- The Friday Mindset
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- Friday Mindset #92
Happy Friday everyone!
Pop quiz: what does this newsletter have in common with Rosa Parks and Ravi Shankar? (If you were reading last week’s, the next sentence is going to arrive with tedious predictability…) That’s right, it’s made it to the grand old age of 92.
Rest easy, we will not be googling ‘famous people who died at 93’ for next week’s missive.
There’s a loose theme this week - doesn’t happen often so let’s enjoy it - self-efficacy and careers guidance, something we’ve been thinking about a lot recently.
Something to try...
A video to start. After a training session in which we’d touched on careers guidance, we were thinking about learned optimism, and that took us to tech-writer and renowned optimist Kevin Kelly, which in turn led to the discovery of this conversation with Tim Ferriss.
We’ve clipped it, shortened it, and provided a transcript. Kelly argues that “optimists are the ones that shape our future.” It’s a good starting point for a discussion about vision, and expresses some of our recent thoughts about a curriculum of hope. Check it out:
Here’s the transcript and a brief bio for Kelly:
It’s really made us think - if we can select/choose what to be actively optimistic about - what will we choose?
Something we’re reading…
This BBC article has been a fascinating read - we missed it when it was first published. It’s about high aspirations despite hardship; something recorded in an experiment in which primary school aged pupils from different countries were asked to draw what they’d like to become in the future.
We’ve included a pdf of the full report - all 100 pages of it - but the article itself does a good job of exploring a problem we have here in the UK; a lack of aspiration. “Careers counselling in secondary schools comes far too late,” says one of the education directors responsible for the report. “It is clear from the drawings that children arrive in school with strong assumptions based on their own day-to-day experiences.”
Check it out here:
And the full report is here:
Portal talk…
As the summer holidays loom and the end of term approached, my thoughts used to be of lazy days pottering around the house and an annual, usually wet, fortnight away in North Wales. Now however, my mind is occupied with how to revamp our Tutor Resources, which are now ready for an upgrade.
The idea of reinvention is something that all teachers understand. Every September new fads, music, and language take over schools. We all roll our eyes as we empty our drawers of the previously confiscated loom band bracelets and fidget spinners, in anticipation of the next “big thing”.
As I embark on the epic upgrade to our resources I was reminded of a great book by Dr Bradley R Staats (University of North Carolina.) The link to his book - “Never stop learning” is here:
Staats argues that to thrive in our fast-changing landscape, individuals must engage in ongoing learning to enhance their knowledge and economic influence. He emphasises the significance of dynamic learners who surpass their peers, achieving greater impact and fulfilment through continuous learning, and concludes his book with four mindsets that all individuals should have in the learning economy to adjust, learn, stay relevant and excel:
Frequent: be open to learning opportunities as chances often present themselves in unexpected ways;
Focused: choose topics to learn and focus on them deeply to attain sufficient knowledge;
Fast: one needs to pick up learning in the correct direction and also speed up quickly in that area;
Flexible: individuals need to be flexible enough to decelerate and switch to new opportunities.
Finally, we would love your opinion on our new format. We’ve been working closely with colleges at the Central South Consortium in Wales to develop Welsh Language Resources. The example below is our popular Revision Questionnaire activity. Please send any comments to [email protected]. Along with any queries regarding the VESPA Academy portal.
Our latest offer...
A free book for you all!
We almost spent a princely £7 on Drift by Meredith Paige NeJame. It’s not been out long, has ten five star reviews and was being talked about a lot. Then we discovered it’s 30 pages long and has less than eight hundred words and the author encourages free downloads on her website.
Drift packs a punch.
It’s about paths forward - the fuzzy, blurry ones that lead to exciting opportunities, and the clear, easy ones that everyone takes. Here’s a great passage: “Some employers make the path simple, otherwise nobody would ever apply to their ho-hum positions. These companies understand that most people are likely to choose the straightforward path to a mundane job over the blurry path to the career of their dreams.”
Read it aloud to your Year 12s now, or your Year 11s and 13s in September. It’ll be their first class-book since primary school. Here’s your copy:
And that’s it for now, folks. Tomorrow it’s July!
All the best to you and yours,
Martin, Steve and Tony