Explore the 6Cs of Education and 21st Century Learning

Are you counting down the sleeps to the end of school yet?

And in Canada, it’s a long weekend.

I hope you and your people get a chance to unwind!

May is Mental Health Awareness month.

Teachers do so much and it’s hard to not want to give it our all.

But if we were being kind to ourselves, we’d be okay with taking breaks. We’d be okay with not being perfect.

In case you missed it, here’s a no prep, just print and go critical thinking activity to give your students – now you can enjoy the weekend!

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what colour I am in the moment. Just a little self check-in.

Today, I’m confused about what I should be doing. So maybe a slow swirling yellow and blue comes to mind. With a few bubbles. I think if I was excited, the water would boil. Right now, it’s just simmering. Trying to find a direction.

How about you? How are you?

Last week in Canada, it was Mental Health Awareness week. (In the US, Mental Health awareness is a month.)

The theme for Canada was “A Call To Be Kind”.

If we’re talking about being kind, how can we also be kind to ourselves. What might that look like if you’re a teacher?

What if we could forgive ourselves for not being perfect?

The job is too big and everything can’t be done to your definition of perfect.

• What if we could just mentally pick and choose what we do at the awesome level… and what is good enough.
• The definition for good enough that I’m using right now is 80% perfect.

Our job is a little funny because first year teachers are expected to do the same job that 25 year veterans do.

• In fact, I wonder if the teachers who have been around have enough seniority (or clout with the administrators) get their first picks in teaching positions. (Obviously this isn’t always true – sometimes, you get what you get.)
• Do newer teachers get the less desirable jobs with split grades, multiple courses to prep and tougher demographics? Or has this changed during Covid.
• What if we could stop comparing ourselves with other teachers? Sometimes I’ve noticed in life that the people who look like they have their s**t together, don’t always. I wonder if some of those “superstar” teachers at your school struggle somewhere, somehow…

If you were going to be kind to another teacher, what would you do?

• Sure, be kind to another teacher and do that. But what if we could also be kind and do that to ourselves?

If you asked your students to generate a list of kind things they could do, what might that list look like?

• Then check out this social-emotional learning unit on creativity. What other themes could we be creative in?
• If you asked your students how they could be kind to themselves, what might they come up with.
• Better yet, what ideas could we use ourselves to be more kind to us?

Thinking about student and teacher mental health doesn’t just have to be a week (or a month).

In Canada, it’s about a “A Call To Be Kind“. In the US, it’s about “Where To Start.”

May is Mental Health Awareness month.

So many teachers struggle with anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome or other mental health obstacles.

Likewise, so many teachers are feeling great, understand when to say no, take time for themselves, and take care of themselves.

Oh, and it’s not an either / or kind of thing. Sometimes, we do better than other times. And vice-versa.

For me, it’s about how do I keep going? (And sometimes, it really is about that Anna song from Frozen 2: The next right thing.)

This month, I’m reflecting on what colour I am.

Today, I’m not able to figure out what colour I am.

Sometimes I get decision fatigue. Even with little stuff. Isn’t that crazy? I wasn’t always like that; it’s just where I am right now.

So I’m going to pass on answering this question right now because my brain is overloaded.

And that’s part of my mental health. Knowing where I’m at! (I also know I can’t sprint because I have feet problem, but that’s a different story!)

How about you? How are you?

Need something to help students think about going when the going gets tough? Here’s a Character Social-Emotional Learning unit that includes a set of posters with perseverance strategies.

For those of you who are celebrating!

May is Mental Health Awareness month.

It can also be a crazy busy time of the year in the classroom. Students and teachers are getting stressed out trying to get everything done by the end of the year.

This month I’m spending some time thinking about what colour I am.

Today, I’m feeling grey. Not necessarily in a bad way. Just tired. A lot of work today, plus family time, plus Mother’s Day, plus work. So, grey. I’m looking forward to sleep!

How about you? How are you?

It’s interesting. We chat about trying to shift into a growth mindset with our students at the start of the year.

How hard is it to keep that idea of shifting into a growth mindset in May when we’re getting close to the end of the school year?

If you’re reading these words and you’re stressed out because you have to work on the weekend and there’s never enough time…

Email [email protected] with the phrase “Working on a Saturday.” I got you.

I have a friend who has made a rule to never work on Saturdays. I love that she’s being assertive with her work-life balance.

