To encourage dialogue and reflection about our own learning and the factors that foster how we learn, our question(s) for the week is: What are the ‘things’ that make you want to learn more? What drives your own learning? Nurturing Our Own Learning (Week of 10/22/23) (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 pretty low-key weekend with a particularly restful Saturday, as our pattern of rainy weekends continued (I’m hoping this cycle ends soon!). It was great to see the sun outside and the colors of the leaves on Sunday! We had Grayden’s football team over for a pizza party on Sunday - it felt a little bit like recess duty with 20 8th graders at the house!
In addition to the tangible learning that takes place from these experiences, I find that the very nature of the ‘space’ for reflection provides room for growth. From conversations to specific points made at various workshops or from the keynotes, one of our shared goals for our students is to foster a desire to learn. In order to do that, our students need time and experiences for this as well - space for reflection, prompts for reflection, and systems that are both individualized and sustainable. This is not easy, but it is something we must strive for. I know that I need time to learn and grow - and, separation from the ‘day-to-day’ helps bring forth clarity. As is the case with most experiences, some aspects resonate more than others and conferences can sometimes feel ‘hit or miss’, but the very nature of the endeavor is fruitful - and, again, the space and intentional time for reflection is critical. I looked back at some notes from last year, and these ‘take-aways’ hold true - the ‘learning organization’ is a label we should aspire towards…
- Learning Organizations: “people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together.”~Peter Senge
- Cycle of Reflection - Learn, Reflect, Act, Assess
This weekend and over the next few days, my intention is to carve out more space to go through my notes, connect with others, and think/share ways to bring forth the learning for our students and community. Below are an assortment of notes, questions, referenced posts/links, and thoughts - I welcome questions, reactions, dialogue, and action…
Lisa Damour’s Talk
- There has never been a harder time to be a teenager
- Mental health is not about feeling good; it is about having feelings that match what is happening; and it’s about managing those feelings appropriately
- No kid should be made to feel unsafe
- Our job is to be a steady presence for our teens as they work their ways through
- Teens want to be noticed
- Emotions…
- Embrace negative emotions
- Emotions are information - we need to allow them and allow some distress
- Emotions are growth-giving … can look back and see learning
- We want kids to manage their emotions
- The mere act of naming feelings helps to address the feeling
- Moral development is critical
- Our ability to tolerate our kids’ distress is what allows our kids to tolerate their own distress
- Our ability to tolerate their distress gives kids the future freedom in the world
- We can almost never guarantee anything
- ‘If it brings relief and does no harm, it’s good with me’
- Teenagers feel everything more powerfully than we do
- Teenagers use distractions to manage emotions
- We want to support expressions in teens
- Start by validating feelings - ‘I’m here for you and I’m sorry’
- Empathy is the all time steady presence move
- When they want to talk, we need to listen
- Notice what comforts your kid
- We can’t keep our kids from being distressed
- Are they developing the skills for managing their emotions that will allow for them to leave our homes and thrive?
- You don’t make friends, you find friends
- If you are not making friends, you need to find new traffic patterns
- Kids do well when they feel like someone is counting on them
- Schools and life do not match too well
- Routines are everything - they take away decision making ; decision making is incredibly taxing; double down routines ; routines develop executive thinking
- When stressors go up, the supports need to go up
Notes from MassCue
(Keynotes - Ken Shelton, Dr. Liza Talusan)
- ‘How am I giving myself the time, space, and grace to rest? Care for my mind and body?’
- How might I incorporate a normalized culture of individual and collective healing/restoration within my community
- When it comes to learning, what experience do you want students to have?
- ‘It is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don’t care about.’ - Mary Helen Immordino Yang
- Thrival not Survival
- Pillars of Achievement
- Academic Excellence
- Joy + Wellness
- Engagement + Collaboration
- Operational Effectiveness
- Investing in Staff
- Most dangerous phrase - ‘We’ve always done it that way’
- Rethinking = Dismantle
- Redesign = Transformation
- Producing, Collaborating, and Publishing
- Is this an experience I would want for myself? Is this an experience I would want for my own children?
- Demarginalizing Designer - How do we become one?
- Proximity → Humility → Curiosity
- Producing, Collaborating, Publishing
- Mirrors, Windows, Sliding Glass Doors
- What experiences were mirrors?
- What experiences were windows?
- What experiences were sliding glass doors?
