Working weekend.....

Saturday morning set my alarm for 3am to get up at watch the Utah Gymnastics meet online, back to sleep for an hour, up for a run, and then off to school for a two day weekend professional development conference. I love those early morning runs when it is still so quiet and lightly snowing....so peaceful and helps me sort things out...

Teaching for me has also been a journey of thought and new understanding of things spiritual. I think the context of our lives allows moments to be taught, if I just pause to reflect and listen...

The topic of the conference was, Image of the Child, and the role of play. I have found myself thinking a lot about this idea of image of a child and my principal has pushed us to really think about how we view children and that this influences how we interact with them and how we treat them. One significant point that has lingered is, "Seeing children as competent." As we sat and discussed, made lists, viewed clips of children learning.... it made me think what it really means to be a Child of God... it has taken on new meaning. I found myself during one of the coffee breaks looking over my notes of the image of child and the role of play and then began write thoughts of myself as also a child-- thinking of Heavenly Father's image of child..

Notes-- making connections--
What messages do we send about learning? Learning is doing--
Co-constructing meaning with children--
Learning includes deep understanding--questions drive our learning
The agentic child: We don't want to teach children something that they can learn by themselves. We don't want to give them thoughts that they can come up with by themselves.
How to bring complexity into the environment?
A child has rights, choices, play is an extra ordinary condition of life precious in itself.
Thinking about thinking begets more thinking--- working along side children
We have a innate need to inquire into the world
Play is essential for social-emotional development
Really listening and responding--reach for complexity
Role of the environment is crucial
Play is necessary to humans to reach their full potential
We value listening
Free choice
asking the right question is the answer
What is important?
we have an ongoing responsibility to plan actions to take into the future
walking the learning path with a child side by side, the child having agency-- with a listener who understands the complexity of the way --

I was reflecting on how we are that Child on our journey here of understanding as we yolk ourselves to our Elder Brother and co-construct meaning. I sat wondering how I can allow a new understanding to help me to become-- I was left with these beautiful images of how the plan was for us to use our agency to reach our full potential and that when we invite the Savior to co-construct I truly see how anything is possible. It is interesting that within an educational setting I walked away with the understanding that children need play, which means free choice, and the side by side conversations to grow and thrive-- so connected to my spiritual path as a Child of God. It was inspiring to think and explore the idea of our Heavenly Fathering viewing us as competent and believing in our abilities leaves me with such hope! The last words I wrote from the conference were, The Value of Listening-- I have work to do as I become spiritually fluent-- pause and reflect and listen!

"Hope is so sweet a comforter." Count of Monte Cristo