self care Archives - Rachel What If

How to Build a Self Directed Learner

Teaching students to be more self-aware through Metacognition, Mindset and Mindfulness will build them into more self-directed learners. Self-directed learners are more likely to engage and find motivation because they recognize themselves as learners, rather than participants.

Motivation

Motivation, or reasons for taking action, is a little hard to come by these days. Heck, motivation was a little expensive before the pandemic. Nowadays, you better have a whole lot of intrinsic drive saved up and a heaping tablespoon of purpose to push through to the other side. And what about your students? Purpose? Intrinsic motivation?

In my classroom, motivation was a sometimes thing. As in, sometimes my students were intrinsically motivated, and sometimes they were extrinsically motivated. As a professional, I knew it was a big part of my job to move them from extrinsic to intrinsic. Teaching is an art form in this way because this is where your creativity and enthusiasm can be powerful, and contagious.

Compliance

At the end of each day, my students were given 30 minutes of “Your Time.” Everyone understood that most of the day was considered “My Time.” Really, it was communicated this way: “If you will do the things I and other teachers are asking you to do for most of the day, you will be given a fraction of time at the end of the day to do whatever you wish!” The lines between motivation and compliance get a little fuzzy here.

Is that a bargain or what? It worked so well because I could use this last bit of our day to catch the kids who needed some reteaching, or who were just not able to complete something for whatever reasons they had that day. It also saved me from having to threaten to take away their recess time, which ends up working against you in the long run.

Incentives

Aside from the daily time compromise, there were other mostly successful tactics for getting kids to be compliant. Celebrations are an important part of life, and I wholeheartedly believe we should be celebrating our achievements big or small as often as possible. Incentives are pretty effective in the workplace, at home, and yes, at school. If I’m going to be at school every day, you can bet I’m looking for ways to make it more fun, and not everything is inherently fun. The possibility of earning an ice cream and movie party after learning all my math facts is just good stuff.

Of course, we are all finding ways to recreate what we were doing in the classroom before. We are digitizing as much content as possible, and striving for as much collaboration as we can get synchronously and asynchronously. However, engagement continues to be the missing piece. Even for those students who want to please, who will do everything they can to complete the tasks they are asked to complete, and even for the families who value everything their student’s teachers are sending out, the engagement gap threatens to grow at an alarming rate.

The Engagement Gap

As educators, we talk a whole heap about achievement gaps. Have you ever heard of an engagement gap? In the spring of 2016, pre-pandemic, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development published a report with the following profound statement about the purpose of said report.

Because achievement is unlikely to improve if students are not engaged in their education, finding ways to close the engagement gap is
an essential goal to ensure that high school seniors graduate well prepared for the rigors of college and careers—and become well rounded, successful, contributing members of society.
Introduction, The Engagement Gap -Spring 2016

This report followed a previous report published in 2014 titled The State of America’s Schools: The Path to Winning Again in Education, where we come to the meat of my argument and the motivation 😉 behind this blog post.

The current focus on standardized testing assumes that all students should have a similar educational experience. We leave little time for students to figure out what they love to do and where their greatest talents lie. We waste time and talent.
Connie Rath, Gallup Education

The Self-Directed Learner

Students need to figure out what they LOVE to do, and WHERE their greatest talents lie. Let’s not waste any more time. Students can become more engaged, more motivated, and more successful, but they need to start with self-awareness.

It’s like the old parable of teaching a man to fish. Shall we continue to hope our students will be motivated to do the things we are asking them, or can we give them the skills to discover who they are, to value their uniqueness, and then to recognize their contribution?

This awesome student friendly rubric from Awordonthird.com identifies ways students can evaluate themselves as they move toward becoming more self-aware and more self-directed.

The 3 Ms: Metacognition, Mindset, and Mindfulness are just three of the many tools that are available for creating more self-awareness. These Ms were the foundation upon which I built my curriculum for each and every school year, and are also what I find to be most valuable as I continue to develop my own sense of self and purpose.

Metacognition

Metacognition is the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes. I first learned about this concept in a PEBC conference a few years ago. This awesome article from Edutopia explains it as a way to “drive your brain.” When I first teach it to my students, I tell them it is just thinking about your thinking.

