Week 7WK 6 Module 1 Due Dec 8: Post your Reflection and Commitment Blog Post 7 in your Habits blog
Sharpening the saw means 1) investment 2) be balanced. Dr. Pumpian points out the way we are invest our money and time to do this program is sharpening our saw. For doing this program, I took one year leave, I am not full time teaching, only subbing. So that I can balance my family, work and study. I now feel more charged with new knowledge and information. Confident more, I believe I can do more job better next year. A Chinese saying said “sharpening your knife won't waste your time for cutting your faggot”, the same English saying is “A beard well lathered is half shaved.” When we get balanced of our life, health, family and work, we will live more happily. When I try to send this message to those first grade girls, we first did the gesture of sharpening a saw. Then I read a story to them of the Chinese old saying about “sharpening your knife won't waste your time for cutting your faggot”. Then we had girls divid into two groups, one group did a little skit of sharping the knife, and then cut the faggot; the other group of girls didn’t sharpen the knife, just kept cutting the faggot. Then I asked them what did they think the result would be. The first group of girl said they will have more energy to cut more trees while the other group said they were too tired to cut any tree. After that, we extended our question to their life. Some of the girls said they had too many after school classes and she didn’t have time to do homework, other girls complained they had to practice piano everyday. One girl said “I was free, I didn’t need to learn anything if I don’t want to.” The other girls showed jealous to her.
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Week 5 and 6: Habit 5-“Seek first to understand then to be understood.” Habit 6- “ Synergize.”Week 5 “Seek first to understand then to be understood.” It is true that most of the time, we forgot to listen to others, but only focused on expressing or prepare to express our own ideas or thinking. I have learned that only to listen to others, knowing others’ needs will reach the level of “win-win”, otherwise, missing or not paying attention to others’ needs will turn the “win-win” situation to “win-lose” or “lose-lose.”
For teaching my GS girls. I’m thinking about having them play a game of “telephone”, it’s a game that the 7 girls line up, I will talk to the first girl something, then the first girl needs to talk to the second girl what I said, until the last one. Then the last one will need to tell me what I said in public. From this game, I will compare and let them understand the important of really paying enough attention to listen to others and their needs. We will also do some skits to help them understand how to listen to other people’s voice and reach “win-win”. I also plan to have them draw with another girl and reach the level of “listening and expressing their idea”, during this process, they need to work together and understand each other’s idea before they start drawing their shared picture. Week 6 “ Synergize.” Synergies means when working with others, I see and value the difference in others, I seek for a third alternatives and achieve better solutions. So when working in groups, let’s get creative and find the best way. I plan to increase the time I worked with the GS girls for the week 5 activity and extend to week 6 idea at the same time. During their drawing time, I will encourage them to think about creative ways and best ways of working together. I would encourage them to try different cooperation style such as take turns, using the talking sticks, having different jobs, etc. I expect them to give me different thoughts after this activity, and understand the meaning of “synergize.” Week 4: Habit 4-Think Win-WinI really like this week’s habit “Think Win-Win”. At the end of the video, the two goats work together and found their way to work out and they both got to eat the grass. Win-win is a public victory switched from the last three habits of personal victory. When we finished learning and reaching our personal victory by using “be proactive”, “begin with the end in mind” and “put first things first”, after reaching our personal satisfactory and independence level, we know it’s important to interact with each other and get to the next level of interdependence. It’s not like sports, win-lose, not lose-lose, and not lose-win, it’s to find the common ground and work on a solution from there so both can win, it’s 1+1=3. I’m not trying to compete you, to bit you, it’s to find ways to cooperate with all stakeholders and work to the most of our benefits.
When teaching my GS girls, we first talked about the picture of the two goats, and then I have them talk about what they thought about the picture and why the results are different. To my surprise, those 7 years girls almost got the idea of win win, in their words, more like, to do things together. Then we talked about how do they do at the playground to work out with their friends. They gave me more examples of sharing. After that they drew pictures of working together with each other, we also have examples of working together at GS when they were hiking and camping together or doing other projects together. At the end, I let them know it’s called “win win” and taught them the hand gesture of it. Week3: Habit 3 "Put First Things First".Habit 3 is “put first things first.” This is super important to me as a school leader. I’m impressed to see how important to put big rocks in a jar first and then put small sands in. Instead, if you focus too much on small things, the big rock won’t have space in and you will lose the focus as well. I can see that as a principal or program leader, there are too many things everyday to deal with. I will put the most important things on my calendar or arranged first, and then see if I have time to take care of the small routine things. Another strategy is to to put on leadership roles to other teachers and staff, and let them take in charge of the middle or small rocks. Trust your teachers to take care of other middle or small sands.
