MONTREAL, September 2, 2020 – Students, teachers, parents and guardians across Canada have had to make major adjustments to their daily lives in the midst of a global pandemic. To support our youth and to help them thrive in their educational journey, Desjardins is proud to announce new investments and programs with Kids Help Phone and the EdCan Network. Additionally, Desjardins is expanding its Desjardins Foundation Prizes to further support our youth.
All told, over $1.4M will be invested to provide much-needed support to students as they prepare to go back to school.
“Supporting education is important to Desjardins. For 120 years, Desjardins has been supporting our communities and working alongside them”, said Guy Cormier, President and CEO of Desjardins Group. “As students, teachers, parents and guardians across Canada prepare for a year unlike any other we wanted to reaffirm our commitment to our youth’s academic success, which is so vital to our nation’s future.”
As some young people prepare to return to school and others continue to learn virtually, Kids Help Phone and Desjardins are working together to ensure they have the resources and support they need during this transitional time. Kids Help Phone expects to make 3 million connections in 2020 compared to 1.9 million in 2019 and a 200% increase in web sessions.
In addition to providing resources for youth, adults and educators, Desjardins is supporting programs such as:
“Young people across Canada, and the adults who support them, are experiencing a wide-range of emotions going back-to-school during this global pandemic. Kids Help Phone has been there every day and night throughout these uncertain times” said Katherine Hay, President and CEO, Kids Help Phone. “On behalf of the youth in every province and territory, thank you Desjardins, you have helped to ensure our e-mental health services will continue to meet young people wherever they are, for whatever reason they need, however they need to reach us – it could not be more important, now more than ever! No problem is too small and no problem is too big, Kids Help Phone is here for young people 24/7.”
As many students continue to learn virtually, equitable access to technology is crucial to their academic success. Desjardins and EdCan are working together to help students and schools that may need support in obtaining computers and other tech-based learning tools. A new three-year partnership will support students to help close the gap caused by the lack of access to technology.
“The ongoing pandemic has heightened the challenges of too many students who were already more at risk for marginalization,” says EdCan CEO Max Cooke. “Our network is pleased to collaborate with Desjardins to provide technology to as many of these students as possible so that they can thrive.”
In addition to new partnerships, Desjardins continues to support students and the community through Desjardins Foundation Prizes. These prizes are awarded to schools and non-profit organizations who need financial assistance to carry out projects that help elementary and high school students. Since 2016, over 1,000 projects have been supported with more than 150,000 youth positively impacted. In addition to Ontario and Quebec, the 2020 program has been expanded to also include Alberta and New Brunswick. The application window will be open from October 5th to 26th.
“Desjardins is taking concrete action and working with various partners and the community to stimulate the academic success of our youth. It’s crucial to our socio-economic future and we will continue to help students achieve their goals and dreams during these uncertain times,” said Guy Cormier.
About Kids Help Phone
Kids Help Phone is Canada’s only 24/7 e-mental health service offering free, confidential support in English and French to young people. As the country’s virtual care expert, we give millions of youth a safe, trusted space to talk over phone and through text in any moment of crisis or need. Through our digital transformation, we envision a future where every person in Canada is able to get the support they need, when they need it most, however they need it. Kids Help Phone gratefully relies on the generosity of donors, volunteers, stakeholder partners, corporate partners and governments to fuel and fund our programs. Learn more at www.KidsHelpPhone.ca or @KidsHelpPhone.
About the EdCan Network
The EdCan Network has maintained its 129-year tradition as the only national, nonpartisan, bilingual organization representing 110,000 educators across Canada. Our role as an intermediary connects K-12 education systems across the country by producing and disseminating authoritative and evidence-based, yet accessible content that is trusted by educators, parents, and policymakers alike. EdCan aims to improve education policies that heighten equity and support deeper learning (i.e. a combination of the fundamental knowledge and practical basic skills all students need to succeed), and expanding the reach of educational resources in an effort to bridge the research-implementation gap.
Playing and designing games have been of interest to K-12 educators as ways to support student learning. Parents are also increasingly accepting of video and board games as their choice of family activity, based on a 2018 survey by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada finding that 71% of Canadian parents play video games with their children. Game-Based Learning involves learning situations where children play or design games – whether digital, physical, or table-top games – in which they solve problems and gradually develop new knowledge and skills. Games have been found to improve students’ motivation and cognitive development, such as memory and reasoning.
Research demonstrates that Game-Based Learning enhances essential life skills that are foundational to a child’s development. In particular, Game-Based Learning provides students with an interactive learning experience where they have the opportunity to use and develop many different cognitive, social, and physical skills. Problem solving, critical thinking, strategy development, decision making, and teamwork are some of the many skills that games can provide.
Clark, D. B., Tanner-Smith, E. E., & Killingsworth, S. S. (2016). Digital games, design, and learning: A Systematic review and meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 86(1), 79–122. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315582065
Entertainment Software Association of Canada. (2018). Essential facts about the Canadian video game industry 2018. http://theesa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/ESAC18_BookletEN.pdf
Gee, J. P. (2008). Learning and Games. In K. Salen (Ed.), The ecology of games: Connecting youth, games, and learning(pp. 21–40). MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ecology-games
Jaques, S., Kim, B., Shyleyko-Kostas, A., & Takeuchi, M. A. (2019). “I Just won against myself!”: Fostering early numeracy through board game play and redesign. Early Childhood Education, 26(1), 22–29. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/111252
Kim, B., & Bastani, R. (2017). Students as game designers: Transdisciplinary approach to STEAM Education. Special Issue of the Alberta Science Education Journal, 45(1), 45–52. https://sc.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/ASEJVol45No1November2017.pdf
Kim, B. & Bastani, R. (2018). How Inversé merged with Go: (re)designing games as mathematical and cultural practices. In Proceedings of the 5thInternational STEM in Education Conference (pp.166-172). Brisbane, Australia: Queensland University of Technology. https://stem-in-ed2018.com.au/proceedings-2/
Koabel, G. (2017). Simulating the ages of man: Periodization in Civilization V and Europa Universalis IV. The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association, 10(17), 60-76. https://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/192
Sardone, N. B., & Devlin-Scherer, R. (2016). Let the (Board) Games Begin: Creative Ways to Enhance Teaching and Learning. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 89(6), 215–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/00098655.2016.1214473
Squire, K. (2006). From content to context: Videogames as designed experience. Educational Researcher, 35(8), 19–29. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X035008019
Qian, M., & Clark, K. R. (2016). Game-based learning and 21st century skills: A review of recent research. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 50–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.023
Zimmerman, E. (2009). Gaming literacy: Game design as a model for literacy in the twenty-first century. The video game theory reader, 2(23-32). http://www.neliufpe.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/08.pdf
Why do children’s scores on creativity tests decline steeply through their schooling years? Schools have been blamed for stifling creativity, but Gerber argues there are other factors: in particular, the development of the capacity for logic and reason.
Have you ever had one of those moments where, in what seems to present itself as a sudden flash of insight, you recognize that something you had previously considered to be an unequivocal truth might not hold up quite so strongly? I have, and I’m still thinking about it, so I’d like to invite you on my journey up to this point.
Schools should foster creativity, and there are very few people who would assert otherwise. Education reform speakers call for increased focus on creativity development, and the B.C. curriculum places creative thinking as an essential target for core competency development. Yet in the last two decades it has often been suggested that schools, unfortunately, have precisely the opposite effect – that schools kill creativity.
