Nothing Gold Can Stay-Part II

In the spring of 2014, I posted a piece entitled Nothing Gold Can Stay about a May walk that I took on the Trail Around Middlebury, about Robert Frost's poem of this title, and about the most wonderful book of Ann Pelo's, The Goodness of Rain. This time, on October 14, 2015, I am posting a second time with the same title after an autumn walk on the National Forest Service Robert Frost Trail near Bread Loaf Mountain and Middlebury's Bread Loaf School of English in Ripton, Vermont.

The colors were predicted to be late and not so vibrant this year because of our late summer. Not true! They are breathtaking and all I want to do is to be out in them, swept away by each vista, each landscape of new palettes of crimson, deep red, rose, gold, pale yellow and rust. There is wisdom in Leo Lionni's story of Frederick who gathers colors and words while his fellow mice gather grain. Frederick's supplies "warm the hearts of his companions and feed their spirits on the darkest of winter days," the review on Amazon tells us. Something about these days that we know will be gone soon wakes us up! What will be left when the leaves all fall is what in Vermont is called "stick season"...a world without vibrant color, rather every shade of gray. Before the snow falls and the frost turns the world into magic again, the days can seem very dark and even grim. If we let them! This year, I am preparing myself as did Frederick. I am drinking in these colors and the autumn air hoping that they will warm and inspire me until the spring. The fleeting colors are a reminder that nothing lasts really and that life is short! They call us to live in each moment fully.

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

Come Learn With Us In Italy!

International Study Tours LLC and Angela Ferrario asked Ashley and me and our colleague and friend, Lori Geismar Ryan to co-lead a seminar in Italy in June of 2016! We are so pleased and excited about this opportunity. Ours will be a part of a seminar series on leadership that will take place in the charming town of Mercatello sul Metauro in the Marche region near Tuscany and Umbria. The seminars are designed to provide professional development for small groups of educational leaders, complemented by sightseeing excursions and encounters with local artisans, townspeople and village life.

Lori, Ashley and I worked together for 18 years in St. Louis as leaders in the St. Louis Reggio Collaborative hosting conferences and professional development opportunities for educators from around the country and the world. We were each leaders in our three schools, Clayton Schools' Family Center, The St. Michael School, and The College School. We have all moved away from St. Louis though we return to work with clients and schools and to see friends and family. Lori is a Senior Instructor at the University of Colorado Denver, School of Education and Human Development, is faculty in a state-wide early childhood leadership program and coaches in communities of practice both locally and nationally. Ashley and I are based in Boston and Vermont and continue to work and consult with educators and schools in North America and internationally through Cadwell Collaborative.

Our seminar will take place from June 11 - 16, 2016. I have copied the description that you will find in the brochure below. To learn more, to receive a brochure, and to register, click here or contact Angela Ferrario at aferrario@comcast.net. We hope to see you there!

Learning and Leading for the Future

What are the current challenges and opportunities that lead educators who design environments, curricula and learning experiences for communities of learners to dynamic possibilities for the future? What inspires all members of a learning community to embrace their passions and contribute to a healthy, hopeful future for our world? How do leaders invite and sustain such contexts and cultures?

These questions and others will frame the diverse and multi-layered experiences, conversations, and reflections of Learning and Leading for the Future. As an interactive community of learners within a welcoming and beautiful Italian setting, participants will:

- Look back at the field's historical roots and our own unique personal and professional stories

- Study together current neuroscience research, global competencies, 21st century skills and contemporary learning processes

- Re-imagine schooling based on life-worthy, life-long learning

- Leave with a new vision and new possibilities for redesigning their own learning communities with the future in mind

What Does Jordan Spieth Have to Do with School?

What Does Jordan Spieth Have to Do with School?Simple: Mirror Neurons!

If you’re not a golf nut like me, you probably don’t even know who Jordan Spieth is.  He’s currently the #1 professional golfer in the world…at a mere smear 22 years of age.  So, let’s just say he’s a superior athlete.  Full disclosure to all you educators, he left University of Texas after one year, to turn pro at 19.  His PGA buds love to call him Drop Out.

That said, he’s one of the hardest working athletes on the planet.  Carol Dweck would love him for his attitude and work ethic.  Jordan is an “I can” man…and he knows that to be that man he has to work hard.  He is one who certainly embodies Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour theory.

