Annual Review- What resonates from your 2020?

For a few years now I’ve been following Doug Neill over at Verbal to Visual. He has a great YouTube Channel and Mighty Networks group (sketchnoting courses and global community) that I’ve had the privilege of watching grow over the past few years.

Each December, he reflects on his new learnings and achievements by sketchnoting an Annual Review (click the link here for his 2018->2019 video). As this year I didn’t get my Christmas cards out ontime and didn’t want to totally scrap the tradition, I opted to sketch out my year in review to send in some packages to friends and family across the US.

Like most things on this site, I decided to split it into two categories, WORK and LIFE, because each influences the other so much in the tug of war pull we try to think of as balance. While this did not capture a comprehensive list and I opted to “skip” some of the negatives… ie family health issues, lost jobs, global pandemic… you know, the things we couldn’t avoid this year, I did want to highlight some bright spots. Most essentially, reflecting and realizing what I had gained this year by choosing to be intentional about screen time (after Zooming all day) and making better efforts with daily fitness and creative outlets.

What makes the cut for YOUR Annual Review?

New habits or hobbies that arose from sheltering in place for months?
New skills or ideas that have had major impacts on your teaching?
What mindsets, realizations, or new traditions were born out of survival this past year, that may stick with you long after 2020 is just a distant memory?

I know we’re only a few days into the new year with an uncertain future ahead, but fast forward 12 months from now. It’s December 2021. What will you want to see on next year’s Annual Review? What habits, goals, or intentions might you set now as you kick off a fresh year?

Whether you choose to share with an audience or keep it on lock in Dear Diary, take 10 minutes out of your day to write or sketch out your annual review. We spend so much time reading about others’ histories. Why don’t we take the chance to record our own? You never know, it may end up a primary source document as it captures the life and times of a 2020 citizen.

And if… just if… you have the confidence to share with an audience, I’d love to see your annual review! Feel free to share in the comments below, email me, or tag me on Twitter @AlishaZare.

Teaching to Strengths (Trauma-Informed Teaching)- a book-summary sketchnote

“Half the students in U.S. schools are experiencing or have experienced trauma, violence, or chronic stress.” – Teaching To Strengths (Zacarian, Alvarez-Ortiz, Haynes) That statistic came from a national study in 2012. Fast forward 8 years to mid-March 2020… and let’s update that statistic: “ALL students (and teachers) are currently experiencing trauma, and possibly chronic stress.” Welcome to life in a global pandemic. The book, Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence, and Chronic Stress, cannot be more appropriate for a back to school year. The text starts out with the foundations of strengths-based (vs. deficit based) teaching theory, and breaks down key criteria for setting up not only your classroom, but creating a school community that fosters a strengths-based approach. Some major categories explored in the video:

Preparing for working with diverse learners
Creating a strengths-based learning environment
Scaffolding student-to-student relationships
Fostering family/guardian engagement

Want to learn more? Click the links below!

Slide Deck used in the video

PDF of Sketchnote Summary

Behind the Curtain… how was it made? Welcome to “hopefully” a new series of blog posts I’ll be sharing that go behind the scenes and look at the process, obstacles, and aha’s as I “learn in public”. I intend to use this space to hold myself accountable to sharing my new learning as I go, rather than only posting after the final product (so that you can see more of the raw trials and revisions, not just the select few I feel are “ready” for publishing. As a #recoveringperfectionist, this has been a New Year’s Resolution for some time now, but it’s all about action, not intent. So here it is… the first behind the scenes look!

1- Read

First I skim the book, making note of the table of contents and what’s to come. This makes for a sort of “mental filing cabinet” by knowing how the book is organized and what to look for in terms of major content and subtopics. It is easy to dive “too deep” by over highlighting and annotating so sometimes I intentionally skim first then dive deeper on a 2nd read.

