Sustainability

In the past two months, many of the school professional development accounts that I work on have come to a close. I’ve left schools, said goodbye to educators, and wished them luck in the closing of the school year. And next month, I will do the same with the third cohort of coaches in the NCDLCN program.

This is a bittersweet time for numerous reasons. I’m proud of how much these educators have grown – and in turn how much their growth is affecting their students. I’ve seen confidence grow, leadership capacity be born, and creativity run rampant. My heart has been so full seeing how hard these people work so that they can create better learning experiences for their kids. It’s been amazing to be a part of this growth – leading these educators to discover more about their own ability to be creative and intentional.

I am so proud of the amazing work I get to be a part of – the way this work impacts so many people across the state. As I leave each of these places and say goodbye to these educators, I am reminded of the importance of sustainability. Sure, there are always evaluations that we collect from participants, which we use to help shape the scope of our work, but how do we know that what we do really empowers these people to carry on, to keep exploring, improving, and growing?

I don’t have all of the answers, but I do have questions that I will be asking myself as I reflect on my work over the past six months:

How do we ensure that when we leave, our work is sustaining?

How do we empower people to continue to learn and grow after we are gone?

How can we help ensure that people can carry on the momentum of the past year?

How do we check for sustainability?

Do we continue to grow these relationships?

While I work primarily with adults, I think the same questions can be asked of our work in classrooms with students.

I want to be sure that I’ve not only empowered and inspired people, but that I’ve set the stage for them to have the confidence to continue to grow, be more intentional in their instructional practice, and lead others to do the same.

 

Lately I’ve Read

There are so many great things out there to read. Here are a few I’ve really enjoyed in the past month.

“No Such Thing As Offline” by Justin Barber

As designers the prospect of shaping these experiences is exciting, because it comes with a great realization that the next generation of users are designing the tools and the output as much as we are.

I love when I read something outside of the education realm that has many applications for teaching and learning.  I enjoyed this article’s discussion of cultural competence and the shift from passive consumption to interaction and creation.

 

“Wish For More Self Control Can Backfire” by Cari Romm

…When people are forced to confront the gap between their ideal and actual levels of self-control, they end up psyching themselves out: Performance suffers because people with a strong desire for self-control sometimes disengage and withhold effort…

This is a great read, especially for all of my type A brothers and sisters. I find the idea that the more we want something, the harder it can become to attain, to be very intriguing.

 

“The Inefficiency of Words” by Robert Cormack

Inefficient words make it too easy. They fit into texts and short Twitter copy. They keep us from rambling. They confine us to mundane truths.

I have written about words before – my love of them, their power, the importance of choosing the right ones, and the power and danger of things left unsaid. Naturally, this article caught my eye. I love its discussion of the way our tech laden world is helping to shape our use of language. It definitely made me think twice about not just what I’m tweeting, but the words I chose when I write, speak, and communicate with others.

 

“Staying in the Discomfort Zone” by Julie Zhuo

The key to growing while staying in the same job is setting new challenges for yourself. Expect more of yourself than anyone else does.

Julie offers awesome tips and advice in her weekly mailing list where she answers a reader’s question. I particularly enjoyed this piece about stretching and pushing ourselves to function with a certain amount of discomfort, while still remaining intentional in our thoughts and actions. She ends the piece with solid advice about how to remain in the discomfort zone and use this to your advantage.

 

“Bored Out of Their Minds” by Zachary Jason

Yet we’re still keeping them in the kind of education system… that wants nothing from them in terms of their own ideas. School has already decided what matters and [what it] expects from you. It’s like an airplane: Sit down, strap in, don’t talk, look forward. Why would it be meaningful?

This should be required reading for every educator. Students become increasingly bored as they get older. This article pinpoints the research behind the reasons why this happens and gives practical, important advice for how teachers can counteract this boredom by making curriculum more resonant, personalized, and meaningful for every student.

 

“How Elon Musk Learns Faster and Better Than Everyone Else” by Michael Simmons

Learning transfer is taking what we learn in one context and applying it to another. It can be taking a kernel of what we learn in school or in a book and applying it to the “real world.” It can also be taking what we learn in one industry and applying it to another.

