Collective Biographies

My staff did something super-cool together yesterday.  I want to tell you about it, but first I have to ask:  Have you read Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal?  You should.  It is fantastic.  Amy's work always is.  Was.  The world lost this brilliant and kind soul this past March.  You heard about it, probably, or heard about her, if you happened to read this, which a whole lot of people did, whilst they squeezed their tear ducts and thought about love.

But, yeah, Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  My friend Brenda, founder and editor of Choice Literacy, sent me my copy, which makes it super-special, and by now it is all marked up with pencil scratches and post-its.  I’ve read it lots.  After I read it the first time, I had to take a break before a re-read, because it was so rich and good that I needed a minute, like you need a sip of water before you go in for another bite of molten chocolate cake.  

It's yummmmmmm.

But the activity I want to talk about?  It is described on page 158 of Amy's book, or Google might let you cheat here.  

It is called the The Short Collective Biography Experiment.  

Amy suggests doing the activity over dinner, which we certainly weren't able to do; on the contrary, we had just 75 minutes together during part of a district-wide professional development day, and we were crammed sardine-style into a meeting room at our local recreation center. 

I have a very large staff.  Some have been together for a couple decades, while others are newer (even brand-new).  I would describe them as a tight and loyal staff, but like any family, they occasionally snap and snip.  We’re strong and mighty together, but, yeah, you know—we get tired and grumpy sometimes.

I wanted an activity to bring us back to our core, ourselves, our mission. 

So I took Amy's Short Collective Biography idea and this is what I did:

1.  Randomly put teachers in tables of 6-8 based on the color of a “thank you” card I’d handed them as they walked in.  We had an opening writing activity to get us in a thoughtful, grateful mindset— everyone took five minutes to write a thank-you note to someone they cared about.  I told them it could be a note to a neighbor, a colleague, a parent, an old friend, the cashier at their local Starbucks.  I didn’t care who— I just wanted them to take a moment to acknowledge the goodness that someone else brings to their world.

2.  As they wrote, I slipped a large sheet of cardstock and Sharpie on each table. Then I told them we were going to discover new ways we are connected.  I asked for a reporter and recorder.  

3.  I asked them to talk to one another, starting with questions, and create a list of things each member of the group could say are equally true.

3.  I asked them to avoid easy or surface things—“We all love payday” or “We love Fridays” or “College was AWESOME!!!!” 

4.  I gave them 20 minutes. 

5.  The recorder wrote their final list on the cardstock.  Most got really creative and artsy, like elementary teachers tend to do; in the end, each group had a beautiful creation capturing their collectiveness.  

6.  We had a share-out.

It was good.  Really good.  As they worked, the groups were animated and focused.  At times, they laughed so hard I thought they’d fall out of their chairs; other times, they were serious and sad.

Some of the things they came up with in their connective biographies:

We are all siblings to someone.  We have lost a loved one to a sudden death.  Our first year of teaching was very difficult.  We have watched a sunset on the Pacific.  We are mothers of boys.  None of us has ridden a horse.  We prefer sweet to salty.  We’ve never been to Canada. 

Listening to the share-outs brought more laughter, more thinking, more reflection, more conversation. 

Afterwards, I asked them to summarize their takeaway from the activity.  

... We can think we know everything about one another, but we might be missing some of the simplest, basic things.
... We all share experiences that connect us in unique ways, yet we have come to them from hugely different places.
... You never know how you are connected to someone else (student or colleague) unless you ask.
... Start with a question.
... Hearing the biographies will illicit future questioning. conversation, and connection.  
... We have so much to learn about, from, and for each other.
... Starting with gratitude is always a good idea.
... Um... yeah.  This would be a great activity for kids to do together.

I loved this activity together because it was rich and deep and built a unique sense of camaraderie.  We put aside the stressors of our work and the pressure to be curriculum hammers and, instead, just focused on us—as a team, as human beings, as a group working toward the same goal. And the only thing it cost me was $5.99 in green cardstock and a few bucks in note cards.  

Pretty fantastic.