Archive

• Equity in education is not rocket science

  November 21, 2011 8:30 PM Comments Off on Equity in education is not rocket science

  Equity in education is a philosophical problem prompted by inequalities in student outcomes.  Most of these inequalities result from the vagaries of personal financial circumstances, ethnic background, physical and mental health and the accident of dwelling place. (Quality of instruction could be added to the list of variables but is much more elusive as a significant factor). Inequalities in some measure will always be with us. Greater equity, on the other hand, is always possible and entirely manageable. 

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• What will it take to achieve equity in and through educational improvement?

  5:17 PM Comments Off on What will it take to achieve equity in and through educational improvement?

  The rhetoric of ‘equity and excellence’ is pervasive across education systems with associated policies and practices. Yet the reality remains mixed of actually delivering on the promise of equity in and through education.
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• Equity in Education: Next Steps

  November 18, 2011 8:50 PM Comments Off on Equity in Education: Next Steps

  In October of 2010, CEA, in conjunction with colleagues from SCOPE (Stanford Centre for Opportunity Policy in Education), hosted an event entitled Achieving Equity through Innovation: A Canada-United States Colloquium. This two-day event provided an important platform for the exchange of ideas, insights, and strategies on how to best improve the learning and teaching conditions in classrooms. From this event emerged a broad agreement that equity and more precisely, the specific conditions needed in our societies to ensure equity, required further reflection and development.

  To paraphrase an OECD report in 2007 about equity in western nations, addressing these challenges requires the creation of three specific orientations: policy, practice, and resources. Much has been written about policy development and how effective such policies have been in the past. But where the work really needs to be enhanced is in the area of classroom practice. During the colloquium, delegates were provided with specific examples, from both sides of the border, of “equity-based” classroom practices, how they were initiated, and the results they generated. The prevalent objective of these initiatives was to reduce achievement gaps in classrooms and throughout educational systems.

  The colloquium served as an excellent platform for CEA to deepen the important relationship that exists between creating a more equitable and fairer educational environment and emerging innovative classroom practice and assessment. As most readers will know, CEA has been actively involved in the What did you do in school today? research focusing on deepening the intellectual engagement of students. Added to this work, the ongoing research from the Youth Confidence in Learning and the Future initiative and the Teachers’ Aspirations Project continue to inject other spheres of educational activities that play a crucial role in the entire equity discussion.

  Adapting classroom practices and encouraging deeper links between the school and the community can and do play vital roles in the creation of an equitable educational system. One of the most important, yet less discussed classroom activities is in the area of assessment. Evaluation rubrics are the driving force behind pedagogical practice in classrooms and play a significant role in the development of a child, regardless of socio-economic or cultural backgrounds. In simpler terms, assessment drives instruction.

  Formative assessment has been identified as critical to shifting classroom teaching practice and truly addressing the needs of all children in the classroom. It is an approach that is much more labour-intensive than the more prevalent summative formats. However, such an investment in ensuring that all children learn “better and deeper” will definitely pay dividends for society, in both short and long term contexts. For this reason, CEA will soon begin further inquiries into how effective assessment models can be developed and integrated into Canadian schools. Our current research has now demonstrated that children know how to “do school and tests”, and they do them quite well. But we also know that once they leave the classroom environment, they face a new learning curve. Success in the workforce and in life depends on meeting expectations and demonstrating skills that were not the focus of classrooms and assessments.

  We owe all of our students, regardless of background, a better fate than preparing them to be successful in 1991 assessment measures, and not in 2011’s realities.

• Social and Education Inequality: Bridging the Divide

  7:38 PM Comments Off on Social and Education Inequality: Bridging the Divide

  A review of Academic Success and Social Power: Examinations and Social Inequality by Richard Teese, University of Melbourne Press, 2000. ISBN 0 522 84896 6 

  The title of Richard Teese’s book – Academic Success and Social Power – presages a familiar, if bleak, account of the advantages that schooling confers upon the few at the expense of the many. The site of Teese’s work is Australia and more specifically, Victoria; but its critique that “the institutions that create academic success condemn large numbers of students to failure’’ is one that applies more broadly – perhaps even to Canada.

  Teese’s argument has several facets. Underpinning school curricula are assumptions about students, the knowledge and experience that students bring to school, the objectives of study, and often the means of achieving and assessing these objectives. Universities – especially elite institutions – exert inordinate influence upon public school curricula through entrance requirements that privilege particular disciplines and ways of knowing. School curricula and the teachers responsible for them attempt to cultivate the knowledge and dispositions required for successful admission: “the capacity for abstraction, the ability to synthesize, analytical skills, creativity, imagination, the capacity to develop perspective and so on” (p. 4).

  Teachers, Teese argues, are challenged to cultivate these capacities because the capacities are, in turn, dependent upon a range of cultural demands that cannot be fulfilled under routine classroom conditions: “Language facility, attentiveness, achievement motivation, self-confidence in learning, personal organization and self-direction, capacity to learn for intrinsic satisfaction rather than extrinsic interest” are all attributes necessary for scholastic success, but less evident among those living in poverty, at least according to Teese. Teachers are stretched to bridge the divide between conceptual structure and family structure: “they it is who have to compensate for the gaps between what the curriculum expects to find in students – conceptual depth and a scholarly outlook and habits – and who students really are” (p. 6).

  Mathematics and science – manifestations of academic authority – have become the paramount considerations in determining admissions to university, criteria that post-secondary institutions are reluctant to change. Their use is justified, they claim, because they identify the brightest students – those with “real ability from whatever background” (p. 112). The institutional practices and resistance to change are codified into an institutional “. . . pecking order by commanding the channels of professional and managerial training and recruitment, by drawing on the most successful students – and, therefore, aligning themselves to the most socially advantaged strata of the population – and by exercising intellectual pre-eminence in the most highly ranked fields of knowledge” (p. 214).

  Teese’s allegation that abstraction, synthetic and analytical abilities, creativity and imagination are less well developed among the poor is reminiscent of Oscar Lewis’ description of the socialization of poor, Mexican-American children into a “culture of poverty”.[1] It finds more nuanced and contemporary expression in a range of authors from Michael Apple to Terry Wotherspoon. Edgerton, Peter, and Roberts reprise the arguments in their analysis of the Canadian data from the OECD’s 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment that shows the distribution of achievement in Canada reflects socio-economic inequalities.[2]

  Teese proposes broad policy shifts aimed primarily at reducing the stranglehold that universities exert on school curricula, strengthening vocational educational opportunities, reforming school curricula and pedagogy, reducing class sizes, and reforming teacher preparation. While I share sympathy for many of the changes Teese proposes, I am not sanguine about focussing Canadian efforts in the same areas.

  Policy responses to the persistent relationship between scholastic achievement and socio-economic inequality must complement educational interventions with policy initiatives beyond the boundaries of the school and school systems. People’s lives are not divided up into departments like governments or universities. Although public schools are the obvious places to address the connection between social and educational inequalities, they are not the only places. Public schools require support from complementary social policies designed to support families and communities. Such policies include addressing poverty and strengthening families and communities through decent minimum wages, generous parenting policies, universal daycare and early-childhood education, fair employment standards, and health care. These policies help to reduce inequalities, enabling schools to maximize their contributions in the areas for which they are most qualified.

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  [1] Oscar Lewis, Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty (New York: Basic Books, 1959).

  [2] J. D. Edgerton, T. Peters, and L.W. Roberts, “Back to the Basics: Socio-Economic, Gender, and Regional Disparities in Canada’s Educational System,” Canadian Journal of Education 31, no. 4 (2008): 861-888.

• Restoring Our Schools: The Quest for Equity in the United States

  4:19 PM Comments Off on Restoring Our Schools: The Quest for Equity in the United States

  In 1989 President George H.W. Bush and the nation’s governors convened to establish a set of six national education goals to be accomplished by the year 2000. Among these were to ensure that at least 90 percent of students graduate from high school, that all students are competent in the academic disciplines, and that the U.S. ranks “first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.”

  These goals were not achieved. In 2011, the four-year high school graduation rate remains stagnant at about 70 percent; the achievement gap between minority and White students in reading and math is larger than it was in 1988; and U.S. performance on international tests has continued to drop.

  Far from being first in the world in math and science, the U.S. ranked 31^st out of the top 40 jurisdictions in mathematics on the 2009 Programme in International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, with scores well below the OECD average, and lower than in 2000, when the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was introduced. The U.S. ranking was 22^nd in science, sandwiched between Hungary and the Czech Republic. Reading scores were closer to international averages, with the U.S ranked 15^th – equivalent to Poland and Iceland – but average scores also dropped during the NCLB era. By contrast, Canada is the highest performing English-language speaking country in the PISA assessments, with a current ranking of 6^th in reading, 8^th in science and 10^th in mathematics.

  The dismal performance of the U.S. can be explained partly by the fact that international assessments demand more advanced analysis than do most U.S. tests, requiring students to weigh and balance evidence, apply what they know to new problems, and explain and defend their answers. These higher-order skills are emphasized in other nations’ curricula and assessment systems but have been discouraged by the lower-level, multiple-choice testing favored by NCLB.

  In addition, inequality has an enormous influence on U.S. performance; the U.S. is among the nations where socio-economic background most affects student outcomes. In the U.S., the impact of socio-economic factors on student performance is almost double what it is in Canada.[1] In the U.S., White and Asian students score just above the average for the European OECD nations in each subject area, but African-American and Hispanic students – many of whom are in highly segregated schools that lack qualified teachers and up-to-date materials – score so much lower that the national average plummets to the bottom tier. Thus, the poor U.S. standing is substantially a product of unequal access to the kind of intellectually challenging learning measured on these international assessments.

  Barack Obama has described our large race- and class-based achievement gaps as “morally unacceptable and economically untenable.” At a time when three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require post-secondary education, our college participation rates have slipped from first in the world to 17^th. Only about 40 percent of American young people—and fewer than 20 percent of African-American and Hispanic youth—receive a college or university degree, as compared to almost half of students in Canada.

  While government commitment to education has dropped, the number of prisoners has quadrupled since 1980; state budgets for corrections have grown by more than 900 percent, three times faster than funds for education. States that would not spend $10,000 a year to ensure adequate education for children in under-resourced schools later spend more than $40,000 a year to keep them in jail.

  While we have been busy setting goals and targets for public schools and punishing the schools that fail to meet them, we have not pointed our schools at the critical higher-order thinking and performance skills needed in the 21st century.

  Finally, unlike high-achieving nations, the U.S. has failed to invest in the critical components of a high-quality education system. While we have been busy setting goals and targets for public schools and punishing the schools that fail to meet them, we have not invested in a highly trained, well-supported teaching force for all communities, and we have not pointed our schools at the critical higher-order thinking and performance skills needed in the 21st century. We have not, as a nation, undertaken the systemic reforms needed to maintain the standing we held 40 years ago as the world’s unquestioned educational leader.

  A Glimpse of What High-Achieving Nations Are Doing

  Other nations are expanding educational access to more and more of their people and revising curricula, instruction, and assessments to support the more complex knowledge and skills needed in the 21st century. Starting in the 1980s, for example, Finland dismantled its rigid tracking system and eliminated the state-mandated testing system used to support it, replacing them with highly trained teachers educated in newly overhauled schools of education, along with curricula and assessments focused on problem solving, creativity, and independent learning. These changes have propelled achievement to the top of the international rankings and closed what was once a large achievement gap.

