Personal Best Staff Bulletin
Volume VIII Number 2 September 19, 2019
Learning- edge buddy
I recently participated in a restorative practice circle in which the question posed was: What was your biggest challenge last year and what are you trying to get better at? Here are a few ideas that came up in our circle discussion:
Managing time. It’s difficult to find the time to get done all the things that I need to do in my personal and professional life?
Wellness. I know I need to exercise and eat right, stay healthy, but my life gets so stressful sometimes that I don’t have time to work out and I eat lots of the wrong foods.
Relationships. I know that my relationships with students are crucial, but the pressure to teach all the content I’m responsible for as a teacher interferes with my ability to connect with my students.
I very much admire the earnestness and the ingenuity of the teachers who participated in the circle discussion. They each had novel approaches to overcome these obstacles. Their responses to the discussion prompt however point to an essential question: Are there problems of our human condition that we simply will never solve? There are certain issues which seem intractable: Time management, exercise and diet, relationships. If you put together a group of ten adults and posed this same question, over and over at least four people out of ten would likely raise one of these three issues. Any adults, not just teachers. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, everyone struggles with these things. Read any newspaper or magazine and they have columns devoted to these things; people get rich publishing books devoted to these challenges, each promising a different solution. What do we do when it seems like every year we are trying to tackle the same goals, solve the same problems? We certainly can’t give up.
It is still very early in the year but having a “learning-edge” buddy has kept me on track with my goal thus far. I have been surprised by how effective it is to know that I have made my learning intention public at least to one person and she’s encouraging me and keeping an eye on my progress. I feel like I am accountable to someone and that I have another partner in my progress. After all, I am sitting here writing now aren’t I?
Best Practice
Lauren Douglas tried an idea she saw on Twitter, First Chapter Fridays. As the teacher reads the first chapter of a book to students that the students would likely enjoy and choose to read independently. Lauren read the book Ghost by Jason Reynolds. This was a great choice because not only is Reynolds a fantastic young adult author, this book is part of the series so if students enjoy this one, they are ready for the next book. I am not exaggerating when I say that after she read the chapter, kids literally ran to the bookcase to borrow Ghost and the other three about that that that that the game at it but but but when that books in the series, Patina, Sunny and Lu.
Links and resources
Great piece on Time Management. Is it even a thing? (See thoughts about above).
Cause that's helpful
It was early but this is going to stand out as one of the funniest lines of the year in my estimation. Chad was explaining to kids at an assembly that they cannot use pejorative terms towards another person’s ethnicity, religion, race etc. … even if they happen to be themselves a member of that group…
Even if you ARE that you can’t SAY that …
I think that pretty much captures it Chad… say it again….
Principal's Staff Bulletin
Email: dgately@jerichoschools.org
Website: dfgately.com
Location: 99 Old Cedar Swamp Road, Jericho, NY, United States
Phone: 516-2-3-3620
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Twitter: @Donald_Gately