Raw Notes From Learning and the Brain 2021 - Sunday

Each year, I used my blog to take notes.  What you will find here are raw, including a mix of the presenter's thoughts mixed with my own responses as I mentally process.  They will make sense to me, but they may or may not make sense to you.  I usually process all of this in the following week and post things that make actual sense, so check back in if you are interested.

Keynote I: Handle With Care: Managing Difficult Situations With Dignity and Respect When School Returns - Jimmy Casas, EdS

He has a lot of energy.  Getting through the day with your students can take so much energy that you have none left for anyone else when you get home.  If we want our best people to stay in the profession, we have to take care of them.  Veteran people must be welcoming and care for new teachers to nurture them.

• Don't talk about excellence.  Live your excellence.  The kids need you at your very best.  Kids know which teachers are all in and which teachers are not.
• We are genuinely idealistic in our interview, but some have lost their way.  It's hard when you can't get a kid to reach their potential.  It's hard to let it go when parents are demanding and bashing you online.  It's hard, but you can't change them; you can only change you.  "Remember what you said you were going to do for students when you sat in the interview char."
• They are the way they are because of an experience.  We can listen to it, understand it, and help them reframe it.
• You have to get past the idea of immediate results.  Think long-term.  Any time you champion a kid, you have made a difference whether you see it or not.  But this job was never meant to be a committee of one.  If you are trying to do everything yourself, you will not serve kids well.
• "You're not a problem.  You're a drummer." - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p5286T_kn0 
• What if we put a "Handle with Care" sticker on our most challenging students because we know they have stuff going on in their lives?  Since everyone has something going on, what we put a "Handle with Care" sticker on all of them?
• "You lose your way when you forget your why."
• The majority of time should be spent on the goals and philosophy that guide decisions.  You will spend less time putting out fires if you have set up a system to have fewer fires in the first place.  
• Clarity is Kindness - Lack of clarity in expectations leads to confusion, anxiety, and bad behavior.  When you lose hope, you become apathetic, which leads you to a state of hesitation.
• You need to lead with your core values.  The people in your school need to agree with and practice those values.  Otherwise, they are just words about words.  Revisit your values every year, and decide how you are going to deal with people who don't live up to the values.  There will be days when you don't live up to the values, but if you live in a culture of trust, people will lovingly confront you and redirect you back toward your values.
• Just don't quit.  You can't fix a kid, but you can not quit on them.
• You don't choose the students or families you serve, but you do decide what kind of climate you serve them in.
• Model and expect excellence.  
• Everyone in the school is responsible for everyone else in the school.
• Administrators:  If you expect your teachers to differentiate based on the needs of students, then you have got to be willing to differentiate based on the needs of your teachers.
• Don't let anyone else take away your excellence.  You are responsible for your own mind.
• He may not be a difficult student.  He may be a student going through a difficult time.
• Quit trying to this job by yourself.  Be willing to say, "I need your help."
• When a student (or parent) gets louder, you should get softer.  Don't escalate; de-escalate."  At the end, of the interaction, they should think you treated them fairly and that you care about them.
• Be a merchant of hope.  Give kids an opportunity to be great.
• I'm not asking you to fix them.  I'm just asking you to not quit on them.
• Every student may be one caring adult away from greatness.

Keynote II: Reaching Teens in Times of Trauma, COVID, and Uncertainty - Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD, MSEd, FAAP

• Obviously, COVID has created a time of uncertainty, but to be honest, just growing up is a time of uncertainty.
• Resilience is built by lending them your calm.
• We re at an inflection point in human history.
• Childhood trauma MAY affect:  the body, the brain, behavior, and genetics.
• Trauma is a risk factor, but we are complex.  There are also many protective factors.
• The trauma-informed movement has done a lot of damage because, instead of viewing kids as a whole, we have made or expectations based only on their trauma.  
• We need an integrated model that includes what we have learend from
• Positive youth development.
• Resilience building strategies.
• Trauma-sensitive practice.
• Restorative practices.
• This means harnessing the power of human relationships that are safe, secure, and sustained.  Lowering expectations traps them in a cycle of failure, but they must know that high expectations are rooted in caring.
• He's a doctor who works with kids who are homeless.  He has a strengths-based program to help them find what they can do to break the cycles.
• Stay in your lane but know your power.  Outside of the home, school is the place with the most sustained relationships with caring adults.
• A neural pathway is something that happens so often, you never have to think about it.  It's just the way it is. When you experience the world as a safe and secure place throughout childhood, you view the world that way later.  If you don't, you communicate more dramatically until your needs are met.  
• A kids with an "anger problem" is someone whose brain pathways have been developed by experience because anger was the only thing that got their needs met.
• Adolescence is the second window of astounding brain growth for the formation of pathways.  It is the best time to take advantage of teachable moments.
• Kids live up or down to the expectations we set for them (if we make them feel safe).
• Zero to three and adolescents are when they are super learners and natural explorers.  
• They push the edges because they get a dopamine hit they explore a novel situation.  It's not about risk-taking; it's about novelty.  We must activate rational thought by speaking calmly and with questions they can answer, not emotional thought by yelling, talking too fast and not letting them answer.
• In fight or flight, blood leaves your stomach and brain, goes to your legs so you can run or fight.  This means you also cannot think and plan or act rationally.
• Uncertainty creates a state of constant threat.  Cortisol keeps the body on high alert ALL THE TIME because we don't know where the danger is.  Authoritarians always sow uncertainty first before they take you over because they can take advantage of the chronic fear it creates.
• When a kid you know and love misbehaves, you can start with their strengths and then address the behavior as an inconsistency.
• Resilience is not invulnerability.  Don't just say a kid is strong enough to handle what they are going through.  They still need your support.
• Sometimes what a kid hates about himself is the greatest thing about him.
• When resilience reaches its limits, there are
• physical symptoms like fatigue.
• disinterest.
• dropping grades.
• irritability/anger.
• substance abuse.
• They won't always look sad.
• Kids learn from their experience and observation of others.  Modeling how you work through complexity is how to create thinking, problem-solving kids.
• Model forgiving yourself when you feel you have failed.  
• But also model learning from the failure.
• Don't just tell them to have empathy.  Show them what empathy looks like.
• Adolescence is about gaining independence, forming social connections, planning the next phase of your life, honing your idealism, and looking for adult role models.  They have had to step back from this for almost two years, which is why this time is more frustrating for them than it may be for adults.
• We are always nastiest with the people we love the most because we know we can't push them away.  It's part of being human.
• Maintaining your physical health strengthens your emotional health by activating the autonomic nervous system.
• Dial down catastrophic thought by
• Recognizing "I better" or "If I don't" thoughts.
• Evaluate whether it is really as high risk as you are telling yourself.
• Ask what tools you have.
• Things aren't going to be the same, but kids can make it better using the tools they have gained during this time.  Just like people who grew up during the depression were frugal for the rest of their lives, this generation will be problem-solvers for the rest of theirs.
• A lone stick is breakable.  A bundle of sticks is not.  This is why strong relationships matter so much.  Trauma affects us, but it does not have to break us.  The change in the brain made by cortisol as a result of childhood trauma can be minimized or reversed by a loving adult providing a safe place because they are doing the vigilance for the child.  It does harm to the adult, so we must take care of them as well.
• If you go from emergency to emergency, the thinking/planning part of your brain is less developed.  The sensory part of the brain develops more.  
• The starting point of helping them is to recognize their behaviors are not about you.
• Traumatized kids have a "protector's brain."  You'd want them with you on a desert island.  Help them to view this as a superpower but when it is appropriate to keep the cape tucked in.
• There should never be a diagnosis of ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder).  It is not real!  A traumatized brain is not experiencing a disorder.  
• Change your lens from "what's wrong with you?" to "what happened to you?"
• Tolerable stress is uncomfortable, but it is within our window to cope.  The key to whether or not it is tolerable is whether you have skills to adapt to and deal with it.  This is where adults are helpful.  Self-regulation is a skill to be developed.
• Co-regulation - borrowing someone else's calm (flight attendant still serving snacks).
• Behavioral Change
• There will be both forward and backward movement.  Don't praise them only when they are moving forward, or they won't come to you when they are going backward.  Provide genuine relationships when they are moving both forward and backward.  Have their back at all times.
• Shame will keep them from starting to make change.  Confidence will allow them to start.  Find ways to give them confidence by listening and celebrating their strengths even when it is mixed in with messiness.  Tell them what is good and right in them and that you are here for them FIRST.  Then tell them why you are concerned (because it won't give you your best life).  Accompany them to people with more resources; don't just refer them (because they will fear losing you).
• Hot communication is counter-productive because you have activated the danger part of the brain.  Cool down the communication.  Pause to let them process and answer to activate the rational part of their brain.
• Defining the stressor
• Distinguish real tigers from paper tigers.
• Identify when bad things are temporary.
• Identify when good things are permanent.
• The worst thing is not to be stressed.  It is to be numb.
• I __________ it out. (Ways to express/release feelings in addition to coping strategies)
• www.parentandteen.com 
• The things that matter most are not measurable.  Judging your success will likely not be something you can put in a spreadsheet or a graph.  Success is when a student knows he is worthy of being loved.

