Do you regulate your brains?

“The mindset you have, determines the next step you take.”

― Unarine Ramaru

Living the 7 Habits takes a new mindset. We need to look carefully at our roles and responsibilities and have goals for them. Do you remember the way Charles Fonbuena describes our brains? He uses these descriptions in his book, Leadership is a Way of Life.

Each person has three brains. Our Lizard Brain controls our fight v. flight impulses. This area of the brain houses the medulla oblongata and brain stem. All animals in the fish, bird, amphibian, reptile, and mammal classifications have this brain. It’s useful for the “eat or be eaten” issues we deal with, such as when we play staff v. students hockey games, or, more importantly, when we’re driving our cars defensively. We need our lizard brains to help us stay safe, so it’s good to listen to them. However Lizard Brain can get in the way if it makes us too competitive, too focused on our own “win” and interferes with our ability to understand others with compassion.

The second brain we have is called the Monkey Brain. The more social a mammalian species is, the more developed this brain can be. This brain has us asking, “Do I fit in? Do I look okay? Do others like me.” The Monkey Brain also has us asking, “Does it feel good or taste good?” Monkey Brain is the reason I overeat sweets. Okay, okay, when I overeat everything. While the Monkey Brain doesn't always work to lose weight, it also can be a good brain to pay attention to as it helps us regulate embarrassing situations, help us feel confident, and keeps us in the group.

Researcher and lecturer, Simon Sinek, points out that the first two brains do not have speech centers or the ability to form language. We can have difficulty using words to express the thinking of these first two brains so we have other ways to describe how we think with them. We talk about “gut feelings,” and “heartfelt” emotions. Shawn Achor, the Harvard brain researcher and psychologist, says we can retrain these brains to help us rather than keep us from accomplishing our desired goals. He says we have to train the third brain to be in charge.

The third brain, according to Charles, is called the Leadership Brain. This brain is the one we use for logic, for telling us to do the right thing (such as telling me not to eat too much). It also allows us to make clear thinking and integrate all three brains, making decisions based on needs, wants, and principles. Obviously it’s more complicated than this in reality, as our brains are doing other functions. But the three brains idea gives us a way to see our brains are working with us and yet need our control. Certainly our students need to learn this control.

We have to stay intentional about our lives enough to lead with our hearts while we pay attention to our leadership brains. The 7 Habits are the tool best used to regulate and pre-decide some of the nonsense our Lizard and Monkey Brains can come up with. Living the 7 Habits gives us the way to understand our priorities well enough to take care of them, keeping distractions of the less disciplined parts of our brains from taking us away from our true purposes. Then we can focus on doing what we need to do, what is right to do. The 7 Habits work well for our students because they can become intentional in their lives; students become the product of their choices, not their circumstances.

“Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.”

― William Edgar Stafford

BIG ROCKS

• ·      There are some staff members wanting to work on dress code and other handbook issues. Dress code is particularly difficult. If you’d like to be on this adhoc committee, please email me. I am happy to chair the process. If there’s no interest, we can leave changes for another time. Some of the issues revolve around “yoga” pants and other tight wear that may be comfortable to wear and yet can be uncomfortable to look at. Emerson is also trying to male changes. Are you interested?
• ·      We had a great turn out for Judy’s Teacher of the Year presentation last Monday. I know Judy was grateful, and the turn out said we are supporting our favorite media specialist! Judy’s speech was honored Cooper staff and all we have done. Thank you, Judy! Congratulations and “nice job.” We love you!!
• ·      Next week is Thanksgiving, and Cooper has more to be thankful for than usual. Angie and Victoria and back after having beautiful boys. Sarah has had a boy and all is well in their family. Our parents are expressing their highest gratitude for our accomplishments and the culture at our school, and we have a renovated school that is almost working.
• ·      With all of that to be thankful for, we experienced another incredible Work-a-thon, led by Lauren, Annette and Sally’s organizational skills, complimented by many staff members adding preparation, and then a hundred-person crew of parents and students working 2 hours to make changes to Cooper Friday evening. It was fun and productive. Judy was able to document some of it on our Cooper Facebook page. You will see the changes when you come to school on Monday. Not all of the projects are completed, yet you will see the difference right away.
• ·      We can also be grateful for our first break of the school year: five days off!! I will be going to Austin, Texas to have Thanksgiving with my son, Matt, and his wife, Kerrie. I am looking forward to seeing them! They are real football fans, and I am planning to enjoy watching the Lions with my son. It’s been a very long time since we’ve been together to watch a game. What are you planning?

