Every Child Can (And Every Adult, too)

1. Every Child Can(And Every Adult, too) Using the Velveteen Principles to Sustain Schools that Support Everyone’s Learning This presentation would have been impossible without the creative imagination of Toni Raiten-D’Antonio. Her book The Velveteen Principles, published by Health Communications, Inc., has been invaluable to me.

3. Favorite Philosopher Story of Yogi and his Teacher I may not know much, but I do suspect a few things

4. Velveteen Principles and Educational Renewal • Real is Possible • Real is a Process • Real is Emotional • Real is Empathetic • Real is Courageous • Real is Honest

5. Velveteen Principles and Educational Renewal (Cont.) • Real is Generous • Real is Grateful • Real Can Be Painful • Real is Flexible • Real Love Endures • Real is Ethical • Real is Meaningful • Real is Always About Learning

6. Real is Possible For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon everyone else; they were full of modern ideas and pretended they were real.

7. Real is Possible Bringing about real, powerful, sustainable change in schools is within our grasp as individual educators and as professional learning communities. We have the knowledge, skills and attitudes to make and hold onto great schools. Believing in ourselves, in who we are and what we can become, may be the most significant animating ingredient.

8. Schools as Lighthouses Transmission: Divert course to avoid a collision Response: Recommend that YOU divert YOUR course Transmission: This is an aircraft carrier. We are a large U.S. Navy warship. Divert NOW! Response: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

9. Real is a Process “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept.”

10. Real is a Process From Bill Ayers in “Teaching Toward Freedom”: “To be human is to be on a voyage, to be a project, imagining, reaching, changing oneself and the world. Having a mind capable of projecting, choosing, reflecting – this is the human signature that teachers both seek and nourish.”

11. Real is a Process Getting real takes time. Raiten-D’Antonio says: “You become ever more real as you grow and mature and keep refining what matters to you.” It also helps to: • Identify a moral purpose • Form close professional relationships • Prioritize meaning making • Affirm staff creativity and imagination • Build trust and practice validation

12. Real is Emotional When the Velveteen Rabbit first slept in the Boy’s bed it was uncomfortable as the Boy hugged him very tight and sometimes pushed him so far under the pillow that the Rabbit could scarcely breathe…But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows real rabbits lived in.

13. Real is Emotional Feelings and emotions are valued and recognized in schools that are making exciting change. Experts on emotional intelligence remind us to pay special attention to increasing these capacities: • Self-awareness • Self-management • Social awareness • Relationship management

14. Real is Empathetic The mechanical toys were very superior and they looked down upon everyone else. Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel very insignificant and commonplace and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse.

15. Real is Empathetic For teachers, developing the ability to put oneself in another’s place is a critical part of good instruction, of relating authentically to learners. For leaders, empathy is a similarly important part of connecting with teachers and other staff. Good communication – an essential aspect of strong, improving schools – depends on nurturing the disposition of empathy.

16. Empathy’s Pricelessness: Anna Deavere Smith On the Road: A Search for American Character • Interviews People • Performs in Character • Becomes a Baptist preacher, a drug dealer, a Muslim minister, a Hasidic mother • Rooted in Empathy – depends on seeing intently and listening closely to people’s stories • Ultimately - RESPECT

17. Real is Courageous The little Rabbit lay among the old picture books in the corner of the fowl house and he felt very lonely…Of what use was it to be loved and lose one’s beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.

18. Real is Courageous Real is brimming over with courage (literally heart) to try something innovative, to form new relationships, to dare to experiment. Schools that are committed to everyone learning are hearty, heartfelt, heartening places where there is a willingness to pursue challenging goals and take instructional risks. The courage to teach and to lead in ways that may be uncomfortable and even painful at times, but that produces good outcomes for kids, is constantly in evidence.

19. The Courage to Teach and to Lead Good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher. To teach well, we must learn more about the human dimensions of our craft, about the claims it makes on our lives, about our relations with our students, about a teacher's wounds and powers.

20. Circle of Courage • Belonging • Mastery • Independence • Generosity

21. Real is Honest The mechanical toys were very superior…and pretended they were real…Even Timothy, the jointed wooden lion…put on airs and pretended he was connected with the Government.

22. Real is Honest Powerful learning communities constantly cultivate the habit of constructive honesty. This includes being honest about instruction that isn’t supporting learning, about leadership that is undermining progress, about words and behaviors that are destroying morale. Finding time and space for conversation and dialogue builds honesty. It brings people closer together and into the kinds of trusting relationships that lead to genuine and sustained honesty.

23. Honesty and Truth "To speak a true word is to transform the world." -Paulo Freire

24. Real is Generous And then one day the Boy was ill. His face grew flushed and he talked in his sleep, and his little body was so hot that it burned the Rabbit when he held him close…Through it all the Velveteen Rabbit lay there, hidden from sight under the covers, and he never stirred, for he was afraid that if the adults found him, they might take him away, and he knew the Boy needed him.

