Mindfulness Training with Kate Janke

As dedicated readers of this blog already know, the K-5 division has been in the midst of a year-long initiative to implement mindfulness in our classrooms. After six months of meetings designed to help the teachers and staff develop our own personal practices of mindfulness and mindful meditation, last week we spent 15 hours across three days in an in-depth training on how to implement mindfulness in the classrooms.

Kate Janke's Heart-Mind Education curriculum moves through several distinct segments. We're already well on our way to understanding how to teach from presence, which is the first grouping. Next we learned about creating the container that supports children as they enter into mindfulness with physical and psychological safety. Lessons on cultivating connection with self and others mindfully came next, followed by lessons that teach simple regulation and attention skills. The last two clusters of lessons in the curriculum focus on how we treat, speak to, and care for each other, and then a series designed to go deeper into self-awareness and our understanding of perception.

The energy of the faculty at the conclusion of the day on Saturday was incredible -- especially considering it was a Saturday, the third consecutive Saturday working for some faculty, and the first day of February break! While no two classes will be implementing the curriculum in exactly the same way, every teacher has a concrete plan to begin regularly teaching and implementing mindfulness in the K-5 classrooms when we return from break. Be sure to check out your classroom blogs for more info in the upcoming weeks.

Interested in some reading on your own? Check out these resources, but please don't try to pre-teach mindfulness to your children at home -- we want to start with this as a "school activity" before we extend it into the home lives.

The Mindful Child by Susan Kasier Greenland

The Whole Brain Child by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness by Deborah Schoeberlein

The Mindful Brain and Mind Sight by Dan Siegel

Thinking about listening

Learning to listen is an important skill for children, and one of the ways we go about teaching the concept is to investigate the physical, emotional, and intellectual dimensions of listening. We like to provide four models for students: defensive listening, whole-body listening, active listening, and mindful listening.

Defensive listening is a rooted in our biological and evolutionary history: we are always alert to the threat of attack, and it is natural for people to feel like they need to seem smart, be ready with the right answer, or point of the flaws of others that can threaten our success. Specific behaviors can include interrupting others, responding immediately after someone finishes speaking, and using louder volume or stronger language than the original speaker to express disagreement. Think of this as a verbal manifestation of the fight-or-flight instinct. The good news is that these behaviors are sometimes the result of unexamined habit, and that intention and practice can help children learn new ways of engaging as listeners. 

Because it is rooted in the movement of the body, whole-body listening is a great initial alternative to explore with children based on their lived experience. The positive behaviors that students usually identify include eyes looking at the person talking, mouth remaining quiet, hands in lap or by your sides, feet on the floor and keeping still, and body and head facing the speaker. We like to extend the conversation to include two more concepts from Michelle Garcia Winner's social thinking paradigm: using your brain to think about what the speaker is saying, and using your heart to care about what the speaker is saying. 

Active listening is closely related to whole-body listening in keeping eye contact and using non-verbal cues to show you are following the speaker. Importantly, active listening extends into response behaviors, such as giving a short pause after the speaker finishes before responding, and asking questions in a neutral tone. Active listening also includes a meta-cognitive level of intention to the act of listening: Marshall Goldsmith emphasizes the importance of discipline as a core behavior in active listening, while in a recent post, Annie Paul Murphy wrote about three mental strategies for how to be an effective active listener: using higher-order thinking skills such as goal setting and prediction prior to engaging in the act of listening, monitoring and maintaining focus during listening, and then reviewing and evaluating what you hear. 

At the Elementary Division meeting two weeks ago, TBS Student Life Coordinator Kate Klaire led the faculty in a routine called "Listening like a Cow" which has its roots in Mary Rose O'Reilley's wonderful book Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice. The idea is to be calm and still in our presentation of listening to the speaker, and provide them the space to speak in a way that doesn't require interaction with the typical signals and cues that we regularly use to communicate our attention such as nodding, "mm-hmm", or cocking our heads. This level of mindful listening is a challenge even for adults who are excellent active listeners!

Interested in more? Check out Julian Treasure's TED talk on Five Ways to Listen Better (thanks to Head of School Mitch Bostian for passing along the link).

