Third Eye Education
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Mapping our Distance Between 'Stress' and 'Overwhelm'

4/15/2022

 
by Heather M. F. Lyke and the Third Eye Education team 
As Third Eye Education, our main focus is to be a network of learners that shares their own learning as a way to propel learning in others. Additionally, we aim to keep our resources free of fiscal barriers—and we do this as a nonprofit run by volunteers with no budget.

One learning we've been leaning into lately is an individual's need to find balance. 

A commonality between those of us who make up the core team of Third Eye Education: we thrive on new challenges. While new challenges open doors to new learnings, create new conenctions, and allow for new collaborations—they can also lead imbalance. 

Brené Brown's newest book, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience​, states:
"When we don’t understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other."
Wishing to not become disconnected—we value our readers, our listeners, our collaborators in learning far too much—it's high time we share something with you: our team is stressed. Stressed, and wanting to ensure we don't dip into the world of overwhelm.
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To differentiate between stress and overwhelm, Brown shares stories from her time as a waitress, breaking down two common terms used in the service industry. At risk of oversimplifying, Brown explains:
  • In the Weeds is when a server is overloaded with tasks and demands, but can still articulate and understand each of the individual aspects leading to the inundation. 
  • Being Blown ​is when a server has become so overloaded with tasks and demands, that they can no longer articulate nor understand the nuances of the inundation.
Then noting:
"Stressed is being in the weeds. Overwhelmed is being blown."
Related read: My First Year of Teaching, Again and Again

Identifying Stressors

We are in the weeds. No doubt, without question, 100%: the weeds are surrounding us.
​
In Atlas of the Heart, readers learn that, 
"We feel stressed when we evaluate environmental demand as beyond our ability to cope successfully. This includes elements of unpredictablity, uncontollability, and feeling overloaded."
Here at Third Eye Education, we are no strangers to environmental demands, but lately they have been piling up more than ususal. ​For perspective, here is a glimpse:
  • ​Nick Truxal (Third Eye Education co-founder, podcast host, and writer) has returned to grad school: while taking an overload of courses he has also been doing an internship that has him traveling and working extra-long days. 
  • Anne Halliwell, (Third Eye Education ​podcast producer and audio engineer) recently started a new job with longer and less-predictable hours, while also juggling an increase in social obligations and household maintenance needs.
  • Heather Lyke (Third Eye Education co-founder, podcast host, writer, and editor), while navigating a new and more demanding role at work, has also been obtaining her superintendent's license and enduring recent personal trauma. 
All of this in addition to the stressors bought to all of us by 2022—the ongoing Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the increase of mass shootings in the United States, and so on...

Of course, these are no different from what many have been juggling. Increasingly, many are tiptoping on the edge of overwhelm. Teacher strikes are on the rise,cost of living has been steadily climbing, and the ability to leave work at work has been deminishing. The great resignation—or what 
Ranjay Gulati is calling "The Great Rethink"—exists for a reason. 
Related read: Being Alive is Being Imperfect

Avoiding Overwhelm

"Overwhelmed," Brown explains, is "an extreme level of stress;" one where the "emotional and/or cognitive intensity [gets] to the point of feeling unable to function." We here at Third Eye Education don't want to reach this tipping point. While we may be in the weeds, we stand tall: we maintain sight of the horizon. 

For this reason, we are making some adjustments for the foreseeable future: 
  • ​Articles: Since our launch well over a year ago, we have posted a weekly article every Sunday. While we will still strive to post weekly, the consistancy of posting always on Sundays will falter from time to time. 
  • Podcasts: In Season 1, we released episodes every two weeks, always on a Tuesday. Even with our delayed launch of Season 2, we have found this difficult to maintain. So, while we have some amazing episodes to bring you, they will be released intermitently for at least the next few months. 
  • Collaborations: In 2021, we were gathering monthly with a small group of core collaborators, from whom many of our ideas bloomed. These meetings were structured and consistent. In 2022, structure and consistency have taken a backseat. We do still connect from time to time, but in spare pockets of time and not as a full group. 
These are temporary adjustments. Thank you for your compassion as we as we cut a new path  ​through our shifting realities.
Related read: We Are the Leaders We Seek
We always want to be honest with our community, even when it means admiting something hard, like stuggle. It brings us back to Atlas of the Heart, where Brown shares that:  
"Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage."
We hope you agree.

