Summer Reading 2017!

Although I am not on track to finish this stack, so far I have learned a lot from what I have read and look forward to putting it into practice:

The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman & Paul White

A healthy culture and community notices, affirms and recognizes the work, good deeds and dedication of others. All organizations can do better in this regard, and I am committed to doing so! Ideas from this book will help me launch a gratitude campaign. If as faculty and staff we model appreciation for each other it will be noticed by our students and transferred to the greater community.It is important to understand how others feel appreciated and the best ways to interact with them to support them. This is where my knowledge expanded from reading this book. I will now be more observant and conscious of what others need as far as support and recognition.

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

Grit is an important concept for educators and parents to understand. An elevated work ethic, an intense desire to explore one’s passion, and a thorough approach toward setting and planning the steps to achieve one’s goals are embedded elements of Grit. Aren’t these all elements and characteristics that would benefit our children and students for them to be successful? By focussing on character and curiosity as opposed to intelligence and quantitative outcomes Grit honors the whole person or child. This is more apt to lead to intrinsic motivation and authentic transfer of work and success from an academic to a real life accomplishment.

Rising Strong by Brene Brown

I have always enjoyed Brene's books for a few reasons. Her message is authentic and bold. She is a strong woman with important ideas. She recognizes that relationships, connections with others, and personal stories serve as the fuel for us to survive and thus should be explored, honored and recognized. I highly respect her research method. Rising Strong was a good follow up to Grit. Even when we see our vision in the horizon, and we are on a path to persevere and accomplish great things, we will fall, and we may fail. In Rising Strong Brene shares how to recognize and ponder upon our emotions, be in tune with our actions as we fall, and more importantly to use those emotions and self-reflection to get back on our feet and move forward.

Differences Build a Stronger Community

Let me take you on a true Wakefield Lower School multi-cultural journey. At the doorway of the third grade classroom, we see that it has been transformed into a traditional Ghanaian hut, and we are greeted with a hearty “Akwaaba!” - their word for welcome. Here, our third graders were immersed in the culture, folklore, geography and music of Ghana. As we move down the hall we pick up our second graders, and venture into First Grade where we hear a first-hand account of life in Kurdistan. Who are the Kurds, and what are their beliefs and traditions? We enjoy a traditional meal together of Dolma and baklava as we learn about them, listen to Kurdish music and celebrate their New Year together.

Venturing further down the hall, we encounter two Upper School girls in sparkling, bright dresses performing an Irish dance. My role in each of these occasions was that of quiet observer. What did I saw was lots of curious, engaged students, asking questions, trying new foods, smiling and laughing as they embraced working hard together.  

Now we wander upstairs to the library, where we engage with a group of Lower School parents who are sharing stimulating conversation about how Differences Build a Stronger Community. We start with our core similarity - how, as humans in this community, we care about one another and we have values that keep us centered. We dig a bit deeper to discover the different lenses in which we see the world. Which lens do we use to focus our perspective as we interact within and outside of our community?  Many observations were made that morning. A few said they rely on their spiritual lens - and different religious backgrounds were represented in our group. Some spoke of their position as an immigrant, and how our society has a vision of what an immigrant “looks like.” Others interact through their languages, traditions and the multiple experiences of life in the United States and throughout the world.

We walked away that morning with a clear understanding that the more information we have about the backgrounds of our students and families, the more successful we as adults will be interacting with our children and students. We acknowledged how important it is for all of our students to experience differences in a respectful, caring environment in order to be prepared for the world we live in. These conversations can be difficult; the most important thing is to get the dialog started, and we were all very happy that we did.  We look forward to future conversations with all of you!  Please check out Mrs. Hurst’s Character Counts bulletin board showing the flowers that bloomed as a result of our conversations.

Why did you go to the NAIS Annual Conference?

So Why did we all come to the NAIS 2017 Conference?

Well I am not sure, it is my first time...my Dean of Faculty said, do you want to go and I said sure! We all have different reasons of course, and I am just figuring this out. I enjoy being with my fabulous colleagues, and I have to say the Keynotes truly caught my eye. Susan Cain and Brene Brown - it does not get better than that! But as I reflect on my three sessions today this is why I came:

1. To follow my passions - “Greening your Mission,” High-Impact Environmental Strategic Planning. I am blessed to have an office that looks over the blue ridge mountains, where I I watch the perfect sunset at least a few times a week. We have an incredible Outdoor Classroom where I spend a period of time most Thursdays with our precious 4 and 5 year olds. From trash free days, to decomposing experiments, to tree identification -- fun is always to be had. But, how do we as a school tie all these adventures into a cohesive story (AND at the same time feed my own passion.) Well, Greening the Mission gave me some great ideas and joining the Environmental Leadership course for Independent School Leaders will certainly help me implement the ideas!

2. To get some tips during tough times - “Difficult Decisions” came at a perfect time. How often do we actually sit down at the end of the day or week and jot down all the key decisions we have made? Think about the process of making them, what worked, what did not, predict any possible fallout or surprising reactions? Besides being surrounded by some courageous educators who shared some valuable experiences, this session reminded me that we all care deeply about the people behind our decisions; we are all human and make both excellent decisions as well as those that can go wrong from time to time. Reassurance - we come to be reassured that we are on the right track, but look to add some tools to our tool box.

3. To look for reassurance that social emotional learning is the foundation to academic and personal growth - this I achieved in the session Develop Implement and Assess your School’s SEL Program . I have always believed that SEL is the gateway toward academic success, but there are bumps along the road when you do not get that buy in and understanding from key stakeholders. This session reminded me that I need to refer to the research that shows that schools with solid SEL programs show higher rates of academic success; it also gave me some great additional resources like http://www.casel.org/

So in reality maybe we don’t always go to conferences for one particular reason in mind. It also depends on what you need at that given moment. Sometimes I am in search of ideas and in hopes of mixing those creative juices that lead to spontaneous innovative ideas; sometimes you need reassurance that what you are doing, indeed is moving in a logical direction, and sometimes you want to sniff around in your passion areas to add some joy to a tough year and discover ways to move forward in a way that supports your own values! So far so good - #nais2017 has yet to disappoint!

And why did you come to #naisac?