  In the space of one generation, South Korea has transformed itself from a nation that educated less than a quarter of its citizens through high school to one that graduates more than 95 percent from high school and ranks third in college-educated adults, with most young people now completing post-secondary education. Egalitarian access to schools and a common curriculum, coupled with investments in well-prepared teachers, have been part of the national strategy there as well.

  Similarly, starting in the 1970s, Singapore began to transform itself from a collection of fishing villages into an economic powerhouse by building an education system that would assure every student access to strong teaching, an inquiry curriculum, and cutting-edge technology. In 2003, Singapore’s fourth and eighth grade students scored first in the world in math and science on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assessments.

  A visit to Nan Chiau Primary School, for example, finds fourth and fifth graders eagerly displaying the science projects they have designed and conducted in an “experience, investigate, and create” cycle that is repeated throughout the year. Students are delighted to show visitors their “innovation walk,” displaying student-developed projects from many subject areas lining a long corridor. Students study plants, animals, and insects in the school’s eco-garden; they run their own recycling center; they write and edit scripts for the Internet radio program they produce; and they use handheld computers to play games and create mathematical models that develop their quantitative abilities. Teachers, meanwhile, engage in research sponsored by the government to evaluate and continually improve their teaching.

  Certainly there are schools that look like this in the U.S. But what distinguishes systems like Singapore’s is that this quality of education is replicated throughout the entire nation. And Singapore is not alone. As many nations in Asia and Europe, as well as Canada, are pouring resources into forward-looking systems that educate all their citizens to much higher levels, the gap between the U.S. and these nations is growing.

  Contrast the picture of a typical school in Singapore with the description of a California school, from a lawsuit filed recently on behalf of low-income students of colour in schools like it throughout the state, a half-century after Brown v. Board of Education:

  At Luther Burbank, students cannot take textbooks home for homework in any core subject because their teachers have enough textbooks for use in class only… One dead rodent has remained, decomposing, in a corner in the gymnasium since the beginning of the school year…. The school library is rarely open, has no librarian…the latest version of the encyclopedia in the library was published in approximately 1988…. Luther Burbank classrooms do not have computers. Computer instruction and research skills are not, therefore, part of Luther Burbank students’ regular instruction…. The school no longer offers any art classes…. Eleven of the 35 teachers at Luther Burbank have not yet obtained full, non-emergency teaching credentials, and 17 of the 35 teachers only began teaching at Luther Burbank this school year.

  Under these circumstances, it is impossible to talk about developing the deep knowledge and complex skills required of young people in today’s and tomorrow’s society. PISA data indicates that the U.S., along with Turkey, Slovenia, and Israel, are unique within OECD for the fact that schools with high proportions of socio-economically disadvantaged students also tend to be disadvantaged in terms of inadequacy of basic resources. In Canada, the majority of students attend “mixed” schools, rather than highly advantaged or disadvantaged, and there is greater equity of access to resources within and across schools. One outcome is that the average public school in Canada has been judged to perform at least at an equivalent level to an average private school in the U.S.[2] 

  Learning From the Past

  These deep-seated problems in the U.S. education system are not inevitable. The nation made strong headway on educational achievement in the past and could do so again. For a brief period in the mid-70s, Black and Hispanic students were attending college at rates comparable with Whites, the only time this has happened before or since. By the mid-1970s, urban schools were spending as much as suburban schools, and paying their teachers as well; perennial teacher shortages had nearly ended; and gaps in educational attainment had closed substantially. Federally funded curriculum investments transformed teaching in many schools. Innovative schools flourished, especially in the cities. Large gains in Black students’ performance throughout the 1970s and early 1980s cut the literacy achievement gap by nearly half in just 15 years. Had this rate of progress continued, the racial achievement gap would have been closed by the year 2000.

  Unfortunately, that did not occur. While other nations built on the progressive reforms they launched in the 1970s, the U.S. backpedaled in the Reagan years. Conservatives introduced a new theory of reform focused on outcomes rather than inputs – that is, high-stakes testing without investing. Drops in real per-pupil expenditures accompanied tax cuts and growing enrollments, while student needs grew with immigration, concentrated poverty and homelessness, and growing numbers of students requiring second-language instruction and special education services. Although some federal support to high-need schools and districts was restored during the 1990s, it was not enough, and after 2000 inequality increased once again, and it has now grown to epic proportions with budget cuts hitting poor schools the hardest. 

  What’s to Be Done?

  Although some of America’s schools are among the best in the world, too many have been neglected in the more than 20 years since the clarion call for school reform was sounded in the 1980s. Clearly, we need to take the education of poor children as seriously as we take the education of the rich, and we need to create systems that routinely guarantee all the elements of educational investment to all children.

  Clearly, we need to take the education of poor children as seriously as we take the education of the rich, and we need to create systems that routinely guarantee all the elements of educational investment to all children.

  What would this require? As in high- and equitably-achieving nations, it would require strong investments in children’s welfare – adequate healthcare, housing and food security, so that children can come to school each day ready to learn; high-quality preschool to close achievement gaps that already exist when children enter kindergarten; equitably funded schools that provide quality educators and learning materials, which are the central resources for learning; a system that ensures that teachers and leaders in every community are extremely well prepared and are supported to be effective on the job; standards, curricula, and assessments focused on 21st century learning goals; and schools organized for in-depth student and teacher learning and equipped to address children’s social needs, as the community schools movement has done.[3]

  Thus far, the Obama administration has taken affirmative steps on a portion of this agenda. The administration’s stimulus package, which made $100 billion available for schools, has stanched some of the acute hemorrhaging that would otherwise have occurred as a result of the recession. And the president has signaled his interest in more intellectually thoughtful assessments that “don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.”

  The most touted aspects of the Race to the Top initiative, however, focus on peripheral issues rather than investments that have characterized major improvements in education systems at home and abroad. It continues to sanction schools based on test-score targets and close those that serve the neediest students; it does not require states to equalize funding; it requires states to expand charters but fails to assure quality and ensure access, despite evidence that charter schools frequently underperform their counterparts, exacerbate segregation, and serve fewer students with special needs. The law does not aim to spread excellence so much as it aims to change governance. Nations that are focused on spreading quality – like Singapore, Finland, and Canada, for example – have developed strategies for schools to share successful practices through networks, creating an engine for ongoing improvement for the system as a whole.

  Rather than establishing a framework for dramatically improving the knowledge, skills, and equitable distribution of teachers, as high-achieving nations have done, Race to the Top encourages states to expand alternative routes to certification and to reduce coursework for prospective teachers, and it fails to make the critical investments needed to prepare and distribute excellent teachers and school leaders. Rather than short-term incentives, competition, sanctions, and quick fixes, federal policy should focus on building capacity across the entire system.

  Achieving these conditions will require as much federal attention to opportunity-to-learn standards as to assessments of academic progress, and greater equalization of federal funding across states. It will require incentives for states to provide comparable funding to students, adjusted for pupil needs and costs of living, as well as incentives and information that can steer spending productively to maximize the likelihood of student success. Finally, an equitable and adequate system will need to address the supply of well-prepared educators – the most fundamental of all resources – by building an infrastructure that ensures high-quality preparation for all educators and ensures that well-trained teachers are available to all students in all communities.

  This article is adapted from Linda Darling-Hammond’s The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (Teachers College Press). Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/restoring-our-schools

  A version of this article was previously published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com) on May 27, 2010.

  EN BREF – Le piètre classement des États-Unis aux tests internationaux résulte d’un accès inégal au type d’apprentissage intellectuellement stimulant qui est évalué. Alors que d’autres pays ont beaucoup élargi l’accès à l’éducation et revu les programmes d’études, la pédagogie et les évaluations en fonction de connaissances et de compétences plus complexes, les États-Unis ont privilégié les examens normalisés. Bien que certaines écoles américaines comptent parmi les meilleures du monde, les États-Unis doivent instaurer des systèmes garantissant tous les éléments d’investissement éducationnel à tous les enfants. Comme l’ont fait les pays caractérisés par des résultats élevés et par l’équité, il faudrait privilégier le bien-être des enfants; une éducation préscolaire de qualité; le financement équitable des écoles; un système assurant une préparation et un soutien adéquats du personnel enseignant et des dirigeants de chaque collectivité; des normes, des curriculums et des évaluations tenant compte d’objectifs d’apprentissage du 21^e siècle; des écoles organisées pour permettre l’apprentissage approfondi des élèves et du personnel enseignant et dotées de ressources appropriées en fonction des besoins sociaux des élèves.

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  [1] 8.6% of variance in student performance in Canada is associated with socio-economic factors, as compared to 16.8% in the United States.  OECD, PISA 2009 Results: Overcoming Social Background: Equity in Learning Opportunities and Outcomes. Volume II (Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2010).

  [2] J. D. Willms, Reading Achievement in Canada and the United States: Findings from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (Report prepared for Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2004).

  [3] See David L. Kirp, “Cradle to College,” The Nation, 14 June 2010: 26.

• Threatening the Status Quo

  November 8, 2011 6:06 AM Comments Off on Threatening the Status Quo

  Recently I was listening to Michael Campbell’s radio show “Money Talks” and he or one of his guests referred to a quote attributed to German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

  My breath caught – here’s why.

  • In my second year of teaching I stopped giving marks and started giving feedback. The parent community watched in silence (perhaps, in light of the next two bullets, some of them imagined that this crazy no-marks business was isolated to my one classroom and was therefore non-threatening).
  • In my third year of teaching, a science teacher and a social studies teacher joined me in using assessment as learning and a loud portion of the parent community erupted. One threatened me with a lawsuit. One reported me to the admissions department of the University of British Columbia. Many called angry meetings with our principal and us. My colleagues and I faced verbally violent opposition.
  • In my fourth year of teaching, my colleagues and I continued to work as we had been and were invited to share our approach with hundreds of teachers around the province, country, and several other countries. This continues to be the case.

  My experience echoes Schopenhauer’s stages of truth.

  While the second stage was indeed difficult for my colleagues and I, it isn’t images of my endurance, exhaustion or stress that remain with me; it is what one parent said and others nodded at. During a meeting meant to explain the process of assessment, to assuage worries, and inspire confidence with some upset parents, my colleagues and I explained, with visuals,

  • why using feedback helps students deepen and extend their learning;
  • why marks stopped rather than encouraged learning;
  • how we went about using criteria;
  • how students engaged with one another around ideas and skills rather than competed against one another for status;
  • and that this approach helps to differentiate learning so that in a classroom of 30 individuals students are challenged in personalized ways.

  After a couple of hours we had gotten nowhere. These parents’ faces still shone red, mouths still pulled tight, and foreheads still furrowed.

  Finally, a man near the back said this: You mean to tell me that if my son gets an A at the beginning of the unit and keeps getting an A at the end of the unit will get the same mark as a kid who comes in with a C and then gets better and gets an A on the stuff by the end of the unit? They both leave the unit with an A?

