Book Chat: Fostering Resilient Learners (Part V: Live, Laugh, Love)

This is part of a series of our school book chat on the book Fostering Resilient Learners.  Search for similar titled blogs to read about our previous chats.  

To start today's book chat, we used the I Notice, I Wonder protocol in looking at the following graphic and answered these two questions:

• On the left half, jot down anything you notice about the following slide.
• On the right half to jot down anything you wonder about the following slide.

“People have got to learn: if they don’t have cookies in the cookie jar, they can’t eat cookies.” - Suze Orman

Reflecting on this quote, teachers wrote:

• On the left half, describe the most meaningful, lasting “cookie” you’ve ever received.
• On the right half, describe a cookie you gave to a student that had a powerful effect on the student’s life

Fostering Resilient Learners, Kristen Souers with Pete Hall

Thanks to all who joined in one, many, or all book chats!

Book Chat: Fostering Resilient Learners (Part IV: Belief)

(From last week) This is part of a series of our school book chat on the book Fostering Resilient Learners.  Search for similar titled blogs to read about our previous chats.  

Self-Reflection: Think of a specific student that you know who has experienced a significant amount of trauma.

• How do you typically feel towards this student?
• What are this student’s strengths?  What are her/his weaknesses?
• When this student struggles, what do you think this student needs?
• How does this student respond to praise?  What types work?

Next, we each wrote down how we manage when we are not OK.  Who do we talk to?  How do we cope?  What rituals or routines do we rely on?

Then we shifted this discussion to our students.  Do we have safe places or routines in our classroom for when students are not OK?  

Finally, our goal was to get to the "Your Professional Fears" survey in the book's resources, however, we ran out of time.  Such a great conversations with colleagues!

Fostering Resilient Learners, Kristen Souers with Pete Hall

Book Chat: Fostering Resilient Learners (Part III: Relationships)

It's a busy time of year!  For those who wanted to join us but were unable to make our book chat this morning but wanted to follow along, here is what was discussed!  (Again, we had such a powerful discussion that we didn't get to everything, so some additional resources are included.) You can also read about our previous sessions on Part I: Trauma and Part II: Self-Awareness.

Self-Reflection: Write down the name of a teacher who made a difference in your life.

What was it about this person that motivated you to learn, to come to school, to try your hardest? What was it about this educator that inspired you to do what you do today? What traits did you appreciate about this person?  Write down some words or phrases that describe this person and his or her influence on you.

The group wrote down their thoughts on a notecard and then we each took a minute to share our reflection. We found that the teachers who meant the most to us were not necessarily those who were of our content area or even those that we spent time outside of the classroom getting to know. Most teachers were those who were consistent in expectations, challenged us, and related the content to topics that interested us at the time.

We didn't get to this part, but here is what we were going to do next:

Control
Think about this:

• The results of zero tolerance policies has been an increase in both behavior problems and dropout rates (American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force, 2008)
• Public elementary and secondary schools in the United States assign 110,000 expulsions and 3 million suspensions each year, along with tens of millions of detentions (Children's Defense Fund, 2010; Dignity in Schools Campaign, n.d.)
• More than 2,467 U.S. students drop out of school each day (Children's Defense Fund, 2010)

How does control play a role in these statistics?

Think about these four statements:

1.  I can't control whether _____ will come to my class today, but I can control...

2.  I can't control whether _____ passes this test, but I can control...

3.  I can't control whether _____ has experienced adversity and trauma at home, but I can control...

4.  I can't control whether we add _____ to our already overloaded plates, but I can control...

Doors vs. Windows
The book gives a great example of going to a cabin for the weekend, and mysteriously being locked in.  It describes your reaction to keep turning the doorknob or trying to push it open, repeatedly.  You are in your downstairs brain, in fight or flight mode, trying to force your way out of this door.  Then the book points out that you all you needed to do was step back, calm down, and look at the many windows in the cabin.  

How can we provide our students with windows instead of closing the door on them?

“Even if you don’t believe your efforts are reaping much of a result, keep in mind that you’re planting seeds.  Although you my not get to see the flower bloom, your efforts may result in something extraordinary.” (Page 131)

Fostering Resilient Learners, Kristen Souers with Pete Hall

Book Chat: Fostering Resilient Learners (Part II: Self-Awareness)

In case you missed our book chat this morning, here was what was discussed.  In all honesty, we didn't get to all of the discussion points because our conversation on cement shoes was incredibly powerful.

How do we react to student behaviors?

How do we maintain control in times of chaos?

To start off this book chat, we read this blog post while reflecting on the question "Have you ever said or done something that you regretted?" We followed up with a long discussion on the following two questions: How does this story make you feel? How does this change your mindset moving forward?