One of the first people I think about when the word genius is mentioned is Elon Musk. I am so intrigued by his work and his ability to know so much across so many fields. This article breaks down a little of what makes him so special through discussion on the expert generalist and learning transfer – concepts that can both be applied to education, easily. I also enjoyed the focus on exploring personal learning practices.

 

“How to Make Feedback the Focus” by Arthur Chiaravalli

Most importantly, however, is what students do with the feedback once they’ve received it. As Dylan Wiliams points out, No matter how well the feedback is designed, if students do not use the feedback to move their own learning forward, it’s a waste of time.

Feedback is a crucial piece of assessment. This piece focuses on how to make feedback more powerful for students – offering feedback without scores or grades and being reflective and intentional about why and how we assess students in the first place. Emphasis is placed on student agency and ownership and how we can leverage feedback, both from teachers and peers, to help build these.

 

Six Months

I’m about to have a six month anniversary that no one will probably notice but me.

On October 26th I walked into The Friday Institute for the first time as an employee. I remember my walk from the back of the parking lot that morning. I stopped and snapped a quick picture with my phone. I wanted to remember the moment, exactly how it was, exactly how I felt (which was super nervous). I walked into the building filled with anxiety. Would I be accepted? Would I be enough? Then I was greeted by a warm smile from one of my colleagues and the anxiety melted away. I haven’t looked back since.

To say that my life has changed since that day is a gross understatement. I was hired and within a month I was saying goodbye to some of my favorite people in the world, living out of storage containers, in Raleigh, at my brother and sister-in-law’s house, and traveling across the state multiple times every week. Within that same month, I also packed up everything I owned and left my apartment (which I was in love with) in Norfolk, VA dragging my husband and two cats with me.

I have had to have many difficult conversations and make decisions that weren’t always easy. I’ve had to apologize over and over again to people I love because my schedule doesn’t always afford me the time to dedicate to relationships like I had before. I’ve cried, felt overwhelmed, felt defeated, and had to become more comfortable with allowing myself space to express vulnerability. In short, I have grown so much since October.

It’s impossible for me to recount all of the lessons, skills, strategies, and information I’ve learned. My head is swimming with new ideas, ways to improve the work I’ve done and will do, and daily I’m inspired and renewed by the creativity of my colleagues. I am part of a team that is dedicated to the work we do, checking our egos at the door and collaborating to, in turn, affect positive change on K-12 education.

I have so many anecdotes I could share, so many moments that are worthy of writing about and reflecting on, but in honor of these past six months, I’m going to share a few things I’ve learned.

 

Lean into struggle and never be afraid to say I’m sorry.

Starting a new phase of your career is tough. It means learning so many things, being uncomfortable with not knowing everything, creating a new reputation, having little free time, feeling exhausted, being overwhelmed, sacrificing things due to a lack of time. Over the past six months, I’ve made mistakes, particularly in relationships with people I care deeply about. None of my actions have been intentional – most were simply reactions caused by stress and exhaustion. One in particular was tough, hurting my best friend. Fortunately, she’s amazing and could see past my actions to the root cause – stress. I was able to apologize, we both talked and listened, and she’s still my partner in crime. It’s so important to lean into struggle, own your failures, and take responsibility for whatever wake you leave in your path – even if it’s hard to admit you’ve wronged someone. And always, always be willing to say sorry without expecting anything in return.

 

Creativity can be learned.

I have never been one of those people who is artistic by nature. I can’t draw, paint, play music by ear and all of my “talents” (like playing the piano, dancing, and singing when I was younger) were learned and sharpened through meticulous practice. For a long time I’ve associated creativity with having an artistic brain. You’ve either got it, or you don’t. But, as I dive deeper into designing experiences for educators through collaborating with my colleagues, I’m finding that creativity can be learned, like any other skill. I’m surrounded by creative people, which inspires me to let go of inhibitions and try new things, take risks, and be more in touch with my creative side. This is a skill that I will continue to hone and make room for myself to explore.

 

You need people; don’t be afraid to admit that.

