To help encourage conversations and dialogue about the ways we intentionally make use of the time we have, our question of the week is: What are you looking forward to doing or hoping to do over the vacation week? Taking the Time (Week of 2/7/21) (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
I have shared before that time has felt like a blur in so many ways as of late - things are moving rather quickly (how is vacation already here?), while I also find myself bogged down by what has felt like the never ending reality of our altered shared existence since last March. This past weekend was a mix of quiet and busy, and we also celebrated Katie’s birthday on Sunday! I came across this quote on Friday evening and I thought it was appropriate to share as we all look towards a break from our routines (by no means am I implying that we are failing!)...
On our remote snow day this past week, I took some time to pause and reflect on the last month and the last 12 months as well - both personally and professionally. In so doing I realized that I forgot (neglected?) to carry forth a practice/tradition of formally setting/sharing intentions for the year along with some influential posts/resources from the prior calendar year. To be honest, my initial reaction was disappointment in myself - that may read as an extreme reaction, but for whatever reason, that is what I first felt. After working through that a bit, I paused and recognized that I can’t look back and recreate a process - I will simply take the time this weekend (now) to share. So, here goes with a potpourri of reflections and sharings - some that look backward and some that look forward, but all with an eye towards moving forward and acting as a community of curious learners…
Resolutions/Intentions for the 2021 calendar year (some carry-overs from previous years)...
- #slowingitdown with intentional time for self-reflection, mindfulness, and growth
- Defining ‘personal time’ and ‘professional time’ (an uphill climb for me)
- Intentionally strive to be anti-racist by integrating social justice, equity, diversion, and inclusion into all facets (personal, professional, leadership)
- Practice #willfulaction with #willfulhope
- Lead with flexibility, understanding, and grace
- Explore musical interests (playing and listening)
- Listening to understand rather than listening to respond
- Embrace and model authenticity and vulnerability
- Explore ways to 'go deeper' and find more meaning
- Think about ways to connect more directly with students (focus groups, check-ins, discussions)
- Broaden and redefine some methods of sharing and growing (networking, connecting, collaborating) within Blake, Medfield, and beyond
- Be open to the ideology of those who do not share my thinking and better understand those views (ask questions and be genuinely curious for feedback)
- Be a mirror for others and ask others to do the same for me
- Articulate and focus on the 'good problems'
- Foster leadership at all levels (students, staff, parents, and community), balancing ownership with healthy delegation and growth for others
- Stay the course and keep the 'big picture' in mind at all times
- 'Lean towards yes' and maintain the mission of our mantra, 'a willingness to adapt'
2020’s Influential Posts
These are not necessarily the ‘top posts’ - rather that are ones that have held meaning for me, our collective work, and our community of learners (many of these may read as unique to this period of remote/hybrid learning, but my firm belief is that they hold true for learning at all times)…
A Nobel Laureate’s Mind-Blowing Perspective On The Ultimate Outcome Of An Education
by Brandon Busteed in Forbes
Spend More Time Planting Seeds and Less Time Measuring Vines
by Jon Harper (@jonharper70)
What's the Goal of Education?
by Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby)
The Dangers of Screen Time . . . in 1440
by Douglas Reeves
The Grief of Accepting New Ideas
by Rick Wormeli (@rickwormeli2)
Opinion | Why Can't Everyone Get A's?
by Alfie Kohn in The New York Times
GENER(aliz)ATIONS
by Alfie Kohn (@alfiekohn)
Show What You Know: A Parent’s Guide To The Global Shift To Competency
by Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark) in Forbes
Why Focusing On Adult Learning Builds A School Culture Where Students Thrive
by Katrina Schwartz (@KSchwart) in MindShift
Do You Have the Backbone for a PLN?
by Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby)
Pedagogy vs. Andragogy
by Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby)
We must reverse the ‘outcome oriented’ educational monster we have unleashed
by Cathy Davidson in The Guardian
The Joy and Sorrow of Rereading Holt’s "How Children Learn"
by Peter Gray in Psychology Today
The Path to Success Is a Squiggly Line
by Madeline Levine in The Atlantic
Discovering Learning or Delivering an Education
by Will Richardson (@willrich45)
School as Fiction
by Will Richardson (@willrich45)
Low floor, wide walls, high ceiling
by Mitch Resnick (@mres)
Seven Reasons to Geek Out on Educational Theory
by John Spencer (@spencerideas)
What teenage brains can teach us about thinking creatively
by Steven Johnson in The Washington Post
I Refuse to Run a Coronavirus Home School
by Jennie Weiner in The New York Times
It's Time to Keep School Alive When We Shut the Doors
By Ewan McIntosh (@ewanmcintosh)
Where's the Silver Lining for Education?
By Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby)
That Discomfort You're Feeling Is Grief
by Scott Berinato in Harvard Business Review
This Is the Time
by Dean Shareski (@shareski)
Teaching Without Compulsory School
by Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann)
The Parent Opportunity
by Will Richardson (@willrich45)
Bill Withers' 'Lean on Me' Is a Song for Every Crisis -- Especially This One
By Daniel Kreps in Rolling Stone
Keep It Simple, Schools
by Justin Reich (@bjfr) in Educational Leadership
Being OK With Discomfort
by Leigh A. Hall (@leighahall)
Embrace the Messiness of Learning
by Megan M. Allen in Education Week Teacher
The Secret to Schools that Keep Getting Better
by Justin Reich (@bjfr) in Education Week
“New Normal” of Education, Start With the “Old Normal” of Learning
by Will Richardson (@willrich45)
If You Build It Will They Come? (How Distance Learning Could Change Education)
by Rachael Kettner-Thompson
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
Leaning Into The Innovation Opportunity
by Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark) in Forbes
Has This Crisis Really Changed Schools?
by Will Richardson (@willrich45)
What It Means to be Anti-Racist
by Anna North in Vox
Five Things Not To Do When Schools Re-open
by Pasi Sahlberg (@pasi_sahlberg)
What If We Tried “Radical Acts of Education”?
by Homa Tavangar and Will Richardson in Big Questions Institute
A School Year to Make a Difference
by Anthony Rebora in Educational Leadership
Do We Have the "Situational Awareness" to Navigate Into the Future?
by Homa Tavangar (@HomaTav) and Will Richardson (@willrich45)
Grading to Encourage Re-Learning
by Bryan Goodwin and Kris Rouleau in Educational Leadership
What Is Truly the Meaning Behind Words Like 'Disadvantaged' and 'Disengaged'?
by Peter DeWitt (@PeterMDeWitt) in Education Week
Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed at Fifty
by Liza Featherstone in JSTOR Daily
How much learning is really ‘lost’ when children aren’t in school buildings?
by Valerie Strauss in The Washington Post
Are We In a “Talk – Walk Gap”?
by Will Richardson (@willrich45) and Homa Tavangar (@HomaTav)
Forget About Making This School Year as Normal as Possible
by Vicki Abeles (@VickiAbeles) in The Boston Globe
In Schools, Are We Measuring What Matters?
by Stephen Merrill in Edutopia
We Don’t Value Education. We Value The Credential.
by Brandon Busteed in Forbes
To Engage Students, Focus on Connection Over Content
by Katie Martin (@katiemartinedu)
Does a Single Story Define You?
by Samantha Boardman in Psychology Today
School Wasn’t So Great Before COVID, Either
by Erika Christakis in The Atlantic
Falsehoods We Believe about Grading and Reporting | NGLC
by Gary Chapin (@GaryChapin67) in NGLC (Next Generation Learning Challenges)
Turn & Talk / "Antiracist" Grading Starts with You
Interview between Sarah McKibben and Cornelius Minor in Educational Leadership
The Dangers of Standardized Testing and Why We Need to Slay the Beast
by Bruce Dixon (@bruceadixon)
Learning Uncertainty
by Pasi Sahlberg (@pasi_sahlberg) and Saku Tuominen (@sakuidealist)
Processes and Principles for Public Schools Navigating Uncertainty and Adapting to Change
by Eric Tucker, Ashley Deal, Raelynn OLeary and Sarah Pactor in Getting Smart
The Tests Are Lousy, So How Could the Scores Be Meaningful?