Sir Ken Robinson made this idea popular in his viral Ted talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”1 Citing research that sought to measure creativity in populations of people, Robinson projects a wonderfully impactful chart which illustrates the percentage of people who score at the genius level by age group. The trend is staggeringly clear; a straight down-angled line connects the data points between five-year-olds who score in the genius range for divergent thinking (at 95 percent), ten-year-olds (32 percent), and 15-year-olds (10 percent). “There is something happening to our children,” Sir Ken remarks. “School kills creativity, and that has to change.”
The polemical nature of the “school kills creativity” proclamation is effective for instilling a passion for change and better serving students, but it also causes me to wonder: are schools, in fact, the raison d’être for the decline of students’ creativity as they proceed through the education system?
Or is it possible that we are not considering the larger picture?
Think back to when you were young, as far back as your memory allows. I recall running about the house with a towel adorning my shoulders – convinced, unequivocally, that human flight was in my immediate future. One more push, a more forceful thrust of my arms, or jumping a little higher… I knew it was only a matter of when and not if I would fly like Superman. I’m guessing that you can also recall examples that showcase your childhood creative genius and belief in possibility. I can’t imagine that our God-given abilities are so easily lost as a result of our education system.
There are some things other than schooling that take place during those years of growth that, I believe, may have more to do with explaining our diminishing creativity – something less sinister, and something more sinister. Let’s consider these in turn.
First, as we age we grow in our ability to think, or to ratiocinate, which literally means to process and consider rationally and logically. When I was a child, I believed that a hero-esque endowment of flight was possible, and I acted according to that belief. I jumped. I leapt. I bounded into the air off flights of stairs, couches, and bookshelves. Over time – thankfully not too much time – the bruises and sprained ankles taught me that my belief might not reign within reasonable expectation. And as I think of this, I recognize something profound: reason tempers creative expression. I wonder, is it possible that Sir Ken’s measurement of creativity, exemplified by how many uses an individual can think of for a paper clip, favours quantity and not the quality of divergent thinking?
As one’s ability to think and reason increases, we should expect that many creative inclinations are filtered. I have bad, yet innovative ideas frequently, but I don’t act on or share them because I recognize that they don’t merit an audience. Older people will presumably not think of as many uses for a paper clip because they know what a paperclip can (and can’t) do, and thus discard possibilities that seem to lack value. The expression of creative ideation is reduced as a natural consequence of growth, development, and the maturation of logical thinking – not necessarily by being choked out by the hands of schooling. In fact, Kyung Hee Kim’s research shows that although a student’s creative Fluency score decreases as he progresses through the grade levels, his ability to elaborate on ideas, diversify areas of consideration, and stick with and develop ideas increase over the same timeframes.2 (For graphs of every measure tracked in this study, see below:)
But there is also something more sinister which comes into play – something that begins as a small weed and often grows over the years, potentially muting our willingness to engage our innate creativity. As many of us age, we stop believing in possibility, an essential ingredient fueling curiosity, the desire to explore,3 and one’s investment in creativity. Schooling, as Sir Ken Robinson points out, plays a significant role in shaping the thinking habits of children. Many teachers focus on the attainment of specific knowledge and thereby perpetuate a foundational ideological alignment with the idea that there always exists a “right” answer. Being “right” is rewarded. Being “wrong” is stigmatized and often penalized. Too often, content-focused teaching fails to recognize that a student’s ability to be “wrong” is an essential ingredient for seeing and pursuing possibility.
Creativity empowered breeds revision. It is fostered through a willingness to try, recognizing that there is always more we can learn through experiencing failure.
Failure left uncelebrated feeds into new conceptualizations of limitation. My dream of human flight died with my final plop to the floor, accompanied by the laughter and ridicule of siblings. What might have become of my passion if I had been encouraged to rework the idea, to trade in the towel-cape and seek out increasingly reasoned approaches? (Perhaps the Wright brothers had similar beginnings.) Creativity empowered breeds revision. It is fostered through a willingness to try, recognizing that an idea only dies when we accept our last failure as final.4 There is always more we can learn through experiencing failure.
It is, then, the role of the teacher to foster seeing possibility by reframing failure, to take time to consider whimsy, and to teach students how what might first be regarded as a bad or weak idea can often be reworked into a good one. Focus on asking questions over providing answers – on exploration over giving directives. Provide students with time to reason through the merit of their ideas. Facilitate and coach students to think by considering the answers to the questions, “What if?” or “How might?” or “What’s next?”5
I have never met a teacher who entered the profession with a vision of producing die-cut student minions. Instead, they became teachers because of a deep desire to help students live into and reach their potential. We learn (and teach) so that we might expose new potential solutions, insights, or abilities and then press into, or live into, those possibilities. Teachers strive to recognize possibility within the landscape of every student’s individual giftedness, then work to nurture their unique complement of talents.
How do we do this?
Spend time dreaming, on your own and with your students. Acknowledge that sometimes the dreams that seem crazy may just be the seed of the next idea that changes the world, then empower an attitude to try. Shakespeare said it well in Measure for Measure: “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” If we give up on something, it is finished. Where we continue to believe in possibility, creativity knows very few limits.
Photo: iStock
First published in Education Canada, June 2020
1 TEDTalks: Sir Ken Robinson, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” (New York, N.Y: Films Media Group, 2009).
2 K. Kim, “The Creativity Crisis: The decrease in creative thinking scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking,” Creativity Research Journal 23, no. 4 (2011): 285-295.
3 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, How People Learn II: Learners, contexts, and cultures (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2018), 149.
4 R. Beghetto, “Taking Beautiful Risks in Education,” The Arts and Creativity in Schools 76, no. 4 (2018): 18-24.
5 Kolb, David & Kolb, Alice. (2017). The Experiential Educator: Principles and Practices of Experiential Learning.
Five B.C. educators with different roles and a shared interest in supporting well-being, came together in a collaborative project to grow well-being across the Langley school district. Here’s how they did it, and what they learned from the process.
What started out as four individuals from different work roles, each of us having a shared goal of supporting well-being in schools, has become a collaborative passion project to grow and sustain well-being across our district. Through this article, we look back on our journey of learning and collaborating, reflecting on some of the insights we have gained about supporting staff well-being in school districts.
Thanks to an assistant superintendent who saw an unusual, but natural, alignment in our work, we formed our district wellness team in the fall of 2017. We each had different but complementary roles – a district principal for student services, a district teacher/counsellor and a human resources manager. We also brought a health authority partner onto our team, providing a valuable broader view of the communities within which the students and educators work and live.
We started our plans with a district-wide learning series on social emotional learning and well-being, to help staff understand the importance of this learning in schools and the amazing outcomes these skills and practices provide around student health, happiness and success. It became apparent that these were the same skills and practices that we needed to build as adults, both so we could model and teach them to students and for our own health and happiness. We were starting to see the importance of adult well-being to positive outcomes for both the adults and the students.
We decided to make teacher and staff well-being our project focus. One of our first objectives was to gain an awareness of how our staff were doing, and to understand their sense of well-being at work. We wanted to gather people together to start a discussion and generate some ideas to support well-being in our district. As with many exciting and challenging tasks, this project became much more complex than we anticipated, and also very rich and rewarding. We are now at the stage of reflecting on all that we have learned, to inform our plans for how to continue the work of supporting teacher and staff well-being in our district. We’d like to share some of the themes that have emerged for us so far as we analyze and reflect on our experiences and data.
Our work to date has underscored that well-being is holistic, encompassing interconnecting aspects. In particular, we have become aware of three important facets of staff well-being.
1. Well-being is individual. An important part of increasing well-being lies with the individual person. This assumption was our starting point, and it has remained an important aspect of how we understand well-being as holistic and interconnected. Focusing on growing staff well-being had us thinking about how to support practices of self-awareness and self-care. Much of the first year of our project was learning about social emotional skills and bringing that back to the district as learning conversations in the workplace. We found that sometimes just acknowledging that self-care matters and sharing what that looks like can go a long way in supporting people to take care of themselves, especially in helping professions where we are so used to caring for others.
