I am excited to share with you a simple method I discovered for creating New Year’s goals. I have found that using this method, my goals are all exciting to me and yet attainable and relevant. It’s the first time my goals are not daunting.
Here’s how to do it: Start by noting down a few things you already did in 2011 that you consider an achievement. Maybe 8-10 items to start. Then for each achievement, ask yourself 3 questions. The answer to the third question becomes a new goal for 2012!
Here are the 3 questions:
Why was this (achievement) important?
What did I learn?
What could I do better?
I got the inspiration for the above from a workbook called Collapsing Infinity into a Point. After all was said and done, I got on a roll and kept asking “What could I do better?” and came up with 40 things “I could do better”. Then I looked them over, and noticed the recurring themes.
The recurring themes helped me articulate an overall Mission Statement for 2012 that all of these goals boil down to.
And then in true Consciousness-Based Education form, I elaborated on my Mission Statement, or Wholeness Statement, with 3 Main Points in 3 categories--what I want to be in: Mind, Body and Spirit.
So now my 2012 goals have a Wholeness Statement, a 3-Point Main Point chart, and then a list of 40 items!
Another way to look at this is in Education terms, is, I now have Goals, Standards, and a 40 point checklist for Accountability.
So in review: Think of what you already have done this year that is working, and ask yourself the three questions. Jot down the answer to the third question, which becomes your list of goals. Look over the list to figure out what all the goals have in common, and write your Mission or Wholeness Statement. Then flesh out your wholeness statement in 3 main points.
What I love about this process is that it is bottom-up instead of top-down. You are not imposing some arbitrary expectations or ambitions on yourself, you’re simply talking to yourself, finding out what you’re ALREADY doing right and you’re happy about. Then the questions help you dig deeper into why it’s been important to you, what you’ve learned and how you can now build it into something even greater. The result is figuring out what is the next right step.
Happy New Year and I wish you good luck with your New Year’s Goals!!!
Monday morning begins for an eleven year old, let’s call her Tia, as she starts her day sleep-deprived, navigating her way alone through 3 different modes of public transportation, spending about 90 minutes in city transit total before finally arriving at school, late again. Her clothing is stained and smelling, her hair unkempt, and her nails ungroomed with visible dirt underneath. Uncomfortably overweight, she slowly huffs and puffs as she makes the daily climb to the top of her 4 story school building, walking over a mouse scurrying over abandoned joints and discarded rotting food left in the stairwell.
She missed last Friday, and has no idea what the homework was or what the class is doing today. As she enters the class, her homeroom teacher Ms. Sanchez barks at her that she should go all the way back down to the main office to get a late pass and adds that if she does not bring a doctor’s note to explain her Friday absence, it will not be excused. Tia has never seen a doctor and can’t imagine where she would find one. She has so many unexcused absences, she is at risk of, ironically, being suspended. “Ms. Sanchez always be hating on me,” she mumbles as she hangs her head and does what she is told. By the time Tia makes her way back to class with the late pass, class is almost over.
She is hungry to the point that her stomach aches. The other students, who live in various levels of poverty, loudly complain about her appearance, her smell, her weight and her lateness. Lacking the energy to retaliate, she finds herself putting her head down as she dozes off.
This is the first time she has slept since the last time she and her mother found a couch to
sleep on. That was Saturday night. Tia and her mother went to her aunt’s place but were only able to sleep for a few hours. She was awoken when her aunt returned from the night shift and turned on the TV and started chain smoking in the small apartment. She nervously wonders where she might be sleeping tonight…
Tia’s story is not some tragic fiction, but it is on the milder end of the daily reality for approximately 1.35 million homeless children across the U.S. (Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov) Homeless kids may have it the worst, but even in the general population, half of all teenagers are getting only 7.5 hours of sleep per night, building enormous sleep debts. (Retrieved from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/interviews/carskadon.html#ixzz1gxB1JXNS)
It is also a problem for learning when significant numbers of inner-city students are coming to school without having eaten breakfast. We know from research that children who come to school having eaten breakfast are more likely to score higher on tests, and less likely to exhibit behavioral problems than children who come to school on an empty stomach. (Retrieved from http://www.letsmove.gov)
Government statistics show that “today, nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese. The numbers are even higher in African American and Hispanic communities, where nearly 40% of the children are overweight or obese.” (Retrieved from http://www.letsmove.gov)
Obesity is just one of many health complications that actually result from malnutrition—eating the wrong kinds of foods and sedentary lifestyle, both of which stem from lack of access to healthy food and opportunities for freedom of movement. The majority of children living in poverty, like Tia, are raised in single parent households, which are primarily headed by single mothers.
