Guest Post #5: Morgane Michael’s Journey Exploring and Sharing Kindness

I am very pleased to welcome Morgane Michael as my blog guest this week.  Morgane is an amazing educator from Vancouver Island and the creator of the SMALL ACT BIG IMPACT 21-DAY-CHALLENGE,and the producer of  KindSight 101 Podcast, in which I was honoured to have participated.  In this post she shares her kindness journey with us.

Journey to Small Act Big Impact

As an educator for over ten years, I’ve always cared deeply about making those around me feel valued and seen. Many people, including many of our colleagues, parents, and students, suffer from anxiety, depression, and the effects can be devastating. In my heart, I believe that the small ways in which we connect to others, whether through a smile or an off-handed casual conversation, can make all the difference. I enjoy finding creative ways to explore the concept of deep kindness, especially within the context of our school communities.

It wasn’t until a moment of personal reckoning, that I truly learned about the trans-formative power of kindness. It would be a turning point for me and for my career. With two children under the age of five, I suddenly began experiencing severe dizziness, began bumping into walls, and was so nauseous I couldn’t hold down food.  After a diagnosis of severe vertigo, I was hospitalized and spent over a week in bed, completely unable to care for my children or do virtually anything. During this difficult time, we received an enormous outpouring of help from family and friends.  It was then when I realized just how difficult it was for me to accept these acts of kindness.

Not only does our culture discourage receiving help and kindness (think of how difficult it is to receive and accept a compliment about our character, achievements or clothing without deflecting, when someone offers to pay for the bill at a restaurant, when someone offers you help in a time of need), but it values and rewards over-functioning independence. As Dr. Brené Brown, famed author of Daring Greatly asserts, “we fall prey to the myth that successful people are those who help rather than need, and broken people need rather than help.”

The Birth of the 21-Day Kindness Challenge

My experience sparked an inquiry project, of sorts. I began reading about kindness in leadership, schools, and communities. I learned that we are wired for kindness, that our brain rewards altruism by infusing us with a cocktail of happiness hormones that have been nicknamed the “Helper’s High,” and most incredibly, that kindness is contagious. I started thinking of ways that these concepts could be incorporated into my practice as an elementary school teacher. That’s when I came up with the 21-Day Kindness Challenge. Kindness literally has the power to change workplace, school, and community culture because of its positive ripple effects. What if we could positively influence a school or workplace culture as a result of making kindness a habit?

The 21-Day Small Act Big Impact Kindness Challenge starts with a conscious commitment from individuals to come up with meaningful ways to add value to their school, workplace, and community cultures throughout a dedicated 21-day period. Several exciting ‘spin-off’ projects have resulted as a result of this inquiry into kindness including my blog, podcast, and an upcoming book.

Throughout the course of 2017-2018, I spent time piloting the 21-Day Kindness Challenge across a number of Elementary and Middle Schools within the Victoria, Sooke, and Saanich Districts on Vancouver Island. Students from K-8 loved and resonated with the concept of kindness. The idea gained traction and soon I even heard from teachers who had embraced the challenge within their high-school classrooms through twitter and social media. I spent many Fridays going into schools for launch assemblies and teaching mini-lessons to dozens of classrooms. I have a number of resources including a short animated video, kindness trackers, and lessons that provide teachers with a additional resources to kickstart their own kindness challenge. A lot of the success of the challenge stems from the students taking agency over their impactful action.

This year, as I return back to school after an extended leave with my young kids, I will continue piloting the challenge in my own classroom and incorporating some important kindness metrics (developed by Dr. Binfet from UBC) to measure the effects of kindness on our overall happiness and kindness within the school. I’ll be sharing the roadmap and some of the “How-to’s” in upcoming Pro-D workshops and conferences in Victoria and at the CrossCurrents 2019 Conference.

