The Importance of Service Learning

At Anastasis Academy, service learning is just a part of who we are. It’s vital to helping students understand their identity within a community, but also to learn about other people and places. We value getting kids out of their own bubbles to expand their experiences and get to know other people, and we feel that it broadens their sense of self in such positive ways. Most importantly, we help our students to honor the humanity in all people– noting that we have so much more in common than we might assume.

Service learning can be tricky.

If we approach these opportunities from a place of privilege from which we are “blessing” others with our presence, especially with language like “serving the less fortunate,” we create a kind of dichotomy for the kids where they see themselves as “more fortunate.”  This type of mindset is extremely unhealthy and often deeply steeped in racism and classism. Regardless of the demographics of a school, this savior-like mindset manifests some really ugly ideas around serving your community, and it reinforces dehumanizing tropes about how people live.

Sometimes, the intention of service learning opportunities can come from a desire to do good for people in your community, but making assumptions about what other people need without listening or learning first is really misguided. Good intentions can cause more problems than they solve, and we should be able to look at our intentions with some humility. Additionally, there are often people already doing the work within a community, and it’s much better to ask around, see who is already doing the work, and ask if they could use any help. If they say yes, then this is a great learning opportunity to listen to someone who has the experience. If they say no, it’s an equally great learning opportunity that you don’t always have the skillset to do what is needed.

 

Taking the time to do service learning right must be planned with a well-defined vision.

When service learning is planned carefully, including a lot of scaffolding for students, kids learn that serving others in their community is something an involved citizen does regularly… that when we take care of each other and learn from each other, we are all better for it. Service learning looks different from that perspective. It might involve working with our actual neighbors, local businesses and organizations, with similar visions of community outreach.

At Anastasis, service learning has looked different for each age group of kids, but the process was the same when we did it well.

We work very diligently to cultivate relationships with our service learning partners. The key to successful partnerships is an ongoing relationship… a “one and done” trip in the name of service would seem more like checking some kind of “do-gooder list.” That wasn’t the kind of process we were looking for when we first started. Ongoing partnerships meant committing to regular visits and learning about how our students could best learn from our partners. Our service learning coordinators, a role I have held for only a few years at Anastasis, spent a lot of time working with organizations to see what might be a “good fit,” and how we might best partner with them in helpful ways.

Over the years, some of our learning partners needed assistance fundraising or collecting and organizing items with the community– organizations such as food banks, family services, women’s and children’s shelters, etc. Sometimes, the act of service was spending time with people in different types of programs. Depending upon the age of the students, the partnerships might look different from class to class. We prepared students in advance about their learning partners, doing research or sometimes bringing in organizations as speakers before we made our first trips.

Bowling With Grandfriends – photo by me, March 9, 2016

One of my favorite examples (pre-Covid): our youngest students in the school visited nearby assisted living facilities on a monthly basis. Over time, we built relationships with the residents, affectionately known as our grandfriends, and looked forward to every visit. Prior to our first trip, teachers would spend time with their students discussing the value of elders in our community, the stories they share with us, and what it means to them when young people visit them and are eager to learn. It was important to help younger students understand a little about the aging process. At first, especially for kids who don’t have regular visits with older relatives or friends, an elderly person might be intimidating to a five or six year old child. Sometimes, we brought in older community members to share stories with the class at school. The more we were able to “front-load” and prepare kids for their first visits, the more successful the relationship with our service partners.

For activities to share with our grandfriends, we played games or made crafts that we could do together, and that also gave us time to get to know each other better. Sometimes, we’d practice some songs, especially from popular music in the 1940s or 50s, so we could sing something that our grandfriends knew and loved. Bonus… our kids learned new songs and spent time thinking about why lyrics about “a bicycle built for two” might have been more popular during that time than a popular song now.

 

What our students gain from our service learning partners is invaluable.

The service learning trips might seem unimportant to someone on the outside… maybe even “non-academic” or an interruption to instructional time. What we have witnessed through the years, however, is that these opportunities enhance every part of our students’ learning.  Even the youngest students in our school (usually 5 year olds) can speak to the impact of interacting with organizations outside our school.

One day, my class of “littles” visited our grandfriends and ended our activities with everyone singing “You Are My Sunshine.” The kids had been practicing the song for a few weeks, so they could remember all the words to the single verse and chorus they were planning to sing. One of their grandfriends that year was a mostly non-verbal woman who didn’t interact much when we played games; but the day we sang that song, her eyes were bright, she was smiling, and she sang along. The kids noticed and could not stop talking about it for the rest of the day. When we arrived back at school, they ran into the office, “Mrs. Tenkely! Mrs. Tenkely! Ya-Ya SANG with us, and she was smiling!!” One of the little boys in that class was so happy for Ya-Ya, that he cried happy tears.

