoil, which by now has affected healthcare, education, economic systems, and the daily lives of billions of people, is fear. 
 
What most parents probably expect from schools now is safety and stability, not revolution or change. I like many others think that now is the time to reimagine schools. But I am afraid that making these dreams come true at scale will be very difficult. But if real change is to have any chance, I offer these five suggestions of what not to do. I have long believed that in education policymaking what we stop doing is as important as what we should do. In this playful spirit I offer the following ‘5 Don’ts’…
1. Don’t think that kids only learn when they are taught
2. Don’t worry about kids’ losses on school tests
3. Don’t expect kids to be ready to continue where they left off
4. Don’t consider recess as a low priority
5. Don’t expect there will be a ‘new normal’ anytime soon
 
These two posts, although originally posted last year, are still very relevant and are worth reflecting upon - both now and in the future...
Why I Stay in Teaching
by Pete Barnes in Edutopia
This post (shared last year as well - very relevant still) speaks to me on a deep level, as Barnes highlights several reasons why I (and I know, we) stay with teaching -- Searching for Mastery, Valuable Colleagues, A Summer Reset, Permission to Nerd Out, and Work That Matters.
Working with kids every day is rarely boring. Kids are naturally fun. Their curiosity and energy rub off on me and keep me coming back for more. No matter how much education changes, kids will always need good teachers, and we will always need them right back.

Let’s Hear It for the Average Child
by Margaret Renki in The New York Times
Renki’s op-ed is simply wonderful - widely shared last year when it was originally posted.  It is one that I hope we can truly remember, live, and embrace.  As a parent I hope the intent of the post is one I remember and live for my own children.
Summer beckons, a great, green, gorgeous gift. We’ve already kept you far too long, so let us send you forth with just one last reminder of a truth that somehow you already understand, though school is not the place where you learned it:
Life is not a contest, and the world is not an arena. Just by being here, unique among all others, offering contributions that no one else can give, you have already won the one prize that matters most.

Topic/Question of the Week (Week of 6/1/20):  Share what you have learned about yourself as a learner during this period of remote learning.
Sampling of responses...
  • I learned that I needed to adapt to the remote learning zooms and other stuff I needed to get done.
  • To always watch the videos of teacher explaining what and how to do
  • I like to get everything done at once.
  • I've learned to be more flexible and to not make assumptions about how I prefer learning.
  • I get distracted very easily.
  • I have learned that myself, as a learner, learning independently can let me explore and take the time to figure something out.
  • I don’t like using my iPad as much as paper and pencil.
  • I find it easier to manage time doing remote learning than to be in the school, however it is difficult to know if I have completed all the assignments for that day and must check to make sure many times.
  • I learned that I can process better and think more if I sleep in.
  • I learned that I like to get things done at one time, so I don’t have to work on it later :)
  • That if my put my mind to it then I can get it done quick
  • That’s some time you may want to quit but if you just believe and get back up again you can accomplish anything.
  • That I can get distracted very easily.
  • I need to get things done right away or I might slack off
  • I’ve learned that I like being face to face with people rather than on screens.
  • I like to change things up and not do the same thing everyday.
  • I need to focus more, to get things done.
  • What I learned about myself as a remote learner is that I work better in the morning. I like finishing my work before lunch because I usually procrastinate a lot in the afternoon.
  • That it is better to do your work slowly and good rather that fast and not good
  • I learned that I am even more creative when I am given permission to fail AND I learned I was able to better teach the content despite being given lots of freedom.
  • Relationships are critical to learning. We are fortunate to have had "regular" school through March to build strong relationships before moving to remote learning.
  • I learned that I have a good work ethic with online learning.
  • I am flexible and I have the ability to adapt, but there is no substitute for f2f interaction with the students.
  • I’m good at working alone, and I’ve found a love for reading
  • I haven’t really learned anything new about myself as a learner.
  • I have learned that I am an introvert and I really enjoy doing my schoolwork with friends.
  • I learned that I am most productive when I don’t take any breaks until I am finished doing all of my work.
  • I get distracted, but focus when I need to and sometimes I procrastinate.

A Balance of the Two
This post is one that I believe is important - articulate principles and practices, but be mindful of which ones should be static and which should be fluid.  Guerin’s post is one shared in the past, yet the title itself speaks to a mantra that directly aligns with our mission.

Be Firm in Your Principles. Be Flexible in Your Practices
By David Guerin (@DavidGuerin)
I'm a big advocate of positive and productive change. If one thing is certain, it's change. There will be change, and we must adapt. Our students must adapt. Our schools must adapt. The world is becoming more complex and uncertain, and that makes change even more imperative.  But some things never change. Teaching principles, for instance, stand the test of time. Principles are fundamental truths. They are universal and unchanging at their core. These things should be the foundation of who we are and what we do as educators.

But our practices are different. Our practices should be much different than 50 years ago. They should even be different than 5 years ago. They may be different tomorrow, based on our students' needs. We must adapt our practices to the needs of the students we are working with today, right now. We need to adapt to the changes that are happening in the world right now as well.  Teaching practices are only effective in certain situations and change over time: grading, curriculum, technology, strategies, and lessons all must change to stay relevant.

Be firm in your principles. They are your core beliefs. Be flexible in your practices. They flow from your principles and are your actions today. Be firm in your mission. It's your purpose as an educator. Be flexible in your methods. Your methods are how you achieve your purpose and may change with the situation.