Concurrent Sessions D

Helping the Helpers: Recognizing and Coping With Secondary Traumatic Stress for Teachers - Mays Imad, PhD

Personal Note (Pre Session):  Since August, I have been looking for language to put around the impact of being a hybrid teacher last year.  Many have called it PTSD, which made me uncomfortable because I didn't want to minimize or pretend my experience was on the same level as those who have seen someone shot or been a victim of violence.  At the same time, I knew what we were all feeling upon returning this year wasn't nothing.  If I get nothing else from this session, I am happy to finally have a name for this (Secondary Traumatic Stress).

Second Personal Note (Pre Session):  I am skeptical of things having to do with Self Care.  It's not that I don't understand the concept that an unhealthy person can't help others.  It's that we have swung the pendulum so far that we act like the biggest problem the world has is selflessness (which is clearly untrue) and that people can nobly shirk their responsibilities in the name of self-care (which is, as it always was, just being a jerk) and because anything that can be monetized can manipulate us with messages that make us feel like something is wrong so we have to buy something to make it right (which is why self-care now a multi-billion dollar industry).  I cannot think of anyone I respect in history or in Scripture that I can imagine using the term self-care.  This session has not yet started, so I don't know if it will be about this, but if my notes turn to the skeptical, this may be why.  

• When she was offering trauma support to students, she began to realize how many teachers were struggling as well.
• Uncertainty is one of the biggest stressors.  Add a heavy workload, anxiety, and grief to that, and the brain will become overwhelmed.  Yes, we are expected to keep giving and work more.
• http://sacompassion.net/poem-think-of-others-by-mahmoud-darwish/ 
• She was a refugee, and she remembers getting help and seeing exhaustion in the face of the helpers.  Then she started working with refugees, and she had exhaustion and a broken heart every day.  
• Secondary Traumatic Stress 
• "It is the stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized or suffering person."
• Vicarious traumatization
• Symptoms include exhaustion that sleep doesn't alleviate, a sense of helplessness, wondering if other people care at all.
• It can change your worldview at a fundamental level.
• Leads to burnout.
• Burnout causes:
• Excessive workload causes chronic stress.  The amount we used to do seems like more now because our minds are occupied by the stress of uncertainty.
• Perceived lack of control
• Lack of meaningful connections and relationships
• Lack of recognition
• Lack of fairness
• Values and skills mismatch
• Trauma-Sensitive Teacher Care
• Resist pathologizing (making everything about the trauma)
• Don't try to fix your feelings, just acknowledge them.
• Get to know individuals rather than making assumptions about categories of people.
• Acknowledge that we are a work in progress and that since we all are, we can journey as a community.
• Develop a coping plan.
• Strategies in a Coping Plan
• Negotiate with your brain.  Ask "will this matter in six months?" and 
• Give yourself permission to move forward more slowly than usual.
• Ruminate on the positive.  "I am a good person because . . ."
• Have a distraction plan for when you find yourself in a worry loop.
• Develop backup plans in anticipation of setbacks.
• Create something.  Write something. (likely why so many people gardened or baked bread or learned a craft skill during lockdown)
• Laugh with others
• Hold your hand.  Hug yourself.  (In late May 2020, I looked down and found myself patting my own hand.  I don't even know how long I had been doing it or if it was even the first time.  My body just knew what it needed.)
• Document hope and beauty.
• Lovingly say "no" to or delay some things. ("Can we talk about this tomorrow?")
• Know who you should contact when you are about to crash.
• Check up on your colleagues (I love you, Blue Pod.  I love you, Elizabeth.)
• Try to detach from the outcome because so little of it is within your control.
• Try not to take things personally.  You didn't cause the problem, and it is unlikely that you can solve it.
• Psychic disequilibrium (realizing suddenly that the world is different than you thought) can lead to shutting down.  Advice - The problem was there before you, and it will be there after you.  Don't be arrogant enough to think that you alone can fix it.  Do what is within your control.
• Have a conversation with yourself to remind yourself what you can do and what you cannot do.  Students know you can't solve it, but they want you to see and hear them.  That can be enough.
• It is NOT only about self-care because that is not sustainable.  It is about community care.  Turn to your elders for wisdom.  (She lived in Iraq during the first Desert Storm, but what she remembers isn't depression but laughing with her family.)  We need to transform systems to help the community care for each other and give each other grace.
• https://poets.org/poem/kindness 

Personal Note (Post Session):  Okay, so it turns out that she was lovely.  I left out one or two pieces of self-care advice, but her history as a refugee and her work with refugees definitely gave her more credibility.  I am not going to the next one in this thread because it is done by a vendor, and as I've already mentioned, I think the monetization of self-care is a problem.  (Also I heard them talking to people yesterday and thought they were loopy.)  So, I'm going to hear a man tell his own life story and talk about how he went from unmotivated to even graduate high school to getting a Ph.D.

