How does change affect you?

As I read through John's email this week that listed all the changes that are happening within our walls, it made me reflect on how I address change.

This time of the school year is exciting. We are excited about finishing out another year, excited that that we can see the finish line, and we are already talking about next year and the new possibilities that another year brings. The excitement I feel within the building is contagious and it gives me the stamina I need to finish out the school year strong. However, with that excitement and the talk about "where everyone will be next year" I realize that my need to stop and think about the changes ahead is important. I truly believe that every event in our lives shapes the person we become. The decisions we make every day affect the lives of those around us. I always stop and wonder if the choices that I make each day leave a positive, lasting affect on the students whom I teach and the teachers with whom I work.

Every part of campus will be impacted by the changes that are coming. I am both excited and sad. Having worked on the same grade level, with the same coworkers for multiple years, I am sad to be leaving a team that works so well together. We have formed bonds, friendships, and understanding that enable us to strive for excellence with our students. I have been so blessed by the support from each of the teachers that I work with so closely each day; they are an amazing group of women.

Looking ahead, I am excited to be working with a new group of ladies that I have so much respect for. The work ethic, the care, the dedication I see from those ladies is something I admire. They show us all how hard work pays off and the ones who benefit most, are the students. It is exciting to think of the possibilities that lie ahead next year.

When I thought about change and how it would affect my work life and my personal life, it took me a while to digest how my reaction to those changes would affect those around me.  Change can be a bad thing, or change can be a great thing. How you react to that change propels you in the direction that you choose for it to go. How do you address change? For me, I address it full speed ahead, ready to change the world one day at a time!

-blog post by Nicole Young

http://blog.365give.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/new-beginnings-for-365give.png 

Everyone Needs Feedback!

I don't know if you celebrated that your end of year T-TESS was complete, but as I met with my last teacher, I did a little celebration dance! It wasn't pretty figuring out T-TESS and I am already thinking of ways to improve, but it wasn't awful either. In some ways I will miss how it provided the opportunity for us to sit and talk uninterrupted for forty to fifty minutes. I will miss getting to hear you brag on all the little things you all do to make Sendera Ranch the best place on earth to "do school."...aww #warmfuzzies. That is, until the next T-TESS cycle.

Seriously, it was a good experience and process for many reasons for me. I believe it was a good experience and process for you as well. However I am not completely naive to think John and I don't have places to improve. Some we are completely aware; others, we are not. This is where we need your help. In the next few days, while the end of year conferences are still fresh on your mind, we would like you to fill out a feedback survey for us.
We have made it virtually anonymous (we did ask for you to tell us who your evaluator was so we could continue to calibrate and align our approach).

Here is the link: https://goo.gl/forms/4NOeLixjIdZio3Y33

We would love to hear what you think, how you believe the process went according to your perspective, and ways we can improve.

Thanks so much for taking the time to help us grow, be better and make this a process that is beneficial for us all!

How Will You Finish Strong?

The spring brings all kinds of life and liveliness into every part of our personal lives and our classrooms. Benefits of spring are warmer weather, longer days, and the beauty of everything in bloom. It is also the last leg of the race in a school year. The time when we are seeing the fruits of the work we have invested in our students and the realities that our hard work may not have yielded the growth in some of our students we had worked for, hoped for and lost sleep over.

It is hard not to focus in our reflections on our professional practice where things haven't quite turned out how we had pictured. We can mourn for the hope of where we thought we would be, but we can't camp out there. This is where we must focus on the growth, what we have accomplished, the progress. It is in this that we put into practice the growth mindset. It is where we remember last August when we came together as a staff and started our 2016-17 year talking about how having a growth mindset and how that allows us to move forward... even in our moments of disappointment or mistakes... we "fail forward."

As we contemplate and reflect, how can we finish this year confidently and positively? How can we finish strong?

