These days my inbox is filled with two kinds of questions.

1. Can you give me some advice for writing end-of-year reports?
2. Do you have suggestions for making summer planning easier?

Luckily, I have thoughts on both of those topics. You can find lots of information about them both on the blog. But I mention this just because it points out the dilemma that teachers face right now.

The blog post for this episode.
Waldorf at Work, my Substack newsletter.

In this episode, I take a look at the Waldorf traditions and ceremonies that mark students' development and transitions. Waldorf is really good at marking time in this way and it's one of the things many of us really love about Waldorf Education.

The blog post for this episode.

Waldorf at Work: My super-practical, actionable Substack newsletter.
Email me about summer mentoring.
Interested in my Summer Planning course? I'm in the process of deciding if I'm going to run this course. Let me know if you're interested.

Interested in following me on my new adventure? You can subscribe at:
waldorfatwork.substack.com

Also in this episode, I talk about the question I hate most: "Am I Waldorf enough?" I talk through the assumptions that are embedded in this question and some of the reasons why they are completely misguided.

Because, newsflash, Waldorf is not about playing the flute, singing songs, or spending lots of time outside. It's about doing those things out of an understanding of the impact that they have on students. And you can be a great Waldorf teacher, even if you don't know how to draw a horse.

Read more of my ideas about this in this post on Waldorf at Work.

How do you demonstrate your commitment to learning and growing? What mistakes have you made recently? How do you show others that it's okay to make mistakes? And how do you make sure you're REALLY okay with making mistakes?

Finding these answers has been a big part of my work recently, and my own path as a learning, growing human being -- even as a grown-up. It's also the topic of my new project Evolving Pigeon -- even old birds learn and grow.

Here are links to some of the things I talked about this week.

Evolving Pigeon
Instagram
Facebook
A Waldorf Journey

Send me an email or a DM with your own growth mindset experiences.

A brand new episode catching you up on why I left teaching and what I'm doing now.

Mentioned in this episode
My website, A Waldorf Journey
Blog post about my decision to leave teaching
Blog post about telling my students
A post about walking the growth mindset talk

My new project, Evolving Pigeon, for adult fans of the growth mindset
The Practical Art of the Waldorf Classroom
My other courses
My curriculum guides

Follow me on Instagram
The Facebook group

Interested in mentorship or sponsorship? Email me at [email protected]

Recently I was working with some teachers who are getting ready to teach 7th grade and we were talking about the creative writing block most often called Wish, Wonder and Surprise. We had a conversation about each one of these gestures and what makes them different from each other. And we talked about how to have this conversation with students.

Wish

Wish is pretty clear. When I taught 7th grade, the students and I talked about the difference between a wish, a hope and a dream. And we talked about how these words take on a different meaning when your wish, hope or dream is for someone else, or when it’s for the world.

Surprise

Surprise is also fairly clear. It’s that feeling when you’re confronted with something so unexpected that it takes you off-guard. It’s easy to confuse surprise and wonder in this way, but surprise is much more unsettling. Surprise can cause someone to feel a little fearful.

Defining Wonder

And then there’s wonder. Wonder is a feeling that is much more difficult to define. I know, as a teacher, that wonder is a feeling that I want to inspire in my students. I have this sense that wonder is essential to the learning process, but I have a hard time describing what it is. 

So, in preparation for this episode, I did a little research. I found an article on neuroscience that attempts to describe the role that wonder plays in learning. Here are some of the things the article said:

• Wonder is an inner desire to learn that awaits reality in order to be awakened.
• The scope of wonder is greater than that of curiosity.
• Wonder is the center of all motivation and action in the child.
• Wonder is what makes life genuinely personal.
• Beauty is what triggers wonder.

Another article defined wonder by describing the play, exploration, imagination and discovery that often happens for students outside the classroom as they play outside or pretend with friends. And the article sadly mentioned that most of this is left outside the door when students enter a typical classroom. That sense of wonder and awe is not inspired when they take a test or fill in the blanks on a worksheet.

I also found a school website that tried to summarize and define wonder as it described the school’s curriculum. They tried to define wonder by describing phenomena like …

• caterpillars turning into butterflies
• bean seeds sprouting
• the phases of the moon
• the sun rising and setting
• the movement of the clouds

Contemplating these phenomena was probably the closest I got to actually understanding and settling on a definition of wonder in my research.

Experiences of Wonder

The thing is, wonder is really hard to define, but you know it when you experience it. So I decided to think about moments in my own life when I remember feeling what I would describe as wonder.

My examples of experiences of wonder

My poor efforts at defining wonder

• an inbreath, like your breath is taken away a little bit
• viewing something you’ve seen before completely differently
• an opening

And this last bit is why wonder is so important to learning. When students enter a state of wonder, an opening is created. A possibility arises for them to view the world differently and to come to a different understanding. 

Wonder in the Classroom

So, if wonder is so important to learning, how can we create

It’s August, so I’m headlong in planning mode. And though there are many things competing for my time these days, working on my planning is one the tasks that I actually look forward to every day. 

It’s also the one thing that teachers ask me for the most help with. I feel lucky that planning is something that I enjoy so much, and it definitely makes a difference in my classroom. I start the year feeling prepared. I head into every new block with a solid plan. And I start each day knowing exactly where my lesson is going.

Now, all this planning isn’t to say that I’m not flexible. I definitely recognize the value of deviating from the plan when necessary, and I do that often. But having a plan gives me the confidence to feel free enough to deviate. It’s the plan that allows for the creativity. It’s that old from form comes freedom notion.

So, how can you love planning? There are two main things that make the planning love happen for me.

Supplies

The first is supplies. I confess that I’m a sucker for stationery and beautiful office supplies. I’ve used a variety of different planning systems through the years and I’ve found success with all of them. I find that switching things up every now and then makes me love my planning even more.

Some of my most popular blog posts and podcasts have been about the planning systems I’ve used. I’ll link to them in the show notes.

• What Waldorf Teachers Do in July
• Supplies for Waldorf Teacher Planning
• Hobonichi for Teachers
• How Notion Has Completely Transformed My Life
• How to Plan Your School Year AND Enjoy Your Summer

Here are some of the supplies that make my planning experience enjoyable. (I’ll link to some of these in the show notes and some of them are affiliate links.)

• a nice fountain pen (Lamy, TWSBI)
• a planner (Hobonichi, Ink+Volt, Papier, Plum Paper)
• a notebook (Notebook Therapy, Rhodia, Clairefontaine)
• a large sketchbook (Dick Blick, Denik)

Want a Plum Paper planner for 10% off? Email me at [email protected] and I’ll send you the coupon.

Having a Plan

I’m going to go over this just briefly because I teach a whole course on developing a planning system, but the point here is to plan your planning. Know what aspect of your planning you need to work on and when you need to do it. Here’s how my planning system breaks down.

Yearly Planning

Monthly Planning

Weekly Planning

Daily Planning

I hope taking a deep dive on planning has been helpful for you and that you’ll find yourself inspired to enjoy your planning a little more.

Register for my summer productivity course.

My history as a middle school teacher

How our work will change

What we’re doing to set a solid framework

Building Habits

• homework
• Finishing their work
• Engaging with our lessons
• General classroom behavior

Building a Culture of Caring

• we’re good people and we’re working together
• we’re on the same team
• building up an image of each individual as a caring individual
• building an image of the class as a whole being caring
• building a reputation for them to live up to

How Middle School Will Change Things

• less focus on me as the teacher/authority; much more social with each other
• focus on the content
• looking out at the world together
• contrast the morning verses

Links

My substack newsletter

Teaching Children to Care

Facebook group

Buy me a cup of coffee

Send me an email.

Join me as I make my way through The Growth Mindset Coach — a month-by-month guide for teachers. Each month I’ll record an episode about it and I’d love to hear what you think!

In this episode . . . 

• Audible (affiliate link)
• my curriculum guides
• The Growth Mindset Coach by Annie Brock and Heather Hundley
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• Grit by Angela Duckworth

TARGET from Carol Ames

• Task
• Authority
• Recognition
• Grouping
• Evaluation
• Time

Join me as I make my way through The Growth Mindset Coach -- a month-by-month guide for teachers. Each month I'll record an episode about it and I'd love to hear what you think!

In this episode . . . 

• Skillshare (my affiliate link)
• my curriculum guides
• The Growth Mindset Coach by Annie Brock and Heather Hundley
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

Teacher feedback stems

• I noticed how
• Look at how much progress you've made on
• I see a difference in this work compared with
• I admire how hard you have worked on
• I can see you really enjoyed learning
• Could it make a difference if you
• have you considered trying a different strategy to
• You're on the right track here and might consider
• One awesome thing about your work is
• I really like the way you
• One thing that helps me is
• This could improve if
• My favorite part of this was
• I noticed that