This is a Gay Story

4/3/2022

 
by Read Karsell
If you haven’t had to come out, you likely don’t know how overwhelming and all-consuming it is. From early middle school when I began to realize I wasn’t interested in women, being gay was all I was thinking about. It's paranoia. Every second you talk, you worry you don’t sound straight enough.
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I didn’t say gay throughout high school; yet, a day didn’t go by when it was not on my mind. Throughout my education, I had to insist I was straight whenever I was asked if I was gay (which began in forth grade when I didn’t even know what gay was). In high school:
  • I never dated but had my story set: I’m just so busy, I don’t have time to date. (Turns out this is the exact same excuse my boyfriend also used when he was in high school.)
  • Is my voice so high that people assume I am gay?
  • I am friends with mainly girls, of course people think I am gay.
These were just a few of the worries my mind focused on each day.
 
I’d arrive home, struggling daily, because I had this secret I was keeping from my family. I knew they'd be accepting of me, but every day until my coming out was riddled with guilt because I felt I owed it to them. To combat this, I started setting goals:
  1. Come out by the end of first semester of senior year.   --No.
  2. Okay… quarter three.   --No.
  3. Mmm, okay, by graduation.   --NOPE.
 
What ended up forcing my hand was a combination of my mom asking me directly and my self-made rule that I wouldn’t come out to my dad by bringing a boy home--and I held myself to it.
Fun fact from the gay experience: it is so damn hard to say the word “gay.” As I said in the beginning, the word “gay” was on repeat in my mind nearly every hour of every day since sixth grade, so you’d imagine it would literally fly out. No--it was so hard.

And I hear that from a lot of people. It feels like a bad word, one that will get you in trouble if you say it out loud (where might that thought come from?). I’ve read stories of people spending months practicing saying, “I am gay” in a mirror.

My personal loophole was saying  “yes, I am a homosexuál” or “I do like the mens” in a silly voice. It is hard. I still struggle now.
And, one more thing: my experience is privileged. 
Related podcast episode: Equity Work with Sebastian WitherspoonSe

My Story is a Success Story

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I am privileged to have been born into a family that, for whatever reason, is accepting of me. Having met a lot of queer people after coming out, my story is a lesser known one--one of total acceptance. Most people don’t get that. Many have family they have yet to tell, and/or have family that doesn’t acknowledge them. The family of a person very close to me “accepts and loves them unconditionally, will never accept that part of them.”
 
So, to sit and write this, know my story is true, but I share it sitting unscathed in the rose garden while so many in my community are being pricked by thorns.

My Character Helps Students Sketch their Own Character
I am was not the first closeted kid in that high school and I won’t be the last. This is and will always be true about every school in every town across every state in the U.S. no matter the laws that are in place. Every day I get to be the teacher I never had: the openly gay teacher
 
When I told my students I am gay at the start of the school year, I promise you, not one student was fazed. Each class had multiple faces light up, each class had one or two students who gasped with happiness, and one class had two students who exhaled a “YESSSSSSSS” and then turned to high fived each other.
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In the immediate days following, those students talked to me more, they brought their significant others to class and hugged or kissed goodbye at my door, and they all showed a relaxedness in the space we had created. It confirmed to me that there are students who are looking for queer educators and it makes a difference to have them. ​
Related read: Showing Pride In Our Classrooms

Help Students Draft Authentic Stories

No matter who you are as an educator, there are ways to support LGBTQIA+ students. 
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Related podcast episode: On Becoming Deeply Human with Dessa
Support Character Interaction
Start by going to GSA (Gender and Sexuality Alliance) meetings.
 
This was a hurdle for me because I had actively avoided my own high school’s GSA (out of fear of being seen there and being outed), so doing so as an adult in the school I teach was still strangely difficult for me. I found it’s because I still have to come out to myself in different daily moments. The cause of that: internalized homophobia mashed with toxic masculinity. A horrendous cocktail that has a hold over the gay community and could be a doctoral thesis in and of itself.
 
My first GSA meeting was magical. It is a group of students in many different stages of their journey--some already aware of their sexuality and/or gender, some still trying to figure it out, and some trying to have a place where they can live as their true self for an hour a week.
           
This group of students--so special and unique--are the students you see in the halls every day, the students you have in the front seat of your class, and the students who just need an adult to say, I see you. I hear you. I am here for you.
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Having attended regularly, I have been able to make connections with students who now stop by my room to check in with me. I can share my lived experiences with them, and they teach me about their lives and what they are discovering as they go along--so impressive and so empowering.
 
A GSA meeting from just a few weeks ago brings me to my next “here’s what you can do” point. A speaker came at one point and talked about a “Day of Silence'' as a day that the GSA could host at school. They explained it could be one of two things: (1) a day of silence for participating students to not talk as an act of solidarity with LGBTQIA+ people who live in silence everyday about who they are, or (2) a day to celebrate not being silent anymore and getting the word out through conversation and advocacy.
 
