Healing Relationships

I am reading Daniel Goleman's Social Intelligence. Great book. Nice companion to his earlier Emotional Intelligence which focused on intrapersonal management skills. This one focuses on relationships, or interpersonal management skills. He describes much new research that demonstrates that we are indeed "wired to connect," and that to a great extent, we "create one another."

Goleman discusses the social corrosion of the last two decades. People have lost social capital as they hole up with video games, e-mail, and ipods. He calls it "technocreep" and worries about the social and emotional fallout. Deadening ourselves to those around us cheats us of much positive and necessary brain growth. Our brains are actually shaped by repeated emotional experiences. Being chronically hurt or angered shapes the brain so that those pathways become well-worn and habitual. Relationships which are emotionally nourishing shape our brains differently. Intriguing to me is this idea of "neuroplasticity" and reparative possibilities of nurturing relationships.

This information makes me more determined than ever to protect key pieces of our school culture. Many of my students are emotionally damaged when they come to us. My frustration in the old traditional school was always that I had the critters for only 55 minutes at a time. It was difficult to affect real change in that short time period. It alway seemed so futile to try to counterbalance 12 hours of isolation and dysfunction with one hour of connected support. It would seem to me that because we have the same students all day, there is opportunity to grow some new dendrites, shape new positive emotional pathways.

Beginning and ending with advisory each day is critical. Creating safe space and making sure that students feel listened to, understood, validated is key. Probing their thinking in project conferences, encouraging sound emotional intelligence through restorative justice rather than retribution--also key. But it's more than that. It's creating a culture of caring and respect. I want them to hear this research and recognize that their attitudes are contagious.

Goleman says that when we are attuned to another individual we experience physiological mimicry. Smiles beget smiles, frowns beget frowns, high blood pressure begets high blood pressure, and so on. Toxicity is contagious. Coming in angry and spewing that on those you come in contact with has huge negative impact. Tension and worry communicate themselves subconsciously and impact the climate.

Paying attention to ones' emotional health isn't frivolous. It's in the best interest of the community.

Learning to Learn

I had a terrific project finalization meeting with a freshman student yesterday. I was a little nervous going in because her mother was going to sit in. That doesn't normally bother me, but this was just a beginning exploration for H. She knew she was interested in astronomy and plans to do a full blown project in the fall. As preparation for that, she was dabbling to discover where her interests lie. She thought she'd start with constellations, learn a bit about stars, get a little background information, and use a visit to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory as a capstone for this exploration. All of this would help her determine where to head. The purpose of the meeting yesterday was to determine credit earned for her beginning research and the communication of what she learned, and to fine tune where she would be headed in the fall.

Often times parents expect to hear a litany of factoids--The sun is a star. It is 91 million miles from the earth. The nine planets in our solar system revolve around the sun. No worries, valuers of factoids, many of those important facts came out in our conversation, but that's not where we started. I was excited to see her using those facts to begin to discover and answer her own questions.

I asked H. what she had learned and she shared that she was surprised to learn that stars have life cycles. I asked her why that was important. It was shocking to her to think that the sun won't last forever. "Did you know that it is halfway through its cyle? It's been around for around 5 billion years and only has about 5 billion years left. Sure, that's a long time, but what will people do?" She acknowledged that two sites she visited had posted different ages for the sun and that this was going to take some more research, but the seed was planted. She wants to know more about this.

Another thing that she was interested in was shooting stars. She discovered that they are actually meteors entering the earth's atmosphere. I asked her why they light up when they break through. She wasn't sure but she thought that it was something to do with friction. "Remember Apollo 13. They were worried about their ship burning up when they entered the earth's atmosphere." She went on from there to wonder if maybe it has something to do with the life cyle. She asked me if I had ever seen a light bulb "die." She said that she has seen a brilliant flash right before they burn out. She wonders if a star is dimmer when it is "born" and becomes brighter as it gets ready to "die." These are good questions.

We went on to talk about constellations. I asked her why anyone ever decided to name the shapes created by stars. She was intrigued by the mythology that surrounds them. She said that it is natural for people to want to "make sense of their world" and that creating stories about something as powerful and "eternal" as stars helped them to do that. She wondered if religion maybe does the same thing for people. She was surprised to learn that some constellations are only visible from certain parts of the world. She recognized practical uses for constellations for explorers and sailors to find their way.

H. also talked about what she learned about creating PowerPoint presentations. Her last ppt was jam-packed with text. This time she spent time sifting through and finding key pieces of information. "It was a lot harder to do, but you have to think about your audience. People don't want to read all of that. It's better to give them a great picture and a few details you want them to remember. You can talk about the rest."

Her works cited slide was much improved as well, and I was delighted to hear her explain why that was important. "People need to know where I got my information. They will see from this that I need to check out some of my information from more credible sources. I don't think I should have Wikipedia on here. I'll use it to help me search next time, but I know some of my other sites are more important--you want the ones done by scientists."

She is at the beginning stages of real scientific inquiry. She has a keen desire to learn more and is confident that she knows how to do so. She is paying attention to the steps of her process and using what she knows to think about new information. H. is Learning to Learn.

Like-Mindedness

Variety is the spice of life. True. And I enjoy diversity. But every now and again, there is great comfort in spending time with like-minded folks. Time near the water and a glorious view of Mt. Rainier were just icing on the cake.

I spent the last three days at a CES Northwest Symposium in Seattle. I feel replenished. In the process of developing a brand new high school, I frequently fear that my well of ideas will one day run dry. Ideas breed ideas, for sure, and if you're taking out many more than you're putting in. . . At any rate, this was a time to listen, a time to soak up great ideas and begin to see how they could potentially play out in my situation.

Different than standard district-sponsored inservice trainings that focus on curriculum and instruction as isolated animals, CES workshops have kids at the heart. It's not about helping kids adapt to the structure that is comfortable for us. It is about us structuring learning opportunities with kids and for kids so that the learning is real and everybody grows from the experience.

Also different than traditional inservice, presenters did not come with all of the answers. Modeling real learning behaviors, presenters came with many questions. It was lot of "This is what I'm trying. What do you think?"

Kathleen Cushman's address was inspirational. She wondered about the steps of quality practice that move one from novice to expert in any field. Are there commonalities? Rather than wait on the researchers, she began her own bit of active inquiry--she asked the kids. And to help them more clearly understand their own process, she got them out there asking the experts. Interesting to watch the key commonalities emerge--desire, challenge, patient practice, feedback, seeking the new "hard," etc. But even more interesting to watch the student response to that. To see them analyzing their own learning, their own processes, and to see the "ahas." This is a great project! This will be a valuable experience for my students as they become more self-directed in project design and management.