2. Well-being is relational. The second interconnected part that became very clear is that well-being is relational and that we are better together, both in terms of productivity/success and in terms of health, happiness and overall well-being. The main focus of our second year was on the relational aspects in our well-being work. This led us to connect with Dr. Sabre Cherkowski. She was completing a multi-year research project on teacher well-being, where she and her colleague, Dr. Keith Walker, had built a theoretical and practical understanding of what it means for educators to flourish in their work.1 Her research was framed within a positive organizational perspective that highlighted how focusing on and supporting positive human capacities at work, such as compassion, humility, kindness, and forgiveness, had a positive and generative affect that often led to increases in other aspects of work such as creativity, productivity, innovation, and commitment to the organization.
We were interested in Dr. Cherkowski’s research approach of using a strength-based, appreciative perspective to notice and nurture what was already working well and what already gives staff a sense of well-being in their work. We were also interested in learning more about an appreciative approach to positive change, focusing on what happens when the whole system is invited into the conversation to reflect on how we might promote and support well-being across our district. With Dr. Cherkowski and the consent of our district, we designed a continuation of our learning series, inviting staff across the district to join us for three dinner events that offered an opportunity to:
At each event, Dr. Cherkowski guided some 150 attendees through a sequence of reflections and activities focused on:
The conversations that emerged created a safe, caring, uplifted environment where colleagues shared their dreams and desires in their work, as well as their challenges and struggles. The evenings became a space for building the relational processes necessary for the work of nurturing well-being for self and others in our own work contexts.
We observed that teams and individuals were now working on plans to connect what they were learning about flourishing to things they might try out in their context. One example was a principal who designed a “tree of flourishing” that she took to her teachers and staff. She suggested they fill out all the ways that they, their students, and their school community were experiencing well-being. As they filled out the tree over a course of a few weeks and posted it around the school, this gave them a sense of pride and ownership for all that was working well. It also provided a touchpoint for conversations around struggles and challenges, as there was a sense of being cared for by a larger community that was working together to tend to the entire tree. Within the challenging and seemingly never-ending work of meeting school goals for all students, this principal developed a tool that evoked a sense of hope, of joy, and of agency about being well together at work.
While participants in our dinner series were working on their inquiries, we were planning to find out more about how teachers and staff were doing with their well-being. We decided to conduct focus groups with teachers and staff in different roles. Our deeper learning from these focus groups is still to come as we work with this valuable data, but we have already learned some things from this process. The first is to bring your district leadership and your union groups into the process early. This was such a helpful process and a good reminder that everyone wants well-being. We are all working toward a common goal. The second one is that health and well-being is something people want to talk about. People want to tell their stories and they want to be heard. If you are going to ask the questions, you have to be prepared to listen to the answers and be willing to co-create a plan that moves discussion into action.
3. Well-being is system-wide. Reminding ourselves to engage in our change work from the level of the system is an especially important piece, even though it often proves difficult to navigate and implement. Our commitment to growing staff well-being across the district meant that we needed to think about the system in all its interrelated parts to embed well-being for the long term. Looking back at our approach through a systems-lens, we:
We have learned that systems are relational entities, and that we need to take care to avoid assigning blame to any part of the system as a separate actor. At the same time, we need to avoid always looking outside the system for our solutions. We have come to understand that “we” are also the system – individuals and groups carrying out our work together toward shared goals, influencing and impacting all other parts of the system. There can be a feeling of empowerment in knowing that we are the ones who inform, create and follow (or not) the policies and practices of “the system.” Many of these practices are helpful to keep things moving. They create a sense of order and common understanding that help define and support our work. It can also be frustrating to realize that our implication in the system also means that many of our practices and our ways of doing things come from a historical context that is no longer applicable or helpful to us. As we learn more about systems change we are building the courage to look at our ways of working compassionately and to be open to the possibilities that follow.
As we begin to understand the interconnectedness of the system, we are also reminded that the feeling of efficacy around systems change is also very important. There is a balance between knowing that some larger changes take time and will require patience, and that other small actions can happen quickly. Focusing our attention on the ways these small changes can impact the larger system over time and contribute to well-being is at the heart of Cherkowski and Walker’s work on flourishing in schools. We are developing a sense of agency, a power to be able co-create an emerging future where decisions and practices around well-being become a primary component of our culture: the way we do things.
One of our most important learnings so far, and what may turn out to be the “secret sauce” for the work of growing well-being for all in schools, is the importance of bringing in multiple voices and ways of knowing. We also need time, space and resources for this work to become sustainable. A few passionate people cannot do this alone or in their “spare time” without it impacting their own health and well-being. In the next part of our journey we will expand our team and look at ways to make this work sustainable and impactful for the long term.
Illustration: iStock
First published in Education Canada, June 2020
1 S. Cherkowski and K. Walker, K. Teacher Wellbeing: Noticing, nurturing, and sustaining flourishing in schools (Burlington, ON: Word and Deed Press, 2018).
On Instagram, a quote from Stuart Shanker’s Mehrit Centre pops: “It’s not misbehaviour, it’s stress behaviour and how you react will make all the difference.”
I philosophically believe the statement. As a Vice-Principal, I work with my staff to build a welcoming and understanding school. But I saw the true power of that message the day my daughter quit her job.
Sixteen was tough. For my daughter, it brought an utter disconnect from school. There were suspensions, missed credits, and daily attendance calls. We had loud fights, and I’d let her go for a walk afterwards because she needed it, even though I was scared she might not come home.
School has never been easy for her. At age eight, she was diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder, which affects the nerves running between her ears, blurring the sounds before they reach her brain. Because she can’t process sounds clearly, it is hard for her to decode words and writing is difficult.
In Grade 8, there was a test she didn’t study for and failed dismally. She told me it was on Lois Reilly and the Mets. I searched my brain for any knowledge of a Lois Reilly in Canadian History, and the Mets… all I could think of was the baseball team.
Slowly I connected the dots. “Do you mean Louis Riel and the Métis?”
That was it. In class, she had worked on writing the notes while the teacher had talked. She couldn’t focus on both. It was all in her Individual Education Plan, but her disability is invisible, and often people only see a disengaged teenager. People don’t understand her needs, so she shuts down.
Her work life was good, though. McDonald’s hired her, and she liked it. She loved the kitchen camaraderie and the money. McDonald’s was structured. First, she learned the deep fryer, then the grill, and then the prepping area.
This success gave me hope. With work, I saw the girl I’ve always known.
Then they moved her to the front counter. Some voices were easy for her, but some she couldn’t hear at all. Stress seeped into her workplace. I told her to explain her situation to the manager, but acknowledging differences is hard at 16. She started showing up late and missing shifts. Then she no longer had a job.
Months later, she was hired at Subway for one three-hour shift a week. When people ordered specialty sandwiches she couldn’t remember the toppings, and when she asked her co-workers for help, they told her to read the support sheet. But with a line-up of people, processing written instructions was stressful. The complaints about work began.
Circumstances didn’t help. She traded one shift, but her co-worker cancelled en route. The next week, she wrote her schedule down incorrectly. Her boss texted her halfway through the shift, and she was hysterical.
“I’m going to get fired. I’m not ready for a job right now.”
I managed to get her to text him back, but he wanted to speak with her.
“I’m going to quit,” she said. “I can’t do this.”
On the phone, she took full responsibility for missing her shifts. She apologized and then gave her two-weeks’ notice.
And instead of accepting her resignation, her boss asked her why. He told her she’d been doing a great job and that both customers and staff had said positive things about her.
