December Meeting

Agenda—December 13, 2016

Charlton Room, 3:30-5:30



To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.  

–Wendell Berry-

3:30  Reflective Writing

3:40  Touchstones

3:45 Video and Conversation: The Power of Yet

4:15 Charette Protocol

       Focus Person: Claire

5:15 Future Planning

Becoming

In honor of the upcoming Community Conversation on 10/6, our meeting on 10/4 will focus on the concept of identity. 

We'll read "The Beautiful and Terrifying Process of Becoming" by Chelsea Fullerton. Our reflection question is:   What evidence of ‘becoming’ have you seen in your classrooms these first few weeks? Where have you seen it in yourself?

We'll use these student profiles to do the Profile of a Student Activity. 

We'll also watch a video of David Foster Wallace's Commencement Speech to Kenyon College titled 'This is Water.'  Our follow-up questions are What is real and essential to your grade level, your classroom? How do we bring awareness to ourselves and our children?

Suggestions for teams this week:  Consider trying the Probing Questions exercise to practice the kinds of questions you might ask your teammates and to prepare you for protocol work in the months ahead. 

Meeting Dates 2016-2017

The following dates have been submitted to the Events calendar for CFG days--all meetings are held on Tuesdays from 3:30-5:30, in the Charlton Room unless otherwise stated.

October 4th (this is a change from the original date in our first email)
October 18th
November 22
December 13
January 24
February 21
March 14
April 18
May 23
June 6

Looking forward to this year together!

Beginning a New Year

Hello, Friends!  

This summer I read Erika Christakis' book The Importance of Being Little.  In that book she describes how she and her husband had a friend who was a sociologist come over to babysit their 4 month old, and how her skills as a sociologist helped them learn to observe and understand their child differently. She writes:

But it's not necessary to be a famous sociologist to cultivate good observational abilities. First, we need to develop a mental state that a British psychoanalyst once described as having 'no memory, no desire.' This is the art of suspending preconceived expectations and assumptions about a person in order to understand where he is coming from, what he is thinking, and what he is feeling...to see a child fully, we have to allocate the time and space to observe.

In the Lower School Critical Friends Group, we strive to find ways to allocate time for observation in our teaching lives, to practice suspension of judgment together as we learn to listen more deeply to our students and our colleagues, and to nurture habits of reflection with one another. It is ongoing and intentional work, and we hope you consider joining with us in this reflective community. 

Each year we hold an introductory lunch gathering where we invite interested faculty to ask questions and learn about the CFG, and to set our calendar for the coming school year.  Whether you are curious about our work or are already a CFG participant, we hope you can join us on Wednesday after the morning portion of our LS Faculty meeting (around 12:15).  Pick up your lunch from the dining hall and meet in the Charlton Room in Morris House (I've submitted a calendar request to reserve the room--I'll let you know if we have to change venues for any reason). 

If you are interested in the CFG but can't attend Wednesday's lunch, please let me know so I can make sure we have your calendar feedback or know to keep you updated on future meetings. 

Are you wondering what a Critical Friends Group is and what it does?  Please visit our FAQ page for more details:

http://www.oesburrow.blogspot.com/search/label/FAQ 

Also consider talking to someone who has participated in the LS CFG about their experience:

Tina Akehurst

Tracy Arensberg

Deborah Bridgnell

Beth Breiten

Carole Burton

Lauren Endicott

Tonya Griffin

Kristen Haferbecker

Dori King

Claire Kucera

Kirstin McAuley

Erin Moulton

Asha Sathyaraj

Janet Schilling

Rachel Taylor

Colesie Tharp

Chris Thompson

Alysa Williams

Hope to see you there!

Kirstin

Theory U: Presencing Emergence

At our ending CFG retreat this year we're going to utilize a framework/method called Theory U.  I'll bring you a copy of a diagram I created for us, but as I was researching I was so interested in all the many ways other people illustrated the framework.  Here are a few!









To see these images in a larger format, try a Google images search for Theory U and follow the links .

To learn more about the Theory U/Presencing model, visit the Presencing website. 

