The impact of connection with your students

I start chapter 4 of Connections-based Learning by sharing my experience with one of my students, Amanda Todd. In that opening vignette, I reflect on both her life and her death. I tell of the challenges we had in the class. I tell of her heartbreaking story of online bullying and harassment, widely covered in the media. And I share my own reflections: what our connection taught me. Death is a tragedy on its own, but her story causes us pause as educators. I have had students pass away before. But not like this. A tragedy like this leads those around to shine the spotlight on themselves.

I truly believe I connected with Amanda as her grade 7 teacher. Sure, she would often give me the "you're not going to make me do that work. It is just not going to happen" look. But she did it with a smile. Really, she did. We had a lot of laughs. And in the challenges she had with her work, her message to me was basically "you know this is not the way I learn. I am social. I learn while interacting with people. You should know that." And so we worked at it, as a team: parent, principal, learning specialist, youth worker, teacher, and student.

As I reflected on my experience years later, a personal lesson reflected back. When we look out over our classes while teaching the formula of a circle's circumference or ohm's law, we have no idea the inner turmoil that some students are facing. We can't help but consider: does our influence as educators help the core of our students? In the words we whisper to our students daily through our actions and our interactions, are we whispering words of encouragement? Support? Inspiration? And do our students have someone in whom they can confide when things go sideways.

Connection is worth it.

The CBL Community question for this week is: how have instances of deep connection with your students affected you? Another thing I learned from my interaction with Amanda was how important it is to have students be part of the lesson creation. When a student is saying "you are not going to make me do that work", they have a point. When we #CoConstructGoals with our students, we include them in the planning. It is not "the teacher's work" that they are completing, it is their own.

I feel like I can open the doors wide for my students now. What do they want? Do they want to connect with a stem cell researcher? We can do that. Do they want to connect with an online gamer? We can do that. Do they want to represent their learning with a video, a play, a song, a cake? We can do that to.

You guessed it. A plant cell cake from one of my grade 9's!

Our students hold a wealth of possibilities for our own growth as educators. How have the connections you have had with your students affected you?

Visit AmandaToddLegacy.org for resources regarding awareness and prevention of bullying and cyber abuse. plus materials on mental wellness and healthy living. One resource that caught my eye was the: Global List of Helplines. In this globally connected world, we need to start thinking bigger. I love how Carol and the Amanda Todd Legacy folk are doing just that as they direct teens around the world to helpful resources.

Join the #CBLchat Voxer Community

The concept of community is an important aspect of my life. I think it is for most of us. Whether it is the nostalgia of growing up with kindred spirits (these days referred to as BFFs) or spending years watching TV shows like Friends, or Cheers (where everybody knows your name), I think we all long to be part of a group that enjoys life together. Churches work at this diligently.  Whether they call them Bible studies, life groups, small groups, community groups, the hope is that each member of the church body finds its place in a troop just the right size. Large enough to obtain a group dynamic, yet small enough not to get lost.

We possess a yearning to be known with all our bumps and bruises. To be accepted.  We see it in the classic coming-of-age stories.  Finding the proverbial seat in the cafeteria.  (See Mean Girls, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Karate Kid, Spiderman, A Walk To Remember, and now Wonder) At our core is a desire to connect, to know and to be known, a longing not only for acceptance but for inclusion. Community addresses this longing.

Our desire for community isn't simply indulgence.  It is how we grow, how we learn. I reference that in the Connections-based Learning book when I talk about the Kangaroo Care I gave to my preemie twins. Through connection, we thrive. It is the basic understanding of connections-based learning: we learn as we connect. We learn even more as we connect with those who are different from us.

For a number of years now, I have been part of a growing community. With an approach to teaching focused on connections, a community is vital. We connect through an app called Voxer, a multi-person messaging app. This is where we share our trials and triumphs as we connect our classes with learning partners near and far.

More than just a flash in the pan

A short connection does not attain the community needed for growth. Our #CBLchat Voxer Community allows for week to week connection. We can support each other over time. We can grow to understand each other. We can work together on collaborative projects...together.

Voices / accents / intonation

Voxer allows for voice messages. I love hearing the different accents. I wish I could support interaction in more languages however English is what we are using at this point. But not only can we hear each others' voices, we hear each others' hearts. It is not polished; it is raw, real, genuine.

