by Amit Sood (with a frame by the Third Eye Education writing team)

No question, this school year has started off like no other. On Third Eye Education alone, these last few months have been fodder for a handful articles rooted in frustration (see: You Have Learned Something/You Have Lost Something, Finding Our Portals to Transcendence, and We Are the Leaders We Seek). Add in the fact that many entered this year thinking it would be a ‘return to normal,’ and it can be a very hard pill to swallow.

When stuck in a situation (or a series of situations, to be honest) that is disquieting, it can be easy to dwell on the on the negative. When drowning in a glass that’s half empty, it’s hard to acknowledge that it’s also half full.  

Which is why here we lean on Amit Sood, who we’ve collaborated with before, to highlight (1) a way we can reengage students and (2) a way we can reengage ourselves. 

In January of 2021, Sood noted the following in his Dear Friend column, first published in the Rochester Post Bulletin:

To transfer this to the classroom, might it be possible to increase student engagement by increasing opportunities for students to use “I”?

• I felt this book was challenging because…
• I think this rubric wasn’t fair because…
• I turned this assignment in late because…

 
It doesn’t mean we can’t still push deeply into content:

• I felt this book was challenging because…might lead to ➡ and here are three examples from the text that highlight my point!
• I think this assignment too hard because… might lead to ➡ I still don’t understand how to use math mountain—can I use another way to get the answer?
• I turned this assignment in late because… might lead to ​➡ I don’t understand how this applies to the field I’m planning to go into. Does it apply? Can you show me?

In March of 2021, also in his Dear Friend column, Sood noted:

To transfer this to our educator selves, might it be possible to “Crowd [our] space with the antidotes — gratitude, compassion and forgiveness?

• I’m going to lose my prep hour to sub for a teacher out quarantining…might shift to:
  • …but this way at least I can meet the students who I’ll have in class next year. (gratitude)
  • …I hope he doesn’t actually end up getting Covid. (compassion)
  • …yet I’m not going to make do with the lack of sub notes considering he likely had to leave on short notice. (forgiveness)
• I can’t believe she used that racial slur…might be followed by:
  • …at least I have a strong relationship with her and we can talk about this. (gratitude)
  • …it hurts me to think she may be others who thinks that okay. (compassion)
  • …but I’m going forgive this instance of poor word choice now that we have discussed it and start fresh with her tomorrow.  (forgiveness)
• That email I just received really cut to the quick…might be followed by:
  • …yet, at least I know they’re engaged and passionate about this. (gratitude)
  • …I wonder what’s troubling them that they felt the need to be so curt and condescending (compassion)
  • …I’m going to share this with my principal to loop her in, and then just delete this so I can move forward. (forgiveness)

Perhaps we can use Amit Sood’s ideas as our life raft: two tools that might help us dry out and float. Once safely on a raft, our clothes no longer waterlogged, it may just be easier to see that the glass we’re floating in is also half full. 

​by Andy Johnsrud

The past 18 months of teaching have played out like the crazy “teacher dreams” many of us know too well.  But rather than showing up in our subconscious in the month of August, we lived it!  We all lived through what felt like a circus funhouse version of distance-hybrid-make-crap-up-as-you-dance-under-a-spotlight version of school.  The weirdness of the past 18 months also provided a sustained and sometimes brutal assessment of some of the most basic things I think I know and do as a teacher.  
 
We all struggled and got to see some things about our students and ourselves.  Sometimes that view could be truly harsh as it revealed my judgment, lack of control, feelings of inadequacy.  Sometimes that view was so very tender and revealed care, connection, empathy, and compassion with my fellow human beings of all ages.  Many times this sustained focus kicked my bum and left me so far past vulnerable that I didn’t always know if I had what it takes to do this job.  Note: none of these feelings were new--magnified and intensified, yes...but not new.   
 
The struggle and challenge of these past months can be wonderfully fertile soil for me to grow, both personally and professionally.  This is certainly not to be read as, “got things figured out now.  Check that off my list.”  This is the heart of our shared humanity and of being a teacher.
 
