the part of the constellation that is collegial

A constellation: cultures of thinking, active mindset, pleasure and play, a collegial culture for teachers--



There’s a lot to do. Where is a good place to begin?


Let’s begin with ourselves. Roland S. Barth provides an analogy: If an airplane’s going down, parents need to get the oxygen masks on themselves first so that they will be able to get the oxygen masks on their children. It’s kind of like this.

Basically, we need to take care of ourselves so that we have enough energy and perspective to accomplish the major work of setting up climates for learning that are conducive to depth and breadth (breath!) of thought. We need energy. We need energy, more than ever because the demands of the job have gotten so intense--and conflicting. We need energy because of our new role is as pioneers, helping our students navigate and find success in a new age of learning.

The first step has to do with development of collegiality. In Improving Relationships Within the Schoolhouse,” Barth wrote, “The nature of relationships among the adults within a school has a greater influence on the character and quality of that school and on student accomplishment than anything else.” We have the “…capacity to either enrich or diminish one another’s lives…” He talks about how we raise ourselves up to higher levels of sharing, moving from “parallel play,” and “adversarial relationships,” to “congenial relationships,” and ultimately “collegial relationships.” In “Learning by Heart,” Barth declares that “Schools exist to promote learning in all their inhabitants.” He, too, rejects the “Transmission of Knowledge Model” (which succeeds in “training youngsters to submit to adult authority and to substitute adult problems, objective, tasks and ideas for their own, and which don’t emphasize the skills that learners need in the 21st century).” (Barth, ____)

“Business leaders tell us that the skills and abilities their employees will need in the twenty-first century include the following: teamwork, problem solving, interpersonal skills, oral communication, listening, personal development, creative thinking, leadership, goal setting, writing, organizational effectiveness, computation, and reading. Every one of these skills, of course, requires continual lifelong learning…Those who thrive in the years ahead…will be those who have during the school experience, become active, voracious, independent lifelong learners…”

His main point: in order to bring this out in children, we need to be doing it with ourselves. We need to be the Head Learners in the school; we need to be constantly modeling learning, promoting that our students, too, are constantly modeling learning. Only it’s not modeling, it’s the real thing. We have to form a community of reflective learners, mindfully learning and thinking about thinking, playfully and experimentally thinking together, supporting innovation, then reflecting and analyzing and gathering data and promoting this way of being in our students. “If they see adult models who are done, baked, cooked, finished as learners, they too want to be done, baked, cooked, finished as learners—‘I’m outta here!’” What if students see a completely different picture, opf active, engaged, innovative teachers?

How do we become Head Learners? We “create cultures of collegiality.”

From Barth’s article:
“Famous baseball manager Casey Stengel once muttered, ‘Getting good players is easy. Getting ‘em to play toether is the hard part.’ Schools are fully of good players. Collegiality about getting them to play together…” When I visit a school and look for evidence of collegiality among teachers and administrators—signs that educators are ‘playing together’—the indicators I seek are: educators talking with one another about practice, educators sharing their craft knowledge, educators observing one another while they are engaged in practice, and educators rooting for one another’s success.”

At Emerson School, we’ve come a long way in development of collegiality through something completely informal and easy. A group of about 15 of us started what we call “Fireside Chats.” We meet together for dinner at someone’s house (usually a potluck—typically everyone brings an ingredient we put in a huge salad), then after dinner we discuss articles or chapters from books on education. (READINGS FOR FIRST YEAR LISTED AT END) It sounds so simple; you’d wonder if it could have any impact on school collegiality. It does. It generates connections, and those connections reach out into the broader learning atmosphere. The power of Fireside Chats comes from a couple of things: anyone can submit articles for the group to read, on any topic of choice. Anything goes, everyone has input. We’re “becoming reflective practitioners” by taking time to talk about what we’re doing, what we’re struggling with, what we care about, and what we’re learning. We reflect together.

Meetings get started with a question that broadly relates to the reading, inviting personal reflection on an open-ended and nonthreatening topic. (“Tell when you are experiencing pleasure during your school days. Give the setting, and what the subject might be. Say how the kids are acting, what you're doing, what makes for the pleasure in the atmosphere.” “Think back to your childhood and find yourself happily immersed in play. What were you doing?”) After talking about the opener, people discuss anything about the articles that comes to mind. Leadership shifts and flows; there’s a good deal of earnest questioning and a healthy amount of laughter.

