Another idea I recently experimented with involved the idea of creating a Circle of Trust for one of our meetings. We have been working hard as a team to find ways to reignite the human element to our work. It is very important that we take time to step back from all the professional layers of education to remind ourselves that we are all people with our situations, problems, families, and events going on.
One goal of mine when infusing purposeful play into our work sessions and with schools I work with is to rekindle the culture of our spaces to allow honest conversation, laughter, tears, and a new sense of belonging to our tribes.
In one of our previous meetings I had three goals I wanted to accomplish are at least begin to set the foundation to accomplish.
- Remind ourselves in the joys of play and creativity
- Showcase our learning to enhance our learning spaces
- Realize the beauty in simple things.
I spent the better part of two weeks making this fake firepit for the experience I wanted to create. This is by no means necessary, but in the end I created this firepit made with styrofoam, neopixels, Arduino, and paint. It actually looks like fire is brewing in the pit. I simple love it. And yes, there is a tutorial coming soon!
I am not going to lie, I was motivated by Justin Timberlake and his Man in the Woods tour when my wife and I got away for a night. Taking a break is key to creavity which is another post for another day.
When people arrived in our space I had created a mock campfire scene for us to all sit around as we established our Circle of Trust. I am sharing not because it is perfect, but we can create conditions no matter our space. We are not able to create anything permament, but that does not have to prevent us from being different. Sometimes moving to a different part of a room, mixing up the walk patterns, changing the layout, can be all that is needed.
We spent time talking about the Circle of Trust and what it means. We then shared our monthly goals we created for ourselves with our High-Five Accountability partners.
Once we finshed this up we moved into the goal of making the space look better by sharing our learning.
We presented them with the idea that each month we will be creating a symbol that represents our monthly learning goal. We will use various materials each month and by the end of the year we will have these awesome totem poles of learning that showcase our journey for the year.
Sometimes we need the visual reminders of how much we have progressed and learned because the daily grind can blind us of our accomplishments.
For this first symbol they had to come up with an animal and color scheme that best matched their learning. They were then give glue, scissors, and construction paper. The confines of the materials helps them to narrow down and really give purposeful thought to their symbol and learning.
Before you downplay this activity, please understand how much thought goes into this process. You have to be very intentional in researching the animals and colors. You really have to analyze your learning to make connections. It is not an easy task.
As people worked, they found great relaxation in cutting paper, using glue, and drawing and making. There is a huge benefit to not always buying or using technology. It was an energy that is hard to describe.
In the end we had these amazing animal symbols all around the room. I cannot wait to see this room transform over the next several months.
Finally, each person had to record a Flipgrid where they held up their symbol and explained it. Anytime someone needs motivation they can head to this room, check the symbols, listen to the Flipgrid and be reminded about how awesome we all are as educators.
Here are the images created for this first round
And here is a link to the entire project for you to use
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