It was when the presenter referenced “people living in silence everyday about who they are and out of fear for their safety” that the student sitting next to me, a student I have in class, mumbled,  “Relatable. That’s me everyday. Living in silence.”
 
Hearing that from my student, I was shocked; yet, not all. Living in silence wasn’t a new concept to my personal life, but it hurt that the student I teach everyday felt the need to be silent. ​
Related read: Our Stories are Data, Too
Add Some Dialogue
This student is in one of your classes too. You’ve walked by them in the hall many times, you teach their best friend currently, you’ve smiled at them as you chat with another teacher in their room. They are there: silent.
 
Consider writing a note.
 
I wrote that student a note the next morning. And it simply said, 
Student, I heard what you said yesterday during GSA and I want you to know that I see you. I hear you. And when you do talk, know that I am listening and you are heard. When you’re ready and if you need, you can always talk to me or I can help you connect with someone you feel comfortable talking with.
Super simple. No pressure. But assuring. Then, at the end of class, in a tone and confidence that I never saw coming, the student came to me and assured me that if they ever needed, they would talk to me. Then I walked out just as casually as I had dropped the folded note on their desk at the start of class.
​
You can do that too! You don’t have to be queer or  attend GSA, but you do have to listen. You have to pay attention to your students, and you’ll be able to find what to say. You also have to say gay--because gay ain’t going away. 
Related read: Students Names and Getting it Right
Word Choice Matters
I want to touch on the other side of “Don’t say Gay”--straight isn’t going away either, and neither is being cisgender. The idea of “Don’t say Gay” enrages me because wedding rings won’t leave the ring fingers of all the people in man/woman relationships. The family photos won’t be taken off desks. The stories of my husband/wife, kids, and I went to the water park last weekend won’t go away. The straight and cisgender world will continue.
 
Meanwhile “Don’t say Gay,” as it is solely meant to, will eliminate a school community where students who aren’t checking the straight and cisgender, 1950’s expectations can be seen and heard.
 
Please, do say gay. Please, say they/them. Please, say Tanner even though the student roster says their name is Emma. Please, talk about what a healthy relationship looks like and how to get through the rough patches. Please, talk about sex instead of pretending abstenance works. Please, do say gay. 
Related read: Two Takeaways for Supporting All Students

"Don't Say Gay" is a Fictional Tale

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The “Don’t say Gay” bill is, at its core, impossible.
 
Even though it was hard to get the word out of my mouth, it was in my head every second of every day, from my bus rides home to conversations during math class. And, it’s on repeat in the minds of students today too.
 
Let’s acknowledge these silenced students, and the students who have made their voice heard too:
  • Include a lesbian couple in your math class word problem.
  • Teach “elle” - the nonbinary pronoun in Spanish class and “iel” in French.
  • Read a book with a queer coming to age character in English class.
  • In history class, teach about the Stonewall Riots and analyze the government’s response to the AIDS Epidemic.

Related read: On the Joy of Discomfort
And, if none of this sits well with you, start with reading a book or watching a movie/tv show about the LGBTQIA+ experience: acquaint yourself with what your students are going through currently. If you’re feeling ready to take bigger steps forward, hang up a pride sign on your door and put an “I accept and support all” paragraph in your syllabi, write that student a note when you hear they need it, go attend a GSA meeting or start your own club.

​And, of course, make sure to use the word 
gay.

Read Karsell is a Spanish teacher in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is also openly gay educator who is proud of his story. 

Reapproaching Shakespeare in 3 Acts

3/20/2022

 
by Phil Olson
The school year has been long and full of challenges.  Sisyphean, even.  Still, the fact that third quarter is almost over is genuinely surprising.  How can an interminable year slip away so quickly?  Part of the answer, at least for me, is the approach I’ve employed:  I am planning as I go. 
 
In the before times, I meticulously organized detailed units; I even published calendars that included daily plans for a month or two at a time.  This year, my practice has been to sketch and communicate a broad overview at the beginning of the week, then plan specific experiences on a day-by-day basis.  This is definitely more time consuming and fraught, and I don’t want to work in this mode forever, but--darn it!—it is effective.  I remain close to the action, at the students’ level, and I can speed up and slowdown in response to their needs. 
Related read: On the Joy of Discomfort
This practice has led to some important, much needed wins, and it has proven an especially powerful way to tackle the most challenging works I do with students.  One example--Romeo and Juliet—(which I have been teaching since only men were allowed on stage), felt both meaningful and fresh.  
 
I took a break from the Bard last year, as the idea of grappling with a challenging, middle-English play in distance-learning mode seemed too heavy. Teaching Shakespeare again this year has been part of the slow return to normalcy.  A challenge, but a worthy, achievable one, and on our day-by-day journey, I made lots of adjustments. 
 