Continuing this thread of reflection, as shared last week, all Blake staff will be asked to individually and collectively #slowitdown, reflect, and answer the questions below.  I will be setting aside some time over the next week to answer these questions as well...
  • What was meaningful this year?  What made teaching worthwhile?  What mattered?
  • Describe a positive interaction or experience you had with a student during this academic year.
  • Describe or explain an accomplishment you attained or something you are proud of taking place during this academic year.
  • Describe a particular student or situation during the school year who or that you feel you could have handled in a way that would have resulted in a more positive learning experience.
  • How have you 'lived' our mission statement in your work and growth this year?
  • What is an area that you would like to grow professionally?
  • What have you learned this year from a student?
  • What messages do you want to leave for our students?  What do you want them to remember? (A humbling but important and centering question)
As we close the chapter of 19-20 together over the next 9 days, I am sharing three ‘slides’ that were shared at the opening faculty meeting back in late August.  Many questions still remain for our learning community and I truly look forward to what lies ahead.  The words below from Brene Brown, Marc Brackett, Ken Robinson, James Ryan, Harvey Milk, and James Baldwin (true sources of inspiration for me as an educator, father, friend, and human) resonate and ‘hold true’ - they will help guide me into this period of transition and into 20-21.  Keeping these words as guides, we can collectively foster a feeling of love in others, reflect upon successes and failures, being/continue building the new, stand as allies on our imperfect journey towards where ‘aspirations and realities intersect’, and maintain a culture and mantra of #willfulhope #willfulaction …
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An Annual Message (Most Important)
With great appreciation for the efforts that have been put forth by the Blake staff this year, I want to express my sincere appreciation for continually giving your best to our students, one another, and the community.  My annual hope is that everyone gets some well-deserved time to relax, recharge, and simply take a break during the summer months so that we can all, as expressed in the post above, 'come back better'.  I hope to be able to personally convey my thanks to everyone and to share my wishes for a wonderful respite.  I have said it many times and I promise that these sentiments are genuine and sincere - Blake Middle School is a special place and I am honored and privileged to be a part of this community.  I am excited by what the future holds for our students and staff and am proud of the discourse and work that have taken and will be taking place.  Thank you for the collective willingness to continually learn, adapt, grow, reflect, and support one another.  
 
Finally, I hope you can all keep and carry these hopes I have for our students, staff, and families in your head, heart, and actions...
  • Please recognize what we do well at Blake (both remotely and face-to-face) and know we are doing those things and can and will continue to do so
  • Recognize and affirm what we miss about being back at Blake and look forward to when we return
  • Think about the hope(s) we have for our students and take one step each day to help work towards these hopes
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Please know that I am always happy and eager to process, listen, discuss, and share - my door (physical and remote) is always open - and I encourage everyone to do the same with one another.  
Enjoy the summer months!
#lovingsummer

I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
Please click here for Blake Updates.
Please click here for District Community Notices.
Enjoy these days and take care.
Nat

Remote Reflections

6/5/2020

 
June 2, 2020

To help encourage conversations and dialogue about what you/we have learned about ourselves during this period of remote learning, our topic/question for this week is:  Share what you have learned about yourself as a learner during this period of remote learning. Remote Reflections (Week of 6/1/20) (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

I have shared with many of you (and I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling this way), but when we left school Friday, March 13, June 1 felt like a far-off distant date.  And, as each phase of our remote learning was extended it was hard for me to fathom ‘making it’ until this time.  And, as is always the way, now I am feeling ‘the crunch of time’ as June 16 is only two weeks away!  With this mixture of emotions and feelings all coming together and finding myself on Friday working way too late and not practicing what I preach, I did my best to step away and spend some time in the garden this weekend.  If I’m being honest, it doesn’t always help my thoughts from racing but I enjoy the meditative pace of being outside with the plants (and weeds of course!).  

As I shared with the staff via e-mail on Friday morning I attended a webinar facilitated by Jon Saphier on Thursday afternoon, featuring educators from different realms sharing ‘lessons learned’ with an eye towards ‘looking ahead’ to next year.  The opening slide served as a way to frame the webinar/discussion and the question was posed for all to consider...
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I have been thinking a great deal about the question and have been reflecting upon the ‘talking points’ shared from the webinar (see some notes below), and the questions below are ones that I look forward to continue sharing, reflecting upon, discussing, and processing in the days/weeks ahead...
  • What have you learned thus far about teaching and learning that you hope we can 'hold on to' when we return (either remotely or face-to-face)?
  • Define 'closure' - what does closure mean to you? What elements should be in place to provide 'closure'? What does that mean for our students?  What would this look like?
  • What do you/we hope our students will 'take with them' when they leave us June 16?
To help ‘make room’ for a concerted reflective space (both for myself and others), I hope that the ‘categories’, for lack of a better word, below will help all of us to be present for the benefit of both of our current and future students...
 
Our mission…
The ‘living nature’ of our mission, coupled with our desire to embrace a ‘willingness to adapt’ have certainly been brought to light during this unique time in our history - and, I am confident our mission will continue to guide our work...
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Words from David Niven...
These words were shared last year at this time - they seem more appropriate now than ever before…
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Questions to Foster Reflection…
The questions below are ones that I ask everyone to reflect upon each year with the hope that the active answering and putting thoughts to paper will further our collective learning...
  • What was meaningful this year?  What made teaching worthwhile?  What mattered?
  • Describe a positive interaction or experience you had with a student during this academic year.
  • Describe or explain an accomplishment you attained or something you are proud of taking place during this academic year.
  • Describe a particular student or situation during the school year who or that you feel you could have handled in a way that would have resulted in a more positive learning experience.
  • How have you 'lived' our mission statement in your work and growth this year?
  • What is an area that you would like to grow professionally?
  • What have you learned this year from a student?
  • What messages do you want to leave for our students?  What do you want them to remember? (A humbling but important and centering question)
  • What are you looking forward to doing this summer?
 