CFG/FLG Announcement (and notes from our last meeting)

We began our CFG meeting last week by looking at a quote by Rachel Carson and reflecting on where we are finding wonder in our classrooms.  As we shared our reflections, I jotted down some of the phrases people used as they spoke.  It was an inspiring list, especially as we consider our hopes for our new schedule.  I share it here with you:

space they need

support to empathize

their gifts inspire depth of engagement

giving them a voice

take a break from the routine

using materials to explore a concept

What does wonder look like to you?

How do I define what wonder looks like in each child?

Growth mindset

Really listening to each other

Asking questions

Information can be kindling or a barrier to wonder

Primary sources

A different way to open kids' minds

What do you notice?

Thinking like historians

Theories

A learner asks questions

If you know all the answers, ask bigger questions

What is the bigger question?

Make our brain go in both ways

How to think in divergent ways

Kids outside

Unexpected places

Make space for stories

He's a wonderer!

Not tidy.

What motivates people

Beautiful stories

Diversity of life's choices

Something deeper about who we are as people

Slow down enough

Digging in

Feel the spark of wonder

This weekend I had the chance to listen to the excellent podcast link that Janet sent out, an interview with Ron Ritchhart about his new book Creating Cultures of Thinking. When he talked about the distinctions between what we expect of students and what we expect for students, this list came to mind. How will we spend our time together if the things on this list are what we expect for our children?

Speaking of how we spend time together...

A few of you asked me to advocate for CFG being offered as a way to meet our FLG requirements.  I've talked with David about this a few times over the last two years, but recently David brought this up at an administrative retreat and we met together to finalize a plan. David has agreed that the CFG can serve as your FLG group if you desire, with the following agreements:

1) When your Year One comes up, participate in filling out the inventory and goal setting.  During your goal-setting conference with David, let him know you'd like the CFG to be your FLG.

2) When you’ve articulated your goals, you bring them to the CFG. This is your cohort. 

3) You still attend whole FLG check-ins 2X a year with the people who started the same year that you did.

4) Most designated FLG times can be used to prep for protocols, gather student work to present or work on portfolios. 

5) The LS CFG doesn't need someone from another division—this group is open in a different way. 

6) On the April inservice day John and Chris may ask us to demonstrate protocols for this year’s new FLG group. 

7) If you want to drop your already-existing FLG, you should talk to John or Chris. Otherwise, tell your Division Head you'd like the CFG to serve as your FLG when you meet for your goal-setting meeting.

I hope this is welcome and helpful news to many of you!  If you are planning to use the CFG as your FLG at this time, please let me know. 

January Meeting

Happy New Year!


We'll meet at 3:30 on January 13th in the Charlton Room to learn about the 4th grade team's work with their International Issues experiences. We'll use a Consultancy Protocol to guide that work. We'll also spend some time considering Martin Luther King's Letter From Birmingham Jail with a Text Rendering Experience. 

Some extension resources related to January's CFG:
Teaching Tolerance is hosting a Twitter chat on MLK Day: Monday, Jan. 18th at 6 pm Central Standard Time. The focus is how to deepen classroom coverage of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. 

An electronic version of Dr. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail is available here. Dori recommended these additional  resources:

Coretta Scott King offers a personal context to the Birmingham jail letter in her interview with Mike Wallace (start at 8:25 and listen to the end).   

Dr. King's Addison Jr. High School speech is directed at students and offers his direct message to young people.  It is a good read and has some powerful and provocative thoughts. What possibilities are there in this speech?

Dori also passed along an article from Teaching Tolerance, "Resist Telling a Simple Story". 
From that article:  Telling only one story of civil rights marginalizes the voices we ignore. It also prevents us from doing exactly what the story of civil rights is supposed to teach us to do―fight for justice in our own communities as those before us did.

Also from Teaching Tolerance, a comprehensive resource called "The Five Essential Practices for Teaching the Civil Rights Movement."  There are links there with more information and resources for each of these five key practices:

Practice 1. Educate for empowerment.

Practice 2. Know how to talk about race.

Practice 3. Capture the unseen.

Practice 4. Resist telling a simple story.

Practice 5. Connect to the present.

You might also be interested in this recent article from The Atlantic titled "The Revolutionary Aims of Black Lives Matter," using the Letter from Birmingham Jail as a point of connection to the Black Lives Matter movement.