Inspired

Hello, friends!
I feel certain each of you found, as I did, something to inspire you in our meetings with Ashley Cadwell this week.  I sat near Paula a few times in the 3:30 meetings and each time she mentioned to me the pleasure of sitting around a table together to talk about what really matters.  I agree and feel grateful for all of you, who have made a commitment to sitting down for those conversations that matter on a regular basis.

I wanted to share an article that has inspired me lately about teacher research.  I'd encountered it before but it was reintroduced to me at a workshop at Opal School last week. This excerpt resonated with me when I reread the article after our work regarding the new building:
This is why true innovations are so difficult to accept and appreciate.  They "shake up" our frames of reference because they force us to look at the world with new eyes.  They open us up to what is different and unexpected.  We tend to accept the status quo, that which we know and have already tried out...even when it does not satisfy us, even when it makes us feel stressed, confused or hopeless.
I love the way the rest of this article frames our hope and inspiration in the children themselves and their innate desire to search for and research meaning.

Opal teacher Kerry Salazar shared some of her own guiding teacher research questions in a presentation on 12/6 that I thought might inspire some of you.  I'd like to offer them as questions that could guide some reflective writing over winter break:
What do I believe about children?
What assumptions do I carry?
How do these beliefs or assumptions show up in my daily teaching?
Does my practice/classroom reflect my beliefs?
What are my questions?

May the break be restorative to all of you, full of inspiration, reflection and renewal.

PS  I also have in my notes from the Suzy Cessor workshop a reminder to give you the link to the Five Whys Protocol she referenced when she introduced the Design Thinking process.  It's a simple, useful protocol, good for shorter time frames like team meetings. Here it is!

Dec. 6th Meeting Cancelled

Happy December, Friends!
You'll know this already if you were able to make it to the Nov. meeting, but we've had to cancel our December 6th meeting due to the planning session about the new building.  I'll leave you with a poem to ponder instead!


Praise Song For the Day
by Elizabeth Alexander

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each other's eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere, with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum, with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus. A farmer considers the changing sky. A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of some one and then others, who said I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road. We need to find a place where we are safe. We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign, the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself, others by first do no harm or take no more than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national, love that casts a widening pool of light, love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, any thing can be made, any sentence begun. On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Wishing you much warmth, friendship, and a sense of walking forward...
Kirstin

Looking for Warmth

As the leaves fall and the temperatures drop, I know I'm noticing the places around me that offer warmth.  We went on a cold walk yesterday to draw branches and the children were so ready to come in to warm up they suggested skipping recess and going directly back to the classroom. But I'm seeing inner warmth in so many places, too; the teachers next door who have offered hugs of encouragement, the way my class all spontaneously lay on their bellies and stretched their hands to meet when we learned a new song about roots, exclaiming, "Look, our roots are all connected!" 

I'm excited that another opportunity for warmth and for our roots to connect lies ahead of us next week.  I look forward to seeing all of you in MHC at 4 pm on Wed. Nov. 14th.

Just a reminder that we'll all have an opportunity to participate in The Final Word Protocol with the Roland Barth article, so please look over both the article and the protocol in advance.  I'm also still looking for a presenter so we can further explore protocols to deepen our work.  If you have some curriculum to fine-tune, a question you want to explore or a dilemma you want some insight into, please let me know so we can talk briefly this weekend or early next week to plan.

If you weren't able to join us last time, the poem we used to begin our work was Where the Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore and we participated in a Consultancy Protocol about a question Deborah has been thinking about in her classroom. Copies of the handouts should have been delivered to your boxes on Friday if you've attended a meeting or are subscribed to the CFG website--please let me know if you didn't receive one and would like to.

Until Wednesday,
Kirstin

Turn to Wonder

I'm on an email list from The Courage To Teach that sends periodic videos of what it calls "Stories of Authenticity."  This week's video is from a business leader who talks about how the Circle of Trust Touchstone "Turn to Wonder" has helped him grow as a community member.  It's a short video, just 2:28, but I thought some of you might appreciate this reflection on the strength in our diversity as we enter conference season, communicating with many different people from different backgrounds and experiences.  May this time with the people who love our students most enrich all of our perspectives.

Looking Forward and Looking Back

Our next meeting is coming up on Thursday, October 18th from 3:30-5:30 (a half hour earlier than our last meeting) in the MHCR.  I'm so looking forward to spending more time with all of you!

