Unwritten: The Story of a Living System- Excerpt- Chapter 1

        

 

 

 The System Story

Imagine yourself walking into any public or private school in our country. It does not matter what level the school might be, an elementary, middle, or high school.  Imagine just wandering around the school.  Walk down the hallways, visit the cafeteria, go in the gym, visit the library, and move in and out of the classrooms.  As you wander around, you may begin to notice that the majority of the places we call schools are very similar.  For the most part, they all look and feel the same. Students have teachers that teach various subjects. Students are grouped by their age, subjects are taught separately, class begins and ends during a specific period of time, bells ring, and students move on.  Tests are taken, report cards and grades are given, students are sorted and ranked, and children that fall behind are placed in special programs to be remediated. 

It really would be difficult to tell what state you are in simply by walking around a school.  They are all arranged in a very similar manner.  Principals are in charge of the buildings and often times; the assistant principal continues to posit “discipline,” as grade level teachers are sorted by their “content expertise.”  The state standards and curriculum guides all look very much the same.  The lesson plans teachers write all look similar.   Apart from some novel technologies such as computers, smart boards, flat screen televisions, hand held devices, and a host of ever changing new devices and platforms for teachers and students,  there is not that much different in our schools today than there was three decades ago. Even new technologies have not changed what occurs in most schools and classrooms.  How can this be?

Writing A Book !! Excerpt- Introduction

Unwritten
“The Story of a Living System”

 By Michael McKnight and Lori Desautels

Umbutu-“I am because we are".

Learning is the most natural thing human beings do.  Yet, it seems the “harder” we work in schools helping our students to acquire the learning they need, the academic performances stay stagnant or lessen.
 Schools are not machines. Schools are a network of human beings who feel, think, behave, and function within a human system that is alive and never static.  Schools are living systems!  This living system of sentient beings are neuro-biologically wired to feel first; to  think, to love, to connect, and to experience deep joy as well as deep disappointment and pain. This system is wired to thrive, even through difficult times.   Have we lost our way through the primordial landscape of our innate purpose and genius? We can begin to think and to feel differently. Deep learning is profoundly relational and connection to one another is a prerequisite for our collective emotional, social, spiritual and cognitive growth and development.
Please join us in dialogue as we question, remember, strategize, and rewrite the story. The story of a living system that knows compassion, that feels the joys and suffering of humankind; but often times, loses its way in an industrial robotic environment where people are unable to thrive. 

 
            

Pain Based Behavior

One of the central concepts in working with children and youth demonstrating " pain-based behavior" is to be in control of the relationship without being controlling.
The teacher needs to set the tone, rhythm and emotional quality of the interactions in the classroom.

This is learned behavior.  We must make a conscious choice not to "fight" with children.

When the young person coming from experiences of pain has the experience of your emotional stability....  regardless of their emotional volatility .....  you will eventually teach the young person that you are an adult that is SAFE and that they can TRUST you!

It is then.... that healing begins!!!

Wonder...

“Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table.
Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.”

 

― Diane Ackerman

One-Two-Three Story Intellect Poem

One-Two-Three Story Intellect Poem

 

There are one-story intellects,

two-story intellects,

and three-story intellects with skylights.

All fact collectors who have

no aim beyond their facts

are one-story people.

Two-story people compare, reason,

generalize, using the labor of

fact collectors as their own.

Three-story people idealize,

imagine, predict—their best illumination

comes through the skylight.

Adapted from a quotation by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Pain Based Behaviors

The......‘Central Problem’- for adults

 working with children and youth demonstrating
“pain based behaviors”

“Dealing with… primary pain

without inflicting secondary pain experiences…

through punitive or controlling reactions.”

