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.

stressors

I had the pleasure of being on a video call this week with Jeff Duncan-Adrade (here).  The talk inspired me to THINK differently and research some of his work.  One of the things that amazed me was when he quoted research that stated that urban youths were two times as likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder than soldiers coming back from combat.  That PTSD was not only caused by the violence in the streets but also from toxic stressors such as not knowing if your basic needs were going to be met.

He then discussed research (40 minute mark) that scientist did on a group of women who were raising extremely disabled children.  They wanted to see how the stress impacted these women’s lives.  What the research found out is that even though they were chronologically in the 40’s, biologically the inside of their body was that of a sixty-year-old.  That this amount of toxic stress had literally shortened their lives.

No real surprise, however what researchers then stumbled upon won them a Nobel Prize.  They decided to get these group of women together by first providing care for their children so that they could meet without any stress.  They provided the women some food, but most importantly the ability to talk with other women who could share similar stories and empathize with each other.  This ability for the women to meet released an enzyme in their body which not only stopped the increased aging process but moved these women back closer to their chronological age.

What are the implications of this research?  Our kids need to be allowed to have a voice in school.  They need to talk about things that are bothering them, toxic stressors in their lives.  These conversations need to be met with empathy not sympathy.  He suggests a homework assignment that discusses the stressors on one side of the T chart and on the other side assets to cope with these stressors.  As educators we must be on the asset side of the ledger even though Jeff would content that sometimes we are on the left side.

 I will leave you one of his thoughts that resonated with me. In our society today, people who work hard to escape poverty are success stories.  We need to change the narrative to salute those who try to end poverty.

As always feel free to give me feedback