To encourage dialogue and reflection about the importance of finding value in other people and in ourselves, our question for the week is: What can we do to help make other people feel valued? Valuing Others (Week of 11/7/22) (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
With this summer-like weather continuing, it has been so nice to be outside as much as we can. Katie and her mother visited Maggie in NYC on Friday night, and the boys and I had a quiet Saturday after going to Holliston’s playoff football game Friday evening. The additional hour of sleep felt like a gift (although I am not looking forward to the early onset of darkness!), and we had a nice time at the MCPE Fall ball. On Sunday we enjoyed some football and time outside, before heading to the annual Guy Fawkes gathering held by some of our British friends.
Across the U.S., our schools are struggling to serve all students, and to help all students succeed. On the journey to create more equitable schools, teachers make thousands of choices each day that impact the lives of their students. From Oakland, CA to Boston, MA, we follow teachers into the space where real change happens: the classroom. As educators grapple to find out what every student needs, they’re working to make school a place where all students can thrive.
We Have to Do Something Different is designed to help educators make change in their own schools. The film provokes important conversations about the big challenges facing schools by taking a detailed look at the small steps teachers around the country are taking every day to help their students succeed. These dedicated teachers provide hope that, while the systemic inequities in our schools won’t disappear overnight, educators can make a positive impact, starting now.
After the film there was a brief question/answer session and the discussions were pertinent, relevant, thoughtful, and reflective. I hope that we can take some time as a staff to view and discuss it, as there are many direct and indirect connections for our students, staff, and community. As we were driving home, both Katie and I were struck by some of the underlying themes we both ‘took away’. At the heart of the different vignettes and interviews in the film was the importance of relationships with our students (and within the culture of the schools) and the shared desire/need for all individuals, students and adults alike, to be seen and feel valued. What this looks like in reality on a day-to-day experience for all will certainly be different and, at least for me, sometimes is ‘easier said than done’. However, that focus/mantra is one I find centering. It provides a foundation and an entry point for our efforts and, in turn, a path that leads to learning and growth.
I look forward to broadening these conversations in the coming days/months and am sharing some of my ‘brain dump’ notes from the evening below - some may require a bit more context than others, but I welcome questions, conversations, and dialogue.
Notes/Mindsets/Take-aways
- Relationships first
- They need more opportunity
- You need to know yourself to teach
- Focus on the assets
- If you want something out of a child, accuse them of it
- I can’t control a lot of things but I can control what I think about our students
- Don’t figure out what’s broken in kids - figure out what’s amazing in them
- Don’t ask what’s wrong with this kid - ask what happened to this kid
- Every kid wants to be a good student
- Design for the kids at the margins
- Allow students to define what success looks like in a project
- Kids have different minds and interests that pull them forward
- Our job is to make sense of what is happening in our world
- We need to unpack their own sense of identity
- To open myself to the world, I need a strong sense of self
- Is my identity valued and held in our community?
- Design often involves balancing tensions
- Asset framing vs deficit thinking
- Kneel down with your students (be with them)
- Be an accuser of extraordinary things
- Scale makes a difference
- Can you find ways to slow it down?
- Stop pretending like the world is not on fire
- Keep humanity at the center of education
Towards the end of the evening, Justin Reich shared the ‘Someday/Monday’ framework (‘Someday I will…’, ‘Monday I will…’) and encouraged all attendees to reflect upon our own thoughts for these prompts. There are many ‘somedays’ I walked away with, but my primary ‘Monday’ was to keep asking questions of students and increase my efforts to ‘double down’ on listening. And, one of my ‘somedays’ was to work on establishing more systems that allow all of us to listen more - to our students, ourselves, our families, and one another. From my own experience as a child and as an adult, I feel more valued when I know someone is listening - and, taking it to another level of connection, when the listener is ‘listening to understand’ rather than ‘listening to respond’.
The post below highlights excerpts from an interview with Geoffrey L. Cohen, the author of Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides, and a professor of psychology and the James G. March Professor of Organizational Studies in Education and Business at Stanford University. It speaks to the need to feel connected and offers some insight for me as an educator and a parent of adolescents. The suggestions within, grounded in research, speak to the importance of listening (broadly defined) and how that practice can deepen the self-worth of others as they help to define and shape their own identities. And, in asking questions and listening, we can help our students to grow and further own interests, while building their own skills as learners and individuals.
'Do I Belong or Not?' How to Help Students Navigate Social Relationships (Opinion)
By Geoffrey L. Cohen in Education Week
We need other people to survive. As social species, we have evolved to be exquisitely attuned to whether or not we’re included by other people in our group. The need to belong is encoded into our DNA.
…when you’re an outsider, you start to wonder: Is there a formula to fitting in? Is there something about the clothes I’m wearing? Is there something about how I talk? And when you start to find your tribe—and begin to feel you’re part of a group and have an actual community—it’s magical. I think almost all of us go through this during adolescence.
Listen to your kids. Our instinct is to pour information into kids. But when we lecture or criticize teens, they shut down. We also deprive ourselves of the opportunity to learn and connect.
One of the things I told my kids—your years in middle school and high school, they’re just a tiny portion of a huge life. I remember in my own case, it was really easy to feel like this little bit of real estate in time was everything when, in fact, life is very long. Things do change. Things can get better, and you can grow. And so can others.
The most powerful psychological message you can send is: You’re not alone. People go through what you’ve gone through, it’s normal, and things can get better. Things will get better, with time, effort, and strategy—and we’ll get through it together.
Sampling of Responses from Last Week’s ‘Question of the Week’: What is something (skill, craft, activity, etc.) you hope to master?
- My artwork
- Life
- Math skills
- Ukulele
- My writing
- How to listen better
- I want to master batting/hitting.
- Public speaking
- I would like to master dribbling in basketball
- I want to land a 360 on skis.
- To juggle a soccer ball more than the record I already hold
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Take care.
Nat