As this week's blog post topic was swirling around in my head, I realized this belief that "finishing strong" is critical had everything to do with maintaining a healthy campus culture. So I called on our resident health expert, Nurse Amanda Wiggans. With calendar in hand, we took the idea of the from the 21 Day Challenge in January (http://srelonghornlearning.blogspot.com/2017/02/happiness-mindfulness-and-classroom.html), and turned to our best resources... Google and Pinterest. What Amanda determined is that there were exactly 30 days left with students starting April 17th. What she also discovered is that there are a lot of resources to support a 30 Day Positivity Challenge. Wheels began turning... Positive Thinking + Positive Talk= Healthy Culture/Staff....

AND... drum roll please, when we have a Healthy Culture/Staff WE ARE GUARANTEED to FINISH STRONG!

The great thing is no one has to go and come up with ideas to participate in the 30 Day Positivity Challenge. We are providing the ideas for you (thanks to Nurse Amanda Wiggans!).

Here are 30 Suggestions for each of the next 30 School Days:

Some alternates in case you might want a substitute for one of the days:

Write a list of reasons why you love someone (and give it to them)
Leave a funny note in a library book to make someone smile.
Compliment a stranger.
Tell 3 people you admire something about them. Additionally, if you love memes, why not share via social media a quote from a fictional teacher or mentor? Fun and Funny... How can you beat that for positivity??? Here is a list of fun fictional quotes:

Feel free to share via Social Media what you are doing each day or a meme you have created from the quotes as your part in participating in the positivity challenge. Tag your posts with #SREisAwesome #FinishStrong #30DayChallenge If you have more ideas that you would like to share or simply want to leave your thoughts regarding the 30 Day Positivity Challenge... please comment below! (Special thanks to Beverly and Amanda W. for providing the idea and resources for this week's post!)

Happiness, Mindfulness and Classroom Impact...

When I wrote the post "The Happiness Hypocrite" I challenged the staff and myself. The challenge, to write down 3 things you were grateful for on that particular day and do it for 21 days. The purpose... to create mindfulness. For me I was looking for the good things, the things that reminded me of the little blessings, the humor, and the joy of living. I became mindful of the positive and was less likely to focus on the negative that came my way... and believe me, the negative came. What I noticed is that when the negative came, I was able to move beyond it, not focus on it, and was looking for the positive in each situation. I was experiencing a shift in perspective. My view was changing.

Often as teachers we are faced with challenges. At the beginning of the year we are positive, mindful and resilient in our hopes for our students. Somewhere along the way, about February, we begin to lose our resolve and the wind in our sails. We have a choice, though. We can let ourselves falter or we can stay mindful.

I know that how we think, what we do and how we approach each child, every lesson and every day makes the difference. It takes mindfulness... a shift in perspective. I read an article recently on this very thing. It is titled "A Journey Toward Mindfulness: How to Implement and Sustain This Practice Among Teachers, From Now Until the Last Day of School"
As I read it I saw many things that are already done by us as a campus and as individuals. It even mentioned "Gratitude Practices" which is like the 21 day Gratitude Challenge suggested in "The Happiness Hypocrite" post.

After reading the article, going through the 21 Day Challenge and knowing we could be headed for the mid-year slump, I want to know what can we do together to choose happiness, be mindful and continue to have a strong impact on our students? I plan to continue in my practice of writing down three things of gratitude each day. Please share your ideas on how we can sustain the practice of gratitude and mindfulness.

Next Steps...

During our last Professional Development we took a moment to reflect and assess our progress. We determined what we were doing with fidelity, things we were moving toward, and things yet to be done or to re-think. It was through that each team shared what they felt were the next steps to continue our growth and progress toward our problem of practice.

It was interesting to see the feedback. There were two areas that were most commonly addressed... student learning in the way of students taking ownership through challenging themselves and their peers, goal setting and peer to peer feedback. The other are was in collaborative planning... having critical conversation and examination of student work and the teacher model, and use of planning documents to help push forward intentional and purposeful planning of content-rich work.

