Month: December 2015

Happy Holidays!

Bret Olson5 Comments

For the last four years, as I lived in China, the biggest holiday of the year was the Lunar New Year but I’ve got to say…being back in a country where Christmas is the biggest holiday has hooked me into the holiday spirit like crazy!  The trees and decorations have been up around here since October but I didn’t really get hooked until this week.  It’s been a great last couple of days, coming together for a school wide breakfast on Thursday and following that with 4 hours of caroling all over campus and even at IMAGINE Valley.  The spirit is in the air and I’m excited 🙂

We’ve hit the holidays and that means a relaxing couple of weeks spent with family and friends.  Many of us will be traveling both near and far, others of us will enjoy the tranquility of sleeping in and lounging about the house with nothing but a coffee and a good book.  It won’t be hard to find peace and happiness during the holiday season, drink it in and enjoy every last drop!!

Personally I’ll be enjoying the best of both worlds, traveling and family!!  I haven’t been this excited for a holiday in a long time and I think it’s the combination of seeing my sisters and their spouses along with the promise of new and exciting experiences that has me flying high.  I hope that everyone will find something or someone to make your holiday a wonderful time.

Ever since I’ve been overseas and taking advantage of long holidays to travel and enjoy new experiences I’ve also been fighting through what I call the “vacation hangover”.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t spend my holidays in some deep alcoholic stupor and then suffer from detox withdrawals!!  Rather, the “hangover” in this case is more of a transition back to the “real world” after enjoying the amazing experiences of far off lands.  Despite the fact that my “real world” IS a far off and exotic land to my family and friends “back home” it seems that the return from a wonderful holiday travel experience leads to a bit of a lull.  This year I aim to do something about that and I’d like to share that with you in case you’ve ever experienced a similar feeling.

Each year people the world over make New Year’s resolutions and, let’s be honest, most people don’t make it to February before they’ve caved in and given up.  I’ve never set a resolution for just this reason; I don’t want to set a goal that is unrealistic.  However, this year I’ve come across a wonderful idea that I am going to work extremely hard to turn into my resolution for 2016.  

The Greater Good Science Center based out of the University of California – Berkeley does amazing research in the field of happiness.  Recently I read one of their articles about how taking a picture can help you hold onto some feelings of joy and happiness.  Now, I’ve always been a picture person (I’m not that great but I try) and when I travel I’m not a collector of anything in particular, just photos.  In the age of digital cameras I have set a goal of taking so many pictures on a trip that at least one of them will be great (even if by accident!)  So when I saw this article I began thinking about my travels and remembered my “vacation hangover” problem…and an idea was born!  

Here it is, my resolution, and I hope people ask me about it and help hold me accountable!  My goal is to take one picture each day and create a year of 2016 “yearbook” for myself.  I don’t have any more specifications, I’m going to see how it goes and let it evolve as necessary.  I’m excited, which means I’ve already gotten off to a good start…hopefully the happiness flows as this project grows.

Anyway, maybe I’ve created a bit of inspiration for you and your New Year’s resolution or perhaps you’re at least interested enough to check out the Greater Good Science Center for yourself, they have a great website full of interesting articles and videos.  They also run a self-paced edX course called “The Science of Happiness” that is totally worth your time!!  At the very least, I want to wish everyone a happy holidays and a restful vacation.  Travel safe if you’re on the go, savor a peaceful walk and enjoy your relaxing time no matter where you are.  Happy Holidays!!!

Get ‘Em Up and Moving

Bret OlsonLeave a comment

We’re almost there, we can all feel the break just around the corner.  It’s been four long months and the kids are feeling it too.  I can’t tell you how many teachers I’ve heard mentioning that the kids just can’t sit still, they’re so ready for break!  

Then, right on cue, the world started sending all sorts of awesome information at me about brain breaks (thanks Betsy!), the importance of movement in classes, and the implications of sitting still.  I know that many of you agree that getting kids moving is important but the challenge is figuring out how to do that while still ensuring the learning you want to happen.  I think the important thing to remember here is that, movement will lead to learning…perhaps substantially more learning!

