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A “new year” presents an opportunity for me to pull back the frame and take a bigger/wider look at my life. As in years before, I found myself reviewing my notebooks—seeking insights—to help me consider how I’d like to do things differently in 2019, where I’d like to expand or deepen what I’ve been doing, and where I need to learn some new skills.

In this process, I uncovered something I’d written quite some time ago for a parenting group I facilitated. I wanted to share it while we’re still under the spell of “a new beginning”—as a meditation on frame expansion. What happens when we widen our frame from a focus on technology to learning, or even wider and deeper, to learning how to learn? I hope you find it useful.

6 simple steps to practice reflective learning

1. Begin to notice how you are modeling.

As parents, we can become so absorbed by concerns about our children’s learning that we forget to notice, observe, and reflect upon our own. Our children are learning from us how we go about our own learning. We are their first learning models. As we become curious about our own learning, our children will catch the spirit of our curiosity and enthusiasm. Create time to reflect on your own learning.

key words/phrases: noticing, reflecting

2. Share your personal learning explorations…make the learning process visible.

Talk about your learning. Reflecting on the process of learning is key in learning how to learn, but we rarely talk about how we are learning. Make the learning process visible, first to yourself, and then with your family. Talk about what is challenging, when you enter “flow states” and what they feel like, when you feel anxious, how you are able to relax. Get specific. Shift your focus from the topics of learning to the process of learning.

key words/phrases: sharing, dialogue, process-focus

3. Expand the frame…what’s your own core curriculum?

Ask yourself and your children what your own personal core curriculum is right now and why? Studies have shown that young people who have practiced piano performed 46% better in spatial reasoning than those who have not. Yet the public school system is cutting music programs because music is not considered core curriculum today. Reclaim your right and responsibility to consider and design your own wholistic learningscape. You’ll be modeling self-directed learning—and self-directed learning is a skill that can serve your children for a lifetime.

key words/phrases: personal core curriculum, wholistic learningscape, self-directed learning

4. Value inner worlds as much as outer worlds.

Our current education system puts primary emphasis on acquiring knowledge about the outer world and largely neglects the inner world. Yet research in the biology of cognition affirms that intelligence is restricted or expanded by our emotions—change emotions and you change possibilities for intelligent behavior. Become as interested in the inner worlds of emotions, imagination, visions and dreams as the outer worlds and make these the subject of regular dialogue. Music, art, dance, drama, the contemplative arts can be doorways into the inner world. Explore these doorways yourself and invite your family in with you.

key words/phrases: doorways to the inner worlds, dialogue, invitation to explore

5. Become an embodied learner.

Try shifting your focus from brain-based learning to mind/body learning. If you have to write a paper or give a talk, put on some music and dance for a half-hour, then write. Get comfortable dancing in front of your family [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing into her new office is good inspiration]. Explore the somatic arts. Take a Feldenkrais class (Feldenkrais is about awareness through movement) at the YMCA. Research the Alexander Technique. Try Chi Gong. Share your insights about embodied learning with your family.

key words/phrases: mind/body learning, somatic arts, share insights

6. Honor biophilia. Spend way more time in deep nature.

As biological beings, we have evolved in intimacy with the natural world. We feel refreshed in nature. In modern urban life, many of us have to make a special effort to see the moon and stars at night. We can easily lose touch with natural rhythms—the flow of the waxing and waning moon, the subtle change of light as seasons shift. Can you identify the moon in its waxing and waning phase? The sounds of modern life are a source of stress that we too easily take for granted. Our children are especially sensitive to these stresses. Whether we realize it or not, our bodies, minds, and spirits are nourished by the sights, sounds, scents of deep nature. We require nature as much as we require a healthy diet. Spend an entire day outside at least once a month. Get outside year round. Explore. Find your favorite places and go back to them again and again in different seasons. Don’t be intimidated by weather—think of John Muir in a tree in a thunderstorm.

key words/phrases: biophilia, recovering natural rhythms, deep nature as nutrition

What are you thinking about in 2019? I’d really love to hear from you (do hit reply and let me know).