Cement Shoes

• Defining our sense of self so that no matter "how big the wave," we can stay true to our ideals, integrity, vision, beliefs, and self.
• The more self-aware we become, the easier it is to manage the needs of our students.
• Using your personal mission statement (i.e. your "WHY") to reflect on during those times when we are feeling most compromised and vulnerable

Staying Out of OZ

Remember Dorothy from Wizard of Oz?  She was seized by the tornado! Sometimes we are also caught in the tumult of disruptions to the learning environment.  

How do we create positive and safe environments for our students?

What strategies have worked in the past when a student has "tornadoed" through your class?  What do they need from you to regulate and move back into their "upstairs" brain?

"If it's predictable, it's preventable."

Square Peg, Round Hole

Round Holes:  the students who exhibit the desirable characteristics

Square Pegs:  the students who exhibit less than favorable attributes

“We often put a tremendous amount of effort into trying to make our square pegs fit into the round holes.  We try and try to force those column 2 students to exhibit desirable behaviors, but, inevitably, the two will never fit.
What if we gave up the notion of the round hole and instead made room for a group of amoebas?  Many of our students are just that: little amoebas trying to figure out what shape they want to become.  Those growing up with adversity and trauma have not had permission to even explore that possibility.” - Page 74

Communication Steps

• Listen deeply to the message being sent by your communication partner
• Reassure the person that her/his perspective is important
• Validate her/his emotional state
• Respond by explaining what occurred through your lens
• Repair by apologizing for whatever role you may have played in the miscommunication
• Resolve by coming to terms with what happened and collaborating to find alternative ways of acting to prevent future disruptions.

Fostering Resilient Learners, Kristen Souers with Pete Hall

Spring Brings New Collaborations

Written by Linda Ashida

In all of the professional learning that the Collab Lab facilitates, we always look for opportunities to expand our collaboration across schools, both in person and virtually, using Periscope, Facetime or Skype, and Google Hangout.

We have written about some of these collaborations in previous posts:

• Persicoping our way into classrooms in D214 and Beyond
• 2 Schools Collaborate in Professional Learning with Periscope and Google Hangout 

In this post we'll highlight new collaborations we are enjoying this Spring.

April 2017 In-Service Day

Our April In-Service Day gave us the chance to connect with our colleagues at The Academy at Forest View.

The Collab Lab team planned a kind of hybrid EdCamp, giving all staff the opportunity to offer input on their needs and interest several weeks beforehand.  We used the feedback from staff to pre-plan some of the session offerings, and we also gave staff the opportunity to suggest workshops the morning of the In-service day.

Prior to the In-Service day, we got to thinking about the possibility of inviting some of our colleagues from the Academy at Forest View to join us, since, from prior collaborations, we knew that our staff had a shared interest in learning about, and/or sharing our practice, regarding social emotional learning and instructional technologies.

We weren't sure if the logistics would work to bring teachers together from two buildings, but we figured it didn't hurt to try! We thought it would be great, even if just a few of the teachers could join us, and if not in person, via Google Hangout or Periscope.

So, we presented our idea to Kara Kendrick, the Director of The Academy.  Not only was she open to the idea, but after sharing the idea with some of her teacher leaders involved in planning their day, we were able to work out a plan that would allow for the entire staff from the Academy to join us at Elk Grove for the morning EdCamp!

Staff from both schools facilitated sessions, and even student teachers and students joined in and presented too! As always, we documented our learning in each session using Google Docs so that we would all be able to access the notes for future reference, including for sessions we were interested in, but unable to attend.

Feedback from the day was very positive, with some great suggestions for future In-service days.  Almost all of the EG staff who completed our feedback form indicated how great it was to have this opportunity to get to know our colleagues from The Academy, and to learn with and from each other.  We have already discussed plans to continue our collaboration with them during the coming school year!

The visual below gives you a glimpse of some of the sessions.  Check out this link for more details.

 




Collab Lab Book Chat Series in May

A literacy research project done by our colleague, Katie Winstead, as part of her year-two Mentor Program project, inspired the Collab Lab to partner with Katie to host a book chat series.

We will meet on Tuesday mornings in May from 7:40-8:05 in the Collab Lab and we will read and discuss the book Readicide by Kelly Gallagher.

Each week we will share our key takeaways and questions. We will also reflect on our practice and, looking ahead to the coming school year, plan specific strategies that we can embed in our lessons to improve student literacy.

All EG staff are welcomed to join us, and we have extended the invitation to our colleagues across District 214 as well who will be able to join us via Google Hangout.

Look for future Collab Blog posts with updates on our Book chat series to see what we learn!