Teachers are Learners: Illustrating a Year of Project Work, Part 3

The following is the third and final part of a series of posts illustrating the ways our teachers took on the different principles of project work last year. Click here to find the first part and the second part.

Bring the small group work  back to the larger group and find ways to integrate the work into larger classroom life.

From the early stages of her group’s music project, Serena encouraged the budding musicians to share their work with their classmates (and our resident musician, Wayne). In the beginning, their experience of performing a song in progress allowed them to get some feedback to help them improve. Later, they worked to catalog important vocabulary words and use them to write new songs, one of which they also performed for their classmates and parents. As their vocabulary became more nuanced and consistent, Serena encouraged them to share their new system as useful tool for other songwriters in the classroom. Through this practice, the work of denoting and writing new songs has spread into the greater culture of the classroom, adding new focus to a general interest in music making.

Choose your small groups carefully, thinking about their relationships to the concepts and with one another.

When Tracy was considering the composition of her sea monster group, she took into account the different possibilities that the project held for each child. For some children, the experience would help them practice listening to others’ ideas and integrating them into their own. For others, it offered the possibility of a leadership role – getting to speak up and gain confidence as an “expert” on sea monsters. In her careful formation of the group, Tracy brought together children who had normally not played together much before, but who shared an interest in sea monsters and could benefit from each others’ strengths.  Among the group, there were storytellers, artists, safety advocates, and trap-builders, each working to make the lore of the sea monsters richer through their contribution. In bringing together this diverse group of children, Tracy not only helped build a successful project group - which they collectively named Team Blueberry Pickle - but also helped to foster new friendships and a greater sense of community throughout her classroom.

Stay curious about what you observe.

We were unsure what project work would be like for babies and young toddlers, but we were certain that our teachers would find ways to collaborate with some of our youngest citizens. While Cathy watched how babies played with balls and ramps for inklings of understanding, Eileen studied friendship, reflecting upon the demonstrations of empathy and fondness that she saw to draw her conclusions. Brae thought long and hard about how babies communicate with sign language and then with speech. She wondered why children chose one mode of communication over another. This team had deep, thoughtful conversations about their projects, and how they could continue to explore side-by-side with babies. On the other hand, when Henna joined the Toddler Two North team in the middle of the year, she had to build new relationships with the children in her class, while also listening for that special spark of interest that indicates that a topic might be worthy of deeper investigation. She knew that food held a special fascination and offered a number of different ways for the children in her class to relate to it. She was persistent in her study of the children in her care and their relationship to food, and offered a number of different and delicious provocations to her class.  

Celebrate and honor the children’s work by ending it in some meaningful way.

As our year (and our projects) come to an end, we are excited to see what celebrations unfold for these many projects. Clearly these children and teachers will continue to learn more, about the workers in their community, about how buttons influence the world around us or how to communicate with one another. However, one way that we honor children's collective exploration is by following the waxing and waning of their interest - by helping their work together form a shape with a beginning, middle and an ending. Part of the practice of progettazione in Italy, and the projects that happen elsewhere in Boston and all over the US, is to recognize the work that's happened, look at it as a whole, and celebrate it with families and children. In the final weeks of our school year, teachers, families and children marked this moment, honoring the learning they did and relationships they built. Seana planned a plane-decorating party for her paper airplane group, Carmel and Aline invited families to co-create a bird guide that will live on in our center, and Miwako’s group invited their classmates and parents to the final performance of the play they created, to name a few. What a wonderful end to an amazing year!

Teachers are Learners - Illustrating a Year of Project Work - Part 2

The following is the second part of a series of posts illustrating the ways our teachers took on the different principles of project work last year. You can find the first post here.

Emphasize dispositions such as critical thinking, perspective-taking, intellectual and emotional risk-taking, persistence, and bold imagining.