  My colleagues and I looked at one another, unsure if we were missing something. Yes, we said. That’s what we mean.

  That is total crap, said the man, to the nods of others.

  Oh.

  Oh, we get it now. Some parents (not all!) don’t want all children to achieve success. Some parents must enjoy the status quo, a status quo where it’s okay if other children always do badly if their sons or daughters always do well. In fact, it’s preferable.

  How absolutely sad.

  Fortunately, this realization deepened our commitment to using assessment as learning. Actually, that man’s anger at our approach tells me that we’re on the right track.

  *Please note – while I am referring to real events the dialogue is the dialogue as I remember it; I am not working from a transcript of the meeting.

• Shaking the Education Tree

  October 19, 2011 4:09 PM Comments Off on Shaking the Education Tree

  A previous blog written on October 5 was on the eve of the Ontario election that returned the Dalton McGuinty Liberals, one seat shy of a majority. The province’s second most expensive public service, education, was never really debated during the entire campaign. There was an occasional glimpse of McGuinty slapping himself on the back that Ontario had the best of all school systems. His opponents’ platforms offered only unchallenged verities. Too bad!

  There is much that might have been said. It is 16 years since there was a thorough discussion of public education in the most populous province of the country.  I refer to the five-volume report For the Love of Learning, 1995, Gerald Caplan and Monique Begin, which fulsomely addressed the principles and practices of Ontario schools. Two such progressive-minded persons should have paid more respect to the liberating idealism of its predecessor report, Living and Learning, 1968, Hall/Dennis.  I, for one, hoped that the 1995 report would propose ways to increase the professional autonomy of teachers, open doors for students seeking more freedom to make choices, break down the subject rigidities of the curriculum, engage the community in the teaching-learning process, empower parents as auxiliaries rather than as bemused bystanders, advance the idea of children actually enjoying school – as the title of the report claimed.

  But 1995 was not a time for visionaries. It was post-recession, belt tightening time. Time also to be worried about international test results (1991), which revealed Canadian 13-year-olds in ninth place in science and mathematics in a set of fifteen industrialized countries. Thus the Caplan/Begin Report (unintentionally) slammed the door on liberal thinking in the public schools and implicitly authorized the test-and-remediate style of education. The apparent need for more rigour and discipline in the classroom was such an uncomplicated concept that the politicians could grasp it with enthusiasm. Thus we are burdened with the Ontario Education Act, 1,200 pages long in fine print. http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_90e02_e.htm

  All across North America public school teachers struggle to get their scores up based on standardized tests in reading, writing, science, mathematics, etc. Even a slight improvement in the scores is celebrated at the board offices, in the local newspapers and within the central bureaucracies even though a quarter to a third of pupils remain stubbornly below the mediocre standard set for their jurisdiction. In this numbers game, mediocrity has become the icon on the flag flying over most schools. This gloomy assessment does not do justice to all the points of light in some public schools in different parts of the country. But the bright spots , I believe, are the exception rather than the norm.

  In the outcome, private schools have blossomed. According to my best estimate there are six million pupils in Canadian publicly- supported schools, a number that is falling. Meanwhile rising private school enrolment in Ontario approaches 130,000. Multiply that number by four for a rough estimate of private school enrolment in Canada as a whole, i.e. about half a million. (Stats Canada seems not to keep private school enrolment figures).

  It is time for a change. What is needed is a paradigm shift in keeping with the groundbreaking social/economic/psychological drama playing out since 1995. Central to this seismic rumbling is, of course, the computer and the digital revolution. This technology has put in jeopardy the negative and out-dated hallmarks of public education – uniformity, standardization, centralization and bureaucratization. The new paradigm, on the other hand, heralds individualism, singularity and selfhood. Like death and taxes, this revolution cannot be stopped even though most schools in their structure and governance pretend not to be affected by it. Private schooling burgeons, among other reasons, either to defy the revolution or embrace it. Public schooling, at the very least, needs a major investigation into this historic, cataclysmic process now under way.

  Next time, I’ll lift my head above the parapets and offer some terms of reference.

• An assessment shift in practice

  October 11, 2011 12:59 AM Comments Off on An assessment shift in practice

  When Allison Penner (from Urban Academy in New Westminster, BC) made it down to the staff room after ushering out the last of her Grade 4 and 5 students, she was flushed and carrying an armload of paper. She looked at me, eyebrows raised.

  “Let’s get started!” I said.

  We started by spreading her students’ assignment logs on the table and sorting them into groups according to similar “Areas of Focus”: conventions, introductions and detailed ideas.

  Next we discussed how she could best teach them how to fill out specific and detailed plans for improvement for each of those areas. The idea is that each student chooses an aspect of writing he or she wants to improve and then articulates a plan for achieving that improvement. The next time the student writes, he or she enacts the plan and, with each effort, improves the quality of his or her writing.

  Before arriving at this point, Allison had made a decision to shift her teaching so that assessment would drive her students’ learning. This mindset led her to use a series of lessons to guide her students in writing a class Writing Rubric.

  “They actually did really well coming up with clear criteria,” Allison reflects. By allowing students to articulate the criteria she and they would use to give feedback on their writing, Allison began shifting ownership of the learning onto her students.

  “Okay, wait,” Allison said, her cheeks flushing a little. “So this means that I’m not going to be doing formal lessons all the time.

  “Right. I mean, sometimes you might – when everyone needs to know something. But when everyone needs to know or work on something different – like with writing – then they’ll all be doing their own thing. You’ll be working with them one-on-one and in smaller groups.” This is the definition of differentiated learning.

  During our entire meeting, Allison smiled. Despite already being a good teacher, she challenged herself to be better than she was the day before. Allison personifies the growth mindset; in using assessment the way she plans to, she will inspire the growth mindset in her students as well.

  With plans to keep in touch, Allison and I parted ways. She reminded me of how exciting the classroom can be (I’m 6 months into my maternity leave). Her enthusiasm and bravery at trying something new made me eager to try some of the things I’ve been learning about these past months (I often joke about my maternity leave being something akin to a sabbatical). But most of all, I felt a deep sense of shared satisfaction: her students successfully created clear criteria to drive their learning; they were a day or two away from using that criteria to plan for their own individual improvement; and they were a short time away from feeling that sense of achievement that comes with accomplishing something they set out to learn. And Allison gets to see that happen.

• Poisonous Praise

  September 26, 2011 10:25 PM Comments Off on Poisonous Praise

  I find myself praising my daughter for doing absolutely nothing. She’ll be lying on her play-mat, moving her toys around and smiling and I’ll coo variations of “Oh, good girl! Aren’t you smart! What a good girl!”

  According to Dweck, when I praise her for being something like a “good girl” or a “smart little baby” I am unwittingly confining her to those labels, teaching her to develop a fixed-mindset as opposed to a growth-mindset. One day, when she’s contemplating speaking out against the status quo she might keep quiet because voicing an unpopular opinion isn’t what “good girls” do. Likewise, instead of taking risks with her learning and attempting a challenging task, she might stick with the familiar, a task she knows she can tackle with success.

  This is a hard habit to break. I do it with my students too.

  I don’t do it in writing. I don’t deface the margins of their papers with fixed-mindset-encouraging exclamations like “Well done!” and “Great work!”

  Instead, I do it to their faces, in front of others, their peers. During discussions, when students contribute their ideas I often respond, “Good idea,” or “Great, thank you.” How many learners have I silenced because they had felt uncertain about the Good-ness of their idea?

  As I write this, my daughter is struggling to crawl and I watch her practice. She pushes the top half of her body into the air, but struggles to rise up to her knees. In yoga, she’d be doing the perfect cobra. I fight against the urge to praise her intelligence and strength

  “Wow, Abby! You’re working so hard! Excellent effort, my girl! Good job.”

• Poisonous Praise

  10:18 PM Comments Off on Poisonous Praise

  I find myself praising my daughter for doing absolutely nothing. She’ll be lying on her play-mat, moving her toys around and smiling and I’ll coo variations of “Oh, good girl! You’re so smart! What a good girl!”

  According to Dweck, when I praise her for being something like a “good girl” or a “smart little baby” I am unwittingly confining her to those labels, teaching her to develop a fixed-mindset as opposed to a growth-mindset. One day, when she’s contemplating speaking out against the status quo she might keep quiet because voicing an unpopular opinion isn’t what “good girls” do. Likewise, instead of taking risks with her learning and attempting a challenging task, she might stick with the familiar, a task she knows she can tackle with success.

  This is a hard habit to break. I do it with my students too.

  I don’t do it in writing. I don’t deface the margins of their papers with fixed-mindset-encouraging exclamations like “Well done!” and “Great work!”

  Instead, I do it to their faces, in front of others, their peers. During discussions, when students contribute their ideas I often respond, “Good idea,” or “Great, thank you.” How many learners have I silenced because they had felt uncertain about the Good-ness of their idea?

  As I write this, my daughter is struggling to crawl and I watch her practice. She pushes the top half of her body into the air, but struggles to rise up to her knees. In yoga, she’d be doing the perfect cobra. I fight against the urge to praise her intelligence and strength.

  “Wow, Abby! You’re working so hard! Excellent effort, my girl! Good job.” 

• Curriculum Integration: One School District’s Journey

  September 23, 2011 6:31 PM Comments Off on Curriculum Integration: One School District’s Journey

  How can teachers improve student achievement and also teach the skills necessary to prepare students for a complex, global world?

  In 2008, the Bluewater District School Board educators began to ask this question. The catalysts were a data analysis of provincial large-scale assessments given in Grades 3 and 6, and board-mandated common assessments in math and literacy across all grades. Bluewater educators strongly believed their students needed higher-order skills to succeed in a global world, but could they improve student achievement in math and literacy at the same time? They decided that integrated curriculum might allow them to pursue both goals.

  Bluewater, located in Southwestern Ontario, is comprised of two JK-12 schools, 40 elementary schools, and 11 secondary schools. Many schools are in rural areas with small student populations.

  The focus of Ontario’s educational reform is literacy and numeracy, and there is a move to teach literacy in all subject areas. Teachers are also to include character education and environmental awareness in instructional planning. Curriculum guidelines direct teachers to teach cross-disciplinary core concepts – Big Ideas such as change, systems, and interdependence – and higher-order thinking skills such as research, communication, design, problem solving, and critical literacy.

  Sowing the Seeds

  The Bluewater interdisciplinary journey began with a group of 45 intermediate teachers from 15 schools who met with a small team of system-level staff facilitators for three planning days. This same group continued planning throughout the 2008-2009 school year. Other interdisciplinary planning sessions also took place with all JK to Grade 6 teachers, all JK-8 administrators, and the administrators and all teachers from two high schools.  

