Notes

=Faculty Notes=

From Ted Parker David Levine professional development day Building community: a community of caring

Website for the day: king-pgd03.wikispaces.com
 * When the emotional needs of students are unmet, it's going to affect their behavior.
 * Seeing empathy as "a bundle of social skills"
 * Knowing that behind every behavior is a story

Howard Gray song: Being too afraid to be a friend/ally. Not intentionally malicious; just afraid

"Emotion is learning"

Events+our responses=outcome

 * The only way we can change the outcome is to alter our response to the event.
 * We can intentionally create opportunities to help students keep themselves in emotional equilibrium
 * Surround the child with a ring of protection as a first step, and then transfer to them some specific or life skills
 * Managing life's challenges rather than just coping with them
 * Children do not always have be ability to articulate what they need or feel. So we have to decode the behaviors.

Thinking about difficult life situations: some are predictable, and we can plan for them, and help to prepare students for them.
 * Prevention vs intervention
 * Proactive vs reactive

What we're doing is creating a "container" for emotional safety. What they need is:

 * **Belonging**: affiliation, connection, support
 * **Power**: competence, social skills
 * **Freedom**: voice, independence, accountability
 * **Fun**: engaged in learning, having healthy relationships
 * **Resilience**:

Emmy Werner: Protective factors
Internal and environmental safeguards:
 * A charismatic teacher/significant adult
 * School succes (competencies)
 * Welcoming environment (school-wide, class, groups)
 * Predictable and consistent
 * Pro-social skills (the great protectors) [rather than just anti-bullying]

Tony Wagner: 21st century survival skills

 * 1) Critical thinking and problem solving
 * 2) Collaboration across networks
 * 3) Agility and adaptability
 * 4) Initiative and entrepreneurialism
 * 5) Effective oral and written communication
 * 6) Accessing and analyzing information
 * 7) Curiosity and imagination (empathy)

Morning breakout

 * Tension: to some degree, empathy requires our own experience to connect others' experiences to, and our students--either because of their age or their privilege--often don't have much of that experience. As a result, we have to allow them to fail sometimes, we have to supplement their experience with literature and with trips, and we have to model sensitivity.
 * Listening rather than just hearing
 * Growing rather than winning
 * Feedback rather than criticism

Afternoon setup

 * Ritual and common language as deliberate ways of building community.
 * Common language example: talk about "being mindful" as a concept, and then when students are inconsiderate, all you need to do is tell them to be mindful.
 * When you blame someone else for something, you give your power away.

Imprints
 * Family
 * School
 * Polarizing issues of society
 * Heroes and entertainers
 * Mores and sexual values
 * Imprint/value statements

Afternoon breakout

 * Reflecting on the imprints that we've got from our childhood
 * What are your buttons? What triggers a strong emotional response from you?

from John Faig
 * storytelling is important for empathy
 * screens interfere with empathy
 * sentence-by-sentence communication interferes with empathy
 * win/lose attitude interferes with empathy
 * empathy is understanding that is as close as living the event
 * kids teaching kids to build empathy
 * teach empathy
 * imagine what would other person sees or hears?
 * imagine how the other person feels
 * giving advice to kids is not a great idea (no-win situation)
 * if advice works, then kid will come back for more advice (not empowered)
 * if advice does not work, kid blames adult, gets mad, and is not empowered because he/she does not take ownership
 * in either case, it signals that kid can’t solve own problems
 * feedback to help grow (not criticize)
 * the more you share the greater the potential for empathy
 * social behavior is learned through modeling
 * role-playing with moral dilemma is useful
 * decode student behaviors
 * give names to intuitive behaviors to better understand and them
 * behind every face and behavior is a story
 * where do the pressures come from that students face:
 * parents
 * peers
 * school
 * media
 * internal
 * children do not always communicate using words; instead they use actions
 * prevention is predicting what is coming and acquiring the necessary skills
 * these skills will serve well when something __unpredictable__ happens
 * prevention sometimes requires a leap of faith because there may not be data to support the worries (i.e., event has not yet happened)
 * e + r = o
 * event plus response equals outcome
 * asking for help is a skill
 * unpopular to ask for help
 * container for emotional safety
 * belonging
 * power
 * freedom
 * fun
 * Quality World
 * collection of positive memories
 * travels with you to analyze new experiences
 * children have private logic of the adult world
 * from emotional imprints
 * colors their lens of the world
 * adults affected less by emotional imprints than kids (< 15 years old)
 * people interpret events differently through their own lens
 * resolve differences through dialogue to foster understanding
 * empathize with students
 * reflect feelings
 * ask questions
 * summarize
 * greatest power is being able to make choices
 * take control by not blaming others
 * “be mindful”
 * sit up
 * take a deep breathe
 * focus

from Lois Rinaldi
 * Empathy? Can it be taught?
 * Yes, it can be taught.
 * 4th graders - easier than 7th graders to teach empathy
 * Environment plays a key role in teaching empathy.
 * Parents + teachers + administrators need to be on board with the teaching of empathy.