December 9, 2019

Focus: Change of perspective

Dear Colleagues,

Happy rainy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend and feels refreshed and ready for a new week ahead. I love this time of year, the snow, the cold, and the anticipation of vacation and catching up on the books stacked high on my night table.

Over the past week, several of us were away at two conferences: The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) in Boston and the People of Color Conference (PoCC) in Seattle. Stay tuned for an upcoming MMs about the PoCC.

As daunting as it can be to plan class coverage when heading to a conference, I appreciate being challenged by and engaged in conversations with colleagues who might share an alternative, unique, or enlightening perspective. It's definitely worth finding class coverage! In the spirit of enlightening conversations, The Kravis Center will host a session this Thursday at 8:00 on how to best serve our more introverted students. I attended an outstanding session on the needs of introverts, how educators often expect and try to teach our most quiet students to be extroverts, and how we become dismayed when a student doesn't talk in class. Do we assess participation? Does an assessment of participation disadvantage the introverted student? Bring your questions and let's chat on Thursday!

Speaking of conferences, I offer a huge shout out to Jen Soloman and Tim Helfrich who gave an outstanding session at TABS on the creation and implementation of the iTri. By the end of the session, I wanted nothing more than to be a senior at Loomis, ready to take full advantage of the iTri experience. What a great example of a unique and enlightening perspective on education.

One of the main foci of the TABS conference this year was student mental health. Dr. Richard Weissbourd of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (please see links below) delivered an engrossing keynote address entitled How Schools can Develop Caring and Thriving Students in which he detailed his concern about the current lack of moral development in children and adolescents. He shared many strategies about what educators can do to help students develop a sense of obligation to others and challenges schools to provide opportunities for students in which they learn to develop empathy for those who do not necessarily look like them. He asked us the following questions:

What is our obligation to others? As important as grit and diligence are, these are individual goals, not goals which allow us to develop empathy.
Where do we teach student responsibility to others, especially in regards to our current world challenges?
How do we teach students what basic human rights are, and how do we instill in them the sense that we should all be concerned about everyone's basic human rights, not just our own?
What are our rituals of engagement and gratitude?

PD opportunities abound! On another note, in 2018-19, The Kravis Center offered one BLT (Small Teaching). This year, we are offering three BLTs (Small Teaching, Grading for Equity, and Is Everyone Really Equal?), tripling the number of faculty involved in a Professional Learning Community (PLC). We are looking to further increase that number next year. A couple of you have already approached me about creating your own PLC for 2020-21. If you have an idea for a PLC (does not have to be a BLT), that you would like to pursue, please let Rachel or me know.

Have a great week. Hope to see you Thursday morning!

Sara, on behalf of the Kravis Center, @kravisteaching

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Some amazing resources from Dr. Richard Weissbourg's keynote address at TABS

Several colleagues I spoke with at TABS recommended Relationship Mapping. I am intrigued.

Dr. Weissbourg has founded the Caring Schools Network which the intention of teaching students how to care for others, in particular others who do not look like them.

Colleges that Change Lives - what are these colleges offering that others are not?

Committing to the Common Good - In an effort to prepare people to become caring, ethical citizens, the MCC has launched a new campaign, Caring Schools #CommonGood, which challenges high schools to take actions that will advance the goal of more caring and inclusive spaces."

Stop Trying to Raise Successful Kids, and start raising kind ones, Atlantic, by Adam Grant and Allison Sweet Grant

Looking for a good read for the holidays?

In Search of Deeper Learning by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine is one that has generated a lot of discussion and just won the 2020 Grawemeyer Award in Education.

"How can American high schools move away from rote learning and testing and help students become critical thinkers ready to take on the challenges of modern life? Professor Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine, Ed.M.'13, Ed.D.'17, who spent six years researching the issue at 30 U.S. high schools, have co-won the 2020 Grawemeyer Award in Education for ideas set forth in their book, In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School."

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Resources to bookmark

Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching is an invaluable resource which includes a plethora of topics ranging from grading student work, to teaching statement to student evaluations of teaching, to writing good multiple choice questions. Check it out!

Deans for Impact and the pdf of The Science of Learning - a must read on teh neuroscience of learning.

Academic Tenacity by Dweck, Walter, and Cohen The New Faculty Cohort (NFC) read excerpts for orientation. A must read on creating a sense of belonging and increasing classroom motivation.

Leadership and Design's monthly newsletter is a great window into current conversations in independent schools

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External PD Options:

It's never too early to think about the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (The CTTL) at St. Andre'w in Potomac, MD. Sara Deveaux, Lena Sadowitz, and Rachel Nisselson have all attended over the past two years. Read their comments in the external PD opportunities document (linked below).

Reminder! The link to the external PD opportunities is always available. Once in the document, click on the bookmark to find conferences that may interest you. Let Sara know if you would like to add a omment or provide feedback next to a conference that you attended. Please excuse the "expired" dates. Most conferences do not update dates until January.