This is one example of kids, even five or six years old, realizing that they can have a positive impact on another human being, just by being there and interacting. How we view service learning can help set kids up with wanting to make a difference… to be part of something bigger than themselves… even if it’s actually a small activity like singing together… that culminates in learning about others and partnering together for something good.

I have sooo many anecdotes* of kids realizing they matter when it comes to the people in their community; but most importantly, I could share even more stories of students seeing how much the people in their community matter as well.

If we want to help students become good citizens, we have to help them see that we’re all a part of a community, and that every single person in the community is important— how we care for, look out for, help, and advocate for each other makes the community better for us all. At a time when we think our society is so divided (or divisive), partnering with people in our community can be important first steps into bringing us all back together.

I cannot tell you the number of times kids have returned from a service learning trip – regardless of what it was – with excitement about meeting new people and having new experiences. Knowing they are part of the collective humanity helps them find purpose, and for that, I’m profoundly grateful to be a small cog in this operation.

 

Interested in more information about service learning… or wondering how you can make it work in a school that doesn’t look like Anastasis? Let me know!

 

p.s. Kelly Tenkely and I discuss learning environments, teacher and student agency, service learning, field trips, and much more on our podcast, Dreams of Education. I hope you’ll give it a listen!

The Illusion of Control

I fully admit it… I have long referred to myself as a control freak. For a long time, I avoided the terminology, because I am a people pleaser, and no one really likes to be controlled. But lately, I was using the term as a badge of honor? Or maybe as an excuse?

This morning, I was listening to part of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle. The episode is “When You’re Tired of Holding Up The Sky,” and one of the topics they discussed was control. As they were discussing the idea of being a control freak, Glennon Doyle gently corrected her sister and suggested using the term “over-functioning* individual” in place of the more derogatory term. Throughout the discussion, they explored how damaging control can be for the one doing the controlling, as well as for those being “controlled.”

Control is just an illusion anyway. We think we can control people and situations, but it’s not actually true.

One of the issues that arises for people who are considered an over-functioning individual is being all things to all people. It leads to heightened anxiety, disappointment, and burn out. For those under the umbrella of an over-functioning individual, there is a loss of agency, a lot of resentment, and sometimes complacency… even if none of this is intentional. Some relationships carry on with these patterns without any acknowledgement or realization that it’s even happening. Most “control freaks” are caretakers in some shape or form, and control can become part of their personality. For me, in many ways, it became an obsession with thinking I could control the outcome of situations… usually in maintaining peace or safety.

Marionette by Victoria Nevland CC BY-NC 2.0

I see this kind of control happening in a lot of schools, and I have even worked in some schools and organizations where the attempt to control people created quite hostile spaces. In schools, we have created environments of control that can be truly unhealthy – physically, emotionally, and mentally. I think we see the following as results:

  1. There is little to no agency for kids. Students are controlled to such degrees in school that they do not even have the freedom to respond to their most basic bodily needs –going to the restroom when they need to, drinking water when they are thirsty, eating when they are hungry, etc., let alone have a voice in their learning.
  2. Burnout is a major problem in teacher retention. Yes, there are a lot of societal issues with the current US national teacher shortage, including an ongoing global pandemic, but burnout has been an issue for teachers for as long as I can remember.
  3. There is a hierarchy of control that trickles down to students  – students are controlled by teachers and admin, teachers and admin are controlled by school board, community, parents, lawmakers, etc. Those who are controlled tend to exercise their own sense of control on others.

Of course, these are all generalizations and are not happening across the board in every part of every school. However, I think we see themes of control throughout the concept of what school is, and we have to ask ourselves: Is this a healthy environment for learning to occur?

I know that there is immense pressure on teachers and administrators to be all things for kids, and the stress of those expectations is breaking people. Within a school, there’s often an expectation that teachers and administrators will have everything planned to a T and executed perfectly. There is no room for vulnerability, trust, or even space to make a mistake. “We expect nothing less than your best!” <– This is counterproductive to the learning process, but also… it’s not sustainable. We cannot give 100% of ourselves at all times, and trying to live up to that is a surefire way to get people to quit… or drive them to illness.

If it’s unhealthy for the adults involved, think about what it is doing to our children. 

High levels of control tells kids that we do not trust them to ever do the right thing… that they are not capable of learning… even simply existing… without an adult around to tell them what to do.  Oh, but somehow, when they turn 18 or so, we expect them to leave the high control environment and just magically know what to do. They’re adults now, right?