If learning is our objective at school (I think we all agree that it is) then our classes are just too long for our kids to be stuck in their desks/tables for the duration, not to mention how unhealthy sitting can be.  So how do we get our kids up and out of their desks?

My first recommendation is perhaps the most important piece of all when it comes to a change like this:  Loosen up, relax, and allow your kids the responsibility to make good choices.  This is going to be very hard!  Sometimes, I’m sure you’ve already got a few kids in mind, this sort of responsibility is just too much to handle for certain students.  In that case, they need to be given the chance to prove that they aren’t yet ready for the increased level of freedom.  Similarly, this is going to be hard for you.  Releasing that level of control is hard, I want to encourage you to do this slowly – no need to rush!  That being said, give it a try.

Okay, so you’ve loosened up and you’re ready to increase the movement in your classroom.  To get started, try some of these strategies or at least a version of them.  In particular I like the musical chairs suggestion.  This can function just like a “think-pair-share” or a “turn and talk” but it gets the kids up and moving, as well as talking to different people.  It is a very “ready to use” strategy that will take little to no effort to incorporate into lessons.  Doing this, even two times during a lesson will change the entire dynamic of your classroom!!  

If you’re still not convinced I encourage you to have a look at this article.  A lot of the research floating around right now has to do with younger kids BUT I guarantee that these ideas would be good practice for middle and high school age kids.  Get them up and moving, they might think it’s silly and resist at first but take the risk and you will see the results!  

Finally…dance parties are fun for ALL ages 🙂

We’re a week away from a much deserved break, hang in there!  Give some of these strategies a try next week or when we come back in January, I am confident that you will find that the learning opportunities increase the second you start implementing more movement into your lessons.

Fiestas de Quito

Bret Olson1 Comment

I thought about going against the obvious this week and NOT writing about Fiestas de Quito but after experiencing such amazing performances by our Middle School and High School students I just couldn’t resist celebrating the awesomeness!!

In the weeks leading up to Fiestas de Quito there has been a lot of time and energy put into this celebration of the founding of Quito.  Our Spanish Department deserves a lot of recognition for the time, effort, and crazy amounts of energy they’ve put into helping our students plan such beautiful performances.  Being new to Quito I couldn’t quite fathom the scale to which this celebration would go, it was mind-blowing!  ¡Muchas gracias!

Our students held nothing back and demonstrated an amazing amount of pride, not only in Quito, but in themselves and the work they put in preparing for these performances.  To watch our students push themselves out of their comfort zones while on stage in front of a standing-room only crowd was absolutely inspiring.  I’m impressed more and more everyday with the level to which our students are willing to be risk takers.  However, Fiestas de Quito took that to a whole new level, providing them with a context in which they were engaged and excited to share their efforts and talents with our community.

As educators this is what we strive for, creating an atmosphere for our students that allows them to take risks, learn, and grow in a manner that is comfortable for them.  As I walk around Academia Cotopaxi I see this happening everyday.  Our students are comfortable in their classes and feel safe in their learning environment.  Students see their teachers and the other adults at school as people who care about them, people they can go to if they need help.  The positive relationships we build with our students here at AC create an atmosphere filled with daily opportunities to learn and grow.

Fiestas de Quito is a wonderful opportunity for our community to come together and celebrate the amazing city we are privileged to call home.  As you enjoy the festivities and revelry take a second to stop and think about how you are working to build the positive.  Have a look at this very brief post by best-selling author Jon Gordon.  He talks about the power of positive interactions and the ratio of positive to negative that his research shows to be the tipping point for effectiveness.  It’s very interesting and has applications to life in general (and certainly has implications for the classroom).  Very interesting stuff 🙂

Enjoy the music and parades everyone!  

¡Viva Quito!