Here are some of the ways our students have served their schools, communities, and world through the 21-Day Kindness Challenge:

• Sock drives for the homeless
• Creating art for senior’s homes
• Musical performances in group homes for individuals with special needs
• Baking cookies for local hospital family support centres
• Engaging in recycling and other environmental projects
• Raising money for peace-promotion and disaster relief through organizations like Red Cross and Peace Direct
• Delivering care packages to children receiving chemotherapy cancer treatment
• Sending letters and encouraging notes to on-duty members of the military
• Dedicating themselves to small, intentional kindnesses on a daily basis that benefit their classmates, family, and school environment

KindSight 101 Podcast:

The Small Act Big Impact Kindness project led me to further explore the idea of kindness in our community.  I have had honour of interviewing over 40 individuals (including Adrienne Gear) for KindSight 101, the podcast designed for educators and leaders to accompany the Small Act Big Impact kindness mission. I’ve spoken to educators, principals, Nobel Peace Prize nominees, YouTube stars, authors, counselors, TED talk speakers, and parenting gurus. These amazing folks have taught me that everyone has a story and one single thread connects all of us…we all wish to be seen, heard and understood. They’ve also shared tangible actionable strategies and ways to infuse our classrooms and homes with authentic generosity. When we can lead with compassion, empathy, and follow-through with deep, intentional kindness toward one another, we are able to create deep meaningful lives with beautiful relationships.

On a personal note, after having had one of the most incredibly rewarding, gold-mine podcast interviews with Adrienne, my computer glitched, the software we were using to stage and record the interview crashed unexpectedly, and I lost the full hour-and-a-half interview!  Cue panicked hyperventilation! With Adrienne’s generous nature (and some re configuring of technical equipment), we were able to reschedule and rerecord the interview. I’d like to say that it was even better than the first!  You can check out Adrienne’s podcasts here:

Episode #9 Hmmm…Huh? Aha! Tangible Proven Ways to Develop Powerful Understanding P1   https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/9-hmmm-huh-aha-tangible-proven-ways-to-develop-powerful/id1412489005?i=1000416027246&mt=2

Episode #10 Hmmm…Huh? Aha! Tangible Proven Ways to Develop Powerful Understanding P2   https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/10-hmmm-huh-aha-tangible-proven-ways-to-develop-powerful/id1412489005?i=1000416027298&mt=2

Episode #35 But, I’m not Indigenous: How to Explore Indigenous Ways of Learning  https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/35-but-im-not-indigenous-how-to-explore-indigenous/id1412489005?i=1000416027254&mt=2

My New Book Kindness and Homelessness – Inquiry for the Middle-School Classroom   I am very excited to be in the process of writing a book about homelessness and kindness for middle school classrooms.  Through first-hand stories, my goal is to invite young readers to discover the realities, profiles, and causes of homelessness.  Readers will be encouraged to step outside of your own experience and gain a deep understanding of what it means to live without a home. Most importantly, I hope to educate youth to learn about actionable ways to use kindness to help those affected by homelessness. The book is set to be released in early 2020 through Orca Publishers.

Final Thoughts:

At the end of the day, we must ask ourselves daily whether we are proud of our interactions. It comes down to choosing integrity over what feels easy. Taking care of the members in our communities reinforces that they matter. When we can lead with compassion, empathy, and follow-through with deep, intentional kindness toward one another, we are able to create deep meaningful lives with beautiful relationships.

Morgane Michael has been a teacher for over 10 years and is the founder of the not-for-profit Small Act Big Impact 21-Day Kindness Challenge (started in August of 2017). Through professional development workshops and within her Grade 2/3 classroom in the Greater Victoria School District, she teaches kids, parents, and educators how to harness the mobilizing power of kindness to make a big impact on the world, one small act at a time. When she isn’t teaching, reading, writing, or interviewing fascinating new guests for her podcast, KindSight 101, you can find her at boot camp, camping, catching up with friends, playing with her two kids, or enjoying some down time with her husband.  She lives with her family in Victoria, BC and feels tremendous gratitude for the beautiful nature that surrounds them.

Connect with Morgane and explore more of her Kindness Journey :

Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mq3lAU1TQ4 

Website: smallactbigkindness.com

Blog: smallactbigimpact/blog.com

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/smallactbigimpact/

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/smallactbigimpact21days/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sabi21days?lang=en

Linked-In: Small Act Big Impact (Teacher)

YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/3Mq3lAU1TQ4

Suggested hashtags: #vulnerability #kindness #smallactbigimpact #smallactbigimpact21days #21daykindnesschallenge #momsofinstagram #momblogger

 

Guest Post #4 – Reading Power in China by Jennifer Gardner

I am pleased to welcome Jennifer Gardner, extraordinary teacher, administrator, teacher-leader and best of all, my friend!  Although we don’t see each other often, we have a strong “connection” and share a deep passion for teaching, learning and BOOKS! We first met over 10 years ago in Vernon when I was presenting a Reading Power workshop there.  Jennifer embraced Reading Power and it became her school focus for many years.  She is now bringing “deep thinking” to Maple Leaf School in Dalian, China. Welcome, Jennifer!

