Beyond the Blind Spots: Reimagining Learning Through Coaching

Photo by Alistair Freeman: https://www.pexels.com/photo/classic-black-eyeglasses-on-reflective-surface-33129357/

It’s been almost 15 years since my nearly blind eyesight was corrected through Lasik eye surgery. Although I had been told to keep my eyes closed after the surgery, I couldn’t help but sneak a peek in the recovery room. What happened next made me believe in actual miracles. I could see. I could see words on the wall, clearly defined lines where blurry had always been, and best of all: the details of my husband’s face. The ability to see is something I will never take for granted.

Being able to see things easily overlooked is a skill I continue to work toward building every day that I am consulting or coaching in a school community.

Coaching Is Not a Luxury, It’s a Lifeline

There’s one small school that has shaped me more than any other.
Tucked away on the Navajo Nation, it serves just around 25 students, kindergarten through eighth grade , and is led by three teachers who each wear about seven different hats. Some students live at the school during the week. Many come from long distances. All of them, in some way, have become part of my story.

I’ve worked alongside this community for five years now. It’s the only school that has stayed constant throughout my coaching career. I’ve watched students grow from shy kindergartners, some nonverbal or struggling with big emotions, into curious, confident middle schoolers. I’ve watched teachers build systems out of thin air, create lessons across multiple grade levels, and keep joy alive despite the isolation and challenges that come with teaching in a small rural setting.

But what’s most important isn’t what I’ve given them — it’s what they’ve given me.

What Coaching Looks Like When You Listen

When I first started visiting this school, I thought I understood what coaching meant: goal setting, modeling, reflection, planning. But this school taught me that real coaching begins with listening and paying attention.

It taught me that progress doesn’t always look like a new strategy or a new framework; sometimes it looks like teachers laughing again. Sometimes it looks like a student leading their peers. Sometimes it looks like a staff of three saying, “Let’s try it this way,” and doing it because its what they believe is best for their kids, not because its a district initiative.

The work I have done with this school community has helped me realize that coaching isn’t about bringing the answers into a school, but more about holding a mirror to what they are already doing that is working and amplifying those things. Coaching is learning beside people who are doing the hardest, most human work imaginable.

And because of that, my own practice has changed. I don’t walk into schools trying to fix them. I walk in trying to see them.

The Blindness Schools Don’t Know They Have

Over the past five years, I’ve had the privilege of visiting hundreds of classrooms across many districts. Populations could be small, large, rural, urban, and everything in between. What I’ve noticed is that schools, as caring and dedicated as they are, often develop a kind of unintentional blindness.

We all know that developing a rhythm of teaching and building systems that work is important. In doing so, its easy to lose sight of the world beyond the walls of the classroom, the one our students are actually stepping into.

And that world is changing faster than ever.

Too often, I see students who are compliant but not curious. They’re consumers of information, not creators of meaning. Technology, which could open endless doors, is mostly used for testing. And teachers, who entered this profession to inspire, often feel like they’re just trying to keep up.

That’s why coaching matters.
Not because it evaluates, but because it illuminates.

Coaching as Connection and as a Lifeline

When coaching is done well, it becomes the bridge between what’s happening inside classrooms and what’s happening in the world beyond them. It gives teachers a chance to step back and ask:

“What are our students learning that will help them live — not just pass the next test?”

In a system that’s changing too slowly for the times we live in, coaching is not a luxury. It’s a lifeline. It gives teachers time and space to think again, to reimagine, to remember why they started. It helps schools see what they can’t always see on their own.

The schools I visit don’t need rescuing , they need reflection, validation, and partners willing to walk beside them, ask the hard questions, and hold the mirror steady while they rediscover their purpose.

Reimagining Learning Together

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Navajo school I wrote about above, it’s that we get better together.

While our systems continue to build the future of education on programs and policies, we have to believe it will be built through people who are brave enough to reimagine learning together. People who can look at the uncertainty of the world and still choose to believe that joy and curiosity are worth fighting for.

My word for 2026 is capacity. I hope we can all be brave enough to really look at what we are doing every day and determine if its a checklist or a compass. Are we providing a model of presence and connection over compliance and perfection?

Education doesn’t need more programs it needs more perspective.
If your school or district is ready to reimagine learning and rediscover joy in the classroom, I’d love to be part of that conversation.

💡 Let’s learn together. Reach out at rachelwhatif@gmail.com, on Instagram @rachel3296 or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Bringing Belief Into the Classroom: Survival, Power, and Possibility

This summer, I traveled with one of my best friends to Italy, Montenegro, and Greece. In twelve days, we took three guided tours that left me with a lesson I haven’t been able to shake: belief changes behavior.

Venice: Belief as Survival

My first tour was through the Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice and was probably my favorite. Our guide, a Venetian woman with magnetic eye contact, kept using the word: “Propaganda!”

At first, I thought of marketing. But as she explained, the mosaics of St. Mark’s, with walls drenched in tiny golden tiles telling biblical stories, weren’t just art—they were persuasion. They made people believe Venice was chosen, special, blessed. And that belief kept the city alive. With no natural resources, Venice needed commerce, tourism, and influence. Their survival depended on creating wonder.