  The teachers worked in teams to collaboratively design interdisciplinary units. The process involved backward design and synthesized Drake’s work on interdisciplinary planning and Cooper’s work on assessment.[1]

  Figure 1 shows the steps of the process. [INSERT FIGURE 1 NEAR HERE]

  • Curriculum Scan and Cluster: Teachers select (highlight and literally use scissors to cut up) the standards (expectations in Ontario) from the relevant curriculum documents and cluster standards into cross-disciplinary concepts (e.g., the environment, power, sustainability, etc.).
  • Curriculum Dissection: The groups choose one cluster of standards. Each standard is dissected according to the Know (what do students need to know?), Do (what do students need to do?) and Be (what values are being taught?).
  • Enduring Understanding/Big Question/Unit Questions: The big question is answered throughout the unit. The enduring understanding is the essence – what teachers want students to be able to articulate at the end of the unit. Examples include: “Tomorrow is influenced by decisions made today” and “We can make a difference.”   
  •  Culminating Task: A meaningful culminating task is created with accompanying assessment tools aligned with standards from relevant disciplines. In this task, the students demonstrate the Know, Do, and Be.
  • Daily Learning Opportunities and Assessment Tools: Meaningful daily instructional activities accompanied by embedded assessments lead to the enduring understanding and the culminating task. Assessment for learning is stressed. This process insures accountability.

  Implementation in the Classroom

  A Kindergarten class took part in an environmental unit that included standards from language, math, science, and the arts. The students conducted a study of the recyclable and compostable garbage in their school. The unit centered on the Big Ideas of environmental stewardship and conservation and the higher-order skills of inquiry, problem solving, and communication. The students created environmental posters to convince the staff and student body to recycle and compost the garbage at the school.

  In one Grade 6/7 class, students debated the impacts of early settlement on Canada. The students created flip perspective books depicting the different points of view of the First Nations peoples and the early European settlers. The students included their own points of view and made suggestions for the future. The unit integrated language, geography, history, science, and arts standards. The Big Ideas were interrelationships, diversity, and conflict resolution, and the higher-order skills included inquiry, critical thinking, and communication.

  A Grade 4 unit integrated language, math, science, and arts standards. The students investigated alternative forms of energy and created an environmental conservation magazine that was presented at a whole school environmental summit involving students, parents, and the greater community. The unit centered on the Big Ideas of energy and sustainability. The higher-order skills were inquiry, design, problem solving, presentation, and communication.

  Teacher and Administrator Perceptions

  A Brock University team of researchers explored teacher and administrator perceptions of the impact of interdisciplinary approaches on classroom practice. Qualitative interviews were completed with 26 educators across 16 schools. The following themes emerged.

  Student engagement

  Increased student engagement emerged as the strongest theme. One teacher commented: “Kids have fun, lots of laughter, lots of learning.” Another: “Student excitement with this new approach is great. It’s different for them, and it’s almost like a breath of fresh air rather than the old conventional textbooks.” For another: “Engagement is huge.”

  Student excitement with this new approach is great. It’s different for them, and it’s almost like a breath of fresh air rather than the old conventional textbooks.

  Administrators remarked on both student and teacher engagement. From one:

  Teachers get so excited when they make connections that it is infectious, and so there is real positive energy…Kids are excited…Kids love to go to school and they go home and talk about what they discussed in the classroom. I know learning is taking place because there are no kids in the office.

  Relevant meaningful curriculum

  Many teachers noted that student engagement was connected to relevant learning.  “It’s neat how everything fits together. Students are connecting with themselves and their world.” And, “My students were engaged in the unit and were not asking ‘Why are we learning this?’ Rather, they were becoming global thinkers who wanted to know and do more.” One teacher said, “My students frequently challenge me with new ideas that they are interested in, and I’m encouraged to incorporate their interests with the concepts that I want them to learn.”

  Relevance was also tied to the depth of learning. “I believe my interdisciplinary classroom has allowed my students to deepen their level of insight and increase their depth of thinking. They have become engaged and articulate learners who are not afraid to voice their opinions utilizing a variety of mediums.” And: “Reflections and culminating tasks at the end of each unit demonstrated clearly that the students had internalized the knowledge and skills.”

  Reaching all students

  Historically, the interdisciplinary approach has often been reserved for gifted students. While one teacher mentioned that interdisciplinary approaches seemed to best benefit the high achieving students, others found that this approach benefited all students, including the most challenged learners. Many teachers found students were submitting exemplary work that exceeded their expectations. One administrator told of three learners with special needs who were typically disengaged in a regular classroom. During the unit, these students participated in a heated debate about animal rights. As well, they created a PSA announcement that was uploaded to YouTube to share with families. One student remarked, “Wow, I really am smart.”

  Literacy infused across the curriculum

  In an interdisciplinary approach, literacy is taught through other subjects. One teacher said, “In a year, I’ve seen a big change in literacy. The biggest change is going from teaching one block of literacy to seeing literacy throughout our program.” Others reinforced the same idea: “My language program isn’t English anymore. It is not all about reading the novel and doing a report on it,” and “Literacy is amazing. We built a strong language program around our history and geography units, using different writing tasks.” An administrator summed it up this way: “Literacy tasks are more relevant and there is a deeper understanding in an interdisciplinary unit. Literacy is the basis of what everyone does.”

  Numeracy

  The teachers found the integration of numeracy expectations into an interdisciplinary unit more difficult than the integration of literacy. Those who successfully integrated math connected it to the real world. “This year we are doing real world math. The students really, really like it.” A colleague agreed: “We focus on problem solving. Real-life connections are huge.”  

  Those who successfully integrated math connected it to the real world. “This year we are doing real world math. The students really, really like it.”

  Assessment

  Many teachers found that assessment became more efficient. They were able to assess more than one discipline at a time by creating assessment tools that incorporated standards from different subject areas. The ability to differentiate was enhanced. “I can diversify my assessment tools and tasks to suit student needs.” From administrators: “Now, there are so many ways for kids to demonstrate their learning, such as through drama and technology,” and “Integrated curriculum has reinforced my belief about what good assessment practices are…I realize that the principles of backwards design in assessment and evaluation worked with integrated curriculum.”

  Some teachers found it challenging to report integrated results on a discipline-based report card.

  Planning            

  Interdisciplinary planning helped educators stay focused. One teacher noted, “I can honestly say that my thinking about planning has completely changed. No longer am I wondering ‘What will I teach next?’ or ‘How can I fit this in?’ I have a much clearer sense of where my students are and where they need to go next in order to meet the expectations both of the curriculum and myself.” For another: “This style of teaching is a way of keeping me on track. It has helped me to stay focused, yet allows me to include my ‘great’ ideas or kids’ interests along the way.”

  Time lost, time gained

  There was some disagreement about the time required to plan high calibre interdisciplinary lessons. Although time was a concern for many, others perceived that they actually did less planning on a day-to-day basis. One said, “I feel that my day-to-day planning runs smoothly, as we spend long chunks of time on tasks rather than jumping from area to area or subject to subject.”

  Collaborative professional learning

  Teachers appreciated the formal planning sessions, which provided an opportunity to collaborate and revitalized teacher practice. “Teacher talk brings enthusiasm.” And, “Once you have been teaching for a while, when times are bleak, this opportunity rejuvenates teachers.”

  Next steps

  Today, the Bluewater District School Board continues on its interdisciplinary journey. Evidence-based practice and professional learning are ongoing. The board continues to synthesize interdisciplinary philosophy with accountability measures and Ministry initiatives to teach students the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to be active and caring citizens in a global world.

  EN BREF – La réforme de l’éducation en Ontario met l’accent sur la littératie et la numératie; l’enseignement de la littératie dans toutes les matières est préconisé. La planification péda­gogique du personnel enseignant doit aussi intégrer le développement du caractère et la sensibilisation environnementale. Les programmes-cadres prescrivent l’enseignement de concepts interdisciplinaires fondamentaux – les grandes idées comme le changement, les systèmes et l’interdépendance – ainsi que de compétences de raisonnement d’ordre supérieur comme la recherche, la communication, la conception, la résolution de problème et la littératie critique. Dans le Sud-Ouest de l’Ontario, le conseil scolaire Bluewater a adopté une approche interdisciplinaire pour satisfaire à ces exigences. Il en est résulté une plus grande participa­tion des élèves, un curriculum qu’ils trouvent pertinent dans leur vie et la capacité de rejoindre les élèves de tous les niveaux de rendement scolaire. Des séances structurées de planifica­tion ont permis au personnel enseignant de collaborer et de revitaliser leur travail.

  ---

  [1] D. Cooper, Talk About Assessment High School Strategies and Tools (Toronto ON: Nelson Education, 2010); S. M. Drake, Creating Standards-Based Integrated Curriculum (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2007).

• Intellectual Engagement: A Search for Practical Meaning

  4:41 PM Comments Off on Intellectual Engagement: A Search for Practical Meaning

  An essay based on “The Having of Wonderful Ideas” and Other Essays on Teaching and Learning by Eleanor Duckworth (Third Edition, Teachers College Press, 2006); An Ethic of Excellence: Building a Culture of Craftsmanship with Students by Ron Berger (Heinemann, 2003); and A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown (2011).

  We offer a thematic discussion of three books whose authors wrote from different perspectives in different time periods yet share the view that students’ sense of personal agency is fundamental to their intellectual engagement and deep understanding. The learner’s imagination leads to powerful questions that grow when exposed to processes of productive inquiry and social interaction. These inquiries and social interactions are guided in a learning environment by images of high quality performance and the constraints of the classroom. Our interest lies in understanding how these factors can stimulate intellectual engagement and support the intellectual development of all students in school. 

  Imagine a school…, a dramatic anthology developed and performed by students under the auspices of the Canadian Education Association (CEA), generated useful questions for educators concerned about the school experience of adolescent learners.[1] Are the stories told by 27 teenagers from three provinces common among students across the country? And what would we do if we knew?

  A careful consideration of the research literature on student engagement led to the development of survey measures of intellectual engagement, a key concept that quickly became a powerful generator of a new dialogue among educators.[2] Intellectual engagement is defined as “personal psychological and cognitive investment in learning.” In reviewing the survey’s results with teachers and principals, we discovered – perhaps not surprisingly – that the significance of a relationship between intellectual engagement and learning lies deep within their tacit knowledge. 

  What did surprise many educators were the survey findings that intellectual engagement in core areas of language, mathematics, and science is experienced by too few students overall and that its level drops precipitously from 82 percent in Grade 5 to 42 percent in Grade 10, where it levels off until students complete their schooling.[3] What is less clear to many is what we can do about the findings.

  In discussing these books, we assume that the importance of intellectual engagement is found in its relationship to intellectual development. Intellectual development results in the capacity to figure things out, a capacity that is essential to a life of meaningful learning or – as Thomas and Brown describe it – “‘arc of life’ learning” (p. 18).

  We share with Duckworth, her views on desirable outcomes of education: “We want students’ understanding to be deep, confident, and complex, and their means of expression to be varied and nuanced…[and we want them to] develop a sense of community responsibility, democratic commitment, social justice” (p. xi). Her book explores the variety of ways in which students come to understand important concepts and the significance of their own ideas to development of deep understanding. She writes with engaging clarity. “Knowing the right answer is overrated. It is a virtue – there is no debate about that – but in conventional views of intelligence it tends to be given far to much weight.” Thomas and Brown go further in suggesting the need to reverse our focus from right answers to the quality of questions that arise from students’ inquiries. 