‘Being Seen’...
This period of remote learning has underscored what we already knew - intentionally caring for each individual and providing opportunities (in multiple ways) for students to ‘be seen’ is critical - and, more important than any ‘grade’...
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Considerations for Learning...
Notes from the ‘Looking Ahead’ webinar with Jon Saphier, a sampling of responses from last week’s topic/question of the week, along with the three posts shared below (some I have already shared in different forums), all speak to important factors and points of reflection we should all consider in the interest of furthering our mission as an educational community of students, staff, and families…
 
Notes from ‘Looking Ahead’ Webinar with Jon Saphier…
(with Jay McTighe, Kim Marshall, Deb Reed, Peter Light, Aminata Umoja, Craig Martin, Althea Terenzi, Tara Gagnon, and Suzanne Russell)
  • ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.’ - James Baldwin
  • Make meaning in small moments
  • I’m here with you and we are going to lean in
  • Create spaces that are…personalized, meaningful, and inclusive
  • Keep equity at the forefront
  • This is messy - no one solution as a district for all of our students
  • I hope we don’t lose this sense of deep collaboration
  • Wellness, Engagement, Equity as Core Values
  • I wouldn’t ask my teachers to do anything I wouldn’t ask myself to do
  • Personal reflection is a must
  • Unity, Criticism, Unity - A framework for PD, Feedback, and Growth
  • Primary goal of a modern education is for students to transfer their learning to meet a goal
  • Rote learning will not prepare our students
  • 83 different connotations/definitions for curriculum when looking up the term
  • Curriculum is the path to be run towards designated goals (from Latin)
  • Long-Term Transfer Goals - Keep the ‘end in mind’
    • Transfer goal is ‘playing the game in athletics’
    • Coach with ‘game in mind’; work with players you have’ differentiate because players’ needs are different
    • Cornerstone tasks frame the curriculum
    • Map curriculum around performances we want students to do with their knowledge
  • We want to take what we learned from this into the fall and make things better
  • Ten things:  1. Appreciate physical contact; 2. Sometimes just a voice is better; 3. Differentiation - wider distribution of achievement in the fall (we are going to have to get a lot better at this); 4. Taking dependent students and making them more independent; 5. Looping students (think about it); 6. Teacher teamwork (teacher isolation is unacceptable); 7.  Need good teachers 8. Spotlight on equity issues; 9.  Get down to Power Standards; 10. Families - be in better touch with families
  • Culture of reflection will guide us
  • We should rethink ‘the calendar of school’

Why Vulnerability is Exactly What We Need Right Now
by Jon Harper (@jonharper70bd)
Reflecting upon discussions I have had with students, parents, friends, and colleagues about what 'we all need right now' (or at least I know that I need), this post by Jon Harper is one that spoke to me and I wanted to pass along as it speaks to the strength of vulnerability - a mantra I hope we can all embrace and model for our students and one another...
These are difficult days. And I have a feeling they are going to be difficult for some time. And when they are over we will have more difficult days.But if we start sharing now. When it may be most difficult. When we are most scared. When we are most unsure. Well, then we won’t have to go it alone. We may be required to wear masks when we go out and I get it. As uncomfortable and hot as they are, they help keep us and those around us safe. But there is nothing that says we must go through life pretending to be okay when we’re not. That is a mask that we can take off and I believe we should. Be vulnerable. And remember—you are not alone.

Leaning Into The Innovation Opportunity
by Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark) in Forbes
This brief post highlights the opportunities for innovation and creative thought that are necessary as we move forward.  I look forward to the conversations, planning, and actions we will be taking - daunting, for sure, but equally exciting and promising for our students.  Agility and a ‘willingness to adapt’ will be essential.
In what is likely to be the most challenging ever, next year will make clear that education is a team sport—collaboration and flexibility around common tools, resources, and teaching strategies will be critical to meet dynamic conditions and student needs this fall.  
As we think about the next school year, the new opportunity is helping learners thrive, meeting them where they are, and encouraging work that matters— combining social and emotional learning, competency-based learning, and project-based learning. These learner-centered strategies can be incorporated into the core blended learning that students engage with at schools and when learning remotely.  They can also serve as the design principles for new academies and microschools serving unique groups of students or focused on a career pathway.  
In what is likely to be the most challenging school year ever, there is an opportunity to create more valuable learning experiences and schools that are more humane and more community connected.
 
Has This Crisis Really Changed Schools?
by Will Richardson (@willrich45)
Richardson always pushes my own thinking, and the questions posed within this post are worthy of consideration - they will serve as a ‘truth serum mirror’ for all of us.  As others have shared as well, I hope that we will be sure to truly look at each of these questions, answer them with honesty, and push ourselves for action-oriented responses that lead to changes that are necessary for all of our students.
But aside from the venue through which schooling is happening, how else has the overarching narrative truly shifted?
Have power relationships between students, teachers, parents, administrators and policy makers really been significantly reoriented?
Are students now at the center of determining what, when, and how they learn?
Has schooling become more equitable across society?
Has the definition of “success” changed?
Aside from turning to technology to deliver the curriculum, has anything about the curriculum really changed?
Has technology amplified learning instead of teaching?
Has our long-term thinking about assessment shifted in any real way?
Do kids find the experience of school more relevant? Less competitive? More empowering?

Sampling of Responses from Our Last Topic/Question (Week of 5/25/20):  What do you wish you had more time to learn? Is it possible to learn about that topic/area/subject during the last few weeks of school?
  • I want to learn about what Blake students have liked and disliked about our approaches to remote learning. It would be helpful to know if we find ourselves in this situation again. Also, some of our remote learning practices could transfer well into the classroom with minor adjustments.
  • I’d like to learn more about making videos and uploading them to YouTube
  • I feel like I have time to learn a great deal with the current structure. I love to learn about gravity and space-time.
  • Computer science/coding(JavaScript, Python, C2, etc.)
  • Nothing
  • I wish I understood reading music more. (Chorus)
  • I can’t think of anything.
  • I don’t think I want to learn anything more than that. I liked taking Arabic classes, but it doesn’t affect school.
  • I really liked intro to engineering and I would like more time to learn about it.
  • I wish that we learned more about the process of photosynthesis.
  • All of the things we missed when we were getting used to remote learning.
  • I wish I had more time to learn English.

Although our last two weeks of school this year will certainly look and feel different from our ‘closing time’ in previous years, I look forward to this period of reflection, learning, and closure.  Learning is constantly happening and I am confident that we will continue to adapt as a community.  I welcome your reflections and will keep both my ‘physical door’ and ‘virtual door’ open for conversation, dialogue, and discourse.