We started with Fireside last October, have now had about five of these meetings (once every month or two). We’ve seen growth of trust, increased professional and personal support of each other in school, interest in and connection to our various projects, and an increase in group membership. Anyone can join. People do join, when they see it’s a positive thing. Some people just request the articles but don’t come the to meetings. That’s fine; the reading gives us common reference points. The articles do tend to come up in “regular” staff meetings, often taking those meetings in a new direction.

We have a diverse group of educators, including specialists, administrators, teachers of all age-level kids. Fireside Chats are unanimously considered uplifting; they’ve helped us gain confidence and a feeling of collegial support. We’re continuing our meetings this year, and a regional Fireside (not associated with a particular school) will be starting as well. An interesting part of the Fireside initiative: you don’t need permission or administrative sanction to start this up—just do it. People are allowed to get together; why not use get-togethers for upbeat and earnest professionalism? With any luck and open-mindedness, your administration might just join in. No matter what, you’ve got each other.




Fireside Chats, readings from 06/07

(as you can see, not a formal bibliography):

Chapter Two from the Self-esteem Teacher by Brooks

Webs of Skill: “How Students Learn” by Fischer and Rose (Educational Leadership)

“Listen to the Natives” by Prensky (Educational Leadership)

“Researchers Urge Broad View on How to Build Character” by Manzo (Education Week)

“Basic Skills Revisited” by Rothstein (Point of View, Harvard Education Letter)

“Exercise Improves Learning and Memory” (Howard Hughes Medical Institute)

“The Paradigm Trap” by Spady (Education Week)

“Adopt and Adapt” by Prensky (Edutopia)

“What Does It Mean to Educate the Whole Child” by Noddings (Educational Leadership)

“Changing the Homework Default” by Kohn (Independent School Magazine)

“Backtalk/On Being Disrespected” by Prensky (ASCD)

The Common Application (for college)

“The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds” by Ginsberg (American Academy of Pediatrics)

Chapters 1 and 2 from The Courage to Teach by Palmer

“Starting School Reform from the Inside”, an interview with Roland S. Barth (Wire Side Chats, Education World)

“How Not to Talk to Your Kids” by Bronson (New York Magazine)

“Students’ View of Intelligence Can Help Grades” by Trudeau (NPR)

“See It to Believe It” by Helgoe (Insight Magazine)

“Principles of Best Practice” by

“Special Topic: The Case For and Against Homework” by Marzano and Pickering (Educational Leadership)

“The Caring Classroom’s Creative Edge” by Lewis and others (Educational Leadership)

“Smart and Good” by Davidson and Lickona (Independent School Magazine)

“The Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native” by Prensky

Chapters 1-3 of Learning By Heart by Barth

“Improving Relationships Within the Schoolhouse” by Barth (ASCD)

learning: it's about soul

And more yet, it's about soul. It's about the kind of soul that used to be in songs, as in soul music. It's about the soul, the soul of the teacher engaged with the child; it's about the child's soul, learning, and the teacher's soul responding to that by being a guide, and by being the ultimate encourager.
Learning is a dance. It should be joyful, and all the other things that life is.

What do you think learning is about?

What are some of the most soulful lessons you've ever been through?

friend, stopping by to visit?

If you're coming here because I asked you to stop by, or because you've stumbled upon this site by following a trail of other links,
please leave a note.
The theme here is education. I'm trying to gather information about what makes the best learning experiences. Could you leave a comment, saying what class you've really loved in your life, maybe a subject in college, maybe an after school art class. Could you say what it was about and why you liked it?
Leave your name, unless you sign in, then it'll appear.
Thanks, Connie

Back again, after a pause

Ok, I'm back to Blogger. Had to attend to other things for a while, learning all sorts of new stuff through collaboration with a colleague about how to begin a learning center. Dove into CR2.0, a great philosophical and techie educational network with a bunch of idealistic-thinking, forward-moving colleagues. Learned how to build larger bases in networks, learned to connect networks (such as CR2.0 with Facebook). Learned, learned learned.
I'm now experiencing that uplifting headstate that comes from growing so much that new growth is easier; I'm on a roll.
Just 3 months ago I talked about being on that edge, of being ready to take a leap, of knowing that I'd never again perceive the world in the same way. I was right--my view is qualitatively different now. And I can honestly say, I'm happier, more engaged in all sorts of learning, and, more expressive. There was a rapid growth in my general writing skills and capacity, a rapid growth in taking the risks to do some creative writing, and a HUGE growth in connectiveness with people who provide important feedback and support as we all move forth in such an information-sharing world.
I'm a new person.
And back to Blogger. I'll be posting regularly here now.

along with this new language

While studying this new Web 2.0 language and way of being, someone should study people with certain kinds of mindsets to see how their learning is unfolding. For instance, my husband has an excellent sense of direction. It's always with him. Miraculously, he knows which way to turn, any street corner, any part of town. He knows where to go whatever the situation, even in a city that's brand-new to him.
There's really no "lost" for him; how can you be lost if you know, generally, in which direction things lie?