Happy New Year.

A few nights ago, I was in the parking lot of my local grocery store. I’d just gotten out of my car to go inside. I overheard a young girl, probably about seven, excitedly telling her father, “The Moon! Look, there’s the Moon!” With all the distractions of this December parking lot illuminated by street lights and holiday decorations, she had her eye on the moon. I could feel my heart warm.

Friday was the Winter Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere. My affinity for Solstice emerged naturally when I had the opportunity to caretake an old mineral springs in northern California with a band of dear friends and our children. After years of city dwelling, I was literally awestruck looking out the window of our small cabin the first night, and seeing the Milky Way. I don’t think I slept much that night.

Today I live somewhat between City and Forest, half way up a hill. From one part of the hill, I can see the whole San Francisco Bay when I am heading down into town. Just yesterday, as I was descending the hill at sunset, I was struck by the position of that beautiful orange fireball and realized, ah, solstice…the sun setting at its farthest southern point. It’s so dramatic to see. I was grateful to be in the right place at the right time and to notice.

It’s an unusual solstice time, accompanied by a full moon. Amidst the many distractions of the season, I hope you find the instinctual enthusiasm of that young girl, turn your eye toward the moon, and connect more deeply with those you love.

Warmly,

Claudia

Deep reading is always about connection: connecting what we know to what we read, what we read to what we feel, what we feel to what we think, and how we think to how we live out our lives in a connected world.

~Maryanne Wolf

I wrapped up a 12-day deep reading experiment reading Maryanne Wolf’s book, Reader, Come Home, with a small crew of fellow experimenters. I’m still reading the book, but I know I’ll finish now—I didn’t have a lot of confidence in that when I started the book.

If you have children in your life, read the book. If reading a book right now is out of the question due to the demands of your life, get the Audible version and listen to this book. Give Maryanne your ear. Dedicate some committed headspace to what she has to say. This is one of those books that you can’t get by just reading a summary (or a few blog posts ;D). It’s not easy to read. Stick it out. Just work through one letter at at time (Maryanne Wolf wrote the book as a series of letters to her readers). Read (or listen) in the betweens—standing in line, doing the dishes (one advantage of audio books), waiting at the optometrist, etc. Just read it. It will help you clarify your own thinking about where the printed book fits in a mostly digital world. Living with young children? Even more essential reading!

What I am reading next: When I finish Reader, Come Home, I will be diving into Maryanne’s previous book Proust and the Squid—the Story and Science of the Reading Brain. She refers readers to this prior book for a more in-depth look at dyslexia in Chapters 7 and 8, and at early reading and developmental readiness in Chapters 4 and 5.

Looking for just the right book in this season of the gift? I have no doubt you’ll find one at Enchanted Lion, the publisher of Maria Popova’s new book, A Velocity of Being—Illustrated Letters to Children about Why We Read by 121 of the Most Inspiring Humans in Our World. Here is an excerpt from the Enchanted Lion Mission Statement:

As we all know, books help children to cross all kinds of boundaries and borders long before they begin to grasp the world through actual travel and experience. We thus take as our task that of connecting young readers to the wonderfully diverse modes of expression that exist in the world, so that in the end they will feel that the whole world—with all of its wonderful, surprising and very real similarities and differences—is their home.

I saw two of the Gutenberg Bibles on a visit to the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany where they were printed circa 1455 and set the print revolution in motion.

Meanwhile, at the bleeding edge of the digital revolution…

The Slippery Slope: Taylor Swift used facial recognition software on concert goers without their knowledge or permission to detect stalkers at an LA concert. If you’re looking for a topic for your conversations about technology with teens over dinner, this is a good one. Hint: read the Guardian article together. Explore the topic from different angles…Taylor’s perspective, her audience’s perspective, the software companies’ perspectives, a Chinese citizen’s perspective, peaceful protesters in south Wales and London, your own perspective. The main objective is to consider this technology which is becoming pervasive without people giving it much thought and begin to form your own point of view.