Inside today's K-5 division meeting

Sharing the agenda from today's K-5 division meeting.

1. Review ground rules (1 min)

Start & end on time

Be present and engaged

Maintain a sense of humor

Assume good will

2. Mindfulness practice (10 min)

Audio file of body scan from Kate Jenke’s website

3. Kyla and Kate: recess agreements and concerns (15 min)

4. Lisa and Julia: Sharing portfolios from 3^rd grade (10 min)

5. Parent/Teacher conference prep (10 min)

Review goals

Share "collective wisdom"

Steps to take for prep

Exit slip

7. Site expectations cont.: gallery walk (20 min)

Gallery walk thru the rooms, examining the three criteria from last month.

Gather by room to share appreciations and ideas

8. Kate: types of listening (10 min)

Today's K-5 division meeting

In the spirit of making learning visible, here's the agenda from today's K-5 Division Meeting, interspersed with some details of what was discussed or done during that segment of the meeting. 

1. Review ground rules (5 min)

Proposed Ground Rules for K-5:

Start & end on time

Be present and engaged

Maintain a sense of humor

Assume good will

2. Celebrating successes (5 min)

-BTSN

-K-3 configuration work

-Master schedule revision

-Sharing from the group

3. Professional Development report (20 min)

Jeff: Using the Think-Puzzle-Explore Thinking Routine from Project Zero, with The Railway by Edouard Manet as the provocation.

4. Meaningful Faculty Evaluation process (10 min)

- this is a means to an end, which is a strong and aligned culture

- Page.2B has professional expectations

- Complete p.1-5 so we can meet to finalize your PD plan for the year.

5. Sharing craft knowledge (5 min)

Daniel: tool for sequencing monthly mini-lessons

6. Site expectations (10 min)

At The Berkeley School, all spaces will…

o   make learning visible

o   demonstrate intentionality

o   demonstrate care for the environment and materials

Activity: Break into groups and create Y-Charts (see below for the posters faculty generated)

7. Calendaring (2 min)

Protocol for setting up field trips

Getting level-based program events on the proper Google calendars

8. Math differentiation (10 min)

Sima and Renee: their roles and resources

Inside a K-5 Division Meeting

Today's K-5 division meeting began with a pop quiz group recall of our groundrules: everyone participates, different opinions are welcome, limit side conversations, respect time, and maintain your sense of humor. This last rule was in full effect as people suggested some rules that aren't part of our list!

The second agenda item was work in the Zones of Regulation curriculum, led by Social/Emotional Coordinator Kate Klaire. She began this three-part sequence began by walking us through a lesson on "Triggers", which included an art/writing activity to link actions of others with zones we experience. Next, Claire and Lisa presented a lesson on "Size of the Problem" they had done with students in Blackberry Creek (K/1), which helps children consider whether how they are reacting to a problem is in line with the seriousness of the problem. Finally, Kate shared a lesson called "Stop Opt Go", that helps children slow down their thinking and make choices about how to care for themselves before trying to respond to problems or situations.  

The third part of our meeting was taken up by some housekeeping - last minute planning for today's visit from the Marine Science Institute, and planning for next week's Readathon.

The meeting then moved into a professional development portion focused on math, led by Sima Misra, our Differentiated Curriculum Specialist. Sima presented two activities: number talks and math warmups. Building on a presentation from last month by Lisa Chung (k/1), Sima had the faculty do some quick number activities (ex: show how many ways you can create 56 in two minutes), emphasizing ways to have students effectively share their thinking and strategies with each other. For math warmups, Sima taught us the whisper/shout/move technique for learning skip counting, and had us practice it.

The meeting ended with a discussion about next year's calendar of program events. We've got some amazing traditions, such as the Art Show, Winter Sing, Math Night, Readathon, and Walkathon, and we also want to find a way to integrate student-centered performances of understanding about the other academic areas of our program that we don't yet cover on a division-wide basis (science, cultural studies, Spanish, and PE).