From the outset of her group’s investigation of ramps, Irene was guided by the question that inspired the project, “What happened?” As she brought children together to work at both building and using ramps, she also helped them to build the language, skills, and endurance of scientists and engineers. Over the course of their investigation of ramps, Irene offered children opportunities to make, test, and revise their predictions, as well as to solve problems and obstacles that arose during their tests. If a piece of their ramp broke, she supported them through the process of working together to fix it, make sure it worked, and realign it if not. She helped them to expand their repertoire of questions to include not only “What happened?” but “Why did that happen?”, “How can we fix it?”, and “What will happen if…?”

Watch for opportunities to integrate learning domains such as literacy, math, and scientific processes.

Throughout the center, teachers have found numerous ways to integrate learning domains into their projects. Although they were working with very different age groups, Irene and Seana both encouraged children to work at making predictions, testing them, and observing the results. Seana and Monica helped children stretch their writing muscles through writing lists and letters, while Tracy encouraged her younger preschoolers to write their intended messages on the sea monster signs they created.  Two teachers also used checklists to help children remember their work and analyze it later; the checklist made for Seana’s airplane group helped them note down their observations of how different airplanes flew, while Kerry’s group used a checklist to keep track of which colors of moon sand the different classrooms wanted them to make. In addition, by helping the children in her group follow the recipe to make the moon sand, Kerry gave them experience in both measuring and counting.

Find a starting place.

“How will I find a project?” This was on the mind of many teachers when we first started discussing project work. During the weeks that followed, two Preschool 2 teachers found their respective projects in very different ways, illustrating that there is no right way to begin a project. For Seana, inspiration came from an ongoing interest in paper airplanes already present in her classroom. After inviting several children to hone their airplane making and flying skills, she identified a dedicated group who came together again and again to fold, fly, and observe their planes. For Monica, on the other hand, the seed of a project sprang from a single lunchtime conversation. When a small group of children began to discuss the prospect of building a house for their classroom, she was struck by the enthusiasm and practicality of their conversation. She brought the group together for more conversation, and soon the House Group was born. Although each teacher found inspiration for a project group in very different circumstances, in both cases their projects grew out of their careful attention to children’s interests – whether ongoing or just beginning.

Write documentation that allows teachers, children and families to reflect on what's happening and contribute.

Documenting project work is unique in that it’s important that the larger class be made aware of what the project group is doing and because of the sheer volume of work children are creating on a regular basis. Kerry’s documentation in Toddler Two South honored the thoughts and questions of children by sharing them with everyone as the project progressed. She placed large pictures at children’s eye level so that they could reflect upon and revisit their work together. The size of the photos allowed multiple children to consider the pictures at the same time. The Preschool One team found that they were meeting so often with their groups, they didn’t feel they could adequately make a polished piece of documentation about every meeting. They knew that it was important to capture all of the children’s ideas, and record all of the different provocations that were part of the work, so M., Kara and Tracy started collecting “raw” notes in a binder that children and families could peruse. The notes allow anyone to get a real sense of the work that was happening, and provided the team with an organized way to reference their notes in team meetings when planning curriculum.

Teachers are Learners - Illustrating a Year of Project Work - Part 1

The following is the first part of a series of posts illustrating the ways our teachers took on the different principles of project work last year. You can see the second post here.

Aim to generate rather than answer questions.

When considering possible provocations for their respective projects, Sarah (investigating water) and Amy (investigating simple machines) always sought to challenge children’s thinking. Whether offering a new perspective on the materials (such as envisioning a stream of water falling continuously from the ceiling) or providing opportunities to explore an interest with greater focus (by constructing new wheel and latch boards for the classroom), these teachers were always creating opportunities for children, families, and the teachers themselves to develop new questions. In attempting project work with infants, they found that just as much can be learned through the asking of questions as in the answering of them.

Seek to increase the complexity of the study.