Please contact me this weekend or Monday if you'd like to present a teaching  dilemma, planning inquiry, or student work you have questions about.  I'm happy to meet with you this week to answer your questions about this experience and to select a protocol that would help you elicit the kind of feedback you seek.  Bringing work to the group through a protocol can really help bring clarity to an issue and often uses the wisdom of the group to delve deeper than you can do in isolation.  It is also a gift to the group, this glimpse into your classroom life and your professional questions.  We always feel grateful to presenters, as we learn about our own teaching through the lens of another's inquiry. 

Before we meet together again, I wanted to refresh our memories of our last meeting.  We began by reading and discussing Marge Piercy's The Seven of Pentacles.  

Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

We revisited our hopes for our collaborative community from our August meeting.  On this day, hopes that resonated particularly strongly were:

• Listening to each other
• Recognizing new possibilities
• Inspiration from learning about each others' work 
• Connections to each others' classrooms and work

In two small groups, we discussed the Circles of Trust Touchstones through these questions:

What do you need to 'tend properly' your professional garden?

Have you been part of a community that helped you 'weave real connections?'

What made it work?

What tools and agreements will help us see the burrows and lairs beneath the thicket and bramble wilderness of our work? 

Our consensus was in support of using the Circles of Trust Touchstones to guide our work together.

• Extend and receive welcome
• Be present as fully as possible
• What is offered in the circle is by invitation, not demand
• Speak your truth in ways that respect other people's truth
• No fixing, no saving, no advising, and no setting each other straight.
   (Most of our questions involved this line, with an agreement that part of being fully present is to keep your mind from always leaping to the next step or thinking of your response, but to truly listen.  We also discussed saying what you need.  We agree to ask each other, is this the kind of feedback you want?  We agree to try to tell each other what kind of feedback we'd find helpful.)
• Learn to respond to others with honest, open questions instead of counsel or corrections.
• When the going gets rough, turn to wonder.
• Attend to your own inner teacher.
• Trust and learn from the silence.
• Observe deep confidentiality.
• Know that it is possible to leave the circle with whatever it was that you needed when you arrived. 

We also discussed our commitment to the group and agreed to take responsibility for checking in if we miss a meeting and to do the best we can to attend CFG whenever possible.  We also know that 'life happens' and agreed to be flexible, honoring the difficult time choices we all must make.

We concluded by spending our last hour in the Walk and Talk Protocol and a final reflection.

Please bring materials for writing and reflection to the next meeting.  See you Thursday!

Kirstin

The Courage to Teach Sampler Retreat

I wanted to make you aware of an opportunity coming up the week after Thanksgiving.  Lewis and Clark College is holding a Courage to Teach sampler retreat, which is an opportunity to experience the reflection and renewal of the Courage to Teach without committing to the two-year retreat cycle.  Though if you're like me, once you experience the sampler retreat, you'll be eager to participate in a full cycle!  If you are interested in meeting wonderful and inspirational teachers, in learning more about yourself as a teacher, and in using poetry and the metaphor of the seasons to reflect on the intersection between your personal and professional life, please consider participating.  I believe you also have the opportunity to participate in a Clearness Committee, a Quaker tradition of deep listening, reflection and renewal.
Information and applications are available here. 

September Gathering

Greetings, friends,

Happy fall!  I hope you are all enjoying this crisp, sunny weekend.  Clara, Ellis and I went to an afternoon labyrinth walk today to celebrate the beginning of fall, and we discovered one of my favorite poems was out on the table for inspiration. I think it will be the perfect thing to get us started on Wednesday…when you arrive at the Morris House Conference Room by 4 pm for our CFG meeting, look for a copy of the poem on the table and find a comfortable spot in the room to read, reflect and write.  A candle will be lit for this quiet reflection time—we'll blow it out at the end of the reflection so we know to finish up any last thoughts in our writing and prepare for our conversations to begin. 

If you can manage it, I do think it would be helpful to look over this brief guide to probing questions before Wednesday's meeting, as we'll be asking questions for a protocol in the second half of the afternoon:

I sent the protocol out via email for any of you who want to look it over in advance. 

And just a reminder to bring:

• a binder you can use to keep a protocol packet and your CFG notes
• a favorite pen or pencil for writing
• a journal if you prefer for your reflections to be in a journal.  I'll have reflection sheets you can use if you want your reflections in your CFG binder instead.

