“Who are these people?”
—Every student at the beginning of school.
“Who are these people?”
—Every teacher at the beginning of school.
One of the hardest things in life, especially school life, is to understand and communicate with other people. After the summer break, students often get overwhelmed by their classmates, who are also overwhelmed, and by their teachers, ditto. When you factor the various neurologies and accompanying anxieties that affect 2e kids, that overwhelming feeling can become a tidal wave.
Over the last few years, under the guidance of mentors such Susan Baum, Robin Schader, and Henry Nichols, Bridges Academy, the flagship school for twice-exceptional education, has experimented with a beginning-of-the-year activity called
Starting with Strengths. Its purpose is for students and teachers to get to know each other, particularly for teachers to begin to understand the students in their classrooms.
The
Starting with Strengths activities have taken many forms in the ten years that Bridges has used them. Condensed into an afternoon of personality evaluations proved too short to give quality information to the teachers and for the students to take it seriously. Going too long, dedicating the entire first week to the activities, proved wearisome and resulted in student burn-out.
Reshaped and revised this year under the leadership of the new Head of School, Keri Borzello, the program is tightly organized into two parts that take about an hour and a half after lunch during Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the first week of school, culminating in a Friday presentation.
Part One primarily uses two tools to evaluate the strengths of each student—and teacher. Part Two uses those evaluations to organize groupings of students in their areas of interests and focuses on how to apply community values (such as honesty, integrity, etc) to enhance the quality of life in the individual, the school, and the world. This article will focus on Part One. Next week we will look at Part Two.
Who I Am
The introduction of
Starting with Strengths typically begins by emphasizing that the tools used to explore individual personalities reveal areas of interest and learning styles. Refined over the years, these tools measure preferences—what are the most comfortable, motivating, interesting, and inspiring ways for this person to learn.
My Learning Print, developed by Robin M. Schader, Joseph S. Renzulli, and Wenying Zhou can stimulate and enhance the learning experience through a process of self-evaluation and discussion. It is useful for parents at home, too, to get away from the dead end of “How was your day at school?”
“The overall purpose of
My Learning Print,” according to Schader, “is to help students (no matter how young or old) develop into successful learners by building connections between
who they are as learners,
what they might become as adults, and
how the learning process can best take place.” The goal, she says, is create “a common vocabulary that brings people and resources together to increase both student engagement and student achievement.”
There are three parts to the survey.
- Strengths and Interests explores subjects that students feel they are good at and how much time they would like to spend learning or doing activities in that interest area.
- Learning Style Preferences gets more into the ways new information is best received, including physical conditions, and the best ways for students to express what they have learnt.
- Activities and Experience looks at life at home, with family or individually, what they enjoy the most, and what—and how—they are motivated to learn.
Complementing
My Learning Print, Bridges students are also given the
Quick Personality Indicator, developed by Susan Baum and H.J. Nichols. The specific goal of this series of multiple choice questions is to determine preferred learning styles.
The ten questions cover favorite computer games, the best part of family vacations, best use of time, and even what committee they would serve on for a school prom. The cumulative answers indicate how effective that person would be in each of four categories;
People Person, Learned Expert, Creative Problem Solver, or
Practical Manager.
For example, if a student had more points in the
People Person category, they would likely feel comfortable working in groups. They might also have scored significantly in the
Learned Expert category, making them somewhat likely to take on projects in their interest area. But they might have low scores as a
Practical Manager, so leading a group project might be more of a challenge.
Now that we know a little more about who we are—students and teachers—we can examine some of our shared values and how to apply those values during the school year. Next week we’ll look at how Bridges Academy integrates the wide variety of very individualized learning styles among its students into a unified field theory of twice-exceptional education.
For more information about
My Learning Print and the
Quick Personality Indicator, please contact
https://2ecenter.org/
