3-2-1 Tuesdays with Ms Niv

Issue # 009, September 8, 2020

Are you aware how your mind reacts to loneliness, failure, rejection and understand how to practice emotional first aid? Have you considered making a supplies hub at home with the things that your children come to you most of the time for, that they can access without help from mom and dad? Check out the new playbook of Common Ground Collaborative Founding Director Kevin Bartlett who reimagines education such that everyone wins. Don’t miss listening to the lovely children’s action song “Chanaa kisne boyaa” with Sonal this time in and finally.

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Three Images For The Week

For Educator, Parent and Student. The Holy Trinity of eduction today.

Two Thoughts for The Week

 “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” Aristotle

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela

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One Video For The Week

Loneliness creates a deep psychological wound. It distorts our perceptions and scrambles our thinking. We sustain psychological injuries more often than we suffer physical ones. Injuries like failure, rejection, loneliness, despair. Injuries that get ‘infected’ worse, if we ignore them. Right? They can impact our present and future lives in a dramatic way. Oh you are feeling sad? Just shake it off! It is in your head. Even though we know of scientifically proven ways to address them. We don’t ask a person with a broken leg to walk it off! There is need to practice emotional first aid. Guy Winch tells us why.

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Guest column :

The game in question is ‘The Learning Game’ – not too far-fetched a metaphor for what goes on in schools. As we navigate through the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19, it seems that a lot of us are looking for a new playbook.

If we play with the metaphor, it’s not hard to see that for our students, in terms of lifelong impact, learning is really the only game in town. How odd then, that we never teach them how to play. Some students work it out and become, by the norms of schooling, the winners. Many don’t….and you know the rest.

Now let’s re-imagine learning as a game where every learner is a winner, which is the least they deserve and the least their parents expect.

Speaking of parents, learning is the only game where they are utterly excluded from the secret codes of the game. We say, ‘We need to educate our parents’, but we somehow don’t get round to it. Imagine how the game would be if parents were equipped as well-informed players.

Of course, in order to teach key aspects of the game to our students and parents, we’d have to understand it ourselves. We’d need a clear, common, communicable way of getting the game organized.

The Common Ground Collaborative (CGC) has spent the last 10 years doing just that. Moving learning and schooling from complexity to clarity, from compliance with things we don’t believe in to co-creation of things we do, from silos to systems. Moving to one connected Learning Ecosystem, in fact. Everything to do with learning, teaching and assessing simplified, synthesized, systematized.

As a methodology for this work, we used inquiry, puzzling away at the four essential questions that framed the challenge: Define: What Is Learning? Design: What’s Worth Learning and Why? Deliver: How Do We Build Learning Cultures? Demonstrate: How Do We Show What We’ve Learned? 4 D’s = 1 Learning Ecosystem.

Along the way we created a definition of the learning process that is clear and simple enough to drive the processes of teaching and assessing and to provide a shared learning language with students and parents, inviting them off the bleachers and into the game. Conceptual, competency and character learning; we are building experts in all three with clear, practical strategies.

We came up with a compelling answer to the Design Question, ‘What’s Worth Learning…and Why?’ with a Conceptual Map of learning organized under 6 Human Commonalities, shaping a connected Learning Matrix comprising Learning Modules driven by Compelling Questions. At the time of writing we have 70+ teachers worldwide co-authoring sample Learning Modules in multi-school teams in the CGC Home Hackathon. We include student voice and choice by inviting them to self-write Modules in response to the question, “What Would You Fight to Learn?”. We have tackled methodology by establishing shared Learning Principles and translating them into Learning and Teaching Practices, and developed simple, qualitative Self-Assessments for students.

We wrestled the learning design dilemmas to the ground one by one until we had the system completed and connected. As we did so, we were addressing, in advance, the issues that COVID19 has raised: the student who has to self-regulate overnight without the necessary competencies, the parent who goes from bewildered outsider to home educator in that same blink of an eye. The school that realizes that less had better be more because we can no longer even pretend to cover all this stuff. The need for a common language and shared principles to turn loose assemblages of people into true learning communities.

The whole picture of this work is now available in an unusual genre for learning work, a graphic novel entitled The Learning Playbook. For those who want to play with these ideas, get in touch. The CGC team is eager to share. These are tough times in the learning game but what better time to take a long, hard look at how we’ve been playing, and to build a radically different Playbook? kevin@thecgcproject.org

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Parent Speak :

Sarbani Das, a parent and a teacher.

Are you finding it tough managing your little Columbus always at home now? At times, managing remote work and a super active preschooler at home can be stressful and frustrating. But considering there is no other option, I would like to think positively and take this as a learning opportunity.