25. Real is Generous Schools that are becoming centers for learning and growth are generous places. Professional jealousy is largely absent. Teachers support each other in getting better. They generously encourage students to be teachers and gladly accept a role for themselves as learners. Leaders, too, are self-effacing and share leadership with staff who are eager to lead. Such leaders find spaces for teachers to direct new initiatives, and they actively affirm that they serve as leaders to support powerful learning – among both students and staff – not to seek credit for their accomplishments.

26. Real is Grateful “But he’s only a toy,” Nana said. The Boy sat up in his bed and stretched out his hands. “Give me my Bunny!” he said. “You mustn’t say that. He isn’t a toy. He’s Real!” When the little Rabbit heard that, he was immensely grateful, for he knew that what the Skin Horse had said was true at last. The nursery magic had happened to him. And he was a toy no longer. He was Real. The Boy himself had said it.

27. Real is Grateful Schools committed to reform and to everyone learning are energizing, appreciative places, where people go out of their way to express gratitude to each other for work well done. Grateful, appreciative schools have a vision of how organizations can “give life,” that make us all want to do our best work, for our own sake, the community’s sake, and, most of all, for the kids’ sake. As Raiten-D’Antonio notes, “gratitude flows when you are able to focus on the positive instead of the negative.”

28. Gratitude and Appreciation “The only real voyage of discovery exists, not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust (French novelist)

29. Gratitude and Appreciation “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

31. Real can be Painful “What is Real?” said the Rabbit to the Skin Horse. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s something that happens to you.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt” (quite so much).

32. Real can be Painful Being real can be profoundly humbling, for, as Raiten-D’Antonio suggests, “the more access you have to your own Real thoughts and feelings, the more you will see your own imperfections and limitations.” Such humility, though, also literally grounds us; it helps us to see who we really are – both weaknesses and strengths. It furthermore gives us the added incentive to align ourselves with others, to form learning communities where those limitations are less limiting and more liberating. By joining with others in this way we build on the strengths that come from many voices and the many diverse perspectives that comprise such communities at their best.

33. Purposeful Pain Birthing a New School Culture is not as excruciating as childbirth, but it comes close both in terms of the pain involved and the high purpose behind the suffering.

34. Real is Flexible He saw two strange beings creep out of the bushes. They were rabbits like himself, but quite furry and brand new. They must have been very well made, for their seams didn’t show at all, and they changed shape in a queer way when they moved; one minute they were long and thin and the next minute fat and bunchy, instead of staying the same, like he did.

35. Real is Flexible Although our vision for good schooling and for everyone learning may remain largely unchanged, how we go about fulfilling that vision must be flexible and open to creative adaptation. If we are taking learning seriously, then we must take seriously our commitment to making reasonable changes when research, evidence, and everyday experience warrant such changes.

36. Favorite Philosopher Again on Flexibility When you come to a fork in the road – Take it! Education at its best is made up of tough choices. Go out and face them with boldness, anticipation, and joy.

37. Real Love Endures Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To the Boy the Rabbit was always beautiful, and that was all the little Rabbit cared about.

38. Real Love Endures Strong, improving schools that are focused on everyone learning are founded on love – love of learners, love of exciting content, love of the learning communities we embrace. Paulo Freire and Myles Horton did not hesitate to affirm it, that Real education, the kind that has the potential to transform relationships and whole communities, begins and ends with love of humanity. Such love necessarily entails love of righteousness and social justice, and, most of all, love of each child who awaits our teaching and our leadership.

39. Real Love and the Practice of Freedom "Education as the practice of freedom cannot exist in the absence of a profound love for the world and its people."

40. Real is Ethical And so time went on, and the little Rabbit was very happy – so happy that he never noticed his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier, and his tail was coming unsewn. And all the pink rubbed off his nose where the boy had kissed him.

41. Real is Ethical What makes us real, above all, is our commitment to promoting the well being of every member of our learning communities. Here we concur with great educators like Horace Mann, John Dewey, and John Mondragon. As Dr. Mondragon has said many times, “As the school goes, so goes the town.” Healthy schools yield healthy communities. Schools committed to the well being of all learners also support the well being of all citizens.

42. Real is Meaningful That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. And into his boot-button eyes that had long ago lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty, so that even Nana noticed it next morning when she picked him up and said, “I declare if that old Bunny hasn’t got quite a knowing expression!”

43. Real is Meaningful Raiten-D’Antonio concludes that being real entails acquiring the quiet wisdom that helps us to discern what “Really fulfills and sustains us as unique individuals.” Schools that are striving to get Real are coming to understand what fulfills and sustains learners. Active participation in building powerful learning communities that make a difference for kids is what ultimately brings meaning. To know that your efforts are yielding a difference for the people you teach is one of life’s great incentives and probably the most significant meaning maker of all. Few things are more empowering.

44. Finally…Real is always about Learning Finally, it must be emphasized that Yogi Berra, a veteran of many winning baseball seasons, a successful manager and coach, concluded after his playing days were over that, “In baseball, you don’t know nothin’.” How could that be? Yogi Berra, a real baseball genius, says that in baseball you don’t know nothin’!!