In the book "Visible Learning for Literacy: Impact" by Fisher, Frey and Hattie it states that of all the instructional strategies that garner more than a year of growth in students was in the area of self-reported grades/student expectation (goal setting, student led discussions, peer to peer feedback) and collective teacher efficacy (highly effective teams that plan for the why, focusing on thoughtful literacy-rich work including questioning, student led discussion and data driven decisions).

I came across a brief article while doing more research on this matter of student self-reported grades/student expectation and collective teacher efficacy. It is a great article that mirrors our conversations about growth mindset and that the teacher matters...

The article entitled: "John Hattie's Eight Mind Frames for Teachers" was a great read. As we continue to fine tune, monitor our progress and grow together, this is an excellent read that aligns with our next steps.

Where do you find yourself as you read these eight mind frames? What in your thinking aligns with Hattie's work? What do you find yourself pondering or being challenged to think differently?

Please post your thoughts and ideas below!

The Happiness Hypocrite

This is a confession of sorts. I watched Shawn Achor's Ted Talk "The Happy Secret to Better Work".  I think of myself as a relatively happy person. I can see the positive in a lot of situations. So, I just kept doing what I have always done.

When we returned on January 2nd I actually wrote three things I was grateful for for a few days. I even had a situation during those few days that led to one of my three things where I needed to get a hold of Shaunda Garrison, our Math Coordinator. Every time I planned to call something else would need my attention. At 5:05pm I was in a position to call... knowing as I dialed that she was gone. To my surprise, she answered the phone. She cheerfully and teasingly told me how lucky I was to have caught her. I quickly responded, "I am so glad I did, in fact you are going to be one of my three things I am grateful for today!" We laughed and finished the conversation having the information I needed and the side benefit of a smile on my face and bringing happiness to another individual. In that moment I was grasping the "Happy Secret." However it didn't last. I quickly resumed my old approach of doing what I have always done. I was a Happiness Hypocrite.

I became aware I was a Happiness Hypocrite one evening after a very long day. My kids could tell by the look on my face and the weariness in my voice it had been "one of those days." My wise-beyond-her-years fourteen year old, turned the tables on me and used one of my classic mom "tell me about your day" techniques. She challenged me, asking, "Mom, what is one good thing about your day?" I first laughed, because I realized what she was doing, and then second, paused... a very long pause. I couldn't think of anything. I had let the day and the things that had occurred determine my happiness. I did finally come up with one thing, but in that moment I realized, I didn't have the "Happy Secret" and I was a Happiness Hypocrite. This HAD TO CHANGE!!!

An article I recently read "Is There a Happiness Advantage for Schools?" there is a quote from Shawn Achor that shifted my thinking. He states, "Happiness is not the belief that we don't need to change. It is the realization we can. Happiness and optimism are the precursors to success, not merely the result." It hit me... we have to have happiness to get there, it isn't what we do that generates the happiness. Happiness happens in spite of the situation... Happiness is what drives our hope, our belief and our "never give up" determination with our students.

After re-watching the Ted Talk and reflecting on the brief moment where I grasped the "Happy Secret" I began to wonder. I thought about how, as a campus, we started 2016-17 challenging the staff with the "Growth Mindset" based on Carol Dweck's work that was presented by Nicole Covarelli and Susanna Craig. What would happen if we, as a campus, did the 21 Day challenge mentioned by Shawn Achor in his Ted Talk? What would it hurt to try?

So my challenge to you all is to do the 21 Day Challenge. Every day starting this week (starting Sunday 1/15, Monday 1/16 or Tuesday 1/17) write down three things you are grateful for at the end of the day until February 4th-ish (depending on when you start). This is not required, but if someone makes your list on one of the days, share that with them... it will make you smile and I guarantee it will brighten their day!

If you are already doing this... awesome you may already have the "Happy Secret." The rest of us will be joining you soon.

As I have heard so many times in education, "Make it a great day or not. The choice is yours!"

I know what my choice will be! #happiness #21dayhappinesschallenge