Oct. 5th Professional Development Day

We are always thankful and excited to get the chance to gather as a faculty for a professional development day. I was excited to lead the second segment of the morning's work (the first was spent working on curriculum mapping), which focused on improving our progress reports. This summer I had a series of meetings with Kathy (our Early Childhood Division Head), Gretchen (our Middle School Division Head), and Jeanne (our database manager) to discuss this topic. We generated the following problem statement to drive our work: How can we make our progress reports more effectively and efficiently communicate students growth for both faculty and families?



We decided that to best capitalize on the precious time the entire faculty body had together, we would focus the discussion on one essential component of the reports: the terms we use to describe the stage of developmental mastery a student has reached for each criteria. To do this, we drew on the thinking routines of Project Zero to create an activity that helped faculty make their thinking visible to each other, and to foster a conversation grounded in shared experience and understanding.


Hung up around the room were several pieces of chart paper: one had our current K-8 terms (emerging, developing, comptent, effective, mastering), another had our current ECC terms (not yet observed, in progress, consistently, area of strength) and nine others contained alternative sets of terms we had gathered from various other public and private schools. Some examples of these other sets include novice, apprentice, practitioner, expert; below expectations, developing, at expectations, above expectations; needs support, inconsistently, usually, consistently; and below, approaching, proficient, advanced. Teachers put sticky notes with their thoughts, responses and questions to each set of terms on the appropriate piece of chart paper (or wrote them directly on the sheets).


Faculty were also asked to respond to two other questions. First, were there other sets of terms that they wished to suggest? Second, what did they think about having different sets of terms for different divisions (Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School)? After about thirty minutes spent posting their ideas and reading the comments of their colleagues, we held a spirited discussion about what terms (and associated definitions) would help us improve the effective and efficient communication about student growth.


After lunch, the faculty worked in divisions. At the K-5 level, we spent most of the time continuing our (re)training on the DRA2 reading assessment that we implement. While this is our third year using the DRA2, we believe it's important to regularly retrain all faculty in how to use the tool to ensure that the assessment data is reliable and valid (and, we have new faculty this year who have not used the DRA2 before!). This was the second half of our training (at Wednesday's division meeting, we reviewed all of the materials and procedures): we watched video of an assessment given last week, and each faculty member scored the oral reading fluency of the student reader, after which we compared and discussed our results in pairs and as a whole group.

The goal of this activity is to both give faculty practice taking oral reading records (which use specific notation to indicate miscues, omissions, repetitions, etc), and to develop inter-rater reliability (thereby improving our reliable and valid use of the assessment). Faculty then looked through the folders of their current students to review assessments from prior years, and, combined with their understanding of the students in the last month, determine the level of text on which to assess each student during the upcoming assessment window.

Year-end elementary division mtg

Yesterday we held our year-end elementary division meeting. My goal was to both honor the year that was past, and to start thinking ahead towards next year in real and pragmatic ways. We began, as always, by reviewing our established groundrules.



The first activity was an appreciation circle. I asked each teacher to write at least three appreciations: one for the person sitting directly to his/her right, and two more for other people around the table. My original idea was to have each person receive the assigned appreciation, and then anyone else could add in as s/he felt, but a quick check revealed that the teachers felt uncomfortable with this plan. One of the faculty then suggested we simply do the first part of the circle (the assigned part), and that any additional appreciations be made directly to each other during the break. This was eagerly adopted as a better approach for the group, and a terrific experience followed. While hearing the great appreciations faculty had for each other was very moving, the event was also a powerful leadership experience for me; hearing opposition to my plan, being able to express my intent, and then being open and receptive to an alternative suggestion of how to proceed left me with a good feeling about the work I've done to develop a strong culture, and also my willingness to model appropriate behaviors.

After a quick break, we had a group brainstorming on topics to include in a Program Handbook that can be given to current and prospective faculty. We have handbooks for families (the Parent Handbook) and employees (the Employee Handbook) that lay out lots of important information about school policies, but we don't have a unified source for "the ropes" that lay out our approach to topics such as curriculum design, pedagogic tools, discipline, homework, the SST process, classroom and consumable budgets, field trip forms, a calendar of traditional events, school-wide assemblies, and many other topics. Teachers suggested lots of ideas, and one of my summer projects will be to draft this handbook.