For me, acts of simple honesty to oneself and letting go of what we don’t control can help open a space.  In that space we may be able to bring our most open and authentic care to one’s self.  This is actually for the direct benefit of one’s students and their well-being beyond school, as well as for YOU.  
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A healthy mind-body system can be thought of as having both awareness and hope.  Getting to that hope requires action on my part.   This is not something we find in pedagogy nor plans nor assessment.  My own growth has been helped by daily mindful practices, including meditation.  
 
Pause for a moment to think of someone (teacher, parent, et al.) who had a profound impact for the better.  What are two-three words that describe this person?  It may be that those descriptors include terms that denote connection, limits, empathy, love and other traits.  More than anything I believe that children, as humans (!),  learn between the words and academics.  They learn through the feeling and presence of the adults in their lives.  This is another great hope--and a tremendous responsibility.  My nervous system matters in “regular times” or “pandemic times”--the way I show up matters and can be a gift or a detriment to my students and my classes.  This takes awareness and provides hope.  There is something I can do for myself that will benefit others.
 
Patricia Jennings' research shows us what we intuitively know and hear:  we actually TEACH better when we take care of our own nervous systems.  Anyone who has ever taught knows that when one kid is hyper or "off" or whatever, there's a domino effect in the class.  
 
Most of us are self-aware enough to know that that's true of our own regulation as well!  These both clearly affect the class. A well-regulated adult nervous system IS the intervention.  Simple.  Not magic. Not easy. Not instant.  It requires work over time.  Many people do this through mindfulness or meditation. ​

The psychologist and Pepperdine professor Louis Cozolino studies the social nature and adaptability of the human brain.  He has famously said that, “[w]e are not the survival of the fittest. We are the survival of the nurtured.”
 
Many of us know the misleading claim that Darwin’s ideas can be reduced to “survival of the fittest.” This is contrary to what I know as a teacher.  Teaching, learning, and nurturing are not a zero-sum game.  Rather, Cozolino reminds us that as we modern humans change and adapt we need social connection.  These connections are at the heart of what it is to be a good teacher, parent, person.  
 
A number of good teachers teach about the importance of caregivers taking good care of self first.  The notion of “survival of the nurtured” can reframe our work (and self-care!) as something we owe to our students for our benefit and their benefit.  The former is an act of caring for children because it gives foundation for the latter.  If the “bottom line” or “go-to” is always change/alter/fix, we risk missing a key opportunity for giving our kids what they truly need on a most basic human level.  
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We do lots to try to help kids cope and learn about life. Raising resilient kids who think for themselves is a paradox.  We know kids have to struggle, and hurt, and fall down, and make mistakes because they are human and this is how humans seem to learn best in the real world.  This is how we instinctively know kids need to make mistakes and need us to offer the time and space, within limits, to figure things out for themselves.
 
The petri dish of 18 really weird months of unexpected conditions gave us a chance to see how we might recast and reconsider what it is we really do daily as teachers.  This is a window, an opportunity to look at what I can really offer students as people.  Experience has taught me that showing up for my students directly and unguardedly is what I have to offer my students.  This is SO hard because we don’t want kids to suffer any more than possible--especially when the world turns upside down.  But when I do this I can start to share emotional regulation and offer calm and secure relationships to my kids.   This connection and relationships are basic human needs.   Just like we preach to our kids, adults need time and practice to develop skills, too.   Mindfulness is a tool for basic awareness.  Mindfulness can bring greater awareness to my conditions and reactions AND my students’ conditions and reactions.

It can be painfully clear that we have very little if any control over our students’ lives outside the schoolhouse doors.  The weirdness of the past 18 months has put an exclamation point on that for us: thank you very little COVID-19!  I think it has also exposed some of the “theatre” of school:  all the things we well-intentioned adult-teacher-types are going to “do” to “fix” kids to “learn” them what they need.  Now don’t get me wrong, systems, pedagogy, and curricular design are wonderful tools--just maybe not the magic fixes we quietly look for given the desperate conditions some of our kids and families face.   Throughout my teaching career, our responses have been driven nearly singularly by notions and ideas of improvement plans, curricular design, and top-down initiatives.  These are all fine...but, Maslow before Bloom is a cliche saying for very real and valid reasons.