2- Summarize

A technique I used to teach my 4th grade students to help with recall was to put a post-it on the first page of each new chapter BEFORE reading the book. This intentionally slowed them down from speed reading without taking time to process what they just read. So post-it served 1. as a physical barrier from starting the next chapter, and 2. as a small space to capture a few main ideas while it was fresh in their mind. When I know I am reading a book with the purpose of sharing the main ideas with others, I tend to use this post-it summarizing trick to help keep a record of the main ideas since it typically takes me a few weeks (or months!) to read through teacher texts such as this one.

3- Synthesize

Next, I take those chapter summary post-it’s and scan for major categories or main ideas. For this sketchnote, I opted for that WHY-WHAT-HOW categories in order to summarize the founding research and principles (“start with why”) then invest the majority (top half of the Sketchnote) on the how… the practical ideas and takeaways. This stage is when I often thank myself for taking the time to do those chapter summaries. I often look back to the text for quotes/details, not main ideas since I already documented them.

4- Conceptualize

This is where YOU shine in this process. Anyone can do a basic summary. Anyone can read and outline a text, but your creativity, your organization, and your icons/fonts/flair (if you’re sketchnoting) is where the true personality shows. Deciding how to conceptualize an entire multi-hundred page text in a “one page” sketch is difficult. You have to take an Essentialist approach in identifying the key gems and cut out the extras. For this sketch, I opted to take Doug Neill’s recommendation and try out the app, Concepts. I learned it in my Digital Sketchnoting online course and decided to try it out after learning about the “infinite canvas” ability that allows you to keep sketching in any direction. Usually I have to intentionally sketch within the confines of a page, and have to be intentional about size/layout so I don’t run out of space. This mind mapping app actually allowed me more flexibility, and I opted to start in the center and branch out in more of a radial approach. You can see more of my initial thoughts on the app/sketching process on my Instagram post.

5- Vocalize

Lastly, while a sketchnote is great, a static image is elevated so much more when you get to hear the commentary behind the visuals and text. I found that panning through/screen recording the mind map actually led to some serious motion sickness from the zoom in/zoom out needed. Instead, with this one I opted to screen shot and sequence the sketches by putting them in order on slides. This text was a required reading for the EDUO 9944 Compassionate Classrooms professional development course I taught this summer, so the initial audience was the 39 K-12 teachers in the class. In the hopes to share with a larger audience (my school district + PLN on Twitter), I decided to re-record and post to YouTube. This is newer for me to share my videos and work but I hope that the investment in reading/sketching/sharing helps YOU with taking a strengths-based approach with your teaching and inspires you to learn more about the topic!

To my fellow sketchnoters- what is your work flow for synthesizing big ideas? Do you have a preference in mind mapping or sketching apps? Share a comment below! 🙂

2019: How will you spend your 8,760 hours? Four books to kick off the New Year!

Ahh, January 1st. Maybe you were bundled up cozy in bed after an eventful New Year’s Eve. Or possibly you’re the go-getter type, and started day 1 of the year with a hike or healthy habit. Are you thinking of what made last year’s New Year’s Resolution list and is back on for a second, third, maybe even fourth time?!

With the days turning into weeks and the weeks turning into months, we’ve all looked back in shock wondering… how did another year go by in a flash?! But when you really nit pick… it didn’t. We had the same number of days, the same number of minutes, and the same chance as every other year to turn our decisions into habits.

In 2019, how will you spend your 8,760 hours?

Before you look forward, you must first look back.

Were you constantly feeling “busy” with a long to-do list, without actually getting much done?
Did you set goals for yourself only to find yourself falling back into the same poor habits from the prior year?
Were you dragging every Monday, stressed that another weekend flew by?
Did you miss out on opportunities for fear that you weren’t good enough, prepared enough, or ready for the challenge?

If you answered yes to any (or all) of these questions, I challenge you to read one of the books below.

They were among some of my favorites for 2018 and challenged me to look at how I spent my time and how I could change my behaviors in order to meet my goals.

Book #1- The One Thing by Gary Keller

Turn to your to-do list and you’ll see how you value your time. Like most of us, you probably put the easy things on the top, saving the important items for when you’ll have better energy. If you’re like my college self, you value the quantity over quality aspect, even putting on a few items you’d already completed just to convince yourself you’ve “done” a lot (Don’t lie, I can’t be the only one who has done that!)