I met Adrienne in 2005 when I was working as a Literacy Lead Teacher with SD#22 (Vernon). When I attended her Reading Power workshop and realized that her work was based on solid research in a very useable format, I was convinced that this work needed to be adopted and used!! And so began my journey with Reading Power.  Over the next 7 years, Adrienne continued to write books and give workshops. I became a principal and worked with incredible teachers to improve reading in my school. Throughout these years, Adrienne and I have continued our ‘book bond’ – a bond that is focused on supporting teachers, as they teach comprehension in a visible and explicit way.

In 2014, my husband and I moved to Dalian, China to work with Maple Leaf International School System. I was hired to improve reading comprehension skills in a Middle School with 1200 students. I had 30 ESL Bilingual teachers who began this journey with me. It was an incredible journey as I introduced Reading Power as a way to help students ‘think’ in English, while they are reading. These students go from a predominantly Chinese school (10 classes per week of English instruction) to full time English in grade 10 with BC Curriculum and BC teachers! The challenge was to help these bilingual teachers understand the difference between “rote learning of vocabulary and grammar” versus “thinking about what they are reading” in English.

I started with having the Grade 7 students create a Chinese version of the Reading Power poster so that we could add ‘brain parts’ to show the ‘thinking ‘ the students needed to do to make sense of the text. Several students created posters – notice the students in the posters are wearing their Maple Leaf uniforms.

How fun was that! I met with teachers weekly to go over the Reading Power lesson and to model, for them, how we need to help children think. Since good English pictures books were hard to come from, I created ppt’s with picture books I brought from Canada. In this way, I could use 1 picture book in 27 classrooms!  The bilingual teachers loved the support, they could add personal pictures or stories to the ppts and every week I went into classrooms to support them and help them navigate their way. In the course of one year, we introduced Connecting, Questioning and Inferring in an explicit and fun way. The students loved stories like Mean Jean, Courage, Miss Nelson is Missing, Willy the Champ, Yo?Yah!, Good Dog Carl, No!David to name a few. Finding great books for Chinese Middle School boys (with limited English) was my challenge. However, the students cheered whenever we would have a Reading Power lesson. (That was a good sign).

After that one year I returned to Canada to care for my father. To my delight, Reading Power continued on with the Bilingual teachers at the Middle School.  They continued because they noticed that the students were engaged and eager to learn English.

Now, this year, I have returned to China to take on the role of Professional Developer for Literacy Improvement for the ESL Department – 18 different cities, with 32 ESL Directors. Our focus will be Reading Power and Writing Power, K-9. We just finished 3 intensive days of sessions involving ‘changing the way we teach English to improve literacy’. Reading Power is a big part of this change – system wide.

It is such a privilege to work with these ESL Directors, teachers, and students. They are eager to learn and are so respectful of the support they are receiving. I am impressed with their work ethic and their willingness to teach in a way that supports students’ learning!

Having Adrienne as my colleague and friend, has been a tremendous support. Her work is finding its way across oceans and continents!  Reading Power is now being translated into Mandarin! Thumbs up!!

Jennifer Gardner

Contact info:

jrgardner39@gmail.com

jennifergardner@mapleleafedu.com

 

Guest Post #3 – Reading Power in Tanzania by Ashley Aaoki

I am happy to welcome Ashley Aaoki as my third guest blogger.  Ashley is a beginning teacher in SD 67 in beautiful Okanagan.  She is passionate about teaching and about sharing her love of learning to students and teachers in all corners of the globe.  In this post, she shares her extraordinary and inspiring journey from her childhood days of “playing teacher” to bringing the joy of reading, writing, and learning to students and teachers in an orphanage and school in Arusha, Tanzania (Africa).

“Stand against the grain, get a purpose in your heart and ask yourself , “What can my life do?'” – Benjamin Cole Brown

Education has always been at my heart center. I can recall memories of the young(er) Ashley standing in front of the chalkboard, which perfectly hung in our playroom, assigning spelling tests and math quizzes to my little sister – she was naive and I was bossy! Evolving from that heart center laid another passion: traveling, but not any “type” of travel. I wanted to have authentic conversations with the local people, work alongside children who (just like my students) dreamed, laughed, and cried, and learn about what (extra)ordinary people face every single day. On a single piece of paper I wrote, “travel to Africa”. It was a dream placed in my heart and I kept it there for a long time. That was until the summer of 2016 when the dream in my heart and reality met.

