And we're back! I hope everyone enjoyed a well-deserved break and is ready to do some amazing work with kids over the next seven weeks. If you are like me, then the Friday afternoon before vacation is a little bit of a blur so I wanted to share some highlights and reminders from our work during the PD afternoon. If you recall, we played a game of "Would You Rather." While the room was split about if they would rather be a ninja or a pirate, everyone seemed to be in agreement with the answers to the following questions...
I also shared the following statement with all of you: We can't be teachers of writing if we are not "getting in the water" with our students. Some of you shared that you journal or write for yourself all the time. Others shared that you only write when taking classes. Others shared that they actually don't like writing. Doesn't matter where we are on the writing process continuum; we simply need to make sure we are modeling for our students. Not only is it helpful for us to show them our writing, it's helpful for us to experience what it's like to write with them. When we go through the process of writing, we can empathize with our students about how it's hard work to get thoughts out, to get them on the page, to revise, to edit. If we are going to teach our students to write, we also need to teach them to read like writers. We have mentor texts all around us. Remember that you don't even need to read a whole book to use it as a mentor text. You can focus on one page of a text or an article and help students to notice the different techniques that author is using. Help kids see that they can try out these techniques in their writing. It's not cheating to copy a technique. Encourage them to read like writers and have fun finding ideas, techniques, conventions in the books they are reading or you are sharing with them. Grade level teams spent some time talking and looking at the writing prompts. I know you all came up with some instructional moves that you are going to make based off of your students' writing. I didn't get to chat with every team, but I look forward to hearing how it's going at an upcoming grade level meeting. Remember to think about the writing and language standards, figure out where your students are, and then decide what skill you want to teach them. And remember some of these other tips to think about when you are working one on one or in small groups with your writers:
Happy writing! Did you get to do some reading over the vacation? I did some. Not as much as I wanted to, but I did do some. I also finished the vacation week by taking my son to Barnes and Noble and shopping for some new books. I was excited to pick up a new picture book by Jimmy Kimmel called The Serious Goose. Thinking that will be a fun read aloud. Over the break, I spent time reading the book Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature. I am slightly obsessed with reading memoirs and also have this goal in the back of my head about writing a memoir so it's been an interesting read for me.
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PoL Superheroes activate! Shape of an Inspired Learning Day! Form of Inspired Learners! (Ok, maybe I am taking the Avengers, Superheroes, Wonder Twin Powers combo thing a little too far?!) Reflecting on our Inspired Learning Day, I feel like amping up the Superhero concept and adding in incentives like POL tokens and stickers truly helped to bring the Portrait of a Learner competencies off of the posters on the wall and come to life in all of our classrooms. Thank you for being willing facilitators in what I felt like was a really inspiring day for our students and for us as educators as well. I tried to capture the day through photos and videos and I know many of you shared photos and videos with me, as well as our high school volunteers who came to help out. These two videos contain just a fraction of the awesomeness that I saw happening throughout the whole school. Watching kids collaborate, plan, listen to each other, make mistakes, solve problems, include everyone, and work as teams was simply amazing. I know in reflecting with many of you, you were pleasantly surprised at how students demonstrated the Portrait of a Learner competencies and successfully completed the design challenge at every grade level. One of my favorite experiences happened throughout the afternoon and on Friday as well. I either heard kids or they came up to me and shared how proud they were to be recognized for exhibiting their superpower. Whether it was being a mindful learner and thinking before they acted or being an inspired innovator and using flexible thinking, they were aware of their strengths, using the "I can" statements and excited about being recognized. I also heard students reminding each other about needing to use the different POL superpowers. I hope that we can continue to support the POL superpowers in action. Reference the "I can" statements when you see them happening. Remind the students that they each have the ability to use these superpowers. Let's keep the power of PoL going beyond Inspired Learning Day! The other amazing thing that I saw happening throughout the day on Inspired Learning Day was joy. Students were excited, they were smiling and laughing, and they were also teaching and learning from you and each other. How can we keep that joy factor going throughout the rest of the year? I wanted to share this insightful reflection written by a 4th grader. What a powerful statement! Students and staff will continue to work together and there will be bumps in the road, disagreements, challenges, but it will all lead to new ideas, new learning, new growth. I am really into listening to Prince Harry's book Spare. It's quite long so it's going to take me more car trips to finish! Looking forward to preparing a vacation reading list. What's on your list? Are you hoping to actually read a book for pleasure? Or maybe you have a professional development book that you have been wanting to dive into? Or maybe you are hoping to pre-read some of the books that you want to share with your students? I know we often feel like we never have time, but I find if I make a reading plan, especially during a vacation week, then I am able to find the time to read. Can't wait to hear what you read next week!