(If you need a social emotional learning lesson to teach students how to be assertive, check out these Communication Lesson Plans.)

Actually, the rest of her week is probably hella out of balance, so keeping Saturdays work free is just a tiny step in the right direction…

May is Mental Health Month.

As teachers, we teach Social Emotional Learning to our students. (And we complain, who’s doing social emotional learning for us!)

But that’s the beauty of the Social Emotional Learning journey. We can do it ourselves. We can become students of ourselves and just notice and wonder how we respond to life’s ups and downs.

Right now, I’m working. (“Working on a Saturday”)

I’m feeling a little bit like a tornado swirl of many colours: excited bright colours, and I have to be careful the whirlwind doesn’t spin too fast and burn out. But I’m feeling motivated.

What about you? How are you feeling?

May is Mental Health Awareness month. As teachers, how often do we take time for ourselves… when there’s so much to do.

Most of the teachers I know are passionate and have difficulty with work-life balance.

Until something happens, and then they have to be assertive and draw lines. I’m only going to do work at school. I’m not going to take home any marking. I’m not going to check my emails at home.

And sometimes that works, until May comes around and you need marks, and you can’t get everything done at school. What does it mean if you can’t get it done? That you’re a bad teacher? (And if your identity and self-worth is tied into your job like mine is / was, then are you a bad person?)

No, it means you’re human.

I’m spending a little bit of time each day, just thinking about what colour I am at that moment in time.

Today (Fri), I’m feeling a calm blue, which is unusual. I don’t often feel calm and I know this moment my change, so I’m enjoying it while it’s here.

How about you? How are you?

If you like learning along side your students, here’s a Character Unit to help students switch into a growth mindset.

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May is Mental Health Awareness month.

What colour are you right now?

Today, I’m a jittery silver with powerful flashes of white. I figured out something that I’m passionate about, and I want to get working on that project.

But I also have to keep an eye on things so I don’t burn out. The engine has been running for a while. A few weeks ago, things were more monotone grey and I know these things come and go for me.

Sometimes I see other people seemingly doing so well. And I have to remind myself, that I’m me, they’re them, and we all move through our own stories.

But I’ve also learned that people who look like they have it all together… well, sometimes, you learn that those people are struggling too. It’s just not always obvious.

Yup, it’s important to talk about social emotional learning with our students. And it’s easy to think that someone else (i.e. our school board) should be responsible for our teacher social emotional learning.

But, I wonder if a powerful turning point is when I realize that I write my own story. I’m the hero of my narratigve. And I can choose to wonder and explore my own social emotional learning on my own. (And with others!)

How about you? How are you?

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I’ll send another email tomorrow (Tue May 7, 2024) with the winner.

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May is Mental Health Awareness month.

May is also a crazy, busy time to try to get marks from your students. So much to do, so little time.

• Right now, I’d say I’m a slowly swirling vortex of yellow and light red. I have a plan to tackle the overwhelming list of things to do… which makes me a little happy. But, it is an overwhelming list of things to do, so… yeah. lol.

• How about you? How are you? What color are you?

We talk about social-emotional learning lessons for students. But when do we take time to do social-emotional learning and mental health wellness for teachers?

Happy belated May the fourth be with you day! (Yesterday was May 4, 2024.)

May is Mental Health Awareness month.

Yes, we talk about student mental health in our social-emotional learning curriculum. And, this is important.

But what about teacher mental health?

After all, in that classic airplane pre-flight info session, when the oxygen mask drops from the ceiling panel, you’re supposed to put it on yourself first, before helping others around you.

And yet, so many teachers burn out because we care too much and we don’t stop to take care of ourselves.

When teachers struggle with anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome or other mental health obstacles, what do we do? (Well, most of us don’t talk about it in the staffroom. So it’s hard to know we’re not alone.)

• If this resonates with you, can you email me [email protected] and let me know what colour you are right now.

• Right now, I’d say I’m a very light shade of yellow. A little bit of sunshine in the early morning. I’ve started to make a few decisions about what to do and what to leave off my plate for now.

• How about you? How are you doing?

Happy Fri-yay!

May is Mental Health Awareness month.

If you were to describe yourself as a colour right now, what colour would you be?

Yesterday, I was a dark blue with choppy white foam. Today, I might be a very pale yellow, with the hint of a shining sun in the top left corner.

So many teachers struggle with anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome or other mental health obstacles.

And yet, we don’t really talk about our own struggles in the staffroom.

