Time Traveling: Hooray for Monday - Center for Inspired Teaching

August 9, 2021

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.

As the summer starts to wind down and we begin gearing up for the fall, now is a good time to squeeze in a vacation, one final trip before the school year begins. So, where would you like to go? The Canadian Rockies? The Bahamas? Outer space? And when would you like to go? Today? The nineteenth-century? The 22nd century?

To get there, you won’t need to borrow a spaceship from Richard Branson, Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos. You won’t even need Doctor Who’s TARDIS.

All you need is your mind.

According to popular science author Steven Johnson, a key factor that separates humans from other animals is our ability to analyze the past and contemplate the future.

I first learned about Steven Johnson’s work from my favorite podcast Clear+Vivid, hosted by the world’s greatest communicator, Alan Alda. Like all of Alan Alda’s guests, Steven Johnson opened my mind to new ways of understanding myself and others.

Johnson describes a scenario familiar to us all: walking your dog, or simply going for a walk, and allowing your mind to wander… Perhaps you recall a stressful meeting you had with a colleague last week, or look forward to a fun family reunion coming up next week, or run through the science experiment you’re planning to engage in with your students at the start of the school year. As your wandering mind envisions each scenario, it is traveling to different places and different times. You may find yourself traveling from the faculty lounge with your colleague four days ago, to the beach with your family next week, to your classroom with your students in late August. Your powerful human mind is traveling through space and time, even as your body is traversing the sidewalk near your home. And with each stop on your mental journey, you’re likely to experience emotions, sometimes strong ones. You may feel upset and tense as your mind visits the faculty lounge and you recall a terse exchange; you may feel joyful as you see yourself at the beach, and imagine hugging your cousin after a long time apart; perhaps you’re both excited and anxious as your picture yourself in your classroom learning together with your students.

When we don’t have something specific to do or think about, research shows that our brains are at least as active as when we do. According to Johnson, when your brain time travels, “you’ve moved seamlessly from actual events to imagined ones. And as you’ve navigated through time, your brain and body’s emotional system has generated distinct responses to each situation, real and imagined. The whole sequence is a master class in temporal gymnastics. In these moments of unstructured thinking, our minds dart back and forth between past and future, like a film editor scrubbing through the frames of a movie.”

We can time travel as we think about real events, like the ones described above. And we can travel even further when we daydream about visiting places that exist only in our imaginations. Exercising our brain’s time-traveling ability does even more than offer us late summer vacations. It’s a critical skill for learning.

As Johnson explains, referencing the work of several neuroscientists in the past two decades, “The seemingly trivial activity of mind-wandering is now believed to play a central role in the brain’s ‘deep learning,’ the mind’s sifting through past experiences, imagining future prospects and assessing them with emotional judgments: that flash of shame or pride or anxiety that each scenario elicits.” He goes on to point out that, as the presence of smartphones, social media, and new forms of artificial intelligence continues to increase in our lives, the ability to engage in prospection, to look to the future, and make intentional, well-informed decisions, will be more important than ever.

When we ask students to make a prediction – about what might happen in the next step of a science experiment or the next chapter of a novel – we are inviting them to time travel into the future.
When we ask students to recall what they ate for breakfast and calculate the nutritional content they’ve consumed so far that day, we are inviting them to time travel to the past.
When we ask students to analyze letters from Washingtonians who were a part of the Great Migration and envision how the lives of Black Washingtonians may be different in a decade than they are today, we are challenging students to travel to the past and future simultaneously.
When we assign projects that require days and weeks of planning, research, and information gathering and organizing, we help students strengthen their prospection and time travel skills.
And when we offer our students unstructured time? Imagine where their amazing brains might travel then!

Which places, and times, have you traveled to so far this summer? Where, and when, will you go next? Mid-August is a perfect time to take a vacation and travel using the most powerful (and COVID-safe) vehicle available, your mind.

Bon voyage!

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.