Regenerative Ed

It's easy to look at a weed as a nuisance, just like it's easy to look at a challenging behavior in your classroom as a nuisance (or worse). And so, being the best teacher we can be, we try to "solve the problem". Weed killer and mowers, red/green behavior charts and elaborate behavior point systems.

But what if we looked at the whole scenario through a regenerative, win-win mindset: what if paused and looked at that "weed", or that behavior, for what it really offers, instead of jumping to fix the problem with the way we've been conditioned to think about it? What possibilities could open up?

Check out this week's podcast to hear Sarah compare weeds to those behaviors, and three questions you can ask yourself to pause and really improve the classroom culture you cultivate.

Check out show notes and leave us a comment or question voicemail at https://www.groundedteaching.com/podcast/episode8. We could feature your question or comment on the next show!

The instagram/pinterest game can be tough and a little misleading about what our role is as educators, and where we can spend our super finite time creating the inputs our students need. In this episode, Sarah opens the conversation of where to start with planning. Spoiler, it doesn't have to do with fancy-looking lesson plans-- it has to do with student output. Sarah shares the connection to this realization with her own health and farming journeys at the beginning, tying it into practical ways to know where to re-focus our attention when we start to get a little lost in the Pinterest world of fancy-pants plans.

The main takeaway- take the time to OBSERVE your student outputs first. Then, plan for what will make a difference there.

Check out a summary and some helpful questions at:

https://www.groundedteaching.com/podcast/episode7

This episode might helps us avoid getting sucked up in the past, the future, or the little things that we let steal our presence and our joy. Sarah goes through two specific reflections about this and leaves you with two tips for healing.

Show notes: https://www.groundedteaching.com/podcast/episode6

In this podcast, Sarah asks the question we don't often ask, at least not in formal situations: What is this whole K-12 machine attempting to do, and what should it be doing? What should we be striving for? This podcast provides an analogy and some language that might help you talk about it with your own colleagues, as well as two practical tips at the end to get started making some shifts in your room tomorrow.

You have permission to think about the whole thing differently!

For show notes, check out the show webpage: https://www.groundedteaching.com/podcast/episode5

If you like this podcast, please let us know! Either by leaving a review on itunes, send us an email at [email protected], or DM us on instagram: @groundedteaching. We really appreciate all of your insights, questions. Our goal is not to have the answers, but to keep moving this conversation. Thank you for being a part of this community!

In this episode, Sarah uses lessons from nature as a way to better understand symbiotic relationships in the classrooms as one way teachers can find impact, nourishment, and a sustainable career (and some teacher tools that might get in the way).

In this episode, Sarah explores an idiosyncrasy of one of the kindest modern TV icons, what it has to do with living systems, and how it can directly translate to the classroom with two crystal-clear, high-leverage pausing strategies.

Check out the show notes page for all the links!

In this episode, Sarah looks at naturally occurring phenomenon in nature: edges, and the margins that surrounds them, and explores what an application of this type of thinking might mean for our classrooms.

In this episode, Sarah explores the effects of a mechanical mindset in our educational system, and how some slight shifts away from that mechanical mindset might open up possibilities to see our schools as living systems.

This brief episode shares what regenerative ed is, what the goals for the podcast are, and how Sarah's career as a former classroom teacher (NBCT) and current instructional coach came to meet her background as a community organizer as a land steward for local fashion-- and how the connection of these two systems as living systems might lead new paradigms in education that are holistic and successful for every human in the system.