When the button project first began, Erin looked at how children worked with buttons. One aspect of their interest was social; they liked to have control of a button that someone else wanted. She looked deeper at buttons, and how they help children's attention and had a hunch that they were seeking to influence invisible, and interconnected systems. Thinking with one and two year old children about something this complex can be difficult. Anyone might struggle to get at this idea, which is physically obscured by the casings and exteriors of the buttons themselves. But Erin was undaunted. Over the course of their project, the pushing of buttons has given way to the creation of machines – from levers and catapults to wheels and axles. Together, this group is learning some of the mechanics at work behind the light switch they so love to flip, gaining a peek into the hidden systems that make our world run each day.

  

Create opportunities to represent and

re-represent ideas in multiple "languages."

Kara’s great love of and experience with yoga, as well as the investment that many children in her classroom have shown in its practice, made this a natural choice for her project this year. The question was, how could she help them to take their understanding of the poses they practiced to a new level? One way was through the use of multiple languages to represent the way their bodies looked while holding different positions. Children were already gaining much experience with movement when practicing yoga, so now she asked them to slow down, look at each others’ bodies, and recreate them using pencils and sharpies, clay and wire, and paint. These experiences gave the children an acute awareness of their bodies and how to represent the important parts of each pose, while offering Kara insight into the children’s understanding of the poses and how the parts of their bodies work together to compose them. When Kara invited the children to create their own poses and yoga flow, she had prepared them to use these skills for a new purpose – drawing their own yoga cards and teaching their flow to others!

Find ways to keep families abreast of your work, and to invite them into the process of planning.

Having chosen a single, class-wide project focusing on birds and children’s observation of them, the Toddler One South team of Aline, Carmel, and Danielle worked hard to apprise the families of the children in their care about the nature of their investigation. Through written documentation and weekly emails, the team recounted their provocations and observations around this project in the classroom, inviting families to contribute. As parents and grandparents began to share photos and stories of encounters with the birds around them, the teachers integrated them into the classroom environment – photos were added to the display board in the back of the room, while the stories were added to the book corner. Soon, parents were not only paying more attention to birds alongside their child, but also offering ideas for provocations they would like to bring to the classroom to support the project. Thanks to the teachers’ effort in keeping families abreast of their project work, as well as parents’ commitment to replying with their own reflections and ideas, the project grew far richer and more meaningful for all involved.

Teachers are Learners - Illustrating a Year of Project Work - Introduction

Every year our staff shares an annual intention; a shared idea that we bring to our different conversations and curricula all year long. This past year our center explored in-depth project work, an approach to child-centered curriculum that we share with teachers all over the world.

Project work (or progettazione, as it's known in Italy) is a way for adults to demonstrate that we see children’s competence by working beside them to pursue a big idea. Many Americans first encountered this idea through an exhibit in the 1990s called the Hundred Languages of Children, which showcased the work of teachers, children, and families from Reggio Emilia, Italy. This exhibition challenged many American educators to rethink their understanding of what children are capable of and the possibilities for their self-expression through artistic media, and it clearly continues to resonate with us today. Here at PTCC, project work seemed like the next logical step stemming from our emergent curriculum. We imagined it offering a new, more collaborative way for children and adults to interact with one another, a more rigorous way for teachers to plan curriculum and different ways for children to learn the dispositions of artists, friends, scientists, teachers and learners.

We started a full year ago, considering examples of project work from other schools and centers. We spent a day with Sandra Floyd, a mentor teacher from Seattle, Washington who has worked on in-depth explorations with children and teachers for more than ten years. We talked together about the conceptual framework that sustains project work, and about the nuts and bolts work of making time and space for this sort of collaboration among and with children. Together, we created the following document to guide us on our journey. 

After much conversation, our studio schedule and Katie’s role were shifted to support project work, making more room for small groups to do what they needed to do to focus on their project. We spent the fall encountering and practicing with the art media that children would later be asked to use to represent their thinking. Teachers listened for the seeds of projects, and, after our winter break they began to dive in.