Athens: Belief as Power

In Athens, our guide Marco embodied Greek pride. He reminded us that the Acropolis wasn’t built to be practical. Its perfection came from illusions—columns built with curves so the building would look straight to the human eye. It wasn’t just architecture; it was a message. The Athenians needed their people (and their enemies) to believe they were strong, chosen, and unshakable. Belief built power.

Santorini: Belief as Possibility

On Santorini, we toured the ancient city of Akrotiri. More than 4,000 years ago, this island had plumbing, marketplaces, and earthquake-resistant buildings. They weren’t just surviving—they believed life could be better, and they built for that future. Belief sparked innovation.

What This Has to Do with Teaching

So what do golden mosaics, optical illusions, and prehistoric plumbing have to do with teaching?

Here’s the hard truth: many students today don’t believe in much. They see systems unraveling. They’re growing up in a time of deconstruction. And maybe some systems should be torn down. But the question is: what will we give them to believe in instead?

Our guides weren’t just experts—they made us believe what they shared mattered. Their conviction made me want to lean in, to listen harder, to remember.

That’s our role as teachers, too. Not just to deliver information, but to help students believe:

that knowledge matters,
that learning can shape their future,
that they have the power to create something better.

Venice, Athens, and Akrotiri remind us that belief is not fluff—it’s survival, power, and possibility. In our classrooms, belief can be the difference between disengagement and transformation.

So as we design our lessons, our routines, our words—what messages are we sending? What do our students walk away believing?

Tips for Teaching Today

Survival- Students belief learning is essential

Just as Venice needed people to believe their city was special in order to survive, students need to believe that learning is essential to their own survival in today’s world.

The mission of the Human Intelligence Movement is “to ensure all people have the human skills they need to thrive and succeed in an AI world.“

This is in no way suggesting that humans will not survive in an AI world, but it is to suggest that the way we will do that, is to remember the value of humans.

Their belief is that education should help everyone grow their creative talents, and that AI can elevate our humanness.

This is why it matters now: What are we doing to elevate the humanity in our classrooms? How are our students building belief in themselves in order to survive?

Power – Students believe learning shapes their future.

Athens built illusions into their architecture to send a powerful message: We are strong. We matter. Students, too, need to believe that knowledge gives them power—power to make choices, to change their circumstances, to influence others.

The classroom is a safe place. If students believe in themselves, and in their unique ability to create, how are we allowing them to share that with the world?

Are we explicitly naming the power of their thinking and ideas in the classroom on a regular basis? In order to name something, you must have an idea of what it is. Do you know what learning strategies are?

Take a look at this previous blog post for more information on learning strategies, and then name them every time you see a student using them.

Power is motivating. When students see themselves as active agents, not passive recipients, they start to believe their effort matters. Gradually release some of the control in your classrooms and trust that students will take the responsibility.

Possibility – Help students believe they can create something better.

At Akrotiri, people weren’t just surviving—they innovated. They believed life could improve, so they built earthquake-resistant homes and plumbing systems millennia before “modern” civilizations.

Students need to have a vision for the future. In a quick search for “how to help young people have a vision for the future,” I sadly found very little resources. I guess AI and Google are still struggling in this area.

Global Action Plan conducted a research project by interviewing lots of young people and found it disheartening that the majority of them had negative expectations for the future, and believed that things probably wouldn’t change, and if they did, it wouldn’t be for the better.

This sounds like a SCREAM for help. OR… its an opportunity to take action. What if we used a tool like a vision board, or Canva, to help them get started? This website gives teens a step by step guide for thinking through how to envision their own futures and create a visual representation of it.

Kids as young as kindergarten can also create a visual for what they hope for the future. We need to start bringing this into our conversations. We need to bring back the hope. Possibility grows when students see their ideas take shape in the real world, so don’t stop with a vision board, help them bring it to life!

Curiosity is the fuel for innovation. Ask those what if questions: What if you wrote the next great novel ? What if you could invent a game that helps younger kids learn fractions? What if you listened to the whisperings of your heart, leading you to the things you love?

Because if belief changes behavior, then the most important thing we give students might not be just knowledge, but the conviction that what they’re learning, and who they are, matters.

Learning Control Centers: An Inside Out approach to metacognition

Opening your brain to see what is going on in there is a real thing, its called Metacognition, and it should be the number one thing we are doing in classrooms this year.

Somewhere, I saw a quote that said, “The most attractive quality in a person, is that they know who they are.”

Now, its one thing to know who you are, and not anyone else. That’s not what I’m talking about today. Knowing who you are involves some serious study and reflection. You want to get to know the real you, the you that loves quiet jazz music in the fall. The you that just decided to start watching Gilmore Girls, about 20 years later than everyone else. The you that seeks out a challenge because you know its going to make you better.

In order to get to know ourselves, we will have to have an open mind, like literally. This is not a closed door romance. Opening your brain to see what is going on in there is a real thing, its called Metacognition, and it should be the number one thing we are doing in classrooms this year.

Listening to the voices in your head

This is not a blog post about math, but to illustrate my point, I want to share an experience I had recently that made me a bit more aware of myself, a little more metacognitive. I was asked to try a strategy to subtract two numbers.

Think for a moment, how you would normally subtract two numbers, mentally. Mentally, meaning you are doing this in your head. Aha! Look at you being metacognitive. I’ll bet you just pulled out two numbers like 7 and 5, and you ended up with 2. Wow.

How, how did you end up with the 2? Now what if you had bigger numbers?