My mindset does not include this directional tool. Give me a chance to turn the wrong way and I'm likely to, and you can't even say that I got "turned around" in my thinking because I had no directional orientation to begin with.


Mel Levine's article in Educational Leadership, "The Essential Cognitive Backpack," is about the cognitive tools people should ideally have, upon completion of high school. Although I don't see the toolset there that I currently would like to install in my brain, there are clearly plenty of others that make up the essential "stuff of education." They're what we're all about, as teachers.
Equip your kids' minds with thinking skills. Have them move outwards from there. Give them a nudge if they need it, and they probably won't, because when people feel they have the tools, they generally set about to make something.

Ok, I'm running a checklist on my current backpack items. Hmmmm...."Inner direction?" I have that, lots of it. "Instrumentation"? Pretty good. "Interaction"? Good when I'm not too obnoxious--generally I'm ok in that sphere, if a bit klutzy. It's a charming klutziness, surely.
So what am I lacking? Spatial reasoning. That's not too bad, as my cognitive backpack overall is pretty full.

But people should study us, we the people with no directional sense whatsoever. Do people with less well-developed spatial reasoning have trouble with internet navigation, or with Web 2.0 applications?

Not me.

Well,

I just use a batch of alternate tools, and it works out fine. It works out fine because I've got a well-furnished toolkit and am always actively learning. (I have a kind of "shareware" going on pretty regularly, with "free social downloads" that I'm responsive to. So if I bump into someone and spill their coffee--which is likely, given my clumsiness,I just ratchet though my tools and come up with one for the situation, such as profuse apologizing, laughing to lighten things up, or the showing of abject horror and regret on my face while running to get a cleaning cloth. I get the "social download shareware" of a bop on the nose, a look of disdain, or a shared laugh. I learn from it, and move on.)

My toolkit for Web 2.0 work:

don't worry about a lack of direction; pathways reconnect
plunge forth and create pathways
just keep trying
be playful
ask others for help
get out of the state of anxiety
mess around
find the people whose thoughts nourish you, and find their people
whose thoughts nourish them, connect
create networks
keep telling yourself you're not really lost
that the laws of spacial relations are new here

dream of what's possible. It probably is.

keep going.

Web 2.0: It's a new language. I think my neurology is changing.

The other day, when I actually dreamed in links, it became clear to me that I had arrived. I'm at the door, taking a glimpse at what's beyond. The whole thing about this new read/write web is a bit daunting, but I can't remember any time in my life I've been so thrilled about learning. The resources, the networks, what's possible now--everything is different. It's all about carving paths, then seeing that the paths connect in a three-dimensional network, well beyond current space and time.

There's no going back. I was out running on our country road yesterday, thinking I'll never be in the "now" again, and feeling a bit mournful about this. Being in the now, with kids, or in nature, is really important to me. Then, almost simultaneously, I realized that my "now" is still here, but is qualitatively different.

It's like those stages Piaget talks about. It's not a linear run from one thing to the next, with the next stage being more advanced and "more so"; rather, the new stage is all completely different. "New eyes," as they say. From children's literature, it's like crossing the Tesseract in A Wrinkle in Time, or stepping through the window into another world in The Golden Compass. So my "now" is still here, but my "here" has broadened.

About a quarter mile further in this run down the country road, I heard scarlet tanager. The morning was foggy and thick with spring. The rain has greened everything up, and birds were declaring territory. I wanted my fourth and fifth graders to be there, to do an observation-exercise. It was a precious moment in our Michigan spring. Then, out of my new neurology, Aha! Here's an idea: Eco-pairs. Put a kid in Michigan onto an observational nature study, and connect her up to someone in...Africa? Hawaii? The pair of students could be out in their wireless lands conversing in real time about what's around them, thereby connecting two nature systems through two pairs of human eyes, with questions and answers. Think what this would do for their observational capacities. I'm no longer mournful. This new world, yes, I choose it.

Jane Goodall gets what it's all about. "The Power of Youth is Global" is written across the top of the screen at her Roots and Shoots website. Now kids from all over the world can work together as stewards of the earth...think of the power of this.

I'm starting to get it. The door is open. I want to use this blog as a sharing space, for kids and teachers and parents, all who have that pioneering sense of adventure and awe. This is a new version of the world, one that turns upsidedown and inside out all that we previously thought about education.