As a staff, we sought to answer several big questions about this work. Given our commitment to justice, and to caring for each child, how might we honor the ideas of children ready and willing to take part in project work while honoring the children whose learning this year happened outside of small groups. One classroom decided to pursue one project as a class, while another had small, flexible groups whose participants shifted over time. Teachers found ways to integrate their project work into the larger milieu through documentation, provocations and circle times. We wondered how to do this work, usually associated with preschoolers and older toddlers with our youngest children.

We also thought about how to follow children’s interests while inserting our own, teacherly perspective, and how to plan for learning when it’s emergent. We tried out Backwards Design _tm  as a way for teachers to plan for learning while leaving the outcomes and options open to children’s choices and discoveries. (Backwards Design is a method that is “Backwards” because teachers first consider what they hope children will understand by the end of the project, planning back from there.) When Erin suggested that we make some kind of visual organizer to help teachers to work with this method, we came up with two that you’ll see displayed around the center. One is shaped like a tree and the other is shaped like an oval, but they contain the same ideas. Both helped teachers approach children’s theories and questions with some rigor, decide what they wanted children to understand about their explorations and make space for children to co-lead the project and determine next steps.

This past year has been an amazing journey - for children and for teachers - and we are grateful for the opportunity to reflect on all of the hard work that went on here at PTCC. In a series of upcoming posts, we will illustrate the ways in which our teachers embodied the above principles and key "ingredients" through their projects.

- Katie & Kendra

Searching for Workers, Finding our Community

As many teachers at our center have embarked upon project work this year, they have sought ways to delve deeper into children's shared interests and to provide them with new perspectives through which to view such things as sea monsters, paper airplanes, ramps, and birds, to name a few. As with most new things, this has involved moving beyond our comfort zones, literally as well as figuratively. "Going deeper" has often included straying beyond the familiar walls and playgrounds of our school and into the city around us. These experiences have added a new dimension to the projects - the opportunity to get to know our community.

One example of what I mean occurred just over a week ago. As a part of their project work around the people at work in our community, a group of older toddlers, their teacher, Kerry, and I ventured out on a walk around our school's neighborhood, to "look for workers."  
As we started walking - 

Yoshi: Look! A delivery worker!
F: What’s your name?
Katie: I wonder if any of those packages are for our school.
Yoshi: (seeing a big diaper box) Those are for babies.
F: (points to the packages piled all the way to the handle of his cart) That’s too many!
A: Can we take your picture?

The delivery worker apologized for being too busy to stop and talk to us right then. As we continued our walk…

A: Look at that delivery truck.
Katie: This reminds me of when you guys did deliveries, too.
Kerry: Yeah! What was the name of the thing you guys used to make deliveries?
Yoshi: Some boxes were heavy and some weren’t.

Turning the corner, we noticed that a courtyard by some nearby apartments had been torn up.

Tracks in the dirt. What made them?

Yoshi: Maybe there’s construction there. Don’t go on there!
S: There was a tractor here.
Kerry: You think there was a tractor? How do you know?
S: See the tracks?
Yoshi: I don’t think it was a tractor. (sees a ladder nearby) There’s a ladder! That’s what the tracks are.

We walked down the street, hoping to see some people at work. We saw a lot of cones – traces of construction work – and the children pointed out drivers of big landscaping and contracting trucks that passed. A. noticed a fire hydrant, saying, “A fireman.” Yoshi noticed a tree that had been cut down.  “What happened to that tree? It’s just a stump.” I noticed some really full recycling bins, which led us to talk about the trash truck that the children watch every day from their window.

As we neared the MLK School construction site, the children saw something very exciting…

Yoshi: A street sweeper! It cleans a dirty dirty dirty dirty…

The street sweeper hard at work. 

A: Street!
Yoshi: Yeah, street!

The children looked closely for the man inside the sweeper. At one point, F. said, “Oh, there! See the orange shirt!” A. also pointed out two mailboxes on the street corner nearby, and the children peeked through the fence at the construction in progress, although the workers had all gone home for the day.