But, like most times, you never get to the core items due to being tired from all the menial tasks that were simply busy work. Flip that model around, and The One Thing by Gary Keller teaches you to evaluate your priorities and find, “What is the ONE THING such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

“It’s not that we have too little time to do the things we do, it is that we feel the need to do too many things with the little time we have.” – Gary Keller

Most of my life I’ve taken pride in being a busy-body, a multi-tasker, someone who was always working. It wasn’t until I was on the brink of burnout with last school year that I realized how important prioritizing my time was for my health. Like too many of us in this modern fast-paced world, most of my to-do items revolved around my work, rather than seeing all of the other areas in my life I needed to give attention as well. So essentially, it is not a “What is the ONE THING such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary…” for work alone, but all the essential aspects of life as seen below:

What is the ONE THING for my…

Spiritual Life?

Physical Health?

Personal Life?

Key Relationships?

Job?

Business?

Finances?

My favorite quote from the book has helped me see why it was so important to re-evaluate my priorities in where I was spending my time and energy:

“Work is like a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls – family, health, friends, integrity – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”

– Gary Keller

This quote rung a bell. How often had I put all my time and energy into my students, my lessons, my grading (aka “work”) — only to be left sacrificing my own health and having to skip out on being fully present with my own family and friends? Like the first post of this site, Your mask first, you must first take care of yourself in order to take care of others. Work– the people, the responsibilities… it’ll bounce back. It’s just like how much time and energy goes into a sub day, only to realize that the class was able to carry itself fine without you (hopefully due to all the prep in setting up those routines and autonomy in your students! Not there yet? Go check out 40 Hour Teacher Workweek from Angela Watson)!

But your health? It’ll “shatter” due to inattention or inactivity.

Your family and friends? They’ll stop inviting you after too many times of you saying “No,” or “Sorry, I’m too busy,” (sadly had to learn this one the hard way).

Your integrity? I’ll answer that with one of my favorite quotes from the late John Wooden- “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” Your integrity matters as much as the rest of the more tangible aspects.

In closing, The One Thing by Gary Keller helped expose a lot of my misconceptions about productivity, reminded me to diversify my time with the multiple areas for goals rather than hyper-focusing on what I had spent my time on– work, and helped identify my ONE THING each day to make the rest of my to-do list easier or unnecessary.

How will you spend your January? Simply busy? Or productive?

A year later from first reading the book, I can’t say I’ve “mastered” the ONE THING mentality, but like any new habit, it takes intentional practice, which leads me to my next book…

Keep posted for Part TWO, coming soon…

Book #2- The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

(Here’s a sketchnote sneak peek!)

What books/videos/experiences did you learn from in 2018?

Share in the comments below!

And don’t forget to like and subscribe so you can get Part 2 delivered straight to your inbox.

Let the struggle happen. Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Today was an eye-opening experience as a teacher. It’s the first Friday afternoon of the school year. For our 4th graders, this is the first time they haven’t had early dismissal after lunch like in their K-3 years. Being the only ones on campus when their siblings are done for the day can be hard to sell, but I try to reserve these afternoons for fun projects, teamwork challenges, and choice time.

As in typical first week tradition, I had my class put together our Room 14 Puzzle to display in our front window. Each person decorates a piece and they have to work together as a team to solve the puzzle. I don’t tell them what it will make (at the start) but some make a guess as it starts to form.

In activities like this, I can learn a lot about the culture of a class. Natural leaders step up to take charge. Natural followers listen to what they’re told by their peers. And some kids wait until all the work has been done by the majority of their group, and squeeze their puzzle piece in the 1 empty spot (not “initiative” but definitely a strategy for efficiency! Ha!)

Being my 10th year, I have made it an intention to respond to teachable moments as they arise, but also to let students “get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” This is a large factor of fostering a growth mindset, and an important component in building the traits of perseverance and grit.

And boy was it hard for them.