I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
Please click here for Blake Updates.
Please click here for District Community Notices.
Enjoy the week and take care.
Nat

Message to Blake Community - June 3, 2020

6/3/2020

 
Below please find the message I shared with the Blake community on Monday, June 1...

​June 1, 2020
Good morning -
I hope that this note finds everyone healthy and safe.  With the awful and very difficult news of the death of George Floyd and the protests/riots that have been taking place for the last six days, and in my continued desire to open up the dialogue between Blake and the community in a transparent manner, I wanted to reach out and 'check in' with the Blake community.  For many reasons I wish that we could all be together as a staff to have necessary conversations and open up a space for dialogue with our students and one another today and this week.  The intent of my 'checking in' with everyone is not sent with any assumptions of beliefs, politics, or convictions of others - rather, I am 'speaking from the I' with the hope of fostering conversations.  I sent an e-mail to our staff yesterday afternoon (copied below for your reference), sharing that we will work together to navigate these events.  ...
Our theme of courage has felt very timely and relevant this year for many reasons, and now more than ever it remains to be my steadfast hope and core belief that Blake is committed to providing a safe and supportive learning environment for all.  The conversations and work that needs to take place are certainly not 'one and done' conversations, but rather an ongoing dialogue that we must keep alive in a safe and healthy manner.  I recognize that as one who identifies as a white, heterosexual male I have been given many privileges and I have a responsibility to engage and act on my beliefs - although I have felt and known this, I know I have an ethical and moral obligation to not only talk, but act on my anti-racist beliefs.  Those actions are not fully defined and known and will certainly evolve, but please know that this work is on my mind (as I know it is on the minds of others as well).  

I wanted to pass along two 'shares' (a brief video posted yesterday and an article that was written in 2016, but could have been written today as it speaks to the important role we must play as educators) that I found both centering and powerful (ones that I have/will share with the Blake staff as well)...
In Response - Patrick Tutwiler
(3:19)
Patrick Tutwiler is the Superintendent of the Lynn Public Schools, and this is a link to the message he sent to the families in his district.  
Let's Talk about Racism in Schools
by Rick Wormeli in Educational Leadership
Rather than give in to the helplessness we feel to stop racism and our collective, civic hemorrhage, every institution must examine its own role in perpetuating (inadvertently and advertently) racist thinking and policies. We can't truly create equal opportunities for all until our institutions take specific actions to end that thinking and those policies. And ground zero for an equitable, nonracist society is the K–12 classroom.  Before we consider recent examples of racism and how it affects all Americans, let's be clear: No one is born racist. Racism is learned. Just as important, racism is not insurmountable.

By no means do I have all (or any) of the answers, but I am happy to process, listen, discuss, and share - my door (physical and remote)  and I encourage everyone to do the same with one another.  
Take care.
Nat

E-mail sent to Blake Staff 5/31/20
Good afternoon/evening/morning -
With the awful and very difficult news of the death of George Floyd and the protests/riots that have been taking place for the last five days, I feel the need to send a quick note to everyone.  For many reasons I wish that we could all be together as a staff to have necessary conversations and open up a space for dialogue with our students this week.  Please know that although we are not physically together, our Blake community is a strong one and I am confident that we can and will work together as a staff to navigate these events for our students and one another.  Our theme of courage has felt very timely and relevant this year for many reasons, and now more than ever it remains to be my steadfast hope and core belief that Blake is committed to providing a safe and supportive learning environment for all.  The conversations and work that needs to take place are certainly not 'one and done' conversations, but rather an ongoing dialogue that we must keep alive in a safe and healthy manner.  I recognize that as one who identifies as a white, heterosexual male I have been given many privileges and I have a responsibility to engage and act on my beliefs - although I have felt and known this, I know I have an ethical and moral obligation to not only talk, but act on my anti-racist beliefs.  Those actions are not fully defined and known and will certainly evolve, but please know that this work is on my mind (as I know it is on the minds of others as well).  As one small step (potentially just opening the proverbial door), I am offering up a Zoom discussion at 4 p.m. on Monday, 6/1 for anyone who wants to gather and simply talk and check in about the current events for processing, listening, and simply communing.  

Please know that there is no obligation to attend this check-in - and, these conversations will certainly continue - I also know it might not work for all, but I wanted to offer a time in a timely manner to provide a space.  The tenets below are ones we have shared before and are worth leaning on...
First and foremost, every individual at Blake (students, staff, parents, and the greater community) matters, is cared for, and is an important piece of the Blake fabric.

Second, we are a community of learners who must 'practice what we preach'.
Third, we must always be present and continue to be here for one another.  When we are at a loss or are unsure of the steps to take, listening and being present are critical practices.

By no means do I have all of the answers, but I am happy to process, discuss, and share - my door is open - and I encourage everyone to do the same with one another.  I believe the most important thing that we can let all of our students and each other know is that they/you are cared for, welcomed, beloved (to reference James Ryan), and accepted.  
Take care.
Nat
I stand here today as an ally. I am surely an imperfect one, which is to say I am human, like all of you. I will disappoint some of you for doing too much and others for doing too little, some for going too fast and others for not going fast enough. But I know in my heart where I would like to go, and that is the place where our aspirations and our realities finally intersect. I know that many of you, so many of you, would like to get there as well, and I look forward to our imperfect journey together. - James Ryan

