Real failure would be stopping. Completely. No work, no output, no input, no consumption. - NWM Personalized Learning Summit Success We’ve been preparing for the summit for a few months now. They did it! It was such a pleasure to see students have the opportunity to gather together and share what they know with each other. The event was busy, like festival where you know you are always missing something and you just have to choose where to be and commit to it. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, our bus driver was wonderful, Karen Lieberman, Kim McKellar and handful of CBL, Branching Out and Alt-Path students joined in on the fun. About 100 students from seven different schools came together for the first time. It doesn’t get much better than being a part of building a community of engaged, happy, independent learners.
Ben T. Matchstick came in during lunch to talk about his progress creating Pin Box 3000 with his business partner Pete Talbot. He spoke about the path he has traveled in creating this cardboard, gravity powered, pinball machine. I was there for some of his early explorations as they often appeared at Langdon Street Cafe when I moved to Montpelier ten years ago. From then to now - he’s manufacturing thousands of these games for people all over the world. The road to this kind of success, he says, has not been and never will be a straight line. There are always ups and downs (for those of you at Conor’s exhibition you’ll recall that he shared the same sentiment) and that when you have a big dream, you are going to encounter a big obstacle. There seems to be consistency in highs and lows both improving over time. Pretty soon your low point was your previous high point. Your ability to reach that dream despite adversity depends on many factors, but perseverance is certainly one of them. Observations from the learning summit on Friday:
Circle Back Let me remind you how this experience was a great demonstration of the circle of courage. I observed a great balance of the four points, belonging, independence, mastery, and generosity, at the summit. I keep coming back to this wisdom and find it showing up in many places. Recently, I started a course where I will be learning how to foster resilience and create trauma informed school communities. The circle of courage is there too. A balance between these four things is essential for growth, as growth requires being brave enough to try something new. I remind you of this in case you find yourself stuck. Ask yourself these kinds of questions: Have I really dug in and learned more about this topic? Have I reached out to others and found a community of people that care about this too? Have I reflected on my needs and advocated for them? Have I given back? Shared my learning experience with others?
0 Comments
During Exhibition Weeks Wow. We tried to spread exhibitions over three weeks but we ended up with 12 out of 16 of them in the last week. If feels like I haven’t meet with people for regular meetings in so long (and it has been since last year!). I am very pleased with the results of this cycle of presentations and looking forward to what unfolds as the days grow longer. I hope you’re making good use of the 9 hours and nine minutes of daylight today. Attending exhibitions has been extra special for me this year. Yes, this is the seventh year of the Pilot program and I believe that I have attended more than 300 exhibitions. Being that I am all in now, the stakes have risen for me. I am not squeezing in these presentations in the middle of preparing for the art show (which looks amazing by the way!), and grading and considering the work of all my other fifty students. This is it for me. I can tell that it’s making a difference in my ability to focus on this work, and therefore you are all are doing better too. Everyone showed up, was very present and honest with their work, and demonstrated where they are at and where they are going. Amazingly enough, I am the only person that cried this exhibition round! And it was for joy! Congratulations everyone. You are all exactly where you need to be and you are primed to step forward. Trust that and go! Recalling Aphrodite’s Cloud In 2012 I began contributing to TGIF. Chris gave me a column that we called Aphrodite’s Cloud and I wrote some insights from my early days in independent learning land. Here is the entry from the 19th of January in 2012. [Insert Pilot student’s name here] and I have found ourselves in the woods stoking the same fire. Through their Pilot study, they feel as though the line between school and life has vanished. I continue into the second semester of this school year with the intention to continue to blur the line between my life as an artist and my life as a teacher. [Insert Pilot student’s name here]’s study is a clear example of how rich and fulfilling it can be into integrate what you love into what you do, every day. As we gather the kindling that will provide the heat that makes the second semester start ablaze… remember. We choose what goes into the fire. The warmth that emanates has the power to change those around us. xo aphrodite I know, I keep writing about what happened in the past. Do you see how it’s not really in the past though? The foundation of learning this way doesn’t ever really change because it is in its purest form and it is really simple. Find something that you love. Love it to the point where you can feel it in your body, kind of love. You will then be inclined to find a way to know more about it: you’ll read, find and talk to people that care about the same thing, write about it, listen to an interviews, watch a films, make a drawings. You get the idea. Good learning requires passion, people, and perseverance. When you care, you are more likely to show up. When you care, you are less likely to give up. Keep doing this. Feedback! To and From Pilot Students If you haven’t already, you will be receiving a mid-year feedback form from me in your inbox very soon. By Tuesday at the latest. I will be asking you to reflect on this response to your work in our next advisor meeting, so read it, and if it gives you any insight about how to move forward, make note of it. Also I would like to hear from you about how I am doing. Mid-year feedback is really helpful to me because I can try implementing it right away and not forget about it as I swim the summer away. Please fill out this form at your earliest convenience: Pilot Advisors Mid-Year Feedback Spoiler Alert - we will be talking about this next part in Seminar on Wednesday. Band one now, 8:15. Call me crazy to drive to Portsmouth on Monday night to see Alex Cameron. But I am in my mid-30s and I don’t have children so I guess it is a luxury I can afford. And sleeping only 4 hours on Monday night during a big exhibition week when I am already kind of sick? It was absolutely worth it. Alex Cameron is on tour for his second record Forced Witness and the show was incredible. The dance moves that man creates in his 32” by 37” inch Levi’s are so majestic-elastic. He is exquisitely tall. I read the label on his black jeans standing in the front row. After the show, I had the good fortune to meet him. I shook his hand and said, “It’s nice to meet you, I am Amy. I really appreciate the work you’re making so much. Thank you for making it”. To which he replied, “You’re welcome. You know, I really think about it all the time, it’s really important to me.” I responded, “You know, I can tell.” We talked about the way that he writes about his projects, which he says, happens when the album is complete. I praised him in particular for what he wrote about Jumping the Shark, his first record. I told him that I was going to share these paragraphs (below) with my students because I often talk about the importance of thinking about failure differently, as part of the learning process. Think about this. More to come on Wednesday. My name is Alex Cameron and I won't waste your time. When you're talking about me and my business partner, Roy Molloy, you're talking about the online cowboys in the wild-west days of the World Wide Web. And if you want to know what we're really about just look at all the things you wish you'd done differently. All the things you stopped yourself from doing on account of the fear of failure, or rejection. Weigh that up against your ambitions. Think about your work ethic. We're reclaiming failure as an act of progress. An act of learning. Something to celebrate. A word's meaning can change depending on who utters the thing; and so we present characters - shapes are morphed and stories are delivered. This is a collection of 4-minute tales written to provide you with insight into the inner workings of failed ambitions and self-destruction. Unedited, uncensored, and without inhibition. I've learned to reveal what I want to unlearn. I cast a light on the darkness and in doing so understand love and compassion. Fear is to be confronted, and to learn strictly requires failure - over and over. Celebrate failure with 'Jumping the Shark' . Yes, he did say he wished he could have done the Pilot program when he was in high school. He meant it. More on that later too. That's enough for now. And if you've read this far you deserve a prize. Have a great long weekend. Congratulations again, we’re halfway through the year! Be well, amyK |
Categories |