For 2019, the word that I will keep at the centre of who I am and what I do is FLOURISH.
I recently wrote about flourishing as part of a blogging challenge:
What do you need to flourish?
For me, 7 hours of quality sleep in fresh air, freshly ground coffee, and a morning run are a perfect start. Fresh food, great books, interesting and caring friends, love and laughs with family, sloppy kisses from a chocolate lab puppy – these all contribute to the feeling of health and wellness.
But I also need opportunities to create, write, and collaborate on adaptive problems to give me purpose and keep me learning.
For years I have thought about how we can design schools as places where ALL children flourish.
What does a school look like and sound like, when all children are thriving?
How does this differ from our traditional concept of “curriculum delivery”?
What are the conditions for learning that allow all children to develop the competencies needed to thrive in an exponentially changing world?
Please see the full post here.
More information on #onewordONT can be found at the bottom of this post.
Context:The #OneWordONT project began in 2015 with #OSSEMOOC (Ontario School and System Leaders Edtech MOOC – OSAPAC’s community of leaders learning how technology can change practice in education). Julie Balen took the lead in creating a graphic and encouraging educators to participate in choosing a focus. In 2016, we had many educators choose a focus for their practice during the year. Julie’s depiction gave us a sense of how educators wanted to focus on their practice. By 2017, the Ontario Ministry of Education cut funding for OSSEMOOC, but Julie continued to lead the project on her own. Thanks to Julie for continuing this work in 2018!
and in 2019 with her word Dignity
Ash from Modern Afflatus (featured image)
I immediately thought of “thrive” when I saw “flourish”. How often do we hear, “I’m surviving” when we ask, “how are you?” Sometimes we are in survival mode, but we know that we would rather be flourishing. We need to affirm everyone’s right to flourish and thrive.
As an aside, I also like the noun definition of “flourish”. It’s those moments of brilliance that attract our attention.
noun
noun: flourish; plural noun: flourishes
1.
a bold or extravagant gesture or action, made especially to attract the attention of others.
“with a flourish, she ushered them inside”
an elaborate rhetorical or literary expression.
an ornamental flowing curve in handwriting or scrollwork.
“spiky gothic letters with an emphatic flourish beneath them”
2.
an instance of suddenly performing or developing in an impressively successful way.
“the Bulldogs produced a late second-half flourish”
3.
MUSIC
a fanfare played by brass instruments.
“a flourish of trumpets”
an ornate musical passage.
an improvised addition played especially at the beginning or end of a composition.
Origin