To encourage dialogue and reflection about taking the time to pause and reflect, our question of the week is: What have you learned about yourself this year? Allowing Time to Pause (Week of 6/5/22) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
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Our Students
Blake's Core Values: Respect, Responsibility, Resourcefulness, Reflection
Our Essential Question: How can we cultivate and curate the progression of student learning and growth?
Our Mission: Blake Middle School believes in a living mission statement, based on the concept that our community seeks and respects knowledge, integrity, character, wisdom, and the willingness to adapt to a continually evolving world.
The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning. - John Dewey
You cannot teach today the same way you did yesterday to prepare students for tomorrow. - John Dewey
We had a great start to the weekend last Friday evening, seeing the bands Caamp and The Lumineers in Mansfield (I still call it Great Woods!)with Maggie and a few of her friends. It was such a nice entry into the weekend, as Maggie’s graduation from high school was Sunday morning - definitely a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts floating around in our heads and hearts! We had a relaxed gathering of some family and friends after the ceremony at our house for lunch - the weather was gorgeous!
This weekend has, in a very good way, pushed me to pause and reflect - thinking back with an eye towards growth and progress. As we get closer to the final day of this school year with our students and one another, I hope that we can carve time out to pause and reflect. Both posts below are ones that I came across this week and, although they have different audiences and messages, speak to the process of pausing, ‘holding up a mirror’, and reflecting with an eye towards learning. I found the ‘intensive parenting’ piece by Haspel to be very pertinent, both as a parent and educator - thinking about the practices I (we) employ and the inherent pressures I (we) put on ourselves.
Had Enough Disruption Yet?
by Brad Latzke (@BradLatzke)
Like a dense, debilitating fog, the VUCA (Volatile, Complex, Uncertain, Ambiguous) world has enveloped every aspect of our lives. Humanity is facing a litany of challenging perils. The disruptions during the past two years alone have catapulted us into an intense, accelerated pace of history.
Rapid shifts in schooling due to covid prove that change can come quickly. However, there was a heavy price because the disruption collided with rigid, intransient structures resistant to the necessary change. Without structural changes that give educators and schools more flexibility in curriculum and learning pathways, future disruptions will be just as overwhelming.
It should be every generation’s legacy to create a healthier, more humane world for their children. Are you ready to disrupt education to create this legacy for the next generation?
How to Quit Intensive Parenting
by Elliot Haspel in The Atlantic
Intensive parenting—the dominant model of modern American child-rearing—is a bit like smoking: The evidence shows that it’s unhealthy, yet the addiction can be hard to kick.
Rafts of research prove that intensive parenting mainly serves to burn out parents while harming children’s competence and mental health. But the facts are losing. In a 2018 survey, 75 percent of respondents rated various intensive-parenting scenarios as “very good” or “excellent,” and less than 40 percent said the same about scenarios showing a non-intensive approach.
What parents need, then, is not another bromide against micromanaging their kids, but pragmatic steps to alter course and still feel good about it. This is where the idea of “good enough” parenting comes in. The phrase was coined in 1953 by the British pediatrician and psychologist Donald Winnicott, and we can now update his work. Winnicott pushed back strongly against the idea that children require perfection from their parents, or that children should be perfectible.
“Good enough” does not mean mediocre or apathetic (the not-good-enough parent is real), but requires acknowledging the point beyond which attempts at further optimization cause more harm than good. Given reasonable conditions and plenty of love, there are many ways in which kids can have happy childhoods and emerge as healthy, conscientious, successful adults.
We have to start thinking of parenting not as a set of instructions but as several dials. Research suggests that certain dials, such as “display love,” “validate feelings,” and “set aside some regular quality time,” should absolutely be turned up to 10. Others, such as “solve your child’s (nonserious) problem for them,” should be pretty low. And many, such as “provide educational support” and “offer enrichment activities,” should be somewhere in the center. Your exact dial settings will depend on your values and your family situation, of course. All 10s and all ones are almost always a bad idea.
…we need a model that meets the current context while rejecting false premises. Intensive parenting, for now, has the momentum of a surging river. By replacing mindsets and policies of scarcity with mindsets and policies of abundance, carpentry with gardening, competition with solidarity, we can erect a dam. And a new, healthier way forward can emerge: not more, not perfect, but good enough.
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: What can you do to help our community be supportive and inclusive? Be specific.
- Include everyone no matter their beliefs or gender or sexual orientation
- Make Blake a more comforting and safe place.
- We can learn with no intention but to learn
- Stand up to bullying and support everyone
- To be more inclusive you need to touch on all ideas and beliefs
- I can promote a safe environment for LGBTQ+ students.
- Check in with students and colleagues and take time to be an attentive listener.
- Be a model of what we want our community to be. By supporting and including others yourself, those kind actions will spread.
As always, let me know of any questions/concerns.
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Take care.
Nat