Anglin, 2002

 

Teachers- Looking Underneath Behavior

"Your ability to accurately perceive
a young person's  inner needs
is the source for the most effective
interventions available to you."
- Larry Tobin

Moments in America for Children

September 2013 -  Children's Defense Fund

Every 1½ seconds during the school year a public school student receives an out-of-school suspension.*

 Every 8 seconds during the school year a public high school student drops out.*

Every 19 seconds a child is arrested.

Every 19 seconds a baby is born to an unmarried mother.

 Every 32 seconds a child is born into poverty.

 Every 30 seconds during the school year a public school student is corporally punished.*

Every 47 seconds a child is abused or neglected.

 Every 70 seconds a baby is born without health insurance.

Every 82 seconds a baby is born to a teen mother.

Every 2 minutes a baby is born at low birth-weight.

Every 3 minutes a child is arrested for a drug offense.

Every 7 minutes a child is arrested for a violent offense.

 Every 20 minutes a baby dies before his or her first birthday.

Every hour a child dies from an accident.

Every 3 hours and 15 minutes a child or teen is killed by a firearm.

Every 6 hours a child commits suicide.

Every 7 hours a child is killed by abuse or neglect.

Every 9 hours a baby’s mother dies due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth. *

  Based on 180 school days of seven hours each. The calculation for suspensions is based on data that show that 2,923,895 students received one or more out-of-school suspensions in 2009 but that do not show the exact number of suspensions each student received. As a result, we are underreporting the actual suspension rate. The rate for corporal punishment is underreported for the same reason -

Working with Troubled children and Youth- Pathways to Potential

If you or your organization or school is interested in workshops that I am able to provide

feel free to reach out to me.  Mcknightmichael816@gmail.com

Resiliency.... Children and Youth

The central finding of resiliency research is that young people living with in

 “risky systems” can overcome the odds if they are nurtured with-in another

micro system that provides a safe environment and at the very minimum

one adult who is

“ TENACIOUSLY AND CONSISTENTLY CARING”…

 

 

 

Educators and Teachers- it starts here!!

The student is infinitely more important

 than the subject matter. 

~ Nel Noddings 

John Steinbeck on Teaching!

I have come to believe that a great teacher 
is a great artist and that there are as few 
as there are any other great artists. 
Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts 
since the medium is the human mind and spirit. 
~ John Steinbeck

Freire---

How can I be an educator

 if I do not develop in myself

 a caring and loving attitude 

toward the student, 

which is indispensable 

on the part of one who is committed

 to teaching and to the education process itself.

 ~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom

Dignity and Respect from Adults to Children...

Students deserve our care and concern

 on the grounds of principle,

 not personality. 

~ Marshall Gregory, "Pedagogy and the Three Loves"

Connection-Relationship-Relevance

The fact that people can forget these simple truths

 when intellectualizing about children

 shows how far modern doctrines have taken us. 

They make it easy to think of children

 as lumps of putty to be shaped

 instead of partners in a human relationship. 

~ Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate (p. 399)

Sometimes a simple, almost insignificant gesture

 on the part of a teacher 

can have a profound formative effect 

on the life of a student. 

~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom

Relationship and Connections..

I am dealing with people and not with things. 

And, because I am dealing with people,

 I cannot refuse my wholehearted and loving attention,

 even in personal matters,

 where I see that a student

 is in need of such attention. 

~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom

Aliveness!!!

The teacher must pounce upon the most listless child, and wake him up.

The habit of prompt and ready response must be kept up.

Recapitulations, illustrations, examples, novelty of order, and ruptures of routine,-

-all these are means for keeping the attention alive and contributing a little interest to a dull subject.

Above all, the teacher must himself be alive and ready,

and must use the contagion of his own example

~ William James,Talks to Teachers

Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness.
 ~ Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach

Engagement- William James

Begin with the line of [a student’s] native interests,

 and offer him objects that have some immediate connection with these. . . . 

Schools in which these methods preponderate

 are schools where discipline is easy, 

and where the voice of the master claiming order 

and attention in threatening tones need never be heard. 

~ William James, Talks to Teachers