As they started the puzzle, I let them fully take the lead as I sat back and my desk and “appeared” to be distracted in my own work. Instead, I was observing, recording notes about personality traits, documenting the amount of time it took to get an idea started, and the approximate times that certain groups of students got frustrated and burned out. That window was quick. Within the first 4 minutes of the task. A few decided they didn’t like how others were taking lead, or they felt “bossed around” and quickly went to their seat. The difference this time was that they didn’t go to their seat disengaged because they had gotten bored. They were frustrated, and turned that frustration into gossip and complaining.

It took all my strength and willpower not to do the typical teacher move and come over and rescue those whose feelings were hurt and kindly suggest that the bossy leaders take a step back and let others have a turn. Instead, for 13 long minutes, I sat there observing how they handled their conflict. A few students came to me, asking for structure and suggesting that I have everyone rotate in for equal turns after 5 minutes. Others stuck it out, not knowing how to participate but also not wanting to give up. It got brutal as the train they’d hopped on was veering toward failure and frustration rather than success.

At the 13 minute mark, I stopped the clock, had them all go back to their seats, take a deep breath, and debrief. We talked about the difference between “Glows” (things that went well) and “Grows” (things that needed improvement), and their suggestions for how to solve the issue at hand. Then, each student got 5 minutes to reflect and share their opinion.

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After some deep discussion and reflection around the suggestions, they came up with the plan to divide and conquer. To start by finding a match to their puzzle (similar to the “find someone who…” activity I’d intentionally had them do earlier today) and only once they found a match, then try to add it to the larger puzzle, so there would be less conflict and crowding.

It was still tough, but in 6 minutes (less than half the time it took the first round) they were able to start fresh and complete the rest of their puzzle. Some smiles appeared, but no where near the cheers and excitement as in past years, because the struggle in the journey overpowered their excitement in seeing the end product.

My Takeaways:

Let the struggle happen. In my earlier years, I never would have had the chance to see how the students stepped up to handle the situation, because I would have handled it for them. Yes, there was some awkwardness. Yes, there were a few feelings hurt. And yes, some students were looking to me for guidance and I chose to sit back and observe. But what message am I sharing if every time a challenge or conflict arises, I jump in to be the problem solver because I don’t trust that they are capable of doing it themselves. They are capable. They have a voice. They just needed me to facilitate it so everyone could be heard. I never would have had the chance to do that if I had jumped in at the first sign of struggle.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This goes twofold. The students needed the experience of being uncomfortable with the struggle and not letting themselves give up. About a third of the class literally handed someone their puzzle piece and sat at their seats when they didn’t like how it was going. I had to get comfortable with not being in the “rescuer” role. I’m not a mother yet, but the first example that comes to mind is the recommendation to new moms to let the baby cry, to let them learn to self-soothe. What we model as adults in the decisions we make, the cautions we share (“Oh Johnny, don’t climb on that! You might get hurt!”), and the timing in when we choose to step in to “fix” something shares a message with children. Whether intended or not, the message shows that there is a conflict the child can’t handle themselves, and that an adult is needed to fix it. I’ve been on both ends of that situation, both as a child/student, and as an adult/teacher. I think getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is more difficult the older we get, and ever more reason to try it with intention.

This year, we will focus a lot on building the soft skills students will need to be successful. As educators, we can talk all we want about building a “growth mindset” and valuing grit, perseverance, and problem solving. But if we don’t actually give students (and ourselves) authentic experiences to practice and build these skills, we’re just telling them these skills are important without the opportunities to actually grow.

So… that first week of school puzzle activity may just look like a “filler” to the teacher who is worried about not having enough time to “cover” all of their curriculum before testing, but how I define success in a year is not whether or not they can excel on that test. Yes, do I want them to do well and show what they know? Of course. But is that going to define who they are and prepare them for the world beyond fourth grade?

Not at all.

It is the attitude, the confidence, the communication skills, the ability to be comfortable with letting themselves struggle a bit in order to achieve a goal. That is what building a growth mindset means to me. Not watching a video here or there, singing a song, or reading one book on how the brain works. It is creating a learning culture where lessons are authentic, teaching is more like timely coaching and facilitation, and risks and reflection are experienced and modeled by both teacher and student.