A global focus

The map above pictures pins in the locations of the community's participants. My hope is that the map grows to where every country in the world is represented. Imagine that: educators coming together from around the globe to make education better for their classroom and their world.

Now I am not saying that joining the #CBLchat Voxer community is going to meet all your needs for belonging.  It might help you find your tribe. It will definitely help you connect. What I am saying, though, is that I am going to change the way that I refer to it, and therefore the way we think about it. I have been calling this a chat but I want to change one word. Call it my #OneWord for the year. The #CBL Voxer Chat is the #CBLchat Voxer Community. I think the word better represents my hope for the group.

If you are interested in joining the community, you can click here: #CBLchat Voxer Community. It does require a Voxer account (free) but I think that it is well worth the effort.  Though you can address the community with any kind of ideas around connections-based learning, to keep us conversing, I have been going through questions in the CBL book.  This gives us a weekly focus that I send out through Voxer and Twitter.

Like people, communities have their bumps and bruises. None of them are perfect. But please feel welcome to join our imperfect group of educators as we learn and grow together.

Get in the pool!

 

I spend a lot of time reading educational blogs.  Just as we all would want our doctor to be up on the latest medical discoveries and innovations, I believe we would want our teacher (or our child's teacher) to have an understanding of the latest developments in learning.  It's not about adopting and incorporating everything; it's about listening to and learning from the conversation.

But it's also about being part of the conversation.

I was reading a George Couros' blog post called Figuring It Out for Themselves? that talked about student connection. He made a case for not leaving the facilitation of student connections to a few in the school, but opening the door to everyone having an influence on it. 

Now I am all about connections. And it's not just people. I love that my phone is connected to my music which is connected to my speakers which is connected to my movies which is connected to my TV which is connected to my pictures.  I love when I see a student's learning on their digital portfolio in a post that has an embedded movie or game that they have created on one of their beloved apps and I make sure that I tweet it out or put the link on a Flipboard. Connection: it's just one thing I delight in.

And I have been developing my chops in facilitating student connection.  We have connected with a planetary scientist, a cancer survivor, a stem cell researcher, a food banking organization, business start ups, non-profits and more all in the name of helping, learning and growing.

Needless to say, the post caught my eye.

George was responding to William Chamberlain (coiner of the #comments4kids hashtag) who excellently shared that posting does not mean connecting.  I agree.  In the 21st century the web truly goes both ways.  Web 2.0 is about connecting.  Not only do my students get to receive but they get to give!  I love the fact that this picture was taken as my students were sharing their knowledge of project-based learning over Skype with the folks at FreshGrade. I love that FreshGrade was interested enough to ask students what they knew. Amazing!

There's a to and fro, a relationship, a connection.

A swimming analogy was used in George's post. The quote was:

 

There was talk in the comments around what that teaching would look like: scaffolding learning, explaining acceptable use, the gradual release of responsibility.  I was surprised, though, when the analogy didn't get to its logical end:

Get in the pool! 

Now I have watched a lot of swimming lessons. And let me tell you, something happens when your kids take Swim Kids 4 for the fourth time. At times your hand reaches into your pocket to feel for a $20 to grease the teenaged instructor's dripping palms to end the madness and it is only halted when you awaken from your chlorine induced stupor with the words: "Dad, it's done. I'm freezing. Let's go."  Anyways.  In all those times, rarely have I seen a dry swim instructor. And if it does happen, it's likely some kid with a cast on his arm whose hanging on to his $15/hour job for dear life despite the skateboarding injury.

They are all in the pool.

Lessons on developing our ability to connect meaningfully are better caught than taught. Are you watching the action go by or are you part of it?

Are we creating opportunities to model online interaction with our students?
Are we part of a developing culture of sharing at our schools?
Are we opening the door to student connections through back channeling, cross commenting, collaboration? Do we participate in it?
Do we make time and space for global connections?

If we prize connection and want to see our students connect, we've got to be part of an atmosphere of connection.  We've got to jump in the pool.

[photo, “Lion's Pool Aug'13“, by Lontzman Katzman licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.]