Kids need a safe place to learn… to make mistakes with someone guiding them through. The act of discovery in learning is exciting and wondrous, and kids can be trusted with this responsibility.

  • What if we were able to loosen the control a bit? What might it look like to trust a child to learn without restrictions everywhere they looked?
  • How can we teach children to manage their freedoms, instead of restricting them up to the point they become adults?
  • How do we build trust with kids, knowing full well that they are going to make mistakes and some bad choices along the way?
  • What if, instead of trying to prevent any and every “bad” scenario from happening, we eased up a bit to help kids learn self-discipline and self-regulation along the way? For example, you cannot learn to regulate your emotions if you’re immediately punished for an emotional outburst, right?

 

If you are an adult, think about what it feels like when someone tries to control you. It’s not a great feeling, especially if you think of yourself as a fully realized and capable human being. As a teacher, I’ve definitely felt the thumb on my back in some environments, as well as the exhilaration of autonomy in others.

Where did you feel you were most trusted to do your job? How did you react when you were met with trust and appreciation instead of the heavy hand of micromanagement?

Now think about what the classroom environments feel like to kids.

What COULD a classroom look like with more trust and agency for kids?

Expect that there will be mistakes. Expect that kids are going to make some wrong choices. And honestly? You probably will, too, right? We are human. We need the space to be human along with all the grace and compassion that we can give each other.

Learning environments can and should be places where kids feel safe … but we don’t have to use control to get there. I know, because I have been fortunate enough to be in a place that values who we are as individuals. We start with WHO WE ARE and go from there.

 

Moving forward…

I’m going to stop calling myself a “control freak.” For me, it’s an excuse to let my anxiety take charge of my brain, thinking I can plan for and meet every challenge of all possible scenarios. It’s not true, and it only drags me down physically, emotionally, and mentally. It’s no picnic for others around me, either.

As a teacher and consultant, I truly enjoy working with other educators to help them think through possibilities, share what has worked in previous environments, and help others to learn to relinquish control.

What about you? I’d love to hear how you are creating a positive learning environment, free from the need to control everything, in your organization!

 

p.s. Kelly Tenkely and I discuss learning environments, teacher and student agency, giving up control, and much more on our podcast, Dreams of Education. I hope you’ll give it a listen!

 

* edited on 10/17/24 – mistakenly used “high functioning” in place of “over-functioning”

Dreams of Education Podcast

Dreams of Education Podcast

It’s happening! As Kelly has noted numerous times:

Does the world need another podcast? Probably not, but we’re doing one anyway!

The Dreams of Education podcast is coming your way soon!

Anastasis doesn’t have a building right now, so we are not in session. The last school year was rough… really rough. For a lot of reasons, many of which I can’t put in print yet, we were unable to make this school year happen. So, Kelly thought it would be a good idea to capture our history, how we were able to start a school from the ground up, and share with anyone who feels like listening!

We recorded our first episode today, and it was fun walking through memory lane… but it was also very rewarding to think through how we started and what we were able to build as a community.

In the meantime, if you want to wander through the archives here or at Kelly’s blog, Dreams of Education, you’ll find a lot of the stories we’re planning to discuss more in depth on the podcast. Hope you’ll join us for the journey!

Finding A Learning Path

In the middle of July, I found myself sitting at my dining room table on a video call with several educators talking about embracing uncertainty.

Earlier that month, Dave Cormier had been talking on Bluesky about something called “ShrugCon“, and I was curious, especially with the title “Embracing Uncertainty as a Pedagogy of Abundance!” I signed up and then found myself listening and participating in some really great conversations. There were so many crossovers and connections to what these mostly post-secondary educators were discussing to what we have been doing at Anastasis for the last fourteen years – I was so excited!

It’s so encouraging to hear professionals share their stories of teaching and learning, but especially so when they are challenging the status quo that leaves so many students in its wake. I kept thinking about how challenging it can be to be a changemaker when it comes to schooling. As a society, we haven’t budged a lot on what school looks like – what learning looks like, and that is something that gnaws at me often.

From one ShrugCon discussion, this quote from Jennie Blake stuck with me for quite some time:

“It’s like you are all in a forest, and instead of letting people find their path, you insist on dragging them straight through the undergrowth to get where you think they should be.”

A Rough Pathway (photo by me)

Uncertainty might be one of my very favorite things about teaching in a school that is an inquiry model. There are no sets of boxed curriculum… and instead of a very prescriptive set of standards with scope and sequence guides paving the way, teachers and students are asking questions within our inquiry blocks to help move the learning forward.