Letting struggle happen alerts all the red flags in my former perfectionist nature. And it is all the reason more for me to push past what is uncomfortable, and simply give it a try.

For more reading on this topic, check out:

“The soft skills college students need to succeed now and in the future”- American Psychology Association

TED Talk- Angela Lee Duckworth- Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

TED Talk- Luvvie Ajayi- Get comfortable with being uncomfortable

Forbes- Why Feeling Uncomfortable Is The Key To Success

What is something you can do for yourself or your class to get comfortable with being uncomfortable? Share your ideas in the comments below!

If you like what you’re reading, subscribe to keep posted for more on this topic and the soft skills of teaching and learning.

Let children play.

As I sit here on the beach holding on to the last moments of summer, off in the distance I see a group of kids playing in the sand. Have you watched kids play in the sand? They don’t need adult guidance. They don’t need ideas for how to be creative. Even the most tech addicted child doesn’t get bored.

They play.

They build sand castles with the highest work ethic, braving the waves and the distance to get that best scoop of wet sand. The child building the structure out of drift wood has a purpose. He sees a potential fort in his future. He doesn’t need a lesson on architecture to realize that there is a certain angle the wood needs to lay so it doesn’t fall. He discovered it through exploration.

In the start of the year, I challenge you- don’t overplan every second of the day. Build in some room to let students play- at all ages.

I always wait til the first rainy day recess to pull out the games, and each year I wonder- Why didn’t I do this sooner? When the games come out and students have choice and freedom, little micro cultures build in the classroom. You get the group that wants a challenge that will wait 15 minutes in line just for their turn at a round of Connect 4. You have the doodlers in the back discovering what they can make with form, shape, and color. You get the persistent student who will spend the whole break setting up Keva Planks or Dominoes only to knock them down 5 seconds before the bell rings. You may even get the students like I did last year, who built a fake town on our carpet solely out of privacy folders typically used for testing. When they honored new members to the town and offered them roles such as mayor, I was shocked when the next student came around collecting property taxes. I couldn’t come up with something this entertaining if I tried!

And remember, not everyone will be so willing. You may even find that student who is uncomfortable with unstructured time and instead asks for advice about what she should play, and when you encourage her to just give something a try and join a friend, she ends up bouncing around from activity to activity because she’s been trained to only do things with directions.

Watching rainy day recess is more informative to me than some of my best assessments. From those 20 minutes, I can gain insight on personality traits, strengths, motivators, and friendships.

So this year I make a challenge to all who will take it- let “rainy day recess” come early, with or without the rain. Let your students have choice time, but not in the sense of you being tired and wanting them to stay busy so you can get a break. Be intentional. Observe, play, and take note of the interactions and ways your students spend their time. That is more of a window into their natural motivations and tendencies than any beginning of the year survey you can give them. It gives you light into what students would want to do if they aren’t thinking they’re “playing school”.

Unstructured play is something lacking in today’s youth, that has been a pivotal part of childhood for generations. “Learning is what we do best. We learn through our lives by wondering and exploring, experiencing and playing,” says Wendy Ostroff, child development professor and author of Cultivating Curiosity in K-12 Classrooms and Understanding How Young Children Learn. When we over-standardize education during the school day, and students then go home to their structured tutoring sessions, sports practices, and after school classes, they can go a whole day with their only time to “play” at recess or lunch, should they actually get up and not just sit the whole time eating.

Some of my favorite childhood memories were from unstructured play. I remember finishing my homework quickly so all the neighbor kids could meet behind our houses in “the ditch”, or when my brother and I created our new favorite sport- roller blade basketball! Or the time a classmate and I went house to house advertising our “business” by selling marigold seeds to neighbors (sorry Mom, I didn’t realize I’d de-flowered your front garden!) I bet you have your own list of play memories that defined not only your childhood but helped positively develop you into the person you are today.

I am going to challenge myself this year to let kids play more.

Are you up to take the challenge?

Let children play.

They are only kids once.