Critical reflection is the first step in growing as educators and serving all our students. During a lesson or a school year, a myriad of challenges can rise and prevent educators from reaching their goals or aligning with their beliefs or desires as an educator. How we meet those challenges can—at least partially—determine whether we successfully enact our mission or burnout. This check-in is designed to help educators reflect on challenges and successes and to help them meet the diverse and evolving needs of their students and themselves.
Paper
Writing utensils
Drawing utensils
Simple instruments
You may read parts of this verbatim or use this as a guide for personalizing the experience for the educators you are working with.
At your own workstation, start by taking three deep breaths. With each breath, allow your body to become softer and more relaxed. Feel free to let a sound out with each exhalation.
Take a couple of minutes to free draw and become reacquainted with your drawing utensils. This can be a simple doodle, a scribble, or a picture of something. Remember this is just a warm-up, and welcome anything that comes onto the page with a smile, befriending any "mistakes." In the end, take another minute to give your warm-up image a title.
With your eyes closed, open with a soft gaze, or fixed on something static, imagine a "perfect class" for you. There are no limits. You can change the physical classroom in your imagination, you can change policies you may not normally have control over. You can change your class size. Take these next five minutes to imagine your dreams, goals, and mission as an educator being fully realized, without any challenges, interruptions, or other barriers. (Pause). In this daydream, what do you see? (Pause). What are you doing, as the teacher? Are you singing, playing instruments, conducting, or interacting with your students? Are you just stepping back and witnessing their beautiful musicking? (Pause). What do you hear? (Pause). How do you feel? Sense your imagined physical self, emotional state, or energy. As you sense this, allow your daydream to positively unfold or develop in some way. (Pause).
After gently emerging from the daydream, take five minutes to free write about what you witnessed, felt, or audiated. You can also write about how you are thinking or feeling now, after visiting that imagined educational utopia.
Take another few minutes to make a list of things from your daydream that differ from your reality—even the things you have little or no influence over (e.g., class sizes and state-wide policies). In the end, circle the items that you could realistically influence or change.
Somewhere in the shared space, make two whole-group lists; one for the things you all can realistically change, and another for the things you may not be able to change.
Once you have added your list items, start to make a collaborative image with the group, consisting of various elements from the list of things you could potentially influence or change.
What would this big, collaborative image sound like? Using some of the simple, provided instruments, how could you work together to realize the sound of change? Your role here in the ensemble might differ from your imagined classroom role in the daydream, and that is ok. Remember there are times to shine, and times to support, and your ability to do both makes you a dynamic, effective educator. Allow this experience to gently unfold, then come to a natural close when to group feels satisfied.
After returning to your individual workstation, take another few minutes to write about this whole experience. What did you hear? How did you feel? How did you work with your colleagues during the activity? How can such collaboration continue outside of this experience?
Voluntary whole-group discussion: responding to the guiding questions above and/or sharing “gems of discovery.”
To close, take a collective moment to listen to the reverberations of the activity. You can do this with eyes closed, open with a soft gaze, or fixed on something static. If you want to let out any sounds during this listening, feel free. After a few minutes, re-orient your attention to the group, and offer your colleagues a gesture of appreciation.