Here’s what worked and why:

Act I: Two "Texts"

My freshpeople and I launched our Romeo and Juliet experience using minimally-annotated, paperback copies of the play.  I knew I’d need to combine readings with various resources from my files (summaries, contextual pieces, vocabulary lists, and the like), but in doing so I discovered that the supplements became replacements.  Not what I had wanted. 
 
After doing some hunting I landed on an amazing alternative: the website myShakespeare.  It offers an unabridged, “glossed” text (see below), as well as a host of useful tools linked in the margins, including modernizations of tough passages, explanations of allusions, identifications of literary techniques employed, and deep dives into “weird words.”  
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Additionally, and perhaps most awesomely, the site offers two different types of videos.  In the first, actors perform important passages with minimal trappings; this foregrounds the actors’ talents, as they lean all the way into their characters and express Shakespeare’s lines in more than words.  The second set of videos feature character interviews, in modern English, that weave in important aspects of scenes, explore the characters’ psychologies, and play up the humor. 
 
For most of the play, students did their reading on screens using myShakespeare, while using the paperbacks to do things that screens make cumbersome, like revisiting passages during in-class discussions, citing lines within papers, and practicing dialogue.
Note: myShakespeare is currently free.

​Check out the introductory video:  

Act II: Multiple Films

I remember studying Romeo and Juliet in my ninth-grade English class, and I can still picture my teacher stealthily making her way toward the TV (relatively tiny, and on a mobile cart, of course) to slide her folder in front of the screen at an especially interesting moment in Zeffirelli’s film version of Act 3, Scene 5 (the morning after the young lovers’ wedding night).  Mayhem avoided.  Master teacher! 
 
Back then, watching the film was the “reward” for having endured the play, but today, I find it much more impactful to use several film versions and to weave them into the reading process.  Films reinforce understanding, amplify interpretive possibilities, and invite critical thinking about all facets of a production.  For contrast, I like to use three very different versions:  The traditional Zeffirelli from 1968, the modern Luhrman from 1996, and a recording of a live, Broadway production directed by David Leveaux in 2014.  
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The “original” is corny, but retains its charm; the modernization is bold and over-the-top dramatic; and the Broadway version showcases the powers of live drama.  In class, we had many passionate discussions about which production did things best, and most conversations led us back to the text.  

Act III: Assessments

In addition to reading, discussing, journaling about, and watching the play, my students also engaged with several formal assessments, and my goal this year was to make them meaningful without being so heavy that they weighed down the experience (i.e. a paper about the history of iambic pentameter--here is a fun one—or a multiple choice test about who said what and when).  Instead, my students made the most out of discussions; wrote short essays; did some not-so-serious sonneteering; and performed some passages in “table reading” fashion.  
ESSAYS
​
I had students write three short papers (1-1.5 pages each) at strategic points in the play. 
  • They first analyzed how the Prologue to Act 2 employs sonnet form and uses poetic techniques for effect. 
  • At the close of Act 3, they explored characterization and how a title character is changed by conflicts they face in the first half of the play. 
  • Finally, after the final scene, students generated a menu of topics with which to revisit important facets of the play, i.e. a motif, a rich passage, a secondary character, echoic scenes, or answering a question about the play—like whether or not R and J’s love is genuine, who is most to blame for the lovers’ tragic end, or how gender norms affect their worldviews. 
We also built a proficiency scale (rubric) together by discussing what was most important to achieve with this essay and why.   
Related read: Focusing on Feedback - Reassessing Letter Grades
SONNETS
In Act 4, poor Juliet (who has been married to Romeo for less than 24 hours) is berated by her parents and betrayed by the nurse, all of whom wish her to marry Count Paris, so she turns to Friar Laurence, the amateur pharmacist, for a helping vial, at which point she elaborates the many things she’d rather do than marry Paris, including jumping off of a high tower or being buried alive.  Students took inspiration from this scene to write “I’d Rather” sonnets—sonnets with some twists. 
 
Since sonnets are often about love, we decided to write about something we hate (irony!), but we wanted to keep things light and potentially humorous, so we settled for writing about irritations/pet peeves; yet we wanted to really get our Juliet on, so we used hyperbole to enumerate all the exaggerated things we’d gladly do to avoid minor irritations (hyperbolic irony!).  Of course, they illustrated them too. 
 
Here is an excellent example—Thanks, Ella! Notice how she worked in even more irony!  
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TABLE READS
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Finally, I wanted to get students working together and grappling with performance, but I sensed some reluctance (when they said they were freaked out by the prospect) to full-blown enactments of passages, so we compromised with table reads. This involves reading in character without worrying about things like costumes, blocking, and such.  
 