  Ron Berger (a veteran elementary teacher who worked with Harvard’s Project Zero) also challenges conventional views of intelligence by describing the learning contexts in which students exceed their own expectations for performance. He calls for classrooms and schools committed to building cultures on an “ethic of excellence”. Educational reformers have long espoused the significance of adults’ high expectations for student achievement. Berger argues powerfully that students’ own expectations of capability are raised (or presumably lowered) by the quality of work that they do. He illustrates his ideas with descriptions of outstanding student work that one might be tempted to dismiss as that of the “gifted” rather than the “average” student, save for the sheer volume of such occurrences. Berger draws on his carpentry interests for his analogy of student craftsmanship as “work that is strong and accurate and beautiful.” As one of his students describing her classroom experience said, “This school has ruined me for life…I’m never satisfied with anything until it’s nearly perfect. I have to be proud of it” (p. 8).

  Thomas and Brown identify a new culture of learning as the phenomenon of learning taking place everywhere except in the majority of schools where the “stable infrastructure of the twentieth century” has not given way to the “fluid infrastructure” of the twenty-first century. These authors avoid the irritating cliché of 21st century skills, and they do not extol the virtues of technology as an enabler of learning. Rather they describe as indispensible to learning two elements that comprise a new culture of learning: the massive information network and a “bounded and structured environment” defined by purpose or task at hand. Together these two elements provide an environment that allows for “unlimited agency to build and experiment with things within those boundaries” (p. 19).

  Thomas and Brown draw on cultivation as their metaphor for learning; the resources of environment and biology are consolidated, bounded, and structured within a field or garden. They describe exploration and imagination as primary means through which human beings come to make sense of their world. Imagination, curiosity, and play are the roots of intellectual development and the dispositions that enable students to navigate today’s ever-changing, complex world.

  Just like the students who created Imagine a school…, the authors of these three books tell compelling stories to clarify and generalize their educational ideas – ideas that are not necessarily new but that do reframe questions about the role of schooling in the development of students’ minds. Their questions are topical and urgent for any of us seeking to deal with measurements that indicate, once again, that adolescent learners are far too often bored, although skilled at doing only what needs to be done to “get the marks.” These books are refreshing in their expansive and optimistic assumptions about students and teachers, their know-how about unleashing human potential in schools, and their experience that excellent work is the essential goal for all students.

  Some of the schools participating in CEA’s initiative, What did you do in school today?, acted on similar assumptions by engaging students in co-designing their learning and assessment experiences, and exploring and shifting teachers’ own practices – often with the assistance of Sharon Friesen’s Teaching Effectiveness: A Framework and Rubric.[4] “We saw students shine,” was among the observations of teachers whose year-long investigation into raising intellectual engagement culminated in a thematic inquiry titled, The Power of Food, in which students examined the role and relationship of food to health, culture, and social justice. A parent wrote, “Typically I have to pry to find out how his day was, but since The Power of Food he is the one initiating the discussion. I have heard ‘Did you know…’ so many times over the last week.”

  Imagine not needing to ask our kids, “What did you do in school today?”

  EN BREF – Trois auteurs, selon des perspectives et dans des périodes différentes, partagent le même avis : l’appropriation du pouvoir d’action personnelle des élèves est essentielle à leur engagement intellectuel et à une compréhension en profondeur. L’imagination des jeunes suscite de puissantes questions, dont la portée s’élargit grâce à des processus de questionnement productif et d’interaction sociale et à l’encadrement donné par des images de performance de qualité. Ces livres se distinguent par leurs propos enthousiastes et optimistes sur les élèves et le personnel enseignant, par leur savoir-faire en matière de déclenchement du potentiel humain dans les écoles et par leur témoignage qu’un excellent travail constitue le but essentiel de tous les élèves.

  ---

  [1] Imagine a school… Canadian Education Association, available on DVD, info@cea-ace.ca

  [2] J. D. Willms, S. Friesen and P. Milton, What did you do in school today? Transforming Classrooms through Social, Academic, and Intellectual Engagement (First National Report) (Toronto: Canadian Education Association, 2009). Available at www.cea-ace.ca/programs-initiatives/wdydist

  [3] What did you do in school today? Infographic (Canadian Education Association, 2011). www.cea-ace.ca/publication/what-did-you-do-school-today-infographic

  [4] S. Friesen, Teaching Effectiveness, A Framework and Rubric (Canadian Education Association) at www.cea-ace.ca/publication/what-did-you-do-school-today-teaching-effectiveness-framework-and-rubric

• It’s Not Magic! Research on Developing Expertise

  4:16 PM Comments Off on It’s Not Magic! Research on Developing Expertise

  I once overheard someone say to a jazz musician, “Your playing is magic!” The musician retorted, “It’s not magic! It’s at least six hours of practice every single day for the last 20 years.” At a recent function I attended, someone asked the pediatric plastic surgeon sitting next to me whether incredible eye-hand coordination made him choose his specialization. His response: “Actually my cutting skills were always rather weak, but I just put in more time on it and then caught up with my peers.”

  In the past two decades, a large body of research has examined the differences between novices and experts in subject areas ranging from physics[1] to poetry.[2] Yet research on developing expertise has found no “magic bullet” in becoming an expert and has concluded that innate talent plays a less prominent role than previously imagined. Furthermore, evidence from studies in the brain sciences, as well as research on student motivation, appear to reinforce the findings on developing expertise.

  The Role of “Deliberate Practice”

  Various studies on developing expertise suggest that the most important factors are a willingness to put in huge amounts of deliberate practice and the ability to maintain this effort when confronting obstacles.[3] Deliberate practice involves four key components: focused goals – often determined by a teacher in order to improve a specific aspect of performance; concentration and effort; feedback from a teacher comparing actual to desired performance; and further opportunities for practice. When K. Anders Ericsson asked expert violinists at an internationally acclaimed music academy in Berlin to report time spent in deliberate practice, he found that the best expert violinists reported more time per week, as well as more time through their lifetime (the now-popularized 10,000 hours), while the good expert violinists reported only 7,500 hours, and the least accomplished experts estimated only 5,000 hours. It is important however, that when these violinists were asked to keep a weekly diary they all reported spending about the same amount of time on music-related activities. So mere time-on-task, which includes routine performance and playful engagement, is very different from what Ericsson called “deliberate practice”.[4]

  A crucial point in this research is that, to achieve success, developing experts accept challenges and persevere in the face of obstacles. In the area of athletics, for instance, elite skaters are more likely to fall than recreational skaters because they challenge themselves to the next level, rather than simply doing more of what they already can do well. This is just as applicable in the classroom situation in the development of, for instance, higher-order skills in mathematics or advanced writing skills.[5]

  In order to maintain their self-confidence when encountering obstacles, students need to have a firm belief that they can indeed overcome such challenges if they persist.

  In order to maintain their self-confidence when encountering obstacles, students need to have a firm belief that they can indeed overcome such challenges if they persist. Similarly, teachers need to believe that, given enough time, quality instruction, and effort on the part of both themselves and their students, most students can become competent regardless of the innate ability that they initially bring to the task, which serves as the mere starting point in learning. Thus both teachers and students need to have a sense of self-efficacy – that is, a belief that they are capable of meeting the challenge.

  The focus on deliberate practice is not to suggest that innate ability plays only a minimal role. All individuals will pick up some skills far more easily and effortlessly than other skills, and some individuals will pick up most skills more easily than other individuals. However, a motivated student, assisted by a caring, observant coach or teacher, will engage in effort precisely where difficulty is being experienced. Through extra time and deliberate practice, the skill develops.

  The Expert Brain

  Those of us who have taken – or taught – undergraduate Psychology, know that there are frequent allusions to the “nature versus nurture” or “innate versus environmental” debate. Brain development used to be seen as the product of genetically determined maturation, and the structural development of the brain was assumed to facilitate the functional development displayed in our behaviour. No longer. Research from the field of neuroscience challenges this unidirectional construct, for brain development has been shown to involve a continuous interaction between nature and nurture.

  This evidence provides support for the importance of deliberate practice. For instance, when scientists compared the brains of vision-impaired individuals who read Braille with the brains of those who did not read Braille, the brain area related to the right index finger of Braille readers was larger than that of non-Braille readers.[6] Similarly, for musicians who play string instruments, the brain areas for the digits of the left hand were larger than for the right hand – and larger than the same area in individuals who did not play a string instrument.

  Indeed, the brain of the musician can be seen as an exciting model of neuroplasticity: Musical training and practice not only change the structure of the brain but also produce functional changes in the brain. For instance, when pianists hear piano notes, they show greater neural activity in the auditory cortex than do non-musicians, and the amount of that increase is related to both the number of years they have played piano and the age at which they started training. This increased activity, then, does not merely reflect innate differences between musicians and non-musicians but also the effect of practice.[7]

  Further confirmation of training-induced brain plasticity comes from two recent longitudinal studies in which children were randomly assigned to either musical training or not. After six months of musical training, 8-year-olds showed enhanced brain response to subtle changes in pitch[8] and after 15 months of music training a younger group displayed structural changes in the auditory and motor areas of the brain.[9]

  It appears that specific kinds of practice can change not only the structure of the brain but also how it functions.

  Of particular interest to educators, Dr. Guinevere Eden and her team at Georgetown University provided intensive training in word sounds and word parts to dyslexic readers.[10] After eight weeks, not only did the dyslexic readers improve their reading but their brain scans also showed changes in how their brains functioned. There was an increase both in task-related activity in those left hemisphere areas of the brain that are usually engaged by typical readers, and in compensatory activity in areas of the brain that are not usually activated in typical readers. It appears that specific kinds of practice can change not only the structure of the brain but also how it functions.

  Try, Try Again

  Should we praise students to assure them that they are smart (“You’re very intelligent” or “very smart at this?”)? When this question was asked of parents, 85 percent answered in the affirmative.[11] Yet, Carol Dweck, a motivation researcher, noticed that children who have maladaptive achievement patterns were already overly-concerned about their intelligence, worrying that any task failure meant they were “dumb”. In a series of studies, Dweck and her colleagues set about investigating whether children should be praised for their intelligence (or innate ability), or for their effort.[12]

  Children in Grade 5, tested individually, were given a set of problems that were reasonably challenging but easy enough for all of them to perform quite well. After this first problem set, all children were then told they had performed well. For some of the children this was followed by praise for their effort (“You must have worked hard at these problems”); for others, by praise for their ability or intelligence, (“You must be smart at these problems”).

  In a few of the studies, both of these groups were then asked whether they would prefer to work on a challenging task (“problems that I’ll learn a lot from, even if I won’t look so smart”) or an easy task (“problems that are pretty easy so I’ll do well”). Of the children praised for their effort after the initial problem set, 92 percent stated their preference for the more challenging task, compared with only 33 percent of the children praised for their intelligence. These children’s stated preference was for the easier task that would allow them to keep looking smart but not to learn very much.

  Children were then given a problem set that was more difficult than the first and on which all children experienced some failures. When asked to rate the tasks, only those who had been praised for effort preferred the more difficult tasks even though they had missed some of the problems. They also were more eager to take them home to practice.

  In the final test, students worked on a third set of problems of equal difficulty to the first set, on which both groups had performed equally well. The group praised for their intelligence performed significantly worse than they had at the beginning, while the group praised for effort performed significantly better. This suggests that praise for being “smart at these problems” does not equip children well to deal with failures. The two groups of students, who had been the same at the beginning, were now far apart.

