To help encourage conversations and dialogue about the importance of recognizing, finding, and allowing room for learning and growth, our topic/question for the week is: What goal(s) do you want to focus on over the last month of this school year? What step(s) are you taking to meet this/these goal(s)? Room for Learning (Week of 5/18/20) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
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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
After another very full week (and I know I’m not alone in feeling that), my goal this past weekend was to really take a step back, get ‘out of my head’, and be present. Beginning with a nice walk that Maggie and I had with Lila on Friday, we did our best to take advantage of the beautiful weather with some gardening and time outside. One thing I have really recognized is the impact that the weather and ability to simply have some time outside has on my well-being - as with many of our experiences over the last 7-8 weeks, I can not help thinking about the implications of ‘our shared learnings’ may and will have with our students and ourselves in the future.
In the same vein of ‘looking back’, the topic/question for this week (What goal(s) do you want to focus on over the last month of this school year? What step(s) are you taking to meet this/these goal(s)? ) is one that we have asked every year in mid-May - keeping an eye on learning as we look to close the year. It is one that I am taking to heart and I believe is worthy of reflection for students, staff, and families. Although our school looks different right now, in many ways our mission, core values, and beliefs are alive more than ever. There is always ‘room for learning’ - and, like right now - sometimes that room is opened for us and, at other times, we need to find a way to ‘open the room’. With May as #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth, coupled with the reality of a heightened awareness of how my own emotions and feelings (and an awareness for others and ‘things unseen’) both drive and impact my learning, I have thoroughly enjoyed the work and resources that have been shared from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Marc Brackett’s mantra of a #permissiontofeel and the webinars shared (Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources for School Communities) are ones that I know will continue to serve as guideposts for my, and I hope our, learning as we end this school year and look ahead to 2020-2021.
In an effort to ‘practice what I preach’ for myself and in the potential spirit of ‘modeling’ (for lack of a better term right now), I am keeping the narrative ‘relatively brief’ again this week and sharing some words from recent webinars (as referenced above), a sampling of responses from last week’s Topic/Question, and two posts worthy of reflection and thought. The words, responses, and posts all speak - either directly or indirectly - to and have implications for the importance of recognizing, finding, and allowing room for learning in all that we do…
To truly know how we or someone else is feeling, we need to go deeper. It’s rarely simple. Real understanding begins when we ask the question - why do you or I feel this way? Usually, asking one question will lead to more. Like peeling the layers of an onion. No wonder it’s scary: once we start asking, there’s no turning back.
-- Marc Brackett
Children learn to express their emotions in constructive ways when they’re confident their feelings will be heard. When a child expects that her feelings will be appreciated and understood, her emotions become less urgent, because each frustration and disappointment now feels less painful, less catastrophic. She’ll be less insistent in her demands and more open and flexible to seeking solutions to problems.
-- Dr. Kenneth Barish
Sampling of Responses from Our Last Topic/Question (Week of 5/11/20): How can/does a change in your routines help you learn?
- It gives you different experiences
- My concentration varies depending on what I have to do
- A change in routine can offer fresh perspective about what is essential and what needs to be changed.
- It can help me learn because I can find a new way to make time for things.
- A change in my routine will probably just confuse me, but there is a chance that a change will be better. Who knows.
- It keeps things interesting!
- It gives me a different perspective because I’m doing something before or after something else.
- If I go outside
- If I changed my routine, I am better at focusing.
- If you change the scenery maybe it will help you focus better.
- Less work in certain subjects helps me learn more with other subjects I struggle with.
- It can allow more time for learning. For example, staying home has offered me more time to read and I’ve had more time to learn new soccer tricks, even if it’s not academic the change with no school has helped me learn all sorts of things.
- A change of routine helps by giving extra sleep to students and because of the extra sleep they can focus way better on online school.
- A change in routines helps one to look at things differently and therefore find alternative means to success. It challenges the mind to think of creative ways to achieve your goals.