We read Acts 4 and 5 in this fashion, using group performances that included introductions to assigned passages, the table readings, and some follow up unpacking of plot development, literary devices, and other must-catch elements.  Relatively low stakes yielded high engagement and pretty-darn-good Shakespearean theater.    
             
Plus, table reads are fun (here’s proof from The Office): 

​So, we made it through a Shakespearean play, despite the wintry-gray cloud that always hangs over quarter 3.  Of course, along the way, we had some less-than-great days, several strategies fell flat, and not all students bought the notion of Shakespeare’s genius.  The unit was messy and hard; teaching Shakespeare always is, it’s part of the experience.  So, I’m taking the mess as a sign that we did it right, and concluding that, sometimes, improv beats a script.  

Phil Olson is an English teacher at Century High School in Rochester, Minnesota. He prefers to keep things simple.

Two Takeaways for Supporting All Students

3/6/2022

 
ideas by Tan Huynh and Katie Miller, compiled by Third Eye Education
In our recent podcast interview with Tan Huynh and local Minnesota expert on Multilingual Learners, Katie Miller, our conversation quickly cut to the core of education. 
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Throughout the conversation, Huynh and Miller share some strategies and resources that help them access that educational core quickly and effectively. Their ideas tended to fall into two categories: (1) leveraging what motivates and engages students and (2) modeling what it means to be a lifelong learner. 

They come to school for each other

Huynh shares a realization he had early on in his instruction: students “do not come to school for you, they come to school for each other. So why don’t we use that as the framework for instruction?”
Related podcast listen: A Rich Process of Creation
This takeaway inspired a sharing of ideas: a few favorite strategies and resources from Miller and Huynh that help all students, multilingual learners as well as all classroom learners. They both agree that by upping the amount of talk in our classrooms, and by teaching students structures and protocols for quality conversations, we give them a greater access to success.
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Talk - Read - Talk - Write
A strategy coined by Nancy Motley, Huynh shares a favorite tool of his: the Talk-Read-Talk-Write protocal. 

Learn about this tool here:
  • The book: Talk Read Talk Write: A Practical Routine for Learning in All Content Areas
  • A conversation between Motley and Huynh:

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Q.S.S.S.A.
"Question, Signal, Stem, Share, Assess" was another tool shared by Huynh. This stratgy might be used in this way:
  • Question: Which character emotionally grew the most in these three chapters?
  • Signal: Stand beside your desk once you have your answer ready to share. 
  • Stems: When you share your answer, start by saying, "The character __ grew the most emotionally in chapters 11-13 because..."
  • Share: In your quad, share your thinking with each other. See who agress and who doesn't. Explore why the agreement/disagreements exist. 
  • Assess: Write a sentence that summerizes your final answer to the question. Use the sentence stem shared earlier and be sure to have at least two reasons that follow the word "because."

Related read: Disciplinary Literacy - Adapt Not Adopt
Go Visual
Katie Miller, along with the Third Eye Education podcasts hosts, share a love of visuals for enhancing understanding. Pairing words with pictures is a simple way to increase comprehension and language acquisition. 
  • To support understanding of new vocabulary or complex ideas, try:
    • Ellen McKenzie’s article “Vocabulary Development using Visual Displays” (2014)
    • Boston University’s “Visual Representation of Texts” (2021)
  • To use them as a conversation starter or as a writing prompt, explore:
    • Literacy Ideas’ “Teaching Visual Literacy and Visual Texts in the Classroom” (2022)
  • Or use them as a synectic

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For each of these three strategies, students “can do this in their heritage community language too,”  Huynh points out.

Learn beyond what you were taught

In our conversation, Huynh also highlights the importance of being continuous learners: we must set aside outdated practices to “Learn beyond what you were taught.”

A few resources Miller and Huynh shared, which may help you push outside of what you areadly know, are:
Cultivating Genious
The book Cultivating Genious: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Gholdy Muhammad is a resource Miller loves, and Huynh just interviewed Muhammad on his podcast last month. Find out more here:
Boosting Achievement
Carol Salva's work was brought up by Huynh: specifically her book Boosting Achievement. Dig into Salva's resources here:
  • The book, Boosting Achievement: Reaching Students with Interupted or Minimal Education by Carol Salva with Anna Matis
  • ​Her podcast, Boosting Achievement, with Voice Ed, CA
  • Her inspirational and resource-filled tweets: @MsSalvac

