Hooray For Monday: Hitting the November Slump Early

By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President, Center for Inspired Teaching

Hooray for Monday is a weekly blog filled with questions, ideas, reflections, and actions we can all take to remodel the school experience for students.

When I was teaching sixth grade, I remember starting the year filled with excitement, and what seemed like an endless stockpile of lesson plans and ideas. August and September were devoted to community building exercises, introductory explorations of topics we’d dive into later, and goal setting for the year. In October we built on the groundwork we’d laid in the first six weeks, and things really got moving. And then November hit. Somehow the seemingly endless lesson ideas would run out, the energy we’d built would diminish, and my stamina would start to drain – with Thanksgiving and the December holidays feeling far away.

During this extraordinary 2020-2021 school year, many of my teaching colleagues are hitting this point of exhaustion now, in mid-October. We started the year with a sense of novelty as we built classroom communities for the first time in this new reality. Whether the novelty of the start of the year was filled with excitement or dread, or both, that newness is wearing off now. The challenges of online and hybrid learning are stretching our creative thinking and problem solving skills to the max. One teaching colleague recently shared that she is experiencing migraines for the first time in her life due to too much screen time. Another says he is starting physical therapy to address spine compression he’s experiencing from too much sitting. Another has to change masks throughout the day because she keeps sweating through them. Many of us are still experiencing a steep technology learning curve as we navigate the new and changing tools that connect us to our students and to one another. For many of us, these are not the conditions that inspire creativity.

So now what?

Pause for a moment and really listen to and observe your students. Notice what they are telling you – with their words and actions. These three reflection questions can help guide this process:

What do my students need?
What are my students interested in learning, and in doing?
Are there opportunities for leadership I can offer them?

The answers can be big (1-love; 2-getting out the vote; 3-student-facilitated lessons) or small (1-twenty jumping jacks; 2-going outside to collect fall leaves; 3-let students take attendance). Either way, the act of observing and listening to students will offer valuable insights, and maybe even some inspiration.

Finding answers to these core questions can be difficult if you’re teaching exclusively online. If your students keep their cameras off and primarily communicate through chat, you’re not able to observe with all of your senses. But a survey built around these questions might be very revealing and to the extent you can find time for individual or small group conferences you can glean a lot from a focused conversation.

You can also weave these questions into your daily whole-class instruction. They can be presented as part of a warm up, or connected to specific content/curricular goals, i.e.

Given what you already know about solving single-variable algebraic equations, what do you need right now to be able to solve a two-variable algebraic equation?
Now that you’ve completed your project on Jacob Lawrence’s Great Migration series, what are you interested in learning next about the experience of Black Washingtonians who came to our city from the South?
Would you like to lead the first part of our class discussion on Act II of Macbeth? What kind of support would you like from me to prepare you to lead that discussion?

Student responses – joyful or otherwise – will offer useful information about where to go next.

Part of what makes this time of year so difficult is that demands on teachers often feel like they pull us away from the biggest source of joy in our profession: our students. And the unique challenges of this school year already made connecting with our students more difficult. But see what happens when you ask these questions of yourself, and your students. There are likely seeds of inspiration to be found in the answers.

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Outreach Coordinator

As the Outreach Coordinator, Brady helps maintain Inspired Teaching’s social media presence and supports the organization’s mission to connect with DC community leaders, educators, and parents. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.