Appreciative Inquiry Stories with guest blogger Lori Ryan

 

Lori Geismar Ryan, our long time colleague and friend, is joining me to co-author this blog post.  Several years ago Lori and I were invited by the Taos Institute to contribute a chapter for a book about Appreciative Inquiry in practice.  Exceeding Expectations: An Anthology of Appreciative Inquiry Stories in Education from Around the World is now published and available as a free download here.  We highly recommend that you take the time to read the beautiful learning stories in this book!

The group that published the book, The Taos Institute, is committed to the belief that social constructivist ideas have powerful and positive implications for human life and well-being.  In the early 1990's, a group of scholars and practitioners including David Cooperrider, came together to found the Taos Institute.  The first few gatherings were held in Taos but now the central office is in Ohio.

David Cooperrider, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University is best known as the co-creator and creative thought leader of Appreciative Inquiry (AI).  His founding work with AI is creating a positive revolution in the leadership of change; it is helping institutions all over the world discover the power of the strength-based approaches to multi-stakeholder innovation and collaborative design.  Cooperrider began as a leader in the business community.  In the early 1990's, educators became intrigued with his approach as a fitting and powerful way to empower and transform any organization or group.

The curators of the new book have this to say...We are starting to realize that the solution to the ‘problems’ in our schools is not to focus only on what is broken, but to discover what is working, lift up the strengths and successes, and build new visions of success from there. This book is about these stories. It aims to showcase for the first time in one collection, the stories of how AI-inspired methodologies are helping to create positive transformations in our educational communities around the globe.

Lori and I are honored to have co-authored "An Appreciative Learning Partnership" that is the final of 26 stories.  Our chapter features our work with several schools and highlights the power of appreciative approaches with stories and practical examples.  As you begin a new school year, please enjoy this free download and share it with your communities of learners.  Another collaboration is coming up soon.  Lori and I will co-lead a seminar with Ashley, Learning and Leading for the Future, in Tuscany in June 2016 as part of a series of seminars on educational leadership organized by Angela Ferrario.  We will keep you posted!

Future of Learning: Harvard Project Zero

Last week I attended a weeklong institute, Future of Learning at Harvard Graduate School of Education hosted and organized by Project Zero, a research group composed of multiple, independently sponsored research projects, whose mission is to enhance and deepen learning across disciplines and cultures in a variety of settings. Like many educators, I have followed the work of Project Zero for some time, reading and being influenced by the books of Howard Gardner and others.  I became even more interested when researchers at Project Zero worked with the educators in Reggio Emilia, Italy to research and write the book Making Learning Visible.  Now, Making Learning Visible is one the research groups of Project Zero.

The week was extraordinary.  I had never taken a course at Harvard Graduate School of Education and I was so impressed.  I was one of 180 educators from 27 countries.  Half of the participants were from the United States and the other half from all over the world.   The course was organized around plenary sessions, small group workshops called courses, and a learning group of 5 that we met with every day with specific goals in mind.

I will keep writing about this experience and referencing it for some time.  For now, I want to recommend several books by researchers who spoke at our sessions last week.

The first is David Perkins.  I purchased two of his books and am reading them now.  Making Learning Whole and Future Wise.  His stance and his research supports and gives new clarity to all the work that Ashley and I are doing with schools and that is both reassuring and exciting.

The second is Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, an affective neuroscientist at the University of Southern California.  Her work is another substantive and important contribution to all that we believe about emotion and learning that we have heard Carlina Rinaldi speak about for 25 years!  Mary Helen has a book coming out in November which I pre-ordered...Emotions, Learning, and the Brain.  In the meantime, here is a link to a Ted x talk that she gave entitled Embodied Brains, Social Minds.

The last recommendation for this post is a book by Natasha Warikoo called Balancing Acts: Youth Culture in the Global City.  I took a course with Harvard Professor Warikoo called Cultural Straddlers.  Along with other learning experiences during the week, she made me see and appreciate in a whole new way the richness that cultural, racial and every kind of diversity offers us.  By the way, along those lines, if you have not seen it, be sure and watch the TED talk called The Danger of a Single Story.

We ended the week with the reflection and writing prompt, "I used the think.....but now I think..." What an excellent practice to track how we change and grow, learn and change.  I highly recommend this and other Project Zero institutes.  I feel grateful and excited to be connected to a whole new network of people and ideas.

Art New England

This week I am attending a week long oil painting class in Bennington, Vermont at a program called Art New England.  Many of the faculty come from Mass College of Art and Design which is the accrediting institution for the program.  The site is at Bennington College on a beautiful campus with well designed and well equipped studios.  There are many choices over a three week period including printmaking, drawing, ceramics, oil painting, and watercolor.

It is a privilege to focus intently on one thing with a group of people doing the same.   The class that I am taking is taught by a true master teacher and still life painter, Stanley Bielen from Philadelphia.  Many people in my class are accomplished painters who work in the design and art world.  This is both inspirational and intimidating!  Ashley and I took this class last year and though we both have a good deal of experience in drawing and design, neither of us had ever painted with oils.  In my experience, oil paints are luscious, delicious and daunting.  I am making my way this year.  Ashley stayed home to work on other projects and to enjoy just being at home after a year of work and travel but I could't resist returning.

