Last week, I may or may not have added to my application for mom of the year by heading to the McDonald's drive through for dinner. And it might have been on Wellness Wednesday. (Yep, I feel your judging eyes reading this.) The line was backed up and by the time we finally got to the window to pick up our food, we still had to sit for a bit and wait for the precious chicken nuggets and fries. While I was waiting and staring out the window into the drive through window, I noticed the screen saver on the cash register. It was several screens of guidance for the McDonald's employees. I wasn't really paying attention to wait the screens said, until two headings caught my attention. The first one said "Get It Right." And there were some bullet point underneath about making sure to get the customer's order right, listen to the customer, pay attention to the orders on the screen, etc. The second heading said, "Make It Right." And the bulleted list underneath was all about if you didn't get the customer's order correct, then you needed to make sure to fix those mistakes. As I pulled away, I kept repeating those two phrases over and over in my head...get it right, make it right. And I couldn't help but think about how important those two phrases are in terms of us teaching kids. We have such an awesome responsibility. We are molding kids' brains. And being in an elementary school...we are responsible for teaching them to read. That's a big deal. I really do feel like we are on the same level as brain surgeons. Brain surgeons have to get it right. The tiniest step or precise cut in someone's brain can make major changes for that person's life. The human brain is an amazing thing. And just like brain surgeons, we have the ability to change the trajectory of a child's educational career. We have to get it right. I came across a research study from the University of Washington back in 2018. The title of the article caught my attention: "Teachers are Brain Engineers: UW Study Shows How Intensive Instruction Changes Brain Circuitry in Struggling Readers." This study used MRI measurements of the white matter of kids' brains before and after they had 8 weeks of specialized tutoring program focused on reading instruction. The study showed that not only did students' reading performance improve, but their neural circuitry in their brains strengthened! I loved the quote from the assistant professor involved, Jason Yeatman: “We were able to detect changes in brain connections within just a few weeks of beginning the intervention program. It’s under-appreciated that teachers are brain engineers who help kids build new brain circuits for important academic skills like reading.” You are truly brain engineers. Everyday you are changing kids' brains. That is a huge responsibility and we have to get it right. But I want to speak to the second sentence on the McDonald's screen...Make it right. For that phrase, I think about how there may have been steps put in place or lessons used or intervention groups created that didn't help us get it right. I keep thinking about some of the great initial conversations we started to have with each grade level last week during data meetings. Statements were made like...we taught that, we focused on that, we did that. And then questions followed like...but why did those results show or how come they didn't get it? Now is our chance to make it right. As brain engineers, we need to be continually evaluating and re-evaluating what we are doing, how we are doing it, and what results we are getting...or not getting. While the study mentioned above involved students receiving individualized instruction, Yeatman shared, "Teachers have the potential to develop their students’ brains, regardless of whether they have the resources to provide individualized instruction for each student in their class." Last week and this week we are looking at our literacy data for several reasons. One reason is to help teachers think about their reading instruction and think about instructional groups. Another reason is to think about and plan for Title 1 groups and other intervention groups with the tutors. Looking at how intervention groups happened in the past and looking at our data...it would suggest that we haven't been getting it right. So now is the time to make it right. Across all of the grades we have lots of potential for amazing growth to happen. We just need to be open to thinking differently about how we have done things. We are brain engineers. We have an awesome responsibility to mold and change and create neural connections. We have to get it right. And when we don't get it right, we must make it right. Are you ready to rewire kids' brains with me?! I finished listening to Where the Crawdads Sing and finished reading Attack of the Black Rectangles, two different but equally enjoyable books. I started listening to a memoir on Audible called Poet Warrior, written by the first Native American poet laureate Joy Harjo. I also started reading Katie Couric's memoir titled Going There. And I am enjoying reading and learning from the book Your Students, My Students, Our Students.
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