We cannot even imagine the kind of stress children must feel at school when they come in without their basic needs met. Once within the school walls, studies also show that a third of students are either perpetrators or victims of bullying.
Any educational reforms that do not address the deeper levels of the student experience, and work on alleviating the stress the students carry and working on dismantling the causes for their continued stress, will just be a “band-aid”.
This is why so many reforms that have been tried seem to be a good idea on paper, but then when they are implemented rarely have the desired effects. They are mostly operating on the surface level and don’t have the scope to address the big picture. As educational consultant Jamie Vollmer summarizes,
We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.
Vollmer, J. (2002) Retrieved from http://www.jamievollmer.com/blueberries.html
For education to change, society must change. Yet at the same time, for society to change, people must be educated differently. The challenge is, until students’ basic needs are addressed, how can students be ready to learn? How will students like Tia benefit from innovations and improvements that experts can contribute to public education? As educational leader Diane Ravitch says,
If our schools had an excellent curriculum, appropriate assessments, and well-educated teachers, we would be way ahead of where we are now in renewing our school system. But even that would not be enough to make our schools all that they should be. Schools do not exist in isolation. They are part of the larger society. Schooling requires the active participation of many, including students, families, public officials, local organizations, and the larger community. (Ravitch, 2010, page 239)
There are many school reforms that seem logical and promising but cannot be effective without a strong network of other positive factors that promote and sustain positive change in the students and the community. With this in mind, my final project for my current course, "Stability and Change in American Education", is a collaboration with Jason Aviles, an experienced educator, youth behavior interventionist and community organizer. In our presentation we will examine the missing factors needed for a truly effective school change.
As a teacher of the Transcendental Meditation® program, I will draw on my experience teaching students to meditate through the Quiet Time program--a school-wide wellness program that has taught thousands of at-risk students to meditate in cities across the U.S.--and explain the value of utilizing yoga and health-based interventions. Jason Aviles will discuss how school change emerges from strengthening the community, and engaging the family.
Our strategy includes both approaches: individual transformation and societal transformation, both of which compose the foundation of a holistic education system. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation, described his vision of education resulting in two outcomes: the blossoming of the individual student’s full potential and the creation of an ideal society. We hope that soon this vision will more and more become a reality in communities everywhere.
New knowledge causes an irreversible paradigm shift. Therefore it is inevitable that with the as the fundamental programs we are suggesting are implemented, new values within the hearts of students will emerge, which can no longer coexist with inequality and failure in American education.
Naturally, students whose individual consciousness grows in a holistic way will not tolerate or perpetuate a world of dysfunction, as they grow into their role as the next leaders of a society whose collective consciousness has risen. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) Simultaneously, our suggested actions for immediate work on the level of family and larger community will build a friendly environment for young people to thrive and develop their full human potential.
Welcome to the first post of my new blog, Heart of Learning. Why such a new-agey sounding title? Well, I chose to call it this, because as we know, doing anything well in life requires putting one's heart into it. The things that call our heart are the things we commit to like nothing else, and everyone around gets swept into the passion and positivity generated by a person living this way, living and acting at a level of mastery.
How can we educators intrinsically motivate students to engage and excel in the learning process? Student engagement depends on the student discovering something that speaks to their heart. A teacher whose heart is open and flowing with love and dedication can help the student discover this.
Supported by the overflowing love of the teacher, a student can overcome their obstacles and have a deep learning experience. So in this discussion of education, I will come back to this theme of the heart, because in my experience, this is where the joy in teaching and the effectiveness in learning spring from.