Motivating the Unmotivated - Craig J. Boykin, PhD

• From GED to Ph.D. - Had dropped out of school, didn't consider school important.  After going to jail and getting shot, he changed his mind.
• Started his seminars with young, black, at-risk men.  He only started doing professional development for teachers when they reached out and said they wanted to be able to connect with these students.
• To grow, you've got to get at least a little uncomfortable.
• If you only see a person for a short time at a high-stress moment, you will think of their behavior only as disrespectful or inappropriate.  You might change your perspective if you know their story. (Personal side note:  This reminded me of what Leslie Odom Jr. said about playing Aaron Burr in Hamilton.  He realized that the only thing he knew about him before was the worst day of his life.  It wasn't until he played him that he understood what led up to that day.)  The behavior is still not okay, but you can have a better understanding of its cause.
• Causes of Low Motivation
• Lack of home support
• Lowered expectations from educators
  
• Hurt, at-risk kids put up a tough facade because their experience has taught them that vulnerability will get you killed.
• Don't be the next person to hurt them.
• Empathy vs. Sympathy
• An empathetic response never starts with "at least."  Don't try to "silver-line" their pain.  Don't tell them how you feel about their situation; let them tell you.
• It is a rare occurrence that saying the right words will make any situation better.  What makes it better is human connection.  Just be there and listen.
• As an adult, you have to turn down your emotional response.  "He who angers you controls you."  Don't give them the keys to your temper.
• Kids haven't changed; stop saying that.  The environment has changed, and their brains have responded.  They've been exposed to too much too fast (easy access to porn, nonstop nature of social media, nonstop nature of news events).
• When you are in survival mode, it is physiologically impossible to learn.
• It's much harder to unlearn something than to learn it, so be careful what you are learning.
• Apologize when you are wrong.
• Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.
• If you don't like a kid, there is no need to let them know that.
• Your actions must match your words.  If you make a promise you can't keep, you might be able to rebuild trust with some kids, but you won't be able to with an at-risk kid.  You'll just be one more person they can't trust.
• Model appropriate levels of vulnerability.
• Praise in public.  Correct in private (I'm going to add whenever possible to that one because I have had times where the correction HAD to be immediate).

Raw Notes From Learning and the Brain 2021 - Saturday

 Each year, I used my blog to take notes.  What you will find here are raw, including a mix of the presenter's thoughts mixed with my own responses as I mentally process.  They will make sense to me, but they may or may not make sense to you.  I usually process all of this in the following week and post things that make actual sense, so check back in if you are interested.

Keynote I: Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion - Wendy Suzuki

• Brain plasticity can be positive or negative
• Good anxiety is protective.  It is wired into the human brain so that we can respond to signs of danger.
• The problem is that we have so many triggers of danger in the modern world.  There are so many alarms, notification bells, arguments on social media, etc.
• You don't want to get rid of anxiety.  You want to turn the volume down so that it is at a healthy level (the level at which you can use it to propel you forward rather than shut you down).
• There are responses from the nervous system you cannot control, but there are many that you can.  You can slow your breathing.
• Box Breathing - Inhale for a count of 4, hold it at that point for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 4, hold it at that point for a count of 4. (What is great about this method is you can do it any time. You can do it during an anxiety-provoking conversation without the other person even knowing.
• Changing your mindset is powerful. In an experiment, a variable group of hotel workers who said they never exercised were told that their work met the scientific definition of exercise.  They became harder workers and reported more satisfaction in their work than the control group.  Their activity didn't change, but their mindset did.
• Moving your body turns down anxiety.  This can be vigorous exercise, but it can also just be a quick walk or stretching.
• Immediate effects (after only one 10 to 30 minute session) - Increase in neurotransmitters, growth factors, and hormones.  It's like giving your brain a bubble bath. This improves your mood, your focus and attention, and your reaction time.
• Long-term effects - A group of healthy but unfit adults were given cognitive tests and EEGs were given a free membership to a spin class and asked to do it 3x per week for 12 weeks (in a team setting).  The control group did competitive video game playing (so the variable was exercise and not teamwork). The tests and EEGs were then repeated.  The exercise group lost weight, increased aerobic capacity, had more motivation, better attitudes, better long-term reaction time, better memory.  The exercisers were even better at finding items in a virtual town than the video game players were.  
• An emotion being uncomfortable doesn't make it bad.  We are complex human beings.  We have all of our emotions for a reason.  
• Worry tells you what is important to you, so learn from it rather than JUST trying to get rid of it.
• What makes you angry?  It's telling you what you are passionate about.
• What does your fear tell you?  It tells you what you believe to be dangerous.  Perhaps that needs to be addressed.  
• Enjoy the superpowers of anxiety - Properly harnessed anxiety at a healthy level can give you more productivity, increase flow (not when anxiety is super high), and grow your empathy.  "I am the high-paid lawyer that I am because of my anxiety," said a lawyer because she could take every "what if" and turn it into a plan.
• Don't be stressed out be trying to reach flow states often.  You can enjoy micro-flow many times a day.  Relative contrast means the moments of micro-flow will feel even better because you have anxieties.

Keynote II: Under Pressure: Confronting the Pandemic of Stress, Anxiety, and Mental Health Concerns in Adolescents - Lisa Damour, PhD

• Husband is a teacher.  He's never been so worn down as the last 20 months.  He leaves looking put together.  He comes home looking like the bus dragged him home.
• Bad news - Stress, anxiety, and mental health concerns have skyrocketed in teenagers.
• Better news - There is much we can do for them.
• Because of the commercialization of wellness, we entered the pandemic with a lack of understanding of mental health, and now it is worse.  (They make money by making you believe you should feel good all the time and then sell you something when you don't.)
• Neuroscientists and psychologists don't talk about stress the way culture does.  Culture proclaims it to be bad.  Psychologists are neutral to pro-stress.  They know it is inevitable (change = stress), and they know growth doesn't happen without it.
• The two times it is bad (according to psychologists and neuroscientists):
• Chronic stress - No break from it for long periods of time
• Trama - stress at a level that breaks the coping dams.
• We must deprogram kids from the messages of the wellness industry.
• Beat this metaphor to death - Mental stress is like muscle building.  Lifting a 1 lb weight won't build your muscles, but neither will lifting one that is too heavy for you.  Telling students that school is designed to be a progressive mental weight lifting program.  Knowing it is by design reframes their mindset and allows them to see that they can feel good about their stress in the same way we feel good soreness after a workout.  It also helps them see breaks as a time of restoration rather than laziness.
• Anxiety at the appropriate level of response to a situation is good.  If you aren't anxious enough for the situation, you are in danger.  If you are having a panic attack, you cannot respond to the situation.
• We can teach them about the systematic nature of anxiety.  
• Whether a test or a tiger, it's all the same to your amygdala.  It's logical to respond to the threat.  This helps kids understand that it is good.
• When we over-react, we overestimate the danger and underestimate our ability to respond.
• It's a physical response.  Deciding to call it anxiety is a choice.  We could call it activation, excitement, or self-protection.
• Because your heart and lungs have gone into overdrive, the act of box breathing can bring the response back down.  The brain and the lungs/brain communicate on a two-way street.
• Kids call a lot of things anxiety because they don't understand their feelings, so they are looking for language to put on it.  "Whenever Mrs. Bennet was discontented, she fancied herself to be nervous."  Kids use anxiety for any time they don't feel perfectly calm (anger, excitement, sadness, discontent).  It's not all anxiety (fear), and we can help kids identify what they are actually feeling.
• Managing actual anxiety involves recognizing the level of risk properly.  Are you overestimating the risk?  It also involves recognizing the tools you have for managing it.  Are you underestimating your ability to cope?
• We have to change the way we talk about mental health.  It's not about feeling good. 
• You should count on your emotions to reasonably resemble the world.  It makes sense to feel bad when things are bad.
• It isn't about not feeling.  It's about regulating response.  Are you managing the feeling effectively?  Regulation is a two-part process (express the feeling, contain the response).  Express it and then pull yourself together.
• We can help them with expression and containment.  If someone is expressing too much, they need help with containment.  If someone is entirely shut down, they need help with expression.
• If expressing isn't making them feel better, they are turning to rumination, which is a worry loop.  Then, you help by having them go into distraction, or "why don't you leave this for now and come back tomorrow?"  Give them an activity to do that engages their brain.  When they revisit it, it will seem less bad.  
• Don't put them on the spot or ask for an answer in the moment.  They need processing time.  You can email them instead.
• When they need a break, help them figure out if they need distraction, connection, or reflection.
• How to Manage a Meltdown - drlisadamour.com 
• For the parents who believe their kids must get into Harvard, the research shows that the keys to a satisfying life are that they have
• Strong relationships
• Meaningful work
• A feeling that they are good at their work.
• Harvard isn't necessary for any of that.  (Maybe college isn't even needed for it.)  Focus on them becoming a good person, and these things are likely to be fulfilled.