If this resonates with you, can you email me [email protected] and let me know what colour you are right now.

• Right now, I’d say I’m a dark blue with choppy white foamy waves – just taking things step by step.
• How are you?

Mental Health is more than just the absence of illness.

It’s also about the ability to bounce back better when life goes up and down.

Here are some Social Emotional Learning lessons to help deal with some common classroom problems…

Do any of these classroom problems sound familiar?

Problem #1: Students don’t try, especially when things don’t work right away. They give up.

• Check out this CHARACTER unit

Problem #2: Students don’t do the right thing or stand up for each other. Being part of a classroom means being an active citizen. We don’t always agree, but it’s important to speak up.

• Check out this CITIZENSHIP unit

Problem #3: Students don’t know how to work in groups. Collaboration is not the same as teamwork. One person doing all of the work is not collaboration.

• Check out this COLLABORATION unit

Problem #4: Students are mean, especially when they’re upset. Good communication isn’t just about presentations. It’s also about getting your point across when both sides are upset, and things matter!

• Check out this COMMUNICATION unit

Problem #5: Students wait for someone else to solve their problems. Creativity is about connecting ideas in new ways. When you are faced with a tricky problem, we use creativity to create a solution. Creativity is a skill we can learn.

• Check out this CREATIVITY unit

Problem #6: Students believe rumors, gossip, and viral posts. They don’t think for themselves.

• Check out this CRITICAL THINKING unit

Problem #7: ALL OF THE ABOVE 

• Check out this CHALLENGE TASK. Can your class learn about a growth mindset while trying to stay in a growth mindset at the same time?

Print this four-page independent worksheet activity for Monday’s English Language Arts class.

The first page shows a phone with a text message thread.

One of the people in the group chat says, “I’M GROUNDED L”

Can your students figure out who is texting and what is going on?

Grab this critical thinking text puzzle while you can – It’s FREE UNTIL Sun Apr 28, 2024 at 11:59 PM (ET)

It’s the weekend! Woo hoo!

Need something quick and easy?

Here’s a NO PREP just print-and-go Earth Day Text Message Puzzle.

ASK YOUR STUDENTS: Who is texting and what is going on?

Then ask them if Christine is an astronaut or teacher…

Seriously. It could go either way.

I mean, I had one thing in mind when I made the critical thinking text puzzle. But, as you know, everyone brings their own perspective and comes up with their own interpretation.

If you want a full reading comprehension lesson (with detailed answer key so you feel comfortable explaining reading strategies and exploring clues…

CLICK HERE to get the full Reading Comprehension lesson

• The slideshow lesson goes through each text message clue one-by-one.
• Systematic and Cumulative Learning: Students fill out two reading comprehension graphic organizers as they read (“It Says, I Say, And So” and “Somebody Wanted But So” worksheets.)
• Real-World Literacy and Social-Emotional Learning: Students reflect on how they applied critical thinking strategies and how it relates to school and the real world (i.e. self-awareness, social-awareness.)

Is it Monday already? Why are the Sunday Scaries a thing. When does this job get easier?

At times like these, I think about what would Anna do. She would do one thing at a time and burst into song – even in her darkest moments.

I’m not really a burst into song kind of teacher, but I do appreciate this idea about how when things get tough, do the next right thing.

You’re not alone. Teaching is a tough job with so many expectations.

I was recently thinking about how teachers are (or are not using) AI tools. Diffit is a great example.

• On one hand, it allows teachers to quickly create differentiated worksheets for students. You can modify an assignment to make it easier or harder. Hello, easy differentiation in the classroom!
• On the other hand, it suffers from the same problems that all large language model AI tools (like ChatGPT) suffer from: it can hallucinate and present misinformation that is popular in it’s training data.

Don’t believe me?

Ask Diffit to create a worksheet about who has scored the most goals in international football. Here’s the preview.

When I did it, it created a worksheet based on credible sources like Sporting News.com: Who has scored the most goals in international football? Lionel Messi chasing Cristiano Ronaldo’s all-time record.

The problem, as Correct The Internet will tell you, is that search engines have learned human bias. Even though the correct answer is Christine Sinclair, because the popular search terms and topics focus on male football athletes, Christine Sinclair doesn’t get mentioned.

So, Diffit created a worksheet that based on it’s training data: presumably publicly accessible internet pages. The internet is written by humans with unconscious bias. AI tools regurgitate and create content based on its training data. It sees a lot of the chatter is about male football, and so it guesses that those topics are important.