For more strategies and resources from Huynh and Miller, considering exploring some more of their works.
  • Tan Huynh: podcast, blogposts
  • ​Katie Miller: "The Power of the Words We Choose" and other articles.
“When teachers approach students with a Can-do mindset, everything is possible.”      〰 Tan Huynh

Doing the Deep Work of Education: 3 Reasons It's Needed, 3 Ways to Get Started

2/27/2022

 
by Heather M. F. Lyke
A simple Google Search or a scroll through a social media feed from an educator, and it’s easy to confirm that this is a hard year—a hard year that follows two previously hard years. This is a truth that has not alluded us here at Third Eye Education: simply explore some of our articles from this past year to confirm:
  • "Rethinking Education: Using the Pandemic as Inspiration for Innovation," May 2021
  • "My First Year of Teaching, Again and Again," August 2021
  • "Saving Students & Saving Ourselves," December 2021
  • "Meandering Through the Messy Middle, Searching for Solid Ground," January 2022​

In the past year—particularly, over the past few months—there is one phrase we hear over and over from educators: We just don’t have enough time.
 
Yep. That tracks. Over the course of a school day, teachers have classes to prep for, labs to set up, emails to answer, students to follow-up with, make-up assessments to give, test scores to analyze, poor student choices/behaviors to address, copies to make, coffee to drink, emails to answers, bathroom needs to attend to, parents to call, papers to grade, meetings to attend, assignments to create, messes to clean up, referrals to follow up on, chapters to preview, grades to update online, club meetings to facilitate… and those are only the basics. Not to mention what happens when the classroom phone rings: Can you cover __ class during your prep hour? Could you attend this IEP meeting in place of __ since he is out ill today? FYI, there will now be a mandatory after school meeting.

​
So the day finishes with work undone; which means that teachers take the work home with them, or they stay late to finish it, or they feel guilty that they did neither of the two. Little of this refuels the soul, little of this is why teachers went into the field, and none of this is sustainable for the long term.
Related podcast episode: Making Educational Constraints Beautiful with Mark Barden
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While too much to do in too little time may be a truth universally acknowledged in our field, it’s not one to embrace. In Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport, readers learn that you must “treat your time with respect” (227) and ensure there are many opportunities to do deep work, or “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration” (3).

​Considering how little time educators have, the likelihood is low that most Third Eye Education readers will have time to complete Newport’s book in the near future (maybe once summer arrives), I bring you the following key reasons and applications for educators:


3 Reasons Why Deep Work is Needed


It increases job satisfaction.
Counterintuitive though it may be, “jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, because…they have built-in goals, feedback rules, and challenges, all of which encourage one to become involved in one’s work, to concentrate and lose oneself in it” according to the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Newport 84).

​Hungarian psychologist Csikszentmihalyi is perhaps most famous for his work on flow states, which is outlined here along with how educators can utilize this concept in classrooms:
Newport notes that a state of “flow generates happiness” and that “deep work is…well suited to generate a flow state” (85). Therefore, to increase satisfaction with work, educators may wish to find more opportunities for deep work, just as educational leaders may wish to remove/limit the many barriers that can get in the way. 
Related read: The Pedagogy of 'The Great British Bake Off'
It increases the ability to learn new things.
It is not uncommon to hear that “the educational system is broken” nor that someone would like to lead a new initiative but they “just don’t have the energy.” If we want to try new things, if we want to fix broken systems, then we have to have a capacity to learn new and hard things.
 
Newport notes that “to learn requires intense concentration” (34); yet, we often try to squish it into 10 minutes at the start of a staff meeting, 30 minutes of table conversation in a room where other groups are also talking, or 45 minutes of PLC session that is filled with interruptions by emails or visitors. But learning requires “deliberate practice”: attention “focused tightly on a specific skill you’re trying to improve or idea you’re trying to master” (35) for long periods of time.
 
The educational system we are working in right now needs change, but to learn and apply what is needed to make that change, we first must ensure there is time for deep work. 
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Related read: Finding Our Portals to Transcendence
It increases productivity.
Deep work pushes past that concept that being busy is being productive. “Doing lots of stuff in a viable manner” isn’t the aim (64). Instead, when deep work is embraced one identifies what tasks are most important and ensures they can be completed during periods of high concentration.
 
If one has “clarity about what matters” it then “provides clarity about what does not” (62), and knowing the difference allows one to focus on the work that will have the greatest impact. In turn, productivity—at least the productivity around what matters most—is enhanced.

3 Ways to Reclaim Time to Do Deep Work


Take control of your tasks.
Newport notes that the “key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and to add routines and rituals into your working life,” to “minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration” (100).
 
