To encourage dialogue and reflection about the ways we find inspiration and hope in our lives, our question for the week is: What inspires you and gives you hope? Why? Staying Inspired (Week of 4/7/24) (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
Attending the opening night of Blake’s performance of The Enchanted Bookstore was a wonderful way to start last weekend. I hope that my recurring sentiments of awe and admiration for our students, both on stage and ‘behind the scenes’ do not come across as trite as it really hits me every time! Congratulations, thanks, and appreciation to Tracy for leading the shows and thanks as well to Joe, Maureen Doctoroff, Kim Price, Kathleen B., Nate, Sarah L., Diane H., Deb M., Nancy M., Tom, and all of the parent volunteers! The rest of our weekend was spent with basketball (always!) and dinner out with some friends on Saturday evening. This week is surely be a busy one and I am certainly looking forward to the April vacation.
Each year for DLD, I look forward to and enjoy facilitating a panel of local educational leaders, centered around the question - ‘What’s Next in Education?’. Although the focus of DLD changes each year, that question has served as a guide that remains relevant and is one that both should and needs to be at the forefront of our thoughts and actions as educators and caring adults. This year it was great to have Jeff, along with Emily Parks (Executive Director of The Education Cooperative), Dan Gutekanst (Superintendent of Needham Public Schools), and Beth McCoy (Superintendent of Dover-Sherborn Public Schools) together. I appreciate their vulnerability, questions, and the ideas that are shared - as are all wrestling with so many different influences and factors in our roles at all levels for our students.
In future ‘shares’, I will be sure to be processing some of the responses and notes I took away from the discussion - the questions below served as a structure for the time together. If we had the time (that is a big ‘if’!), they are ones that I believe would be of benefit to share and process with one another - with ourselves, with one another, with students, and with families.
- Introduce yourself and share your ‘current burning fire’? (What’s in your inbox?)
- What is the purpose of public school? How are we doing with this purpose?
- How does AI impact your answer to this question?
- How can/will/should AI help us move the proverbial needle - shifting practices?
- How do you see AI impacting our systems of feedback? (standardized testing, grades and tests, portrait of a graduate, exit tickets, etc.)
- Leave us with hope - what should we be hopeful about? What gives you hope?
The first question (‘burning fire’) is one that I ‘borrowed’ from Justin Reich - a number of years ago he recommended it to me as an opener for discussions, and it has really helped to foster and promote an openness and window into the day-to-day and ‘rubber hits the road’ elements of our work. The last question I began asking last year, influenced by Vivek Murthy’s concentrated efforts to highlight hope as a core need that we must keep ‘alive’ and present for ourselves and one another.
by Michele Borba in CNBC News
Keeping hope and the ‘infinite game’ as elements into our planning is and will remain to be critical. The shares below have direct and indirect implications and I welcome thoughts, reactions, and dialogue for both ‘someday’ and ‘Monday’.
It is important to celebrate our victories, but we cannot linger on them. For the Infinite Game is still going and there is still much work to be done. - Simon Sinek
‘
Hope is not an emotion. It’s a stubborn commitment to possibility. - Rebecca Solnit
Notes/Thoughts from Justin’s Keynote
- ‘We don’t know’
- Great place to be
- What are the kinds of questions that we should be wrestling with?
- How might we collectively approach this work?
- If AI is the answer, what is the question?
- How can/do we make our lives easier?
- What kind of strategies should we bring to our students?
- Iterative brain processes - it’s a cycle
- Waterfall and Agile Design Strategies
- Best resources are our students
- Prompt generation - ‘Probability distribution’
- Phenomenon and epiphenomenon
- AI Performance is surprisingly uneven across tasks
- Humans are bad at predicting AI performance
- Work on things that have nothing to do with efficiency
- Do things that are weird and ludicrous
- Play around with things you don’t understand
- Take steps - small and quick
- Bring a spirit of optimism and have fun exploring weird stuff
Marta McAlister - Building a Better Future with AI
- AI tools allow people of all ages to visualize your dreams
- Learning is inherently personal
- AI allows all of us to dream and build bigger
Simon Sinek: How To Be A Better Human
(1 hr, 25 min) from Finding Mastery
Are you playing the infinite game? Join us as we sit down with Simon Sinek to discuss how to cultivate essential human skills, what modern leaders are in need of, and how to craft a compelling and fulfilling future.
Yuval Noah Harari on what history teaches us about justice and peace
(41 min) from WorkLife with Adam Grant
Yuval Noah Harari is a historian best known for his book Sapiens, which has sold more than 25 million copies and been translated into 65 languages. Adam and Yuval examine the power of stories in shaping humanity’s success, discuss the tension between justice and peace, and reconsider the true purpose of studying history. Yuval’s latest book, Unstoppable Us, Volume 2: Why The World Isn’t Fair, is for young readers and it’s out now.
Rebecca Solnit: Why Is Hope So Powerful?
(52 min) from House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy
What is hope and why is it so powerful?
For writer Rebecca Solnit, hope is a commitment to possibility in the face of uncertainty. While many of us react to the unknown with anxiety or worry, Rebecca sees the opposite: that inherent to unpredictable circumstances is the possibility people can take action and to come together to create change.
In this conversation, Rebecca Solnit and the Surgeon General discuss why hope is necessary. They look back at communities formed in response to disasters, like 9/11 and hurricanes, and how hope and connection are inextricably linked. A historian, Solnit points to milestones like the fall of the Berlin Wall in which people’s actions, sometimes incremental, led to unforeseen outcomes.
In facing the massive uncertainty of climate change, Solnit offers why she is hopeful. Rather than fall to despair, she points that humans, throughout history, have seen the possibility to intervene and take action. And THAT is what Solnit calls hope.
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: What do you like to do to relax, ‘take a break’, and recharge? What strategies, habits, and routines help you to make time to do these things?
- I like to read to relax. I often try to not procrastinate and get my work done so I can relax as much as possible.
- Simply heading out for a walk or run around the block sometimes in quiet/or music..depends on the day! The sun and air helps my brain destress and feel rejuvenated! It can be quick/long.
- One strategy is to actually schedule it when planning for my week and put it on the calendar - block out a time!
- I like to close my eyes and think of something fun.
- Sometimes what really works is getting away from what is making you feel not relaxed.
- Doing the fun that you love and spending time with the ones you love.
- Drinking tea makes my body feel relaxed and calm
- Doing skin care really helps too.
- To relax I usually sit down and read a book! I find it very relaxing. It's like a time that you can get teleported to another world.
- Sleeping, going outside, making something, watching a movie/show
- Playing music.
- Take a walk outside, read, and meet with friends.
- Being outside…going for a walk with my dogs…doing a yoga class...
- I go to sephora
In an effort to align with the themes of hope and possibility as National Poetry Month, this poem feels appropriate and timely.