I could write a book on how my perception of collegial relationships has changed since last October. As a teacher and then a school librarian, I’ve always had work friends, and even one amazing work BFF, but until I started at FI, I didn’t really understand the importance or depth of this type of relationship. For me, being in the classroom and the library was easy, very natural. I felt confident in my abilities and rarely faltered or needed reassurance. But even though my position at FI is not foreign and the work I’m doing is similar to things I’ve done in the past, learning to trust my talents and have confidence in my creativity has been a process. All of my colleagues are fabulous and have welcomed me with open arms – teaching me and helping me to grow. One in particular has made a huge impact. While he may not have had much say in the matter (we were working together on a large project on my second day), my work BFF has been a saving grace. I will never be able to adequately express my gratitude for his inspiration, help, support, and camaraderie. He pushes me when I need it, encourages me to speak up when I want to remain silent, listens and appreciates my contributions, and always makes me laugh. All I can say is that if you’re lucky enough to have colleagues who make you believe in yourself and inspire you to be better, don’t let those relationships go – they make all the difference.

 

Making time and space for reflection is a necessity.

I wrote about reflection last month, as it’s been on my mind so much lately. I’ve always considered myself a reflective practitioner. I spend a lot of time thinking about the work I do, my interactions with others, and how I’m making an impact. But just considering these things is not enough – it’s what we do with our reflection that really matters. Working at FI is teaching me so much about using my reflection to help my work evolve and grow. I’m learning to not only think about what I’m designing and creating, but to take feedback and make it actionable for real, lasting change.

 

If it is still in your mind, it is worth taking the risk.

I am not a loud person. I am talkative if I know you well, but I mostly enjoy listening. While I pride myself in being a good listener (a trait that is often appreciated and acknowledged by those around me), I have found that my tendency to sit back and let others talk can stifle me. It’s easy for me to stay on the sidelines and fade into the background while others around me talk. Think it, but don’t share it becomes a habit. Being a part of the PLLC team at FI has forced me to consider the power of my own voice. I am learning to take risks – to speak up more, trust my ideas, and add to the conversation instead of just listening. I will be forever grateful for my colleagues for encouraging me and giving me a platform to be heard.

 

The past six months have been some of the best I’ve had. I’ve struggled and stumbled, but I’m surrounded by people who are ready to lift me up, dust me off, and encourage me to keep going. I am so excited and hopeful for what the future brings and for the amazing work that I am fortunate enough to be a part of.

Intentionality

I have a confession – brace yourself. As a former librarian, I’ll probably lose so many cool points for admitting this, but I hate writing book reviews. I love talking to people about what I read, but when it comes to reviewing something, I struggle, and generally fail. It’s always hard for me to articulate exactly how a book makes me feel – because that’s just it, if it’s worth reviewing, it’s because the book made me feel something and probably hit a personal cord. Also, sharing my feelings is not always easy for me. So, I’m more inclined to rate it on Goodreads, maybe snap a quick Instagram picture of the cover, and write a short sentence about how you should read it too. But, yesterday I finished a book that I feel like I need to say some things about.

So, it’s called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***. I know what you’re thinking – that sounds awfully cynical, negative even. Before I started reading it, I felt the same way. But what I found were awesome anecdotes, not on how to not care about anything, but on being very intentional about what we chose to care about and invest our time and energy in.

So here are a few of my favorite takeaways, in no particular order:

“We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work to innovate and survive.”

Instead of focusing on the wrongs done to me, I have to train myself to view dissatisfaction, insecurity, let down as an opportunity to redesign my circumstances. This view makes it easy to understand the principle of the sphere of influence. Some things are just out of our control; however, our reactions to these things aren’t. We might not be able to change what someone does to us, but we can always change how we let it affect us.

 

“Emotions are part of the equation of our lives, but not the entire equation.”

I’d scream this from the rooftops if I could! As someone who struggles with sharing emotions and sometimes even admitting and understanding my own emotions, I value the idea that rational, realistic thought means just as much as listening to your heart. And when we think about where we invest our love, time, and energy, rationality becomes paramount.

 

“If you want to change how you see your problems, you have to change what you value and/or how you measure failure/success.”

I am too hard on myself. I, like many other people, tend to set my measurements for both success and failure on those of others – and comparison is a dangerous thing. Oftentimes I set very unrealistic measurements for success, which are almost always impossible to attain. I operate under the assumption that I could be doing more, doing something better, because look at her, she’s doing so much. This leads to unrealistic measures of failure – instead of celebrating myself and even the smallest victories, I’m constantly feeling as if I have not done enough. What I’d like to see, for myself, is a more realistic gauge of both my success and my failure, focusing on viewing the failure as a stepping stone to accomplishing my goals.