What struck me about this walk was that, although we didn’t see as many workers as we were hoping, we saw many signs of different types of work done in our city every day. From ladders to fire hydrants to mail boxes to construction cones, our city is full of objects representing the workers who help it function. When I think about the work that this group has done for our school (such as making and delivering moon sand to other classrooms), I can identify particular objects that hold meaning for them in a similar way. For instance, they are always eager to pick out a smock to wear before making moon sand, and it is only after their smocks are on that they declare, “We are workers.” For these children, these objects are important symbols, essential to the identity of workers and their jobs. One of the things that has been truly wonderful about this project is the way in which it has opened up children’s eyes to the multiple meanings of the word “worker” – it no longer just means a construction worker, but also a delivery person, a gardener, a baker, a moon sand maker… the list goes on and on. The many things they identified as belonging to workers illustrated this very idea. We don’t just need builders to build a community… we need lots of other people, too! 

A peek into the construction zone.

This process of reaching beyond our classroom walls and into the greater Cambridge community has been one of the most amazing parts of our first venture into project work. Many groups have been venturing beyond our school's walls - even if it is just a little way - in order to expand their perspectives and bring their work into the "real" world. One of our preschool groups is intent on educating the public about the dangerous sea monsters they believe live in the Charles River, whether that means yelling out at passers-by "Beware the sea monsters! They will eat you up!" or posting signs along the riverbank. Another group, who is interested in performance, is planning to visit a local repertory theater in order to learn more about all of the work that goes in to putting on a play. 

In addition to expanding our sense of community through these trips outside our school, many projects have also offered opportunities for children to build and strengthen relationships within our center's walls. The worker group's experience making and delivering moon sand to other classrooms is one example - the children were able to visit and get to know classrooms, children, and teachers they rarely see. Children whose groups shared a similar interest - ramps - shared a Studio visit together in order to learn from each other. For one group, whose interest lies in gardening and plants, their understanding of our school community expanded rather accidentally on a trip to the garden to observe and draw some plants. When they arrived, our school's garden plot was being carefully tended by a different classroom. As we made our way to a spot to draw, one child asked, "What they doing in our garden?" As I explained that the garden belonged to our whole school and that many children helped to care for it, I could see her brow furrow in thought. "We take care of it, too," she said at last, before turning back to her clipboard. 

A "Beware of Sea Monsters" sign tied to a tree.

The educators of Reggio Emilia often discuss the rights and respect that children as active citizens of this world. As the town's mayor, Graziano Delrio, wrote in his contribution to the Hundred Languages of Children,"In this period of our history, the idea of citizenship has had a strong influence on the identity of the infant-toddler centers and preschools - the sense of belonging, the willingness to take care of one another, the wish to participate, and the desire to be an active part of a process of change toward greater prosperity for the world community." These experiences within our school and our city are a means of building this good citizenship, not only by introducing children to their community, but by giving them a sense of place and power within it. They may not be the only gardeners at work in this place, but their contribution is still important and necessary. I hope this is an understanding they carry with them as a result of this work we are doing together. 


How did you understand your community when you were young? 
How about now?

Thinking About Our Year-end Showcase Together

For the last few years, our center has hosted Showcase, an evening when teachers create special displays or panels to highlight moments from the year we are ending together. In a center full of great teachers, we can feel stressed to perform, overwhelmed by all the possibilities or pressured to compete with all the incredible work happening.

I met with the administrative team and we agreed that in the three years that we've had showcase, not once has anyone "not done enough" or disappointed anyone. In fact, when we reflected on these past events, we felt like many people could have done less and still be very happy with their result. In order to head off some of the pressures felt by teachers, and to help us to create the kinds of displays we can be proud of with less effort, we had provocations this month all about Showcase. 

