After sending yesterday's blog I went back to the Hyatt and met up with Heather and Valerie in the bar at the top of the Tower. The tower has a revolving restaurant and bar and the three hundred and sixty degree views are just gorgeous. We sipped elderflower martinis or margaritas as we slowly rotated, then when we had seen the whole view went downstairs to dinner. Some in depth passionate conversation ensued which ranged from religion and politics to post-modernism and revisionist writing. Yours truly didn't add much to the conversation but sat and drank it all in. Good conversation can be as heady as champagne!
Thursday 1st July
Next morning, back in the Strand session, Bill quoted Medina's research which proved that emotionally charged events persist much longer in our memories, and are recalled with greater accuracy than neutral memories (Brain Rules), so we worked on adding emotion to our teaching. He also spoke about testing done on dogs which were immobilised and shocked, until they stopped reacting - and linked it to children in a classroom being forced to sit still, immobile, for long periods and the 'learned helplessness' that this induces. Lack of movement can CAUSE depression but activity can actually REVERSE it. [I MUST get a copy of the book to read for myself].
Then it was time to stand up, and we went out (or aside) in groups to work out how we would present a 'Punctuaton Chant' to a class... we called ourselves 'The Ragged Edges" after an Oscar Wilde quote that Bill had mentioned the previous day. Again, there were 6 groups and 6 completely different skits resulted from the same 9 minute collaboration. Next we worked on vocabulary and TPR - yet ANOTHER acronym - which stands for Total Physical Recall (what I call muscle memory). There are so many acronyms I didn't know; how could I remember this one? So with assistance from one of the other teachers in my group I did the body movements that help recall the words behind the acronym... its very hard to describe in words, suffice it to say, it WORKED, because I just wrote about it and didn't need to reread my notes! After the mid session break, we discussed Kirkegaard and the Fridge analogy...if faced with a choice of chocolate eclair and healthy low fat yoghurt... which would you choose? That tug-of-war is constant in our lives, SO then we discussed graphic organisers and did a very interesting activity with a grid made of 6 x 6 squares which cearly demonstrated how many of us obey blindly... without reasoning on or thinking logically about the instructions given. The only rule was the helpers could not speak, but we interpreted that to mean we couldn't step into the grid or use tools in the grid - until we were given permission. Insightful!
Lunchtime brought us to the official luncheon, and it was amazing. First and least amazing the staff fed 2,000 people at once, and started cleaning up in just on twenty minutes. The highlight of the lunch, though, was the ex-AVID student's experiences. All four of them have had such hard lives and overcome such soul destroying events in their lives, and due to the influence of AVID have been able to turn their lives around and make positive choices because of the independent determination that AVID helps the students develop. Several of us at our table were in tears at the hardship these young people have faced. Remembering their experiences will certainly help me get my much smaller issues into perspective. As I type this I realise it is a perfect example of our morning's lesson on linking learning to powerful emotions. Yep, once again, AVID WORKS!
After lunch we had our final Site Team meeting in which we practised the Socratic Circle method of analysing an article or reading, that allows multiple views to be aired, absorbed and discussed in a calm non-threatening manner. Following that session we bussed back to the Hyatt and went down to make a small presentation to Granger Ward (AVID Director) who along with Dennis, Shannon and Michelle had made us feel so welcome and looked after us so well.
It's the last day tomorrow... already... I am so going to miss all the interesting, passionate, dedicated educators... and lovely, welcoming people... I have met this week.
Until next time,
Bye y'all,
Tracey
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