I am throwing myself into learning something new, something hard, something that I love.  It is a good thing to be a beginner at something...humbling, frustrating, and worth the effort.  So many new things to learn, so many things to remember, so many failed attempts, so much to let go of all at once.

To be surrounded by color and the beauty of the natural world and to become completely absorbed in studying small vignettes and compositions is such a pleasure and an effort.  I am just plain in love with oils and I always have been.  I am happy to be here and happy to be giving learning something new my best effort.

All best wishes to all of you wherever you are and whatever adventures you are enjoying during this beautiful summer.

Powerful Projects at Bilingual School 33

Last June, I posted a blog featuring a school that we work with, Bilingual School 33 in Buffalo, New York entitled, What Are You Most Proud Of? by Kelley Boyd.  Kelley talks about the transformation in her thinking and in her practice that occurred over the year.  Ashley and I just returned from 2 days in Buffalo after the  second year of work focused on Reggio-Inspired practice and Project-Based-Learning at School 33.  Bilingual School 33 is a pre-k-8th grade public school that has been designated a Turnaround School.  Creating the context for innovative, meaningful, relevant work and practice has been the major foundation of their turn around plan. This June, a year later, Ashley and I were impressed and thrilled to witness the culmination of the work that the teachers and students have done this year.  Many of them had composed their work and their projects to share with one another during the two last days of school.  We heard about a grant-funded, school-wide garden project where fifth graders designed and built raised beds in which each grade in the rest of the school planted what they chose.  We witnessed teachers across the grades collaborating and planning cross grade projects where older students would work with the younger students.  We heard the pre-k through second grade teachers describe their work with Story Workshop inspired by a visit to Opal School in Portland, Oregon and a conference at Lesley University.  They shared with us how hard it had been to begin this work that was so different than their pencil-paper-worksheet based literacy programs; and now, 5 months later, how rewarding it was to witness students writing and illustrating and reading their own stories for their own books.

cadwell collaborative buffalo school 33

We heard about a program for the middle school that was created and initiated by a collaborative team of teachers and the school counselor where small groups of students met with an advisor weekly during lunch time to share, learn, laugh, developing close and authentic relationships, and then working together on service projects.  These SQUADS (Sharing Questions, Uncovering Answers, Discovering Strengths), have transformed the relationships among the students and the teachers who now know, respect, and enjoy each other on a completely new level.

We learned about a collaborative project focused on American veterans that involved 8th graders interviewing a group of veterans young and old, women and men, black, white and Hispanic.   The students wrote essays honoring the veterans based on the interviews they conducted, drew the veterans' portraits, hosted veterans at a school lunch, and joined them in a school-wide parade.  As mutual respect and knowledge grew, the 8th graders changed their perspectives and grew in understanding.  Neither the 8th graders nor the group of veterans will ever forget this shared experience.  The vets and the 8th graders became friends.

Ashley and I could hardly believe how different these stories were than the ones we heard when we arrived at the school two years ago.   We were struck by how proud the teachers and the students are.  We were reminded, once again, just how much people can change and grow given support, resources, examples, time and validation.

Kudos! Thank you! and Congratulations! to all the teachers at Bilingual School 33 in Buffalo!  You are an example and inspiration to us all.

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A Courageous Voyage

It is finally summer and beautiful! I know that all east coasters are basking in the light, warmth and green of these months.  Even Boston public school teachers will be out of school by next Tuesday! Almost July due to all continual snow and snow days.  In any case, yippee for summertime. My first taste of real summer was about 2 weeks ago when I was invited to go out for an evening sail in the Boston Harbor by our friends Carter and Peggy Bacon.  What a gorgeous evening and what a dynamic harbor.  Boats or all kinds, planes taking off  from and landing at Logan Airport from all over the world, blue sky, steady wind, and an endless summer ahead.  There were 8 of us aboard for this harbor cruise including Carter, the captain, and Jim one of the crew who will accompany Carter on a big sail coming up soon...The Transatlantic Race 2015.  Another member of the crew will be Sam Bacon, Carter's youngest son. They will be one of two father son teams in this race.

Captain Carter and his 6 strong and expert young sailors will race with the 40 other boats entered from Castle Hill in Newport, Rhode Island to the southern most point in Great Britain, the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall.  In their 50 foot boat, Solution, they expect to take 15-20 days for the crossing.  Ashley is cooking for the crew, 3 meals of a hardy beef stew frozen in liter blocks!  We are thrilled to be going to Newport to cheer them on and see them start the race at 1:30 p.m. this Sunday the 28 of June.

Mostly, we are in awe of this kind of spirit of undaunted courage taking on such a great challenge.  Hard to imagine many things that require more skill, teamwork, dedication, endurance, courage and love of the elements especially the sea, the wind and the weather.  One of the blog posts on the Transatlantic Race site quotes Mark Twain.  This is a line to remember, to quote and to live by...even if you are not sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in a 50 foot wooden boat!

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Happy summer sailing to all of you!

Louise and Ashley