Last year I had the privilege to travel as a teacher chaperone to Arusha, Tanzania. I had just closed the door on my first year of teaching and was coming off an emotional high. For a year I had been planning, preparing, and dreaming about my exciting journey ahead to bring twenty students and three teacher chaperones (I was one of the chaperones) to Tanzania, Africa.  We dedicated four labour intensive workweeks in an Orphanage/School located in the slums of Arusha. The work was challenging, the conversations I with those at the orphanage broke, yet it also captured my heart. Every. Single. Piece. Maybe it was the conversations I had with the children just like the ones my mom would have had with me as a child, “You are so loved, valuable, beautiful, and worthy!”, or maybe it was sitting on the rocky orphanage floor reading to the children just like my dad would have read to my sister and I at night. It might have been every moment, big or small. Whatever it was, I knew I needed to return and give more of myself.

When I signed up for the second trip, I spent a lot of time thinking about the skills I had and what I could offer, specifically to the teachers at the orphanage. Several conversations had been exchanged during the previous summer about professional development, which sparked the teachers curiosity; simply because professional development was beyond anything they had experienced before. I knew that collaboration, especially in this capacity could make a significant difference. I just didn’t know quite how.

Shortly after spring break had concluded (and a conversation was had with one of my colleagues and fellow chaperones) I had a vision of offering a reading and writing workshop for the teachers. There were many unanswered questions I had: How do I (a second year, 23 year old teacher) offer a workshop to teachers?  Do I really know what I’m doing?  What should I teach them?  But I knew that if I asked the “right” people, there could be support given. I began by asking a mentor of mine for ideas and suggestions.   At that point, she suggested I contact Adrienne Gear.  Now, I have a small confession to make: Adrienne is essentially a celebrity in my teaching life.  Not only was Adrienne a teaching celebrity, I also used all of her books in my classroom during my first year of teaching (Reading Power and Writing Power – fiction and nonfiction), proudly displayed the Reading Power Poster on the chalkboard; had attended every workshop or presentation she had given in our area, and reviewed her blog weekly for book recommendations for the classroom. I knew how powerful her books had been for me, as a beginning teacher, in providing a focused direction, plan, and process for teaching my students in both reading and writing. At times (especially during my first year of teaching) I would feel so overwhelmed with the tasks of teaching my students how to read and write and I found myself cherry picking from a variety of sites – including Pinterest.  I felt myself often existing at a crossroads between the “let’s make cute anchor charts that we’ll use once because we can’t remember what its purpose was” and progressing my students along as individuals who could be effective, capable, imaginative readers and writers. The problem wasn’t my students –  it was my lack of direction, failed processes, and confusing plans. But Adrienne’s books were straight forward and transformed my teaching and I dreamed of the endless possibilities of sharing these ideas with the teachers in Tanzania.

And so I tried to be “cool” (inside I was NOT!) and contacted Adrienne directly.  Following a couple of email exchanges, she told me that she would be more than willing to support the workshop by providing a list of anchor books that I might choose from as well as offering to donate some books for the teachers.  (cue Ashley celebrating and dancing like she’s 5 at a birthday party shortly after having cake!). She contacted her publisher at Pembroke, Mary Macchiusi, and together they donated 20 books – ten Reading Power and ten Writing Power books – to give to the teachers.  I spent several weeks carefully selecting the activities and information I was to share. Anchor charts were made with my neatest elementary teacher printing, and several books were purchased (thanks to several fundraising projects that happened within our district and my school). I packed up all of the items ready to be placed on the planes and felt as prepared as I possibly could. This would be a complete surprise for the teachers, and my excitement was building!

On one of our first days at the orphanage my colleague gathered all of the teachers and asked me to share the news. I can distinctly remember one teacher looking up at the sky and thanking God for me. The excitement shared amongst the teachers was palpable and I mentioned to them that I wished I could have bottled it up and saved the excitement for times in my life when I needed it. Throughout the weeks that followed (before the workshop) the teachers would seek me out on the worksite and share their excitement “oh, Ashley we cannot wait for you to teach us.”