As a teacher, I have seen parents doing wonders in their child’s education and development. Presently, I am also trying to do my part efficiently and effectively. I do a lot of talking with my daughter. I tell her stories, ask her to use golden words whenever there is a need, and ask simple questions (like – Where are your shoes? Or how are you? Or what is your name? etc). I always encourage her to answer in full sentences.

Is only talking enough to manage a toddler at home? No.

I read books to her. I have seen she becomes super happy whenever she sees a new book. In fact, I have bought almost all the books of Eric Carle. And she is kind of obsessed with ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. If I am busy with something, she does picture reading. Sometimes, she asks me a lot of questions and I love to answer. We play, build things, and solve many picture puzzles together. Actually, I try to engage her in different activities to develop some of her 21st-century skills.

Do I always think positive? Don’t I get stressed or frustrated?

I am a human being and make my share of mistakes quite often. There comes the role of my super supportive family; without which I would have not got the strength and optimism to manage a super active toddler at home along with my work.

Student voice:

Pihu Sarraf, student of Grade 7

Online learning may be the “need of the hour” and the most practical option right now but never will it bring me that feeling – I felt going to school.

I often used to take school for granted. During these troubled times, I have understood the privilege that is associated with education. Learning about the importance of education makes me think way more highly of it than I did before. I have found myself not wanting to accept that I am no longer in Grade 6 which was without a doubt one of the best years of my life. In 6th grade, I learnt so much about hard work and feeling accomplished. Going to school in general, being on campus causes me to experience an indescribable roller coaster of emotions.

Going to school and being around my friends made me feel extremely satisfied. I had an uncontrollable smile painted on my face and laughed endlessly at absurd things throughout the day. I was genuinely very happy.

I miss climbing up the three flights of stairs to reach my classroom which I never thought I would. I miss doing the homework that I forgot last minute. I miss sharing my lunch with my friend and laughing my head off during that one hour break we got. I miss filling in my diary with the day’s homework. I understand that online learning has very well taken care of our minds, but what about our hearts?

Showcase:

(An Advertorial)

Team Fermata is hosting “Career Gym” conference 2020 with an objective of building awareness around lesser-known but lucrative career options that many families are not aware of.

In this Conference, we expect 14-24 years young adults and their parents, to shortlist and attend topics of their interest and topics you want to know more about. We shall be covering 21 career domains in extensive details via 19 very renowned practising career experts.

Students and parents can register and can interact with experts. In addition, we are offering a Free personalised career assessment report along with 30 minutes of FREE career counselling session with an expert, worth Rs 3000, as part of the registration costing only Rs 999.
In the past, we have worked and changed lives of 1000’s of students. A time during and post-COVID requires us to go an extra mile and help students become even clearer of their career choice. 
Shortlist your 10 best topics and block your time.
More about the conference, speakers and registration can be checked here:  http://fermata.co.in/event/career-gym-2020.html#
About Fermata: Fermata Consulting is a 12-year-old organization headquartered in Bangalore. The Career Counseling vertical is 3 years old and the team works with 13-30 years old young adults, helping them design/redesign their career path.
The team comprises of career counsellors, psychologists, mental health professionals and industry experts with an average experience of 25 years each.  The team has served clients in India and abroad.

And to register please click on this registration link –  https://imjo.in/vTSTG5

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And Finally

A delightful set of stories and songs from Sonal Chawda, a preschool expert and consultant. Happy teachers day once again. Hope you all had a great one with your colleagues and students, not to miss out on parents as well who have been co-teaching with teachers this year, more than ever. Enjoy!

If you have created any material, virtual or physical that you think can be reviewed and/or featured in this news letter, please feel free to write to me at : niveditamukerjee10@gmail.com

I have been a research scientist, a journalist and an educator for over 3 decades. I read and I write.  With this weekly newsletter, I intend to share what I read, learn and experience as I continue to engage everyday with students, parents and teams of teachers across K-12 schools, higher education institutions and ed-tech organisations.

3-2-1 Tuesdays with Ms Niv  is a newsletter for you to subscribe and enjoy your learning journey with me. Most of you would have been too busy to track trends in education, ponder on most relevant thoughts or deliberate on career choice, parenting or pedagogy. Find it all here. This week, it consists of:  3 images, 2 thoughts and 1 video.

For whom? Students, educators and parents

When? Every Tuesday

Where? my blog post, register with your e-mail id, it is free.

If you want to contribute an article, are organising an event, have a product that you think can be reviewed and/or featured in this news letter, please feel free to write to me at : niveditamukerjee10@gmail.com 

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