Traditional models of schooling with traditional written curriculum have all students following the same path at mostly the same time and same rate (generally speaking). Those models assume, if students all work hard enough, they can all get to the same place. The path is paved for the students. Some of them stay on the path easily, but others are getting dragged, as Jennie put it, through the undergrowth, with little thought at all — is this even a path these kids need? Want? Should this individual child even be on this path right now? Have we sacrificed the incredible wonder that comes with discovery and forging our own paths for a model that moves kids along in an orderly and efficient manner?

I know I’ve written a lot of posts about this… so many, that it seems self-serving to link them all here; BUT, the fact that we’re still having these conversations means that the topic is important.

Learning is greater… more wondrous… more fascinating than just marching through a textbook to get to the end.

If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to see pathways evolve in nature, there are often myriad ways to arrive at the same destination: some are a direct path, some take the long way, and some are forged through dense trees and undergrowth. I see a lot of these paths when we hike. Some are made by humans, and some by animals. Choosing which route to follow up to a lake, for example, can be such an incredible adventure! Sometimes, it can be too scary, and I want to take the more established path. The choice, though, is mine. When I’m on a new hike, I like to go with more experienced hikers, or at the very least, consult a guide.

We can do this with kids and learning, too! We don’t have to lay it all out for them without any choice or agency. At Anastasis, we’ve been helping kids to forge their own paths, and I can’t ever imagine going back to a traditional model. In saying that, I also have to give credit to all the hardworking teachers in traditional models who help their students every day to bring learning to life outside of a textbook.

I still wonder, though, what if all teachers had the freedom and autonomy that I’ve had at Anastasis? What would it look like for ALL kids to create their own paths in their learning journeys?

This is my wish for education as move forward. We don’t have to be so rigid and unyielding. We can do better.

Thanks to Dave Cormier and the University of Windsor for facilitating ShrugCon. I always feel energized after conversations like these, and it’s uplifting to know that others know we have to do better for all students.

 

 

Time to Redesign

Hi there… it’s me.

I’ve been trying to decide how to continue using this space for a while now. Considering I haven’t posted for two and half years, it’s safe to say that I haven’t been successful in figuring that out.

I feel like living in a global pandemic has broken something in me fundamentally, and for the longest time, I really didn’t know what I wanted to say. A blog without a purpose just doesn’t work for me. However, I still pay my yearly hosting fee, because I know that I want to keep the history of posts and comments — there’s still value there for me.

Digital Identities sketchnote by Guilia Forsythe

Digital Identities: 6 Key Selves* by @bonstewart at #change11 – sketchnote by Giulia Forsythe**

In the last 4 years, I’ve deleted my Facebook account, stopped posting to Instagram (although I still lurk and sometimes connect with friends there)… and now with Twitter devolving into whatever it is, I am feeling a deep, DEEP sense of disconnection. Where social media used to connect me to wonderful friends and great educational/personal growth opportunities… I now feel more isolated than ever.

In the digital sense, I feel like I’ve lost my identity.

Yesterday, I needed to find some information, and I remembered that I had written a blog post that contained some of that information. And it hit me right then and there… I need to come back to this. Even if no one reads or connects with me here, this is a place over which I still have some control. It’s where some of my best ideas live, as well as some of my worst, and I think I can still move it forward.

So, I’ve decided it’s time to redesign the blog – change the look and maybe the direction a little bit. Because I’m currently semi-retired, it needs to reflect more of who I am now and what I have to say. I’m not entirely certain of what that’s going to look like, but I at least have a goal.

I hope to be back with a new look and direction in 2023… and I wish for you rest and all the light and love that exists. Be good to yourself, friends. We all deserve it.

Michelle

 

*You can read more about Bonnie Stewart’s “Digital Identities: 6 Key Selves of Networked Publics” here – http://theory.cribchronicles.com/2012/05/06/digital-identities-six-key-selves/ (Note: I’m interested in thinking about how these ideas have changed, or not, over the last 10 years since she shared this talk and post.)

**photo/sketchnote credit: “Digital Identities: 6 Key Selves of Networked Publics, @bonstewart #change11 [visual notes]” by giulia.forsythe is marked with CC0 1.0.

 

 

#VirtualMusEdChat

Are you a Music educator teaching virtually for any part of the 2020-21 school year? Me too!

I thought it might be a good idea to start a chat that specifically deals with challenges and celebrations of teaching Music virtually – whether it’s a hybrid model or all virtual.

I’ll host #VirtualMusEdChat Wednesday nights (weekly, for now) at 8pm ET (GMT-4). You can participate live in the chat or any time that works for you.