The strategy we were asked to try is called the Count Up strategy, counting up from the smaller number to the larger number.

This is how I generally do subtraction, mentally, something I already knew about myself thank you very much. At least I thought I did, but then I was asked to try a timed test, doing this strategy with two digit numbers. I was given one minute to solve as many problems as I could, mentally, using this strategy.

Want to guess how many I completed correctly? Five. Five two digit subtraction problems in 1 minute. I am an instructional coach people. I was in 2nd grade a very long time ago.

But here was the best part of this whole thing. After the minute was up, we were asked to reflect on our work. The first question was: How does this strategy help me subtract whole numbers? And the second question was: How confident am I in this strategy?

Right away, my brain said, quite loudly inside my head, “I just need more practice.” That right there friends, is metacognition. I knew I understood the strategy, and I also knew I wanted to use it because it made sense. Most importantly, I listened to that voice in my head.

Building a control center

Metacognition is rising to the top of every educators list of buzz words these days.

We all think, some of us a little too much, so what we really need to do is understand how we currently think. Its always better to know where you are, before you can know where you are going. The place we are going in metacognition land is not just observing our thoughts, but controlling them.

In Pixar’s Inside Out, we get a peek inside 11-year-old Riley’s mind, where five emotions – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust – work from “Headquarters,” a control center that looks like a high-tech command room. These emotions operate a console that influences Riley’s reactions and decisions throughout her day. The genius of the movie is showing how these emotional characters literally watch Riley’s life unfold on screens while deciding how she should respond to different situations – they’re essentially metacognitive observers of her experience.

Here’s what hit me about Riley’s control room: those emotions aren’t just reacting – they’re watching Riley navigate her world and making conscious decisions about how to help her respond. That’s exactly what happened to me during that subtraction exercise. When I said ‘I just need more practice,’ there was a little mathematician in my control room taking notes, watching my performance, and making plans for improvement.

Most of our students are doing math with their control room lights off. They’re solving problems, but nobody’s up there watching HOW they’re solving them or noting what they need to get better. When we help students flip that switch and get their own little mathematician observer online, they stop just ‘doing math’ and start becoming mathematicians who understand their own thinking.”

So how do we help students build their own learning control rooms? The good news is you don’t need to overhaul your entire teaching practice. You just need to start asking the right questions at the right moments – the kind that wake up that little observer upstairs.

Managing an effective control room

Think of it this way: every time students solve a problem, there are actually two things happening. There’s the math they’re doing, and there’s the thinking about the math they’re doing. Most of the time, we only pay attention to the first part. But when we start shining a spotlight on the second part – that’s when the magic happens.

Control Room Check-ins: After students finish a problem, ask: “What did your brain just do there?” or “If you had to teach your method to someone else, what would you say?”

Mathematician Observer Questions:

“What part felt easy? What part made you slow down?”
“If you did this problem again, what would you do the same? What would you change?”
“When did you know you were on the right track?”

Console Conversations: Have students share not just their answers, but their thinking process: “Walk us through what was happening in your control room while you solved this.”

Control Room Predictions: Before diving into problems, ask: “Based on what you know about yourself as a math learner, how do you think this will go?“

Preparing for expanded control centers

https://news.disney.com/pixar-video-backgrounds-available

Just like Riley, your student’s control rooms will become more and more complicated as new and harder problems arrive.

What if in addition to teaching math (or reading, or science, or whatever your subject), you made it your mission to help every student build their own learning control room?

The world we live in demands that students know when they are stuck, how they got there, and find a way through it. Kids who can say ‘I’m good at this type of problem but I need more practice with that type.’ Learners who know their own thinking well enough to make plans for getting better.

Remember that quote I started with? ‘The most attractive quality in a person is that they know who they are.’ Imagine a classroom full of students who truly know themselves as learners. Who understand not just WHAT they’re learning, but HOW they learn best.

That’s not just better math instruction – that’s helping kids fall in love with the person they’re becoming.

So this year, flip on those control room lights. Ask the questions that wake up the little observer in each student’s mind. Help them build the habit of watching their own thinking.

Because when students know themselves as learners, everything changes. And honestly? When YOU start paying attention to their thinking about their thinking, your teaching changes too.

Your students’ control rooms are waiting. Time to power them up.”

Toto, I’ve a Feeling We’re Not in Factual Territory Anymore: Three Educational Myths Exposed.

Like Dorothy in Oz, educators are often trapped in a colorful but bewildering world where what everyone thinks is true about education bears little resemblance to the reality behind the curtain.

Like Dorothy in Oz, educators are often trapped in a colorful but bewildering world where what everyone thinks is true about education bears little resemblance to the reality behind the curtain.

As much as I love Wicked, Oz is a pretty bothersome place on many levels. I won’t go into the details here, but IFKYK. Our enduring ideas about what is wrong in education are like those flying monkeys. Whose idea was that? Does anyone even know what they are supposed to be doing?

And let’s talk about the fact that Dorothy has a great pair of shoes that fix pretty much everything once she realizes how to wear them. No, they aren’t going to take us back to the way things used to be, like in the movie. A great pair of shoes should change our perspective and give us confidence to move toward growth.

In 2025, it’s time to pull back the curtain and expose the not-so-wonderful wizard of educational myths. Because when it comes to actually helping teachers create meaningful change in classrooms, there’s truly no place like the real world—messy, complex, and far more interesting than any emerald-tinted fantasy.

