Field Notes: July 16, 2002

I took the class notes yesterday so I didn't really bother to write any field notes. I'm assuming that the daily journals will be some of the narratives that we use to study and tell the stories of how these teachers come to understand social action...if, in fact, they do.

The things that really stood out to me yesterday and today was how comfortable this group seemed. There wasn't a lot of puffing up as sometimes happens when people are nervous and uncomfortable but don't want anyone to know it. I think that's what I noticed was that these people were not uncomfortable sharing with us the fact that they were nervous and anxious about what they had agreed to do. Somehow that really stood out to me because in the past, first days of the SI are usually quite filled with tension for me. Perhaps my own hectic schedule prevented me from taking the time to experience that kind of tension, but I really don't think it was there. I'm pretty certain that everyone shared at least once yesterday; most shared almost every time they had an opportunity. Of course, I share way too much...telling myself that I do so in order to set a model. One thing that really stands out to me so far is that I don't see us as having any disruptive forces at all in the group. Yeah!

We are using the morning prompts I developed as a means of moving people into understanding the social action model, specifically the first step of identifying the WHAT. We haven't really discussed social action yet, although I did raise the point today as we looked at the handouts people were given for the demos that we have been presenting things in the WHAT, WHY, and HOW formats for a particular reason and that we would be talking more about that tomorrow and through the rest of the institute.

Amy did her demo yesterday and really set the stage for the enthusiasm we like to see in our demos. She also did a nice blend of modeling and metacognitive work which is something that is often problematic in the demos. Charles came and did his demo today. His was different than Amy's and was great because it showed two different ways of being and doing a demo that I hope gives people some sense that there simply isn't one right way to do a demo.

We moved so quickly into a routine. I noticed today how easily everything flowed. We didn't seem rushed, we were relaxed and once again, I really enjoyed that. I'm feeling freer to write and relax so I know everyone else must be experiencing that to some extent.

Doug, Beth, and I may have our first opportunity to conference tomorrow...briefly sharing our field notes and discussing future directions. I'll need them to be diligent about composing field notes while I'm gone so that we don't have any gaps....and I want to teach them how to post on this blog. I'm thinking we can each have our own category for posting and then we can possibly add other categories as needed (perhaps as we move into the analysis phase and start writing memos to ourselves and such stuff).