by Alfie Kohn (@alkfiekohn)
How to Be an Antiracist Educator: An Interview With Ibram X. Kendi
by Rebecca Koenig in EdSurge
What Covid-19 Revealed About Schools and Education - Make Schools More Human
by Jal Mehta (@jal_mehta) in The New York Times
Two Posts to Frame Our Reflections, Learnings, and Action
The two posts below are ones that have helped to center me, challenge my own thinking, reflect, and to frame/map a vision that I hope we can all embrace for ALL of our learners. Margaret Wheatley’s post is one I have shared before and Beth Holland’s post is from January, 2021 (again, one I have shared a lot over the last few weeks). For those who do not know Beth, she used to work for EdTechTeacher and provided professional development for a number of years to the Blake/Medfield staff. She certainly is a gifted writer and a researcher/educator to the core with a keen eye for 'speaking truth' and providing context. They both look backwards with a foundation of curiosity - encouraging us to look forwards in a productive, progressive, creative, and honest manner.
Willing to Be Disturbed
by Margaret Wheatley
This piece is an excerpt from Wheatley’s book, Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, and the phrase ‘willing to be disturbed’ is one that helps to open up conversations. This mantra will help us to listen to one another and examine our own practices - a key component of a learning community. There is much about this excerpt that I love, but the creativity element really speaks to me today.
As we work together to restore hope to the future, we need to include a new and strange ally—our willingness to be disturbed. Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas challenged by what others think. No one person or perspective can give us the answers we need to the problems of today. Paradoxically, we can only find those answers by admitting we don’t know. We have to be willing to let go of our certainty and expect ourselves to be confused for a time.
It is very difficult to give up our certainties—our positions, our beliefs, our explanations. These help define us; they lie at the heart of our personal identity. Yet I believe we will succeed in changing this world only if we can think and work together in new ways. Curiosity is what we need. We don’t have to let go of what we believe, but we do need to be curious about what someone else believes. We do need to acknowledge that their way of interpreting the world might be essential to our survival.
Sometimes we hesitate to listen for differences because we don’t want to change. We’re comfortable with our lives, and if we listened to anyone who raised questions, we’d have to get engaged in changing things. If we don’t listen, things can stay as they are and we won’t have to expend any energy. But most of us do see things in our life or in the world that we would like to be different. If that’s true, we have to listen more, not less. And we have to be willing to move into the very uncomfortable place of uncertainty.
We can’t be creative if we refuse to be confused. Change always starts with confusion; cherished interpretations must dissolve to make way for the new. Of course it’s scary to give up what we know, but the abyss is where newness lives. Great ideas and inventions miraculously appear in the space of not knowing. If we can move through the fear and enter the abyss, we are rewarded greatly. We rediscover we’re creative.
We Were Warned
by Beth Holland (@brholland)
Beth typically writes an 'end of year post' with predictions for the next calendar year. I touched base with her at the end of 2020 and she told me she was thinking about writing one. After the events on 1/6, she wrote this post and shared it with me back in mid-January. I echo the sentiments and hope that we do not 'sleep through this wake-up call' that we have all experienced. It speaks to a lot of the conversations we have and have had - also provides context for the need to push against 'the norms' that Beth notes have unfortunately become so embedded into the 'culture of schools'.
'Instead of evolving into a system that valued and honored ALL students, American public education largely institutionalized structures intended to sort and rank individuals so that existing power structures remained fully entrenched.'
Two Quotes to Frame Our Reflections, Learnings, and Action
The words below speak for themselves and are ones I hope we can instill for ourselves, our students, and our communities...
- Make it fun
- You can try to keep them engaged and try to make the learning fun so it doesn't feel like learning
- We need to provide plenty of choice where applicable. By identifying the core skills being practiced and allowing choice in what those skills are applied and practiced through, students are able to pursue learning by also engaging in their own interests.
- We can make it smooth, exciting, encouraging, and enjoyable.
- Teach with enthusiasm and provide a variety of ways for students to access information within our lessons.
- I think to help learners love learning you can keep making lessons fun and enjoyable.
And, as always, some words that have been shared in the past that continue to offer perspective, inspiration, guidance, and #willfulhope...
We are going to make the path by walking it. - Colby Swettberg
We can't teach what we don't know. We can't lead where we won't go. - Malcolm X
If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. - Charlie Parker
As always, let me know of any questions/concerns.
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Take care.
Nat
#willfulhope #willfulaction #longasIcanseethelight