Monday Minutes
February 22, 2016
We, the Bethany Community, are dedicated to provide an excellent education and to instill a life-long love of learning that will maximize each student’s success in a competitive 21st Century World
A Great Week from an Incredible Staff
Looking at the calendar, this is going to be a "relatively" quiet week on the additional meetings side of things. We have our PLC meetings on Wednesday, but aside from that you will hopefully have some time to plan as a team and individuals without many interruptions. Next week on the other hand, is going to be a bit crazy. Next Thursday will be an incredible opportunity for parents to celebrate their students academic growth this year. Each of you always do a fantastic job of preparing for Open House and providing students with a chance to celebrate their achievements. It is always fun to see the smiles on students and parents faces at this event. On that evening, March 3rd, the PTA will also be holding a general assembly meeting and election of officers for the upcoming school year. If at all possible, please show up a little early (5:30) to support the PTA and to participate in the election process for next year's executive board.
Speaking of elections, we have a couple of opportunities over the next months to be active participants in the political process. Early voting Primary Elections is going on right now and the Super Tuesday Primaries take place on March 2nd. The school board has also called a Bond Election for May 7th. I strongly encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities we have, as educators, to learn about the candidates and issues and then make our voices heard by voting.
Finally, thank you all for the incredible relationships you have with students and each other. I was looking at some information and was reminded of "The Magic Ratio of Positive and Negative Moments." An article from the Orange County Department of Education states, "According to the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Daniel Kahneman, each day we experience approximately 20,000 moments. A moment is defined as a few seconds in which our brain records an experience. The quality of our days is determined by how our brains recognize and categorize our moments—either as positive, negative, or just neutral. Rarely do we remember neutral moments.
There is no question that the memories of our lives are recorded in terms of positive and negative experiences. Now scientists propose that each day our brains—i.e., our thoughts and emotions—keep track of our positive and negative moments, and the resulting score contributes to our overall mood.
Over the past decade, scientists have explored the impact of positive-to-negative interaction ratios in our work and personal life. They have found that this ratio can be used to predict—with remarkable accuracy—everything from workplace performance to divorce. This work began with noted psychologist John (Sottman's exploration of positive-to-negative ratios in marriages.
Using a 5:1 ratio, which Sottman dubbed 'the magic ratio,' he and his colleagues predicted whether 700 newlywed couples would stay together or divorce by scoring their positive and negative interactions in one 15-minute conversation between each husband and wife. Ten years later, the follow-up revealed that they had predicted divorce with 94 percent accuracy."
I would suggest that our relationships with students and each other can be equally predicted. You each do such an incredible job with establishing relationships with students. At the same time, there are always a couple of students who manage to get under our skin or seem to be reluctant to our efforts to engage them. So I would ask this question . . .What are the ratios of positive to negative for our students we enjoy the most as compared to those that we struggle with behaviorally, academically, or emotionally? Would that change if we were able to increase the ratio of positively to negatively perceived interactions? I invite each of us to accept a challenge to consciously increase the number of "positive moments" we have with the students who test our patience the most and see not only the impact on the relationship with that individual changes, but also our job satisfaction.
Have an incredible week and thanks again for being such a wonderful group both collectively and individually!
Upcoming Events
- February 19th -March 24th PTA Mixed Bags fundraiser
- February 24th PLC Meetings
- February 26th Staff Choir Practice at 3:30
- February 26th - March 4th Bookfair
- March 1st All-Pro Dad Breakfast -- 7:00 a.m.
- March 1st Dining for Dollars -Papa Murphy's
- March 3rd PTA General Meeting -- Elections
- March 3rd Open House -- 6:00-7:30
- March 3rd 5th Grade Picasso Auction
- March 4th 5th Grade Growing Older Video
- March 7th-11th Spring Break
- March 14th Monday Morning Assembly
- March 23rd Kindergarten to Outdoor Learning Center
Thought For The Week
"To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking."
~Johann Goethe