If you look at the four paragraphs in the adapted reading passage:

• Paragraph 1 focuses on Cristiano Ronaldo
• Paragraph 2 discusses Ali Daei and Lionel Messi as well as the next top ranking male football athlets
• Paragraph 3 talks about how Messi may eventually beat Ronaldo’s record
• Paragraph 4 summarizes the text discussing Ronaldo and Messi.

According to Olympics.com,

• Cristiano Ronaldo has 128 goals in 205 matches.
• Christine Sinclair (at the bottom of the page) has 190 goals in 322 matches (shown in table format)

If we look closer at the Diffit generated worksheet:

“Who scored the most goals in international football? Cristiano Ronaldo holds the record for the most goals scored in men’s international football.”

The second statement is factually correct: Cristiano Ronaldo does hold the record for the most goals scored in the men’s game.

But it’s not the correct answer to the question: Who scored the most goals in international football.

We know from Olympics.com that would be Christine Sinclair.

If a worksheet from a teacher is considered to be trusted information (as opposed to “fake news”) then is this an example of accidental discrimination against women?

How does Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT work? It uses a large language model and lots of training data to find patterns in information. Then it guesses.

• This Visualizing Reading Comprehension slideshow lesson explains how AI works.

• Here’s a ChatGPT reading passage that explores bias and digital literacy. It explains why ChatGPT confidently provides misinformation (including sexist information) without realizing it’s hallucinating.

• Should ChatGPT be allowed at school? Here’s a Critical Thinking Classroom Debate.

Are your students in learning mode or do they need a pep talk? Can you relate to any of these classroom problems?

Problem #1: Students don’t try, especially when things don’t work right away. They give up.

• ➡️ Check out this CHARACTER unit

Problem #2: Students don’t do the right thing or stand up for each other. Being part of a classroom means being an active citizen. We don’t always agree, but it’s important to speak up.

• ➡️ Check out this CITIZENSHIP unit

Problem #3: Students don’t know how to work in groups. Collaboration is not the same as teamwork. One person doing all of the work is not collaboration.

• ➡️ Check out this COLLABORATION unit

Problem #4: Students are mean, especially when they’re upset. Good communication isn’t just about presentations. It’s also about getting your point across when both sides are upset, and things matter!

• ➡️ Check out this COMMUNICATION unit

Problem #5: Students wait for someone else to solve their problems. Creativity is about connecting ideas in new ways. When you are faced with a tricky problem, we use creativity to create a solution. Creativity is a skill we can learn.

• ➡️ Check out this CREATIVITY unit

Problem #6: Students believe rumors, gossip, and viral posts. They don’t think for themselves.

• ➡️ Check out this CRITICAL THINKING unit

Problem #7: ALL OF THE ABOVE 

• ➡️ Check out this CHALLENGE TASK. Can your class learn about a growth mindset while trying to stay in a growth mindset at the same time?

My name is Mike Fuchigami. I’m the Grade 8 teacher behind Educircles. 

• I taught middle school English Language Arts for 13+ years in Ottawa, Ontario.

• I had a mental health crisis because of something that happened at school.

• Social Emotional Learning skills (6Cs) literally saved my life. That’s why I’m so passionate about this stuff.

• I want to help your students develop Growth Mindset and Social Emotional Learning skills.

• ➡️ Read the article: Former Teacher Michael Fuchigami puts spotlight on lack of student mental health protection

Teachers around the world have DOWNLOADED 109,957 Educircles resources in over 59 countries!

• I donate 10% of everything I earn to STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH organizations. It’s a promise I made to get through some dark times.

• Together, we’ve donated $15,520.51 (Check out the donation log.).

ChatGPT is fantastic.

It’s our robot friend who can help us develop lesson plans, come up with report card comments, and explain complex concepts like I’m five years old.

The problem with ChatGPT is that it reinforces any stereotypes it has been trained with.

This is an issue for teachers and change makers who are trying to make the world a better place.

Why?

• Because ChatGPT is our “robot friend”
• Robots seem to be unbiased and impartial sources of “facts”
• The danger is we accept potentially biased analysis and information.

Our goal at Educircles and SEOT Mindset is to amplify the stories we don’t always hear.

Read more about how ChatGPT is biased and how that affects Education, International Development, and Policy Makers.