Tavia Clark – Page 6

Go Forth and Drown Oceans

It’s International Women’s Day.

This morning, I came across this excerpt, that resonated with me, from Rupi Kaur’s poetry anthology Milk and Honey.

I’ve spent extra time today quietly reflecting on the women in my life who have raised me, taught me, inspired me, challenged me, and made me better. I’ve thought about the feminists who call me to act and my fellow nasty women who won’t stop fighting. I’ve thought about the countless times I’ve personally been made to feel ashamed as a woman and how I’m proud that I no longer allow this type of treatment. I’ve considered how I can be the best aunt to my niece and help her to grow up to feel limitless. I’ve also thought about the men in my life who proudly call themselves feminists, support me, and don’t ask me to apologize for the independence that is such a huge part of my being. I am so fortunate to be surrounded by so many humans who embrace the same ideals as I do. My support system stretches far and is filled with wonderful women and men who stand up and fight injustice in their own ways.

As I reflect today on others, I’m also reminded of my own strength. I’ve come a long way. I will always be finding my voice, but I’m learning to accept empowerment and use it to be heard. This is the role model I want to be for young women – someone who can be generous, kind, and caring, while being equally fierce, independent, and courageous.

I want to be a woman who can drown oceans, but leave no disaster in her wake.

How to Play the Gig

Last month, I came across this post by Jason Kottke on a list of advice that jazz pianist Thelonious Monk gave to a fellow musician. The post is playful and the advice is both practical and humorous, but after reading it a few times, my mind started making educational connections.

As educators (whether we teach kids, adults or both), we play a similar role as musicians. Each day we enter our classrooms, schools, or work spaces and play a “gig.” Sometimes that gig is successful – we hit each note just right, we engage our audience, and leave them wanting more. Other times, we fall flat – our audience just doesn’t connect with what we’re playing and we are unable to evoke any emotional response. I don’t know any educator who has a perfect day, everyday, but I know hundreds who reflect on both the perfect and imperfect days and use this to grow.

Here’s some of my favorite advice from the list:

“Just because you’re not a drummer, doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep time.”
How often have you heard a colleague say, “Well, that’s not my job” or “I teach ______, not _______”. Unfortunately, these conversations happen every single day. As educators, our job is to make sure kids are receiving the most amazing learning experiences possible. We don’t teach English or Science or History or Math – we teach kids. Nurturing them, their dreams, their imaginations, their wants and needs comes first. This is all of our jobs. We aren’t hired to simply disseminate information to students, we are hired to inspire them in their own pursuits and help to prepare them for whatever is happening now and whatever comes next. So, even if you don’t identify as a drummer, you are still a part of the band and we all have to be in sync to make the magic happen.

“You’ve got to dig it to dig it, you dig?”
Do you love what you do everyday? I don’t mean do you have an awesome day everyday – I mean do you enter your classroom, school or work space knowing that what you do matters? That what you do is impactful? That what you do is making a difference and changing the world? If you don’t dig what you do, or believe these things, then why are you doing it in the first place? Because, your kids and colleagues will know.

“Avoid the hecklers.”
Once negativity set in, it can run rampant, infiltrating an organization quickly, destroying its culture. Most of us have probably experienced hecklers at some point. Unfortunately, this can be a consequence of being fabulous! It’s important to remember that regardless of what others say, we must do what’s best for our kids and colleagues. I would go further to say that instead of avoiding people who try to tear you down or undermine your efforts, embrace these people and try to change their minds. There’s always a tipping point.

“The inside of the tune is the part that makes the outside sound good.”
You’ve probably been inundated with TPACK, SAMR, the 4C’s and countless other learning frameworks. These things have their place. They are great reminders of what good lesson design is and the components that we should be sure to reflect on and include. But sometimes, our conversations about frameworks revolve too much around technology integration and not enough on good, solid pedagogy. If we think about tools and resources as being the ‘outside’ of the song (lesson), the bells and whistles, the part that catches our students’ eyes and ears, we have to have place importance on the ‘inside’ of the song (pedagogy) or how we deliver the tune to our audience. Fancy tools and resources are great, but it’s the delivery that will make the learning stick.

