Welcome Back and May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor.
As we take time to get to know our new students, this is perfect time of year to reflect on grit and a growth mindset. Not only do we want to foster grit and a growth mindset in our students but we want to make sure we too have grit and a growth mindset.
If you begin to see concerns arise with a student this is the time to have a growth mindset.
As challenge after challenge arises, this is a the time to have grit.
When you Google grit, you will read that grit is defined as having passion and perseverance for long term goals.
Google goes on to breakdown the two components of grit, passion and perseverance.
Passion is defined as, a deep unwavering commitment and long-term interest in a specific goal or direction.
Perseverance is defined as, working hard and pushing though challenges, setbacks or failures without giving up.
The psychologist Angela Duckworth is one of the leading researchers on grit. She has studied a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and education level. She states that the most powerful and driving force for success if not intelligence, but grit.
We need to have grit when we are presented with a challenging student.
We need to instill grit to help our students not give up and to choose to try over and over again, even when something is difficult.
The psychologist Carol Dweck has long been the one to turn to regarding growth mindsets. If you watch enough videos of Angela Duckworth she will reference Carlo Dweck and connect grit and growth mindset.
A growth mindset is defined as, the belief that your basic abilities, intelligence, and talents can be developed and improved over time through hard work, effective strategies, and support.
The ability our students come into school with does not have the be the ability they leave with at the end of their time at Fortis.
Grit and Growth Mindset work hand in hand to propel our students forward with confidence.
I encourage you to take some time this first month of school to think about your own grit and growth mindset. Take some time to consider how you see your students. Do you believe they can succeed? What is your growth mindset for them? Can you show them grit to help them gain grit?
When I worked doing in-home crisis social work we were always told, you do not know which families are hopeless. This was to instill the mindset that we should never see a family as hopeless. I believe this applies to our students and connects well with grit and growth mindset. Our students are not hopeless, they can gain grit, and everyone has the ability to have a growth mindset.
Let's continue our preparation for a mindful summer.
This week we are focusing on ourselves. The last couple of weeks we had activities for our students to help them reflect on the year and prepare for a mindful summer. This week we need to take some time for us.
Engage in self-care.
I have create two Summer Mindful BINGO sheets. They are full of ideas to keep us in the moment and be mindful.
Print a bingo board or two and see how many bingos you can get over the summer. Set goals and rewards for yourself.
Reward Ideas:
Go out for ice cream.
Spa day.
Have a drink of choice. 😉
Allow yourself to take a day off from cooking. Order food. Go out to a restaurant.
Go out for coffee with a friend.
Find something fun and positive.
Over the summer it is important to rest, reset and recharge to be ready for the fall.
Making sure we have a mindful summer helps us with our own lives but also helps us with our students. In the fall we can share the ways we made sure we were mindful over the summer. We can encourage mindful behavior by sharing our own mindful behavior.
To follow last week's blog, we have another worksheet we can use to be mindful as the school year closes out.
Last week we had the Rose, Thorn, and Bud, to reflect on success, struggles, and desired growth. This week we are going to think about how to plan a mindful summer.
Below is a link to three versions of a worksheet. One is a clean and simple version, for our students that like minimal distractions, and other two are fun and inspirational.
Our Mindful Summer Vision Board is a fun activity to help students plan out a positive and mindful summer.
The board has spots for; people they might see (or want to see), foods they want to eat, mindfulness they can do, new things they want to try, places they might go, goal to accomplish, and a free space to share anything planned for summer.
I find that when I ask students about summer I get a lot of, "I don't know" or "play on my phone/tablet/video games."
Not all parents are around in the summer. Not all parents encourage activity, reading, outside time, mindfulness, and exploration. For a lot of children summer is spending time sleeping in, staying up late, and playing endless hours of video games.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics on average children spend nearly 8 hours a day on screens. In contrast children only spend 4-7 minutes a day outside.
We can help our students think about things to do over the summer and encourage them to explore screen free, outdoor activities.
