You Can't be Joyful Yesterday | Hooray For Monday

July 10, 2023

By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President

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.

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Earlier this summer, Inspired Teaching launched our Teaching with Improvisation Institute, a yearlong fellowship for teachers in Washington, DC. We kicked off the program with a 3-day workshop in which teachers tiptoed, stepped, and then leaped outside of their comfort zones as they built their Intellect, Inquiry, Imagination, and Integrity — the same 4 I’s they will build in their students all year long.

The program is designed to teach a core group of Teacher Leaders so that they can teach their colleagues how to put joy at the center of the school experience for children and adults alike. One of the many discoveries teachers made during this Institute is that joy and rigor are not opposites. In fact, in the best of circumstances, they flow together.

During the 3-day institute, teachers tossed imaginary balls back and forth, dragged invisible bags of rocks up invisible mountains, and built human sculptures in response to the question, “What do you long for?”

All the while, teachers were dissecting the intricate rules of each activity. They worked hard – intellectually, emotionally, and physically. After each activity, teachers brainstormed answers to the question, “What skills did you need in order to engage in this activity?” Responses included: active listening; being fully present; being ready for anything; knowing how to pivot on a dime; empathy; vocabulary skills; math calculation; understanding of geometric concepts; being prepared for the unexpected; keen observation; awareness of what’s going on in all parts of the room; flexible thinking; and more.

Joy, one of Inspired Teaching’s 5 Core Elements, means students and teachers know they are valued, and feel a sense of belonging in school. It means students and teachers embrace an asset-based stance, and take pride in their work, including their work-in-progress. It means learners know their work is worthwhile.

Joy can be sparked by a special event – a dance performance or soccer game or camping trip. However, joy is also an important component of the everyday experience of teaching and learning. Joy can happen when a student gives something a try and experiences success. Sometimes learning doesn’t come easily; sometimes students have to try and fail and try again and again as part of the learning process. As long as the focus is on process and progress, that’s joy too.

According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience:

“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person’s capacity to act…The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile…For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.”

At the end of the three days, the Teacher Leaders offered reflections on their experience so far. Many spoke of the connection between joy and hard work. One teacher reflected, “You can’t be joyful yesterday,” pointing to the importance of being fully present for ourselves and our students, while simultaneously keeping our eyes on the goals and standards we’re striving to accomplish in the future.

In the weeks and months ahead, we will be sharing with our Hooray For Monday readers many of the tools created for and by our Teaching Fellows. For now, whether you are teaching in summer school or in a year-round school, or experiencing the rest of a summer break, I wish you the joy that comes with being fully immersed in the present.

What We’re Curious About

Each week a member of the Inspired Teaching community shares something that’s piquing their curiosity. Maybe it will spark yours too!

How can we use new technology to strengthen communities?
Brandon Kramer, DC-based documentary filmmaker

I’m curious about technology, social media, artificial intelligence, and all of these things that currently divide us, push us away from each other, and this isolation and loneliness epidemic that we’re currently going through. Can those same tools be used to bring us together and to strengthen communities and our relationships and connections to one another?

These are just tools — they’re not inherently good or bad. I think now they are mostly being perpetuated in ways that are pulling us away. But what if the designers, the architects, the social scientists, and the creatives that are at the helm of this technology were instead using it to bring us closer together?

Teacher Resources

Word-at-a-Time Stories

This improvisation-based activity challenges participants to be fully present – to listen attentively, to build upon their partner’s contributions, to track the sequence of events in an emerging story, and to build flexible thinking. Try it this summer with a friend, and then bring it to your students in the fall.

Listen to This Issue of Hooray For Monday

InspiredTeaching · May 22, 2023: Disrupting the Egg Carton

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.