{"id":451,"date":"2025-11-03T16:49:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T16:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/?p=451"},"modified":"2025-12-17T12:19:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T12:19:04","slug":"dont-be-afraid-to-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/2025\/11\/03\/dont-be-afraid-to-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t be afraid to\u00a0fall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I’d like you to meet Branchy*. In my family, we use Branchy as a marker of time- she loses her leaves last and buds out early, marking the beginning and end of the warm months. We add lights to her in the winter and note how much harder it is to reach the upper branches, and we celebrated the first time a family of birds built a nest in her branches.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Branchy is losing the last of her leaves, and I\u2019m thinking of\u00a0fall. Or more appropriately,\u00a0falling. Things\u00a0fall, you know? It\u2019s one of the earliest physics lessons we learn. Literally and metaphorically speaking, things\u00a0fall. We\u00a0fall\u00a0in love,\u00a0fall\u00a0all over ourselves, things\u00a0fall\u00a0into place, and\u00a0fall\u00a0apart. If we\u2019re lucky enough to be in one place long enough to notice them,\u00a0 patterns emerge. We start to recognize what happens just before they\u00a0fall\u00a0into place, what factors tend to lead them to\u00a0fall\u00a0apart.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers call that transcendent thinking\u2014 \u201canalyzing situations for their deeper meaning, historical contexts, civic significance and\/or underlying ideas. (It) might take the form of recalling personal experiences, reflecting on one\u2019s beliefs and values and experiencing feelings of compassion and gratitude<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Critical Skills Classroom, we\u2019ve called it \u201creflect and connect\u201d for the last 40 years. It\u2019s the moment when we intentionally connect past learning and recent experiences to future experiences and opportunities (both theoretical and practical, unexpected and predictable). We\u2019ve always known it worked, but now we understand a bit more about why.  (Essentially, when teens are asked to reflect regularly about experiences that matter to them, there are significant positive impacts on identity development and brain structure<\/a>. Kids need to explore complex perspectives on experiences and ideas that reflect their own lives.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that reflection isn\u2019t easy to build into the day- it\u2019s an easy thing to skip- and it\u2019s not something we\u2019re typically reminded to do. This month, I\u2019m sharing resources on reflection, including Reflection: A Process for Making Meaning<\/a>, a free excerpt from T<\/a>he<\/a> Complete Guide to the Critical Skills Classroom<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection is always a good idea<\/strong>, but it\u2019s particularly useful when it comes on the heels of less-than-successful experiences. According to Cathleen Beachboard<\/a> “reflection sharpens the sense of a new chapter, making (us) more likely to act on (our) goals.”  Failure- falling- can magnify the power of our experiences<\/a>, if we let it.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter what you\u2019re falling into right now, I\u2019m glad to know you and hope you\u2019ll reach out if there\u2019s anything we can do to make your landing a little easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best-

(*The name came from a tree study<\/a> my daughter did in elementary school and even though she finished that project roughly 15 years ago, the name- and the observation habit- stuck. You can learn more about that at K-5 Forest Lessons \u2014 Green Schoolyards America<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sign up for Connections: Tools, News, and Inspiration for Teachers Like You<\/a>\u00a0and receive these little letters (plus a lot more) straight to your inbox every month!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d like you to meet Branchy*. In my family, we use Branchy as a marker of time- she loses her leaves last and buds out early, marking the beginning and end of the warm months. We add lights to her in the winter and note how much harder it is to reach the upper branches, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,25],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-blog","category-little-letters","tag-little-letters-from-laura-newsletter","entry","has-post-thumbnail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"lthomas","author_link":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/author\/lthomas\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}