The third part of the meeting was a conversation about Room Parents. While we are of course(!) deeply grateful to all parents who volunteer and help out in the classroom, the role of Room Parent is one that has special importance, and also one that needs more intention and cultivation. We spent about 20 minutes identifying positive and negative qualities of Room Parents, the important duties that teachers rely on Room Parents to fulfill, and how the selection process can be handled as apolitically and effectively as possible.

The last section of the meeting was spent in reflection on our teaching practices. We began by thinking about our work with the TBS Learning Outcomes. Teachers were given two starting questions to consider, in writing: Which learning outcomes were you most successful in teaching, and why/how? And, which learning outcomes were you least successful in teaching, and why/how? After sharing their thoughts and responses, teachers were given 20 minutes to return to the curriculum mapping project we have worked on this year, and asked to revise the maps they had made in February in order to accurately reflect the content of their curriculum for the second half of the year.

And then, bittersweet though it was, we said goodbye. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to guide, grow with, and learn from this collection of creative, insightful, dedicated, compassionate and collaborative faculty, and I'm excited to build on this year's successes next fall.

10/26 Elementary Division Meeting

We began yesterday's Elementary Division meeting by reviewing our ground rules, and then had a brief check-in. The check-in took the form of an "emotional thermometer"; each person wrote his/her name on a popsicle stick, and then put it in a cup bearing a number from 1-10, where #1 represented feeling very low and sad, and #10 represented feeling joyous and excited. This thermometer made our emotional states visibile to each other and ourselves, and allowed each person the opportunity to have his/her emotional needs acknowledged by the group. We then discussed how a tool like this could be used in the classroom by students, including when and why a student might want or need to switch his/her emotional status, and the benefits (and need) to have emotions be recognized, and their impact on our actions understood, by students. BTW, this was one of the little tips I picked up while at the EQ conference a few weeks ago.

Teachers then completed the Faculty Culture Profile that is part of the Meaningful Faculty Evaluation tool developed by ISM. We did this because I am continuing to think about the question "what does it mean to be a division?", and the need for us to have a shared basis of data (not just narrative perspectives) from which to make decisions about what topics to discuss. My hope and intention is that a small group of faculty will work with me to analyze the results and decide on areas of focus for future division-wide culture work.

The next phase of the meeting centered on the creation of professional development goals for the year. I began by relating the incredible experience that I had this summer at the NAIS Fellowship for Aspiring Heads in Atlanta, and the nature of the feedback that I received. I then moved on to sharing the four goals that I had come up with based on that data (two of which I've already blogged about on this site), as well as the action steps and criteria for success that I had identified. While 3/4 of my goals are centered on personal growth, rather than professional practice, I acknowledged that faculty can decide if they want to include any personal growth goals within their professional goals,and that it is totally appropriate and acceptable if they choose to keep them all closely related to activities in the classroom. However, no matter the goal, it is important that faculty differentiate between means and ends, and that they determine how they'll know they are moving towards their goals before they begin their action plan, which is the same approach that is involved in determining criteria of growth for assessment before planning instructional activities with students.

The fourth section of the meeting was a conversation led by Kate Klaire on the ongoing work of the student council, and the social facilitation work that she is doing across the school. Topics for future iterations of the council are beginning to emerge, so the planning for those councils is beginning, and the social facilitation work is in full swing, but needing feedback from faculty on the frequency and the degree to which is can/should be based on pre-planned ideas compared to emergent needs in each class.

The meeting then moved into 15 minutes of preparation for the Parent/Teacher conferences that occur next week. To capitalize on the decades of teaching experience around the table, I asked the faculty to share tricks, tips, and approaches that they have found help lead to successful conferences. Not surprisingly, every single teacher had something worthwhile to share with the group, and afterwards people felt more secure about the intention with which they will approach planning for conferences. If you're looking for a great book to check out about conferences, please read The Essential Conversation by Sara Lawrence-Lighfoot.

The meeting concluded with short conversations about the SST process, the redesigned approach to assemblies that I blogged about last week (sign-ups to present a 5-minute "showcase of learning" at each assembly went out digitally after the meeting), and planning for on-going child visits over the next two weeks.

