To encourage dialogue and reflection about the skills we want to foster and what helps us towards mastery of understanding, our question for the week is: What is something (skill, craft, activity, etc.) you hope to master? Mastering Skills (Week of 10/30/22) (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
With our kids at different stages, the Halloween season certainly had a different feel than in years past. Katie and I were reminiscing about past costumes, Spookerfest soccer tournaments, and the mad rush to get everything set as the date of 10/31 approached. We enjoyed a very quiet weekend (something pretty atypical for us), with the kids between ‘sports seasons’ and no other commitments - well, that is besides the ongoing task of picking up leaves!
Earlier this week I came across these words from Norman Vincent Peale and I found them quite timely, both personally and professionally…
At our faculty meeting this week we will be building off our discussions from earlier this year about learning skills, priorities for our students, and culturally responsive practices. At the heart of this work is (as it should be) the focus on learning and ‘what’s important’, as we think about our guiding lights with these questions in mind…
- What are the skills our students need to be successful?
- What skills do we want to foster in our students?
In these contexts of personal and professional learning/efforts, Norman Vincent Peale’s words steer me towards reflections on the practice/mastery of skills with a broad definition of ‘skills’. Whether they are narrow, broad, individual, or collective, I do know that we all want to find ways to help our students and ourselves learn, reflect, and grow. We may not agree on the path to get there, but I do believe that our mission is one we can all stand behind.
You Can Apply the Feynman technique to Master Pretty Much Any Skill
by Sunny Labh (@thePiggsBoson)
The conventional Feynman technique basically includes five simple steps:
> Choose a topic and start to learn
> Try to explain the topic to someone who is unfamiliar with the topic, it could be your 5 years old cousin or the pen holder that is kept on your table
> Find the gaps in your learning and go back to the resource material to fill in the gaps
> Simplify your understanding and explanation
> Repeat steps 2 and 3 unless you totally nail it!
It works the same way with any skill you want to master. Consider programming languages, for example. You learn the basics, you try to teach it to someone else, you find the things that you are struggling with, you go back to your resource material and you teach it again. The process repeats until you can teach it so perfectly that another guy can create his/her own application!
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: Share 1-3 good things that have taken place or you have witnessed recently in your life.
- At my son's flag football game this weekend, the opposing coach, a high school senior in Millis, allowed one of our players with learning differences to score a touchdown. It was a small moment of kindness from the entire opposing team that absolutely made that player's year. It was one of the best applauses for a touchdown I have ever heard!
- The eiffel tower, The london eye, my family
- I got to pet three dogs today and I got lots of work done today.
- I scored a goal in soccer, I’ve made new friends and I got a 4 on my math test!
- My bat mitzvah, people being kind to each other, hanging out with friends
- Friends check in. What a gift.
- Winning soccer games, going skiing, playing with friends
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Take care.
Nat