https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo What will you take back to your school and implement from what you have learned in this course thus far? How might it impact your relationship with your mentee or others? Please be super reflective. en-us 2019-02-25 21:44:38 UTC 2023-05-19 13:17:34 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/343162916 A lot of the themes that Aguilar is developing are so typical they really strike home: what it is like to have lunch everyday with a table of teachers, what happens when teachers begin to hate their kids and their profession, how so much of the time things are so intense and so pressing. Her message of self-awareness, taking responsibility for what is happening rather than giving in to all that seems wrong and even ugly. I identify so strongly with her decision to stay in her school which really was a community rather than go down the road a short distance and teach at one of the "better" schools where she would have been paid so much more. The decisions she has made are the decisions I have made. I feel at this point in the book that I am much less of an interventionist than she, and I have always struggled with the notion that somehow the scientists and researchers have all the answers. Kids and teachers know when it feels good to be in school. The school we are designing now will start at 10:00 and run until 3:30, and it will begin and end with sharing circles of support. We will not teach six subjects in six days, and our children will be integrally involved in constructing their own curriculum much like she described with her innovative school the principal turned around. We will do seasonal camps, spring, summer, fall and winter, where we get away from desks in rows and bells or bings that move the day along. There will end up being more hours and more days of instruction than any state requires, and our elders will teach such things as "women and water." Visions are powerful, as Aguilar suggests, and there is something really nice about being with people who have understood the power of dreams for centuries.]]> 2019-03-20 03:46:56 UTC https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/343162916 elarabyamany https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/343396898 2019-03-20 15:41:55 UTC https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/343396898 srsche18 https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/344047176 Know yourself! This may sound easy, but I have learned that is means much, much more than just knowing the basics about yourself. It means digging way down deep to figure out what you truly believe in, your values, understanding your emotions and seeing clearly your purpose in your life and your purpose in your career. By knowing yourself first, you become self-aware and can manage your decisions. This will lead to being more socially-aware and forming those strong relationships that are important to schools and institutions. Knowing yourself helps you focus on the things you have control over or can make an impact on and letting go of the things you can't control. Finally, by knowing yourself well, you can control what you think and what you think is how you feel. Knowing myself is something I continue to work on everyday. It is a process! As I continue to learn more about myself I hope to be able to form stronger relationships in my personal and professional life, become an even better educator for the young children who rely on me each day and to be as resilient as I can possibly be so I can have a happy and healthy life. It all begins with knowing yourself and connecting with yourself on a daily basis! Do you know who you are]]> 2019-03-22 00:51:04 UTC https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/344047176 emwelh06 https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/344565114 My biggest takeaways from this course are to know myself and understand my emotions. I've been struggling with my purpose, particularly in my work life. How can you understand what you're here to do if you don't know who you are? I've learned that your purpose becomes clearer when you know yourself well, including your values, personality, character, aptitudes, interests, identity, mind, and psyche. My goal is to be more resilient than I am now, and resilient people have a strong understanding of their purpose. I need to explore mine. I also need to explore my emotions. To achieve my goal of becoming more resilient, I have to accept my emotions and use strategies to respond to them. I've already began recognizing my emotions in different situations at work, recognizing what I can do during those situations, and letting go of what's outside my control. Since doing so, I have found that I leave work with a more positive mindset than I did before. I know now that I am in charge of the cycle of the emotion. The part of the cycle where I notice the greatest change is in my interpretation. I experience my emotions differently because I interpret them differently. If I was a mentor to a new teacher, I think I would recognize emotions in him or her, rather than avoid them. I can help my mentee recognize his or her emotions, talk about them, and help him or her respond to them in ways that build resilience. With this resilience, we can encounter adversity and bounce back stronger than before to fulfill our purpose. ]]> 2019-03-24 14:58:37 UTC https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/344565114 brian_duffy2 https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/344621690 If I had to pinpoint it to the biggest takeaway so far it would be the understanding and embracing of emotions to build resilience. We do such a poor job as schools as a whole helping adults to engage with their emotions and develop tools to respond to them in a healthy manner. We often caution other adults and ourselves, not to get emotional, as though that is even possible. We all have emotions and to encourage and even expect, that as adults working with children, that we remove our emotions, especially the "bad" ones, in our work is an obvious recipe for low resilience.  I have greatly appreciated the tools Aguilar is providing in this book to engage with our emotions and follow a series of steps to develop responses to them that engender resilience.  If we are to become the teachers we desire to be and impact children the way we aspire to, we must know ourselves and our emotions.  As a beginning administrator, I also have developed  a greater understanding of my responsibility to foster emotional intelligence in my staff as a means to cultivate resilience. The sections in Aguilar's book designed for building leaders are excellent resources. I am curious to purchase her companion workbook and to also read her coaching book, both are now on my summer reading list, which is not easy to get onto :) ]]> 2019-03-24 22:10:08 UTC https://padlet.com/jessicaaprilwilliams/gmpje2wspmoo/wish/344621690