Concurrent Session B - We Needed Executive Function During COVID-19 and Still Do - Jack A. Naglieri, PhD

Personal Note:  I'm kinda tired of doing Mindful Deep Breathing at the start of each session.  I get its value, but if we do it too much, doesn't it lose its value?  I don't think I was particularly mindful on this one because I was not paying attention to the moment without judgment.

• Executive function is a type of intelligence.
• When he taught guitar, he wondered why he used the same methods and books with every student but had such varying results.  When he got to college, he became intrigued by psychology.  As a school psychologist, he wondered the same thing he had wondered when teaching guitar, but about school work.  He came to realize the measurement tests were not helpful.
• Executive Function is the most important ability we have because it is how we decide what we choose to do.  (During Covid, we had to decide if we should do things we had never thought about before, like going to the grocery store.  Since our routines were disrupted, we had to think about how to do almost everything.
• Executive function is about thinking, not remembering.
• Executive function is about neurocognitive ability, so it can be trained.
• Executive function takes place in the frontal lobe.  It is the "organ of civilization." It's about making decisions, leadership, motivation, drive, vision, self-awareness, awareness of others, creativity, etc.
• He wrote the Comprehensive Executive Function Inventory - It is not designed for you to look at the individual parts.  It is only meant for the total score to have meaning.  Don't abuse the information by taking a person with an average total score and trying to drill into the one weak area.  What matters is how it all works together, not how one factor might be an outlier.  It's like a minestrone soup.  It has pasta, but that is not the defining quality of the soup.  It's the whole that matters.
• Any novel task demands executive function to create a strategy.  After it is practiced and becomes a skill, less executive function is required.  
• Executive function is not a skill.  Skills are what you do with minimal thinking.  We should stop scripting things for kids if we want them to use executive function.  Give them an idea of the principles involved, but they only build executive function if they make plans on their own.
• It takes energy (which is why we were so tired during Covid).  
• Controlling emotion is important because it will interfere with executive function decision-making if it is uncontrolled.
• Look at executive function from a strength-based perspective (build them even more) rather than a weakness perspective (even if it gets a little better, it won't affect the overall ability too much).
• Don't do all the planning for students.  Give them opportunities to make plans for projects, problem-solving, etc.
• EF is not measured by traditional IQ tests.  They only measure half of what is going on.
• PASS theory is a modern way to define intelligence (not about only knowledge and skills)
• Planning - Thinking about thinking
• Attention - Being alert
• Simultaneous - Getting the big picture
• Successive - Following a sequence
• How do you know f you are good at something?  You need a reference point, which is the value of a norm.
• Intervention - Teacher facilitates student planning.  Direct instruction isn't the way to go here.  Ask questions to help students self-reflect, like:
• What was your goal?
• How did you start?
• What strategies did you use?
• How did the strategy help?
• What would you do again next time?
• What other strategies might you use next time?
• This not only makes them perform better on the math skill being assessed, but it also improved their ability to think about math overall.
• Think smart, and use a plan.

Keynote III:  Bridging the Gap Between Innate and Learned Behavior: A Parent’s Role in Promoting Survival - Bianca Jones Marlin, PhD

It is going to be hard to sum up how awesome this presentation was because it was mostly based on complex research that would be difficult to explain in writing.

Teachers are the biggest influencers today.  I would not be here if it hadn't been for teachers who recognized something in me and helped me develop it.

• The Nature v. Nurture battle has damaged our understanding.  They communicate with each other.
• Hard science on the effects of Oxytocin - Research on mice because their brain pathways are similar to humans and their lifespans are short enough to study multiple generations.
• Oxytocin is generated in many ways, including birth, breastfeeding, soft-touch, eye contact. deep conversation and plays a role in social reward and relationship building.
• A mother mouse will rescue a lost pup if it gets separated from the group and cries.  A virgin mouse will abuse or even cannibalize the pup.  
• Because she hears it cry, they wondered if oxytocin might be generated from hearing the sound.  The experiments are complex, but they involve manipulating the mouse brains directly with drugs and blue light.
• When the mother is removed, and the pups are left with the virgin mouse, those that have been given oxytocin treatments and blue light treatment will rescue the pups. "Oxytocin can make bad babysitters into good nannies."
• Antibodies are used to track where the oxytocin receptors are.  There were twice as many in the left auditory cortex than in the right.  They chemically suppressed the left hearing center, and the mother mouse would not rescue the pups (neglect).
• Adoptive parents should take comfort in the fact that whether you give birth or not, you can generate oxytocin in other ways.
• Conclusion:  Nurture informs and communicates with nature (2-way street)
• They then studied whether the effects of trauma could be passed on to the next generation.  This was stimulated by stories of Holocaust survivors who fear certain smells having children who fear those same smells and by victims of the Dutch Hunger Winter whose children and grandchildren still suffered from metabolic issues (even though the experience of the first generation lasted less than a year).
• It can be difficult to discern in humans whether the fear is actually passed down genetically or if it comes from hearing stories, so animal studies give better insight.
• They used light shocks whenever a male mouse went into the side of the cage that had a gas in it with an almond smell.  The mice became afraid to go into that side of the cage.  Their offspring were separated from them as soon as they were born, but they were also afraid of the almond smell, and so were their offspring.  The conclusion is that the experience of the first generation mouse affected his sperm, which caused a genetic passing of trauma to the next two generations.
• In humans, it takes about 12 days for olfactory (smell) nerves to regenerate (which is about how long it took people with COVID to get their sense of taste and smell back).
• Conditioned taste aversion is when an experience makes us be repelled by it (like when you get food poisoning and then never want that food again).  In mice, if you make them sick after a certain food a few times, not only won't they eat it again, neither will their offspring.
• The next step is to see if the offspring can be changed back by their own experience because the thought is that because the brain is plastic, since it can be changed by experience, it should be able to be changed back by experience.
• Questions wondering about other senses.  If the next generation can be influenced by an aversion to a smell or taste, can the aversion to a visual also be inherited?  