For now, the plan is to share resources, discuss what’s working/what’s not working, and generally support each other through this unprecedented situation due to COVID-19.

Update: Our #VirtualMusEdChat home page is now live.

 

If you’re new here, I am Michelle Baldwin, and I have been a teacher at Anastasis Academy since 2011. Since Anastasis was founded, I’ve taught Music every school year, but I have also been a classroom teacher. This year, I’ll be teaching Music only. Anastasis Academy is an inquiry-based model with Reggio and IB themes and philosophies, and that has carried over into our Music classes, as well.

photo of the blog author

Photo taken by http://www.marcysingerphotography.com/

Please Stop Using TikTok

**UPDATE: Please note this post has nothing to do with the Trump administration’s policies or views of Tiktok. I wrote this post in March (2020) after watching our network activity while TikTok was running in the background of student devices. If you’re still interested, please read on. My hopes are that wherever TikTok lands on this issue, it will be more secure and less invasive on users’ devices. 

A couple of days ago, I retweeted a TechCrunch article about the CEO of Reddit and TikTok.

tweet by @michellek107

Tweet by @michellek107

(I know there are a lot of issues with Reddit, but that’s not the focus of this post. )

I am and have been for the last 15 or more years an early adopter of many social media platforms, as well as technology in general. In other words, I’m one of the last people you’d call a technophobe. I do NOT balk at the latest popular fad with kids… in fact, I generally try to learn as much as I can about them.

All of that to say… this is not a #getoffmylawn post trying to spoil fun, light-hearted videos that are all the rage. I loved Vine when it first came out and could easily find myself down a Vine rabbit hole where time disappeared. There were some seriously funny people making some really great content!

When Vine disappeared, there was a pretty big hole for content creators who wanted byte-sized entertainment. Another platform that started to fill that void was musical.ly – I had a lot of students who were super excited about lip-synching their way into their friends’ views.

I had some reservations about musical.ly, mostly because the terms of service (privacy for kids) were somewhat concerning. Alex Zhu and Louis Yang, Musical.ly founders, saw the potential and the popularity of this app and dreamed that it could be the next big social network.

A year after my students were buzzing about musical.ly, I read that it had been sold to Bytedance Technology and re-branded as TikTok. It became exactly the platform Zhu and Yang envisioned.

Again, I had privacy concerns for kids, as did a lot of other people. As a result of that pushback, ByteDance/TikTok added some privacy settings, and that seemed to calm a lot of nerves.

But then I started working on our school’s firewall/proxy server and noticed all the activity generated by TikTok. Even when the kids weren’t actively using the app, there were a lot of connections to sites that have been identified as “malicious” or associated with data collection dumps. At the very least, it is essentially spyware, even when running in the background, but not active. At worst, it could be installing malware without you (or kids) knowing.

Sometimes, even when the app isn’t even open at all, the device is still pinging those malicious websites. I tested this while holding a kid’s iPad. I closed all the apps myself. When I downloaded the app on my own device to test what was happening from the point of installation, the app created an account for me, even though I didn’t allow any of those permissions. I deleted both the account and the app right away from my device.

I know that kids aren’t going to understand the severity of this situation, but I’m hoping that adults will do better. Here’s why:

Every time I talk with people about security risks, I often hear excuses along the lines of “Well, I don’t really care. I don’t have anything to hide.”

That’s not only ignorant, but dangerous. You DO have things to hide. I fear that our lack of concern about data privacy enables the mentality of “there’s no such thing as privacy anymore.” Do you ever use an internet-connected device to access financial information? What about your health information (including connections with a physical activity tracker)? Most of us have. And even if, somehow, you have managed to avoid any online financial or health transactions… you’re allowing an unknown entity to harvest your personal data for purposes unknown.

Yeah, yeah… I know Facebook mines your data*. I know Instagram**, owned by Facebook, does this.  I know Google and Apple*** do it, too. But they’re fundamentally different.  The kind of sites TikTok communicates with is the differentiating factor. While Facebook/Google/Apple are still collecting your personal data, they aren’t communicating with malicious websites or installing spyware/malware. And yes, even Mac and iOS devices are vulnerable to malware attacks.

I’m definitely not giving any free passes to Facebook, Apple, or Google. But there have already been major concerns calling out ByteDance’s practices, including lawsuits:

https://www.vox.com/open-sourced/2019/12/16/21013048/tiktok-china-national-security-investigation (if you only read one of these links, read this one.)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-lawsuit/tiktok-accused-in-california-lawsuit-of-sending-user-data-to-china-idUSKBN1Y708Q

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20997199/tiktok-bytedance-musically-lawsuit-coppa-settlement-children-data

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-accused-california-lawsuit-sending-user-data-china-n1094781

 

Think I’m being too alarmist? I know this is a long post with a lot of linked material, but I’m begging you to read at least some of those links. We are putting an entire generation of kids in a position where their data is being used without their INFORMED consent as a standard practice in our schools. Encouraging the use of TikTok takes that risk to the next level.