- I have to reach to "new" resources and try to figure out how to apply them to the new situation. Application of these new routines should go on for at least 30 days so that a pattern is established and one can compare to the previous routine in understanding what might be a better routine/practice.
- Not always doing the same thing over and over again. By that I mean that I can mix things up.
If You Build It Will They Come? (How Distance Learning Could Change Education)
by Rachael Kettner-Thompson
This post is one that speaks to many of the questions educators, students, and families have and the learning we are all experiencing at this time. Kettner-Thompson articulates the similarities ‘distance learning’ has to business and the need to focus on student engagement. As noted above in referencing Sinek’s clip, the learning we are experiencing right now gives me hope and affirms the work we have been striving for at Blake - and, we will keep striving to grow and learn.
Seemingly overnight, K-12 education shifted from a system of compliance and conformity to an online enterprise, one that would hopefully provide students with authentic academic enrichment. Many K-12 districts now mandate no grades, no attendance, and no accountability measures. The classroom walls have been ripped down, the rules of schooling have been thrown out the window, and teachers can only hope and pray for student engagement.
This is an opportunity to reflect on our teaching. Educators need to embrace the vulnerability, knowing that it can set the stage for creativity and innovation. I believe Shelter-in-Place will lead to positive outcomes in education. I see a push for all the things I have dreamed about: curiosity, innovation, and learning for the sake of learning. I see a push to provide learning opportunities that feed students’ curiosity. I see a push to ditch grades completely, fostering growth and learning through descriptive feedback.
Distance learning during COVID-19 is an opportunity for educators to reflect on the effectiveness of their pedagogy. During this time, students will disengage for many reasons: lack of reliable internet, demanding work schedules, challenging family dynamics, and myriad other reasons. But let's make sure they didn’t disengage because we failed to provide opportunities that challenge and inspire. Our learners are naturally curious: they want to explore new horizons and possibilities. To maintain “customer loyalty” teachers need to engage them in innovative ways.
Ultimately, it’s not if we build it, but how we build it that will determine student engagement.
This Pause in Our Lives Can Lead to Reflection and Greater Fulfillment
by Robin Stern, Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, and Nicole Elbertson from Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence
This post highlights research on fulfillment and the ‘lessons’ we can hopefully find and learn during this ‘pause’ in our lives. The research highlights altruism and intrinsic motivation as two key factors leading to fulfillment - in many ways, it highlights the responses shared by our staff this week when asked the question, ‘Why did you get into teaching?’
Most of us don’t think much about fulfillment. We simply don’t spend time considering its benefits, or whether we could achieve more of it. These essential questions tend to be pushed aside in favor of a race to produce, manage collegial relationships and what it will take to get to the next level, and then leaving on time to pick up our kids from school or head to the gym.
For many, this “pause” is an opportunity to gain perspective on the lives we live, the things that matter...if we do take the time to reflect on how we’re living our lives and on what matters most, then perhaps when life moves beyond this crisis moment into a “new normal” we will have a deeper understanding of what brings us fulfillment at work and at home.
What our research found may be what remains unsaid in today’s culture of success: helping others and simply enjoying or being challenged by our work are factors that lead to fulfillment — that is, feeling like we’re making a difference and being motivated by the joy and even the struggle that work provides.
The answer to finding fulfillment may be some combination of altruism and intrinsic motivation. We can ask ourselves, who am I serving? Who benefits from my work? How does my work contribute to the greater good? Is there something more or different I could be doing that would make a bigger difference in the world or in the lives of others?
During the pandemic, we can focus our attention on these questions and what we can take control of — and give gratitude for the opportunity. We can make plans to take steps toward achieving greater fulfillment, and take stock of the resources we have to support this intention and any obstacles in the way. Staying optimistic about what we can do will build our resilience and keep us moving in the direction of greater fulfillment — and that is something.
I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
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Enjoy the week and take care.
Nat