She told him everything. She told him about her hearing and that reading instructions when there was a line-up was stressful. She said the shifts were too short and too few, so that she had to re-learn everything each time. She said she’d mentioned she couldn’t work Tuesdays but kept getting her shift on Tuesdays.
Then he asked her what she needed.
Her answer was simple: longer shifts, more of them, and Tuesdays off.
He said he would work on it.
I cried from the other room.
The impact of that simple “why” was monumental. His questions gave her dignity and respect. She was able to acknowledge her challenges and identify what she needed. He listened to and supported her.
I wish for that in her classroom. I wish her teachers would ask her why, and that she felt comfortable enough to share her reality, but it doesn’t happen. Yet as educators we have that power. “It’s not misbehaviour, it’s stress behaviour and how you react will make all the difference.” It’s truer than we know.
Illustration: Dave Donald
First published in Education Canada, June 2020
Luigi Iannacci’s Reconceptualizing Disability in Education elevates the discussion of how we “do” school for learners with disabilities and outlines pedagogical practices and discourses that favourably shape the identities of such learners.
Iannacci’s narrative style will appeal to all levels of educators, from elementary to graduate schools of teacher education, and to scholars working in the areas of inclusion, special education, and literacy. I have used this book in both an undergraduate class and a graduate class on personalized learning, to elucidate the connections among inclusion, 21st century notions of student-centered practices, and the implications of using multiliteracies to reach the needs of all learners. The pre-service teachers in my class were particularly moved by Chapter 3’s recounting of the story Evan’s Paper Crane, a transformative anecdote about a student who finds joy and empowerment in becoming the “knower” and “the skillful one.” My graduate class was taken with both the scope and boldness of the writing, as Iannacci explains why current practices for students with disabilities are woefully inadequate, and calls for a reconceptualization of disability in education
This carefully crafted book will inspire educators to develop an inclusive learning environment informed by multiliteracies. Eschewing prescriptive strategies for setting up such an environment, Iannacci points to foundational principles that involve immersion in a variety of multimodal texts that enable literacy development for all students by thinking about them in asset-oriented ways, then differentiating instruction to ensure their success.
The book’s special chapter for parents provoked a productive discussion in my classes of how to approach and support the families of these learners.
It is rare to find a “good read” that also serves as an excellent reference text for educators who are advocating for learners with disabilities. This book does just that.
Photo: Dave Donald
First published in Education Canada, June 2020
Lexington Books, 2018. ISBN-13: 978-1498542753
One school board is giving students a hands-on taste of trades as early as Grade 7, in the belief that early awareness of the value of the trades will help them make more informed career choices when they graduate.
Six Grade 7 students cluster around the car as the Auto Mechanics instructor explains and traces the flow of electricity from the power supply in the vehicle. Next they will complete a hands-on activity where they build their own circuits on two separate lighting boards. Meanwhile, the students visiting the Vocational Health program are taking part in a state-of-the-art simulated medical intervention – one that they might experience as professionals in a hospital.
“Lester’s shaking! I think he’s having a seizure!”
“Justin! Call for help! Put the bed down!”
In the Electro-technology department, students have the opportunity to test circuits, and Electricity teachers provide a visual interactive display using a Google app voice activation to control lights.
The students are naturally curious and these hands-on introductions to various skilled trades, experienced as part of the Lester B. Pearson School Board’s inaugural “Doing is Believing” tour, fascinated them. They walked away from the experience realizing that vocational careers are combining the use of the highest technology and equipment with a hands-on approach. “Super cool” and “I love this” are expressions we heard often from students during the tour.
Introducing and exposing all students to the many skilled trade options as early as Grade 7 is embedded in the culture of the Lester B. Pearson School Board in Dorval, Quebec. It is a core belief that every student should understand the value of the trades and what programs are offered to ensure our students will be highly skilled and ready for the many challenges in their future careers.
For many years there has been a stigma that went along with the trades that only the “non-academic” or those that did not have the grades to enter university would consider the trades. In fact, there is a true shift occurring in the thinking about vocational programs; students in our schools who are the highest academic achievers are realizing the trades can offer “skills for life” and steady, well compensated, technical, creative and intellectually challenging and satisfying careers.
What better way to build curiosity and esteem for the trades than through action? The LBPSB Continuing Education department (Vocational Education) in partnership with the LBPSB Youth Sector, hosted its second annual Doing is Believing vocational centre tour in March 2020. The program offers every Grade 7 student in our school board (1,700 total) an opportunity to experience an insight into a variety of skilled trades in the following sectors: Beauty, Food Services, Health, Administration, Commerce and Computer Technology, Building and Public Works, Electro technology, Motorized Equipment Maintenance, and Arts. A unique aspect of the tour is that the Grade 7 teachers and administrators, many of whom have never visited a vocational centre, accompany the students. Pedagogical consultants and guidance counselors from the Youth Sector also lend a hand at the event and have their own opportunity to learn even more about the skilled trades offered.
It’s an important shift in post-secondary education planning for students, and very often parents. There can be a resistance or skepticism from parents about their children pursuing a vocational career instead of what they feel is a more valuable university education. We are working to inform parents and all stakeholders of the value of these valuable vocational careers through programs such as our Doing is Believing tour.
The Doing is Believing tour came about through partnerships built among trade schools, school boards, guidance counselors, teachers, administrators, and parents. It requires a huge commitment and planning on the part of our vocational centres to gear the program to a Grade 7 audience. All centres create a fun-filled hands-on learning experience for the younger students. The goal is that these students have a unique opportunity to experience a day in the life of a vocational centre. It is all about encouraging students to find their passion, work hard in school, and recognize the many educational choices they will have for careers in their future, whether that be skilled trades training, a technical program or university (see sidebar, “Quebec’s post-secondary system”). How can a student know what they want to be if they are not shown what they can be? One student, after visiting a mechanic on his tour, asked, “Why is a mechanic not a doctor? They have to fix a car or airplane to make it safe for passengers… and that’s a big responsibility.”
Maggie Soldano, Director of Continuing Education at LBPSB, and her team were very pleased with the success of the first annual Doing is Believing tour. “When I saw the faces of the Grade 7 students light up during the tours, I knew our goal was achieved. Not only did students take pictures to later share with their families, they also left the tour with knowledge of the many career opportunities offered through vocational education,” said Soldano.
The Doing is Believing tour is a large event; however, the key is to start small. Building partnerships between early high school and nearby vocational trade schools is the way to start. Schools can begin by inviting teachers and students from the trade schools to speak in their schools and to begin building those relationships. If there are several high schools in proximity to a trade school, perhaps a career fair can be planned where trade schools can showcase their programs. Students registered in trade schools can have a very powerful message to younger students about the value of a career in a skilled trade. In fact, many students currently in trade schools have already gained a university degree but have returned to further their skills by enrolling in a trade. Spending the time to cement these partnerships will help to ensure buy-in and success for future more complex initiatives.
Vocational education (skilled trades) are an integral part of education in Quebec. Many of the programs are a part of our public school system, with a DVS (Diploma of Vocational Studies) being attained in 6 to 18 months, depending on the program. Students may also pursue a technical three-year program in the Quebec Cégep system for programs such as Graphic Design, Medical Laboratory Technology, Police Technology, Business Administration, Youth and Adult Correction programs, and more. Alternatively, they may enter a two-year Cégep pre-university program leading on to a university degree.
Photo: Joan Zachariou, LBPSB
What can we learn from British Columbia’s system-wide educational transformation efforts to shift from a centralized standards-based curriculum toward flexible learning paths? Leyton Schnellert identifies the factors that have supported success.