Part of my design of teacher provocation is considering who will attend. Sometimes it's random, and teachers appreciate working with people from around the school. Other times, I'll pick different aspects of the topic, so that teachers can choose which to attend based on their interests. Still other times, we ask people to attend based upon whether they are a new or veterarn staff because those groups have different needs or points of view. This month, I invited Team Coordinators to come first. These veteran teachers with added responsibilities on their team are often the ones cursing at the copier, or having Showcase nightmares in the weeks leading up to the event. I specifically invited this group to name the stressors, the expectations of different protagonists, and our values for Showcase.

Serena and Tracy list the stressors that coincide with planning Showcase.

Sammie, Sarah and Erin consider what families expect from Showcase.

Next, our newest teachers attended, most of them with only a vague idea of what Showcase would be, or with a huge impression from having attended early on in their time with us without having to contribute. We spent a lot of time looking at images of past Showcase displays and discussing what worked for us and what didn't. Finally other teachers, all of whom had been a part of showcase, but who didn't have the same weight on their shoulders as the TC's.

Amy and Sara discuss documentation of Showcases from before they joined our community.

Amy, Sara, Monica and intern Madhumita use Deiter Ram's 10 Principles of Design to analyze past Showcases.

All three groups spent some time reflecting individually in writing, and then sharing their impressions of Showcase. We thought about other events that we've been a part of like this one;

• teaching a culminating yoga class during teacher training
• a final gallery show in art school 
• collaborating on a piece of published writing
• a wedding 
• numerous plays 
• political events and how these shaped our assumptions and our thoughts about Showcase. 

Then we examined Deiter Rams’ “10 Principles of Good Design”. Most teachers have no training in design, and yet we design provocations, documentation and displays like these. We used these principles to guide our thinking about past Showcases as we examined books of documentation. We identified which principles we embraced already as a community (1,3, and 6) and which we could try to fold into our work this year  (2,4 and 10) . From these meetings, I created this summary of our collective wisdom. I wonder what will feel different about our Showcase this year.

What’s Your Metaphor? How do you view Showcase? Is it a marathon? An essay? A play? An art show? A final for a really hard class? A reunion or a wedding celebration? Sara shared how her history as a story-telling performer affected the improvisation and depth that she brings to designing documentation, while another teacher’s experience working in a gallery taught her to handle the stress of last minute design changes. We've all planned an event, or final draft. Those experiences taught us something and affect what we assume about showcase and how we prepare. Talk with your team about your history, and how you see Showcase now. One teacher told us that Showcase was a stressful event like having a tooth pulled. If she changed the way that she sees the event, would that change the way she feels about it?

How Much is Just Enough? Different teachers talked about how much text is the right amount to display. One teacher looked back at her brief interpretive paragraphs from last year’s Showcase and said that it looked a little too long to her now. Think about how long it takes you to read text, and how much time you can expect a viewer to spend in your room. Use this information to make decisions about how much writing to include on the walls. Teachers pointed out that it’s nice to have your collection of documentation in a binder nearby for anyone who would like to look for more depth. (Note, this document is 933 words. See how long it takes you to read.)

An excess of images can also lead to a sense of “overstimulation” that several teachers mentioned when describing their past encounters with showcase. Eileen brought up her own experience of choosing “the best of the best” for photography exhibits, a good tactic to keep in mind when selecting pictures for display. This also plays into honoring one of the principles of design - to be environmentally friendly. Consider what will happen to these images after Showcase ends: how many prints can you easily save for future use or give away to families to take home? Make your pictures count!  

What Have You Already Done? Many of our teachers have had the experience of displaying their past work in a gallery. Think about what you’ve already done this year and how you can prune it a little bit, change the look but avoid writing more than a small summary or interpretive piece. Since the second week of school, Toddler 2 North has been collecting documentation in a basket for possible inclusion in Showcase. You can also do this digitally on your computer by copying documentation into a Showcase folder if you like.