Concurrent Sessions C

How Tutoring Works: Raise Motivation and Accelerate Learning - John T. Almarode, Ph.D. (My favorite presenter from 2019) 

• We've been at 30000 feet.  Now we're going to drill down.
• What if they aren't keeping up with skills.  Can we move learning forward regardless of where their starting point is?
• Define tutoring 
• Extended learning - Tutoring offers us the opportunity to extend learning and address unrealized potential in our learners.
• Tutoring has a .51 effect size
• Effect size is only a potential.  It is only realized with effective implementation.
• "Learning Loss" isn't real.  Kids didn't make the same gains they would have pre-pandemic, but they did not lose anything.
• The ideas that have been suggested (extending the school year, etc.) have had no benefit.
• Six Dimensions of Tutoring Sessions
1. Invest in relationships - The student is more successful once a relationship is established because there is trust.  (Effect size is .48) Build credibility through trust, competence, and immediacy.  
2. Address confidence and challenges to learning - There may be a barrier you don't know about.  Define what is in the way of the learning goals.  Self efficacy (the belief that I can do something with evidence) has a .71 effect size, so get them a win quickly.  Avoid labels at all cost because labels have a -.61 effect size.
3. Goal setting with students - "Today, we are going to work on . . . "  Have the student write the goal in their own words.  It's an immediate goal.
4. Don't just teach them what to learn.  Teach them how to learn. - Talk to kids about strategies first.  You aren't using practice ON your learners but teaching them to use them for themselves.  Will they know what to do when you are not around?  Students must engage in the generative process of selecting, organizing, and integrating their learning.  (Note-taking is less effective than summarizing.  Drawing an image of what you have learned makes the learning stick.  Elaborate interrogation causes them to dig for themselves.)  The tutoring session should involve the teaching of study skills in the context of the content.
5. Teach content and how to know what success looks like.  - Success criteria can almost double the advancement of learning.  The objective should not only be clear, but it should also be clear how they will know when they have achieved it.
6. Deliberate practice - Practice that which is hard to do. (Effect size .79)  To be deliberate, it has to be challenging.  (To retain your brain has to strain.)
• Decisions must be made within your local context.

Providing Support for All Students to Address Learning Loss - Kathleen Lynch, EdD
www.studentsupportacceleration.com

• Covid caused setbacks
• Research-based strategies can improve learning
• Learning loss = not on track with pre-pandemic standards
• Summer represents an opportunity for enrichment if done correctly.  
• Effective summer programs include SEL, Reading instruction, Math instruction
• Recommendations
• Keep it voluntary
• Focus on enrichment rather than remediation.
• Support teachers with materials, time, and lesson plans
• Maintain ample vacation time (programs should not be more than 5 weeks and about 4 hours a day).  They don't have to look like traditional summer school.
• Prioritize in-person learning

Rethinking Motivation and Mindsets: Strategies to Reengage Students - Andrew C. Watson, MEd 

(I finally got to meet him Off-Twitter, and he used my tweet in his presentation)

• Just teaching kids about mindset will not mean they know how to do it.  We have to change our practice to show them how to have a growth mindset.
• Doing what a researcher does won't necessarily work in your classroom because your context is different.  Instead, think about what he did and how you might adapt it.  "Don't just do this thing.  Think this way."
• Meta-analyses on growth mindset interventions say the results are trivial.  That alone is not a reason to drop it.  You have to ask why the results are trivial.  It could be that the method is sound, but we are applying it incorrectly.  We shouldn't think, "Growth mindset doesn't work."  We should think, "It is difficult to do growth mindset well, so we should really focus on doing it well."
• Steps
• The teacher introduces a new topic.
• Students work on the new skill
• Struggle/Failure 
• Lather, rinse, repeat (due to desirable difficulty)
• Learning
• Easy learning doesn't stick (desirable difficulty)
• Some kids consider a hard thing fun, so their emotion helps their cognition and builds persistence.  (Charge! response - I got this)
• Some kids have negative emotions when it gets hard, which makes them forget things, and destroys their persistence. (Retreat! response - I give up)
• We want to reduce the Retreat! response.  
• We used to think If they believe they are not good at something, they will retreat from it.  But that turned out not to be true.
• Carol Deaner and Carol Dweck asked if it was about what we say to ourselves.  Those who describe things based on ability tend to retreat.  Those who talk about their effort or their strategies tend to charge.
• How we praise students matters to their perseverance.  "You must be smart" is demotivating.  "You must have worked hard" is very motivating.  Success should be reflected on with the strategies that made them successful, so they can focus on what they do.
• Use verbs instead of adjectives.  Be specific and precise with your praise.
• Dangerous kindness - It can be hard for us to give critical feedback because we don't want to make them feel bad.  We try to soften the blow by lowering expectations or by saying "some people are just not good math."  Or we call on them less so we don't embarrass them.  These strategies are demotivating.  
• Students with fixed (ability) mindsets have performance goals won't let you see them working because it should look effortless and be flawless, and they value high scores.  Those with growth mindsets have learning goals, so they want you to see the effort, view flaws as signposts for what they need to work on, and value high learning.  We should normalize struggle.
• Run like a bunny to read Teach Like A Champion
• Frame wrong answers as normal
• Ensure wrong answers occur frequently by making the material high challenge
• Emphasize the usefulness of a wrong answer
• Wrong answers will ultimately lead to the right answers (No answer won't).
• Let them share what they used to struggle with but have overcome.  Let them share what they are still finding challenging
• Given EEGs while taking hard trivia quizzes.  Told them if they got it right or wrong and gave the correct answer.  Asked them again.  Fixed mindset thinkers activated the "error detection" area of the brain ("I got it wrong.".  Growth mindset thinkers activated the area of the brain the processes the meaning of language ("Oh, that's the answer.").  The more activation there was in the language processing area, the more likely they were to get it right the second time.
• Teach students that ability can change.  Coach students to teach others that ability can change.  Think about how and what you choose to grade.  Think more about how they can learn at school and less about how they can perform at school.
• Don't do this thing.  Think this way.  Adapt and apply to your context. 

Raw Notes From Learning and the Brain 2021 - Friday

Each year, I used my blog to take notes.  What you will find here are raw, including a mix of the presenter's thoughts mixed with my own responses as I mentally process.  They will make sense to me, but they may or may not make sense to you.  I usually process all of this in the following week and post things that make actual sense, so check back in if you are interested.

Dr. David Daniel - Chair of Conference - Introducing speakers, but he also reminded us that not all students handled the pandemic the same way.  Some thrived.  Some had learning loss.  Some had social deficits.  In any given room, there are many things going on, so pay attention to all of the speakers because they are all speaking about the experience of at least one of your students.

Keynote I: Unwinding Our Anxiety in the Brain During a Pandemic - Judson A. Brewer, MD, PhD

• Much therapy is focused on willpower.  The problem is that, as Einstein said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.  
• If we understand how our brains work, we can better use their tools to help treat them. (I know I found this to be true during lockdowns.  Using what I knew about the brain helped me cope better.)
• Environmental cue -> Behavior -> Result - The prefrontal cortex uses this pattern to predict the future based on past, similar events.  This is necessary to get through the day, but it can also lead to wrong predictions, so we need to be careful of relying solely on it.
• Social contagion - When a large number of people behave in a certain way, especially when it is based on anxiety, a lot of people can take on certain behaviors (toilet paper hoarding, stock selling, etc.)
• You can't will-power your way out of panic, and you can't think your way out of it by just telling yourself that your fear is illogical.  The pathways for fear and logic aren't connected well enough for that.  Fear is often about survival.  
• Worry makes us feel like we are in control, so it establishes a pattern of negative reinforcement.  Then, anxiety becomes a habit.  The research on habits can be informative in helping to treat it.
• Habit loop - Trigger -> Brain response -> Memory (Do that behavior any time that trigger happens)
• Anxiety habit loop - Trigger -> Behavior to distract from unpleasantness (drinking, eating, social media, NetFlix) -> Brain response -> Memory (Distract yourself any time you don't like what you are feeling) -> Problem isn't solved, leading to more anxiety
• There reaches a point where you are no longer choosing the behavior because it has become automatic.
• Our brains REALLY don't like uncertainty, so we try to resolve everything (even when it doesn't make sense).  
• Our sense of self is sometimes just a pattern of habits.
• Mindfulness doesn't have to mean yoga or meditation. - It means paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, non, nonjudgmentally.
• People who know they are highly anxious benefit from mindfulness training because they are more introspective and aware.  People who avoid experiences don't benefit as much because they tend to avoid thinking about things.
• Anxiety affects sleep.  Your head hits the pillow, but your brain says, "Okay, my turn.  Let's go through everything for tomorrow and think about what we wish we had done differently today."
• Worry activates the Default Mode Network (what you do unconsciously).  Experienced meditators decrease activity in this area, so they don't get caught up in automated loops.
• Three Steps of Habit Change
• Become aware that you are caught up in a habit loop
• Notice what you are thinking. 
• Notice how you are feeling. 
• Notice the behavior.
• mapmyhabit.com 
• Explore the results (ask, "What do I get from this?")
• The orbitofrontal cortex compares the reward value of certain behaviors.
• Just the act of paying attention can change the reward value.  (e.g. notice how bad the cigarette tastes)  
• Ask what you are getting from action.  Some part of it is good or you wouldn't be doing it, but there are possibly some negatives you haven't been paying attention to.  This will make then benefit it less enchanting.
• Step out of the habit loop.
• You can replace worry with curiosity.  It replaces fear and dread with "Hmm, that's interesting."  
• "Curiosity will conquer fear more than bravery will."
• Look at what you are feeling rather than why you are feeling it.  That will diffuse the panic.  It helps you get out of your own way.
• Instructions for living - Pay attention.  Be astonished.  Tell about it.