British Columbia is undergoing large-scale change within its K-12 education system, with a commitment to transform education to better meet the needs of all learners. To be successful within and contribute to an evolving global context, B.C. is currently implementing a new curriculum designed for 21st century learners. Twenty-first century learners need to be flexible, creative and able to learn from and within a variety of real and virtual environments.1 B.C.’s new curriculum offers an opportunity for innovation and significant shifts in teaching practice.
B.C.’s current system-wide educational transformation efforts position the province as a global pioneer in the shift from a centralized standards-based curriculum toward flexible learning paths. Worldwide, the real challenge in education is not to reform systems but to transform them; not to fix them through a collection of disjointed efforts but to change systems through collaborative partnerships among the public, educational professionals, and governments. B.C.’s efforts aim to evolve an already successful educational system into one that takes into account current research on teaching and learning to prepare learners to succeed and lead in a changing world. In particular, the aim is for learners to develop the skills of “creative thinking, problem solving, initiative, curiosity, and the ability to lead and work well in groups.”2 To achieve this goal, notions of what needs to be learned, how, and where have changed significantly; these transformational changes require all stakeholders to take risks, develop innovative practices, and work together.
Fortunately, in B.C. there currently exist a number of promising professional development practices that support the above transformation. These include inquiry-based approaches which have been found to impact not only teachers’ learning, but also their practice in classrooms. When engaged in cycles of inquiry, teachers identify challenges and opportunities in relation to student learning, pose questions, develop criteria for monitoring success, draw on resources to enhance their own learning, and then embed new ideas in practice.3 In contrast to short-term, more fragmented professional development approaches such as one-shot workshops, inquiry-based professional development assists teachers to sustain attention to goals over time and to integrate new ideas into practice. Particularly impactful inquiry-based professional development approaches are collaborative in nature, and either develop or are based in collaborative networks of professionals that are generative and enduring over time.
In this article I outline some of the key scaffolds and lessons learned over the past seven years as B.C. shifted from piloting our K-9 renewed curriculum to full K-12 implementation. It is important to note that B.C.’s renewed curriculum significantly decreases content outcome requirements and instead emphasizes big ideas (concept-based learning), disciplinary competencies, and cross-curricular core competencies (critical, creative and reflective thinking; communication; collaboration; personal and social awareness and responsibility). This shift has required teachers to rethink what they teach and opened the door to thinking about how they teach.
In preparation for the Learning Forward Conference held in Vancouver in December 2016, I interviewed educational leaders, teachers, and government representatives about the key scaffolds that were already in place prior to our current education transformation agenda, and how these had helped us to embrace the renewed curriculum.
The most common response had to do with our province’s long-standing action research culture. A second key theme highlighted multi-partner initiatives that brought together the Ministry of Education, B.C. Teachers’ Federation, and university researchers. When these two factors combined, significant and sustained education change across rural and urban school districts occurred. (By contrast, some past change initiatives failed to build inquiry-oriented learning partnerships and were stymied.) A number of previous initiatives4 all contributed to B.C.’s collaborative inquiry culture through cross-institutional partnerships. Of note, in each of these initiatives, there was a critical thinking focus, voluntary professional development that brought educators together from across schools and school districts, and resources offered as fuel for inquiry and exploration. Teachers were situated as action researchers engaging in classroom investigations, bringing samples of student work to networking sessions and contributing to the development of shared provincial criteria using exemplars from their classrooms. The sense of agency and ownership that participating educators felt resulted in grassroots change. Countering top-down notions of implementation, educators were recognized as curriculum and pedagogy creators. This benefitted B.C. greatly as teachers, schools, and school districts used these criteria to pilot research-based approaches that made space for student voice, focused on critical thinking, and required responsive teaching.
As we began the 2010s, and draft revised curricula became available, various groups in B.C. built on the processes (action research/inquiry teams) and focuses (critical thinking, open-ended pedagogies, formative assessment) of these previous initiatives. Educators were invited to try out draft competency-based curriculum in their classrooms and offer feedback. Many school districts around the province created professional learning series where teams of teachers co-planned units of study that were competency-based and, in particular, aligned formative and summative assessment. Many educators embraced inquiry teaching and learning within these explorations, in part because with decreased content demands, they had time to explore big ideas and concepts over longer periods of time. Different conceptions of and approaches to inquiry (e.g. open inquiry, guided inquiry, project-based learning) were debated and explored. For example, I had the opportunity to work with a learning team in School District No. 43 (Coquitlam). Two teachers from each school in this large suburban district attended as inquiry partners. In each of our five sessions, I highlighted some aspects of the renewed curriculum:
While I introduced theoretical perspectives and research as part of these sessions, teacher researchers decided what fit for them in their classrooms and infused these ideas into their planning and teaching. The work was not without tensions, such as concerns expressed about a lack of pre-existing and/or grade-specific teaching and learning resources that aligned with the new curriculum. However, participants engaged in transformational work in their classrooms, designing classroom experiences and units that took into account the strengths, stretches, and interests of their students and opportunities for learning in their contexts.
Another key scaffold in our change efforts has been B.C.’s decades-long commitment to and extensive work in inclusive education, equity, and social justice. In the 1980s, B.C. embraced calls for inclusive education, dismantling segregated programs and classrooms and striving to develop classroom communities that welcome and celebrate diverse learners. Most recently, there has been important and significant attention regarding equity and access to learning for our Indigenous learners. For example, Laura Tait’s work in SD68 (Nanaimo-Ladysmith) focuses on collective ownership regarding Indigenous learners. Defining collective ownership as every person in the system embracing and taking responsibility for the success of our Indigenous students, she calls for us to shift our thinking away from “Indigenous education for Indigenous students” to “what’s good for Indigenous students is good for all students.”
B.C.’s renewed curriculum asks educators to teach “how Aboriginal perspectives and understandings help us learn about the world.” Due to this change, B.C. educators have been seeking ways to incorporate Indigenous voices and perspectives into curriculum, ensuring that Indigenous content is a part of the learning journey for all students and that the best information guides the work. This opportunity – and tension – has led to rich professional inquiry and learning.
Just previous to the development of B.C.’s renewed curriculum, the First Peoples Principles of Learning, a set of nine principles, were developed by the First Nations Education Steering Committee and the Ministry of Education to reflect some of the common Indigenous perspectives and understandings in B.C. However, it is important to note that these principles do not reflect the beliefs of any individual Nation. Teacher inquiry teams across the province have been exploring synergies between the renewed curriculum and Indigenous learning principles5, such as:
One example of equity-oriented collaborative inquiry is School District No. 67’s Through a Different Lens (TADL) initiative. SD67 had consistently achieved an 80-85 percent six-year school completion rate at the outset of the TADL initiative. But their two most at-risk populations, students of Indigenous ancestry and students with behavioural challenges, had, respectively, just 50 percent and 40 percent respective completion rates. Wanting to make a difference for students who were at risk of not completing school, a small inquiry group of interested middle and secondary teachers formed. They were committed to teaching and assessing in more innovative ways and tracking the results of these shifts in their practice. TADL grew to include 75 educators who meet in collaborative inquiry groups of 10-15 teachers six times throughout the year. Teachers identify a student who is at risk of not completing school, and learn from this student as an expert (curriculum informant) throughout their inquiry. Following Universal Design for Learning principles, TADL teachers interview and observe their expert students and develop and offer pathways for learning based on this student’s strengths, interests, and passions. They then offer these pathways to all students in the class. In their inquiry team meetings, the educators use a common “four-square” graphic organizer where they reflect on their actions and successes. Finally, group members brainstorm next steps to learn from and with their students, and adjust their teaching accordingly.
B.C.’s curriculum renewal has offered a catalyst for change across B.C. I close with a few lessons we’ve learned about supporting innovation as educators respond to and implement curriculum change.
