PORT JEFFERSON STATION, NY – Andrew Harris is a Special Education Resource Room teacher working with students between the ages of 14 and 18. He describes his students as bright and hard working children with minor learning disabilities, who would benefit from special projects in addition to support with their regular schoolwork.
Harris applied to our book donation program with an interest in starting an Art of Learning book discussion group with some of his students. He hopes that the learning experiences and principles outlined in the book will inspire his students as they develop their own learning paths. “I want my students to appreciate and enjoy the process of learning,” Harris explains.
In addition to the book group, Harris plans to incorporate some of the Resilience principles such as Valuing Process Before Results and Investment in Loss, into his math and writing lessons. With multiple avenues of exposure to the concepts, he believes the students will more easily incorporate the ideas into their own lives.
St. Mary’s Junior Football Club
GREENSBOROUGH, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA – Leon Harvey coaches the 7-9 year old “Tackers” group in this Australian junior football league. As a coach, he is not only interested in teaching his athletes how to improve their football skills, but to use their love for the game as a platform to teach skills that will improve their lives overall. “I want the kids to get the most out of this possible,” Harvey explains. “I see football as a ‘gateway drug’ to learning and self-development. With Josh’s material I have taken advantage of the learning opportunities in sport that can apply to all parts of their lives”
For many of the children on Harvey’s team, football is much more than an extra-curricular activity. “For some, their hopes and dreams are based on their ability to perform and win, potentially creating unrealistic self-expectations,” he explains. “Some kids are quiet and reserved and suffer low self-esteem. Some are kinesthetic learners or challenged by learning difficulties, where traditional classroom teaching doesn’t work, and some are going through a rough time at home. Football is their passion and outlet, and so being a coach presents a huge opportunity to do so much more than just teach sporting skills. I use The Art of Learning as a framework that supports me to tackle these issues to build resiliency in our kids.”
“Competitive sports, like football, are a great platform for coaches to translate Josh’s material. I go back to the resources regularly to help me see the learning opportunities that present themselves on the field. There are many ways to turn experiences in the field into positive lifelong lessons using Josh’s themes: I use game defeats to teach about Investment in Loss, bad referee decisions to describe The Downward Spiral, quarter time break to practice Listening First, and the simple act of kicking a ball to teach The Power of Presence.”
In addition to exploring the learning principles with his athletes, Harvey believes it’s important to share the concepts with their parents in order to reinforce the learning at home. He sends an email to each child’s parents after every game in order to re-frame the events of the game within the context of The Art of Learning principles and highlight the learning opportunities they presented to the kids.
“I wish I had access to The Art of Learning when I was competing as a kid. I want the kids to see even when the stakes are high and the pressure is on that it’s okay to lose. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s all part of the journey of learning, trying, failing, and succeeding. I hope that my team can learn more about footy and themselves by the end of the season. Game after game the patterns will start to emerge. Even if they don’t ultimately go on to enjoy a football career, the lessons can apply in all parts of their lives.”
Student Circle
SEATTLE, WA – Theodore Eftimiades is the CEO of Student Circle, a private tutoring organization with the dual goal of educating students as well as their instructors. By providing their tutors with thought provoking and engaging professional development opportunities through monthly discussion seminars and lectures, they believe that the tutors’ excitement for learning will provide a motivating example for their tutees. In addition, they aim to teach their educators life-skills and learning skills which can be used both in their personal lives and passed down to their student population.
Eftimiades applied to The Art of Learning Project’s book donation program while planning an Art of Learning discussion group focused on incorporating the book’s lessons into the lives of both the tutors and the tutees. “This book,” he explained “speaks to the experience of the modern student/academic. The ideas regarding Buddhism, calmness, the zone, high performance – these are all very high interest subjects and for good reason! These are ideas I want my tutors to confront, think about, and hopefully pass on, either in their original form or with their own thoughts mixed in.”
John F Kennedy Middle School
REDWOOD CITY, CA – Over the course of the school year, Melissa VanderMolen’s 7th grade English Language Arts class has been exploring the theme of what it takes to be great. In addition to reading books and articles about growth mindset, goal setting, and learning styles, she is hoping that her students will develop an interest in taking charge of their own learning. “I hope to empower students to create their own learning opportunities through enhancing their drive and internal motivation for learning,” VanderMolen explains.
As a final project, students are participating in literature circles in which they read and discuss a book that explores the theme of greatness. The students who have chosen to work with The Art of Learning will complete a project that showcases their learning and take-aways from the book. Some groups are working on slide presentations and others are working on creating a poster/bulletin board. All of the groups will present their projects to the class when they are finished. VanderMolen told the JWF that her goal for this project is “that students become more reflective about their own learning and capabilities. I have already witnessed their critical thinking skills progress to the next level while processing this book.”
Here are some reflections from the students midway through their exploration of The Art of Learning:
“What I have learned about the art of learning is that you have to follow your dreams and to never give up and to fight and if there is an obstacle in front of you try to jump it to become something great. The most important thing I have learned is to believe in yourself.” A.P.
“Try new things, learn from your mistakes, learn to get better.” S.O.
“I learned that every art is related in some way and that if you put your mind to it you can do amazing things.“ G.F.
“Winning doesn’t matter, what matters is what effort you put into it.” T.S.
Teacher Career Pathways
NEW YORK, NY – Marcus Artigliere is a Teacher Team Leader with Teacher Career Pathways, part of the Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality with the New York City Department of Education. TCP works to build capacity of teachers and schools in an effort to promote sustainable change. This is achieved through one on one peer coaching, facilitating leadership conversations, fostering collaboration in schools, and creating strategic adult learning opportunities.
After an earlier experience working with The Art of Learning Project while teaching seminars to graduate students at Hunter College, Artigliere was interested in introducing the learning principles to a larger audience of educators. He applied to our book donation program in order to share copies of The Art of Learning with other teacher team leaders, potentially reaching over 280 schools in New York City. His goal with this project was to encourage new ways of thinking about learning and how to create new learning experiences with others.
The participants used excerpts from The Art of Learning as their professional literature. As a group, they discussed how the learning principles could be used to develop their leadership coaching skills.
“The book was helpful to push our thinking on the benefit of risk taking, reflection, and inquiry around both our instruction and our coaching practice,” Artigliere explained. The participants felt that this experience will not only help them to be more reflective about their practice, but will encourage them to learn from their missteps moving forward.
MP4P – Mental Practice For Performance
RICHMOND, VA – Scott Rohlwing created MP4P to address what he saw as the lack of emotional intelligence and performance psychology instruction for adolescents in both athletic and academic environments. “As a society, we’ve become so busy that tasks supersede just about everything. Many people are growing up not understanding Emotional Intelligence, relationship skills, coping skills, and mental strategies,” Rohlwing told the JWF. “I thoroughly believe that emotions are extremely important and the more we are educated on emotions, the more aware we are, and the more we can manage emotions, the better performers we will become and ultimately, better people. Embrace your emotion, acknowledge it, enhance it.”
Rohlwing is currently teaching a Mental Performance course to adults at the University of Richmond’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies. In this course his students explore the ideas of Emotional Intelligence and Performance Psychology through learning principles such as Investment in Loss, Beginner’s Mind, Using Adversity, Making Smaller Circles, Downward Spiral, Stress and Recovery, and Power of Presence.
He is further developing the MP4P program with a local volleyball club, and plans to expand to a variety of youth programs such as gymnastics, soccer, and football. Ultimately, he hopes to expand to offering elective courses in middle schools and high schools through mobile learning and online micro-lessons.