However, according to his coach, Cameron McCormick, not only does Jordan work hard, he works well…including watching and imagining with a purpose.  In an article in last week’s Golf Digest, McCormick explains this practice through the lens of the recent research on mirror neurons by Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California.  The good doctor sums up his findings in several TED Talks.

To put his theory simply, mirror neurons, about 20% of the 100 billion neurons in the brain, enable you to copy someone else.  This mind brain copying might explain why baseball batters have a better chance of getting a hit if they've just watched, from the on-deck circle, their teammate get a hit. In another more complex example, it could explain why amputees who suffer from phantom-limb syndrome--a sensation of pain in a foot they no longer have--experience relief when watching someone else massage a foot.  On a physical level, it suggests our minds are constantly communicating and learning from each other's minds and actions.

McCormick goes on to make the connection with golf, and particularly with his protege, Spieth.  So what does this have to do with golf? For one thing, it explains why most of us tend to play better when paired with better golfers, or worse when we play with people who don't take the game as seriously. Jordan noticed this as a teenager. We talked about it, and from then on he made a concerted effort to pay keen attention to players who do things well, and to ignore those who didn’t.

Is it any wonder, then, why modeling for children is so critical…if 20% of each child’s brain is dedicated to copying, then it goes without saying why examples of excellent student work cause more excellent work to be made (Ron Berger)…why many drafts, perseverance, and hard work cause more of the same (Carol Dweck)…why being kind creates more kindness (Jesus)…why empathic behavior begets more empathy (Buddha)…etc.  Keep this in mind as you work to create a culture in your classroom, in your school, in your community.  Call attention to students who work hard, to examples of work well done, to examples of exemplary behavior.  Your goal is to develop students who watch and imagine with a purpose.

School Prayer by Diane Ackerman

This lovely poem was published this morning on The Writer's Almanac.  If you don't know the website, check it out.  You can sign up for their daily newsletter...a wonderful way to start your email day.

Happy first day of school, all you traditionalists who start the day after Labor Day...As it SHOULD be, declares this ol' man.

School Prayer by Diane Ackerman   

In the name of the daybreak and the eyelids of morning and the wayfaring moon and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors and the day that embraces it and the cloud veils drawn over it and the uttermost night and the male and the female and the plants bursting with seed and the crowning seasons of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life -wherever and in whatever form it may dwell-on Earth my home, and in the mansions of the stars.

"School Prayer" by Diane Ackerman from I Praise My Destroyer. © Vintage Books, 2000.

Appreciative Inquiry Stories with guest blogger Lori Ryan

 

Lori Geismar Ryan, our long time colleague and friend, is joining me to co-author this blog post.  Several years ago Lori and I were invited by the Taos Institute to contribute a chapter for a book about Appreciative Inquiry in practice.  Exceeding Expectations: An Anthology of Appreciative Inquiry Stories in Education from Around the World is now published and available as a free download here.  We highly recommend that you take the time to read the beautiful learning stories in this book!

The group that published the book, The Taos Institute, is committed to the belief that social constructivist ideas have powerful and positive implications for human life and well-being.  In the early 1990's, a group of scholars and practitioners including David Cooperrider, came together to found the Taos Institute.  The first few gatherings were held in Taos but now the central office is in Ohio.

David Cooperrider, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University is best known as the co-creator and creative thought leader of Appreciative Inquiry (AI).  His founding work with AI is creating a positive revolution in the leadership of change; it is helping institutions all over the world discover the power of the strength-based approaches to multi-stakeholder innovation and collaborative design.  Cooperrider began as a leader in the business community.  In the early 1990's, educators became intrigued with his approach as a fitting and powerful way to empower and transform any organization or group.

The curators of the new book have this to say...We are starting to realize that the solution to the ‘problems’ in our schools is not to focus only on what is broken, but to discover what is working, lift up the strengths and successes, and build new visions of success from there. This book is about these stories. It aims to showcase for the first time in one collection, the stories of how AI-inspired methodologies are helping to create positive transformations in our educational communities around the globe.

Lori and I are honored to have co-authored "An Appreciative Learning Partnership" that is the final of 26 stories.  Our chapter features our work with several schools and highlights the power of appreciative approaches with stories and practical examples.  As you begin a new school year, please enjoy this free download and share it with your communities of learners.  Another collaboration is coming up soon.  Lori and I will co-lead a seminar with Ashley, Learning and Leading for the Future, in Tuscany in June 2016 as part of a series of seminars on educational leadership organized by Angela Ferrario.  We will keep you posted!