Keynote II: Reestablishing Attention and Synchronicity in Children Exposed to Trauma - 

Bessel A. Van der Kolk, MD
This one is going to be missing some stuff because my computer battery died in the middle of it, and I lost what I hadn't saved.  This is mostly from memory, except after I lost battery when I took some notes on paper.

• We are wired to imitate movement of other people.  Babies as young as 5 hours old can mimic facial expressions of adults.  This is why we tend to take on the mannerisms and speech patterns of those we spend time with (and why we must be careful who we spend time with).
• We are meant to move in rhythm with others with whom we have relationships.  Trauma interrupts those rhythms.
• Starting each day with some sort of activity where students move together will put them in sync with those around them, giving them a greater sense of security.  
• Mindfulness doesn't really work with traumatized children because their tendency is to avoid looking inward since that is where the pain is.
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder is a bogus diagnosis (He didn't say bogus.  He said another word.)  
• Most of a traumatized kid's behavior is due to fear.  They are hypervigilant of all potential signs of danger.  This makes them react very differently to stimuli than other students.  
• Teachers should learn to recognize the behavior as an expression of an unmet need and try to meet that need.
• Traumatic memories are not recorded the same way other memories are.  They are more likely to be recorded as sense memories, which is why a sound or smell might trigger a freakout.  It may trigger the fight or flight response.  
• We sometimes have competing survival responses.  Fear makes you want to run toward another person, but it also makes you want to run away from danger.  If the person you are running toward is the source of the danger, it can create a freeze response because the two instincts are at odds.
• A child cannot learn while in fear.
• When people are afraid, they tend to run (think about the images of people running after 9/11).  When people can't move, the feeling of being trapped increases anxiety.
• They tend to run home, but if home is the source of the trauma, they run toward a pseudo home, somewhere predictable and safe.  This could be your classroom.  
• One of the best treatments for traumatized kids is imagination.  The ability to imagine alternate outcomes to a situation allows their brains to prevent locking into the fear-based worst-case scenario.  The brain is trained in imagining alternative outcomes by imaginative play, theater, dance, storytelling, and movement with others (sports or simply everyone doing the same motion).  It builds self-regulation.
• The traumatized child is often reluctant to join the very activities that might help them.  Becoming frustrated with their lack of participation will only make it worse because your frustration will be an additional trigger.  The key is to create a way to make participating safe.
• Bad news - Trauma dramatically damages the developing brain.  Good news - With the right tools, the brain can rewire.  
• One new tool is a neurofeedback video game.  The game is controlled by electrodes attached to the child.  They learn to control their mental state in order to control the game.  This causes them to be aware of their mental state and able to regulate it better. 

Session A - Option 2 (4-12): Creating Caring, Trusting, Just Schools During Challenging Times - Richard Weissbourd, EdD

• We have a rhetoric gap - Parents say they rank their child's caring higher than their achievement or their happiness, but they make decisions based on their child's happiness.
• In surveys, they assume other parents care only about their child's achievement.
• Teachers say they rank caring the highest.
• Students report that they think their teachers care more about academics and their parents care mroe about achievement.
• When a kid wants to quit a team or a dance group, the decision is often made based on whether the kid is having fun or if it makes them happy (or if it will look good on a college transcript).  It is rarely considered whether they have a responsibility to the group.  Do they care that they are letting their teammates down?
• Religions have rites of passage in which kids are asked to think about their place in history.  This makes them think about their ancestors and their descendants to be.  Is there a non-religious equivalent?
• When immigrants move here, they often come from cultures with values of family and ancestry.  After they have been here for a few years, they tend to care more about their individual rights.  We often view immigrants as a threat to American moral culture, but in some ways, the opposite may be true.

Four Failures of Moral Education

• We focus heavily on performance character (Grit, perseverance through challenges, growth), but those can be used for good or evil (Dictators have a lot of grit.)  We do not focus on moral character (honesty, patience, compassion).
• SEL (Social Emotional Learning) is big right now, but if we are only teaching them to be aware of other people's emotions, we are not including any moral development.  Con-men are aware of other people's emotions and use that awareness well, but it is obviously immoral.
• Basic ethical principles are not taught.  We have bought into the idea of moral relativism to the extent that we don't believe there are basics of right and wrong in how we treat people.  Human rights and justice have to be based on some kind of moral absolutes.
• We don't teach kids to constructively interact with people who do not share their religious or political views.  (In surveys, kids express concern about this.  They bring less political baggage and want to be taught ways to respectfully disagree.)  Do we teach kids that each of us is responsible for all of us (No man is an island)?

Seven Ways to Help with Moral Development

1. Determine your key focus areas for promoting caring and justice  
• Every kid should be anchored to at least one adult.
• Teach gratitude
• Ask what is valuable about someone else's point of view.
2.  Utilize data
• What gets assessed gets addressed
3. Use small strategies with big impact.
• Greet kids by name
• Connecting with a students' interest.  
• Small connections can be life-changing
• Have kids interview someone with a different point of view for their writing.
• Have kids read stories from different points of view.
• Make art projects from a variety of cultures or ones that express a justice issue you care about.
4.  Intervene when injustice is happening in any part of the school (It isn't just about curriculum).  Model the correct interaction.
5. Focus on relationships and adult development.
• Relationship mapping (Who doesn't have a relationship with an adult?)
• Identify 3 character strengths in every child.
• Have teachers assess if students see them as a moral role model.  What can be done to become a positive moral role model?
6. Mobilize the energy and wisdom of youth.
• Use their observations of injustices.
• Put them in leadership positions to affect change.
7. Engage parents in a caring moral community.
• Cultivate a sense of "we."  Do parents care about all kids in the school or just their own?
• School-parent compacts
• Expect more from fathers (We expect too much from mothers.  We don't even ask to speak to fathers if there is a mother in the home.  We throw a parade if a dad brings a kid's lunch to school, but we expect mothers to bend over backward every day.)

We cannot pursue shared moral purposes without a shared reality.