Rethinking assemblies

Yesterday after school I met with Chris P., Mike S., Julianne, and Kate to discuss our K-8 assemblies. We began to hold regular assemblies last year, but the purpose seemed not to go beyond learning a few songs to sing together. So, I asked the teachers who played instruments and lead the singing at the assemblies to meet to consider how we could make the assemblies more intentional and meaningful. While I knew I could come up with something reasonable on my own, it's more fun and interesting to work with my colleagues, and I believe this is a shift that will benefit from being consensus-driven rather than imposed from above.

Our discussion began by considering the question, what is the goal of having assemblies? We decided upon four worthy goals; to build community, to strengthen school culture, to inform each other about what's happening in the different classrooms, and to celebrate successes and give appreciations. From there, we discussed what structure should assemblies have to achieve these goals? After some disagreement, and the recognition that we needed to have something that would engage 190+ students, was low-impact on faculty, was authentic and not contrived, and would only last 15-20 minutes, we came upon a template that can be replicated at each assembly; an introduction and framing from Mitch, a brief "showcase of learning" of recent work by one of the classrooms, and then a song. If no class has signed up for a particular assembly's showcase, we can draw from a list of other elements we generated, including skits to illustrate that month's Social Rules for Kids, or having a student council select a few children to read their writing as a school-wide publishing party.

We then determined how often do we need to have assemblies to achieve these goals - once a month. After looking through the calendar and scheduling dates for assemblies for the remainder of the year, we considered what songs should we introduce to the school that support these goals? We decided to give each remaining month a theme (November = gratitude, February = social justice, April = environmentalism, etc), and to ask Eve Decker, our K-6 music and 6-8 drama teacher (who very much wanted to be involved in this process, but was unable to attend the meeting), to develop a list of songs that we will teach in both the music class and the regular classrooms. The meeting ended with a discussion about what action steps to take to meet these goals - presentations to faculty at next week's division meetings, creating a brief form to help teachers brainstorm how they want to structure a "showcase of learning", and creating a songbook for the entire year.

Learning Outcomes

After an incredible, collaborative year-long process (which I've blogged about here, here, and here), the TBS faculty has arrived at a set of learning outcomes that both capture what we have already been doing, and give clarity for our intentions about the future. We're thrilled at this list, even as we recognize that it is a "working document" that may be modified as we live with it next year. For example, we'll be asking the four faculty who are attending the Guggenheim Institute on Creativity in Teaching this summer to help us refine our definition of the #4 below.

Through their learning experiences at TBS, students will develop:

1. Autonomy: their qualities and skills of reflection, perseverance, confidence, patience, initiative, self-knowledge, and metacognition.

2. Interdependency: their understanding* of cooperation, compassion, empathy, mutual respect, commonalities and differences, diversity, active citizenship, community, and systems.

3. Critical thinking: their ability to conceptualize, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information; to reason, to pose questions, to test assumptions, to consider alternative viewpoints, and to derive conclusions and consequences.

4. Creativity: their curiosity and imagination to identify and resolve problem-solving opportunities that are of relevance to their personal lives and experiences across all academic and artistic disciplines.

5. Communication: their understanding* of effective written, oral, visual, physical, and artistic communication, active listening, non-violent interaction, and conflict resolution.

6. Health and wellness – their understanding* of the ways that nutrition, exercise, rest, and external environment factors influence their well-being, and will develop habits that promote physical, emotional, social, and intellectual well-being, as well as the ability to monitor and maintain that well-being.

7. Technological proficiency – their understanding* of modern technology as a means to communicate with others, to express ideas, and to search for relevant information, and their ability to choose, use , navigate, and evaluate new media carefully, responsibly and ethically.

8. Discipline understanding: developmentally appropriate abilities and awareness in each area of study – academic and artistic – as determined by intentional, rigorous, and inclusive processes of observation, assessment, and evaluation.

