thank you

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it gives me time to reflect and be thankful for the many people in my life.  If you remember my first thought of the week this year (that would have been a great extra credit question) it was about belonging.  I like many other people was starting this school year in a new environment and wondered would I fit in.

So, I wanted to take the time to thank all my students for helping me transition to a new school.   Your feedback has allowed me to become a better teacher from your remarks about vulnerability to your suggestions on how to make the class both more engaging, and easier to learn.  I would say that 95% of what I do well as a teacher came from student feedback.

I have enjoyed the conversations both inside and outside the class room.  You have proven to be both insightful and caring.  You are great at asking questions and on a whole have pushed me to explain things with more clarity.

 For the students who are struggling with the course so far, I have the greatest admiration and respect for you.  I do not really care about your test scores now but more importantly how you will perform later in the year.  Sometimes we focus so much on the score we lose track of our improvement.  The fact that some of you come before school, after school, and during your free periods shows me your persistence which will help you be successful throughout your entire life.

When I asked students, what made our school special they said, “the free periods and the teachers” The truth is that you missed what really makes it special, that is the STUDENTS.

Thanks for all you have done to make my start a memorable one.  You have truly made me feel like I belong to the rich tradition of our school.   I truly look forward to the second part of the semester.

With deep appreciation

social media

This week's thought of the week is coming from a guest Angela Duckworth.  Angela is the person who inspired me to do the thought of the week and is a world known psychologist,  This week she talks about the impact of social media.  As always your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Recently, a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) was surprised to discover the Instagram app on his cellphone. He soon learned that his teenage daughter had lost her phone that day and, even before figuring out how to get a new one, installed the app on his phone as a stop-gap solution.

God forbid an hour go by without “following” and being “followed” by an astonishing number of “friends.” 

Having his personal phone appropriated in this way emboldened my friend to open the app and see what was going on in the social media universe his daughter seemed to prefer, vastly, to reality.

He saw that she’d posted a selfie and, even as he was looking at it, the number of likes were going up and up. The photo was flattering, and the comments were gushing:

      beautyyyy
      gorgeous!!!!
      soo prettyyyy
      stunning
      love ur outfit
      so hot

All those beautiful photos, positive comments, and “likes,” might suggest that social media makes people happier. 

But what does science have to say about social media and happiness? A recent review suggests social media is a double-edged sword: It cuts both ways.

I’ll give you the bad news first. Passive social media use—scrolling through the photos, status updates, and posts of other people without directly interacting with them—leads you to compare your own mundane, imperfect life with the airbrushed, curated, and filtered lives of your friends and friends’ friends. Envy, in turn, leads to unhappiness. 

Not surprisingly, the more time people spend on social media, the less happy they are overall.

But here’s the good news: There’s some evidence that active social media use—posting your own photos and status updates, sending direct messages, sharing links, and even “liking” what you see—can strengthen social connection and reduce feelings of loneliness. 

Unfortunately, social media sites like Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook are used passively for many more hours than they are used actively. The math is obvious when you think about it: You spend a few seconds actively uploading a photo and then dozens if not hundreds of other people collectively devote much more time than that to passively viewing what you’ve posted.

So, even if the sword of social media cuts both ways, it’s usually cutting against happiness.

I’ve heard of parents who prohibit their children from engaging in any kind of social media. But my teenage girls are Instagram and Snapchat veterans. In other words, in my house the social media ship has sailed, and the best I can do now is get it sailing in the right direction.

Don’t assume that social media has no effect on well-being. 

Do share the science on social media with young people who may not fully fathom its effects. It may not earn you “likes” but sometimes the truth isn’t flattering.

If you want to read more from Angela, here is https://www.characterlab.org/thought-of-the-week

Keep it simple

I remember one of my strongest students asked me to give her an example of a concept which we had just went over.  I thought for a while and then gave her an example in which I thought perfectly demonstrated the concept which we just learned.  

After I was finished speaking my student looked at me and said, “I hope you do not think that helped me” I was surprised, I thought the example was perfect, yet she thought it was of no help.  How can two people be so far apart?  Does this happen in day to day conversation?

This was in the back of my mind when I read about this research.  The psychologist set up a game in which there were two groups of people.  One group was the tappers and the other group was the listeners.  The tappers were given twenty-five well known songs (happy birthday).  Each tapper was asked to pick out a song and tap out the rhythm to the listener.

The listener’s job was to guess the song based on the tapping (you can do this with friends).  During the experiment 120 songs were tapped out and the listeners guessed 3% (3/120) correctly.  Before the listeners guessed the name of the song the tappers were asked to predict the odds that the listener would get it correct.  They predicted 50% would get it correct.

So, what happens is that when the tapper taps they hear the tune in their head so that they think the listener can hear the tune.  The tappers are amazed that listeners cannot get the tune correct.  Just as I was amazed at how my student could not follow my example.  It made perfect sense to me so I thought it would make sense to her.

How can we overcome this problem?  Keep your message simple.  When I was working for Domino’s Pizza our message was 2,000 or more in 84.  Our goal was to have 2,000 stores by the end of 1984 (more than double the size of the company at the start of the year).  This message was simple in that it allowed everyone from the CEO to the drivers at the stores to understand the goal of the company.  It also made decision making easy because no idea was approved unless it helped us build more stores.  Achieving the goal was complex but the message was simple.

Now thinking back to my example, was probably too complex.  Now I try to just answer questions in the simplest way possible.

generational

When I was young I loved my grandmothers cooking.  When she passed away however the recipes somehow were lost, and her cooking did not pass on from generation to generation.  The only way that you pass things on to the next generation is with a mindful effort.  So, what else might my grandmother want to pass on from her generation to my children’s generation?

