To encourage dialogue and reflection about the ways we can create and allow space to learn, our question for the week is: What needs to be in place to help you be present and learn? Creating and Allowing Space (Week of 1/21/24) (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
Hopefully everyone enjoyed the weekend and found ways to stay warm! The boys and I had a pretty low-key weekend, in between our normal routine of basketball games, with some down time, walks with the dogs, and watching football. We enjoyed having a family dinner on Sunday before we dove into the week - looks like maybe more snow on the way!
I was feeling really rushed heading to Heading to Owen’s basketball game on Friday evening - end of the week, trying to get in some exercise, coordinating the needs/schedules for the weekend, and my mind racing a bit (oftentimes that feels like my default mode!). When I arrived at Holliston High School, I was worried I would be late and also knew my sister and brother-in-law were coming with my parents. I hopped out of the car and started to walk briskly towards the gym. As I was approaching the end of the parking lot, with my thoughts all over the place, a car came up beside me. It took me by surprise, and if I’m being honest, I was annoyed - not proud of that reaction, but as the window in the car was rolling down, my initial reaction was that it would ‘slow me down’ some more (when I was already feeling rushed). As the car slowed to the stop, I turned and a young boy said, ‘Excuse me, sir…did you by chance drop your winter hat back there on the way in? We think we saw it fall and didn’t want you to lose it - it’s cold outside.’ Immediately, as one could imagine, I felt ‘put in my place’. I thanked them, shared my appreciation, and walked back to get my hat. As I was walking back towards the gym, I laughed at myself (also a little ashamed at my initial knee-jerk reaction) and began thinking about #slowingitdown and being more open to what might evolve or happen at any given moment in time.
Finding a threadline…
As is my morning routine on Saturdays, I hopped on the exercise bike first thing and listened to a couple of podcasts. The process of selecting an episode varies for me - sometimes academic or school-related, sometimes more personal, and more often-than-not, something that is ‘both’. (Side note - I feel very fortunate that the overlap between personal/professional growth is prevalent and relevant - and that fostering growth in one realm can often impact/influence the other realm.) As I was listening I kept coming back to the ‘hat reflection’ noted above and thinking about the learning experience I have when on the bike. It is a ‘carved out space’ for me to be present and listen - yes, it could be that I am multi-tasking and ‘killing two birds with one stone’ (definitely true), but I think that it is the space that I am affording myself.
In regards to the ‘hat reflection’, it kept me thinking about the ways I could try and carry forth that ‘presence’ off of the proverbial bike - What can I do to be more present and open to learning? What needs to be in place?
These questions are ones that I want to make sure we are asking of our students and ourselves - and selfishly, that I am asking of myself. Coincidentally, or maybe fortuitously, while I was reflecting on Saturday morning, I was listening to this podcast episode below - and, within, one of the messages was to make sure we are ‘meeting students where they are’ and that we are ‘listening’...
Student Success 2.0
(34 min) from Future U Podcast
How do you engage learners in the post-pandemic age? Hosts Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn are joined by Carrie Bartek, from Wake Technical Community College, and Randi Harris, from Portland State University, to ask some important questions: What has changed for students since the pandemic? And what needs to change moving forward to ensure students’ success? They consider the evolving landscape of higher education and the importance of addressing both the immediate and long-term needs of students to ensure their success in this new educational paradigm. The episode is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The questions below are from our recent end-of-term reflections and student connectedness check-ins…
- How can we help you as a learner? Please share ideas.
- Do you have anything else you would like to share with us? What questions do you have?
- What do you think the adults who work at Blake could do to make you feel more welcomed at school?
The responses provide great insight into ways that we can open up, create, and provide space for students to learn and grow at Blake. I look forward to delving in a bit deeper to these responses, finding (potential) threadlines, and discussing/sharing ways to have them realized in our day-to-day practices and systems.
In the spirit of sharing, the episodes below are all ones I listened to this past week - not necessarily thematic in nature, but certainly ones that resonated and sparked more interest to reflect and grow.
Listen To Your Inner Canary
(32 min) from The School Leadership Show
In this episode, Jenn and I talk about Sharone Bar-David’s book Trust Your Canary: Every Leader's Guide to Taming Workplace Incivility. Bar-David provides some simple strategies for helping leaders see incivility (even when it’s hard to recognize) plus a whole toolkit of easy-to-implement ways to address it (so you can stop doubting yourself when it’s time to intervene). These skills are critically important for school leaders because two of the drivers of incivility are organizational change and high stress levels – both of which are rampant in schools right now.
Daniel Goleman: How To Optimize Emotional Intelligence
(51 min) from Lead From the Heart
The expression, “emotional intelligence” is seamlessly embedded into our common vernacular – but it was Daniel Goleman’s groundbreaking book a quarter century ago that first coined the idea & brought it to a mass audience. In his #1 bestseller “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” Goleman revolutionized how we think about human intelligence.
Jon Batiste: How Do You Build the Confidence to Connect?
(56 min) from House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy
Do you wish it felt easier to make connections with others?
In this episode, recorded live from the Barclays Center in NY, the Surgeon General and Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and composer Jon Batiste share their experiences with reaching out to others. Even with complete strangers or in brand new situations, their approaches have countered loneliness and paved the way for new relationships. Jon opens up about his student days in New York, when he struggled to find his footing in a new place far from home in New Orleans, to how he views and manages the fame that is now part of his life.
As both men share their experiences with loneliness, they focus on the mental health of young people and some of the challenges this generation is experiencing. The conversation also speaks to the unique power of music to inspire and unite people. As Jon notes, just the simple sound of notes being played is an experience we can all share.
Jon Batiste warms up and closes this conversation with beautiful performances that make you want to be along for the ride.
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: What is something you have learned recently that you would like to learn more about?
- In English we are learning about yellow fever because we are reading the book yellow fever and the black plague keeps coming up so i would like to know more about it
- How to make google spreadsheets
- Ancient Egypt
- Math proportions and credit
- Poodles have webbed feet and I want to know if other dog breeds do too.
- I have learned about %
- The Senate
- The tides and the phases of the moon
- The presidential election
- I would like to learn more about astronomy.
- I would like to learn more about the Big bang theory from science.
- I learned that there are 4 different kinds of learners and I would like to learn more about Read/Write and Kinesthetic learners.
- Spreading of the sea floor
- I would like to learn more about black holes.
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Take care.
Nat