  These results were confirmed in the next few studies, in one of which students were asked to “confidentially” report their score to an unfamiliar Grade 5 student at another school. Nearly 40 percent of participants who had been praised for their ability lied about their score as compared to 13 percent of the group who had been praised for their effort.

  This research suggests the power of explicitly attributing student success to hard work rather than innate ability. An emphasis on effort fosters an optimistic, incremental theory of motivation in which success is seen as developing step by step, through effort. As distinct from a focus on innate ability – which is fixed and uncontrollable – an incremental view is empowering for both teachers and students – with an important caveat. This does not mean saying, “Good effort” or ‘Good try’ in response to a poor performance (“At least you tried”). The appropriate message is rather, “Good performance because of your good effort.”

  What does this look like in the classroom? My students recently reflected on how they applied these research findings in their final practicum. One thoughtful student described how he first examined his own beliefs about effort and ability and then modeled behaviour for the students, saying for example, “This part of the text is really confusing to me. Let me press on but if it isn’t clarified I’ll come back and spend extra time on this difficult part.” Rather than global uninformative comments like “Well done” or “Good,” he provided specific and substantive feedback that explicitly attributed success to effort (“I saw that you went back and checked all your problems. I think this careful work is reflected in your grade”) and encouraged persistence in surmounting obstacles (“You seemed to be stuck at one stage but I noticed that you kept trying and now you have the solution”).

  When target achievement had been reached, he used feedback to set a new sub-goal. For example, “Your arguments show that you have worked hard to understand the text. Now Anna, you need to work on organizing these arguments.” And later: “Your papers are now well organized. The next step is to make the transitions between your paragraphs reader-considerate. You need to work on providing a link between the idea in a new paragraph and the previous one.”

  Another student teacher focused on helping her students see that perseverance usually results in high performance. She chose examples from students’ own lives to concretely illustrate deliberate practice and perseverance in the face of challenge. For instance, she had her students consider the time and effort required and the obstacles they overcame when they learned how to skateboard.

  Conclusions

  If developing expertise or competence is highly dependent on deliberate practice, and if experience causes changes in the structure and function of the brain, then a crucial role for teachers is to help foster children’s motivation to put in the required effort. Converging evidence from research on motivation suggests that praising children for their hard work rather than their intelligence increases motivation and results in children valuing challenge and becoming better equipped to confront failure.

  Most important is that this convergent research from the domains of expertise, neuroscience, and motivation empowers teachers by engendering the optimistic view that most of their students can learn well if they put in the hard work and persevere in the face of obstacles. Effort can create ability. As Einstein commented, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

  EN BREF – Au cours des deux dernières décennies, de nombreuses recherches ont examiné les différences entre les novices et les experts dans des domaines allant de la physique à la poésie. Toutefois, la recherche sur l’acquisition de compétences n’a relevé aucun secret pour devenir expert, concluant que le talent inné joue un rôle moins important qu’on le croyait auparavant. D’après différentes études sur le sujet, les facteurs les plus importants sont la volonté de consacrer des efforts considérables à la pratique délibérée et la capacité de maintenir ces efforts malgré les obstacles. De plus, les preuves semblent indiquer que la persévérance et la pratique délibérée changent la structure et la fonction du cerveau. Les recherches convergentes sur les compétences, la neuroscience et la motivation habilitent les enseignantes et les enseignants en engendrant l’attitude optimiste que la plupart de leurs élèves peuvent bien apprendre s’ils travaillent fort et persévèrent devant les obstacles. L’effort peut engendrer l’habileté.

  ---

  [1] A. G. Priest and R. O. Lindsay, “New Light on Novice-expert Differences in Physics Problem Solving,” British Journal of Psychology 83, no. 3 (1996): 389-405.

  [2] J. Peskin, “Constructing Meaning when Reading Poetry: An Expert-Novice Study,” Cognition and Instruction 16, no. 3 (1998): 235-263.

  [3] K. Ericsson, “The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the Development of Superior Expert Performance. In The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, eds. K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich, and R. R. Hoffman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 683-704.

  [4] Ibid.

  [5] R. T. Kellog and A. P. Whiteford, “Training Advanced Writing Skills: The Case for Deliberate Practice,” Educational Psychologist 44, no. 4 (2009): 250-266.

  [6] See T. Rohrer, “Image Schemata in the Brain,” in From Perception to Meaning: Images Schemas in Cognitive Linguistics, eds. B. Hampe and J. Grady (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005), 165-196.

  [7] Nina Kraus and Bharat Chandrasekaran, “Music Training for the Development of Auditory Skills,” Nature Reviews/Neuroscience 11 (2010): 599-605.

  [8] Moreno Silvain et al., “Musical Training Influences Linguistic Abilities in 8-year-old Children: More Evidence for Brain Plasticity,” Cerebral Cortex 19 (2009): 712-723.

  [9] Krista Hyde et al., “Musical Training Shapes Structural Brain Development,” The Journal of Neuroscience 29, no. 10 (2009): 3010-3025.

  [10] Guinevere Eden et al., “Neural Changes Following Remediation in Adult Developmental Dyslexia,” Neuron 44 (2004): 411- 422.

  [11] C. S. Dweck, “Caution – Praise Can Be Dangerous,” American Educator (Spring 1999): 4-9.

  [12] C. M. Mueller and C. S, Dweck,“Praise for Intelligence can Undermine Children’s Motivation and Performance,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75, no, 1 (1998): 33-52.

• Whole Education: Provoking a Movement for Change in the UK

  3:38 PM Comments Off on Whole Education: Provoking a Movement for Change in the UK

  The gulf between what education systems provide and what children and young people need is widening. Schools and colleges rightly try to ensure that young people are literate, numerate, and gain academic qualifications. But the emphasis on testing and passing exams often squeezes out the development of other skills and qualities that are just as vital in today’s world.

  Whole Education began in England in 2010 in response to this challenge. Its seeds can be traced back to 2008, when the Royal Society for Arts, Manufacture and Commerce brought together a large number of organizations to develop and sign a “Charter for 21st Century Education.”[1] A number of organizations involved in this process were keen to move beyond a simple charter to take action; thus Whole Education was born as an independent, non-political, non-profit organization committed to ensuring all young people develop the range of skills, qualities, and knowledge they will need for the future. At our heart is a list of partner organizations that share our views. Together, we are working with a growing number of schools that – despite the pressures of league tables (school rankings) – remain committed to helping young people develop in a more holistic way.

  Most schools committed to providing what we would call a “whole education” tend to be led by the brave leaders who swim against the tide. They have a clear vision of learning and a strong moral purpose to do what is best for their students, not simply to get the school high up on league tables. They appear to be in the minority. We intend to change that.

  In the English education system, the most important assessment of students and schools occurs when, at age 16, students pursue their General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs). A key measure of school and system success is the number of students who attain five good GCSEs (A-C grade) and are thereby eligible to obtain the A-level qualification necessary for university.

  When Tony Blair’s Labour government came into power in 1997, it heralded a fundamental change in the role of government in education. Despite the introduction of a National Curriculum in 1992, implementation had been left largely in the hands of local education authorities. Under Tony Blair, government assumed greater responsibility for delivery by setting targets and monitoring outcomes, effectively diminishing the role of local authorities. Their role was further diminished by the introduction of the Academies Program, with academies funded by central government and independent of local government control.

  Despite some undoubted achievements, the Labour government was criticized for excessive centralized micromanagement and overburdening schools with a constant stream of initiatives; encouraging a culture of “teaching to the test”; failing to tackle the divide between academic and vocational education; failing to deliver the knowledge, skills, and qualities employers need; and presiding over an escalation in the number of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET).

  The coalition government of David Cameron, which came into power in May 2010, has introduced its own reforms. Most notably they have rapidly expanded the Academies Program, with some estimates suggesting over 80 percent of all secondaries will be academies by 2013. The general direction of reform of the current government is to give greater autonomy to schools over what to teach and what to include in the curriculum – albeit with increased accountability for results.

  While the context of the system has changed, Whole Education sees a number of longstanding challenges that need to be addressed:

  • Lack of workplace skills. Employers continue to express concerns about the lack of employability skills in young people. A recent report by the Confederation of British Industry entitled “Building for Growth” highlighted a number of issues regarding the skills and qualities businesses need but are not finding in too many school leavers.[2]
  • High levels of disengagement with learning. The number of young people “not in education, employment or training” has escalated to a record high, from 600,000 in 2000 to almost one million in 2010.[3] In addition, record numbers of young people are dropping out of university, struggling to cope as independent learners after years in “exam-factory” schools.
  • Well-being and mental health concerns. In UNICEF’s investigation into child well-being across the world’s industrialized nations, the UK came in at the bottom, below countries with significantly lower levels of GDP and higher levels of poverty.[4]
  • Dominant assessment system. We have an assessment system that has rewarded schools for teaching to the test, at both the primary and secondary levels, rather than nurturing the potential of the child. A report from the Education Select Committee on the newly introduced English Baccalaureate – which places schools on a league table based on numbers of students achieving A-C grades in English, Maths, Science, Languages, Humanities – has provided some damning conclusions about the impact of such a measure young peoples’ ability to pursue a broad and balanced education.[5]

  In short, we have created a system in England – which other countries appear to be following – that is very high on targets and league tables based on exam results. This trajectory is being continued with the current government, with promises of increased data transparency and more local discretion on what pupils should learn. However, local discretion may not work in favour of a more balanced curriculum; many head teachers (particularly those who have become heads in the last ten years) have become accustomed to top down prescription and “playing the exam factory game.”

  Of course, helping young people succeed academically is – and should be – a top priority for all schools. But there is a growing feeling in the profession that too much focus on the “system measures” is squeezing out a wider set of skills (leadership, teamwork, communication) and qualities (resilience, empathy, creativity). It is in response to this challenge – and the current policy environment – that Whole Education has emerged. We are seeking to be a constructive partner to work with schools, policymakers, and a wide range of stakeholders to help young people develop the full range of skills, qualities, and knowledge they will need for life and work in the 21st century.

  There is a growing feeling in the profession that too much focus on the “system measures” is squeezing out a wider set of skills (leadership, teamwork, communication) and qualities (resilience, empathy, creativity).

  Our work is evolving in the context of David Cameron’s “Big Society” agenda. Instead of relying on local authorities, officials, or central government to respond to issues they face daily, individuals and communities are to have more power and responsibility for improving their own neighbourhoods and local services. This creates a conducive environment for Whole Education to support schools, and in doing so to support reform in the system.

  Whole Education’s eleven common beliefs that all stakeholders and partners adhere to can be distilled down into three key points:

  • Helping young people develop a range of skills, qualities, and knowledge they will need for the future;
  • Making learning more relevant and engaging, with young people at the centre of their own learning, balancing practical and theoretical learning;
  • Recognizing that learning does not just take place within the school or the classroom, and that the best schools engage with the wider community to raise aspirations and opportunities for learning.