Intentional Learning

5/26/2020

 
May 26, 2020

To help encourage conversations and dialogue about the ‘things’ you wish and want to learn more about, our topic/question for the week is:  What do you wish you had more time to learn? Is it possible to learn about that topic/area/subject during the last few weeks of school? Intentional Learning (Week of 5/25/20) (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 three-day weekend was a welcome respite in our house, providing some time to be more intentional about stepping away from work and devices - I am always struck by the ‘mental shift’ that the extra day provides in my own thinking.  We spent as much time as we could outside - going for walks, planting and gardening, bike rides, s’mores, and reading.  Although I did not have the same ‘post-D.C. trip’ exhaustion as I have had over Memorial Day weekends in the past, I still enjoyed a couple afternoon naps as well! 
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As I shared in my notes to both staff and families on Friday, this past week brought forth feelings of loss for our students with the absence of our annual trip to D.C. with the 8th grade.  Each year the trip prompts reflection, connections, and learning that is intended and unintended on many levels, both individually and collectively.  It is that sense of connected learning that I found myself longing for at various times in the week - imagining where we would be on the itinerary, what questions would come up, funny stories/events that transpire, and new bits of learning for students and adults alike.  As a way to prompt further reflection and growth, I took some time to look back at the #blakeindc hashtag and read my blog post following last year’s trip.  One of the reasons I truly value learning outside of the ‘traditional classroom’ is that these opportunities provide authentic avenues for us to truly live our mission, practice our values, and ‘exercise’ our guiding lights (as noted above).  When I read last year’s blog post, Putting Mantras into Practice, a few blurbs (excerpts from prior blog posts are in blue font) prompted direct connections to the unique learning that we are all experiencing right now during this period of ‘emergency remote learning’ - active and important learning outside of the traditional classroom with implications worthy of consideration, and the value of ‘making time’ for learning...

Taking time to articulate the explicit learning that has been sought/acquired...
A question for both students and staff I have come to truly value is this - ‘What is the biggest 'takeaway' that resonated with you - whether it was a certain site/memorial, museum, experience, or interaction?’  There have been two themes emerging from the responses from staff - relationships and connections.  The same has been true for me - the experience has provided opportunities for relationships and connections to be made, fostered, and examined.  I so appreciate the importance of vulnerability, connections, and listening - getting to see the students in a different light, letting them see us in a different light, and the same with one another.  

Taking time to connect learning to beliefs, mantras, tenets, and mission...
Along similar lines, the experience naturally prompts us to truly put some of the beliefs, mantras, tenets, and our mission into practice - #leantowardsyes, curious not furious, relationships matter, empathy, diversity, the importance of agency, a culture of discourse, flexibility, and a willingness to adapt (the list could go on and on).  At various points of the trip these are made evident through history as well as on ‘the ground level’ with one another.  And, from a ‘40/40/40’ perspective (Which Content Is Most Important? The 40/40/40 Rule), reflecting upon this question will help us hopefully assess its import…
The question was simple enough. Of all of the academic standards you are tasked with “covering” (more on this in a minute), what’s important that students understand for the next 40 days, what’s important that they understand for the next 40 months, and what’s important that they understand for the next 40 years?

These words from the Library of Congress certainly hold up to the 40/40/40 ‘test’...
The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.
Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.

Taking time to recognize learning in various spaces and that learning/adapting, while necessary, is easier said than done - and often has an emotional implication (this is one I am struggling with now - longing for face-to-face interactions, and recognizing our collective need to adjust - this one is not easy)...
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One of my favorite exhibits at the Newseum (unfortunately closing at the end of 2019) is the Edward R. Murrow room/space (see some quotes below) and the quote above speaks to this idea/premise of matching our beliefs/mantras with our practice.  The words remind me that we need to make sure that we are not stuck in theory, quotes, policy, and practice - we need to be having face-to-face conversations and listening.  The trip with the 8th grade gave me (and hopefully everyone) opportunities to foster connections and relationships at the ‘face-to-face level’ - a mantra/belief/practice that I aim to live as we move forward as we have much unfinished work to be done.   

Taking these thoughts and reflections into a productive mode (beyond just the nostalgic mode that I thoroughly enjoy), I am encouraged by the optimism I feel for the learning, opportunities, and growth that lie ahead for our students, school, and community.  We (students, staff, and families) have learned a great deal and it will be important that we, in the educational realm, do not ‘sleep through this wake-up call’ (to quote a dear friend) and make concerted steps to make necessary changes for our students - some that have been ‘a long time coming’ (if you have not seen or heard about the changes in CA, this is worth the read - University of California Will End Use of SAT and ACT in Admissions).  

The quotations, posts, and sampling of responses from last week’s ‘Question of the Week’ are ones that speak to this unique juncture in education - reflecting upon our current modes of learning and keeping an intentional eye on how we want to shape the culture of learning in our near and distant future...
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How to Maintain Motivation in a Pandemic
by Jane E. Brody in The New York Times
This post speaks to me on many levels - as one who identifies as pretty self-motivated, I have definitely felt challenged to maintain ‘my own status quo’.  I am seeing it in my own children, and feedback from teachers and families indicate that I am not alone - seeing it in ourselves and our students.  Within are some salient posts that I found helpful for myself - and I hope will be helpful for others - setting attainable goals, service for others, and knowing oneself (to name a few).
Maintaining motivation is becoming an increasing challenge for many people slogging through life curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic. Initially facing weeks confined to our homes, we tackled, with some satisfaction, long-neglected chores like weaning closets of clothes that no longer fit our bodies or lifestyles, reorganizing drawers and emptying pantries and refrigerators of forgotten foodstuffs. But as the weeks morphed into months with no clear end in sight for much of the country, the ennui of Covid-induced isolation can undermine enthusiasm for such mundane activities, however rewarding they may have seemed at first. I’m among a growing number of people I’ve spoken with who admit to a lack of motivation for tasks they know need doing but now are unable to face.
 
“Doing what’s meaningful — acting on what really matters to a person — is the antidote to burnout,” said Dr. Goleman, who wrote the introduction to Dr. Frankl’s book. He suggests to those who are feeling bereft of motivation: “Face what’s happening. What does it mean to me? What really matters to me now? Is there a way I can act upon what’s meaningful to me?”
 
Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, former Surgeon General of the United States and author of the recently published book, “Together,” explained this month on “The Brian Lehrer Show” on public radio, “Our fundamental worth is intrinsic. It’s based on kindness, compassion and generosity, the ability to give and receive love. Service to others has a powerful effect on how we feel about ourselves as well as on how it makes others feel. There are many opportunities to serve, to switch our focus from ourselves to others.”
 