“Don’t play everything…”
There’s so much information swimming around in our world. I just attended two educational conferences in the past two weeks and the amount of tools, resources and learning opportunities I experienced is huge, almost too big for me to wrap my head around. It’s very important to not get lost in information – don’t allow the sheer volume of new things to try or new ideas to cause you to shut down or become intimidated. When I was a School Librarian training teachers, I always told my colleagues to reach up and grab one thing out of all of the things and try it. If that one things works, if it’s transformational, if it’s good for students, keep it and continue to use it. If it isn’t worthwhile, let it go and try something else. We don’t have to know everything and often it’s better practice to thoughtfully and intentionally work with a few tools and resources than it is to try everything available.

And finally…

“Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself.”
Embrace your genius. Don’t be afraid of failure. Try the things that scare you. And as the late Princess Leia once said, “Stay afraid, but do it anyway…You don’t have to wait to be confident.”

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February Came & Went

My goal was to share writing once a week. I did a good job accomplishing this in January, but then came February. My month has been insane. With traveling back and forth across the state to facilitate PD and do coaching, I’ve had very little time to even breathe. Last week I got back from OETC’s iPDX conference in Portland. I dragged myself in from a late flight last Saturday, took my suitcase to my bedroom and realized that I still had two other suitcases packed from previous travel this month. This is the metaphor of how my February has been – it has literally come and gone.

So instead of a normal post referencing articles and education issues, I’m going to share one thing I read this month that has really made me think, reflect, and feel inspired to act.

On February 9th, I came across an article in my Twitter feed entitled, “Ten year old applies to be Cambridge professor of Lego.” Instantly, I was intrigued. Hoping that it wasn’t just click-bait, I went to the site and began reading. It’s short and you should read it yourself, so I won’t summarize it, but I will say that I was left feeling very inspired. The article served its purpose, to give me all the feels, but it also made me reflect on how we (educators) are in a position daily to inspire our students to reach for whatever dreams they can imagine.

Here are a few of my takeaways and questions after reading:

What if we were able to inspire all students to engage in making their dreams reality?
What would this look like in our classrooms/schools? How would this effect school culture and how the community views what we do? What would this mean for our communities?
How can we give students more opportunities to not just be engaged, or learn, but to be inspired?
This makes me think about the fact that engagement doesn’t ensure that students are actually learning anything at all. How do we tell the difference between compliant engagement and true learning?
Why are we afraid to foster environments that allow students to fulfill their dreams?
Working with 3rd graders has been eye opening – they jump right in, they take risks, they aren’t afraid of failure because it’s not failure to them, it’s more like a speed bump, the have very few inhibitions. Why doesn’t this happen more often, especially for older students?
What about leadership capacity? How are we constructing and designing opportunities for students to explore their capacity as leaders?
Does what we do in our classrooms help students to see themselves as leaders? If not, what can we do to fix this problem?

Defining Roles

I’ve been lucky to be asked to design and facilitate professional development opportunities for Media Coordinators. Since I served in this role up until a few months ago, I believe in the transformative power that MC’s have in their respective buildings and districts. When you think about change agents, the people serving in this role have amazing opportunities to impact an entire community. Serving everyone in their building, Media Coordinators are vital to student success and building a culture that is not only positive, welcoming and warm, but one that is driven by good lesson design and innovative practices.

While most MC’s will tell you that their goal is to impact students and effect change, this isn’t always easily done. Many feel like an island on their own – with little connection to anyone else in the building, since they are the only person who does their specific job. Many feel stripped of time, resources and the ability to design learning experiences due to the plethora of other tasks that they are handed to complete. Many feel powerless, being seen as a babysitter, and only considered a “teacher” when it’s time to administer tests.

My question is this – How much does our view of our role play in creating these restraints?

Thinking about our role begins with being honest about what we want not only for ourselves and our libraries, but for our kids. What do we envision the library doing to impact student learning? How do we make the 4C’s a priority in our teaching and in creating our environment? How do we encourage collaboration and good lesson design so that our students are getting the best possible opportunities to learn, share and grow?

We also have to consider what our kids need – thinking about data, both quantitative and qualitative. It’s important for us to be at the forefront of embracing data and using it to impact teaching and learning. Data tells so many stories and we have to figure out how these stories can help us work towards implementing change that results in student success. Data is meant to help us grow, not to hold us back or break us down. And we have to remember that not all data is numerical. There’s so much to be gained from asking students how they feel and how something impacted them. Give your students a chance to tell their stories. This can be powerful in changing our practice.

When thinking about our role, it is very important to determine what things are already in place that will help us reach our vision, create transformation or effect impactful change. What systems are working? What supports already exist within our buildings and districts that help us to be impactful within our roles? Sometimes these things aren’t obvious and we have to hunt, but if we look hard enough we will find them. And if there are things missing that are crucial for transforming our role, we have to figure out how to make them happen, whether this something is as simple as asking for resources or more involved like making a solid case for moving from fixed to flexible scheduling.