  About 30 partner organizations are already working with young people to help provide a “whole education”. Any organization or project wishing to be a partner has to show how its offer to schools or young people relates to the above points. Some partners focus on specific issues. For example Speakers Trust helps develop communication skills, and UK Sports Leaders helps develop leadership skills through sport. Some focus on specific qualities, such as Channel 4, which has developed online games that help foster resilience and well-being in young people. Others focus on making subject knowledge areas more engaging, such as Discovering Language. Some of our partners offer alternative forms of assessment. One example is the Certificate of Personal Effectiveness from ASDAN (Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network). Another is the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) – a tool that measures young people’s “learning power” along seven dimensions. Some of our partners – like Building Learning Power, RSA Opening Minds, and Learning Futures – encompass many of the points above (see footer).

  All but a few of our partners are non-profit organizations, and their projects range in size from the largest, ASDAN, which works with over two thirds of all secondary schools in England to smaller, innovative projects and organizations doing very exciting work in a few schools. All share a passionate commitment to the beliefs and mission of Whole Education.

  That mission is to ensure that all young people have access to a holistic education, as reflected in the above three points, within ten years. In pursuit of that goal, we have three operational aims we are focused on in the next three years:

  • To support the development and spread of “whole education” practice in schools;
  • To engage schools and a wider group of stakeholders (i.e. young people, parents, local communities and employers) to collectively influence policy;
  • To create a sustainable organization capable of delivering against our mission.

  In December 2010, our first annual conference (entitled What Are Schools For?) was a sellout. School leaders, academics, and employers in attendance all agreed that we need to provide young people with a more rounded education, and that the skills and qualities employers are seeking are the same skills and qualities that young people need for life, to build relationships, and to be happy. This led to a full-page article in The Times.[6] Since then, we have embarked on a series of events (entitled Whose Curriculum Is It Anyway?) targeted specifically at school leaders. These events allowed school leaders to engage with our 30 partner organizations in one place, encouraged them to be creative with their curriculum and to “look out, not up” (to government) when planning the curriculum.

  At these events, we encourage schools to join the Whole Education Network so that they can continue to learn and engage with our partners and – more importantly – with each other. Within less than six months more than 200 schools have signed up. We aim to have 1,250 by August 2012 and 3,000 by August 2013. Key nodes in the network will be “champion schools” that are high performing on league tables, but also passionately committed to providing a holistic education and supporting other schools to do so. An initial analysis of the 150 secondary schools in the network so far shows their academic results exceed the national average by approximately 10 percent, and 90 percent are showing an upward trajectory in results. It appears that the schools attracted to Whole Education so far are those that might be seen to be leading the system.

  Our aim is to spread whole education practices among and within all schools. However, focusing on that alone will not help us achieve our mission. Early focus group research showed that young people, parents, teachers, and employers already agree with our views. So, in a sense, within the education community we are preaching to the converted. We need to influence the wider system to recognize that education is more than getting the exam results you need to get into the best university – important though that is for most young people.

  This is where our second aim is key – engaging a much wider group of stakeholders. If we can add growing numbers of young people, parents, community members, and employers making the same case, this will become a movement.

  The early signs are positive. We are working with a few large businesses that are keen to engage with Whole Education Network schools to offer work experience opportunities. Through one of our partners, Space Unlimited, we will be working with young people to help “refresh” these businesses’ work experience programs to improve the experience for all. We are also discussing plans to support the development of Whole Education towns and villages, to explore what it will look like to have local communities working together – young people, scouts, girl guides, sports teams, local employers, parents…and more – to help all young people develop the skills, qualities, and knowledge they will need for the future.

  Our main aim in the next three years around influencing policy is to be both “unignorable” and a constructive partner with government. Our activities so far have been mainly reactive. We are coordinating a campaign in response to the English Baccalaureate, which we believe will have an overall negative impact. However, rather than negative campaigning, we are building on a groundswell of opposition to focus on what “A Better Baccalaureate” would look like.[7]

  If we meet our goals – if in three years we have 3,000 schools actively engaged in our network, with 30 champion schools at the heart of that network that are deemed by the system to be outstanding – our ability to influence government and policymakers will grow. If we have large numbers of young people and parents supporting our beliefs, we will be a powerful voice that government cannot ignore. If we can show what towns and villages can achieve by working together in support of young people, we will be demonstrating the Big Society in action. And if we have big employers actively endorsing what we are doing, will have a significant impact on those who make decisions about the policies governing our education system.

  If we have large numbers of young people and parents supporting our beliefs, we will be a powerful voice that government cannot ignore.

  For now though, most of our focus is on supporting schools committed to providing a whole education and – through the Whole Education Network – helping them to do so. If you want to follow us on our journey visit www.wholeeducation.org or email douglas@wholeeducation.org

  EN BREF – Le fossé entre ce que procurent les systèmes d’éducation et ce qu’il faut aux enfants et aux jeunes s’élargit. L’accent mis sur les tests et la réussite aux examens nuit au développement d’autres compétences et qualités qui sont tout aussi vitales aujourd’hui. Le réseau Whole Education (éducation entière) a vu le jour en Angleterre en 2010 afin de relever ce défi. Il s’agit essentiellement d’un groupe d’organisations partenaires qui travaillent avec un nombre croissant d’écoles qui désirent aider les jeunes à se développer de façon plus holistique. Whole Education vise à constituer un partenaire constructif qui collabore avec les écoles, les responsables de politiques et un large éventail de parties prenantes afin d’aider les jeunes à acquérir toute la gamme des compétences, qualités et connaissances qu’il leur faut pour vivre et travailler au 21e siècle. Son objectif plus large consiste à exercer de l’influence sur la société et à lancer un « mouvement » qui se répercutera sur les responsables de politiques.

  ---

  Whole Education Partners at Work

  RSA Opening Minds is an imaginative competency-based curriculum that meets the requirements of the national curriculum and examining bodies. Teachers design and develop a curriculum for their own schools based around the development of five key competences: citizenship, learning, managing information, managing situations, and relating to people. It offers students a more holistic and coherent way of learning which allows them to make connections and apply knowledge across different subject areas. http://www.rsaopeningminds.org.uk/

  Learning Futures focuses on learner engagement. Students are encouraged to have a “deep engagement” with learning, caring both about the outcome and the development of their learning. The belief is that learning should connect students’ academic and personal lives; foster a sense of value and agency; extend beyond examinations to independent informal learning; appeal and matter to students.

  Learning Futures schools have co-constructed four principles for enhanced school engagement:

  • Enquiry based learning, often within an extended project.
  • School as “base camp” where learning is organized, taking students into their communities and further afield.
  • Extended, reciprocal learning relationships­ – peer to peer, student-teacher, or involving parents, external mentors, businesses, external experts, and others.
  • School as a “common ground”, with all its users sharing access to its resources and responsibility for its development

  http://www.learningfutures.org/

  Building Learning Power (BLP) helps young people become better learners, both in school and out, by systematically cultivating habits and attitudes that enable young people to face difficulty and uncertainty. These include the 4R’s: resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness, and reciprocity. BLP offers a wide range of practical seeds and frameworks that stimulate and guide the development of culture change in the classroom. 
  http://www.buildinglearningpower.co.uk/

  ---

  [1] http://www.thersa.org/projects/past-projects/education-campaign/education-for-the-21st-century-a-charter

  [2] CBI Building for Growth: business priorities for education and skills; Education and Skills Survey (2011)

  [3] Department for Education (2010) – www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/STR/d000987/index.shtml; www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/feb/24/neets-statistics

  [4] Unicef, Child Well Being in Rich Countries

  [5] House of Commons Education Select Committee Report: www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmeduc/851/85102.htm

  [6] “How a Holistic Approach to Education can Help Business,” The Times, 10 December 2010.

  [7] www.abetterbaccalaureate.org

• Cdn EdWire: The Pros and Cons of Banning School Fundraising

  September 16, 2011 7:01 PM Comments Off on Cdn EdWire: The Pros and Cons of Banning School Fundraising

  Ban school fundraising, province urged – Toronto Star

  Fundraising ban would hurt schools, educators say – Toronto Star

  Chris Selley: How is this a public school system? – National Post

  Report card: Sizing up Ontario’s education system – CTV

  Three cheers for exams! GTA school credits test gains to warm-ups – Toronto Star

  ‘Vote against kids’ parodies attack-style ads – Toronto Star

  OTHER NEWS

  Canadian public school boards recruit foreign students to boost coffers –Globe and Mail

  The Global Search for Education: How to Support Your Education System – Huffington Post Canada

  New high school textbook aimed at aboriginal youth means business – Globe and Mail

  Student surge hits Catholic system – Calgary 
  Extra teachers needed to handle crunch – Calgary Herald

  Sex workers, genital mutilation not suitable topics for children: TDSB – National Post

  What news am I missing? Can you recommend some education blogs for me to follow? Please tweet me at @max_cooke, e-mail me at mcooke@cea-ace.ca or better yet, use the comment box below to suggest additional articles happening in your region so that others can check it out. 

  INTERNATIONAL

  Where Did All the Male Teachers Go? France Worries That Boy Students May Be Suffering – Le Figaro

  EDUBLOG HIGHLIGHTS

  Michael Fullan and Advice on Moving Forward – Culture of Yes (Chris Kennedy)
  Michael Fullan is one of the architects of the current government of Ontario’s platform on education (here), and has recently written a widely cited paper Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform, which I have previously blogged about here.

  While his most prominent work is with Ontario, Fullan has been working, on and off, with school districts and the Ministry of Education in British Columbia for more than twenty years as well.  This past week, along with two others very involved with innovation projects around the world, Valerie Hannon and Tony Mackay, Fullan spent a full day working with school superintendents highlighting several key concepts in the context of our work in BC…

  Supportive Assessment – For the Love of Learning (Joe Bower)
  I often talk to teachers and parents about assessment. I simplify assessment into two steps. First you collect information about a student’s learning and then you share it with others. Collect and share. That’s it. Sounds simple, right? Well, there’s a couple caveats. First, any information collected should be done based on what students are learning while doing projects that are in a context and for a purpose.

  Second, the collecting and the sharing of this information should be done by the kids and not simply to them. Just like how the best kinds of learning is done by children rather than to them, the same goes for assessment…

  Learner First – The Principal of Change (George Couros)
  “Boredom continues to be a leading cause of our high school dropout rate.”  Tony Wagner, The Global Achievement Gap 

  I was so intrigued by a video that was created by Rod Lucier’s cohort at the Learning 2.011 conference(and this reflection that you should read) this last week in Shanghai that I wanted to share it.  The basics of the video show the boredom of students as they sit through the traditional lecture or “drill-and-kill” type teaching that has happened in schools.  A student dreams about the opportunities for hands on learning that is interactive and collaborative.  I remember sitting through these classes during my time in high school usually thinking about anything else other than what was being taught…

• Canada as an Immigrant Nation: Implications for Educators Excerpts from an interview with John Ralston Saul

  September 12, 2011 2:29 PM Comments Off on Canada as an Immigrant Nation: Implications for Educators Excerpts from an interview with John Ralston Saul

  The kind of immigration and citizenship that we’re doing reasonably comfortably here in Canada causes horror and dismay and fear at far lower levels among all our allies.  We mustn’t underestimate this. We’re caught up in OECD, NATO, G8, G20 – and all of these people are frightened by the idea of immigrants – new people arriving in their countries.  And so, they’re creating an atmosphere of fearing the other, fearing the outsider. You see this happening in Europe all the time, you see it happening in the United States, building walls.  So fear is becoming the dominant atmosphere, particularly in the Western Civilization, and we have a limited period of time to act with enormous self-confidence as Canadians to say, “Actually, we don’t agree. Actually, we’re not doing it your way. Actually, on purpose we’re doing it a different way, and it’s our way, and it works.  We’re not saying you have to do what we’re doing. We’re not saying that we’re smarter than you. But we are saying, ‘Listen, we know how to do this, we’ve been at this for 400 years, we’ve been getting better and better at it.’” Even when we don’t have sufficient programming and government support, it’s still a very interesting, unusual, and particular thing we’re doing. If we start slipping on that in our schools – let alone elsewhere – then we’ll be in big trouble.

