To encourage dialogue and reflection about the ways we each can help foster a supportive, caring, and inclusive community, our question of the week is: What can you do to help our community be supportive and inclusive? Be specific. Supporting One Another (Week of 5/29/22) (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
Hopefully everyone was able to embrace the 3-day ‘no homework weekend and take time for yourself. I mentioned to a few people at the end of the week that I was looking forward to an overcast, cloudy Saturday as it would help to give myself permission to just rest! It has been a few years (2019) since Memorial Day Weekend was spent catching up on rest from the annual 8th grade trip to Washington, D.C., yet I still made sure to take some naps!
Some thoughts and ‘shares’ as I have been processing, both internally and externally…
After hopping on the exercise bike for a quick ‘release’ on Friday afternoon, it was nice to go to Owen’s last baseball game of the spring season with Grayden and Katie. It felt like spring to me and the colors in the sky brought forth a sense of light - a light that felt needed. As I waited for our takeout order of pizza to be ready before watching the Celtics game, I scrolled through my Twitter feed and came across the poem that Amanda Gorman had written in response to the tragedy, Hymn for the Hurting. I have shared it with many and have kept coming back to her words as a source of solace, centering, and affirmation. These two stanzas stood out..
This alarm is how we know
We must be altered --
That we must differ or die,
That we must triumph or try.
Thus while hate cannot be terminated,
It can be transformed
Into a love that lets us live.
Maybe everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed & strange.
But only when everything hurts
May everything change.
I made the choice, sometimes a difficult one for me, to sleep in on Saturday morning and ‘give in’ to the exhaustion. I do not do that enough and it was needed. After doing the Wordle when I woke up, I started mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and Twitter and this post from Julie Lythcott-Haims (@jlythcotthaims) was at the top of my feed…
There are a lot of things happening in the news right now that can make us feel hopeless. But here's what I'm hanging on to.
Two Quotations
Katie Martin’s (@katiemartinedu) weekly newsletter, Bright Spots, is one I recommend to everyone, educators and non-educators alike. This week’s ‘title’ was ‘A Moment of Collection and Healing’, and within she referenced Dr. Susan Enfield (@SuptEnfield), Superintendent of Highline Public Schools in Washington, and the ‘Highline Promise’ – a vow to know every student by name, strength, and need so they graduate prepared for the future they choose.
Header/Intro…
I just finished recording a podcast with Dr. Susan Enfield, Superintendent at Highline Public Schools, and we discussed the importance of what she calls The Highline Promise, a vow to know every student by name, strength, and need so they graduate prepared for the future they choose. Foundational to this promise is slowing down to connect, prioritizing relationships, and making time to ensure that young people are not invisible in schools, homes, and communities.
Message Within…
Taking Time to Listen to Students
When we treat all students as the same and neglect to connect and ensure they feel seen and valued, we can ostracize those who need the guidance and support most.
Becca shared her hopes and dream of attending a school that was intentionally designed for connection, belonging, and meaningful learning. She said, “If I feel like I belong, I will be able to connect and share my ideas.”
Strategies that Becca shares don’t necessarily cost the most money, but they do require us to prioritize time, resources, and connections differently.
Taking time to listen to our students has always mattered and if we want to be learner-centered not only in words, but in actions, we have to listen, elevate, and act on what our students are telling us. They have big feelings and great ideas and it’s imperative that we lean in and listen to what they need.
A Relevant and Timeless Post
Getting Curious (Not Furious) With Students
by Rebecca Alber in Edutopia
Getting curious on the part of the teacher looks like this: Why might the student be behaving this way? What might be some contributing factors? Might this be a reaction to fear or insecurity? Might she be scared, hungry, lonely, or tired? Instead of defaulting immediately to a disciplinary measure (detention, off to the principal's office, a time out), the teacher chooses to first ask the child: How are you? Are you okay today? How can I help? Is there anything you would like to talk about?
What is this truly about? It's about us moving more towards what I like to call classrooms of care -- an antithetical turn or very intentional detour from the institution of schooling. When we do this, we humanize ourselves with our students and create spaces for them to do the same, going beyond the singular dimension of "teacher" and singular dimension of "student." A classroom no longer seems sterile, regimented, or threatening. In this transformation, more and more classrooms become communities of care, discovery, and learning (for students and teachers).
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? And, why?
- Budapest, Hungary ~ My great-grandparents came to the U.S. from Hungary in the early 1900's, and I've always wanted to see their homeland.
- Disney because it's a happy place to be and its fun or the beach
- I would go to Chicago because of the architecture.
- I would travel to Italy! I'd love to taste the food and see the grave of Italo Calvino!
- If I could go anywhere in the world, it would be Hawaii
- I would love to visit every town in Massachusetts for a day. I would get breakfast or lunch at the local "spot" and find the best place to enjoy nature there, either going for a run or a hike.
- Honduras because my family is from there
- Iceland because there are a lot of cool things to see.
- I would go to Nashville Tennessee because I love country music! I would like to visit the country hall of fame and eat some good food! Also meet some of my favored artists!
As I have done the past two years in the spirit of a symbolic nod to the nostalgia and missing our 8th grade trip, I am sharing quotes from the trip three years ago - these words are pertinent and relevant for all of our learners and our community…
If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that's a good picture. - Eddie Adams
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world, you are no wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar. - Edward R. Murrow
The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth on them. - Ida B. Wells
Let us gear ourselves to the great task of mapping out a pathway that will truly lead to a better world for us all. - Mary McLeod Bethune
I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom. - Nelson Mandela
We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. - MLK, Jr.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. - MLK, Jr.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. - MLK, Jr.
I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust. - FDR
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. - FDR
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans. - JFK, Jr.
For the dead and the living we must bear witness. - Elie Wiesel
With just three weeks left in this school year, I hope we can all #slowitdown and take each moment to be present, find and create sources of hope and light, and support one another
As always, let me know of any questions/concerns.
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Take care.
Nat