To help encourage conversations and dialogue about learning and making steps towards progress, our topic/question of the week is: What action can you take today or this week to improve the learning environment at Blake? We Need to Start Somewhere - Take a Step (Week of 3/17/19) (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.
After attending MassCue’s Spring Leadership Conference (Lead with Courage) on Friday at Holy Cross, I found myself energized and full of ideas on the way home. Coupling that energy with the quite welcome warmer temperatures and spring-like weather (so good to see some crocuses in the yard!), a run without gloves and all the winter gear was a great way to start the weekend. It has been a low-key weekend (the lull before the upcoming storm of spring activities kicking in) and we did our best to ‘just be’ - getting outside, watching some college basketball, reading, and resting.
(Fair warning - it has been a particularly reflective week)...
One of the challenges I often hear and encounter myself is the feeling of being overwhelmed by all of these ideas and initiatives. Questions always arise...Where do you start? Which one takes precedence? How do we know these work? What does the research say? With so many initiatives going on, how do we do anything well? In addition to these questions, as leaders we are very often told the cautionary tales of ‘initiative overload’ - go slowly and take on only one or two things at a time. I truly struggle with this dynamic as an educator and as a leader - and it took me right back to a blog post I shared back in April, 2017 referencing one of my favorite quotes from Ted Sizer...
Last Sunday afternoon when I was catching up on reading some educational periodicals (one of my favorite things to do, as you know), I came across these words from one of my true inspirations in education, Ted Sizer. Sizer was the founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools and considered one of the strong advocates for educational reform and progressive thinking, asking questions, posing solutions, and engaging in dialogue. We often talk about all of the initiatives that are taking place, at both local and global levels, and the challenge of addressing all of them at once. This can certainly be an observation made at Blake as well - how can we address the needs of all of our students on a day-to-day basis while also engaging in discussions about other shifts in our practices? Some of the shifts are small, while others may feel seismic. Sizer's words resonate with me as I firmly believe that we can not talk about any of our practices in isolation as they are an interconnected web...we can not talk about homework without talking about grading; we can not talk about grading with out talking about feedback; we can not talk about feedback without talking about assessments; we can not talk about assessments without talking about curricula; we can not talk about curricula without talking about the social-emotional needs of our students; we can not talk about the social-emotional needs of our students without talking about professional development; we can not talk about professional development without talking about scheduling and structures; the list could go on and on. So, how can this take place? I may be sounding like a 'broken record' as I believe I have been coming back to this guiding principle each week - it is our mission and essential question that guide the practice and will be the 'glue'...
Essential Question: How can we cultivate and curate the progression of student learning and growth?
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.
These thoughts still hold true in my mind and I welcome the dialogue with others about this ‘struggle’ we face as educators - trying to move things forward while balancing everything at the same time. And I really do not have the answers, but I welcome the conversations and dialogue. We all learn from one another and I value all of the voices, thoughts, ideas, pushback, challenges, successes, affirmation, and skepticism.
To hopefully foster more dialogue about learning and ideas, I am sharing some of my notes from my recent ‘listening sessions’, along with an article highlighting Robert Kegan’s work referenced at #MALeads19 and the responses to this past week’s Topic/Question - please know that my door is always open to discuss, share, ask questions, and listen…
A few notes from Dr. Martha Murray’s talk to our 8th graders…
- Make personal connections with your work
- Follow your interests
- Always ask yourself: What problem do you want to solve?
Notes/thoughts/mindsets from #MALeads19
These come from two particular sessions…
Julie Wilson (@JulieMargretta), keynote speaker and author of The Human Side of Changing Education: How to Lead Change With Clarity, Conviction, and Courage and a presentation on Personalized Learning given by Dr. Mario Andrade (@MarioJAndrade), Superintendent of the Bristol Warren Regional Schools, and Tom Driscoll (@Mr_Driscoll), Director of Digital Learning for Bristol Warren
- 4 questions from David Perkins
- What’s worth learning?
- How’s it best learned?
- How can we get it taught that way?
- How do we know it has been learned?
- What’s worth learning?
- We are living in a VUCA world
- Volatility
- Uncertainty
- Complexity
- Ambiguity
- Volatility
- I was 23 before a mentor had actually asked me what did I think
- Why are we preparing children for the real world?
- They are in the real world
- They are in the real world
- Culture will reflect pedagogy and pedagogy will reflect culture
- School is based in ‘grounded in knowing’
- Worst response used to be ‘I don’t know’
- Worst response used to be ‘I don’t know’
- 5 Dysfunctions of a Team - a book by Patrick Lencioni (for Dept Chairs?)
