Leading From The Heart

by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.

Tag: change

  • Tagline Props

    My tagline:

    metamorphosis, no better metaphor for this…

    comes from No Compromises, performed by Invincible, a Detroit MC.

    I love how the words string together, and I love the idea of positive change for the future it invokes.

    mp3 No Compromises originally downloaded from: FREE THE P! Palestine Takes NYC’s East Village by Storm, article by Remi Kanazi, The Electronic Intifada, 17 October 2005 is from www.freethep.com compilation which is a fundraiser for the film Slingshot Hiphop ! Many thanks to Invincible for allowing its use here.

  • Changing Space

    Photograph by Edna Vite “Mandalas are utilized in all cultures as transmitters of energy,” Vite says, explaining that they can transform negative energy into positive energy. According to Vite, people use mandalas to cleanse spaces of negative energy, as well as to meditate and to energize themselves.

    Last week Jose wrote:

    I stayed in my classroom until 530pm making sure that, when the kids
    came in the morning, they had a more comfortable setting for themselves
    than what I felt I provided. I’m tired of the negative energy my
    homeroom class has, so maybe if I change the environment a bit, I’d get
    a little more positivity back.

    I’ve been trying to do the same and when I started my response to his question, “how?” it turned into this blog post.

    Here you go, Jose.

    How I did it? No, more like how I am attempting to do it. It’s always a process….a long one ;)

    Physical environment.
    I’ve got an interesting dilemma because I’ve got 2 distinctly different groups in my class – the 12-15 year olds and the 16-19 year olds (don’t ask how that happened). At first I had the older group (6 altogether) sitting at round tables at the back of the room with the younger group (8 altogether) scattered around the front at individual desks – facing all different directions because at the beginning of the year some of my kids couldn’t deal with looking at each other, too much of a distraction.

    This week I changed it up a bit and I decided to place some of the younger, more challenged students at tables with an older student or 2. So far so good. I’ve seen some mentoring already. And I’ve placed my major behaviour time bomb (remember the desk flying incident?) near the door so he can quickly leave when I signal him to go for a break or when he realizes (if we ever get to the point where he can self-assess his anger levels) that he needs one himself.

    Head space?
    The mentoring I mentioned above is helping. Instead of constant bickering I’m hearing more helping. Could it be that I am seeing more tolerance? I think maybe. Time will tell. That was a side effect of the physical space thing though. Something I started this week is a daily quote analysis. I work with kids who have a difficult time with text and being able to fully analyze a cohesive piece of text has been good for them. Instead of doing it every once in a while as a class, this week I tried it every single day and I gave groups of 2-3 students their own quote to look at it. I’ll keep you posted on how this goes. I’m liking it so far.

    Like I said, it’s a process….

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  • Amen of the day

    It’s been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come. Sam Cooke

    “Now let me say right off, I can’t do this by myself. I’ll need all the help I can get. I’ll need support from like minded people who know that changes at school need to be made so that these kids who are disconnected from school, from home and/or society can gain a sense of belonging, feel needed, useful and reconnected.” Elona Hartjes, think big, start small, act now

  • Change…the 6-letter 4-letter word aka Wishes, Hopes, and Dreams the Remix

    I closed my last post with this quote from the stunning Invincible:

    Metamorphosis, no better metaphor for this.

    here’s the link one more time for your listening pleasure. Go here to see credits.


    And post-post discussion (aka comments, I guess) is gravitating around the concept of discomfort and learning.

    I am propelled to reflect on both the quote and the discussion.

    I have not been feeling comfortable lately in the classroom. Before the holidays I was burnt out and definitely not pushing myself to do anything novel with my students – almost questioning my decision to return to teaching. My back went out, I took sick days.

    Metamorphosis, no better metaphor for this….

    Change is not easy.

    I have been suffering in my discomfort.

    Change is not easy. For me, my students, the attendant in my classroom.

    I’ve worked with teaching assistants before, but never with one who is in my classroom 24/7 and who was there for a couple of years with a different teacher before I got there AND who is bound by union regulations to certain activities. I’ve worked with students with disabilities before, but never such a diverse group as I am working with now.

    I am becoming a different teacher. Metamorphosis, no better metaphor for this….

    To do this, I need to balance:

    Charlie Parkerbuddha for Fern
    ACTION and REFLECTION

    I read Jose’s post The Great Dissenters and I think of the discomfort the teachers in his school are experiencing and I think of the potential for learning and change if it is examined more closely by more people, in the way that Jose is starting to do – with a balance of reflection and action.

    I read Elona’s post Helping Kids with Learning Disabilities Change Negative Habits of Mind and I am witness to the balance of reflection and action as a result of discomfort that led to learning.

    I read Pete’s post I Don’t Want to be the Bad Guy and I am reminded of the choices I make everyday and how I can choose to explore my struggles and discomfort in order to learn and change ….or…not.

    And I reread Marilyn Taylor’s work (2004) on learning and change and remind myself:
    “The challenge of the red zone [discomfort, disorientation] is self-inquiry about the nature of the disorienting experience and pursuit of learning from it.”

    And even though I read and remind myself about all of that….

    …change still remains a 6-letter 4-letter word a lot of the time. Luckily I don’t mind swearing once in a while.

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  • “Put technology where it can be best used… In the classroom!”

    [cross ranted as a comment at Stephen Ransom’s EdTechTrek] [and slightly elaborated]

    I am starting to think that because many teachers and administrators
    still do not know exactly what we can do with technology there is a
    reluctance to put it in the classroom.

    Example – today the Internet had, for some reason, stopped working
    in the west wing of our school. I was at the computer lab with one
    other teacher. She packed her kids up and went back because she only
    books the computer lab for the last period of the day so that her kids
    can ‘play on the internet’.

    For her, technology has nothing to do with learning, it is a form of
    entertainment. I stayed with my kids and used the time to work on our
    Science vocabulary while teaching them how to hyperlink in
    presentations. They were linking their vocabulary words to comments and images made by their peers, creating a collaborative learning network around the new terminology they are learning in Science. (Not bad for a wing it activity, eh ;)

    For some reason, this teacher has not caught on yet that technology
    can be much more than a way to waste time. I can understand the frustration of the new teachers that Stephen mentions in his post, but
    until the more experienced teachers and administrators at schools begin
    to use technology as a learning tool, really use it, and demand that
    good forms of it be available in the schools, it isn’t going to happen.

    I can also understand the frustration of the more experienced teachers who are
    expected to use technology but who aren’t really given the time to grow
    less afraid of it and to experiment with what can be done. There is a huge divide between our students who live and breathe with technology as part of their daily lives and the teachers who don’t. Huge. and while
    there are still administrators who don’t use technology in their daily lives and who don’t champion for its appropriate use and availability in the school, let alone the classroom…well…that divide can only be expected to widen.

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