The Labyrinth

Chania, Crete - instead of tearing down the centuries old buildings of the old harbor, they build onto them - some sort of metaphor here . . .

Still adding to my cat calendar pics - can't help it! So many photogenic little guys here!

Anastassios Matsopoulos, permanently certified school psychologist since 1991 and Associate Professor of School Psychology at University of Crete.

It is an understatement to say that I have a fraught relationship with research. At the risk of dating myself, I will tell you that I was introduced to research in the time of the library encyclopedia. In my 4th grade perspective, research consisted of running to the encyclopedia shelves and grabbing the A-Ce book before anybody else did so that I could write my report on Brazil. My next biggest challenge was to figure out how to rewrite the 7 paragraphs on Brazil's geography, culture, and major exports and imports without plagiarizing. What was the purpose of my research? I had no clue. My sole motivation was that it was an assignment and I needed to get it done, bibliography and all.

Resources (and complications) have definitely expanded with the advent of the internet, but I would argue, in many cases - even in the high school English classes I teach - the motivation is not much different than mine was in elementary school. Students are doing the research to get it done and have very little understanding of the purpose - and pure joy - of real research. I have come to these conclusions because I'm doing the first real research of my life and it is freaking exhilarating. Because I'm between school visits in Crete and have had some time to really dig deep into online formal research, I've been reflecting on the evolution of my process, and of course, its implications for what I do in the classroom and with other teachers.

When I started my research on Social Emotional Learning, it was back in the U.S. I was spurred by a very authentic purpose - my students were suffering. After the Campfire wildfire tragedy of 2018 and the subsequent COVID disruption, students struggled with a variety challenges - depression, anxiety, and other trauma-related emotional struggles. These problems existed before the Campfire, as was evidenced by Butte County's unusually high ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences Score) numbers - but even a few years after the Campfire, surveys revealed a high level of suicidal ideation in our 9th graders, disruptive behavior is on the rise, and apathy shows anecdotally as well as in higher failure rates and absenteeism. I also saw increased stress and burnout in our teachers. I know this is not unique to Paradise High - educators have shown to be struggling with these issues globally, resulting in a higher number of them leaving the profession. But Paradise High is my home. I love these people and I was coming to the realizations that we didn't have the tools we needed. I reached out to every resource I could think of - the mental health professionals from BCOE (Butte County Office of Education) who have been incredibly helpful with my own emotional health, the dedicated BCOE staff who provide professional development, the brilliant teachers and staff at our site, our incredibly passionate administrators, both at site and district level, my online teacher community on Twitter, the vast morass of the internet. I found some solutions in my search that I put into action, including, with the help of a NorCalELC grant,  forming a small group of teachers who has been discussing and implementing small tests of change at our site to try to support teachers. However, our students and staff needed more. 

And then I came upon the Fulbright Distinguished Awards for Teachers fellowship.

Imagine having the time and space to seek out answers to the questions that matter most to you. In January, I landed in Athens, Greece and was immediately linked with a handful of educators - which, with the power of networking, turned into more than a handful - who invited me to coffee and into their classrooms where I witnessed incredibly effective practices. Engaged students jumping up and down with their hands raised, groups of students sharing work on a task equally, asking each other questions and inviting each other into the conversation. Of course, things aren't any more perfect here in Greece than they are in the U.S.  I sat in on a class where eight 17 year old boys dominated the class time, making jokes and being rudely disruptive. I saw students with their heads down on the desk. I conducted an improv activity where at least half of the class was too shy to really participate and I taught an online lesson to 8 black boxes of turned off zoom cameras (half of which were teachers). However, the value in every single one of the experiences I've had here have been the conversations. Reflecting on the improv activity, the students had a lively and insightful debate on norms when it comes to expressing emotions in their society. Talking to the teacher who had the particularly disruptive class at coffee after school, she told me about what difficulties these students have faced and the progress they've made.  In that zoom meeting, once people began to let their guard down, we had a sincere discussion about student engagement. The through-line in all of the valuable experiences I've had so far in Greece has been the conversations I've had with others - both students, teachers, and administrators. 

And then there's my other research - the reading I do on my own every morning, my laptop in front of me with an Americano and a greek yogurt with honey. I am genuinely motivated to navigate the winding road of the internet, trying to find the right words to put in the search engine to find what I am looking for, scrolling for a relevant title, clicking on promising links in articles, and reading countless abstracts. I am learning so much - taking notes and saving the useful papers to my Google drive - but something is still missing, and I realized JUST NOW that it is the discussion. I need the opportunity to articulate the implications of what I'm learning - particularly when it comes to my main research question: How do we better provide social and emotional support for our students and school staff in these challenging times? I need to hear others' feedback and ideas that stem from my conclusions to really be able to digest and use what I've learned. And I should have realized this a while ago - learning and progress does not happen in a vacuum - it needs community. This obviously has implications for learning with students as well as teachers. And I knew this! It just took me a while to realize it applies to research.

Over the years, I have sought to make research more authentic for my students, opening up choice when it comes to their research topics, brainstorming and reflecting on research questions that matter to them, and introducing the public product of a podcast to express the findings of their research (which I write about here, on an Edutopia post) but I know this isn't enough to spur that itch to know - the drive to discover the meaning of a subject, a question, a problem. I think what might be missing in the study of research in my classroom is what's often missing with teacher learning - a community to discuss and reflect with. As I've learned in my recent research, this doesn't just happen with teachers anymore than it just happens in the classroom with students. But it's possible. There are models out there - successful examples of teachers learning together to improve the culture of learning in their classes - and that is now a key focus of my research here in Greece. 

If you have any thoughts about this, or anything, really, please email me and let me know. The conversation is everything.