Teaching students about their brains, and how to have some control over its processes, is one of the most magical things we can do as educators. When we name and notice what we are doing or thinking, we are gaining self-awareness. I love the PEBC framework for teaching metacognition using thinking strategies. Visualizing, Inferring, and Determining Importance are a reimagining of the same reading and comprehension strategies teachers have been using for years. The captivating part comes when you notice yourself or someone else doing it and name it.

The naming and noticing that comes with teaching these strategies is where we start to uncover the real value in these strategies. When students understand that their brains are already doing these things, they start to see themselves as learners. They might even start to believe that they are capable of learning anything. Well, a teacher can dream, can’t she?

Mindset

Ever since Carol Dweck gave the world her research on Growth vs. Fixed Mindsets, our brains have never been the same. Again, it reminds us that we have the ability to control our thoughts, and maybe even to some extent, the course of our lives.

If this were the case, we would all be living the high life. (Is that still a saying? I live in Colorado, so I’m thinking the meaning of this phrase has changed.) The concept of control is so closely related to the concept of self-directed. When we understand ourselves, we can better organize ourselves. I’m not saying you must be organized to be successful, but I do believe it to be a skill we should all strive to develop in order to better care for ourselves and others.

Big Life Journal has a wonderful resource for teaching your students about growth mindset. Probably one of my favorite parts of teaching growth mindset is the fact that mistakes are critical to learning.

This unit from Angela Watson has several weeks of step by step instructions for teachers and a student journal. I love the videos that were selected for this unit because they include some very well known people who have made tons of mistakes before creating success in their own lives.

Mindfulness

Every day after lunch, my students would come in from recess with loads of complaints and problems. It could take up to 20 minutes of instructional time to resolve these issues. We decided to try something new.

As they entered the classroom, the lights would be low, and soft music would be playing. They could lay on the floor or sit anywhere in the room, but they had to be away from other students. They could doodle or write in their writer’s notebook, but they absolutely could not talk for ten whole minutes.

Here is one of my favorite videos to play on the Smartboard during this time.

We created an anchor chart showing the only reasons anyone could break the silence of that time. Some examples included aliens landing outside our classroom, someone was either bleeding a lot or throwing up, or if bigfoot walked into the room.

My students grew to love and look forward to this tiny bit of silence in the day. This became such a sacred time that they began to ask for it from their other teachers. What an awesome example of a student advocating for themselves and recognizing a need. All for the price of just ten minutes a day.

What are your students looking forward to each day? How are they motivated, and how do they engage in your lessons? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments.

Becoming Hospitable to Ideas for Writing

I am focusing most of my efforts this year on being hospitable,” the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers, ” as defined by google. As the anxiety of what that statement will mean for me rises, I plan to practice this skill on ideas first, and people later.

May the Force be with you

Perhaps the reason I feel the need to be hospitable this year, is because I feel like something is coming. Something awesome. This is to be the year of the cinnamon roll, as I explained in my previous post.

On New Year’s Eve, I met a 7 year old boy, with a light saber, and a fresh padawan haircut. He told me to have a very happy new year. What happened next confirmed my suspicion that 2020 is going to be epic. I swear the he looked right into my soul and said, “May the Force be with you.” Oh yeah, and…. it was his birthday.

Now, there are too many incredible things about this to deny this was a specific message and blessing coming to me from a true Jedi in training. I mean, how is this different than if I had met a genuine medicine man, in Bali, reading my palm and proclaiming my future? It isn’t. Technically, only one of these things could actually happen in real life, as Elizabeth Gilbert described in Eat, Pray, Love.

According to Wookieepedia, a site I have recently discovered for all things Star Wars, when someone says “May the Force be with you,” they are wishing you well in the face of an impending challenge. I am wise enough to know that the year ahead is paved with boulders and sheer drop offs, so how to honor the blessing I received ?By getting organized and making a plan.

Creating a space

The writing nook formerly known as office closet

Goal setting reminds me a little too much about being SMART, and lets just say, I’m taking a little break from that for now. Instead, I’m choosing to focus on building habits. Creating a habit becomes so much easier when you set up a supportive environment.