Our agenda is as follows:

4:00-4:10 Written reflection

4:10-4:20 Groups of 2-3 reflect together on poem and writing

4:20-4:55 Revisit our hopes for a collaborative community; Circle of Trust touchstones; agreements to guide our work

4:55 Walk and Talk introduction

5-5:40 Walk and Talk Protocol

5:40 Debrief Protocol

5:50 or 5:55 Closing reflection 

I'm so looking forward to meeting with all of you again on Wednesday,

Kirstin

Questions as Gifts

At our August 29th gathering the question was asked what it means to ask questions that serve the listener as opposed to the person posing the question.  I'm excited to explore together what it means to offer questions as a gift to the presenter in CFG work. I gave the explanation that these kinds of questions are posed to help move the presenter forward in his or her work instead of to satisfy the curiosity of the questioner, but realized on further thought that this explanation lacked an essential component of this kind of questioning: the belief that wisdom and solutions lie within the teacher asking the questions as opposed to some external source.

For inspiration I revisited  Parker Palmer's Circle of Trust descriptions and came upon this passage I found helpful:

• Asking honest, open questions to “hear each other into speech”: Instead of advising each other, we learn to listen deeply and ask questions that help others hear their own inner wisdom more clearly. As we learn to ask questions that are not advice in disguise, that have no other purpose than to help someone listen to the inner teacher, all of us learn and grow.

As we embark on asking one another questions about our classroom environments, I invite us to play with these ideas about asking questions.  What challenges does this aim in questioning pose?  How does holding these ideas in hand change the kinds of questions we ask? Have you experienced someone in your life who asks you questions that help you find your inner wisdom?

If a colleague asks you such a question in the next few weeks that you find yourself working on and growing from long after it's been asked, please consider sharing its story with us at our next meeting.

Our Ideas About Collaborative Community

I had to put up a photo of the dragonfly who chose to sit with Paula for awhile at our first meeting.  When I did a little search into what dragonflies symbolize, the first website I came across had these symbolisms listed:

• maturity and depth of character
• power and poise
• defeat of self created illusions
• focus on living in the moment
• the opening of one's eyes

What wonderful hopes this little creature brought with it!  If our CFG can live up to those expectations, we'll be doing well.  

When I look back over the notes from our first meeting, there are many connections and overlaps in our hopes for our collaborative community.  They include:

• time to be in each others' classrooms
• an opportunity to see children across ages
• an environment of trust and safety
• connections to each others' classrooms and work
• shared resources
• help with issues we grapple with in the classroom
• seeing our students through another's eyes
• recognizing new possibilities
• continuous collaboration throughout the year
• momentum
• exploration into the possibility of protocols
• inspiration from learning about each other's work
• opportunities to hear the inner story
• listening to each other
• developing a consistent common language
• discussing articles, shared readings and current research

We will revisit these hopes at our September meeting, as well as take a look at what Parker Palmer calls the Circle of Trust Touchstones. Our focus will be on setting up our agreements for what we need to guide our work together, reflecting on the Appreciative Ghost Walk protocol, and planning for future meetings. 

To the next meeting, please bring:

• a binder you can use to keep a protocol packet and your CFG notes
• a favorite pen or pencil for writing
• a journal if you prefer for your reflections to be in a journal.  I'll have reflection sheets you can use if you want your reflections in your CFG binder instead.

I need to run the dates by Lyn and secure a location, but the calendar dates we planned are as follows:

• Wednesday, September 26th from 4-6 pm
• Thursday, October 18th from 3:30-5:30 pm
• Wednesday, November 14th from 4-6 pm
• Thursday, December 6th from 3:30-5:30 pm
• Wednesday, January 16th from 4-6 pm
• Thursday, February 21st from 3:30-5:30 pm
• Wednesday, March 13th from 4-6 pm
• Thursday, April 11th from 3:30-5:30 pm
• Wednesday, May 15th from 4-6 pm 

Looking forward to seeing all of you soon--please let me know if you have questions about the upcoming Appreciative Ghost Walk protocol.  I'll send out pairings through email today.
-Kirstin-

Let's Get Together!

Hello, friends!

I imagine all of us have minds full of checklists, plan book pages and room arrangements.  I'd like to propose two CFG activities for next week that I hope will be worth your precious and limited week-before-school-starts time.