Everybody Thinks X, but the Truth is Y

Jeff Goins, an author who writes about creativity, will play the part of Dorothy as we travel down the yellow brick road of hard knocks in our story today. He is the perfect person for the part, because he is willing to pick a fight with the status quo (the wizard, the way things are…)

In his book, Real Artists Don’t Starve, Goins shows us how sometimes our collective beliefs about something so easily become accepted that they live on forever in our minds, although we might even suspect they are not true.

myths about creative success

Everybody thinks: Creative success requires struggling in poverty.
But the truth is: Thriving artists throughout history have been savvy about the business side of creativity

Everybody thinks: You must choose between creative fulfillment and financial stability.
But the truth is: The most successful artists integrate both artistic excellence and entrepreneurial thinking.

Everybody thinks: Creative genius comes from isolation.
But the truth is: Most breakthrough work happens through apprenticeship and community.

Goins ideas about what everyone thinks is true is generalizing, but basically brings awareness to our assumptions and asks us to think at a deeper level. In my work in education, I find that I am constantly catching myself making generalizations about what is true, only to find out later just how wrong I was. So, I decided to apply Goin’s formula, everybody thinks x, but the truth is y to what I think are the most common myths in education right now. I narrowed it down to three that might be keeping us trapped in a weirdly uncomfortable place like Oz when we could be building something far better right here in quite comfortable Kansas.

Three Comfortable Lies

1. Resistance to change

X- Everybody thinks: Teachers resist change because they’re set in their ways. This belief is a dangerous one, because it creates an us against them situation. The ‘us’ is all of us who are enlightened with the new and improved ways of doing things, and the ‘them’ is all of those who are just too comfortable to try anything new.

Y- The truth is: Most teachers hunger for meaningful innovation but are exhausted by perpetual reform cycles that don’t address fundamental needs or provide adequate support. They have seen things come and go and come back again. Teachers are learners at heart, and most would love to do whatever they can to not only make their jobs easier, but a little more fun! The keyword here is meaningful. With a classroom full of personality, each and every day, they know that consistency is key, and although change is a constant, their number one goal is safety. And the way we do that is to create predictable routines and procedures where every student knows what to expect on a daily basis. In our efforts to create consistency, it is sometimes necessary to “close our doors” to a new idea or curriculum. This often looks like resistance, because it is. Resistance is often mistaken for protection and sometimes we have to protect what we are being held responsible for.

2. More is Better

X-Everybody thinks: Educational innovation requires expensive new programs or resources. Did you know the amount of money the U.S. spends on education is in the billions, if not trillions? Teachers and schools are bombarded year after year with marketing, research, and “what’s best for kids.” We are constantly looking for the right program, the right system, and the right protocols that are going to be the magical formula that gets all our kids in the green.

Y-But the truth is: The most powerful innovations often come from rethinking existing structures and empowering teachers to experiment within their own classrooms. Here are some things that I have seen work: prioritizing effective and engaging resources, getting to know students as real people, using classroom time to talk about real life, trusting students to be teachers and leaders, and getting curious about solving problems in a variety of ways.

3. Literacy is Innate

X-Everybody thinks: Students today are digitally literate and fluent because they grew up with technology. Yikes. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Just because everyone has a tool, it certainly doesn’t mean they know how to use it, why they should use it, and when they shouldn’t.

Y-But the truth is: Many students are merely digitally familiar but lack the critical evaluation skills and digital citizenship needed for true digital literacy (see previous blog post on digital literacy). We can never assume that our kids know how to use technology, simply because its all around them. Remember to be literate includes not only reading and writing words but understanding them as well. As fast as technology is moving right now, I truly can’t say I know anyone who has mastered digital literacy. How can you master anything that will be different as soon as tomorrow?

Traveling Companions

Here’s the thing about myths—they’re comfortable. They let us avoid the hard work of looking at what’s really happening in classrooms. But if we’re serious about coaching teachers to create meaningful change in the next school year, we need to get comfortable with uncomfortable truths.

The teachers you’re working with aren’t resistant—they’re protective. They don’t need more programs—they need permission to innovate with what they have. And they don’t need us to assume their students are digitally fluent—they need help teaching real digital literacy skills.

But here’s what I know about educators: we’re incredibly good at finding each other, especially when we’re ready to question the status quo. We’re like Dorothy’s companions on the yellow brick road—we each bring something different to the journey, and we’re all looking for the same thing: a way to make education better for the people we serve.

Your Challenge (and Ours)

This week, have one conversation with a teacher where you don’t try to solve anything. Just listen. Ask what’s working, what’s not, and what would make their job more joyful. I guarantee you’ll learn more about effective coaching in that one conversation than in any professional development session.

Then try a small experiment: What would happen if you coached with the assumption that teachers are protective rather than resistant? What would change if you encouraged innovation with existing resources instead of shopping for new programs?

Try it. See what happens. Then come back and tell us about it.

Join the Rebellion

Because that’s what this really is—a gentle rebellion against the myths that keep us stuck. We’re not trying to tear down education; we’re trying to build something better by working with reality instead of against it.

Are you ready to click your heels together and step into the real world of teaching? The one where mess is normal and relationships matter more than programs. The best innovations happen when we stop trying to be magical and start being human.