As Dr. Goleman put it, “The news of the day constantly provides an unconscious reminder that we are all mortal. This can result in negative thought patterns — harsher judgments, blaming the victim, greediness and us-versus-them thinking. But if we consciously reflect on our own death, none of this matters. What really matters is the people we love and helping people.”
 
Richard J. Davidson, professor of psychology and neuroscientist at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has demonstrated that “when individuals engage in generous and altruistic behavior, they actually activate circuits in the brain that are key to fostering well-being.” In other words, caring for other people can be its own reward.
 
(I shared this post below a year ago - these 5 guidelines will certainly serve us well as we look in the present and ahead)...
Five Guidelines to Make School Innovation Successful
by Katrina Schwartz (KSchwartz) in MindShift
I first met Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann) from Science Leadership Academy back in 2012 at a conference and his words and beliefs deeply resonated with me - it sparked our examination of our mission statement.  Within this post, Schwartz highlights ‘five areas that leaders need to consider for change to be successful’ - they are lessons learned from Lehmann’s work and are worthy of consideration and reflection.
Simplicity Matters
This laserlike focus on a simple mission and vision can help make sure every person in the building is focused on putting into daily practice the things the school says it values.
Common Language Matters
...because change work is hard, every teacher and student needs to know what values guide the work. “If your ideas don’t add up, if you’ve got beautiful flowery language, but it doesn’t serve anything,” then you’re doing nothing, Lehmann said. And worse, students usually see through inconsistencies like those and choose not to buy in.
Operations Matter
The values also extend to the adults in the building -- inquiry, research, projects, collaboration, reflection and a culture of care don’t exist only for students. They are part of how teachers interact with one another and how they go about their work, and they are central to how leadership treats teachers...much of what happens in school is a negotiation between the needs of students and the needs of teachers, and that’s fine. But he doesn’t think schools should hide that fact, and they should be transparent about how tricky that balance can be.
Culture, Talent and Instruction Must Align
Any great school has a strong school culture, talented teachers and a powerful instructional program that all overlap to create a sweet spot for learning.
Startup Is Hard, But So Is Sustainability
Sometimes the all-encompassing nature of the work is OK because passionate people are excited at its potential and know it will end at some point. But Lehmann said the schools that have been successful in their transitions intentionally plan for the moment when the hectic startup mode turns to sustainability mode.
...it is clear that even though they open their doors to visitors from all over the country and share their approach at this annual conference, they don’t feel finished or all-knowing. Teachers here are constantly pushing to improve, try new things, and balance the demands of school with a fulfilling personal life.

Sampling of Responses from Our Last Topic/Question (Week of 5/18/20):  What goal(s) do you want to focus on over the last month of this school year? What step(s) are you taking to meet this/these goal(s)?
  • I want to deepen my understanding and usage of resources like flipgrid, screencastify, and other remote learning resources. I really hope we won't need them in the fall, but by strengthening these resources for current students, I will gain valuable experience for the fall too.
  • Continue to establish strong contact with parents as well as students. If there is a silver lining, with my experiences these past couple of months, it is that many parents in great part have stepped up.
  • End the school year well and start the summer well
  • Keep participating in all classes, for every assignment. I will read my emails, and check daily assignments every day.
  • I’d like students to know that I care about them and I want to ask them to help me make sure they know.
  • I want to focus on getting fit and lacrosse.
  • Complete all of my school work. I will plan out what I do everyday to meet that.
  • I want to focus in putting more efforts in my grades
  • My goal is to come up with the best way to engage my students in Zoom. I've tried whiteboard.fi, kahoot, and I am about to try Nearpod.

Each year I share a sampling of quotes from the week with our 8th grade - I did my best to narrow the collection down (yes, this is a narrowed down list!) to a select few and wanted to share them (connecting traditions, rituals, and history with our present learning) - for me, they read as though they were written for this time period...
 
If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that's a good picture. - Eddie Adams
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world, you are no wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar. - Edward R. Murrow
The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth on them. - Ida B. Wells
Let us gear ourselves to the great task of mapping out a pathway that will truly lead to a better world for us all. - Mary McLeod Bethune
I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. - Nelson Mandela
We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. - MLK, Jr.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. - MLK, Jr.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. - MLK, Jr.
I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust. - FDR
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. - FDR
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans. - JFK, Jr.
For the dead and the living we must bear witness. - Elie Wiesel

I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
Please click here for Blake Updates.
Please click here for District Community Notices.
Enjoy the week and take care.
Nat

Room for Learning

5/19/2020

 
May 19, 2020

To help encourage conversations and dialogue about the importance of recognizing, finding, and allowing room for learning and growth, our topic/question for the week is:  What goal(s) do you want to focus on over the last month of this school year? What step(s) are you taking to meet this/these goal(s)? Room for Learning (Week of 5/18/20) (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

After another very full week (and I know I’m not alone in feeling that), my goal this past weekend was to really take a step back, get ‘out of my head’, and be present.  Beginning with a nice walk that Maggie and I had with Lila on Friday, we did our best to take advantage of the beautiful weather with some gardening and time outside.  One thing I have really recognized is the impact that the weather and ability to simply have some time outside has on my well-being - as with many of our experiences over the last 7-8 weeks, I can not help thinking about the implications of ‘our shared learnings’ may and will have with our students and ourselves in the future.
Picture
Our weekly staff check-in this past week was on Wednesday, May 13 - two months after the last time we gathered as a staff in the Blake library (March 13), discussing and outlining our initial plans for the period of emergency remote learning for our students.  It is hard to put my head back into that space as we were not sure whether we would be out for a week or more - speaking ‘from the I’, I could not have imagined at that time that two months later our ‘meeting’ would be via Zoom and talking about end-of-year and the unknowns that lie ahead for the fall.  With so much up in the air, on so many levels, the clip we watched from Simon Sinek (These Are Not Unprecedented Times) is one that I will certainly be coming back to often as it speaks to the ways that ‘the collective we’ have grown and adapted in the past.  I have witnessed this with our students and staff over the last 8 weeks and truly am optimistic about what lies ahead for our students and our learning community at Blake.