I'll bring a few picnic blankets on Wednesday, August 29th and bring them to the lawn area near Morris House (aka the labyrinth area or the yard in front of Lou and Sal's house).  There's also a picnic bench if it's hard for you to sit on the ground. Pick up your lunch at  12:00 and head on over.  We can eat together, meet the other faculty interested in the CFG, ask questions and discuss dates and times for future meetings.  Please bring your calendar. Think beforehand about where a two-hour block of time might fit into your schedule once a month, as well as any regular restrictions you have on your schedule.  I'd like us to schedule a school year's worth of monthly meetings so we can get them on our calendars early. At the end of this lunch meeting you can also sign up for an optional CFG activity for next week that might be helpful...

Feedback about classroom design can be so inspiring.  It's great to get input from members of your grade level team who know what you're trying to accomplish and are in the mind-set of children in your age group.  But what insight and challenges to our thinking can teachers outside of our grade level teams offer us?  If you are interested in the perspective of someone who isn't regularly in your classroom, we can organize dyads or triads of CFG members to do a version of the Collaborative Ghost Walk protocol.  We'll learn much more this year about following protocols, but for interested teachers I'll create a simplified version of this protocol that can be followed without protocol experience.  I'll have the modified version available on Wednesday and we can sign up for small touring groups at that time. After hearing a few brief statements about your biggest hopes for your classroom, the teacher or teachers walking through your classroom will focus on this appreciative inquiry question while walking through your room:  Where is the evidence of promise and potential? They will also write down three questions for you to consider about the classroom environment. You will then do the same for the other teacher/s in your group.  To participate, plan to dedicate 30 min. per classroom at the convenience of the teachers in your group.

“It has been said that the environment should act as a kind of aquarium which reflects the ideas, ethics, attitudes and cultures of the people who live in it. This is what we are working toward."  -Loris Malaguzzi-

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you on Wednesday.  If you are unable to join us but have input you'd like to give regarding future meetings, please contact me.

Until next week,
Kirstin

A Poem for Summer

From time to time I'll post poetry or questions here.  Use them as journal prompts if you like, or just a chance to reflect for a few minutes on what they mean to you.


The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain

There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.

-Wallace Stevens-

What does this season, a time for us all to go in our own directions, do for you as a person?  As a teacher? What views can you see from your exact rock? What can you recognize with time to gaze down at the sea? What will you keep with you even in times when your book is turned in the dust of your table? 

Welcome

The Burrow is being developed as a virtual home for Oregon Episcopal School's Lower School Critical Friends Group.  Specific details about our CFG will be decided in collaboration with interested teachers over the next few months, but the purpose of this site is to provide one place for resources and inspiration related to reflective teaching. Our CFG format is inspired by the structure and protocols developed through the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the National School Reform Faculty (NSRF), as well as reflective practices used by educators in the Courage to Teach Program. The following descriptions of a CFG are from NSRF:

What is a CFG?
A CFG is a professional learning community consisting of approximately 8-12 educators who come together voluntarily at least once a month for about 2 hours. Group members are committed to improving their practice through collaborative learning.

What are the purposes of a Critical Friends Group?
Critical Friends Groups are designed to:

• Create a professional learning community
• Make teaching practice explicit and public by "talking about teaching"
• Help people involved in schools to work collaboratively in democratic, reflective communities (Bambino)
• Establish a foundation for sustained professional development based on a spirit of inquiry (Silva)
• Provide a context to understand our work with students, our relationships with peers, and our thoughts, assumptions, and beliefs about teaching and learning
• Help educators help each other turn theories into practice and standards into actual student learning
• Improve teaching and learning

What are the characteristics of a professional learning community?
Professional learning communities are strong when teachers demonstrate:

• Shared norms and values
• Collaboration
• Reflective dialogue
• Deprivatization of practice
• Collective focus on student learning
• Spirit of shared responsibility for the learning of all students

Professional learning communities can develop when there is:

• Time to meet and talk
• Physical proximity
• Interdependent teaching roles
• Active communication structures
• Teacher empowerment and autonomy

A professional learning community is enhanced when there is:

• Openness to improvement
• Trust and respect
• A foundation in the knowledge and skills of teaching
• Supportive leadership
• Socialization or school structures that encourage the sharing of the school's vision and mission (Kruse, et al)

For more information on Critical Friends Groups, see the National School Reform Faculty FAQ Page.

Interested in being a part of the CFG? Submit your email in the "follow by email" box in the right sidebar to receive brief readings and journal prompts this summer, and to receive more information in the fall. 

The growth of any craft depends on shared practice and honest dialogue among the people who do it. We grow by private trial and error, to be sure -- but our willingness to try, and fail, as individuals is severely limited when we are not supported by a community that encourages such risks.     -Parker Palmer-