To help encourage conversations and dialogue about imperfection, our topic/question of the week is: How can embracing imperfection help us learn and grow? Embracing Imperfection (Week of 4/1/18) (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 more mild weather this past weekend was quite welcomed in our house as we were able to spend more time outside - shooting baskets, starting to clean up the garden, a few morning runs, and taking some walks. With it being our last 'quiet weekend' between sports seasons for the kids, we enjoyed the unscheduled days (although I do appreciate a good routine!). Katie and I also had a nice time going to a concert with my brother and his wife down in Providence (Bleachers). On Sunday we got together with family at my parents for an early afternoon Easter dinner.
- Recognizing the trust and courage at the ASCD #Empower18 conference last weekend of all of the presenters who were willing to share their ideas and work
- Meetings with parents and teachers throughout the week - trust and courage to openly discuss challenges and productively disagree on 'the path to take'
- Spending time with my job-alike - colleagues openly sharing challenges and seeking help/advice/guidance from one another
- Trust and courage of one of our 7th graders who gave me the permission (and privilege) to shadow him for the full school day to help me gain the lens/experience of student's day at Blake
- Sam's willingness to share his 'Why I Teach' reflection with our staff on Thursday afternoon
- The trust and courage of our staff as we formally began discussions about race, inclusion, and equity with Jamele Adams (Dean of Students at Brandeis University)
- Trust and courage - both visible and 'hidden' - that we all (students, staff, families, community) every day - thinking about what we each 'carry and bring with us' every day
Take-aways/thoughts/mindsets/notes from ASCD #Empower18...
- Teacher efficacy is # 1 influence
- Begin with passion, empiricism, action, and results
- What can we do in 100 days? (25 day segments)
- Stop arguing with the cynics
- We all have racial biases
- Whose comfort am I privileging?
- When you think about education, what comes to mind?
- Do we believe this enough to redesign our schools?
- How do you get them from one more thing to just good teaching?
- Let students accept responsibility
- What are you good at? What brings you joy? What does the world need you to do? (Vocational Discernment)
- Tyranny of Measurement - beware of this!
- Are there differences between success in school and success in life?
- Have to prepare kids for the only constant - change
- Who you are is more important than what you know
- Collegiality Frames the Culture
- Intrapersonal development, Interpersonal development
- Have students set scholastic and personal goals
- ‘Diversity is not just about the differences you like’
Take-aways/thoughts/mindsets/notes from our PD afternoon with Jamele Adams (@h2five)...
- LIT - Love, Inclusion, and Trust...Trust is the byproduct of love and Inclusion
- Provide light in darkness - any bit of light helps
- Pronouns are important
- How dare we leave anyone out?
- A safe space is a brave space - are we brave enough to be honest to have the conversations?
- SE + SL = D, Self-Esteem + Self Love = Dignity
- What can I as one individual do to make a difference?
- What can we do: 'Excuse me' as a useful phrase; 10 principles of Diversity (see below); Feed the energy, nurture the energy of our students; When something happens, mention it; Allow for recovery
- We need to be proactive, reactive, and retroactive
- Working together, we do better
- Question the blame
- There is nothing that violence solved that communication can not solve better
- We can be perfect in recognizing our imperfection
To be honest I am still feeling a bit overwhelmed from the work last Thursday and I am processing it on many levels (and look forward to processing with others as well), but these last two notes about communication and recognizing imperfection have really stuck with me. There are many paths we can take, but I firmly believe that communication and recognizing our imperfection go hand in hand. And, more important, they are steps we can take each day as a learning and growing community - recognizing our imperfections in our work and communicating together towards improvement. Two phrases that Colby Swettberg has shared with us speak to the inherent connections that exist amongst the principles of trust, courage, imperfection, and communication and I am sharing them along with the post below from Sinek...
- 'That which is unspeakable is unmanageable'
- 'We are going to make the path by walking it'
To Be Authentic Is To Be Imperfect
by Simon Sinek (@simonsinek)
Sinek is worth following and I find inspiration from him for his honesty, vulnerability, optimist, and proponent of collaboration and deep thinking. In this brief post he encourages all of us (yes, we are all leaders) to embrace our imperfections.
There is great beauty in that which is imperfect.The grain in a piece of wood. A bristle of a paintbrush left stranded in a painting. The uneven glaze of a Japanese ceramic cup. Perfection comes out of molds or off assembly lines. Things made by nature or by hand are imperfect. It is their flaws that make these objects unlike any other of their kind. It is their imperfections that make these things unique and beautiful.
It is the blend of anxiety, fear, pain, insecurity and naïveté that makes each person special.
Authenticity is about imperfection. And authenticity is a very human quality. To be authentic is to be at peace with your imperfections. The great leaders are not the strongest, they are the ones who are honest about their weaknesses. The great leaders are not the smartest; they are the ones who admit how much they don't know. The great leaders can't do everything; they are the ones who look to others to help them. Great leaders don't see themselves as great; they see themselves as human. Great leaders don't try to be perfect, they try to be themselves. And that's what makes them great.
I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
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Take care.
Nat