learning and relearning, "knowing" vs. KNOWING

As I sat in our canceled-not-canceled-canceled-not-canceled 8th grade parent night last night, I felt a sense of renewed excitement for what we're doing in Mosaic. Michael got it started with an inspiring presentation that he, Shaun and Ryan had created for Educon this past weekend. Questions and comments from attending teachers, parents and students reminded me of the power of our goals in Mosaic.

The year has been filled with ups and downs and plenty of challenges. I "knew" it would be when I got myself into Mosaic, but I didn't really know. It's been tough at times. A couple of the most important things I'm learning and relearning this year are:

• I can't take responsibility for whether my students really learn, and if I try to, I am more so doing them a disservice. This doesn't mean that I don't have a responsibility to my students; I just needed to redefine that responsibility to make sure that I am empowering my students rather than imprisoning them to a rigid set of expectations.
• Progress and learning happens at its own rate, and in our situation it's likely to look like an exponential curve (which is what we want). Unfortunately, the beginning of the exponential curve can feel like no one is getting anywhere. I am learning to keep pushing through that initial "stagnation" so that my students really pick themselves up and take off with their learning. Another thing I "knew" (but really didn't).

Some students in Spanish are starting to take off and it's so exciting. I recently communicated clearly with parents about the stagnation of some students with regard to Spanish, and that has made me feel free to fly with those kids that are really into the language and to be patient with those who really aren't. Four of my Mosaic students are coming with me to Spain this summer to live with a host family; they'll start Skyping with their families shortly and will come back with much more proficiency than I could ever impart in the classroom. We went on a walk and chatted in Spanish this morning because the weather was fabulous. Some of us are practicing yoga after school on Thursday using a video I got from the public library in Spanish. I'm interviewing them about their projects in Spanish as they finish presentations. And I'm slowly letting go of all of the structure that I normally put in place to encourage Spanish proficiency building in order to allow them to more meaningfully construct that for themselves. 

Needless to say, in Mosaic, the learning never stops. 

A Mosaic student and exchange student from Spain teamed up
to teach CV dance and fellow Mosaic students typical Spanish dance.

Students in my Spanish 3 class (outside of Mosaic) collaborated
to create mini-lessons for Mosaic Spanish students. This one
involved a fashion show and game.