If you don’t care about your own data privacy, I know I probably won’t convince you. However, if you’re an educator with any type of influence, please do anything you can to help parents and children understand the HUGE implications of using an app like TikTok.

 

Like to deep-dive into (somewhat) dry reading about data privacy? Read here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-540-34351-6_12

* I deleted my FB account two years ago, btw.

**Did you know, if you disable the microphone setting that you can’t do InstaStories, but you’ll also notice fewer targeted ads? I got tired of seeing ads for things that I had only spoken about minutes earlier.

***I don’t use voice-activated devices in my classroom (and neither should you), nor in my home. I only enable Siri in the car while I’m driving, for safety purposes.

Hard Reset

In August, I started my 24th year in education. (I think my math is correct there.) It was the first time in nine years that I wasn’t in the classroom full time. August 20 was our official first day of school at Anastasis, and it felt a little odd not to have a classroom.

And now it’s December 3. My last blog post was from June. I feel like I’ve been slacking, but I really haven’t. I guess it takes about five months for me to adjust to a new role with new responsibilities. I’m hoping to do better and write at least once a month in this space.

My new role at Anastasis is exciting! I’m taking over the tech position in our school from Kelly Tenkely‘s many, many roles. I also continue to teach Music and will direct our annual theater production in the spring. And something I’m really excited for… I’m working with our Anastasis teachers on a regular basis! Part of that responsibility includes coaching, co-teaching, and teaching a mathematical exploration class (more on this in another post!)  in every classroom at least once a week. I loved having a professional development role in the past, and it will be so amazing to live in that world again!

Because Anastasis is not a traditional education model, our titles aren’t either. The written title on my business card has been “Inspiration Engineer.” I love that title. Even though my official title falls somewhere between instructional coach and administrative lead, those words don’t remind me of my mission every single day. Inspiration Engineer does.

As I gear up toward my 50th birthday this coming January, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my physical, mental, and emotional well-being. A few years back, my oxygen ran out, and I had to rethink how I was living my life. I allowed my professional life to take over every aspect of myself, including the way I viewed who I was.

I recently listened to a podcast by Rob Bell (The RobCast – episode 204) where he talked about the concept of menuha. In Hebrew, menuha means “rest,” “ease”, or “tranquility.” I found myself nodding along numerous times as Bell talked about this concept of rest in a culture that glorifies busyness. As I was listening, I kept thinking back to the work ethic that was instilled in me – which isn’t a bad thing – but how there is very little room for rest. For slowing down. For intentionally taking the time to stop, reflect, and simply move more slowly.

My brain doesn’t like to slow down. I wake up, sometimes multiple times in the night, with a to-do list forming in my brain. I can’t fall asleep if I read before bed – too many thoughts spiraling. Thanks to some mind-numbing repeat television shows, I can bore myself to sleep most nights. Slowing down and providing my brain some rest is one thing I can do for myself.

If you do a search for people and their top five regrets late in life, working too much is right up there. For so many people, there’s never a choice about how much to work. Bills have to be paid. Your family needs to eat. Work isn’t an option… it’s a necessity. For me, I can say there is definitely a discrepancy between the amount of work I do versus what I really need to do to help provide for our basic needs.

So this year includes another “hard reset.” Re-focus. Re-prioritize. What can my health and my body realistically handle… and what leads me down a path of “too much?” Where is menuha prioritized in my life?

Stepping out of the classroom was a good first attempt. I’m also working only four days a week, instead of five. Fridays are now titled “Free-Wheeling Fridays” on my calendar… even if those Fridays are more about down time and rest than any actual free-wheeling.

Pikes Peak view

My view of Pikes Peak from home CC licensed photo Michelle K. Baldwin

Maybe because I’m edging up on a big birthday, or maybe with age comes more contemplative thought, I’ve just been thinking more… I don’t want to look back at my life and regret working too much. I want to be able to enjoy simple things. I want to be more present at home and with my husband. I want to enjoy our gorgeous view from home, sit and cuddle my dogs, do nothing else, and not feel guilty about doing nothing. <— When I can achieve zero guilt for sitting and doing nothing for a few hours, I will feel successful. I’m not there yet, but there’s hope.

So… that’s what I’ve been up to lately. How about you?