The sad reality is, our students have been handed screens too young and are often not encouraged to do much of anything else. We need to be a force for good and encourage them to pick up a book, ride a bike, draw with sidewalk chalk, run through a sprinkler, go on walk, spend time outside taking deep breaths, watch nature, etc.
We need to spark an idea. We need to help our students see summer in a different light, preferably the sunlight not the light of a screen.
In the free space we could encourage them to think about what time they will go to sleep and wake up. We could encourage them to set a summer reading goal. If you aren't familiar with the Ypsilanti libraries they do a summer reading program with lots of fun rewards. Barns and Noble also has a summer reading program that encourages reading with rewards or stickers and a free book.
Take some time during these last few weeks and explore a mindful summer vision board with your students. Encourage positive, mindful habits to help prepare them for the next school year.
The end of the year wrap up is a busy time of year. Testing, field trips, park days, field day, and on and on. It is easy to forget to set aside mindfulness time.
A great end of the year mindfulness wrap up can be the exercise, Mindful Reflections.
This mindfulness can be done any time of year but I have taken the original idea and tweaked it to fit for an end of the year mindfulness activity.
The worksheet linked above is a reflection sheet using the ideas of a Rose, a Thorn, and a Bud.
The Rose represents a success. It is a way you have grown (like the rose).
The Thorn represents a challenge. It is something that you struggled with (the pokey thorn).
The Bud is an idea for the future. It is the opportunity to plan for growth (the growing bud).
This could be a great opportunity to connect with your students. Give them suggestions for highlights, even take the time to reflect on the struggles with them, and of course inspire the future.
It's never too late to connect with your students. Share your Rose, Thorn, and Bud.
This week's mindfulness is quick, but it is not easy.
Watch the two short videos below. Then, give it a try.
Don't give up.
These hand games would make great brain breaks. It is a great brain exercise that is active, new, challenging, and will engage your students.
Take a break from hard work or after testing for some challenging but entertaining hand games.
Hype it up.
Show the students you attempting to do the games.
Laugh as you fail (laughter is also good for the brain) and enjoy the challenge.
Before starting this with your students take some time to talk about:
1. Not giving up
2. Keep trying when things are difficult
3. Failing happens to everyone
4. Keeping a positive and fun view of trying something new
There is a good chance you will see me doing this with students. In fact this might be my mindfulness for next week's groups.
Not only can these activities be fun but they have benefits for the brain.
A study conducted over the course of 2015-2016 found that participants who engaged in hand games, such as in our videos, had improved cognitive function.
Brain games are a great mindfulness. This type of brain engagement forces you into the present and takes all of your attention. You have to pay close attention to your fingers.
I would love to hear how this goes for your classroom. I'd love to see you in action! Let's give it a go!!
In the video above we are reminded that our brains want to react rather than respond. We have to actively teach our brains to slow down (do not react), take a mindful pause, and then respond thoughtfully.
In the video we learn that we can pause and notice what is going on and what we feel. We can take time to name it. Then we create the gap. We create space to think and feel and work out what we want to happen next. Then we choose our move. How do we respond? What do we do next?
Have you ever noticed a student explode their emotions all over you and the class? In turn you may want to react just as large, perhaps you did. Our students do not yet have the skills needed to pause and think. We need to teach them the process. We first need to teach them the process by engaging in the process ourselves.
All emotions are valid.
All emotions are acceptable.
Sometimes our emotions take control and our behavior become out of control. Out of control behavior is not acceptable.
We need a mindful pause.
One mindful pause is to Stop, Breathe, Think, and then Choose.
We can also use the acronym STOP.
S: Stop
T: Take a deep breath: This is long slow and sometimes multiple breaths
O: Observe ( what is going on around you and inside of you)
P: Proceed: What helpful choice will make the feeling or situation better?
If we begin to practice STOP or follow the suggestions from our video we will give our brains and bodies time to sync up and make wise choices.
If we begin to practice theses techniques we will become good at them and we will be calm and ready to help our students learn and use the skills.
We need a calm brain before we can have a brain that reasons well.
I encourage us all to work to STOP and teach our students to do the same.