What is Too Big or Too Small? We heard that some people can’t read small print without their glasses, or that some people think that larger is more aesthetically pleasing. Eileen brought up her experience in a gallery “when I'm looking at a big piece with someone else, we might say something about what we see because we're seeing the same things at the same time. When it's smaller, I’m reading the whole thing on my own and having a private experience.” Consider what sort of experience you are trying to provide as you choose the size of your images and text - do you want to open up conversations between viewers or offer a moment for quiet, individual reflection?

What Does It Mean to Be a Team? I brought up that if a team can come together behind a shared vision, the display is often much more legible as a whole, and it can be more succinct and focused than the more common approach of three individuals telling their own stories. Katie realized that part of the panic in the last days and hours before provocation are largely due to an “every person for herself” mindset that occurs when each teacher is designing their own display. If the three people are working together, they’ll have communicated about what’s happening weeks before, and they’ll be working toward shared goals, finishing earlier and enjoying their pizza (Center-wide take out is our pre-Showcase tradition). How can your team decide together what to display from your shared work this year?

Is Showcase Just About What's on The Wall? Sara reminded us that Showcase is not the displays that we hang, it’s the interaction among community members and with the displays. We are creating a structure where Showcase can take place, one that invites people to consider big ideas, whole stories, or fundamental questions. The Showcase is found as much in the conversations as it is in the printed word or pictures. Consider the ways in which you can make space for them in the design of your presentation.

How Is Our Work Part of Something Larger? Showcase is intended as an opportunity for teachers, children and families to view the work happening all over the center. It also offers our own families and friends a window into what we do. Erin pointed out that our design can facilitate this kind of movement.

How can our design encourage readers to take in the work of the whole community, and make connections among all that they see? How can the stories we present work together to illustrate our identity as a center as well as individual classrooms?

Have you been a part of our Showcase in the past? What were your impressions? Has your center hosted a tour, or a culminating event like this one? What wisdom can you offer us?

How Do You Try New Things?

Those of us who live in the land of child care and education get TWO “new” years, two fresh starts. For most of us there is a fresh start in the fall and then another that we share with the rest of the world in January.

Last August, our staff decided that we were ready to integrate in-depth project work into our curriculum and started preparing during our work days. We invited Sandra Floyd, mentor teacher at Epiphany Early Learning Preschool (and friend of mine!) to visit us and share her stories and perspectives on in-depth projects with young children. Together, we made a plan for a relative timeline for beginning our own project work. Like most centers, our curriculum really deepens by the winter time. Groups have gelled and interests have ripened. In addition, since this will be a departure for our teachers, we wanted to take all the time we needed to change our systems and learn about negotiated curriculum before we jumped in. As a result, we chose January to be our turning point when we expected that teachers would invite children into our first small group projects.

There is a book by Cher Huber, called "How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything", and I bring this idea up often with teachers. If I look at how I left the house this morning (woke up late but cheerfully with my son, no real routine, enjoyed pancakes with my toddler, left the dishes in the sink, had to run back for raincoat and boots once I got outside and realized that it was raining, sang songs together and talked about big ideas with my partner in the car on our way to work) it tells me a lot about how I do a lot of things; not terribly organized or neat,very focused on some things to the exclusion of some others, involving love and fun, thinking about things and my favorite people. In this spirit, I invited our staff to think about how we started new things in the past to learn how we might start our project teams this year. 

We talked about leaving the country for the city, installing a toilet, quitting soda, presenting at a conference, bike commuting, learning to knit, practicing yoga and dozens of other new things we tried. Just listing all the new things had an effect on people; some seemed surprised at how many new things they'd attempted lately, and others had a hard time creating a list at all.

If you'd like to try this yourself, think about some new things you tried in the last few years (marriage, sushi, rock climbing, Spanish lessons) and narrow it down to one successful thing and one unsuccessful thing. Answer these questions:

Successful thing:	Not so successful thing:
Why did you try it?	Why did you try it?
What words come to mind when you think about doing this thing?	What words come to mind when you think about doing this thing?
What were your positive thoughts before you tried it?	What were your positive thoughts before you tried it?
What were your negative thoughts before you tried it?	What were your negative thoughts before you tried it?
Did you try it alone or with a friend?	Did you try it alone or with a friend?
What helped you succeed?	Why didn't you succeed?