9. Learning habits: their understanding* of individual learning profiles, and their ability to use that understanding to identify, choose, use, and reflect on deliberate approaches to their work in school and at home that maximize engagement and learning, leading to the production of high-quality and satisfying work. *at TBS, “understanding” comprises motivation, ability, and awareness. After we shared these with the faculty yesterday, we immediately merged into a conversation about the big questions that will guide the curriculum review process that we're now designing. The questions we posed included:

1) How do we review and revise Section VI of the TBS curriculum guide for grades K-8 in specific disciplines of Cultural Studies, Language Arts, Math, Science, and Spanish, to ensure a) that the “taught” curriculum in the classrooms and the printed curriculum align, b) that the curriculum aligns with the learning outcomes, and c) that there are no major gaps in knowledge and skills in our curriculum?

2) How do we create a plan for developing the printed K-8 curriculum in Art, P.E., mindfulness, music, Seed-to-Table, and other areas or disciplines?

3) How do we create a first draft of a comprehensive curriculum for our Early Childhood Campus?

4) How do we codify the roles of Teaching for Understanding, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, balanced literacy, inquiry learning, project-based learning, and other frameworks in the curriculum at TBS? What are the formal components of our program that shape our work within these frameworks (Positive Discipline/Responsive Classroom, Facing History and Ourselves, Reader's Workshop/Writer's Workshop, TERC: Investigations, Words Their Way, etc)? Does this look different at different divisions?

5) How do we revise Sections I-V of the K-8 curriculum guide to more accurately reflect the TBS philosophy and approach?

6) How do we create a plan for ongoing curriculum review?

Stay tuned for more about the curriculum review process this spring and next fall!

Learning Outcomes

Mitch, Andrea and I have been putting our heads together about the process to develop Learning Outcomes and review the curriculum over the course of this year, and we've arrived at an approach that really excited me!

We began by thinking about how to conceptualize Learning Outcomes. Right now, the school's outcomes are embedded in two places - the K-8 curriculum guide, and the criteria that are assessed in the twice-yearly progress reports that teachers send home. We want to have a more explicit presentation of TBS' learning outcomes that can be interacted with at different levels, from more abstract to more concrete, and that contains both qualitative and quantitative metrics or benchmarks to define whether those outcomes are being achieved by our students. Our framework has five sections, which we've arranged in a pentagon - the lines around the outside have arrows pointing in both directions, and each point has two-directional interior lines to the other points as well. At first we played with a pyramid visualization, but we decided that we wanted to a) represent the systems-nature of the outcomes we develop, as opposed to emphasize a hierarchical nature among the components, and b) liked how the five-pointed system mirrors the Cycle of Connection (play, practice, mastery, recognition, connection) that Mitch has been talking about with parents and faculty all year.

Moving from more abstract to more concrete, our model of learning outcomes begins with the Disposition of a Learner (skills, awareness, and motivation) and the Cycle of Connection (as mentioned above). We want TBS students to develop their understanding of what it means to be a successful learner, and these two ideas capture the foundation needed for that to occur. The second point in the system is one of core competencies - ideas like "effective oral and written communication across cultures" or "the ability to find and synthesize information in service of problem solving" - an idea discussed at length in Tony Wagner's great book "The Global Achievement Gap". The third point in the system is a Vision of the Student in terms of these core competencies at each grade level. The fourth point in the system are the actual benchmark skills and knowledge and behaviors that demonstrate understanding in each intellectual and creative discipline that we teach - in some cases this may look similar to what is in the progress reports from last year, and in others it might be different. The fifth and final point in the system is the curriculum, or classroom events and experiences that lead to the performances of understanding on the part of the students. The entire system is encompassed and held by the school's mission: to ignite curious minds, awaken generous hearts, and engage a changing world.

At yesterday's faculty meeting (Wednesday 10/6), we kicked off the process of developing these learning outcomes as a faculty. Below are some pictures of the faculty working in small groups, creating Y-charts of what each proposed competency would look like, sound like, and feel like in a TBS graduate. As the year goes on, we'll move through each point of the system with the faculty, eventually arriving at a rewrite of the curriculum that will allow it to more accurately reflect the learning outcomes towards which the whole school will be working. This process actually creates a frame within which to revise the K-8 curriculum - and develop a consistent ECC curriculum - rather than doing so based only on the individual preferences and desires of administrators and faculty, and that is important for establishing the institution's stability.