We want all of our students to experience a sense of belonging in our school, in their classrooms. But is that something we can teach? I would say not. So how do we help our students attain that sense of belonging? What do we do to create the feeling of belonging? I was part of a webinar recently that is part of a whole series about sense of belonging in schools. This webinar focused on behavior as communication. And I have certainly talked with people about kids behavior as communication, but I listened and joined in this discussion while thinking about our behavior as educators and responders to kids as communication. One phrase they used which I loved was "compassionate curiosity." As we work with our students, we need to be thinking about what our behavior is communicating. What if we always stopped and made a point to try to respond with compassionate curiosity? Read and think about this quote from Haim Ginott, a child psychologist and educator: Wow, that is powerful right? We as educators have a lot of power. And our "power" impacts each child that we interact with, communicate with, respond to. Personally, my goal, when I was a teacher, and for the last 15 years as an administrator, is to be "an instrument of inspiration." I certainly strive to utilize "compassionate curiosity" in my interactions with students. How we respond to kids can really just communicate two possible things. We either communicate in a way that makes a child feel included, accepted, supported, like they belong. Or we communicate in a way that makes a child feel excluded, not trusted, like we are annoyed. I know I need to work on my communication as a parent! Because there are many times that I can think of just over this past weekend whereI communicated to my kids that I was annoyed with their behavior. We are human and we have all of those feelings. But the quote above has definitely been on my mind and making me pause even more before I respond to my own children and then my "extra children" here at school. One way to respond to student behavior with compassionate curiosity is to ask questions so that you can better understand a student's needs. Another way is to offer information in order to help guide them to the next steps. When we ask them questions like "how are you feeling about this" or "how can I support you", we help them feel included and we are demonstrating compassion and care. We are also promoting some of those key SEL competencies that are crucial to help all students - self-awareness, self-management and social awareness. We can offer information in a way where we use observation instead of evaluation, like when we say "I noticed..." or "I can see you feel..." We can also help them by planning or making requests instead of demanding. We have to get in the habit of stating what we want, not what we don't want. For example, we could say "In the future would you be willing to..." The webinar shared a great resource of reflection questions to help us check our own biases and assumptions. An example of some of these reflection questions: 1. How often do I say "no" in the classroom? Which students do I say this to the most? 2. How often do I say sit down or be quiet? Which students to I say sit down or be quiet to the most? 3. What is a behavior that tends to bother me, but not other students? Which students are frequently engaging in this behavior? 4. What emotional reactions do I have in the classroom? a. Which students, if any, am I excited to see each day? Why? b. Which students, if any, do I not feel excitement to see? Why? c. Are there times of day when I feel most excited in the classroom? Why? d. Are there times of day when I feel most stressed or anxious in the classroom? Why? e. What strategies can I use to lower my own emotional response when challenging behaviors occur? You can find more of these questions and an in the moment strategies chart resource page here. When we think about student behavior as a form of communication, it's always a good reminder that how we respond to their behavior is another form of communication as well. Is our response helping our students feel supported and that they belong here? Or are we communicating something different? I have done an activity with educators where we act out different words. I will tell you the scenario here and let you try it on your own. When you hear the word "react" how would you pantomime or freeze in a way that would show that word? Now do the same but for the word "respond." When I am in a room full of people, it's amazing to see how those two words are shown in very different ways. My question for you to think about...today when you are working one on one with a student or with a whole group or in a small group...are you reacting to behavior or are you responding? I finished listening to Write For Your Life and loved it. In fact, I will probably listen to some chapters again because it is inspiring me to do more journaling and writing. I started listening to Prince Harry's book Spare. I am also slowly working my way through Reader, Come Home. I know some other staff are reading it or recently read it so I want to be able to chat with people about it, but it is filled with dense material and requires a lot of mental energy to read it. I did quickly read a great Jason Reynolds book this weekend. It's called Ain't Burned All the Bright. It's a collaboration that he did with Jason Griffin during the pandemic. It's basically three long sentences spread out over 300+pages of artwork. One of the book that I shared on my digital read aloud library was a new picture book for me. It's called Nigel and the Moon. I was lucky enough to be on a virtual meeting last week with the author. Loved hearing his inspiration for the book.
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