Educators’ role as inquirers, action researchers, and change-makers has been central. Other jurisdictions in Canada have introduced new 21st century learning-oriented curriculum. What makes B.C. unique is that it has made space for grassroots exploration, feedback, and ongoing interpretation of its concept- and competency-based curriculum. Previous initiatives in B.C. have faltered when educators were directed to implement approaches without opportunities for action research within the development process. Another tension that has repeatedly surfaced over the past 40 years is government and school district approaches to “accountability.” Instead of uniform evaluation of curriculum implementation based on notions of fidelity and reliability, our enduring approach has been one of contextualization and creative exploration. This culture has lived through many changes of government.
Studying one cross-province inquiry network that explored the implementation of the draft curriculum6, Paige Fisher, Kathy Sanford and I found that inquiry spaces that welcomed diverse educational perspectives and approaches were crucial in disrupting teachers’ pre-conceptions of education and allowed them to see new possibilities. Teachers whose practice embraced outside-of-the norm approaches (e.g. project-based learning, interdisciplinary teaching in secondary schools, etc.) were important catalysts in the professional learning network.
Despite a change in government during the implementation of B.C.’s new curriculum, progress was safeguarded through ongoing collaborative efforts. Key partners in B.C. have been the Ministry of Education, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, Faculties of Education, and school districts. When these groups have been engaged as learning partners with shared and reciprocal goals, change efforts have not only been sustained, but evolved. Past and current efforts are vulnerable when we do not take the time to revisit shared goals and the processes and activities that define and operationalize our collaborations. Earlier I mentioned a more relational and contextual approach to accountability. When partners identify indicators to assess how their initiatives are making a difference, they need to consider that innovation benefits from creativity, adaptability, and a sense of agency from those closest to the learning and practice. When we seek the voices of students and educators as key informants and co-creators of change, it distributes ownership and recognizes that teaching, learning, and education are emergent, contextualized, and relational.
Finally, studies during this time of curriculum change in B.C. have highlighted how beneficial documenting and sharing innovations from different parts of the province have been. The Growing Innovation in Rural Sites of Learning study has surfaced visible and tangible examples of innovative practices derived in rural communities in response to a local need, but shared with other rural teams across the province. Time and again, the situated innovations shared by those who generated them with students, colleagues, and community partners have been referenced as key to inspiring divergent thinking, risk taking, and educator renewal.
INNOVATION and curriculum transformation are dependent on the knowledge and expertise of educators. When educators have opportunities to collaboratively inquire into innovative pedagogies and new curriculum and create and adapt practices to meet local needs, meaningful and sustainable change is possible. Fostering teachers’ creativity and recognizing them as knowledge creators nurtures morale, collective ownership, and investment in innovation.
1. OECD, Schooling Redesigned: Towards innovative learning systems (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2015).
2. British Columbia Ministry of Education, BC’s Education Plan (2015). www.bcedplan.ca/theplan.php
3. Schnellert, and D. L. Butler, “Collaborative Inquiry: Empowering teachers in their professional development,” Education Canada 54, No. 3, (2014): 18-22.
4. Specifically the Young Writers Project in the 1980s, the Reading/Writing/Thinking References Sets created in the 1990s, the Performance Standards for reading, writing, numeracy, and social responsibility developed in the 2000s, and Changing Results for Young Readers in the 2010s.
5. First Nations Education Steering Committee, First Peoples Principles of Learning (2015). http://www.fnesc.ca/learningfirstpeoples
6. L. Schnellert, P. Fisher, and K. Sanford. (2018). “Developing Communities of Pedagogical Inquiry in British Columbia,” in Networks for Learning: Effective collaboration for teacher, school and system improvement, C. Brown and C. Poortman (Eds.) (Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2018), 56-74.
Photo: iStock
Student leaders are found in every province and at every grade level. Meet some of the youth who are leading their schools to take positive action.
As the consensus among scientists who suggest urgent action on the climate crisis grows, it is often students who are leading the way to making our schools – and our world – more sustainable. How can educators help kids and youth pursue their interest in sustainability and implement their creative ideas? We spoke with students from three different schools to see what works where they learn.
Westmount Secondary School, Hamilton, Ont.
The members of Westmount Secondary School’s Eco Ninjas environmental activism team have done a lot to make their school a greener and more sustainable place.
They’ve created pollinator and rain gardens, grown fruit and vegetables on campus, and facilitated and expanded recycling and composting in their school. And a big reason that they’ve been able to accomplish all of this – aside from their own ideas and initiative – is thanks to supportive advisory staff like Mr. Holmes, says Grade 13 student Nina Tran, one of the team’s members.
“Mr. Holmes has been brilliant in understanding the perfect balance between pushing students and allowing them to stumble, to fall and to learn,” she explains. “He allows the Westmount Eco Ninjas to be almost completely a student-led, student-built and student-charged team. This is a key role in our success as a club, and our success as individuals.”
Tran’s fellow team member, Lee Frketich, age 17, echoes this: “We’d come to him with these crazy ideas and half of a plan, and rather than shutting us down, he’d just be like, ‘If you think you’re able to do that, go for it.’ Or he’d look at our plan and if he saw major issues with it, rather than telling us no, he’d sit down with us and say, ‘Well, have you considered this?’ And get us to go back and make sure that our plans had the best chance of succeeding while letting us lead.”
Eco Ninjas member Summer Thomas, 18, says this willingness to let students find their own way with support is key to empowering them. “One thing that we have actually noticed, which is a bit surprising, is that the more a teacher steps back and lets the students do their own thing, the better,” she says. “Obviously, guidance is great, and when a student is getting started on their project or if they request guidance then that’s a good time to step in, but teachers should largely step back and let the students kind of figure things out and learn through experience.”
One area that the Eco Ninjas needed help with was in navigating some of the bureaucracy that comes with making changes.
“We had some wonderful advisors in our club who really helped us push the limitations of what could happen,” says Tran. “If we didn’t have an advisor who was willing to explore how we could jump through those hoops, or if we didn’t have administration that was willing to help us in certain methods, then we wouldn’t have been able to grow in the way we have.”
But even with this support, the Eco Ninjas haven’t been able to overcome all of their obstacles. Two projects that haven’t been completed yet because of various policy roadblocks are the installation of solar panels at the school and an update of their school board’s waste management policy. And so, in an effort to make these changes happen and also to be taken more seriously by people, increase their resources and capacity, bypass the limitations of what they can do as a school club, and be able to work with other groups in their community and share ideas to support other schools’ environmental clubs, Tran and Frketich created a non-profit.
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Incorporated in January 2019, the Environmental Community of Hamilton Students – or ECHS, as they prefer to be called – has about 15 official members. Tran and Frketich are its executive directors, as are Thomas and fellow Westmount student Konrad Jasman, who both became a part of ECHS soon after it was founded.
“We were finding a large void where the voice of youth should be,” explains Thomas. “And we wanted to make sure that there was space in the environmental community in Hamilton where the youth voice is listened to and seriously considered,” adds Frketich.
So, the bottom line, whether it’s in a school environment or in the community, is that the way to support students who are motivated to be part of changing the world is to offer space for them to thrive, they explain. “Kids are already inspired and they have ideas and things that they want to do, so give them a place at the table and somewhere where they know they can share those crazy ideas or come up with a proposal and actually see that happen,” says Frketich.
Richmond Secondary School, Richmond, B.C.
Jason Pang, 17, is a veteran of student environmental work. Pang spent three years as president of his high school’s Green Team, the environmental sustainability club at Richmond Secondary School, and was also a green ambassador for the city of Richmond. He is currently in his first year at the University of British Columbia, where he’s doing a Bachelor of Science in Global Resource Systems, which focuses on the world’s resources and how we can properly manage them sustainably.