When I taught those 1st grade girls “put first things first”, we did this experiment of putting rocks and sand in the jar together and each of them made a try about what they should put in the jar first. It’s interesting to see them experience it. One of the girls put two big rocks in and then put some sands, and when she needed to put other big rocks in, she wasn’t able to put them in. But I’m surprised to see she observed what other girls’ doing, and changed her method quickly, finally she did put all the stuff in her jar. At the end, they all did reflection about what they did and they told me they know why we need to put the most important thing first. Since we only have 15 minutes and it’s only enough to do this activity. When I got home the same day, my daughter and I made a list of what she needed to go for her Christmas travel in London. We first went online and found 10 must-go sightseeings at London, then Ashley read all the description and made a shortlist of 3 most important things (big rocks) for the 5 days travel at London, then she picked another 3 (medium rocks), lastly she picked some small sands that are some maybe goes for her to go. I thought it’s very amazing to see that. Habit 2 This week I learned the second habit of “7 habits”, “begin with the end in mind”. This habit is about planning ahead and setting goals. When I started this program, I “begin with the end in mind” and knew my career goal is to be a Mandarin program lead in a public school. As a pioneer teacher at Mandarin programs for many years, I felt the urge to learn more new things and I need to be prepared when opportunities coming I can be ready. During these several months’ learning of the educational leadership program, I have learned so much that I would never know before, such as Enterprise Architecture, program evaluation from a leader’s point of view, PLN, etc. I now have a much clear view about how to lead and how to be as a school/program lead. When I taught the group of 6 year old girl last Sunday, we reviewed last week’s habit “be proactive.” We talked about what you need to do to prevent bad things happen or learn from your previous experience. Then I told them the story that I learned from Dr. Pumpian regarding the hole on the street “An autobiography”. Then I asked the group of girl what they have learned or what their thoughts are. It’s interesting to learn from them. One girl said “I need to be careful when I walk.” Another girl told me she needs to remember the hole and she won’t fall again. After that, we talked about this week’s second habit “start with the end in mind”. how to do things that have meaning and make a difference. How can be as an important part of your classroom and be a good citizen. I modelled them the gesture first. After this, we also talked about what the importance to make a plan and set up goals of a project They know the learning habit 2 is that “I plan ahead and set goals. I do things that have meaning and make a difference. I am an important part of my classroom. I look for ways to be a good citizen.” After this discussion, students also made a plan of next week’s girl scout hiking activity. I’m happy that students have learned a lot about habit 2. Week 1: Be ProactiveI am very excited to learn more about “The seven habits of highly effective people” by Dr. Covey. When I taught at Lakeside Union School District 5 years ago, we began to learn these habits as teachers, then started to implement into our teaching, very quickly, the whole school district used it as our characteristic guide for all our students. We also have workshops to connect with parents for students’ home learning. It has been very successful and we use these habits to deal with students’ issues and problem solving. We have involved a lot of activities including social stories, arts and crafts, songs etc. into the teaching. My students can do the gestures and sing/say these habits in Mandarin and we truly believe this as our mentor to form good habits and solve problems. Whenever problem arises, we let them think which habit they need to think of and how to solve it.
My Learning. This week I have learned the first habit of the “The seven habits of highly effective people”: be proactive. The main idea is I’m in control what I do. I have learned that I choose my attitude, I’m on the driver’s seat on my destination. You have control only on 3 things: what you think, what you say, how you behave. I control those three things, I’m not going to give away. Somebody who are consistently confidently do it. As an individual, you see you are responsible to your behavior. As a result, you will have an influence. I see I’m more independent. I’m responsible. You take responsible. You don’t blame, you don’t talk about you can’t. you take power you want. You want them to feel control. You have demonstrated that. You have believed that. You have the ability. I have imagination, I have independent will. I’ll decide what it’s going to be. As a leader, I get bigger influence from my own behaviour. Now I’m in control of my job as a teacher, my graduate studies as a graduate student, and my house work as a mom and a wife. I take responsibility of these roles and in control of these things as well. As a teacher, I’m responsible to my students and their school life. As a graduate student, I’m responsible to my graduate study work. As a wife and mom, I’m co-responsible to my own children and their life with my husband. I think I have been doing very well with these roles and I’m proactive. How Am I Going to Teach. I am going to teach my daughter, a first grader and her girl scout group of 6 girls the 7 learning habits. we meet every Sunday afternoon for 1.5 hours. I have confirmed with all the GS moms that we will use about 15 minutes of time to teach those 6 girls a learning habit. I taught my daughter these 7 habits 2 years ago, but not consistently use it since we moved out of the country. I’m thrilled to teach her and her buddies again so that we can reuse them as a guide for our behaviour. I plan to teach them habit 1 on our meeting this Sunday. I will teach them the hand gesture first about how to express “be proactive” with their body language. I will also read books to them and asking questions about how to be proactive, ask if they have anything to share and how can they be more proactive. I expect them to get a lot from reading the story and realising it’s themselves who are in control and be responsible for their own behavior. References: Covey, S. R. (1989). The seven habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New York: Simon and Schuster. |
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