- Absence of trust—unwilling to be vulnerable within the group
- Fear of conflict—seeking artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate
- Lack of commitment—feigning buy-in for group decisions creates ambiguity throughout the organization
- Avoidance of accountability—ducking the responsibility to call peers on counterproductive behavior which sets low standards
- Inattention to results—focusing on personal success, status and ego before team success
- Absence of trust—unwilling to be vulnerable within the group
- Robert Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development (see post below)
- Five Success Factors for Change
- Sustained Leadership and a Visionary School Board
- A Shared Vision of the Change
- Unleashing Talent and Building Teams
- Rethinking the Use of Transcript and Space
- Overhauling the Assessment Structure of Learning and School Performance
- Sustained Leadership and a Visionary School Board
- Notion of RFL rather than RFP
- ‘Request for Learning’ vs ‘Request for Proposal’
- ‘Request for Learning’ vs ‘Request for Proposal’
- Most important work - assessment
- 3 Changes…
- Directed Change
- Planned Change
- Iterative Change
- Directed Change
- Marathon, not a sprint
- It’s more of a marathon relay - this is generational work
- We are passing on the baton
- It’s more of a marathon relay - this is generational work
- The Hero’s Journey
- If every single person takes action, we would have a tidal wave of change
- Don’t start with the knee-jerk reaction to the question of ‘How can I help?’ with ‘I’m fine’
- Heed your call to adventure
- Digital Promise - League of Innovative Schools
- Launching Innovation in Schools
- In a few words, what are some common elements of personalized learning environments?
- Equity at the heart
- Equity at the heart
- Learner Variability Project
- Be intentional about teaching
- Teach how to make choices
- Teach how to be independent
- Teach how to make choices
Notes from Jim James’s (owner of Park Street Books in Medfield) talk to our 8th graders…
- Flexibility of thought and maturity are critical
- Never have the arrogance that you can do something better than someone else
- Browsing is the process of serendipity
- Always give - you will get back
- ‘I’m not a fast learner’ - I keep working at it
- Your name has a value
- Everybody has something going on - keep that in mind
- Try and love everyone - even those who have done you wrong
- You can get over some of your fears by facing them
- Love what you do
- Listen intently - you will never regret it
Part 1: How To Be An Adult— Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development
by Natali Morad in Medium
Mentioned by Julie Wilson in her keynote at #MALeads19, this post introduces us to Robert Kegan’s work and theory on adult development. As we examine our own practices and growth as adults and educators, it is important to gain a greater understanding of self and where we are on the path. The concepts of ‘Transformation’ and ‘Subject-Object’ shift are outlined, along with an introduction to the 5 Stages…
Where you at? Kegan’s Stages of Adult Development
- Stage 1 — Impulsive mind (early childhood)
- Stage 2 — Imperial mind (adolescence, 6% of adult population)
- Stage 3 — Socialized mind (58% of the adult population)
- Stage 4 — Self-Authoring mind (35% of the adult population)
- Stage 5 — Self-Transforming mind (1% of the adult population)
...most of us — about 65% of the general population — never become high functioning ‘adults’, i.e. we never make it past Stage 3 (out of 5 Stages!). We still lack an independent sense of self because so much of what we think, believe, and feel is dependent on how we think others experience us.
According to Kegan, becoming an adult isn’t about learning new things (adding things to the ‘container’ of the mind), it’s about transformation — changing the way we know and understand the world (changing the actual form of our ‘container’).
Transitioning to higher stages requires a subject-object shift — moving what we ‘know’ from Subject (where it is controlling us) to Object (where we can control it). This is my favorite part of the theory. It’s based on the premise that the more in of our lives we take as Object, the more clearly we can see the world, ourselves and the people in it.
Topic/Question of the Week (Week of 3/11/19): What can you do to be a better listener? Be specific.
- Resisting the urge to fill a conversation with your own voice is the key to being a good listener. Rather than planning what you will say next, focus on genuinely hearing the person that you are with. It is also important to eliminate other distractions (like a screen) and provide the speaker with your full attention.
- Ask questions and listen to answers. Ask more questions from their responses
- Remind yourself that it’s not all about you. Everyone matters just as much as you, and when they speak you need to listen.
- 1) clear your opinions 2) open your mind 3) be quiet inside and out 4) eliminate distractions
- I’ve started saying “I want to listen to your answer carefully. “ when I ask a question. It signals to my Brain to not talk
- Maybe I think that I can try not to get distracted by the things around the room, and try to understand and listen because these teachers worked sooooo hard to make us smarter every second.
- I once read a book Tao in the Martial Arts, and at one point in the book the Sensei took a full cup of tea and started to pour more in. As the cup overflowed he pointed out that if you can not empty your cup there is no room for “more” sometimes being a better listener is emptying your cup and approaching the conversation with an open mind ready for new info, rather than waiting to simply impart what you already know.
- Get more sleep
So, where do we go with all of this? I think the key is that we simply start and continue taking active steps. It’s not easy and the path is not direct - but, the process of the struggle is where the learning takes place. In reflecting upon this notion (one that is indeed hard for me) I often come back to work we have done with Christi Barney...
Considering and Reconsidering - May 23, 2017 (excerpt below)
Christi Barney's words from both professional development and conversations have helped to frame this thinking - 'The struggle IS the treatment' - and, the treatment is the learning. She shared that the phrase helps to to remember 'that it is actually in the service of mastery for kids to struggle and make baby steps forward.' Wise words, indeed - and, ones that we should remember for ourselves and one another. Please remind me of this often so I can consider, and reconsider, my actions, thinking, and beliefs - and, I will continue to try and do the same for all of you.
Throughout the month of March I am continuing to share words in honor of Women’s History Month - this week’s come from Madeline Albright and Malala Yousafzai...
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Take care.
Nat