I hope that this update finds everyone rested and relaxed after an (almost) full week of school. Our weekend was great - dinner out Friday night with the kids, sports on Saturday, and a nice bike ride with the kids. We enjoyed celebrating Grayden's fifth birthday on Sunday afternoon with a monster truck party (see pic below). After the party we were able to relax and enjoy the Pats game on DVR - Owen's favorite part of autumn!
It is always a tough transition in pace as we adjust to the beginning of the school year, with the metaphor of going from 0 to 90 mph holding true. I value reflection a great deal, as you know, and during these transitional times it is hard to fit that practice into the daily routine. The 8th grade PIN Thursday evening, though, provided a necessary opportunity for me to take a step back with a bird's eye view on the work we are doing at Blake. Setting the 'natural nerves' aside that come about with parent evenings, I thoroughly enjoy these events as they provide a forum to articulate the goals and vision for our day-to-day efforts, essentially outlining how we are 'living' the mission statement. As we start the year with our syllabi, curriculum maps, and goals, we often about what it is we teach and how we are going to teach. With some of the mindsets I have shared and readings I have come across of late, I find myself shifting the focus from teaching to learning - asking myself 'how we learn' and 'how it is that we teach learning'. It is not that answering the question of 'how we teach' or 'what we teach' are bad questions to ask; rather, I think we can ask a better one - 'How are we teaching the learning of the curriculum?'. I think it is a simple nuance in the language/question, but one worth thinking about.
At our opening faculty meeting I shared a question/mindset (Would your students come to school if they didn't have to?) from an article by Peter DeWitt that highlights the focus on teaching learning. This question came from Sarah Martin and is one that I believe is essential to the work we are doing each day. This week I am sharing this article and a couple other posts that tie to this theme of learning and the practice of teaching learning...
Would Your Students Come to School if They Didn't Have To?
by Peter DeWitt (@PeterMDeWitt) in Education Week
"It seems that people forget that the reason that our students come to school, no matter what age, is to learn and to grow. That does not mean we can't focus on academic learning and social-emotional skills., because those areas are the reasons students should come to school. Social-emotional learning is important for those students who feel alone in the hallway, and will help them not just find friends, but find the right friends. Academic learning is what we should do to make sure that students exceed their own expectations as well as ours."
How Does the Brain Learn Best? Smart Studying Strategies
by Ingfei Chen in MindShift
This post by Chen highlights and references a book by Benedict Carey entitled How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens. Within this post Chen shares Carey's three 'take-home messages' about learning: forgetting isn't always bad; the brain is a foraging learner; we can be tactical in our schooling.
"Students need to understand that learning happens not only during reading and studying, but in all sorts of ways, so that they can examine their own habits to know which ones may be helping or not, and make adjustments, he said. Only then can they evaluate whether they’re good at something."
I encourage you, when you have the time, to take a look at this corresponding quiz about 'teaching the art of learning', and it can also serve as an interesting conversation/discussion with our students...
Quiz Yourself: How Good Are You at Teaching the Art of Learning?
With the learning process on the forefront of my mind this week, it has been a real joy to hear about the professional growth and learning that took place for the Blake staff this past summer. Thanks to the content specialists, we have gathered a summary and I am sharing a link to the compilation (Blake Summer Learning and Endeavors 2014). As with last year you will see that learning is not always 'academic', and experiential learning is just as important. This is true for students and adults alike.
In a continued effort to share resources that may be helpful, I am sharing a post that was sent to me by a parent this week. As parents it can often feel like 'pulling teeth' to get any information from our children about their day. Katie and I can certainly attest to this, and I thought it was certainly worthy of passing along...
25 Ways to Ask Your Teens “How Was School Today?” WITHOUT asking them “How Was School Today?”
Hopefully these questions can help all of us keep the ideas of learning and teaching learning as we plan for our work.
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Take care.
Nat Vaughn