Whose Voice Is It?

bestpicko.com- photo of microphone

CC licensed photo – bestpicko.com

“Student Voice” is a term that gets bandied about by well-meaning educators… and when true student voice is honored, it can make a world of difference for kids!

But what does it mean when the voice coming out of kids sounds more like the voice of the system that tells them what and how to think? Is it really the voice of the student, or is it just the same old, tired lines those kids have been fed since they started school?

Let’s take a step back for a minute. I have long been an advocate of finding ways to honor student voice. I’ve facilitated student voice sessions at conferences and EdCamps. I truly believe we don’t GIVE kids their voice. We get out of the way and then help to amplify that voice. For some students, they might need extra encouragement to share their voice in a way that is comfortable for them. Not every kid wants to stand up in front of their peers, adults – any live audience – and speak their truth, expose their vulnerabilities, and open themselves up to criticism. For educators, we need to help our children find that zone that initially provides some safety for them to open up and share their stories. For some kids, they are comfortable in a public arena and just want a chance at the metaphoric microphone to say their piece. Again, educators need to provide that space, and then get out of the way.

But what happens when that student’s voice sounds like something that has been produced by a system that, by its very nature, wants to deny authenticity of experience? That robs students of choice? That this system is “THE ONLY WAY?” That tells kids, “THIS is what learning looks like; and in order to be successful, you need to do x, y, z,  in that order, and then you can be successful.”

I stepped into an ongoing conversation this morning on Twitter about non-traditional schooling. Some background on my thoughts of non-traditional schooling:
After 7 years at Anastasis Academy and tours of other non-traditional models, I feel that non-traditional schooling is an area where I have some insight. At Anastasis, we don’t do traditional. Our students (ages 5-14ish) are in multi-age classes. We don’t do homework. We don’t do testing. We don’t do isolated content areas. We don’t do grades!  We DO encourage independent thinking. We DO learn through inquiry, a lot of hands-on activities, getting outside the classroom and into learning experiences where we can see firsthand what we’re studying. We DO experience service learning. We DO ask our kids to learn about themselves, each other, and the world- often in ways that challenge what they think they already know and believe. We want our students’ educational experiences to be more than just a boxed curriculum. We want them to learn how to manage their own freedoms, and we want them to think for themselves.

Back to the Twitter conversation… One educator* noted that he hears students specifically ask for traditional schooling, because they feel it better prepares them for high school, testing, and for college. I said that we owe it to kids to challenge that notion, and he replied that we should honor their “student voice.”

A lot of our students at Anastasis have come to us from more traditional schools, and sometimes, they ask us, “What do you want me to write? What do you want me to say?” They just want us to tell them what to do. They sometimes become frustrated with the process of learning. They ask for and welcome worksheets and tests…

Why? Because this is what they have been conditioned to do since they first stepped foot into a school.** Even though they sought something different… traditional schooling wasn’t working for them… they still often yearn for the familiar.

Worksheets and tests are familiar. Sometimes, worksheets and tests are easier, because they don’t often require you to think beyond a simple answer.

Maybe you know people who learned how to play the game of school very well. Those same people can tell you that they didn’t really learn much… they just memorized what they knew the teacher wanted them to answer. After the test, that information was conveniently forgotten so that they could move on to the next part of the game. For some people, they still play the game – in their jobs or whatever vocation they have chosen. Some people will argue that learning to play the game is what it’s all about. I disagree wholeheartedly.

In non-traditional models that require kids to think for themselves, kids can safely struggle, but they don’t always recognize what this type of struggle is. They can become frustrated more often. Sometimes, they just want someone to give them “the” answer.

Of course they do! 

I’m not saying kids are lazy… not at all! But when faced with a choice of just doing what your teacher wants you to do versus thinking for yourself – sometimes, it’s easier just to play the game. This is especially true when you look back at what the system of schooling was intended to do!

Traditional schooling encourages compliance, assimilation, deference to authority, and very little time for true questioning. A “Do what I tell you to do” environment. This isn’t learning. This is TRAINING.  We have trained kids to believe that learning is limited to one right answer, one “true” perspective and point-of-view (aka whatever POV is in the textbook)… and that learning is finite at each level.

Luckily for some kids, there are many wonderful, amazing teachers in traditional models who can help counteract the effects of the system. They inspire kids to think differently. They help kids love learning for the sake of learning. They encourage kids to discover passions they might never have known to explore. They might even show kids how to play the game, but to recognize that the game is not the focus. 

Not all kids are fortunate enough to have these amazing teachers every year throughout their education, though… and some kids never even get that experience at all. (So do we just hope for the best for each kid, or do we say enough is enough and reject the system?)