• Credible sources of information matter.
• Superficial unity is meaningless without justice.
• The common good is good for everyone.

Keynote III: Helping Students With Concerning Behavior Before and After the Pandemic - Ross W. Greene, PhD

Moving from Power and Control to Collaboration and Problem Solving.

Website - livesinthebalance.org, ALSUP (inventory to help determine a student's lagging skills) - It's not intuitive to use, so watch the videos and take the tour on the website.

• Parents of kids with behaviorally challenged kids are feeling the most stress and are coping by lowering their standards and expectations.  They are less optimistic.
• Teachers are feeling fried.  The pandemic took an emotional toll, and so has the return to school.  We sacrificed some of our physical and mental health to do what we thought was best for students.
• Because people are tired of the pandemic, they are choosing to pretend it is not happening.  Ignoring it has not made it go away.
• Collaboration and problem solving is more important than ever.

Five Major Paradigm Shifts to Implement Collaborative Problem Solving

(Personal note:  I mostly agree with this, but obviously a worldview that contains the sin nature modifies my view somewhat.)

1. Rather than trying to modify the students' concerning behavior, look for and solve the problem that is the source of the behavior.  Behavior is a signal of an unsolved problem (It's a symptom in the same way a fever is.)  They don't need rewards and punishments; they need us. (Did you know that corporal punishment is still be used in public schools in 19 states?)
2. Problem-solving is a collaboration with the kid, not something you do to the kid.  This builds responsibility in them and makes them accountable to both the adult and themselves.
3. Problem-solving is proactive, not reactive.  If you understand why they act out (lack of adaptive skills) and when they act out (when there is an expectation they struggle to meet), you can predict when a meltdown is likely to happen and handle it proactively by teaching them adaptive skills
4. Kids will do well if they can.  Ignoring the behavior doesn't help if the behavior is meant to communicate the lack of skill in meeting an expectation.
5. Doing well is preferable.  It doesn't make sense to believe a kid might have the skills to do well but chooses not to.  It's not like it makes their life easier.

They are lacking:

• Executive skills
• Communication/Language processing
• Emotional Regulation
• Cognition

Using the assessment tool allows you to identify the skill they lack help them develop it.  Since it is not adversarial but a partnership, it helps them develop the skills they lack.

Options in problem-solving:

• Plan A - Unilateral (Based in power, causes conflict, usually doesn't work because you are guessing about the problem)
• Plan B - Collaborative (Cooperation brings people together, usually does work)
• Plan C - Set the problem aside for now (This is not giving in.  It's prioritizing.  If a student has 40 expectations they cannot currently meet, you can't tackle them all at once.  Choose the most disruptive, dangerous ones to solve first.)

Steps to Collaborative Problem Solving

• Empathy Step - This is just listening to the kid while they tell you what the source of the problem is.  Ask them what is hard about meeting the expectation.  What you think is in his way may not be the thing in his way.
• Define Adult Concern - The adult explains why the expectation matters and why they are concerned the child isn't meeting it.
• Invitation - "Might there be a way to accomplish (insert expectation) while taking care of (insert child's concern).  Allow child to make suggestions first, but the solution must be both realistic and mutually satisfactory, so there may be some negotiating.

Thanksgiving - My Administration

 Every November, I use this blog to express my gratitude for those people in my past who have formed the educator I am today.  These have mostly been teachers I had in middle and high school.  I am continually thankful for formative people, but this year, I want to express my gratitude for the people who are currently in my educational life.  I will do this in three posts because I am thankful for my current administration, the parents of my students, and the colleagues with whom I share my daily life.  This post will be about the administration of GRACE Christian School.

I think the job of school principal is fairly misunderstood.  Most of us only remember the experience we had as children, when we were afraid to be sent to the principal's office; but that's about it.  The job of principal is much, much more than discipline, however.  They do so much that people don't consider.

School administrators create school culture.  They hire teachers that will fit with the school philosophy and with other teachers.  They send messages in a variety of ways, from emails to meetings.  They set the tone in every faculty meeting.  Whether they are strictly authoritarian, focused on compliance or they are very collaborative, focused on relationships; they communicate that with the way they make decisions.  My principal and head of school are great at setting a tone of confident leadership.  They ask for our input, and they truly listen.  Here are a few examples from the pandemic.  We began the year last year knowing it would be difficult to return to in-person learning pre-vaccine.  The public cannot know how social distancing affected EVERY part of the day.  It's not just a matter of positioning desks farther apart.  It especially influenced the less structured settings, like lunch.  This meant a lot more duties for teachers.  I went from having lunch duty a couple of months per year to having it every other month.  Initially, we had posted double the people on morning door duties because we wanted someone next to the temperature scanners.  About a month into school, we had a meeting to reassess.  While there was nothing that could be done about lunch, we were able to cut back on the morning duty because temperature scanning had become a normal matter which no longer required a person to be posted.  Our administrators immediately redesigned the duty list to reduce the pressure.  In February, we had a meeting to discuss remote learning.  Because administrators have all been teachers, they have always had their own experience to base their perspective on.  Hybrid was different.  For the first time, administrators had not done what their teachers were doing.  They came into the meeting with plans to include remote learning going forward, but when teachers expressed what this model was doing to us, they truly listened and changed course.  There were two immediate changes to address the biggest frustrations, but they also slowed their plans to have virtual instruction in the future.  They continued to solicit input, and we found a method that could serve students without overburdening teachers.  The pandemic isn't the only time when our administration has been supportive, but it has created more opportunities for us to recognize it; so here is one more.  Our head of school called a "snow day" last year when there was no prediction of snow because he recognized the need we had for rest.  Last week, we had another one when he extended the Veterans' Day observation Thursday to Friday as well.  The tone they set is one of love and support.  

School administrators make the decisions I don't want to make, and they have to take the heat for it.  In our return to school, administrators had more decisions to make than ever (and it's not like they had a small number of decisions to make before).  It seems there is nothing more controversial than masks, so when a message goes out about how we will handle that, their inbox is filled with replies from people who don't think we should be wearing them at all as well as those who wish we could figure out how to keep them on even while eating.  No matter what decision is made, there will be people who don't like it.  While they solicit input, they have to ultimately make a decision and confidently stick with it.  Few people tell you when they agree with you, but everyone tells you when they don't.  

Administrators carry the weight of the school.  From the day-to-day decisions to the big themes of the year, they are the guiding hand.  When things are going well, we all get to share in the celebration, but when something is wrong, they are the shoulders on which we lean.  When a school experiences a tragedy, they care for the students as well as the staff while experiencing their own emotions.  They are the ones with crying teachers in their office.  They are the ones making the decisions we are prone to criticize.  They are the public face of the school to parents.  They feel it all.  

I spend a lot of time on Twitter, reading what other teachers post.  Many are struggling with administrators who, not only don't understand, they don't care to understand.  They are dealing with leaders who have political ambitions or care only about test scores (even in a pandemic).  They have administrators who say, "We care about you" but don't show it.  I am grateful to have leaders who pray for and with us, find ways to give us a rest when they can, and lead with empathy and love.  Thank you to Eric Bradley (head of school), Mandy Gill (upper school principal), Blake Hickman and Daniel Servi (deans of students), leaders at the lower school campus, and the rest of our leadership team.

That One Kid

Normally, I write about something I have learned and feel there is some wisdom to share.  This one is a little different.  I'm writing it for me.  If you get something out of it too, that's great.  This is about dealing with that one kid, the one who pushes your buttons, the one who looks you right in the eye while defying what you said and then says, "I didn't hear you," the one who finds your last nerve and dances on it.  