In the same vein of ‘looking back’, the topic/question for this week (What goal(s) do you want to focus on over the last month of this school year? What step(s) are you taking to meet this/these goal(s)? ) is one that we have asked every year in mid-May - keeping an eye on learning as we look to close the year.  It is one that I am taking to heart and I believe is worthy of reflection for students, staff, and families.  Although our school looks different right now, in many ways our mission, core values, and beliefs are alive more than ever.  There is always ‘room for learning’ - and, like right now - sometimes that room is opened for us and, at other times, we need to find a way to ‘open the room’.  With May as #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth, coupled with the reality of a heightened awareness of how my own emotions and feelings (and an awareness for others and ‘things unseen’) both drive and impact my learning, I have thoroughly enjoyed the work and resources that have been shared from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.  Marc Brackett’s mantra of a #permissiontofeel and the webinars shared (Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources for School Communities) are ones that I know will continue to serve as guideposts for my, and I hope our, learning as we end this school year and look ahead to 2020-2021.
 
In an effort to ‘practice what I preach’ for myself and in the potential spirit of ‘modeling’ (for lack of a better term right now), I am keeping the narrative ‘relatively brief’ again this week and sharing some words from recent webinars (as referenced above), a sampling of responses from last week’s Topic/Question, and two posts worthy of reflection and thought.  The words, responses, and posts all speak - either directly or indirectly - to and have implications for the importance of recognizing, finding, and allowing room for learning in all that we do…

To truly know how we or someone else is feeling, we need to go deeper.  It’s rarely simple.  Real understanding begins when we ask the question - why do you or I feel this way?  Usually, asking one question will lead to more.  Like peeling the layers of an onion.  No wonder it’s scary:  once we start asking, there’s no turning back.
                        -- Marc Brackett

Children learn to express their emotions in constructive ways when they’re confident their feelings will be heard. When a child expects that her feelings will be appreciated and understood, her emotions become less urgent, because each frustration and disappointment now feels less painful, less catastrophic. She’ll be less insistent in her demands and more open and flexible to seeking solutions to problems.
-- Dr. Kenneth Barish

Sampling of Responses from Our Last Topic/Question (Week of 5/11/20):  How can/does a change in your routines help you learn?
  • It gives you different experiences
  • My concentration varies depending on what I have to do
  • A change in routine can offer fresh perspective about what is essential and what needs to be changed.
  • It can help me learn because I can find a new way to make time for things.
  • A change in my routine will probably just confuse me, but there is a chance that a change will be better. Who knows.
  • It keeps things interesting!
  • It gives me a different perspective because I’m doing something before or after something else.
  • If I go outside
  • If I changed my routine, I am better at focusing.
  • If you change the scenery maybe it will help you focus better.
  • Less work in certain subjects helps me learn more with other subjects I struggle with.
  • It can allow more time for learning. For example, staying home has offered me more time to read and I’ve had more time to learn new soccer tricks, even if it’s not academic the change with no school has helped me learn all sorts of things.
  • A change of routine helps by giving extra sleep to students and because of the extra sleep they can focus way better on online school.
  • A change in routines helps one to look at things differently and therefore find alternative means to success. It challenges the mind to think of creative ways to achieve your goals.
  • I have to reach to "new" resources and try to figure out how to apply them to the new situation. Application of these new routines should go on for at least 30 days so that a pattern is established and one can compare to the previous routine in understanding what might be a better routine/practice.
  • Not always doing the same thing over and over again. By that I mean that I can mix things up.
 
If You Build It Will They Come? (How Distance Learning Could Change Education) 
by Rachael Kettner-Thompson
This post is one that speaks to many of the questions educators, students, and families have and the learning we are all experiencing at this time.  Kettner-Thompson articulates the similarities ‘distance learning’ has to business and the need to focus on student engagement.  As noted above in referencing Sinek’s clip, the learning we are experiencing right now gives me hope and affirms the work we have been striving for at Blake - and, we will keep striving to grow and learn.
Seemingly overnight, K-12 education shifted from a system of compliance and conformity to an online enterprise, one that would hopefully provide students with authentic academic enrichment.  Many K-12 districts now mandate no grades, no attendance, and no accountability measures. The classroom walls have been ripped down, the rules of schooling have been thrown out the window, and teachers can only hope and pray for student engagement.

This is an opportunity to reflect on our teaching. Educators need to embrace the vulnerability, knowing that it can set the stage for creativity and innovation. I believe Shelter-in-Place will lead to positive outcomes in education. I see a push for all the things I have dreamed about: curiosity, innovation, and learning for the sake of learning. I see a push to provide learning opportunities that feed students’ curiosity. I see a push to ditch grades completely, fostering growth and learning through descriptive feedback. 

Distance learning during COVID-19 is an opportunity for educators to reflect on the effectiveness of their pedagogy. During this time, students will disengage for many reasons: lack of reliable internet, demanding work schedules, challenging family dynamics, and myriad other reasons. But let's make sure they didn’t disengage because we failed to provide opportunities that challenge and inspire. Our learners are naturally curious: they want to explore new horizons and possibilities. To maintain “customer loyalty” teachers need to engage them in innovative ways.

Ultimately, it’s not if we build it, but how we build it that will determine student engagement.

This Pause in Our Lives Can Lead to Reflection and Greater Fulfillment
by Robin Stern, Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, and Nicole Elbertson from Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence
This post highlights research on fulfillment and the ‘lessons’ we can hopefully find and learn during this ‘pause’ in our lives.  The research highlights altruism and intrinsic motivation as two key factors leading to fulfillment - in many ways, it highlights the responses shared by our staff this week when asked the question, ‘Why did you get into teaching?’  
Most of us don’t think much about fulfillment. We simply don’t spend time considering its benefits, or whether we could achieve more of it. These essential questions tend to be pushed aside in favor of a race to produce, manage collegial relationships and what it will take to get to the next level, and then leaving on time to pick up our kids from school or head to the gym. 

