With summer vacation upon us, it’s so important that we all take time to refresh, rejuvenate, and rejoice in preparation for 2018-2019 during the upcoming weeks. By doing so, especially, celebrating success and thoroughly embracing the wonderful moments from this past year, we set ourselves up for a remarkable year ahead.
The power of belief, specifically, highlighting perception from a positive – gratitude lens, is not just another Fortune Cookie wish, or something your Grandma may have said over and over; it’s science-based, research-guided, but proven everyday by ordinary people doing remarkable things. Positive thinking, through appreciation, makes a difference:
Moving forward, when you are at a place where you are ready to begin a vision for next year, consider the Three Legged Stool: Relationship, Relevance, and Resilience.
Within all SEL [Social Emotional Learning] programs, texts, and curriculum guides, the notion of “relationship” rings truth as the golden principle of teaching. Its something we all are capable of doing, for most of us entered this profession due to the relationships we experienced through our own school experience. Or we believed in the idea that we can make a difference through connecting with our students. It’s within our wheelhouse to do so. And we really don’t need a text book to tell us how to do this. However, it helps to add new tools to an already established toolkit.
Further more, relevance directly relates to the most current neuro-science for meaning is at the core of learning; we cannot rely on “because I told you so” or “this will be on the test” as the means to create connection. Learning truly has to be at an authentic level of relevance – meaning for our students. The Twentieth Century tool kit, highlighting “compliance”, “fear”, and the social pressure to “be good” doesn’t apply anymore. So we are called upon once again, to draw upon the core reasons why we got into this business as the foundation for our instructional decision making: create meaning. For anything else is an expression of wasted time; and that’s not how we see ourselves as teachers: We make a difference; we don’t make time. Check this out for inspiration: We all have moments where we are Mr Wright …
Finally, as change moves at lightening speed, so does life: The intentions behind the SEL movement is to provide our students with core resilience skills to assure each is able to deal with the ups and downs of life; and discover the true nature of themselves in this process. Self-awareness and self actualization provide the foundation for us all to move forward. As a result, we are called upon to draw upon our own resilience resources for learning is most profound not by what we say, but what we do. Our students are watching every move we make for they so deeply want to connect with us; for belonging is wired within the human condition. And within our own framework, most of us are inspired by the opportunity to make a difference.
With this in mind, take care of yourself this summer. Nurture yourself so you can nurture others in the Fall. Consider the following: