Reflection Is Where the Learning Sticks: A Conversation and Resources for Sustainable Movement-Making in Schools

By Kass Minor

For the first time in my life, I’ve begun to exercise regularly as per the request of my primary care doctor. My muscle mass, categorized “below average” (yikes!) yielded a prescription to weight-lifting and a regular exercise routine. I anticipated the worst: my most recent “going to the gym” experience was high school track practice, where I was barely able to bench press the bar. 

However, after some time on task, I’ve become less adverse to the gym. Rather, I’m finding intentional exercise illuminating, especially as it parallels with the types of risks and practices we engage in with school transformation. Particularly, I’m learning about the significance of paying attention to the muscles I don’t typically use–how releasing weight is just as important as lifting it.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash/Victor Freitas

For example, I often find myself in the throws of forward movement, creating goals for school change in partnership with educators, caregivers, and school communities. With fervor, we plunge into the work of “meeting the objective!” We list ALL the things that need to be done; the strategies, the things that will be measured to help along “achievement” so we can show up with the “deliverables.” Myself and other school community members immediately begin lifting a TON of weight, and we do it regardless of our aches, because it’s our work and we love doing it. 

Before we know it, we’re exhausted, and the weight becomes a struggle to bear, injuring the ways we are able to engage with our community. Certainly, creating objectives is integral to guiding our work in transforming schools that embrace the needs of children, that are joy-centered and justice-based. But if we can’t lift what we sought to do in the first place, we need to reconsider how we organize the load we carry. 

Importantly, rather than exercising the same muscles over and over, there are new and different ways we can create school transformation, and it begins with our ability to reflect. In essence, to move forward, we must first look back.

In weight-lifting, I’ve been supported by a coach who has helped me to understand the “negative space” of routine circuit training. For example, if I am doing a simple bicep-curl, I might do two-counts up, and the weight feels heavy. When I release the weight, I count for longer-up to five counts. This requires me to pay attention to the muscles I’m working on, and it helps me to understand how my muscles are growing. Most importantly, it prevents my muscles from being overworked, and I’m able to exercise without being too sore the next day.

In schools, we can consider similar movements. To sustain our work in centering joy and activating justice, we can focus on how we release the weight that comes along with that work, just as deeply as we consider how we lift it.

This summer offers us a beautiful opportunity to reconsider how we carry “the load.” In the last few months of school, I’ve worked with both educators and students to develop strategies for how we pay attention to what we’ve learned and what we’ve lifted. Here, find a low-lift, yet high-impact reflective process, called Remember, Hope, and Imagine. This process can be revised to accommodate learners of all ages, from elementary school to higher education to professional learning spaces.

Remember, Hope, and Imagine: A reflective process that helps learning stick

1. Remember. What did you learn? 

Across x period of time, such as an entire school year, a curricular unit, a lesson plan, or even a singular shared experience, generate a list of what you’ve learned. Often times, using visuals such as a photo collection will help surface important memories. Consider activities, field trips, books read, topics discussed, people met, and/or celebrations. Document your learning memories in a place you will be able to refer back to, and add to later. (Padlet, Google Jamboard, and Notability are my personal favs!)

2. Hope. What do you hope for in the future? 

Reflect on what you’ve learned, and dream a little–What do you hope will happen next? Consider ways that have supported your own growth, or community growth in the past. What parts of that growth surface excitement? What kinds of things would you like to try? What experiences would you like to engage in? 

3. Imagine. What do you imagine what you hope for will look like? 

Now it’s time to reflect on what you’ve hoped for, and dream– A LOT. Many of us educators have not experienced the kinds of transformative learning in our own school lives that we are working to build for our current school communities. This requires us to exercise our imagination–often under-utiilized muscles in the work of teaching and learning! Consider how you will feel, how your community will feel. Think about what you will learn, and what resources and experiences would catalyze this dream. Continue to visualize and document your reflection. 

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The power in this process is that you will have created a blueprint for transformative change, one that wasn’t initiated in the forward movement of an agenda-ed meeting; rather, this blueprint was surfaced from a rebirth of experiences and dreams that can be made real through the nexus of your imagination paired with documented learning. 

When it does come time to develop clear objectives for your school community, use this blueprint as a catalyst–and remember, reflection is where the learning sticks.

Blank Remember, Hope, and Imagine Brainstorm Graphic Organizer 

Read more about the reflective process in deeping learning experiences, featured in Chapter One and throughout in my new book, Teaching Fiercely: Spreading Joy and Justice in Our Schools.

Kass Minor is an inclusive educator who is deeply involved in local, inquiry-based teacher research and school community development. Alongside partnerships with the Teachers College Inclusive Classrooms Project and the New York City Department of Education, since 2005, she has worked as a teacher, staff developer, adjunct professor, speaker, and documentarian. She has contributed content to the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Edutopia, Heinemann Education Blog, inclusiveclassrooms.org, and has been featured in KQED Mindshift, Parents Magazine, Teaching Tolerance Magazine and the critically acclaimed New York Times Serial Podcast, Nice White Parents.