Sunday Brunch: I Choose me

Its been a really difficult 6 weeks, in this time I have hot the depth of dispair, dropped 3 stone and basically lost my smile. I feel like I smashed through my rock bottom and was left looking up at the world from a basement. Wanting to join in with the world but completely unable to muster the strength and confidence to do so. I was a shell of the person I was 6 months ago.

For 6 months long hours, constant fire fighting, putting everyone first and no self-care had desimated my energy reserves. So when 3 life events hit all at the same time I had no energy, cognitive ability and resiliance to bounce back from being hit by the sledge hammer of life. I am by no means saying that I would have instantly bounced like nothing happened. I am sure however, that if I had kept up todate with my self-care I would have found structure from the insuing chaos sooner.

As teachers we know all about self-care, not all of us live it though. Some of us abide by the rule “do what I say not what I do”. We say smoking is bad while we are counting the seconds till our next puff. We say “make sure you eat breakfast” after we have skipped breakfast and lunch for the last six weeks. My personal favourite, “dont drink energy drinks, there so bad for you” when we are on our 6th cup of extra strong instant and it is only the 1st period.

To be honest I am talking about myself here and not educators as a whole. But if this chimes with you it maybe worth thinking about this. I only take advice from people who walk the walk and genually live the reality they are talking about. So why am I doing the oppersite and expecting learners to walk down a path I wont dare to.

Learners are switched on, they know when advice is genuine and when it is from a book. They are more likely to follow advice from someone who lives that reality rather than someone who has read it in a book.

So as we approach christmas I have made a pact with myself. Choose me, when its a choice between meeting my needs or someone elses I will choose myself first and then support the other person to meet their own needs. This whole episode has taught me one thing, I cant help others if I dont help myself. I am far more effective and impactful when I am healthy and stable. To achieve this state I need to look after myself and that means putting me first.

In the season of giving, what have you decided to give yourself? So you can give more to others.

Its not selfish, because I am a better person, more helpful and more present when my needs have been met. I like to think of it as a bank account the more I pay in through looking after myself, the more I can pay out to others.

In this season of giving I have decided to:

Spend 2 hours a day on me, this could be reading, blog writing, gym, and/or meditation
Have structure to my day and keep to it. This will insurr I will always have something I can predict.
Write 3 micro achievements a day.
Eat 3 meals a day
Be organised with my time and learn to use this organisation to say no and set boundaries.

Over the next few blogs I will discuss these 5 items in more detail. But for now I am just gonna leave this here.

December 23, 2018 0

A week of reflection

Its been a while since I have posted and I was motivated to write this post due to the recent discussions about school exclusions. Most focused on the teaching, school challenges and national policy. Only a few focused on the children at the center of this epidemic.

I have read a lot about the challenges that schools are facing with the changing needs of young people. I am driven by a question ‘what are the challenges faced by young people in education?’. I see this as the key to finding a solution to the exclusion epidemic currently facing schools. If we stop for a second and look at schools, teachers, uniforms, and lessons from thier view point what do we see, feel and think?.

Every Sunday my twitter feed is full of posts about “that Sunday feeling”. Our young people are no different. Especially for those young people who challenge the education system. School to them can be frightening, seen as a real challenge to life and an opportunity to fail.

There is a whole host of research about teaching stratergies and cultures that schools can adopt in order to engage and progress learners who have challenged. But is there an equal amount of current research from the young persons point of view. What makes a good teacher? Why do you engage here but not here? What would a good school look like to you? We have a lot of well educated and engaged people looking at this problem. But do they truely understand it? Do we instead need a body of people who have experienced these challenges to guide our approach?

For this Sunday, I am thinking about where research should focus its efforts when looking at the rise in school exclusions. How about joining the conversation…

September 23, 2018 0

Sunday Brunch: Satisfaction with life….

For this weeks Sunday Brunch I was hoping that we could start a conversatuon about life satisfaction. I read an interesting piece of research about our young peoples levels of satisfaction with life and school. Namely that our young peoples life satisfaction has dropped to 1990 levels. The longer term trend shows thay life satisfaction has been dropping for sometime and shows no sign of letting up.

Whats changed in 10 years? Between 1990 and the mid 2000s, young peoples satisfaction with life was climbing. However at the turn of the decade it started to fall. Today all those gains have been wiped out and we are back to the 1990s level.

So how has this happened?
What caused the initale increase?
How did society, schools and families support this growth?
And finally, what has changed in order for this surge to be reversed?

We are seeing a lot more learners seek help for their mental health. However, this not nessarily mean that life satisfaction is dropping, the increased education on mental well-being could be having a positive effect on learners willingness to disclose their struggles to a professional. The data could,on the other hand, be a reaction to an ever changing society. More tests, increased exposure on social media and economic struggles. I dont think the data on life satisfaction is down to education alone. I think every teacher knows this, they have seen it. I am know really interested in whats caused this drop.

September 9, 2018 0

SUNDAY BRUNCH: Growth Culture

backlit dawn foggy friendship — Photo by Helena Lopes on Pexels.com

On the wall of the gym at Bristol Bears

Rugby club the following quote is etched on the wall:

As we know from my pervious quote, flashy wall displays do little to promote a growth midset, its actions we need. At Bristol its seems that the quotes are embedded within their culture. As I have recently been told at a behaviour management Inset:

The first clue that Bristol players opperate within a growth culture is the words of their leader, Pat Lam. Within his interview with BT Sport Pat Lam suggested that at the end of his working day he asks himself two questions:

“What have I done well today?”

“What do I need to do better tomorrow?”

The second clue was Pat Lam’s focus on creating the right culture from the very first day he arrived. His first act, getting the players and staff to create their own hand shake. This hand shake has many conatations. It ensures all players, as one player put’s it, “are on the same page”. So Pat Lam has a Growth Mindset, he is constantly focused on improving the players, staff and himself. The second, Pat Lam knows how to build a culture that all stakeholders buy into.

The third and final clue is his own history as a coach. You only have to look at Pat Lam’s previous club, connaught. He not only took them from the bottom of the league to silverware. The team also went from a team containing no international players to 13.

Now you would be completely within your rights to suggest that it is just blind luck that 13 star players suddenly matured at the exact same time that Pat Lam was at the club. We also know from Dweck, Dr Alred and Dr Hymer that talent is just the starting point, it takes persistence, purposful practice and a love of learning to develop this talent in to world class performances. However, I personally think that the odds would be stacked against this occuring. So I guess my question for this version of Sunday Brunch is three fold:

What actions, tasks and/or habits make someone world class regardless of their talent levels?
What stratergies and behaviours promote a growth mindset in others?
what actions do you, as a leader, need to take in order to build a growth culture that every one buy’s into?

Please leave your comments below

September 2, 2018 0

Sunday Morning Brunch 2

Lets start a conversation over breakfast, just like you would after reading your sunday morning paper. Imagine, your steaming hot coffee in your right hand as the paper is folded and crinckled in your left hand. You look up after reading a piece thats grabbed your attention, the writer has caught you off gaurd on this relaxed Sunday. You suddenly have a wave of excitement, your moved by the subject matter and want to explore the topic more by sharing ot with a friend or a loved one.

This is not your or my kitchen table and I have no paper in front of me. But I would like to pose this question: In concentrating on the extremes of educatiom do we miss the learners in the middle? Do we miss those learners who do just enough to remain unseen, like MI5 agents following a suspect.

August 26, 2018 0