When Pang first joined a school green team in Grade 8, it was one that was well-established with lots of support from enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff who students could turn to for help and feedback. But when he transferred schools to Richmond Secondary in Grade 10, he found there was lot of work to do on this front. “When I joined I pretty much had to start everything from scratch,” he recalls. But Richmond’s Green Team got a boost when Eugene Harrison began teaching at the school when Pang was in Grade 11. “She really changed the club,” explains Pang. “Because she was so passionate about the issue I was really inspired by her and she really took time to listen to me. Although I had the ideas, Ms. Harrison really brought those ideas together.”
Pang says this teacher helped Green Team members navigate policy and guided them as they ran events (the team did a lot of fundraising and teaching events). But she also brought learning into the equation. “She taught us a lot about scientific approaches toward environmental sustainability and how we can calculate our change, and that was really impactful,” he says.
Two standout projects organized by the Green Team were an electronic waste campaign where the class that collected the most waste won a pizza party, and a spirit week they hosted called Waste Reduction Week. The latter had three goals: improve the school’s waste diversion rate, educate students and staff on the impacts of waste and how that it affects us, and involve students as much as possible. One way they met that last goal was by meeting students where their passions were. For instance, they roped in the school’s business students to run zero waste pop-up shops on campus. “My school drinks a lot of bubble tea, and we wanted to tackle that issue by selling reusable bubble tea cups. That was a really big hit!” he says.
Both efforts won grants at the B.C. Green Games, a competition run by Science World.
While these events and others were successful, Ms. Harrison inspired Pang to go even bigger before he graduated. That project? Getting solar panels for the school. That involved a ton of fundraising, presentations to the school district, being part of an advisory committee, and learning about the engineering behind the panels.
While the initial plan was to have the Green Team pay for the solar panels by fundraising and applying for community grants, after many meetings with school district officials the district surprisingly decided to cover the cost.
“Seeing that I was able to make this impact was the brightest moment I had in high school,” says Pang.
The money they had already raised for the solar panels was used to create a pollinator garden and outdoor learning space at their school that they partnered with the David Suzuki Foundation to build this past summer.
What advice does Pang have for staff who want to support students who do this work? Listen to them and guide them through potential issues, but also model environmentally sustainable approaches and try to work this concept into all lessons. “There are a lot of ways that teachers have the opportunity make environmental sustainability part of the school curriculum,” he notes.
Park Street Elementary, Fredericton, N.B.
A thousand trees will be planted in New Brunswick, thanks to ten-year-old Mackenzie Klinker.
“Our school motto is ‘The best possible place to grow’.”
In late September, Klinker’s mom showed her a short film about student climate activist Greta Thunberg and then took her to the Fredericton climate strike the following day, which spurred the Grade 5 student at Park Street Elementary to launch her first environmental campaign. “I watched a video with my mom on climate change and it said that 200 species of animals go extinct every day. I didn’t know that and I really didn’t like that,” she recalls. “Our school motto is ‘The best possible place to grow,’ so I thought, ‘Then we should grow something.’ That’s why I decided I want to plant a thousand trees and help fight climate change.”
Klinker first took action by writing a letter to her school’s principal, Rien Meesters, vice principal, Mme. Gauvin, and teacher, Mme. Howlett, asking for their support.
Mme. Howlett helped find a solution. She suggested reaching out to the Nashwaak Watershed Association. They selected the types of trees to plant and the location: the bank of the Nashwaak River.
And so, just a few weeks later, Klinker and her whole class headed out to the river and planted 29 trees. They also got a science lesson in the outing, too, in that they learned about seeds and got to go critter dipping, where they used a net to find creatures, like backswimmers, in a nearby pond.
Now that the first batch of trees has been planted, they have 971 to go. And the whole school plans to help her meet that goal when the weather is warmer. “The rest of the staff are planning for each classroom to do something in the spring,” explains Meesters.
And Klinker wants to keep it going even longer: “I’d like it to continue every single year here at Park Street,” she says.
This whole project came together in a lightning-quick fashion, in part due to the responsiveness of the staff at Park Street and their willingness to act on Klinker’s suggestions.
“Kids can help think of ideas and what they would like to do. Then the teachers can support them for their projects and help make them possible,” she suggests. She also wants teachers to bring climate change education into the classroom when kids are younger. And she’s got a message for all adults about listening to kids on climate action: “It’s our future, so we want them to do stuff so we can have a good future.”
Photos: courtesy of Nina Tran, Olwyn Klinker and Jason Pang
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
In April 2019, I boarded an airplane with 21 teenagers from Toronto to travel to Thunderchild First Nation in northern Saskatchewan, where we would stay for one week as part of a YMCA youth exchange program.
These students had all taken the English: Understanding Contemporary First Nations, Métis and Inuit Voices course I teach at James Cardinal McGuigan (JCM) high school – a course designed to honour Indigenous voices.
But I wanted to push that education further by having my students participate in authentic experiential learning: being immersed in a First Nations community; engaging in rich discussion with the youth and Elders; and forming relationships that would bridge the gap between our cultures.
This YMCA program offered the perfect opportunity.
The project required an enormous amount of preparation – both logistically and emotionally. We explored stereotypes and learned about how to respectfully enter into an Indigenous community.
We participated in a workshop led by Dr. Angela Nardoz called “Build a Community” – an embodied experience that teaches about the impacts of colonialism and connects participants to the historical facts in a heart-based way.
I was in frequent communication with the coordinators at Thunderchild, Lydia Sunchild and Leah Arcand, to ensure that the experience would go smoothly and that their students would feel respected and welcomed when it was their turn to visit us in Toronto a few weeks later.
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When we arrived at Piyesiw Awasis school, we were graciously greeted in a welcoming ceremony by all 250 students and teachers, who shook each of our hands, saying, “Tansi” (welcome).
Over the course of the week, my students engaged in land-based learning activities including teepee-building, hide-stretching, fire-building, and hiking. They visited historic sites and museums in neighbouring communities. A lucky few were even able to participate in a Sweat Lodge ceremony. Thunderchild shared their teachings, traditions, languages, artwork, and dance. Students met with Elders, watched a traditional powwow demonstration, and participated in a round dance.
“I was so impressed with how trusting and receptive both groups of students were.”
My students formed immediate relationships with the host students.
They played co-operative games and volleyball (with Thunderchild’s regional championship team), listened to music, and watched movies together. They talked about social media, family, traditions, and hobbies.
They were so alike and so eager to learn about one another.
At the end, the students participated in a sharing circle where they were able to openly and honestly express their thoughts and feelings regarding their newfound relationships.
It was moving for me to see such a wonderful example of trauma-informed and anti-colonial relationship-building.
“It was a truly special celebration of inclusion and unity.”
Two weeks later, we welcomed our new friends to Toronto. Our JCM students and the Thunderchild youth were so excited to be reunited, and they emanated a joy-filled energy all week. The days were jam-packed with activities: we did beading; we took them to the CN Tower, a Blue Jays game, the waterfront, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the CBC for a tour where we met award-winning Cree journalist Connie Walker. We even met the famous Ojibway author Drew Hayden Taylor!
A highlight was a downtown mural walk to discover the beautiful Indigenous artwork that is hidden all around our city, led by First Nations artists Chief Lady Bird and Aura, whom we had met earlier that year.
We concluded the week with a multicultural festival where JCM and Thunderchild students showcased their traditional music and dance. It was a truly special celebration of inclusion and unity. The week’s end brought emotional good-byes, and the students are still keeping in touch with each other months later.
I was so impressed with how trusting and receptive both groups of students were.