Want to take this myth-busting journey with you into your next coaching conversation?

I’ve created something special for you – a Myth-Busting Educator’s Toolkit that puts all three myths, diagnostic questions, and conversation starters right at your fingertips. It’s designed to be your yellow brick road companion as you navigate those tricky assumptions we all make.

Get your free toolkit and join our rebellion against educational myths:

Because the best coaches know there’s no place like the real world – messy, complex, and beautifully human.

Drop a comment below and let me know which myth resonates most with your experience. What will you discover when you pull back your own curtain? Let’s form our own merry band and take this journey together.

How to be a Brainvestigator.

In this post, I pose a curious question: What if we as educators changed our name to brainvestigators? I wonder if, perhaps, one of the reasons our education system has not changed all that much over the past 1 million hundred years is that we need a makeover. Well, of course we need a makeover, and a cool new name to really shake things up.

Brainvestigator is not a word. I made it up. Well, technically, me and AI made it up.

Its a bit like the word problatunity. Making up words feels good, in a powerful kind of way.

What’s in a name?

In this post, I pose a curious question: What if we as educators changed our name to brainvestigators? I wonder if, perhaps, one of the reasons our education system has not changed all that much over the past 1 ~~million~~ hundred years is that we need a makeover. Well, of course we need a makeover, and a cool new name to really shake things up.

Brainvestigator sounds so much cooler than educator or teacher. Those old names have been around so long. When something has been around for so long, we all just assume we know what it is, what it does, and what it will always be.

Let Me Explain…

See video above for reasons why we should no longer call ourselves educators.

In case you need further evidence let’s define some terms:

“Wah, Wah, Wah”- Teacher talking, students trying hard to listen.
Teacher: a person who teaches, especially in a school
Educator: a person who provides instruction or education; see teacher

Try this quote out as your first brainvestigator assignment:

Learning is not the product of teaching, it is the product of the activity of learners.- John Holt

What, then, is the product of teaching? Hmmmmmm……

Please do not misunderstand me. Teachers are the best people I have the privilege to know and work with daily. I just want to start calling them by their true name, you know, like from The Never Ending Story.

Basically, Bastian, the hero of the story, has to call out the Empress’s one true name, moonchild, in order to save Fantasia from the Nothing.

Truly, what we do as teachers is valuable, but imagine what we can do as brainvestigators!

How to be a Brainvestigator

Because I just made this word up, I get to define it.

brainvestigator (noun)- a person who gathers information and evidence to solve mysteries about how the brain works in different people through methods of observation, interviews, learning experiences, and analysis.

An excellent example, and inspiration for this post, is Detective Cordelia Cupp. If you haven’t yet watched the Netflix series The Residence, please, please go immediately and come back here later.

Probably my favorite thing about Cordelia Cupp, is that she is a bird watcher. It seems to me, this hobby is what makes her exceptional, the best, actually at what she does. Birders not only know what to look for, they know where to find them, and then they wait. I might even go so far as to say they anticipate.

Waiting and anticipating are different things. Anticipation implies expectation. When she interviews all the people who may or may not have had anything to do with the crime, she is anticipating their response to being questioned, without actually being questioned. Its hard to explain, watch the show.

A brainvestigator can behave in much the same way as a detective or birder. We need to know what we are looking for, how we can find it, and anticipate the rest. In the same way that a birder needs to know what birds do, brainvestigators need to know what learners do.

What do learners do?

Before we decided to call ourselves brainvestigators, we used to be called teachers. Teachers used these things called standards to help us know what our students need to be able to know and do to be successful, at some later date, like the 21st century. When is that exactly?

Anyway, knowing what students need to be able to know and do are good things. However, its not the same thing as knowing what learners actually do.

How do you think bird watchers got good at knowing what birds do?

Bingo! They watch them, study them, read about them, etc. etc.

How will we ever know what learners do if we never watch them, study them, read about them, etc. etc.?

I’m not talking about being creepy, like in a creepy creepy sort of way. I’m saying how can you create a learning environment where students are behaving like learners, that will give you the opportunity to observe what learning looks like in real time?

More of our work as brainvestigators (teachers) should be centered around being able to identify learning strategies students already have and designing experiences that give them opportunities to develop more and better learning strategies.

Learning is the Product of Doing

Verb-(noun) a word used to describe an action.

Turns out, this handy little thing that came out decades ago, Bloom’s Taxonomy of Verbs, gives us a great place to check and see if our students are actually doing the learning.

Designing experiences where learners will act like learners and actually do something does not have to be as complicated as we might think. Perhaps just looking at the list of verbs will get the wheels turning.

Take the word categorize, for example. When we design a learning experience where students are going to have to do a higher level skill like categorizing, we will get the opportunity to see how their brain makes connections. Making connections is a learning strategy.

A great activity for this is to give a group of students a bunch of cards with either words or pictures on them and ask them to categorize them. Limit them to 3-5 groups of cards, and tell them they must create a label for each category.

As they engage in this activity, you get to practice your skills as a brainvestigator! Walk around, observing what the learners are doing. How are they grouping the cards, how are they agreeing with each other, or better yet, disagreeing? Make a mental list, or an actual list, of all the learning strategies you are witnessing so that you will be prepared when you lead your group in a debrief of the activity.

Remember, debriefing is where you get to name the learning that took place during the activity. This is where it all comes together! More on this later!