The Unmaking of a Bully

My friend adopted internationally.  Hearing the process that led up to that first meeting is exhausting in and of itself.  The interviews, the waiting, the accumulation of documents and dough, the waiting, the disappointments, the waiting, and then finally the 20 hour flight to the very foreign country.  It's like climbing Mount Everest.  And in the same way, the highest of heights is receiving that little one, yet the steps following are just as arduous, requiring just as much care and attention. 

Attachment.

In international adoption, attachment is huge.  Years become literally devoted to creating secure attachment.  The family tries not to go anywhere or have any guests for months.  The child is worn, cobeded, rocked, held, sung to. Limits are put on who can visit, who can feed, who can hold.  The caregivers become physically and emotionally fastened to the child.  And the child learns that when she has a need, the parent will be there to fill it.  Healthy attachment allows the child to trust, to form healthy relationships, and leads to the capacity to care for others.  Without healthy attachment, normal social, emotional, and psychological development can be stunted.  This opens the door to attachment disorder having negative effects on mood, behaviour and relationships.

Gordon Neufeld: "What makes a bully"

Gordon Neufeld who sees the world through attachment eyes addresses bullying in like fashion.  In an hour long session (seen above) called "What Makes a Bully", Neufeld tries to make sense of the bully from the inside out.  He uses a model that explains bullying in regards to instinct and emotion--a model that covers bullying in the vast variety of arenas it can take place.  He first names four prevailing attempts to understand bullying:

4 Prevailing Explanations
- Power thesis - bullying is from an inherent drive for power
- Learned behaviour thesis - bullying is learned and can be unlearned
- Empathy failure thesis - bullies have not been taught to care
- Entitlement thesis - bullies are spoiled

Finding flaw in all these theories, Neufeld looks at bullying with a different lens, the lens of attachment.  His theory: bullying is Alpha instincts gone awry.  He calls it the "Alpha Askew Thesis".  Put very simply (you'll have to watch the video to get the full picture), inherent in humans is the drive to be cared for (dependence) and to care for others (dominance).  Our caring for others includes an alpha instinct (to take control) coupled with a caring instinct (use that control to care for another) .  Individuals can be wounded in a way that devoids the caring instinct from the alpha instinct leaving a deep seated instinct to dominate those seen as weak..

For Neufeld, it is instinctual.  It is deep.  And it stems from an aberration of a healthy attachment reflex where we should be caring for the weak, not exploiting them.  Building them up, not pushing them down.  Fulfilling needs, not creating them.

As a teacher, I am always looking for insight into this phenomenon, a phenomenon that doesn't make any sense to the core of my being.  Bullying.  It's like a different language.  Most of us have to jump outside ourselves to make any sense of it.  We've been teaching against it like crazy.  Not a kid in BC would be unable to tell you four types of bullying.  They love reciting them.  And even with all the "what would you do" scenarios, pink shirt days, and cyber etiquette lessons, it seems as if we haven't made much of a dent.

So if we, even if only for a moment, can agree with Neufeld's idea, what does that mean for teachers?  What would we need to do? What would we need to change?  According to this theory, how can we unmake the bully?  Here are thoughts in waging the war on two fronts:

Relationship work
Every year we "adopt" a new crowd into our care as teachers.  Could our choices in what we do be guided with the attachment choices of the international adoptor?  I am not recommending strapping on the Ergo Carrier and taking our students for a ride.  But should "attachment activities" be the main endeavour in the first weeks of school?  Could students spend focused time with one teacher?  Could activities of trust and reliance be the forefront?

Alpha Instinct work
Then throughout the year, the activities we choose could evoke a caring component that can couple with the alpha component.  Programs such as Roots of Empathy (bringing a baby into class) , buddy reading, singing at the seniors home, and pen (blog) pals could all be strategically carried out.  We could plan our projects with this in mind: never should there be dominance without helping others.  And we could hit this home over and over and over again.

As always, I'm just spit-balling.  But seeing a framework for understanding bullying that tries to explain it in such far reaching and all encompassing terms leads to self-reflection.  And with a phenomenon that is so pervasive and that impacts so many, thought leaders need to spend time working this out and calling for change.  Either way, the question becomes: does what I do make bullies or unmake them?