 

“Growth is an endlessly iterative process…personal growth can actually be quite scientific. Our values are our hypotheses: this behavior is good and important; that other behavior is not. Our actions are the experiments; the resulting emotions and thought patterns are our data.”

As someone who tends to see things very literally (my husband often calls me Drax), this was a #micdrop statement. I love the idea of seeing growth as a scientific process. To me, this makes me feel so much more at ease with allowing myself space and vulnerability to accept areas where I need to be honest about choices and change.

 

“How will the world be different and better when you’re gone? What mark will you have made? What influence will you have caused?”

This is the ultimate self-reflective question. As I wrote last month, I want to leave no disaster in my wake. I’ve spent most of my life trying to make a positive impact on the people around me. I’m a fixer and a helper by nature, so leaving behind a legacy that I’m proud of and that has helped as many people as it can is so, so important to me. As I continue to grow, I realize I want to be more than nice and caring, I want to be inspiring. I want to make people feel confident in their own abilities and intelligence. I want to cause influence that leads to positive change.

Reflection

Over the past month, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about reflection. This hasn’t been easy – I’ve actually stopped writing and walked away from this piece multiple times. It’s not that I don’t value reflection (both for professional and personal growth) but the act of reflecting requires vulnerability, which is something that I struggle with.

As much as I’ve tried to write about something else, it seems that I keep coming back to this. Whether through conversations with friends or colleagues or the random article showing up in my inbox – I can’t escape this topic. So, despite my fear of appearing vulnerable, of sharing this part of myself, I am going to discuss the role reflection is playing in my life currently and how I can be more diligent in my efforts to give myself time and space for reflecting.

In a recent conversation with a colleague, I was forced to take a hard look at my impact on our team. The work I do wasn’t in question, but the role my actions and words play on building a more connected team was. No one wants to hear that they could be responsible for negative impact. And I especially don’t want to hear this since I’m new to the team and my goal, since arriving in October, has been to be a positive spark.

Immediately following this conversation, I decided that I had to take time to slow down – to think more about the role I play on our team and how I can act as a bridge, rather than a roadblock. I have to own this – I have a responsibility to take a step back and reflect on my actions and words. And not just think about these things, but to use this reflection to actually create actionable change.

I read an article recently from Harvard Business Review about the importance of making time for self-reflection, even when you don’t want to. Even when you hate it! Not only was this article timely for me, it gave me some good questions to start with:

What are you avoiding?
How are you helping your colleagues achieve their goals?
How are you not helping or even hindering their progress?
How might you be contributing to your least enjoyable relationship at work?
How could you have been more effective in a recent meeting?

For the past month, I’ve journaled and worked through these questions – considering my impact on others. The result was two, awesome conversations with my supervisors where I was able to clearly articulate my professional goals, my learning and growth, and how I think I can be an integral part of our team’s work moving forward. Without taking time to reflect, I am certain these conversations would have gone differently. My reflection allowed me to stop feeling victimized – something that will absolutely always hinder progress.

I’ve also made a commitment to myself to spend more time reflecting on the learning experiences that I design and facilitate for others. After I travel and deliver content to educators, I always look at their evaluations of the sessions and read any other reflections that I ask them to complete. I engage with this feedback – but not in a way that feels effective enough. In the past, I’ve been more interested in how my participants felt about me, as their facilitator:

Did they like me?
Did I deliver content in a way that was not condescending?
Did they enjoy my humor and anecdotes? 

While this helps to make me feel better about myself, unfortunately, my lack of true reflection does little to help my work evolve and grow. Generally, building relationships with people I am working with is not hard, but my confidence in my ability to design creative and innovative content is something I struggle with. And this is one of my goals – I want to design content that has real impact on both educators and students.

Reflection requires us to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. True reflection (the kind that really makes you dig deep and helps you grow) makes us expose ourselves to the possibility that we aren’t perfect, great, or sometimes even good. The thing is, that’s okay. It’s what we do with this knowledge to affect change in our own lives and practice that really matters.