Take a real break. Make a conscious decision to use a large part of this winter holiday to rejuvenate rather than working on new lesson plans.

Spend your time wisely. Determine what would be the best use of your time during the break. Invest in quiet time alone or spend it with others in person or via Zoom. Choose things that will bring you joy. Making a plan will prevent you from getting pulled into work or mindless internet scrolling (though, if scrolling brings you joy – you can certainly make that part of your plan!)

Ditch the phone. Do something where you leave your phone behind, like taking a hike, playing a board game, trying a new recipe, or reading for pleasure.

Get your sleep. We talk a lot about kids needing enough sleep, but adults need it too! The recommended amount for adults is 7-9 hours each night.

Make a healthy resolution for the new year. Make a commitment to do one thing differently next semester that will be good for your mental and physical health. Here are a few ideas to build a healthy habit into your day:

• Take a quick walk or ten-minute stretch break in between classes, or immediately before or after the school day.
• When possible, substitute a zoom call for a walking meeting via phone.
• Take five minutes to meditate with your eyes closed, focusing on your breathing.
• Try a two-minute gratitude practice. 
• Prepare healthy lunches or breakfast meals on Sunday to save time during the week and cut back on fast food.
• Refrain from checking email after a certain time each night. You might even propose a healthy email policy where your school turns off the schoolwide intranet between 10pm and 5am, encouraging students, parents, and faculty and staff to take a break. (You can still compose emails, work on lessons, etc. if you have to, but no emails will be sent or received during this “blackout” period.)
• Start your day with some fun music and dance time; you can do this with your students too!

Reflect on what has worked in your classes this semester and what hasn’t. 
Plan some time before school starts again to consider what you might want to keep doing next semester and what you might want to change. What new practices or innovations did you try this year in remote, hybrid, or in-person classes that seemed to go well? What are some new strategies you would like to try in January that will allow you to:

• Build stronger connections and relationships with students? 
• Focus more attention on individual students and address learning gaps?
• Assess learning more effectively and efficiently?
• Increase student engagement via small and large group activities?

Denise Pope, Ph.D., is a Co-Founder of Challenge Success and a Senior Lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, where she specializes in student engagement, curriculum studies, qualitative research methods, and service learning. She is the author of, “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, and co-author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids. Dr. Pope lectures nationally on parenting techniques and pedagogical strategies to increase student health, engagement with learning, and integrity. 

The post For Educators: Ways to Reset & Reflect During the Winter Break appeared first on Challenge Success.

In the midst of AP courses, studying for standardized tests, and the overwhelming anxiety that defined my high school experience, I dreamed about a different approach to education. Thinking about alternatives provided an escape, a place where my curiosity, critical thinking, and imagination thrived. In my final weeks of high school, I felt the need to engage in one culminating reflection. I hoped to capture and find beauty and meaning in my experience as a student. Through this reflection, I clarified my beliefs and synthesized my experience into three interconnected elements that I believe are crucial to creating a meaningful education.

It is important to prioritize happiness.

Happiness enables students to more fully engage with and support their peers, to demonstrate empathy and compassion, to find fulfillment in their work, and to live healthy and productive lives. Nonetheless, in our society there is an overemphasis on achieving narrowly measurable outcomes. For example, many prioritize financial success as the end goal of education. Standardized test scores, grades, college acceptances, prestigious jobs, and, ultimately, high earnings become primary indicators of educational achievement. And so, it becomes a radical notion to ask, “what if happiness rather than money is the purpose of a meaningful and successful education?”

It is true that happiness is far more difficult to measure than financial success. It is challenging to quantify the depth of one’s relationships or of one’s love of learning. However, education is deeply and inherently human. Learning is carried out by people with people, and people are immeasurable, unquantifiable, and imperfect. It is time to re-evaluate our emphasis on money and measurement, and to refocus ourselves on happiness, curiosity, meaning, and connection. In that, we will have to be ok with relinquishing some of the control that comes with measurement through grades and scores in favor of the human, intimate side of true learning and growth.

Students need to find intrinsic motivation and purpose in their work.

One of the most important goals of an education is teaching students to nurture and value intrinsic motivation. Teachers support this when they help students find purpose and develop their interests, and convey to students that their interests are worth pursuing. When we make learning about extrinsic motivators such as grades, we take away from students’ genuine excitement about whatever they are studying.

Instead of focusing narrowly on how to more efficiently cover content or to prepare students for AP exams, I propose that success in teaching should be determined by students’ desire to continue learning, by whether students’ perspective of the world around them has been challenged, by whether students are driven to ask meaningful questions, and by whether students have found meaning and value in the experience.

The foundation of all education is relationships.

Students need to feel seen, valued, and accepted by teachers both as people and as intellectuals who have meaningful thoughts to contribute. And students need to see teachers as people, with vulnerabilities and struggles, who walk into the classroom with their own set of experiences that shape their perspective on the world.

In my own education, I have been fortunate to experience the beauty of reciprocity and the power in being recognized and affirmed as a person with worthwhile and authentic interests, questions, and struggles.

Throughout high school, I engaged in independent study courses with my school’s Dean of Students, focusing on our shared interest in experiential and interdisciplinary education. In these unstructured, one-on-one courses, we read books, discussed assessment, and explored authors from John Dewey to bell hooks to Paulo Freire. I knew that when I walked in the door to the dean’s office, I would receive unconditional support. Within the informality of talking and thinking and exploring, I found authenticity and a comfort with myself. I learned confidence.

I wish all students and teachers had the opportunity to experience learning in an environment where both teacher and student bring their whole selves and feel valued and heard. True growth requires openness and a vulnerability; we cannot expect students to be open and vulnerable unless the classroom is a safe space.

I hope that this brief reflection may serve as an inspiration for others to contemplate their educational experiences, to reimagine the potential in and purpose of education, and to rethink our too-narrow focus on measurement. All of us, students, teachers, and parents, have the task and responsibility to refocus our schools. Let us transform pedagogical practices by helping students find acceptance for themselves and others, by harnessing the power of curiosity and by prioritizing happiness.  

Zoe Kupetz graduated from high school in 2018. She is excited to continue to follow her curiosity and to think critically about education as she begins college in the fall. If you have any questions or comments, Zoe would love to hear from you. You can contact her here.

The post One Senior’s Reflection: Three Elements to a Meaningful Education appeared first on Challenge Success.