What Makes You Smile? | Hooray for Monday - Center for Inspired Teaching

December 13, 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.

This past week I got to engage online with the smiling faces of teachers from around the region and around the world. We came together to experience, and learn about, laughter, something I’ve written about in the past.

Participants included kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high school teachers, including a teacher from Saudi Arabia who was so eager to experience laughter with us that he joined us from 3:00 – 5:00am local time before starting his school day!

At the beginning of the session, each participant received, via private chat, a secret partner for an activity called Finding Smiles. The directions were: throughout the session, pay attention to your secret partner, notice something they do, or something about them that makes you smile.

As always, we engaged in improvisation-based learning including:

Two Minutes of Smiles – in which we spent two minutes in silence communicating with each other only through smiles.
Gifts of Joy – we gave each other imaginary joy-inducing gifts and shared how we would use them.
No Laughing Matter – we played with humor through absurdity as partners came up with increasingly outlandish examples of how difficult a day can be.
A discussion of what makes something funny and what makes us laugh. (One participant said, “Puns, farts and poop are my students’ most popular forms of humor. I like being with them in a setting where I don’t have to shut that down and pretend that body functions aren’t funny.”)

At the end of the evening, everyone was invited to reveal the name of their secret partner, and to share something about that person that had evoked a smile. Observations included “You had a generous way of giving your smile to others,” “Your comment about the relationship between laughter and trust has really stuck with me,” and “I loved the look of genuine surprise on your face when you unwrapped the imaginary six-foot wooden camel!”

This simple activity, which works at least as well in person as it does online, is a powerful way of building community. Sometimes, during conventional PD sessions, teachers are invited to give a compliment to a colleague. That direction generally results in something like, “I love your sweater,” or “You’re always friendly.” Sharing compliments has the same intention as the Finding Smiles activity, but producing compliments on demand can feel forced and generic. Finding Smiles focuses our observation on the how and the why, which elevates both the giver and receiver of feedback.

Try it this week and see what happens! Look for things people do that make you smile, and let them know they’ve brought you joy. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself smiling more than usual. When we focus our attention, we get better at seeing what we’re looking for.

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.