Teacher Justin arrived one hour before the workshops schedule beginning time. He could hardly wait! Along with teaching the most vulnerable children in Arusha’s slums, Justin is the schools social worker representative. This means he completes home visits on a regular basis encouraging young boys and girls to go back to school.

 

On the day of the workshop, I lined up the newly purchased picture books and novels, placed the Reading and Writing Power Books in front of each seat with a duotang filled with resources, a pen, and a highlighter. Some teachers, eager to begin, arrived an hour early! We began walking our way through the components of the Reading Power book, and (taking a page out of Adrienne’s “book” on how to present) I presented lessons that I had completed in my classroom.

Ten teachers and the Headmaster joined me in a day of learning and growing – together!

 

The teachers were provided time to ask questions and while some were nervous each question gave me more insight into what teaching is like at the orphanage, and in Tanzania. Some of the comments shared included:

“I’m wondering how I teach this process to children with disabilities?”

This comment struck me as individuals who are disabled in Arusha are considered an inconvenience. They are often the poorest people as many don’t see employ ability for them as an option. My response to her was a Swahili term “polle, polle” (slowly, slowly). That great things can happen to those that take their time.

Following this comment another teacher placed his hand up and said:

“I’m wondering if this process will change my students personalities?”

Caught slightly off guard, I looked at this teacher and said: “No Edward, this won’t change your students. But it will give you insight into who your students are as people.”

 The workshop ended with one of the teachers (who I absolutely adore) stating the following:

“I don’t know if you know this Ashley, but Tanzanian culture does not recognize reading as a common practice. Books are incredibly expensive and when people do read it’s for the comics in our local newspaper. Before this workshop I looked at these picture books here and thought ‘what do these teach my pupils? What purpose do they have?’ Now, I see that my pupils can learn about things that I’m trying to teach on my own. Lessons like helping one another out or realizing it’s okay to not be perfect. So, thank you. Thank you!”

As the teachers left following a remarkable workshop each one thanked me several times and many hugs were exchanged. Some were showing me they were connecting (using the Gear hand signal) and one even sought me out days later and spent time regurgitating as much information that he learnt as possible.

The teachers were unbelievably PROUD to be holding their new Reading and Writing Power books. I was PROUD of them for demonstrating both growth and vulnerability throughout the day of learning!

 

I cannot express in words how thankful I am to both Adrienne Gear and Mary Macchiusi at Pembroke Publishing for their support in making this workshop a possibility. The books were provided to the teachers as a result of their generous hearts (and donations). This was a truly magical day for the teachers and me. For a group of teachers, their eyes were opened to the possibilities that books (and reading) have in a classroom setting; the teachers reflected on what they had learned and were thrilled to implement new ideas into their classroom; and the director recognized how revolutionary this particular learning development was for a group who had (up until that point) never participated in professional development.

Following the workshop presentation, I completed a Reading Power Lesson with these students. We discussed what connecting was, and practiced connecting while listening to a culturally relevant picture book “Rain School” by James Rumford. The students also practiced reading to themselves. The library was filled with the sound of silence as the students opened up the wonders found in a great book!

 

On our final day at the Orphanage, as our students were saying their farewells with the children that quickly became “theirs”, I made a point of connecting with one teacher (Justin). He held my hand and thanked me again for teaching him. Just before I left he said, “Before you arrived,  Ashley, the teachers were very sad. This work is hard, and it was like a grey cloud was sitting over us. When you taught us, you lifted us up. You lifted up our spirits and gave us hope. Just like the sun”. I looked at him and said, “That’s what life is about. We lift each other up, hold one another’s hands and walk together”.

This type of work has been my cause, allowed me to stand against the grain, and has reminded me how important the question “What can my life do?”  is.  I know that I have just started but will continue to find the answer.

Ashley Aoki was born, raised, and is currently living and working in the beautiful Okanagan Valley working (School District #67) where she will begin her third year of teaching this fall.   Traveling to other countries has been an integral part of her life and teaching practice.  Her passion is teaching her students about global issues and encouraging them to participate in activities that make a difference in the school, local, or global community. This past year, the students in her school (and previous school) raised over $1500.00 to support the students and teachers at the Arusha Orphanage including new picture books, novels, school supplies, land shoes.  She considers herself a teacher/humanitarian, and recognizes the significant role education has on a global scale, seeing it as one of the key components that pulls individuals out of poverty.

You can leave a comment for Ashley below or contact her directly at: aaoki@summer.com