New Identities Take Some Getting Used To

Its ok if it takes a while for your new identity to fully materialize. Just think how many superheroes kept their true identities secret for as long as possible. You may look in the mirror some days and see a brainvestigator. Or maybe you decide Tuesdays are brainvestigator days, and the rest are just teacher days.

Maybe, like some, you need an accessory, like a cape, or ,may I suggest, a t-shirt a less distressing item, that makes you feel like a brainvestigator. Whatever you need to try things on a bit.

In the end, changing your title from teacher to brainvestigator is just one subtle way to be a little subversive in a system that is going to take a lot to change. Please do not hesitate to share a picture of you in your new t-shirt, or any accessory of your choosing, that lets us all know how we are working to create change.

Enjoy the shift!

How Star Wars Inspired My Creative Professional Journey

As of this writing, it is not yet New Year’s Eve, 2024. Yet, I feel once again as though “something is coming.” I’m crossing my fingers I’ll be in the right place at the right time, and get another Jedi miracle to embolden me through the unknown in 2025, and although I am hesitant to get too excited, (see year 2020), the words epic and awesome feel somewhat fitting.

In January of 2020, I wrote a blog post titled “Becoming Hospitable to Ideas for Writing.” While I like to think all my posts are special and interesting, this one is significant, in that it marks the one and only time I have documented my ability to foresee the future.

You see, in this post I claim, “something is coming.” I hope I don’t have to go into too much detail here, as I said it was January 2020.

I’ll admit, I used the words awesome and epic to describe what I felt was on the horizon, so I’m not sure I truly had a grasp on the appropriate emotions that I would feel the rest of that year.

The most important thing I captured in that blog post was the blessing I received from a young padawan on New Year’s Eve, 2019: “May the Force Be With You.”

So, while I wait to cross paths with a Padawan, Wookie, or Jedi master, It feels relevant to look back on everything I have learned since writing that fateful post in January 2020. Because although 2020 brought so many things I’d rather not ever have to relive, it also marked the beginning of my path as a creative professional.

What is a creative professional?

The creative part

Google “What are the creative professions?” and you won’t find jobs like teacher, general contractor, doctor, or accountant. In the past, as in before AI, a creative professional was a name reserved only for those working in the arts: performance, visual, language, etc.

As an educator, its hard not to take offense to the idea that my job does not demand creativity. My husband is a general contractor, and is the most creative person I know. Humans are creative beings.

Are you considering becoming a creative person? Too late, you already are one. To even call somebody a “creative person” is almost laughably redundant; creativity is the hallmark of our species. We have the senses for it; we have the curiosity for it; we have the opposable thumbs for it; we have the rhythm for it; we have the language and the excitement and the innate connection to divinity for it. – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic, 2015

So can we just agree that everyone is already creative, we just have to claim it for ourselves. We have to remember that everything we know today has been built by those who were willing to connect unlike ideas, take risks, follow their curiosity, and imagine something different.

The Professional Part

So, what have I learned over the past five years is mostly about being professional. I could talk to you all about meeting deadlines, wearing nice clothes, and carrying a whole lot of responsibility, but I wouldn’t be telling you anything you don’t already know.

I guess we have to define these things for ourselves. The seven year old I met on that New Year’s Eve was a professional. He believed it, so I believed it. Now, he did have the look, complete with padawan braid, clothes, and a lightsaber. Therefore, I won’t say your appearance doesn’t matter. However, the most powerful thing was that he owned his identity.

Maybe that is what it means to be a professional. To own it. Sometimes, we are afraid to say we are a professional anything. Sounds cocky. Or, it could be we are worried we will fail at whatever it is we are saying we are a professional at, because we will.

What if we start balancing big important words like professional with comfy cozy words, like creative? Creative professional sounds like peanut butter and jelly. The jelly makes the peanut butter go down smoothly. Or, macaroni and cheese, everyone likes cheese. No one eats noodles plain.

How to Be Creative and Professional

I wonder who first thought to put jelly and peanut butter together, and why it stuck? I remember eating mayonnaise and peanut butter sandwiches as a kid, but I don’t know anyone who still eats that, not even me.

Also, did peanut butter and jelly sandwiches inspire trail mix (fruit and nuts), or was it the other way around? I should ask ChatGPT.

Anyway, Star Wars and Sandwiches aside, the following is a short list of things I’ve learned over the past four years of practicing skills as a creative professional.

Listen, observe, pay attention.
Curate based on personal experience.
Focus on getting better, not being your best..
Have a vision for the future, recognize the messy middle, and celebrate the work that has come before.

Listen, Observe, Pay Attention

Listening is a skill that must be practiced continually. I’m going to call this level one, surface level awareness. It also means turning down the volume in your own brain. Essentially, listening is really choosing to understand something or someone other than yourself. Listening is not thinking.

Observation means having your eyes and mind open. Level two awareness. Are all of us just looking for things to confirm what we already believe? When you observe someone or something, what do you see? Essentially, observing is really choosing to understand something or someone other than yourself. Observing is not thinking.

Paying attention is level three awareness for a reason. Paying attention is an act of service, compassion, and empathy. When you are paying attention to a person, you are showing a level of awareness of them, beyond what they are saying or doing. When you are paying attention to something, beyond what you see, you have the incredible privilege of assigning meaning.