Some routines to try:
  • Batching your work, or scheduling like tasks together, can help with concentration. Batching “hard but important intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches” (39) allows focus to be sustained when it’s needed most. Likewise, batching together smaller tasks, like replying to emails or phone messages, allows those smaller, distracting items to be checked off so they will not pull attention away from more important tasks.
  • Schedule your day. “Divide the hours of your workday into blocks and assign activities” to each block (223). By using Newport’s recommendations, but altering them to work for educators, such a schedule might look something like this:
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  • Shutdown work at the end of the day. Newport notes that “a strict shutdown ritual that you use at the end of the workday” is beneficial and that those interested in doing more deep work should craft “a series of steps you always conduct one after the other” (151). This might look like, at the end of every workday, (1) doing a final check of email, (2) straightening up your desktop, (3) grabbing your empty lunch bag, (4) verbally saying “done” and then (5) shutting off the classroom lights and locking the door. This creates an opportunity for your work-brain to turn off since incomplete tasks can dominate our attention, but “we don’t need to complete a task to get it off our minds;” rather, we simply need to “make a plan” for how it will be completed later (152-153).
Related read: Finding the Collaboration Balance
Limit distractions.
Some of what Newport suggests when it comes to limiting distractions doesn’t fit in education. For instance, as much as I would love to try his “Don’t Respond” method for dealing with email, I don’t think that would go over well with the staff, parents, students, and community members who email me frequently. Nonetheless, here are some ideas to do work in the education field:

  • Turn off email notifications during prep hours. For me, it’s the *da-ding* noise of each email hitting my inbox that distracts me, so I mute my computer when I’m doing deep work. I also turn my cellphone on to its “do not disturb” setting during the workday.
  • Come in early/stay late a few days a week. Since school days are filled with distractions, consider batching tasks that need focus into times when students and colleagues are less likely to interrupt. This could also look like a half-day that you work from home on the weekends. However, be careful not to do this too often: you need down time too (see “Build capacity for future focus” below).
  • Work outside of your classroom/office: make yourself harder to find. Personally, I love that “coffeehouse feel” I can get in the secondary Media Center, so if I need to really dig into a task, I simply leave my office and make it harder for interruptions to find me, while still knowing if it’s an emergency someone will track me down. 
  • Lock your door, maybe even add a note that says something like, “from 'X' time to 'Y' time I am unavailable because I am focusing intently on providing students with quality feedback, planning engaging lessons built on best practices, or doing a deep dive into what research says will make my students learning experiences more valuable. If this is an emergency, please    ; otherwise, please stop by later or send me an email.”
 
I know there are those who might scoff at some of these suggestions, usually with the argument that we need to be available for our students at all times. While that may be true in some cases, for most of us setting and sharing boundaries like these is a way to teach students time management as well as a way to model the importance of focused work. Setting boundaries lets us become even more available for students in those times when we are not engaged in deep work: these boundaries allow us to be more focused while working with students, as we know our other tasks have already been, or are scheduled to be, completed.
Related read: We Are the Leaders We Seek
Build capacity for future focus.
Perhaps this is the most counterintuitive of the ways to reclaim time and embrace deep work. To focus deeply, one must also have time allotted for boredom, reflection, meditation, and creativity: this is the yin that balances out the yang of deep work.
 
In Deep Work, Newport notes that he doesn’t “work at night and rarely on weekends;” yet, during the fall of 2011 to the fall of 2014 he published 20 peer-reviewed articles, won two highly competitive grants, published a book and wrote the bulk of another all while being a full-time professor at Georgetown. His ability to sequester work to Monday through Friday, and to finish each day by 5:30 PM, actually provided him with stronger focus; knowing he had limited time enhanced his productivity and allowed him, upon getting home, to be more present as a spouse and father.
Some ideas for reclaiming the downtown needed to do deep work while at work:
  • Say no to requests that don’t align with the deep work you are already doing or planning to do.
  • Do work at work by using some of the strategies outlined above. Leave your to-be-graded pile on your desk, keep your laptop at school, and end your day with a clear plan for tomorrow. This allows downtime to begin the moment you leave work until the moment you return.
  • Stay off Social Media, which can pull you back into thoughts of work. A simple post by a coworker, or a shared article about teaching, can have your brain back at work in no time. Instead, allow yourself a small window to engage on social media, if you must engage at all.
  • Schedule downtime by taking an art class, signing up for a yoga class, or meeting a friend for coffee.
Related read: Focusing on Our Students Requires Focusing First on Ourselves

By putting into practice some of what Cal Newport recommends, we might be able to make educational change happen faster and achieve more ideal outcomes. Whereas, as Henry Ford is attributed with saying: "if we keep doing what we have always done, we will always get what we have always gotten."
Now, with all of that said, I have just spent two hours doing deep work by focusing on this article (awesome!)—but I did it on a weekend (not so awesome​)… So, that is a change I will need to make going forward.