The way that we see ourselves in the context of our role goes far in determining how others will not only view us, but how they will utilize the knowledge, skills and creativity we bring to the table. If we chose to remain complacent and comfortable, we leave little room for growth. Our role will continue to evolve, with or without us. It’s our choice whether we redefine it, or let it be defined by others.

Lately I’ve Read

Since coming back to work from the holiday break, I’ve been moving non-stop. There’s so much I want to write about; professional development I’ve been doing in districts, NCDLCN and how amazing this year’s coaching cadre is, the wonderful work I’ve seen while shadowing my colleagues, but I just haven’t had time this week to focus my thoughts in a way that would justify any of those experiences.

Instead of focusing on one, single thing this week, I am going to share some of the awesome things I’ve been reading – things that have caused me to take notice, reflect on my practice and, ultimately, continue to learn and grow.

“Great Artists Write” by Paul Jun

This piece tackles the idea of self reflection through writing. Since I’ve been personally writing and reflecting on my new experiences at FI, I was instantly drawn into this. I love the idea of using writing as a way to champion our creativity, critical thinking and clarity. And, as someone who taught writing to high school students for most of her career, I believe in its power to transform people. This post also offers practical ideas for kickstarting your own reflective writing – all of which are super accessible.

“You’re working hard. But are you heading towards the right life goals?” by Jessica Abel

I came across Jessica Abel’s site by accident through someone else’s tweet. But I am so glad that I did. I have loved all of her posts I’ve read so far. This one, challenges our ideas of goals and setting goals that are not only attainable, but goals that we are passionate about – simply put, the right ones. I love her assertion that creative success is mostly about defining success for yourself, envisioning not just your future projects or productivity, but your actual, future self. I enjoyed her advice for setting goals and the candor with which she tells her own story of failed attempts.

“Hate PD? Try Voluntary Piloting.” by Krista Taylor

Without giving too much away, this is a piece that all educators should read. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard complaints about professional development – it’s too long, too short, doesn’t apply, boring, confusing, not enough tools featured, and the list goes on and on. This model of PD is different though. It’s small, grass roots and asserts that even a small, passionate group of educators can spark transformational change. This one will inspire you to act.

“How I Come Up With 20 New Ideas a Day” by Rodd Chant

This post offers such a great idea for being creative each day! He gives a few, simple ways to come up with new ideas, whether they turn into to larger projects or not. As someone who works around brilliant, creative people, I feel pressure to constantly be innovative, even though this isn’t always easy. I love his advice that you have to let your ideas flow without editing yourself, since, at the end of the day, idea creation is all for you. Whether an idea is good or bad doesn’t matter, all that matters is that it happens.

“Man on the Moon” by Jonathon Wennstrom

I was drawn to this post for two reason. First, it’s written by an educator, someone in the trenches. Second, it’s simple and all about impacting students. He gives us a siren call to check our egos at the door so that we can simply focus on doing impactful, transformational work. While the post is short, it reminds me of why I love being a part of the PLLC team at FI – we are about the work, not about the accolades. We come together to focus on creating learning experiences that lead to impacting students. It really is that easy. We don’t compete, compare or criticize, we just do good work.

“A Class Where Students Create the Curriculum” by Natalie Orenstein

I wish all students were able to have learning experiences like the ones described in this post. I wish that it didn’t take an act of Congress to enable these conditions (thanks Greg) and I wish that this story was the norm, not the exception and was reproducible in every district. Even if it takes baby steps to create these types of experiences for kids, it’s worth dreaming and working towards.

“We Ask Our Kids What They Learn Each Day. Why Don’t We Ask Ourselves?” by Rupa Chandra Gupta

I love this post (and most of the things published on EdSurge). It will make you reflect and consider the difference between reactive and proactive learning. As a true believer in the importance of lifelong learning, and as someone who is always looking for opportunities to learn, I think it’s worth the time it takes to read this if it makes someone consider being more proactive and seeking out opportunities for growth.

“32 Productivity Tips from the World’s Top Designers” by John Brownlee

This article is exactly what it says, tips on how to be more productive this year. While the tips are from people in the design world, the suggestions are very relevant to anyone – and have many applications in education. I enjoyed reading this and will be using some of what I read to help myself be more productive. Besides, shouldn’t we be working smarter, not necessarily harder?