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Knowing Your Why

Site: Colorado Education Learning Management System
Course: 2e (Open Access) Supporting Twice Exceptional Learners
Book: Knowing Your Why
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Friday, 22 November 2024, 7:53 AM

Table of contents

1. Knowing Your "Why"

This short video (an excerpt from Simon Sinek's The Golden Circle) examines why we need to focus on OUR WHY.  

To turn off closed captioning, select the 3 dots.  For a transcript of the video, please select THIS LINK.

In Simon's short video clip, he mentions why you should start from the inside out. We can often say what we do and say how we do it...but when we get to the WHY it is often uninspired and a bit disconnected from actual student needs.  What if you reverse the order to start with the WHY you are going to do what you do?  (Hmmm... kind of makes you think about backward planning.)  


2. Let's Meet a 2e Student and a 2e Adult

Who Are Twice-Exceptional Learners?

We are going to meet Jacob Barnett, a twice-exceptional student. This is the longest video in the course (18 minutes), yet we feel strongly that beginning with our students is our purpose for all of educational learning. While each 2e student is unique, hearing Jacob's story is a good introduction to the course. (You can turn closed captioning off by selecting the CC icon.)

Take a moment to consider, if this was a student in your class, how would you respond to him, and what would have happened to him without strong support?

To understand a very different 2e experience, watch this 3:51 minute video, "Every Child Has The Right To THIS Kind Of Education" by Jonathon Mooney. Warning, there is a curse word at around 1:41 minutes and another at around 1:53 minutes. It is in the context of a conversation between his teacher and himself; what an adult said to him. You can skip about 5 seconds in those spots to avoid them or skip the video entirely. 
 (For closed captioning, select the YouTube icon in the bottom right corner. This will take you to the YouTube site in which you  can turn CC on.)

Optional: 
For a little more technical discussion you may watch this twice-exceptional adult narrating his experiences. Do skip the first part and start at 4:00 minutes. This video is for optional viewing only.  (To turn close captioning on, please click on "cc" in the lower right of the video. 

3. All Means All

The mission of the Colorado Department of Education is to ensure equity and opportunity for every student, every step of the way. We hope that your why also includes meeting the needs of every student to the best of your ability, not just your average ability students, not just your special education students, not just your gifted students, and not just your 2e students. It is, of course, hard to develop appropriate learning environments and opportunities for every student. Our goal in this course is to inspire and assist you in developing these opportunities.

4. The Journey Begins

Today we are asking you to begin to look at yourself as a leader. We hope that as you move through this work that you pause often and consider
  • "Who else needs to know this?"  
  • "What resources can I share?" (Remember - resources don't always equal money or technology.) 
  • "How can I share this information with my colleagues so that we can work together to make this sustainable?"  

Think - "pay it forward."  The only way we can truly make a difference is to build capacity -- and building capacity takes time, energy, manpower, and trust.  By participating in this course you are becoming our partner in this charge

We thank you for making a difference in the lives of struggling learners in your classroom, school, or district. By embarking on this journey, you are taking the first steps toward improving the educational outcomes for 2e children who come into your sphere.