All In Your Frame of Mind.....
- Leigh Choate
- Oct 26, 2020
- 3 min read
As we move into the end of the first quarter of the 2020-2021 school year, it is hard to believe that the year is going by so quickly and that really we have done our best as educators to cram one entire semesters’ worth of content into one quarter. Since we only had the even periods, 2nd, 4th, and 6th periods to start off the school year, when we enter into the second quarter, we will only be in our odd period classes. I appreciate that it was scheduled this way only because if in the event that we do go back to school, we would be able to see the even periods in the third quarter and then again the odd periods during the 4th and final quarter of the year. For sure this schedule has its pros and cons. But that is not what I really wanted to talk about.
As we have embarked on an entirely new way of learning and teaching for almost everyone, there has been much time, effort, and professional development on the part of our teachers to prepare for this strange adventurous journey into the unknown distance learning path that nobody is meandering down by choice. What is not discussed at all, and a topic that I think is of huge importance, is students and their families. In the Distance Learning Playbook for Parents, there is a chapter near the end of the book that discusses the family mind frame. This is exciting news for me! To have a book take on the task of educating parents about healthy mind frames for families during distance learning is not something that I thought that I would ever see, but a topic that is hugely important and often the elephant in the room, even when we are not in distance learning.
The authors start off by saying that there are, “ten mind frames that can help you assist your child in their learning, regardless of the structure of the school--distance, blended, or in-person” and is quickly followed by, “We shouldn’t focus narrowly on grades while overlooking the learning” (2021, p.119). It seems that so many parents are caught up in their child’s grades that often the larger picture is missed, especially during distance learning and even more so in 7th and 8th grade. Out of the ten total, there are three that really stood out to me, numbers five, eight, and ten and are listed below as they are stated in the book.
Family Mindframe 5: I have appropriately high expectations (pp. 123-124)
Family Mindframe 8: I appreciate the power of feedback and the place for praise as well as errors (pp. 126-127)
Family Mindframe 10: I am a parent, not a schoolteacher (pp. 128-129)
What I like so much about this chapter and specifically the family mind frame, is that it really creates a space for discussion within families and allows for sort of a re-evaluation of what is going on at school, not just for the student and teacher, but for the parents as well. Helping parents/guardians fit into this puzzle of learning is hugely important and if we all work together as a team, we can do amazing things.
So how do we accomplish this you might ask? My suggestion is to focus on mindfulness. But what is mindfulness? Greater Good Magazine defines mindfulness as,” maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens”(Mindfulness Defined, 2020). This definition also states the importance of mindfulness and to me, it could specifically relate to parents in particular because they are “sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future”(Mindfulness Defined, 2020). Where this really can be evident is when parents get caught up in vicariously living through their children or planning too far ahead in their child’s future without even knowing it and then in the process they forget what is really important at the moment or what is really going on with their child.
All in all, I think the question that as parents that we really should be asking our children and ourselves is, as Chris Conley so perfectly puts it in his TED talk entitled, measuring what makes life worthwhile, is, “how do you feel about how you spend your time each day”? This keeps the focus in the here and the now and has a combination of mindfulness, reality, and check-in for parents if they are focused on themselves instead of being mindful of their child.
~leigh
Conley, C. (2010, February). Measuring What Makes Life Worthwhile. [TED Talks].
The University of California Berkeley, (2020). Mindfulness Defined. The Greater Good Science
Wiseman, R., Fisher, D., Frey, N., Hattie, J. ( 2021). The Distance Learning Playbook for
Parents. Corwin Press, Inc.
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