As I was reading Patty’s blog post on gratitude, I couldn’t help but reflect on what it is that I am grateful for. I think this is especially important when life is as complicated as it is at the moment!

We all have a lot to be grateful for but it would be fair to say that things haven’t exactly gone to plan over the last couple of years. We have all been forced to make difficult decisions or just trust that we’ll come through a difficult time okay. We have been tested again and again. Sometimes we ace these tests and sometimes we wish we could ask for re-take. These tests have taken many different forms but I have recently found it helpful to treat each as a test of character. 

I know I go on about this a bit but I am very grateful that I got to read The Odyssey to our students last quarter. As our student put Odysseus’ struggles into perspective, I ended up falling down a philosophical rabbit hole that introduced me to the idea of the Stoic Challenge.

Stoicism is a school of philosophy founded in Ancient Greece. Stoics discovered that accepting life as tests of character can change how we respond to them. This idea has been updated in light of modern psychological techniques such as ‘reframing’ by William B. Irvine in his book ‘The Stoic Challenge: A Philosopher’s Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient.’

The basic idea is that when you are struggling, it is your character that is being tested. Whether you pass the test depends less on the outcome and more on how you struggled through it – which is great when outcomes are beyond our control. 

As for any test you need criteria to assess how well you did. I have found our Elementary School Compassionate Agreement very useful – simply because I see it every Friday when I put this blog together. As I reflect on a week’s worth of tests this is what I use to assess myself:

We all know we are doing our best…. even when we are not at our best!

Check in. How am I? What do I need? How are they? What do they need from me?

Ask for help and be helpful.

Be present and patient. Take time to fully understand others and allow time for others to understand you. Pausing, Paraphrasing and Posing Questions promotes our common understanding.

Share your ideas and be open to the ideas of others. Once shared, they become our ideas and anything could happen!

Assessing myself is almost always a positive way to finish the week. And if I think that I have failed a few tests at least I know what I need to work on next week.

It is a stretch to say that we should be grateful for all of our tests but I think we should be grateful that we get to work through many of them with such clever and compassionate colleagues.

ES COLLABORATIVE AGENDA

Please add any questions, items that come to mind to this ES Collaborative Agenda. The idea is that once we have a few things to discuss that can’t be addressed by email, we will meet.

Interdisciplinary Units

Curriculum Maps and Q2 Scope and Sequence

Here is where you can find our Curriculum Maps (updated for Q1 using report subject comments).

Here is where you can find our Q1 Scope and Sequence. Please link your planning to the Scope and Sequence. I have done this for PE and Culture and Communication to give you an example. We want to give you some autonomy as to how you organize your planning and resources but your planning needs to be in an ISY Shared Drive. 

Here is where you can find our Q2 Scope and Sequence. 

To fill out this year’s Q2 Scope and Sequence, you might want to refer to the skills you focused on this time last year in these Q2 scope and sequence documents:

PK-1 Q2 Scope and Sequence 2020-2021

2-3 Q2 Scope and Sequence 2020-2021

4-5 Q2 Scope and Sequence 2020-2021

Please also link your planning to the Scope and Sequence. 

If you have not already, please check off the standards that you intend to cover in your subject in Quarter 2. Please make sure there is an ‘x’ in the second column of any standard you will cover in these Grade Level Standards Checklists.

I’ll check in with you all next week to see if you need any help with this.

Wednesday Assemblies

From our TIFs