Looking Back at 10 years of EdCamps Oh how the time flies, EdCamp Madison is turning 10 this year! It will be held Saturday, February 3rd at Sun Prairie West High School. Which can be found at 2850 Ironwood Drive in Sun Prairie Wisconsin from 8:30 am - 3:00 pm. Get more information and register here: https://sites.google.com/sunprairieschools.org/edcampmadwi/home I will always remember sitting in my first EdCamp opening session at the very first EdCamp Madison and having no clue what I was in for. So, I’d like to take this space to go over some of the basic rules of EdCamp. No One Will Pitch It for You EdCamps are unconferences. By this I mean that they have a blank slate of sessions for the day. There may be a few predetermined sessions, but ultimately the session topics are determined by attendees during the pitch & plan session that opens the day. If an idea gets pitched there will be a session on it. If a topic doesn’t get pitched, there won’t be a session on it. So, it i
I have been reading Tamara Letter's new book A Passion for Kindness. Although I am not finished with it yet, it has created a lot of space for personal reflection and action. When I finish the book, I hope to speak more on the actions. But for now I'd like to use this space for a bit of reflection.
When Tamara outlines creating a culture of kindness, she describes the process as CULTIVATE Kindness. It is not a simple creation, it is an intentional process that is multi-faceted. The word cultivate brings to mind a gardening metaphor. As an avid gardener, I understand the many variables that play into a successful harvest. Tamara outlines the variables that play into being able to cultivate kindness in her book.
C–Compassion (desire to act to improve another's situation)
U–Understand (understand rather than making assumptions)
L–Listen (listen for meaning behind the words)
T–Take Time (sacrifice your time for another's needs)
I–Inspire (actions can lead others to act)
V–Value (show others you value their actions/sacrifices)
A–Accept (no one is perfect)
T–Teach (model with words and actions)
E–Empathy (relate to another's experience)
Letter, Tamara. A Passion for Kindness: Making the World a Better Place to Lead, Love, and Learn . Dave Burgess Consulting, Incorporated. Kindle Edition.
There is a lot that goes into cultivating kindness. For me, one of the great struggles I face as a secondary teacher is time. Time in multiple dimensions. The amount of time I have with my learners can feel short in many ways. I have about 120 hours total with my students over the course of 18 weeks for my classes. This time pressure can lead me to feel like content come first before connection.
My class routine is to dive right into the plan for today. It may be easy for me to pre-assess my learners related to a specific piece of content at the start of a lesson, rarely do I assess how their day is going. Honestly, the only students who I get this information from are the most vocal learners who go out of their way to share with me. I am very motivated to get and act on feedback about the structure and practices within the classroom as they relate to learning.
I would like to give all learners my time not just those who seek it out. If I can be intentional about collecting learning data, I should be able to do the same in other areas to help build empathy in order to drive action. Too often, though, fear holds me back. The fear of the cynicism from my learners. This goes back to the idea that if I truly believe in what I am doing that others can feel it. I communicate the importance of a task through my own passion for it.
So if I feel that this work of kindness if important, it is up to me to not simply make the time for it. I need to communicate the importance of it though my attitude. The information I elicit from my learners will only be a rich as my ability to communicate the value of that information. While I may start my course with students composing a passion page in their portfolio and we end with passion projects, how do I keep this a part of my relationship with learners in the days in-between?
Before I think about helping to cultivate student to student kindness in my class, I need to first focus on my role as a source for kindness in my learners' days. It is powerful to see how these elements do not live in isolation of each other. Understanding the connections between these elements will definitely be required before I start thinking about any sort of plan for action. But one thing that is clear from Tamara's book is that we don't have to wait to act. Acts of kindness don't need to be grand. It's the smallest acts of kindness that are easiest to make habits in our lives. And sometimes those small acts inspire greater ones. Sometimes a smile at the classroom door does more than any classroom "party day" ever could.
Just got Tamara's book, as well. I look forward to giving it a read. Your blog was a nice read. Don't beat yourself up for not taking more time to actively culture the kindness in your class. Be the kindness. I bet you cultivate an atmosphere of respect that translates kindness to your students. With the small chunk of time we have with kids, sometimes that is all we can do. Also, my favorite prof in college didn't do anything more than just make me feel special. He acted like I had something to offer the world and that I was good at what I did. To everyone else, I was just average. I think that it is good to be proactive in cultivating kindness; foster an atmosphere where kindness can grow, but sometimes all we can do is shine our sunlight. It is up to the kids to sprout.
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