The next two weeks of business include:

Monday:                   Terry to Coleman A. Young Center (Noon-3:00)

 

Tuesday:                  Dentists R Us at Cooper

                                 Center EPT (8:00)

                                 Lighthouse Team (3:45)

Wednesday:           Off

Thursday:               Turkey Time

Friday:                     Off

Monday:                   ??

Tuesday                   LEAD time assemblies by group, Youth Making a Difference topic

Lighthouse Team, 3:45

Wednesday:           IST (8:00)

Planning Team (3:45)

Thursday:               Staff Meting (8:00)

Friday:                     ???

"We are the Champions, my friends!"

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value." ~Albert Einstein

Conferences are often stressful for all of us, including parents and students. We are making judgements about each other and how we're doing. We judge students, students are judged by their teachers, parents and themselves. Parents often feel judged by teachers, while at the same time they are judging teachers and the school. All the judging and concern about how we're doing as parents, students and staff came together as parents and students sought me out to tell me how we're doing.

This year, more than ever before, I had a really difficult time getting out of the building at the end of the conference nights. That was because my head so large from all the compliments parents and students were making all night long to me as I roamed the halls and during the presentations we did for Title I. I have never encountered so many people, people who made it a point of seeking me out, telling me how happy they are to be part of our Cooper community.

Some told tales of teachers who are already making profound differences in their children's lives. Parents saying that the 7 Habits are changing their entire family thanks to Cooper. Some expressed they had reservations about coming to Cooper, but have found it to be, in one parent's assessment, "the best school I have ever imagined a school could be."

Students were talking about how they feel at Cooper. They used words such as valued, listened to, a real home, respected, cared about, wanted, and MY school. As one 5th grader who came to us from another district said to me in front of his mother and father, "Cooper is better than my old school because we're all working together at Cooper."

When we look at 21 Century Skills (go to http://www.skills21.org) and the research on what parents and business wants from schools, communication and collaboration are weaved throughout the needs. The 7 Habits are the foundation for achieving the skills parents and American businesses want for our students. Our students seem to be reporting that we are on our way to meeting their needs for increasing their leadership skills, and that we are winning the battle to become increasingly relevant to students and their families. Parents at Cooper Wednesday and Thursday were genuinely excited to be part of The Leader In Me process, and are proud of their students' involvement in and commitment to Cooper.

We have no Superbowl to achieve, no World Series, no kind of championship to gain in our business that people can look at and say, hey, that school, that staff, is the best. There are few measures of accomplishment over which we can all agree. But the responses of parents to our work toward values, toward inclusion, toward happy, productive students who love school and want to participate in what we're able to offer, needs to be celebrated. We are becoming a staff of success, and it's because we're a staff of value.

It's not trickling down. It's pouring down like sunshine, glimmering with the smiles of our students and their families. Celebrate our success! We are appreciated for all we're doing by the people who matter most! We have created a school where great happens!

"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things." ~Leonardo da Vinci


BIG ROCKS
The number one big rock is Sarah having her baby boy and everyone being healthy and happy. As of this writing (Friday at noon), Sarah is still waiting, perhaps a little less patiently than earlier in the week. We will blast out the news as soon as we have some. Can't wait to find out this little boy's name!

• Robin sent you all the proposed spending with the new Title I money. Let us know your concerns as soon as possible. We are wanting to get the budget finalized as soon as well can.
• I've heard concerns about students wearing Yoga pants and tighter fitting pants with no cover to their legs. If you share that concern, please let me know We will be putting this on the Planning Team agenda for this week.
• New blinds to replace damaged and mis-installed blinds are expected at the end of this week. Check your ledges along the windows to see if you want to move breakables.
• We are still working on call buttons. Most rooms are all set, but not all are working. If you'd like, you can send us a test of your button check by toggling the button near your drop. If the office answers, you're all set. Just let them know which room you are. If they do not answer, please email me that result! Music room buttons are supposed to be installed this week. Cafe, gym, LMC, lounge, SACC, and conference rooms do not yet have call buttons and no plan for their installation at this time. We're still pushing for them ;)
• Please send and resend any renovation issues you see. We will keep working toward getting everything fixed!
• There are 12'x12' meeting-reading rugs available for your classrooms. We are storing them in room 304 for you to check to see if you'd like one. If you do, please let me know. These rugs should be in place of whatever else you are using for meeting-reading areas. If you use these, we are asking that you not have other rugs in your room. Do not take the rugs out of 304 at this time. They need some prep before they can be used in classrooms. See me if you have questions.
• Did you notice our new stove in the lounge? It's ready for us to use for melting rocks or cooking or baking treats for the principals!
• Angie and Victoria return this Wednesday! We owe a big thank you to Mark Franchi for his work with Victoria's fifth graders during the first marking period. Mark's last day will be Wednesday as he has his crossover time with Victoria. Angie will be helping in the office, and we're still getting to keep Rita to cover RCR students until Sarah's return in January. It will be great to have Victoria and Angie back at Cooper!
• You may be noticing sayings going up on walls around the school. If you have something you'd like to see, let Annette and Lauren know. We can help you make a saying to install outside your room or in your favorite hallway place!
• Our first Work-a-thon of the year is this Friday! We will be working on the building from 4-6:00 with students and families. Feel free to join us! It's time to get these white walls some color!

