7 minutes

This is a quick write.

A seven minute writing strategy to prime the pump and get the words flowing. No judgment. No worry about clarity of meaning. No concern for grammar, or spelling, or punctuation. No expectations. Just pure, unedited thought from pen to paper or fingers to keys.

Set a timer and go.

Who knows what words will emerge as from an invisible ink magically made clear. Who knows what I will learn? What’s on my mind. In my heart? What are my words waiting to tell me?

I used this strategy almost daily as an educator. What a mind-opener it is for children. (And adults too.) Pressure evaporates. An invitation to write imperfectly routinely releases the most beautiful thinking, the loveliest strands of thought, comprehension, and connection. There’s so much power in this little bit of freedom.

And only seven minutes. The timer trills and they beg for more time. Every single time.

Always end your writing waiting for more, I’d say.

And then they’d share. (Like I’m doing now.)

Proud.

lesson plans

It’s been 54 years since my first day of school and only 12 months or so since my final first day. This year, there’s an absence. I’m absent. There’s a piece of me missing. A piece, I’m learning, only I can find.

Throughout all those years of study, the milestones I’ve reached and degrees I’ve earned, and the many opportunities for both teaching and being taught – I like to think I’ve always been a learner.  

There’s so much to know, to understand, to experience. Retirement is more than a chance to spend my time in new ways, it’s a chance to occupy my mind, to learn by doing, to think. To extend. Elaborate. Expand. To busy my mind with ideas. Questions. Possibilities and curiosities.

To walk all those talks I gave about being a life-long learner.

I sit, just me and my notebook, and 30 minutes of wondering.

Lesson planning.

What do I want to know and be able to do? What are my essential questions? 

Project-based learning. Experiential learning. Independent study. Education by design. Depth of knowledge. Just Dewey it.

The teaching philosophies I believed in as an educator still apply.  To me.  For me. 

And now, more than ever, I am the student. 

Back to school this fall, after all.