To help encourage conversations and dialogue about our taking time to share successes, positives, and growth, our topic/question for the dinner table is: What is going well so far for you in school this year? Naming the Positives (Week of 10/20/19) (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.
Although I never want to wish time away or say goodbye to the warmer days, I really do love this time of year - the gorgeous light, the crisp morning air, and the colors of the leaves. I did my best to take it all in this weekend - doing some gardening, going for bike rides, and finding a little time to read outside (all amidst chauffeuring the kids to their various activities!). Katie had her second to last yoga teacher training this weekend as well - we enjoyed having Sunday dinner together as we have felt like passing ships as of late!
As we ‘marked’ the halfway point of Term 1 this past week and taking time with our students to reflect on their progress and learning, I was inspired and encouraged by the shared endeavor for learning during Ewing’s talk. The audience included students, community members, professors, social workers, and activists - all invested in learning and furthering an understanding of a pertinent topic. As I reflect upon our role as educators, that is in essence what we are trying to do every single day in our classes, meetings, and interactions. Nancy M.’s Why I Teach reflection spoke to this as well - sharing the importance of a community, caring for students, and opening doors.
These positive experiences are important for me to name (or write down - the process of journaling works for me), as I can easily shift to finding what is not working. I do not want to ignore what is not working, but I need to remind myself to ‘name the positives’. As such I am sharing some positives from the last week for me - a few notes from Ravitch and Ewing, a sampling of responses from last week’s topic/question, and a post by Carol Ann Tomlinson. They are positives as they represent and encompass a cross-section of voices who are invested in future-oriented, solutionary-minded, and reflective educational practice...
A few of my notes from Diane Ravitch’s words…
- Education is political - it just is
- We need to work towards a more nurturing society for our students
- We need to fight for a system that fosters the best in all of our students
A few of my notes from Eve Ewing’s lecture…
- We should always challenge the notion that academics should only speak to academics and narrow audiences
- Institutional mourning - always something to be aware of...affective impact and the social and emotional impact of loss
- If one does not own private property, then the institutions (schools, places of worship, neighborhoods, etc.) become one’s home
- History and context always matter
- What are education issues?....Everything is an education issue - it connects to everything
- Think about this question - What can we all do to ‘get in to fit in’?
- ‘All of these kids are our kids’
- Good news: If humans made these structures that are not working, then humans can undo them as well
Topic/Question (Week of 10/13/19): What inspires you to learn and improve? Why?
- Once you realize it is more important in some ways to recognize how much more you can learn than to fall back on what you already know, then the inspiration to learn and improve comes naturally. I liked when Jamele Adams said last year that "Optimism is the belief that we have yet to be our best selves."
- The potential for quality of life to endure or improve.
- Teaching others inspires me because if they are learning, I want to too.
- I see others that are doing impressive, stand alone or with others,work that inspires me to learn and improve. Growth does not happen until we observe others in helping all of us as a community of learners.
- You have to learn to be successful in life
- self-determination, personal accountability, inspiration, and intuition
- My colleagues inspire me to learn new things and improve my teaching. I admire the passion of my colleagues and the constant interest in new teaching techniques and philosophies. They inspire me to try new things and get outside my comfort zone.
- I am inspired to learn because of my teachers. They always encourage you to try your hardest
- My friends and family, when they do something it inspires me and lets me want to do it. It’s nature.
- I strive to better myself in order to set an example for my children.
One to Grow On / Being a Guiding Light Teens Need
by Carol Ann Tomlinson (@cat3y) in Educational Leadership
‘Adolescence is a sea of uncertainty, but teachers can help navigate it.’ - This first line of Tomlinson’s post summarizes the essence of the message, as she highlights the writings of Max Van Manem and the research from John Hattie. The post articulates the 5 elements adolescents need: They need teachers who embrace, invite, lead, trust, and embody.
So what do they need in school? The simple answer is, "Everything." Adolescents in school need help navigating a terrain littered with sinkholes and sharp-edged rocks. They need teachers who see teaching as much more inclusive and encompassing than just providing and measuring content.
Adolescents need adults in their lives who "embrace" them, who seek to know them, who have abiding respect for who they are and who they will become...In order to grow cognitively and academically, adolescents need what John Hattie (2012) calls an invitational learning environment—a place where they feel seen, known, appreciated, challenged, and supported...Adolescence should be a time for dreaming and giving shape to dreams. Excellent teachers don't cover content and prepare students for tests on which they will be asked to select "truth" from a brief set of snippets.
What adolescents need in school is teachers who not only care about them, but who care for them (Gay, 2018). They need teachers who enjoy their company, but who go well beyond that to ensure that they build foundations for strong, sturdy, contributing, and satisfying lives. That seems an appropriate mission for teachers who commit to teaching young people during the most complex, promising years of their lives.
An aspect from both the responses listed above and Tomlinson’s post that rings true for me is the idea that we all will learn and grow in a nurturing environment. The nurturing can come from a variety of sources. One source that should not be forgotten is from our own reflection and thoughts. It is important to take the time to recognize our own successes, our own thoughts, and our own ensuing hopes. The intentional reflective practice of ‘naming the positives’ can help to inspire us as learners to take the next step in the learning process.
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Enjoy the week and take care.
Nat