Throughout life, I have always shared space with others. It seems like a luxury to have a whole room to myself. I mean a place to close the door and decorate the walls with whatever I want. So, I decided to give myself our office closet. It’s just big enough to be hospitable. Marion Roach Smith teaches that “being hospitable begins with preparing a clean, well-lighted desk, and reporting to it each day,” in her book The Memoir Project. The closet is all cleaned out, and ready to host lots of ideas.

My little closet will now and forever be lovingly referred to as the writing nook, which is just so much more inviting. For now, its an affordable space for ideas to stay on a budget. Hopefully, it will be renovated someday to a quaint cottage with a garden, or a mountain resort where ideas are making reservations in advance to make their way into my writing.

Value your work

Little ways of being hospitable to ideas

In spite of not having a “writing nook” over the past year, I have still established a writing habit. Spiral bound notebooks are the easiest for me to fill. They are cheap, and therefore less pressure, and they provide the space. I was being hospitable without even knowing it. It’s not like I was providing a bed and breakfast for ideas, but they could crash on my couch. I mean, I’m not a monster.

Most importantly, my new writing nook is not only a gift, but its physical proof of a promise I am making to myself. I can do this, my work is important. Heck, I’m using it right now to write this post. It’s quiet, and all my resources are handy. I know I don’t need the space to create. That in itself is proof that I can do this. I truly do have everything I need already inside me to become an author. Maybe it will even help me be more welcoming to people?

I am not a Jedi in training, nor is it my birthday. Maybe you are already hospitable to ideas and people. Still, I hope that whatever comes this year the Force will be with you.

Thanks for reading!

Like Butter on Pancakes, or What I’ve learned after a Year of Writing

There is a wonderful children’s book called Like Butter on Pancakes by Johnathan London that describes the perfect day in the country where the sun streams in and melts on your pillow. Butter on pancakes is an appropriate metaphor to describe the blessings and hardships of the year, and developing a habit of writing.

The pancakes, or the stuff the butter sits on

I really like butter, pancakes not so much. Even science is coming around to the fact that butter is probably good for you. Turns out, pancakes are just the thing that holds all the good stuff. You can’t just eat a plate of butter and syrup. I guess you could, but you might not feel very good about it.

This year has been a plate full of pancakes. Like, all you can eat pancakes for me, emotionally. Remember, I said I don’t really like pancakes. They aren’t even sweet enough to be called cakes. They are just a flat piece of heavy kinda cooked dough. 2019 was a giant stack of dry, thick pancakes that I could’ve choked on if not for the butter.

In order to tackle the stacks, I set a goal at the beginning of 2019 that I would write 500 words every day. In order to stop complaining, I started a blog and named it Rachel What If.. and even published something almost every month. A brain dump in a spiral notebook each morning is an invaluable way to put things in their proper place, instead of vomiting them in random conversations where they don’t belong.

Butter, or the good stuff I’ve learned

Aside from the constant love and support of my family as I struggled through this year, developing a writing habit has been the butter. Butter makes everything richer, easier to swallow. Here are the big takeaways from this year:

You have to understand yourself before you can understand others.
Stop being so disappointed in yourself so you can stop being disappointed in others.
When you love yourself fully, you listen to your tears, are compassionate about your shortcomings, and understand your anxiety as a gift from your better, wiser self.
Love and fear can be in the same room at the same time, but fear cannot be the one making any decisions.

Writing is how I introduce myself to myself. It is how I find out things I thought I had forgotten. It is how I discover what I really think, and how I get rid of all the stuff that doesn’t matter.

Some of the most relevant books I read this year by Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Lamott, and Stephen King allow me to put things in perspective.

The Cinnamon Roll, or A Year of Rachel What If

If I could eat anything for breakfast, without guilt, or gaining lots of weight, it would be warm gooey cinnamon rolls. There is butter all through those babies. In fact, maybe 2020 will be the year of the cinnamon rolls.

As I think about this last year, I wouldn’t take back a single pancake. While considering what to call the blog a year ago, I settled on Rachel What If because what if is the very beginning. It’s the place where all good stories start.

I’ve been reading Stephen King’s book On Writing, and this morning, he reminded me again why the name of my blog is so appropriate. He says on page 169, “The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a What If question.” Reading this at this time, I know it’s more than a coincedence. The year of writing that began with a What If question: What if I am a writer? It’s pretty cool to have lived a year of it.