For many, this “pause” is an opportunity to gain perspective on the lives we live, the things that matter...if we do take the time to reflect on how we’re living our lives and on what matters most, then perhaps when life moves beyond this crisis moment into a “new normal” we will have a deeper understanding of what brings us fulfillment at work and at home.  

What our research found may be what remains unsaid in today’s culture of success: helping others and simply enjoying or being challenged by our work are factors that lead to fulfillment — that is, feeling like we’re making a difference and being motivated by the joy and even the struggle that work provides. 

The answer to finding fulfillment may be some combination of altruism and intrinsic motivation. We can ask ourselves, who am I serving? Who benefits from my work? How does my work contribute to the greater good? Is there something more or different I could be doing that would make a bigger difference in the world or in the lives of others?  
During the pandemic, we can focus our attention on these questions and what we can take control of — and give gratitude for the opportunity. We can make plans to take steps toward achieving greater fulfillment, and take stock of the resources we have to support this intention and any obstacles in the way. Staying optimistic about what we can do will build our resilience and keep us moving in the direction of greater fulfillment — and that is something. 

I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
Please click here for Blake Updates.
Please click here for District Community Notices.
Enjoy the week and take care.
Nat

Changing Our Routines

5/12/2020

 
May 12, 2020

To help encourage conversations and dialogue about the ways that changing one’s routines and patterns can impact learning, our topic/question for the week is:  How can/does a change in your routines help you learn?  Changing our Routines (Week of 5/11/20) (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

Waking up on Saturday morning to snow flakes falling down was a tangible confirmation that the passing of time certainly feels relative right now!  We did our best to simply take it easy (something I did not initially think would be hard to do 8 weeks ago when the quarantine period began, but has proven to be a real challenge) this past weekend - taking some walks, yard work, and laying low.  It felt strange, yet comforting to have a fire going in the fireplace in May, for sure, and we enjoyed a nice family dinner to celebrate Mother’s Day.  For all of the mothers in our community, I hope you had a Happy Mother's Day - and I also want to again convey full recognition that this day can be hard for some/many and ‘create the space’ for support. 
Picture
I came across these words from Nita Leland at the end of this week and immediately wanted to learn more about her.  I had never heard of her and it was a joy and inspiration to get a window into her life and work as an artist.  The ‘Artist’s Statement’ on her website struck a chord with me as an educator as they align with my own beliefs about learning and teaching (and I believe with our mission and beliefs as a Blake community)...
The changing light of day and the moods it creates are the foundations of my watercolors. My paintings usually start with a color idea, then evolve into compositions in which color is the primary subject. To me, art is a synthesis of my personal feelings, the subject or colors that inspire me and my materials and techniques. Serenity and simplicity are my primary goals. My goal as a teacher and author is to help other artists achieve their goals. My primary focus is on my students, providing a fun and comfortable environment where they can advance their individual creative skills within an energetic community of artists. 
-- Nita Leland

Taking the words from Leland to heart, coupled with my annual intentional effort to acknowledge Mother’s Day in one small way (Katie is a my proofreader and editor - so, a very minor gift is ‘light reading’), the narrative for this week’s Natworthy is brief...some words from Parker Palmer that I read in one of Spark Kindness’s e-mails, a sampling of responses from last week’s Topic/Question, and a post from Phyllis Fagell that is worth reading for all.
 
Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other.
-- Parker Palmer

Sampling of Responses from Our Last Topic/Question (Week of 5/4/20):  
What do you appreciate about the teachers you have had in your life?
  • The patience they had to work with me.
  • I have always appreciated those who can make a connection that went deeper than the content of the class.
  • I appreciate that all of the teachers that I have had in my life, enjoy the subject that they are teaching. They are so enthusiastic, and excited to teach it, that it rubs off and you become excited to learn it. Thank you to all the teachers!
  • I appreciate the teachers in my life because they always try to make us better learners and I really appreciate that. Also I care that they are trying their best through this hard time. Thank you teachers for all you do.
  • They take time to help us.
  • They all care about us as students and are trying their best to educate us during quarantine.
  • I appreciate their drive, love of people, and ability to listen!
  • They help when I need help.
  • I appreciate that they take time out of their schedules to teach us.
  • Helpful
  • Most of them haven’t just cared about my learning but about my personal life and interests. And they are always willing to talk and help. They have also made being a student much more enjoyable and easy.
  • I appreciate how much time teachers put out to help students. I think all the Blake staff do a wonderful job!
  • I appreciate how accepting they are.
  • I always love how supportive all of my teachers have and how passionate they are with teaching.
  • They all are very well and know our soft spots to educate us.
  • They’ve all been really helpful, even with my over complicated questions.
  • I appreciate how dedicated they are.
  • They are always there for me and support me whenever I need it!
  • Most of my teachers have been really kind, caring, funny, and I’ve learned a bunch from them, as in life skills and such
  • I’ve learned a lot from them. They take their time to teach us and I’m very thankful.
  • That they have thought me knew things and they care.
  • I appreciate that they always can make you smile.
  • I appreciate what they have done for me and what they have taught me in my life
 
7 Ways Educators Can Help Students Cope in a Pandemic
by Phyllis Fagell (@PFagell) in ASCD Education Update
This brief post from Fagell provides ‘seven ways educators can help kids grieve what they've lost, cope with uncertainty, and adjust to distance learning in a new reality.’  It is a good read and the strategies apply to students and adults alike, particularly with May being #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth.
Prioritize Relationships
Tamp Down the Pressure
Empower Students
Stay Moored in the Moment
Foster Social Connection
Promote Self-Care
Focus on Joy and Simplicity
 
Under the best of circumstances, children need to know that their world is safe and that they're competent and worthy of respect. That need for reassurance is exponentially higher in the midst of a global pandemic. Students can't solve problems, learn, self-regulate, or exhibit empathy or self-compassion if they're marinating in fear. 
 
I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
Please click here for Blake Updates.
Please click here for District Community Notices.
Enjoy the week and take care.
Nat
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