The Schedule for the Week:

Monday:       7:30 Breakfast with Randy (Terry)

                      8:00-9:30 Principals Advisory Meeting (CO, Terry)

                      1:30-3:00 Data Dig meeting (Hayes, Terry)

                      6:30 TOY reception (CO, Terry and Judy)

                      7:00 BOE meeting...

Tuesday:        No Center IEP this week

                       3:45 Staff Lighthouse meeting

                       Parent Lighthouse meeting

Wednesday:    8:00 IST Meeting

                       3:45 Planning Team

Thursday:        8:00 Staff Meeting

                        6:30 Cooper PTA meeting

Friday:             8:00 Young Adult Book Club

                        4:00-6:00  Work-a-thon

There is surely more! Send me corrections and additions!

The bittersweet-ness of change

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” ~Anatole France

What a great quote! It speaks the changes that occur with each season, as fall dies and becomes winter, only for winter to die and become spring. It speaks to Sarah’s new baby and her new life with a son and having four children rather than three; all the joy of that and all the responsibility. It speaks to my pending retirement, in which I am so sad to be leaving Cooper and so happy to be going to my new life. Thus I have this growing melancholy, which even still has yet to ripen.

Considering retirement is a nearly impossible task. We’ve spent so much time and energy making Cooper what it has become, it’s hard to imagine not being here. I can’t imagine not thinking about and worrying students and staff, about and constantly planning and sorting ideas and considering every issue that rolls in daily.

I know I will need your help getting through all the changes still to come this year. Sarah will be out until mid-January, and then I will go for few or maybe several weeks. Then the year will close as we test students in a new window with another new test. As we think through and imagine, and dream about what it all will be like, it’s great to know we are in this together. Together this staff accomplishes so much so well. The results are like a fabulous sunset: unimaginable even when it’s viewed yet appreciated for the wonder and beauty, and the knowledge that there’s another one tomorrow!

“All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves.” ~Amelia Barr

BIG ROCKS

·       The bond renovations at Cooper are nearly complete. Our punch list is now fewer than 40 items! Please continue to send your issues to me via email. Repeats are encouraged and welcome!

·       As promised, here is the link for the tour of i-Ready adaptive diagnostic: http://www.curriculumassociates.com/products/iready/diagnostic-instruction.aspx?source=i-ready-product. Check it out and let Robin and me know what you think!

·       It is imperative that teachers walk their classes all the way to the exit out of the gym during dismissal. Then turn your cards to indicate your class has boarded their buses. It’s not enough to walk students to the gym door and leave them go out the gym on their own. Be sure to include these directions in your sub plans!!

·       Some students are missing specials times because they are being held back in classrooms to make up tests or get missed instruction. Please make sure students are allowed to go to specials. Those classes are part of the student curriculum. If you have a special circumstance, please let me know.

·       With Sarah out and before Angie returns, I will be flying solo at Cooper. I will need your help next week with conferences. If you need my assistance, I am happy to sit in. Please let me know by Tuesday if you have a conference you ‘d like support in holding.

·       Speaking of conferences, we asked that you let us know how you were handling student-led conferencing this year. Please make sure you email me with your plans.

This Week At Cooper:

Monday:                

Tuesday:               Veterans Day!

                                    8:00 Center EPT

                                    3:45 LH Team meeting

Wednesday:        Noon Foundation Lunch (Terry)

                                    Conferences, 5:00-8:00

                                    Rocky’s dinner in the lounge

Thursday:              Conferences all day; No students

                                    PTA providing lunch and dinner

Friday:                     No School for any of us!!!!