So-called experts tell kids that they need to start preparing for this in primary levels (read here: “college and career readiness beginning in Kindergarten”)… that each level in school is only there to prepare you for the next stage in your life… and that you must have good grades in school to get into a good college so that you can then have a good job. There’s no joy in learning for the sake of learning. There’s no point in thinking about the process, because the end goal is always about another level. There’s no time for reflecting upon what we have learned, how we learned, and most importantly, WHY. The system was never intended to create independent thinkers, because independent thinkers are unwelcome. We tell kids that their dreams and passions aren’t important, because all of this “stuff” in the curriculum matters more than that. That, if you do well at each level of schooling, you WILL be successful.

We have to stop lying to children.  Because, for a huge number of children, the system is designed for them to fail.

Look at the kids that the current “traditional” system leaves behind in the dust. Kids who don’t learn in traditional ways – kids who have difficulty communicating in a way that pleases a teacher – kids who fail within a system that was never designed for them to succeed in the first place – kids whose lived experiences are different from the narratives in those narrowed POVs in textbooks. If the current system was truly the key to success, it would work for ALL kids. We know it does not. There’s another whole discussion here about the issue of traditional schooling, how racism and other-ism are defining characteristics of the system, and who is promoted as successful or not. It’s vital to how we perceive student voice as well.

Considering all of the above and why I initially began to write this post…  Are we still going to say that we should “honor” student voice when the voice is asking for more of this traditional system? Is it “honoring” to validate a child who parrots something that was intended to keep them from questioning the status quo? Or are we going to be the educators who recognize that this type of “student voice” is corrupted by a system that has been dictating for too long what kids should do, say, write, and THINK?

I honor student voice by listening and amplifying.  But when kids tell me they want more of the system they came from before… I dig a little more deeply. I ask why. We talk. We think through what they’re saying they want. Then I ask them what they REALLY want. If we can get to this point of a discussion, trust me… they don’t ask for more tests and worksheets. It’s not more traditional “sit and git” and “just tell me what you want me to do.” When they know I’m there to help them, guide them, and support them in their learning struggles, they find what they want… and they want to face the challenges they found frustrating and difficult.

When kids are allowed to share their TRUE VOICE, it won’t be that they want to be trained how to take a test… because they know that doesn’t prepare them for anything but taking a test!

So let’s not kid ourselves into thinking we’re honoring kids and their voices if those voices are just echoing what the system tells them is important. That’s not really student voice… and, deep down, I think we know that. 

I’m not waiting for higher education or even secondary education to change. I’m going to keep fighting that “traditional” system, because I’ve seen what an identity-honoring education does for kids. I’m going to continue advocating for ALL kids to be able to learn in a place that focuses on the student, not the teacher. Not the curriculum. Not the “this is just the way we do things” mentality.

I will keep lifting up the teachers who, regardless of WHERE they teach, lovingly inspire their students to know themselves, think differently, and to use their voices to make change happen.

If you’re an educator, you should expect and encourage student voice that differs from your own. You should honor student voice, even when you disagree with what is being said. However, if you recognize something in that student voice that sounds like it’s nothing more than an echo, dig a little deeper. Ask more questions. Help the student to question the WHAT and especially the WHY of what they’re saying. 

I think we do a disservice to kids if we don’t help them question a system that dictates to them what they should think.

 

UPDATE: Please also read this post by Aviva Dunsiger about the social construct of SCHOOL! 

* I’m choosing not to name the educators in this conversation, because I’m not intending this as an attack on their perspectives, nor am I asking for people who agree with me to pile on in additional debate with them. Feel free to comment here on my post. My comments policy is noted in the sidebar.

**One of the most interesting things I’ve witnessed as a teacher at Anastasis is observing students who have never been to a traditional school. They started as “littles” at Anastasis. These kids flourish in learning experiences where they can dig in, ask a ton of questions, use their hands to create something, ask MORE questions, and then talk a LOT about the process. When they go on learning excursions, they are not your typical school children on a field trip; and usually, the adults who are leading the tour or experience are thrown for a loop. They don’t know how to react to 5-6 year olds who ask really in-depth questions. When these kids create projects that fail, they don’t worry about a bad grade, because they don’t know what grades are. They start looking at each step in their process, ask more questions, and then reflect on what they could do to improve. These kids ideate and iterate in ways you don’t typically see in more traditional models… because this is just what they do. They have never known any other way of learning in school. I don’t worry about them not being prepared for the next level of school. They know how to learn and advocate for themselves. I worry that the next level of school is not prepared for THESE KIDS!