  We’re caught up in OECD, NATO, G8, G20 – and all of these people are frightened by the idea of immigrants – new people arriving in their countries.  And so, they’re creating an atmosphere of fearing the other, fearing the outsider.

  What is the source of the Canadian idea of immigration and citizenship and multiplicity and complexity? 

  Where does it come from? Go back to England; it doesn’t exist there.  They spent 500 years banning Gaelic and getting rid of as many competing cultures as possible, and putting forward this very monotone culture; the French – they banned every language they could get their hands on, and turned themselves into this idea of the Gaulois, single language, single myth. So, it doesn’t come from our mother countries. It doesn’t come from the United States, which in many ways is a European culture with the melting pot – the European idea that everybody becomes the same.  So you’re stuck with this intellectual conundrum.  Did we just invent this out of the air? Does it have no roots? Does it come from nowhere? 

  This question has a direct effect on the way we should be teaching citizenship in our schools. 

  [Looking back to the earliest European settlement of Canada, we see] 1,600, more or less, immigrants arriving in the country, and they are basically poverty-stricken, ill-educated, not well washed, and pretty hungry people from France.  And then there are some equally ill-educated, poverty-stricken, lost Scots with the Hudson Bay Company. Generally speaking, immigrants who came to Canada were poor and more often than not the losers, and they found two million people here who actually were doing not too badly, thank you… and for 250 years those people were the dominant force here.  So what happened?  They used the Aboriginal model of welcoming the outsider, getting them in the circle, providing they followed a certain minimal number of rules.  And once they’re in the circle, you work out how to fit them into the society…what their contribution is going to be.  You balance the individual with the group as opposed to putting them against each other, which is the European tradition.  And, there you are, they’re the citizens. 

  It was the old Aboriginal idea of the circle.  That changes radically the way we ought to be thinking about and therefore teaching Canadian citizenship, and the roots of Canadian citizenship.  

  So that’s where it comes from. It was the old Aboriginal idea of the circle.  That changes radically the way we ought to be thinking about and therefore teaching Canadian citizenship, and the roots of Canadian citizenship.  They do not lie in Britain; they do not lie in France; they lie in the people who were and are here, the Aboriginal people, and they’re not rational linear, they’re circular. They’re not looking for that metaphysical transformation of someone who is one thing into someone who is another.  Instead, it’s a much more complicated, relaxed, living with difference approach. Again, Aboriginal. 

  That’s a very, very big deal.  If you could get that into the heart of our education system, the kids would be so happy, because they’d know who they were, they’d know actually where they come from, and they wouldn’t be fiddling around with this kind of pretend Englishness and pretend Frenchness, and stuff that comes from Europe – and then, when they look at Europe, it doesn’t seem to fit.

• John Ralston Saul: Where is the Standardized Testing Trend Taking Us?

  August 31, 2011 5:44 PM Comments Off on John Ralston Saul: Where is the Standardized Testing Trend Taking Us?

  Author and essayist John Ralston Saul shares his thoughts about the ever-increasing focus on testing in K-12 education.

• Assessment As Learning: It’s time. Seriously.

  August 23, 2011 2:03 PM Comments Off on Assessment As Learning: It’s time. Seriously.

  “I’m just so afraid to take that leap,” a veteran English teacher said, to the understanding nods of others in the room.

  It is a sunny Saturday and the classroom where I am presenting to a group of educators pursuing their Masters looks out onto the shining waters of False Creek. The leap the English teacher refers to is the leap I took about 5 years ago when I stopped giving my students marks and started giving them feedback instead. I have paused in my Prezi after the bit about my assessment practices so we can discuss the ideas I have just shared. I understand her fear. So do others in the group, as evidenced by the wringing of hands and pursed lips.

  Many teachers still fear challenging the status quo when it comes to assessment. Sometimes a school’s leadership lacks the strength to speak against the traditional system of ranking that we now know does nothing for learning. Sometimes a community of powerful parents clings vociferously to this ranking system simply because it is familiar – after all, that’s how it was when they went to school. But here’s the rub: since they went to school, the world – the context in which we work and play – has changed in drastic and meaningful ways.

  In the past couple of decades, brain research and education research has transformed our understanding of learning. If we want to offer the opportunity for success to everyone then all learners must be offered the benefits of a learning system not the damage of a ranking system. A learning system will ensure that all learners “cross the stage with dignity and options.” Our future deserves that reality, and so do the students in our classrooms right now.

  Educators using assessment for learning are changing the status quo and anytime we change the status quo we face conflict. Conflict can be frightening but it doesn’t have to be paralyzing, especially with so much evidence to support us.

  All of this is on the tip of my tongue as I turn to the teacher who spoke of her fear, but before I respond another teacher pipes in: “Why not compromise and use rubrics but keep numbers? I mean, we can always go halfway, right? Just give those intimidating parents what they want, but use feedback too. We don’t have to do the whole thing right off. Why not ease people into it?”

  Here’s the thing. The research has been firm on the damage that marks-based systems do to learning. Once we know this, it is our moral imperative to do better. Assessment for and as learning is better.

  The English teacher who spoke of her fear at shifting her assessment practice stands in the same place as many others all over the country, but the gap over which she must leap is getting smaller. More research, more practitioners’ experience, more success and more understanding make that gap smaller every day. I understand that the gap exists. But it is time to jump.

  Here is an article published by Education Canada that discusses how I first jumped. Dan Meyers, an educator in California, has a presentation about how he jumped. If you’re ready to talk the logistics of your jump, please comment below! Ready… set …

• School’s Out For The Summer. What A Silly Thing To Do!

  July 2, 2011 4:42 PM Comments Off on School’s Out For The Summer. What A Silly Thing To Do!

  Finally, summer has arrived.  School’s out and we can all frolic for 9 long weeks, by which time the euphoria of the moment will have faded and everyone will be quite excited to get back to school.  In the meantime students will forget a great deal and the productive habits and behaviours honed over the school year will have faded so that September will be devoted to getting back into the flow.  With what is often a drift through June, that makes for 17 weeks of lost learning, or one-third of the school year.

  In addition to the lost opportunity for all students, research shows that over the summer the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students grows so that increased inequity must be added to the negative side of the ledger.

  And why do we do this?  Simply because its a habit.  If there ever was a good reason, it is long forgotten and now irrelevant.  So, why not change it?

  How about shaving three weeks off the summer, which still leaves a healthy six weeks for foreign travel and lazy days at the cottage for those who can afford it, and adding this time onto mid-year breaks, perhaps one week to the winter break and two weeks to the spring break?  This would allow for three semesters, with three-week breaks after the fall and winter semesters, and six weeks after the spring semester.

  Evening out the year would enable more continuous learning, alleviate the downside of an excessively long summer and provide mid-year breaks that are actually long enough to be restorative.  The extended spring holiday in particular would undoubtedly benefit both students and teachers by breaking up the exhausting run from January to June.  Perhaps that and the slightly shortened summer would also reduce the inclination to coast through June and add productive learning time without extending the school year.

  Of course one could also divide up the year with three four-week breaks but the 3-3-6 pattern is less dramatic in its impact on all the established patterns of behaviour in families and communities.

  I am hard pressed to think of a logical reason that this would not be a better approach than what we do now.  It seems to be only inertia and lack of political will that stands in the way of a simple change that would be better for everyone.

  What do you think?

  
  

• Canadian Education Wire – Effects of Ministerial Belt Tightening Felt by Current and Would-be Teachers

  June 17, 2011 8:40 PM Comments Off on Canadian Education Wire – Effects of Ministerial Belt Tightening Felt by Current and Would-be Teachers

  Two-thirds of new teachers can’t find full time work – Macleans

  Teaching grads face slim prospects in crowded job market – Vancouver Sun

  Man considers abandoning dream of teaching – Fredericton Daily Gleaner

  Hundreds of teachers lost to budget cuts – Edmonton Journal

  Nunavut education department seeks $18M boost – Nunatsiaq News
  

  Group says it might sue over education cuts – Fredericton Daily Gleaner

  What news am I missing? Can you recommend some education blogs for me to follow? Please tweet me at @max_cooke, e-mail me at mcooke@cea-ace.ca or better yet, use the comment box below to suggest additional articles happening in your region so that others can check it out.

  OTHER EDUCATION NEWS

  Does year-round schooling make the grade? – Globe and Mail 

  Give students shorter summer holidays – Globe and Mail editorial

  Ottawa to support Inuit-English schooling – Canadian Press

  Iqaluit’s French-language school spreads its wings – Nunatsiaq News

  Many teens tap web for sex education: study – Canadian Press

  Choice of school sets stage for kids – Saskatoon Star Phoenix
  Full-day, all-day kindergarten a growing consideration for parents of young children

  New agreement reached for special needs students – Montreal Gazette

  Slave Lake grads scattered in aftermath of fire – Edmonton Journal

  Grade 10 literacy scores at lowest in four years – Ottawa Citizen

  Why teaching your kids to write (not just type) is important – Globe and Mail

  EQ over IQ: How play-based learning can lead to more successful kids – Globe and Mail

  Betrayed? Halton parents fume over high school proposal – Toronto Star 

  EDUCATION BLOG HIGHLIGHTS

  For you or for me? – The Principal of Change (George Couros)
  …But if both models work (Google and Microsoft – sic), why would we change our schools from the traditional model (Microsoft) to the more comfortable, yet still innovative (Google) model?  There is often this feeling that “work” has become a dirty word to many of our students, but it also seems that to many work is not something that makes you happy.  Why can’t you have both?  Why can’t we do amazing and innovative things, that are hard work, and enjoy it?  Sounds like flow to me.  When people are engaged and enjoy what they are doing, doesn’t the work and their own sense of value and purpose increase?  This doesn’t only make what we do better, but it makes why we do it more important.

  The Power of “THE NETWORK” – Culture of Yes (Chris Kennedy)
  We spend a lot of time talking about how our network influences our professional lives and how technology often assists in that networking. But, when B.C. educators talk about “THE NETWORK” it means something quite different.

  For more than a decade, the Network of Performance Based Schools – school-based teams with an administrator and teachers – have focussed on B.C. Performance Standards with some of the deepest, most powerful professional learning in our province.

  Instrumental to this professional learning, Judy Halbert and Linda  Kaser have brought a network of teachers and administrators together in ongoing conversations about improving education opportunities for all students.

  
  

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