When you pay attention, you have the opportunity to assign positive intent. You get to believe that this person means well, that they are doing and saying the best they can, with the tools, knowledge and resources they have available to them. This is creative professionalism when working with people.

Curate based on personal experience.

Curation, by definition, is selection. The world we live in now is almost unlimited in its offerings of choices and opportunities. I know that sounds like the opinion of one who comes from a place of privilege, and I am not denying that. However, I have known poverty in my life, and I still had choices, lots of them, even in the 80s.

More than selection, curation denotes a collection, of things or ideas. I’m trying to think if we curate people, like do I collect people? Or places? More on that later. In the traditional sense, curators work in museums, libraries, and such to protect, interpret, and care for objects of significance.

What is significant than? It depends on you and what matters. I wonder what a padawan would curate? (Another great question for AI.)

In my life and work, I want to hold on to ideas and tools I’ve tried out and found to be effective in lots of different circumstances. What is a tool I can use for most things? In education, its easy to get overwhelmed with resources, busy work. I’m looking for tools to get people talking, laughing, and building new thinking. So I mostly curate structures for cooperative learning strategies, games, and discussions.

“The smartest person in the room, is the room.” -David Weinberger

Focus on getting better, not on being your best.

It used to drive me crazy when I worked in a school where the admin would say things like, “Are you being your best today?” Ug!

Now, I don’t believe he was directing this toward me personally, but it was the message we were supposed to be sending to our students, everyday. No, we cannot be our best every day, nor should we try.

Being the best kind of assumes we already know everything. Like there’s no room for improvement. There’s good, there’s better, and then there’s THE BEST. Is there anything better than being the best? I don’t like it.

I read a book this past year called Learnership, by James Anderson, and it was the best. Ok, just kidding about the best part. Anyway, a big takeaway or validation for me was his advocacy for focusing on getting better. How can we value getting better over being your best? Anderson says we need to develop a relationship with learning. We should focus on achieving growth, not simply achieving goals. That way we can get better at getting better.

Have a vision, recognize the mess, and celebrate.

The single most critical motivator for me is the future. I think this might be because it’s guaranteed to happen. It is the reason I try to take care of myself, the reason I’m writing every day, the reason I participate in work and relationships. Its motivating because I am an optimist. I believe things will get better. Or at the very least, I believe its my job to make it look like it is better, so my children won’t be afraid to keep living.

In education, we have to believe it will get better. More than that, we must have some kind of vision for what it could be. AI is promising to cut teacher time on administrative tasks, allowing them to be more engaged in student relationships. I’m excited about leveraging these tools to create more personalized and equitable learning models, and I think if we can shift our mindset toward the humans, rather than the content, education will be changed for the better.

In the meantime, we are all in the messy middle. Things are a mess, and that is ok. Take some breaths, recognize what is working right now, and try some new things. Being a creative professional means failing…a lot. Failing in the midst of a bunch of failing makes it much less noticeable.

Finally, creative professionals understand that focusing on what works, is much more effective in creating change than what is not working. Notice anything and everything that works, try to name why it works, and apply some version of it in your life, your work, your relationships.

May the creative force be with you

Just as the Force flows through all living things, creativity flows through every professional endeavor. Whether you’re a teacher, contractor, or aspiring Jedi, embracing both your creative and professional sides isn’t about reaching some distant galaxy – it’s about trusting your instincts and staying open to new possibilities.

I’d love to hear about your creative professional journey in the comments below!

Use Time to Design Meaningful Learning Experiences

Educators design meaningful learning experiences to enrich, support, and engage learners by using their time and space intentionally.

Time and space are the foundation upon which we build systems, routines, and procedures that enable us to feel safe. Once we know the boundaries and stay within them, we are more willing to take risks, innovate, and create.

Here are a few ideas for how to design a meaningful morning for you and your students, no matter the circumstances or constantly changing directives. Getting the day started on the right foot sets the course for a smooth and predictable routine. Check back for an additional post on designing the rest of the day.

Part 1: Design the Morning Time

Use Time to Design Meaningful Learning Experiences

When students arrive, we greet them by name and they enter the room knowing they belong and have responsibilities. There are no surprises and they aren’t waiting for you to tell them what to do. A task list is visible to set students up for success.

Meaningful morning experiences include self-awareness and self-regulation tasks, community and citizenship tasks, and mindset and metacognition tasks.

Every moment of the day is precious and carries with it a sense of urgency. A sense of urgency reinforces the message that our time is spent on purpose. And don’t forget that laughter and play can and should be a part of every day.

Set a timer for all tasks, and display it for students to see as well. Ask the students how much time they think they will need for the tasks at hand, then negotiate based on reality. A student timekeeper will be one of the most important jobs you give out, especially at the beginning of the year.

Self Awareness and Self Regulation Tasks

Use Light-Hearted SEL Check-Ins to Design Meaningful Learning Experiences

This Feels Like: Students are welcomed with a sense of belonging and ownership in the space, knowing being a learner is more important than doing the learning. Students know where to put their belongings and when to use them. They know what to expect and they have a say in how some decisions will be made throughout the process.
This looks like: Music playing in the background when students arrive creates a sense of well-being. There is a Social Emotional Check In available to encourage students to reflect on how they feel and how they can regulate those feelings ( Moods of Batman Meme.) There is a familiar schedule which is reviewed each day, with any deviations being clearly defined. Student questions are answered and students have smiled at least once before the learning day begins.

