Our Summer Teacher Training Institute is on! This year, instead of professional development workshops in specific subject areas, we will certify all our district K-8 teachers in The MELISSA™ Method. MELISSA is an award-winning program that proactively prepares schools for the threat of an aggressive intruder event by training educators to incorporate Mindfulness, Empowerment, Leadership, Instinct, Simulation, Support, and Agency skills across all their curriculum. MELISSA’s social-emotional focus will supplement the ALICE training that our teachers have already received.
#butlerstrong #ALICEmeetMELISSA #professionaldevelopment #summerinstitute #teachertraining #schoolsafety #trainthetrainer #mindfulness #empathy #leadership #instinct #simulation #support #agency #resilience #100daysofsafety #teachertribe #armmewith #solutionsnow
— July 10, 2018
How do most schools in America prepare their teachers and students for a potential active shooter event? They hold regular lockdown and active intruder drills that follow a standard protocol like this:
But, since Parkland, more and more school districts around the country have sought out school safety training certification from the ALICE Training Institute. ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate and is designed to “provide preparation and a plan for individuals and organizations on how to more proactively handle the threat of an aggressive intruder or active shooter event.”
What if more schools were to integrate social and emotional skills and support mental health in all aspects of learning? Enter the (fictional) MELISSA Method, which we imagined as a companion program to ALICE Training. In a country where gun reform has been a losing battle for a long time, are schools exploring the tools of the MELISSA Method—Mindfulness, Empowerment, Leadership, Instinct, Simulation, Support, and Agency—to better prepare for future active shooter events?
The character we created to bring The MELISSA Method to Butler Middle School is Ms. Taylor, the newly hired STEM teacher and a MELISSA-licensed instructor. An experienced forensic cryptologist, volunteer auxiliary police officer, and Kendo master, Ms. Taylor has also taught computer science to children and teens at libraries across the state for the past decade. As the Institute’s lead facilitator, she is an all-around Renaissance woman … because isn’t that what the expectation is of teachers today? To be educators, therapists, and armed soldiers and first responders?⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
On Day 4 of our Summer Teacher Training Institute, our teachers put on math-colored glasses as they dug deeper into The MELISSA™ Method.
Here is one of the most powerful math problems our facilitator, a former forensic cryptologist, Ms. Taylor challenged us to solve today. By illustrating the mathematical concept of exponential growth, this word problem can help us understand the impact that acts of kindness can have on schools.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Lots of food for thought here. Imagine: If positive actions are contagious, and we actively train all members of our middle school community to be aware of situations in which empathy and kindness can make a difference, how could our school culture change for the better?
#butlerstrong #ALICEmeetMELISSA #socialemotionallearning #realworldmath #actofkindness #soccer #professionaldevelopment #mathteacher #teachertraining #summerinstitute #teachersofinstagram #notonemore
— July 12, 2018
An FBI study, “A Survey of the Pre-Attack Behaviors of Active Shooters Between 2000–2013,” released in June 2018 found that 79% of active shooters acted with a particular grievance in mind, and experienced multiple stressors (an average of 3.6 separate stressors) in the year before they attacked. Although the number one stressor listed in the report is mental health (33%), interestingly, conflicts with friends/peers (18%), conflicts at school (14%), and conflicts with parents and other family members (21%) together make up 53% of the stressors in the data. These three conflicts are particularly applicable to the lives of children and adolescents who spend a majority of their weekly daytime hours at school.
Psychologists and educators agree that teaching kindness and modeling compassion can create a culture that values humanity and counter a culture of aggression and violence. In our story, when our STEM teacher and MELISSA Method trainer Ms. Taylor asks teachers to solve the above problem of exponentiation, she is also inviting them to consider how computational thinking can be used to address and solve everyday social issues, and how social-emotional learning can be integrated into all curriculum areas.
Top of the morning to you! Our district-wide professional development week on The MELISSA™ Method ends today with an all-day Kendo workshop. Our facilitator, Ms. Taylor, is a decade-long practitioner of this traditional martial art of Japanese fencing!
We are thrilled to announce that she will help us establish Kendo as a required component of all our Phys Ed classes this fall. More in-depth training sessions for the district’s Phys Ed teachers will follow for the rest of the summer. However, today’s workshop is geared toward ALL teachers and will focus on how to incorporate Kendo concepts of sharp mind, vigorous spirit, and strong body into the Butler Middle School curriculum.
So, repeat this tongue twister 10 times while you drink your morning Cup of Joe : “Can do Kendo!” Then, meet us at 10 AM sharp in the gym for a day of learning!
#butlerstrong #kendo #mindbodyspirit #mindfulness #meditation #conqueryourfears #physicaleducation #futurereadyschools #honorthemwithaction #safeschools #armmewith #teachertraining #summerinstitute #middleschool #teachersofinstagram #teachertribe #notonemore
Rather than promoting competition between individuals, Kendo masters inspire their students to conquer internal foes, such as fear, anxiety and uncertainty.
By introducing the unusual image of a school-wide Kendo curriculum, we asked ourselves: In a world where gun violence in schools is normalized, would schools become training grounds for warriors who must know how to fight back? And, if so, could a sport like Kendo be the ideal survival tool?