My grandmother was not only a great cook but a person who constantly showed her gratitude.  It is the month of November which I always give my students an assignment of writing someone who had helped them in their lives a gratitude letter.  My hope is to pass this moment of gratitude along to them so that they can pass it along to others.  That after doing this assignment that they will realize how good it made both them and the person they sent it to feel.  We often procrastinate over each word worried that the person who receives the letter is grading it like an English assignment.  The truth is that people just love to receive these letters.  Take a minute now and just send a quick text, e-mail or make a call to someone you would like to thank.  It is never too late to show gratitude (.great video)

It seemed when I was young we spent more time together with our friends.  I was raised in a community where houses were connected to each other and apartments houses were everywhere.  This type of living quarters allowed us to have many friends who spent hours upon hours playing games and swapping stories.  Now with modern technology we need to be more mindful of the importance of relationships.  One of my former students was telling me that she made her friends shut off their phone and place them in the middle of the table when they went out to eat.  Otherwise we were not really eating together we were just sitting together as we text others.  If positive relationships are the roots of resilience we must be mindful of teaching, encouraging, modeling and reminding each other of their importance.

While it makes me sad that the next generation cannot taste the delicious meals that my grandmother used to cook.  I am sure going to be mindful that they understand the importance of both relationships and gratitude which was so important to her.

What do you want to pass along?  How about starting now!

education

This past week I attended some professional development that made me reflect upon the practice of teaching.  It reminded me of when I attended some professional development in the past when the presenter put up their power points.  I struggled to see the words and raised my hand a couple of times to ask them to read them.  After a while I just gave up and truly stopped listening to what was being presented.  I am a person who truly loves learning but this totally turned me off to the presentation.

I wonder how often this happens in our classrooms.  Not that the students cannot see our power point but that somehow, we are not connecting with them.  That despite their efforts to tell us what they need we just continue to go on teaching the way we want and after a while just like I did they start tuning us out.  I often hear teachers complaining how did students not know this I just went over it in class, when instead we should be asking ourselves how I can teach this differently so that all my students can understand it.

When you talk with the best teachers you quickly see that they have outstanding relationships with students.  That these teachers realize that everyone is fighting a battle that they know nothing about.  These great teachers try to uncover those battles and realize that the roots of resilience are relationships.  Often asking students “how is your day going?  Is there anything I can do to make it better?” gives you a chance to connect.

My last thought about education is have we lost our way.  It seems that the drive-in education is get good grades, go to a good college, get a good job and make a lot of money.  I wonder would more students be motivated if the mantra was, take a variety of courses to figure out what you like, go to college to cultivate that passion, get a job that matches your passion and help make the world a better place.

Often when you talk about making the world a better place it seems like an impossible task.  Take one minute to watch these two guys make a difference ( video).  When teachers teach with passion, heart and soul you get behaviors that were show in the video.

As always I appreciate your feedback.

Teams

As a young person who loved basketball I often wondered how a team with much less talent beat a team with better players.  When they did it once you chalked it up to luck but when they constantly beat the team with better talent you knew there had to be something going on beyond pure luck.  As I grew up and became part of teams in the workforce I noticed the same thing often happened.  Teams with less talent many times were more productive than the more talented team.  Why did this happen?

The answer to this question became clearer when I ran across some research.  Researchers gave several teams twenty pieces of uncooked spaghetti, one yard of transparent tape, one yard of string, one marshmallow which had to end up on the top and told each team to build the tallest possible structure in 18 minutes.

Now there were teams consisted of lawyers, kindergarten students, CEO’s  and MBA students.  Now who won the challenge?  The kindergarten students!  How did that happen? 

The researchers came away with a couple of factors that make good teams. 

1-     Everyone in the group listens and talks equally.  A lot of times with the adult’s people wanted to take charge

2-     Members feel safe and connected.  The kindergarten students learned from mistakes.

3-     Eye contact

4-     Members who gain info immediately share it with the rest of the team. The adults sometimes saw knowledge as power

Now when I reflect upon the great teams that I was on there was no egos, everyone contributed equally and all we were concerned about is winning.  Nobody worried about rank or who received the credit we were just worried about producing the best product.

Which one of the above characteristics can you improve upon to make yourself a better team player?

As always I would love to hear your feedback

WOOP

At the end of last year, I was in the mindset where I was taking a lot of things personally.  I knew that I should not take them personally, that it was not beneficial for me, but I could not shake myself from allowing this to happen.  When I took things personally I could feel my anxiety and tensions increase throughout my body.   Then I went to a great two day professional development seminar, sponsored by Character Lab (more) where I heard Gabrielle Oettingen speak (videos).  She discussed a strategy of taking our wishes and moving them into actions. 

Her strategy was called WOOP.  WOOP stands for wish, outcome, obstacles and plan.  To start your WOOP you must clear your mind of all other thoughts.  Turn off your electronics and make sure that you are free for at least the next five minutes.  Then think about a wish which is achievable, challenging and important to you.  When you have decided on your wish try to get it down to 3-6 words.   

The second stage is to them visualize the best outcome.  If I stopped taking things personally how would that make me feel.  The key to this step is to truly feel the emotion of the best outcome and to keep that feeling in your mind. 

The third is what in you, prevents you from achieving this wish.  Try to see the obstacle as something in your own control.  Is this an obstacle or just an excuse?  Try to frame this obstacle in 3-6 words. 

The last part of the strategy is the if, then.  If the obstacle comes up what will I do to overcome it.  When I continue to think about someone’s comments that I take personally what am I going to do?  My strategy is If I start taking things personally, I close my eyes, take a deep breath and feel the tension and the thoughts leaving my mind and my body. 

WOOP has worked successfully to increase student achievement, health and other dream fulfillments.  So, if you have been having trouble getting some things done start WOOPING( quick lesson on WOOP) 

As always, your feedback is appreciated.