This weekend’s retreat allowed my partner and I to really dig into our topic and start making a plan for the future. On Saturday we made a list of people we want to reach out to for an interview and on Sunday we finalized a list of questions to ask our interviewees. In addition, we worked on finalizing dates for when we are going to conduct our interviews. While we were planning the dates we realized that it is difficult for us to find times that works for everyone, and we had to make sacrifices because of it. Lindsay and I will be conducting most of our interviews separately, but we will be able to get together and conduct an interview with both of us there. While planning can be overwhelming at times and can seem unorganized, I am grateful for my partner and mentor because they help make it manageable and realistic. One thing that stood out to me during the Ted Talk that we watched during the retreat was the quote “People who share morals become a team”. Unlike other groups who have multiple people, it is just Linsday and I. I think this is nice to have a small group because we are able to share our thoughts and ideas more effectively and I think it is easier for us to be on the same page. I think this quote speaks well to our group and our work ethic because education reform is a subject we are both passionate about and want to learn more about and because of that we work well together and are motivated. While reading the article “High-Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety. Here’s How to Create It” one thing that stayed in mind after reading it was the section about replacing blame with curiosity. The article says that when people start to get blamed for something they immediately become defensive and try to protect themselves. The article goes on to say that instead of putting blame on someone, try to approach the situation with curiosity because this will make people feel less attacked. I think this is something important to keep in mind when working with a group because you need to communicate effectively in order to make progress. During the next month I will continue to reach out to the people I am interested in interviewing via email. Lindsay will be conducting several interviews at her school and when we meet at the workday on January 6th, I will be taking the camera equipment and conducting my interviews within the next week. After this all our video footage should be complete. I sent out one email today to a possible interviewee, but in the near future I need to respond to my principal who has agreed to be interviewed, and email several other potential interviewees including Rebecca Holcombe, members of the Tarrant Foundation, and possibly the principal of CVU. This weekend’s retreat has gotten me excited about what we are going to be diving into shortly and the progress we have made so far.