Together we discovered that different motivations, self-talk, and strategies worked for different people. Despite this, everyone felt that they learned something about themselves that would help them on their next new endeavor. 

Whatever new things you may be trying out in 2014, this collective wisdom may help you accomplish them!

What motivated successful tries? 

Because it's: healthy, necessary, expresses who I am.
I knew I could do it.

For the challenge

I like big changes.
To prove something to myself or someone else.

Cool people I wanted to be closer to

Doing something for myself

Looking for a new hobby

I was not successful at the opposite.

Why not?

I didn't have to if I didn't want to.

It would be calming for me.

Change can be fun.

What motivated unsuccessful tries?

I felt like I was ready mentally to do it.

I thought it would be healthy.

I thought it would help me find something to do with my hands.

I was interested in it.

People around me were doing it.

I think I should/someone told me I had to do it.

I wanted to prove something to others.

Words that come to mind when we think of the successful thing:

Successful, arduous, challenging, exciting, whole body, complicated, calming, fun, intimidating, accomplished, feel good, gutsy, new, beautiful, flexibility, practice, interesting, refreshing, success! fun, relief, proud, excitement, joy, effortlessness, sharing.

Words that come to mind when we think of the unsuccessful thing:

frustrating, boring, utter failure, procrastination, self doubt, shame, anxiety, new, finances, impatient, comfort, wanting to feel a different way than I do, conflicted, cognitive dissonance, she can do it so I can do it (Comparison) competition, tired, frustrated, bored, nope, defensive, Oh my god! Wanting to turn in on myself, embarrassment, pissed off, blaming ("It would have worked if only...") 

Thoughts we had before our successes

I can do this.

I love this.

This is going to be great.

I love change.

I'm going to be so ________ (Identity)

I don't have enough resources to pull it off.

Maybe I'm underestimating myself.

Who might this affect?

Will I have the follow-through?

I'm a fraud. I'm waiting for the other shoe is going to drop

How can I do it? (Making a plan.)

I can't do it. (Self doubt)

I've failed before.

Thoughts before an unsuccessful try:

people will love it!

salary or other extrinsic rewards

maybe I'll meet some interesting people (bribing yourself)

What if it's just like the last time? What if it takes for ever?

How could I ever do this?

What if it doesn't look/turn out the way I want it to?

I'm not... (Identity)

I don't think I can afford this.

Will I embarrass myself.

It's going to take a long time and involve a lot of details.

I think I'm going to succeed

I don't like what I am going to do.

This will be easy.

I'm afraid I might be scrutinized.

I'm afraid.
This will be a neat thing to try. 
It'll be great this time I just have to stick with it. 
It'll be so nice when this is all over. 
Wouldn't it be awesome to create?! 
No big deal, I'm ready. 
I can totally do this.

What helped you succeed?

I felt good doing it

I felt healthy and got out of my head.

I knew I could.
I had to do it.

I made an investment.

My passion for it.

I had support from a team.

Listening to others telling me I was succeeding in spite of my own judgments of myself.

I played to my strengths

Repetition

I avoided comparing myself to others.

I trusted myself and others, let go of control. (For example, trusting my sister to make the onions at Thanksgiving!)

External accountability/peer support

A more flexible attitude, willingness to learn something

I brought someone else into the process.
competition

I learned from my mistakes in the past.

Why Didn't You Succeed?

It takes so long, and it's SO boring... not fun. (It was a bad match.)

fear

social opportunities

I didn't have natural ability 
I was working alone.

no support/guidance/resources 
competition

This exercise and collected insight gives us a great opportunity to learn from the past in order to succeed in the present. How could you use this information to support a new endeavor? PTCC Teachers, has this collective wisdom informed you as you get started with project work?