If you aren't a teacher, you might think that it's horrible to even admit that this happens.  People assume that teachers are able to robotically turn off their feelings.  The thing is, however, that we are human beings, just like everyone else.  And, just like everyone else, we are going to connect with some people more than others.  We have to treat our kids equally, but that doesn't mean we feel equally because, as I feel I should say again, we are human beings, not curriculum delivering robots.  This is important because, early in your career, feeling this way can make you feel like a bad teacher.  You might not want to admit it, and that is going to keep you from getting what you need.  You also have to be careful who you talk to about it.  Some will make you feel worse and give you really unhelpful advice like, "You just shouldn't feel that way."  Some will over-validate you, which will not help you address this.  I have two pieces of advice (and if you aren't a Christian, only one will be helpful).

First, for teachers who believe in the Bible, you know that human beings are made in the image of God - all of them - even that one kid.  It is helpful to pray that God will allow you to see that student through this filter.  Reminding yourself that he is an image-bearer may not make him less irritating, but it should change the way you respond to him.  And changing the way you respond often changes the student's behavior.  Whether it helps or not, it is right to view other humans properly, so you should remind yourself of this.

Second, it is good to remember that a person's weaknesses are often just the flip side of their strengths.  The qualities that drive you crazy about that student may be what will make them great when they have matured.  What presents as stubbornness now may just be a less formed version of the perseverance he may one day need in his job or his marriage or his ministry later in life.  The attention he would rather give to a video game may be training his brain to notice details, which may be something he needs to accomplish the purpose God has for him (You should still have him stop playing in your class; I'm just giving you a less irritating perspective for his obsession).  I would imagine that the Joshua and Caleb of the old testament were probably difficult children.  They probably debated things with their parents and teachers.  They were probably quite stubborn.  I don't think they suddenly became strong, brave men who stood by their convictions when they had to resist the cowardice of the ten other spies.  What made them difficult children is exactly the way in which God planned to use them.  

Viewing students as image-bearers with personality traits that will inform their futures may not keep them from annoying you at the worst possible time, but it should help you to respond to them from a place of purpose and character development rather than from your emotional state.  

Modeling What You Teach

Because we have used the word "mandate" a lot in the past two years, I think we have come to believe that we weren't all subject to mandates before.  We have a lot of them, from daily things like clocking in and out on your job to the ones that may only happen a few times, like mandatory TB tests.  A stop sign is a mandate that restricts your freedom for the safety of the community.  For my entire life, I have entered restaurants with signs reading "No shirt, no shoes, no service" without viral videos of barefoot individuals hassling the hostess about it.  Rules and mandates, even those we disagree with, are simply a part of living in a civil society.  I remember a middle school teacher telling us that he had a right to swing his arm back and forth as much as he wanted but that his right ended where my nose began.  He couldn't punch me in the face and then claim that I was restricting his right to swing his arm.  

When you are a kid, you think that you won't have to deal with rules as an adult.  If anything, there are more rules when you are an adult, and the consequences are far greater.  For my entire adult life, I have had traffic rules (can't drive on whichever side of the road I want), camp rules (can't have a bottle of aspirin in the same room as kids), school rules (can't leave kids unattended), travel rules (had to have a yellow fever vaccine and MMR booster when I went to Zambia), and the simple rules of living in the world (can't streak through Moore Square).  Rules aren't new, and they are necessary.  

As a teacher, I have had many, many, many conversations with my students about rules.  One of the most important things I teach them is what to do when they disagree with a rule.  Their first instinct is to ignore it or disobey it while complaining about it.  I always ask them if they believe I agree with every rule I have to follow.  They assume that I do.  For the record, I do not.  It's not possible to agree with every rule that I am subjected to.  There are simply too many made by too many people for that to even be a thing.  But I talk to them about the right way to go about dealing with those kinds of situations.  If I really care deeply about the rule with which I disagree, I go to my authorities to discuss it and present my case or do what I can to get the rule changed by going through proper channels.  If I do not care enough about it to go through that kind of process, then I just follow the rule and hush.  I'm not talking about a rule that is illegal or immoral; that's a different and rare scenario.  I'm just saying that you don't have to agree with a rule to follow it.  Most of the rules we are talking about aren't immoral.  They are just things we don't like or don't understand or aren't the way we would do it if we were in charge.  When I worked in child care, I thought it was really stupid that we were required to keep medication in a locked box on a high shelf inside a locked closet in a room with children who couldn't yet crawl; yet I kept this regulation because it was not immoral.  When I have this conversation with students, it is good that I have these examples because they need to know that their teachers are humans with opinions but also people who submit to authority.

I intentionally did not name this post "Practice what you preach" because I think this goes deeper than that simple cliché conveys.  We aren't just talking about hypocrisy; we're talking about teaching.  When you model something different than what you say, you teach kids that what you say doesn't mean anything.  If I tell them to follow rules with which they disagree, but then I only follow the rules I agree with, I have undermined any ability to enforce the rules I have written in my own class.  I have taught them, but I haven't taught them what I hoped.  It would be like telling them how to solve a physics problem but then doing it a different method on the board for every example and then expecting them to do it the way I said on their test.  That would be confusing and unfair.  The same is true when you try to exert authority while undermining the authority of others.  

Change Prompts Change

I have had variations on the same conversation 7 times this week.  I have appointments to have it again two more times this week.  It's a conversation with 8th-grade students about their study habits.  See, the last year of middle school is when things change.  From kindergarten through 6th grade, there is an age-appropriate level of thinking that largely involves memorization and observation.  Application and analysis is usually a teacher-guided process.  In the 7th grade, application becomes more prevalent on assessments (e.g interpret this weather map), but it is still a relatively small part of a test, so students still rely heavily on flashcards and quizlet for their study.

Teachers of 8th-grade students have a responsibility that we take very seriously.  We have to turn our middle school students into high school students by the end of the year.  The percentage of application and analysis-based questions and skills increases dramatically, and good students are thrown a bit off balance.  While I talk to them about this as part of the class and during test reviews, it seems to only sink in during these one-on-one conversations.  I start each one by asking them what they currently do to study.  About 90% of them have the same answer.  "I look over my notes and use Quizlet (or flashcards)."  I ask them what it means to look over their notes and what value that provides (very little, if any).  We talk about the value of Quizlet and flashcards because they do have value for the types of questions that have one-word answers and definitions.  

Then, we talk about the tools that need to be added to their toolbox.  I advise that they start by writing down everything they can remember from the chapter.  Comparing this to the book/notes will help them narrow down what they need to study most.  Then, we talk about how learning a fact is valuable only because of how the facts fit together or how they fit into a pattern or how they inform a skill they will be applied to.  The best students are often surprised by the "think outside the book" approach, but when they grasp it, they become stronger learners in a way that pays off in high school and college.  It's a painful process, but it is worth it.  Growth is never linear, and it involves fits and starts; but I hope they recognize the long-term value of what they are doing because it isn't just about the test they have Thursday.  It isn't even just about my class.  It's about the definition of learning and the meaning of all information.  No fact is an island.  It all fits into your life according to a pattern.

Changes in the way tests are written should cause students to change their study habits.  Changes in data should change the advice scientists give.  Changes in relationships should change the way we communicate.  Changes in the world changed the way we taught last year.  Change for the sake of change is stupid, but change in response to change is prudent and necessary.  We must ask ourselves how our practices fit into the larger pattern.