Reflection

As we conclude our training session, we would like to revisit two brief exercises from Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind coming from his chapter on the sense of Meaning.

Have you ever had a training or meeting where someone used the "parking lot" idea? You probably have. You know, the parking lot is the place where the real meeting happens, outside the actual venue and the earshot of the rest of the participants. That is where the gloves come off and the real questions are asked. "That's all great, but it won't work in my classroom." "I would love to try those ideas, but I don't have X,Y and Z." Whenever a trainer or meeting leader uses the "parking lot" idea, they might provide some method of documenting concerns that cannot be solved by the participants in the time provided. The intention to 1 part increase focus and 1 part decrease complaints. But there's a good deal of merit to the method and to subscribing to that attitude in general.

Pink's exercise is called "But Out." Do you know what would make your teaching more meaningful? Compile a list of some important changes you would like to make in your teaching. What is holding you back? List both and carefully reflect on the legitimatcy of the "But's" (tehe, that's funny) and ways to move past them. You can see Tina Barseghian's post on Mindshift about Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli's ISTE session, "How to Address Yeah But Objections from Resisters"

Secondly and more importantly, we all need to remember one thing on difficulty days. Why do we teach? What are our goals? Each of us has trying days that leave us angry, saddened and perhaps acting out of character. Pink suggests writing a "One Sentence Vision." Create a one sentence vision statement for next school year. Please prepared to share it to the group. Since it will be composed of only one sentence, you might choose to tweet it as well.



Angela Maiers wrote this post from the students' point of view enummerating what they want from teachers.

We're all Failures!

Since today's topic included various ways to assess students, we also wanted to bring to light the idea of failure. Nothing creates failure more quickly than expecting little more. If you have taken care of the environment in your classroom and focused on student learning and nothing else, you have no reason to expect less than the world of the,. Failure only exists because we expect students to hit a random mark during a set period of time on a specific day without knowing specifically how to prepare for it, being able to ask for help, talking and taking randomly scheduled 3 minute silent stretch breaks. We should expect nothing but the best out of every kid, colleague and certainly of ourselves. Aiming any lower is just patronizing and wasting away an opportunity to be special. Why not aim for special? I you "fail,' then the worst you have done is attempt to do something you haven't before.

I have a 6 year old when I go home that frequently expects us to Google whatever his heart desires as he wonders about the makeup of this invisible thing called "air" and who first knew the word "follower" as an idea on Twitter. The argument(s) over whether or not that it suits us- the adults- that the information age is changing the way our kids learn and behave is moot to those of us in the teaching profession. Instead of concerning ourselves with the place in which we find our students, we need to move on preparing them for the world that exists which requires us to prepare for it as well. They have some pretty high expectations of us.

Below, you will find two more Twitter finds. What do you think you will be able to do to increase the opportunity for failure in your classroom and how can you help your students with the idea?

Anne Collier posted her commentary on failure on a post on Mindshift called, "Fun Failure: How to Make Learning Irresistible."

Liz Dwyer of Good.is posted similar insight titled, "Want Student to Succeed? Let them Fail."