​In honor of my own suggestions above, I am now going to turn off this laptop and take a nice long soak in a warm bath so I can better focus on work when I arrive back at school on Monday.

Heather M. F. Lyke is the Director of Teaching & Learning for Dover-Eyota Schools and author of numerous articles focusing on quality education.

Seeking Certainty in This Absurd Existence

1/30/2022

 
​by Julie Brock
February is the longest month in Minnesota. The snow and cold have settled in. Cold has nestled deep into marrow and snow is a welcomed relief to cover the dirt and sludge covering the roads and—if we’re honest—our hearts. 
On the wind in February
snowflakes float still.
Half inclined to turn to rain,
nipping, dripping, chill.”


​--
Christina Rossetti, "A Year's Windfalls"
It is the same routine. Start the car, scrape the windshield, drive to your destination seeing your breath hang around your head the entire way, and maybe--if you are lucky--the car warmed up by the time you get there. It's a grind, even for the most optimistic.
 
Add “the beginning of the end” for high school seniors and it is fertile soil for teaching absurdism and existentialism. Welcome, young friends, to the existential crisis season for 12th graders. Although many have pronounced their plans for all their peers to hear, the confidence behind the bravado is small, infinitesimal, in fact. And the questions seep in as they hear the choir around them sing of their collective, positive plans. Some are questioning their early action to college. Others are digging their heels in and fighting against the idea of any more school. Others are looking abroad at a gap year and others are gearing for military. All are trying to have conviction about their choices, but the Ides of March are near, and the tides start to turn in February.

​Absurdism results from the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning and the inability to do so with certainty. Albert Camus, a French absurdist philosopher, believed individuals should embrace the absurd condition of human existence and then gave characters to challenge our inability to do so.
Related reads: Confidence, Pubs, and Finding a Place
Absurdism? It is a literary genre? Are you serious? All great questions I’d greet with a smirk.

​I’d start class with a series of questions:
  • Isn’t it absurd that we are just tiny beings living on a rock hanging in space?
  • Isn’t it absurd that the only thing keeping us alive are the conditions created by the exact distance and orbit from the sun?
  • Isn’t absurd that the sun is a dying star?
  • Isn’t it absurd that the universe is infinite and there is no way for us to know what else is out there?

Small blinks from eyes followed by silent contemplation, then discomfort.
Camus’s The Stranger was the cornerstone to the Existentialism Unit I used to teach. Meursault became the unsettling presence for many students. They were confronted with a character who planned nothing, who was connected to nothing, and had no cares for what others thought about him. He had needs, and he filled them. That’s it. No more, no less. When he shoots the man on the beach the prosecution asks him for his motive, and he says the sun was in his eyes.
 
This outraged every class. How can that be? No one shoots someone because the sun was in his eyes. There must be more!

But there isn’t.
Related read: Meandering Through the Messy Middle, Searching for Solid Ground
​The acceptance of life as a series of choices is one that is hard for my February friends to grasp during their own crackling façade of identity. Who am I really? What am I really? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?
 
42.
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Pushed in class to consider the idea that there is no one answer to any of these probing questions, and that the truest answer is in the recesses of their DNA, happy in the shadows of self is one thing; contemplating it in the second year of a global pandemic is another.
 
Transition from high school into what comes next is a big milestone in one’s journey. Doing that under the shifting sands of COVID-19 is exhausting at best and damaging at worst. Conscious or not, these young adults have built up expectations and stories following the close of their high school chapter. To do that without any true knowns pushes them off their axis and the world cannot turn without glitching. It doesn’t feel stable.

Absurdism pushes on the construct of certainty. How can we be certain of anything other than the breath that enters in and out of our lungs? And even that is not a guarantee. Existentialism asks the questions, “What else is there than existence?” and “What else is there to existence than the choice we make now, now, or now?”  
Related read: On the Joy of Discomfort
Watching eighteen-year-olds grapple with the idea that their life is a series of choices and even the best laid plan may not work brings both anxiety and relief. Collectively, there is nervous laughter as they contemplate how much energy they have poured into the future without a thought to what happens when they walk out the door when the bell rings.
 
Isn’t it absurd that when you walk out the door you will make a decision, turn right or turn left, and that decision will lead to a series of choices that will ultimately lead you to your next destination? 

​Juile Brock has worked in the world of education for a few decades now and currently is the Assistant Director of licensure, accreditation, & assessment  for WSU's College of Education. Find our more about her on her website.

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