Community and Citizenship Tasks

Use Checklists to Design Meaningful Learning Experiences

Feels like: Having a sense of responsibility means being trusted and relied upon for an important task.
Looks like: Students have a job that is an important part of the success of the community and knows how and when to perform it. Class discussion is a regular part of every day, and all students will be held accountable for the unique perspective they bring. This also includes digital citizenship and how we participate online.

Mindset and Metacognition Tasks

Feels Like: Having a sense of purpose in the time spent on tasks, feeling challenged but not anxious in the material, engaged in curiousity and exploration in possibility and relevance.
Looks Like: A timer is running for all tasks, student work is gradually increasing in complexity, the teacher is listening and conferring, students are set up for success with work that connects and reinforces previous learning. Students are given thinking strategies to use when tackling challenging materials. Students use the learning space as a resource.

Designing the Rest of the Day

Use Time to Create Meaningful Learning Experiences

When you take the time to set up the environment, the environment will pay you back with time.

All of these morning tasks take 30 minutes or less once the school year is well underway. At the beginning of the year, these tasks can take much longer. Remember to put in the initial investment with time, and the space will take over after.

Everyone becomes more efficient when they know what to expect and how to be successful.

Once your morning tasks are complete, move into the Workshop, which is where students begin to dig into the more creative and innovative part of the day. This is where the real learning experiences happen!

Read Use Space to Design Learning Experiences to discover ideas for the remainder of the school day, including more Workshop ideas, mindfulness, and accountability.

Five Minutes to Start a New Story

Change is hard, but with a little hope, optimism, and 5 minutes, we can stop waiting for something to happen, and start a new story.

waiting to change

The authors of Switch, How to Change Things When Change is Hard, remind me that “Change brings new choices that create uncertainty.” We get overwhelmed because most of us are on auto pilot most of the time. Auto pilot is not bad. It helps us to maintain energy levels, so we can use that energy to make decisions. I hate having to decide every day now what is important and what isn’t. It used to be easier: get up early, morning routines, get to work, evening routines, go to bed.

Now, I find myself staring out the window a lot. Waiting for something. Waiting for life to go back to normal, but not wanting it to. Waiting to love the life I have right now. Waiting to buy new clothes, to wear to my new job, that I am waiting for. Waiting for an opportunity to travel, to feel safe at the grocery store. Waiting to feel safe around other people at all. Ug, so much waiting.

Change is hard, but it’s also an opportunity. Vince Lombardi is famous for his determination to win, and all that. I’m not sure I love his quotes, and I know things get all misconstrued. He said something about how quitters never win, but it depends on how you look at it. He also said that hope is not a strategy, but again, there are extenuating circumstances.

hope is a little messy

My daughter reminded me that messed up hope is still something to be grateful for.

In this moment, hope is kinda my only strategy.

The Harvard Business review published an article appropriately titled Hope is a Strategy (Well Sort Of). They talk about realistic optimism, and refer to a quote by Carmin Mendina “Optimism is the greatest act of rebellion.”

So, I hereby rebel. I am going to be optimistic, and pretend that things are going to work out for the best.

But, I am pretty tired of waiting. It’s ridiculous to try to plan for next month, or next week, or even tomorrow at this point. I think you can still have optimistic and hopeful viewpoint, without being certain about anything. However, waiting isn’t a good strategy, for me anyway.

Start something for 5 minutes

I recently started looking for ways to be a bit more creative with my writing. In my classroom, before beginning any kind of writing assignment, we would go to the scholastic website and choose a story starter. The challenge was to write as many words as you could, on the chosen topic, for 5 minutes.

Most fourth graders don’t really love to write. I guess they have learned by this point in their career, that there are too many rules, and its a task that is never finished. We all know that feeling of staring at a blank page, and no words are coming out. Writer’s block is a real thing.

It was different with the 5 minute story starters. The topic would always be a bit silly, and they knew there weren’t really any rules, except they had to write for the full 5 minutes. Even my most reluctant writers would participate. Many were getting close to a hundred words written in just 5 minutes!

The best part came at the end of the 5 minutes, when I would ask for volunteers to share their writing. Almost everyone wanted to read aloud what they had written. The writing was good! They were creative, descriptive, and taking risks.

Five minute challenge

Anyone can stick it out for five minutes. Even a five year old can commit to a task for that long. This is especially true for those of us who are feeling overwhelmed by all the changes we have had to make over the past few weeks.

I even decided to start my own little five minute creative writing challenge in my daily writing. The Story Starter.com has an idea generator for grown ups, and it has been fun for me to try my hand at something that is pretty difficult for me.

Five minutes to start a story, or clean the bathroom, reconcile accounts. It just doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

I might still stare out the window and wait for things to change on their own. Maybe I will set a timer, and let myself do that for a short time. Then I will get back to reality and be intentional and outrageously optimistic for 5 minutes.

For more five minute inspiration, check out the fly lady? She is still around after 20 years of blogging about change. Her philosophy is simple. Just do something for five minutes.

UPDATE:

I love it when I find something that just goes with something I already have, or do. This is an awesome video about using 5 minutes at the end of your day to reflect and write down the most important thing from the day. Over time, you will develop a sense for your life as moments. Important, beautiful moments, that are your story, and part of a bigger story.