- ‘The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.’ - James Baldwin
- All vs ‘Each and Every One of You’ (All as Othering)
- Key Questions…
- Does the configuration of the learning environment account for access and opportunity for all?
- Is it static or dynamic to account for different configurations based upon the desired learning experiences?
- What policies/practices exist or need to be in place to support this innovative design perspective?
- Be my favorite version of myself - gives myself grace
- Identity-Conscious Practices - How do we embrace them?
- The process of realizing that who we are informs and impacts how you act, interact, and how we see the world around us
- ‘The work we do - teaching, leading, advising, collaborating, caregiving, planning, decision making - is not identity-neutral’
- How do I create and sustain a more inclusive and identity-conscious community?
- Build knowledge
- What do I need to know?
- Engage in reflection
- What does this have to do with me?
- Move to action
- What do I need to do?
- Build knowledge
- Talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, and identity does not have to be divisive
- ‘Who you are online should be who you are offline’ - Jorge Vega
- When we develop the habits and skills for engaging in this work, we build curiosity, collaboration, critical thinking, compassion, and community
- We need to build skills for ‘necessary compassion’
Posts of Note
To Help Students Learn, Engage the Emotions
by Jessica Lahey in The New York Times
The Most Dangerous Phrase In Business: We've Always Done It This Way
by Ben Zimmerman in Forbes
The Most Dangerous Phrase
by Melissa Tonning-Kolowitz in American Theatre
Why Curiosity and Humility Are Critical to Success
by Rhett Power in Inc.
The Real Threat From ChatGPT Isn't AI...It's Centaurs
by Brian Westover in PCMag
It’s time to drop the ‘sticks and stones’ cliche and help kids cope with the pain of exclusion
by Anna Nordberg in The Washington Post
AI in the classroom: What's cheating? What's OK?
by Matt Miller
My hope is that these notes and the process of sharing will help put some ‘stakes in the ground’ - holding my own learning accountable and opening up for the questions, thoughts, and ideas from others. Throughout the two days, and often in our day-to-day work, I am brought back to the post below from Will Richardson - it pushes me each time I read it…
Are we doing the ‘right things wrong’ or the ‘wrong things right’? Are we acting on our beliefs?
We’re Trying To Do “The Wrong Thing Right” in Schools
by Will Richardson
Words from Russell Ackoff: “Peter Drucker said ‘There’s a difference between doing things right and doing the right thing.’ Doing the right thing is wisdom, and effectiveness. Doing things right is efficiency. The curious thing is the righter you do the wrong thing the wronger you become. If you’re doing the wrong thing and you make a mistake and correct it you become wronger. So it’s better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. Almost every major social problem that confronts us today is a consequence of trying to do the wrong things righter.”
Doing the right thing in schools starts with one fairly straightforward question: What do you believe about how kids learn most powerfully and deeply in their lives? Once you’ve answered that as an individual and as a school community, the question that follows is does your practice in classrooms with kids honor those beliefs? In other words, if you believe that kids learn best when they have authentic reasons for learning, when their work lives in the world in some real way, when they are pursuing answers to questions that they themselves find interesting, when they’re not constrained by a schedule or a curriculum, when they are having fun, and when they can learn with other students and teachers, then are you giving priority to those conditions in the classroom? Are you acting on your beliefs?
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: How do you make time for yourself? Why is that important?
- I get up early so I have some solitude
- I make time for myself on Tuesday nights because that is the one night a week where I have nothing after school, and I think it's important because I feel refreshed enough to carry on with my hectic schedule
- I make time to relax everyday.
- I make time for myself by reading because reading brings me happiness.
- I don't, really. I'm mainly just doing homework or watching youtube.
- I make time for myself when I feel stressed. It's important because in life, you get stressed and need breaks.
- Having time to just enjoy life whenever you can.
- I make time by planning my schedule to fit me. This is important to help things like relieving stress
- Self care, and thinking about what is right for you.
- Usually when I’m in my room staring off into space at a wall. important bc you can think about what you're doing with your life
- I watch my favorite shows and listen to music. It's important because it helps me calm down and feel good
- I like to draw listen to music
- How I make time for myself is by doing what needs to be done first, then I see what I want to do. This is important to me because if I didn’t have me time, I wouldn’t be able to do the things I like and I would probably be really rushed and some days have nothing to do.
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Take care.
Nat