They came to the experience with open minds and a genuine interest in one another.
My students returned from Thunderchild changed in various ways: some came out of their shells, others now have more direction in their lives. They’ve grown: they have more friends, they’ve traveled, they understand what community is, what pride is. They have a broader worldview. Parents noticed this change immediately and thanked us for giving their children this experience.
I’m proud of us for rising to this challenge.
We hear about the realities on certain reserves and we know about the resounding impacts of colonization. Colonialism has created a divide between people who live on reserves and settler-people – yet the students managed to overcome those obstacles together.
That’s how relationships are formed; that’s how foundations are built; and that’s how change is made.
Photo: Dave Donald
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
Many of our students are passionate about environmental protection – but do they know what jobs are available in this field? Bringing professionals into the classroom gives students a window into the real work being done and inspires them to get more involved.
This is the question ecologist Philippe Fernandez-Fournier hears most often when he visits high schools in British Columbia. Fernandez-Fournier is a PhD student at Simon Fraser University and the co-founder of local conservation NGO, Wide Open Projects, based in Vancouver.
“Students want to know what’s available to them career-wise if they take the path of ecological studies and unfortunately, sometimes it seems to them like there just aren’t that many opportunities,” says Fernandez-Fournier. “But that isn’t true. It can be difficult, but it’s not impossible.”
“How do we, as educators and parents, channel this passion into creating practical higher education and career opportunities for them?”
For students in Canada today and around the globe, there’s no shortage of passion and ambition when it comes to finding creative solutions to environmental issues.
These are the children and teens coming of age in a more enlightened culture, eyes open to the realities of destructive human activities on the planet.
More than any other group of young people in history, today’s students are keenly aware of the challenges we face due to climate change.
More importantly, these young people know that they will bear the brunt of the consequences if we fail to make big changes soon.
We have young, enthusiastic students ready to become green ambassadors of change in the work force. The question is: How do we, as educators and parents, channel this passion into creating practical higher education and career opportunities for them?
Fernandez-Fournier and others like him are stepping up to help, hoping to show high school students interested in ecology that there are indeed pathways to success. “When I was an undergrad in biology,” says Fernandez-Fournier, “the only opportunities shown to me at the time were lab work, which I didn’t find that interesting. But as I got to know and connect with hands-on field ecologists, I became sure of the career path I’m on now. I want to share that excitement with other young students.”
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Fernandez-Fournier started as an undergraduate student in a lab at McGill University in Montreal, and got his first taste of ecological field work volunteering with an organization called Operation Wallacea in Honduras. He never stopped after that; his master’s research at the University of British Columbia led him to study spiders in the jungles of Ecuador. His discovery of a parasitoid wasp that controls the minds of social spiders in the Amazon was recently profiled in Scientific American.
“All of these experiences made me want to contribute more, and with like-minded people, which is why I started Wide Open Projects with my friends. We focus on conservation awareness, coral reef restoration, and community development,” says Fernandez-Fournier.
The coral reef restoration project uses an innovative method of hand-bending metal rebar into dome-like structures and then skillfully attaching bits of coral to it – which, when done correctly, flourishes into a healthy and multi-species coral community.
Wide Open Projects and community partners have created two successful pilot projects, and this past summer built and placed 66 more structures on the ocean floor.
Students in Canada and Indonesia, as well as biology colleagues around the world, are closely following the progress of Fernandez-Fournier and his team via social media.
But Fernandez-Fournier urges students not to feel compelled to follow his path exactly. Instead, he asks them to seek out opportunities that appeal to their own unique interests, whether that be lab work, field ecology, or green policy development. He encourages students to be proactive in seeking out any and all opportunities to volunteer and work with local university professors, NGOs, or other outdoor organizations. “Don’t be afraid to contact people and ask how you can help. Much of what’s needed now is just people willing to show up and do the work.”
He encourages educators to do the same. “Ask grad students and professionals in your community to visit your classroom and talk about their work. Most people, if they have the time, are more than willing to talk about their passion projects.”
“We all need to be bold and face the future proactively.”
Reaching out to potential role models, admittedly, is not always the easiest route and isn’t guaranteed to yield results, which is why many shy away from the idea.
The same is true for students, who worry about being rejected and therefore don’t put in the ask to join field research or volunteer opportunities abroad. They may even withdraw from ecology pursuits entirely, seeking out the road more travelled instead.
But if we learn anything from scientists such as Fernandez-Fournier working on the frontline of environmental challenges, it’s that we all need to be bold and face the future proactively, before allowing these challenges to come to us.
Photos: Philippe Fernandez-Fournier
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
The EcoSchools Program started over 20 years ago, with 11 Toronto schools. EcoSchools Canada is now a national program that offers a range of classroom resources, runs an annual student conference, and certifies schools at three levels.
Inspired by the activism of Greta Thunberg, youth around the world have been taking to the streets to voice their growing fears and anxiety about the climate crisis. Instigated in part by the looming deadline to limit greenhouse gas emissions set by the International Panel on Climate Change’s recent report, students are cutting classes to provoke government action on climate change. In some school boards, educators are incorporating these protests through discussion or attendance as a valuable part of their students’ education, supporting their calls for climate action and justice.
While school strikes are a recent phenomenon, educators and students across Canada have been working on better understanding human impacts on climate change over the past three decades through experiential education, community-based learning, and EcoSchools programming. Integrated into curricula, aligned with local issues, and implemented inside and outside of classrooms, environmental learning is rapidly becoming one of the best ways to keep students engaged in school and simultaneously address the climate crisis. This is evidenced by the continued growth of the EcoSchools Program at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), which engages thousands of children, youth and educators across the city in rich learning about all aspects of the environment. From growing their own food and monitoring energy use, to conducting waste audits and assessing the health of their watersheds, students are leading the way in learning how to address climate change, and moving Canada’s largest school board toward environmental sustainability. At the same time, they are putting the competencies of 21st education – critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation – into play as they prepare for one of the most significant challenges of their adult lives.
“Our emerging leaders often share a vision of schools as sustainability hubs, helping community members from all walks of life learn about living in more environmentally friendly ways.”
Motivated by the development of sustainable schools in Europe, the EcoSchools Program was begun in 1998 by forward-thinking program leaders Richard Christie and Eleanor Dudar, well before the Ontario Ministry of Education established its policy framework in Environmental Education in 2009. By focusing on achievable, practical actions such as turning off lights and sorting waste into recycling streams, students and educators were able to demonstrate the environmental and economic benefits associated with this type of learning. The program grew rapidly, from 11 schools in the first year to over 427 schools at its peak; it is currently the largest program of its kind in the country, and one of the biggest in North America.
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In 2005, its certification structure and resources were used to establish the Ontario EcoSchools program, which has flourished over the last decade. Not only are there are now 1,800+ certified EcoSchools across the province, but this non-profit organization has recently become EcoSchools Canada, aiming to nurture the next generation of environmentally attuned citizens and leaders in school communities across the country.
An energetic staff of three run the program, which includes supporting and certifying EcoSchools at the bronze, silver, gold and platinum levels; designing and delivering learning for school EcoTeams; implementing annual student conferences; creating print and online resources; and supporting a range of partnerships with local NGOs.
As the program has expanded, the TDSB has also established a Sustainability Office, which has aligned with a wider range of physical infrastructure measures being put in place to address climate change across the school board, such as establishing outdoor classrooms, mapping and planting trees on school properties, and building high-performance green buildings, like the one at North Toronto Collegiate Institute. The board has been incorporating sustainable energy sources, such as the geothermal energy installed at Highfield Junior School, and the installation of solar panels on over 300 schools. Other boards should take note: the solar panels have generated significant funding for the TDSB’s Environmental Legacy Fund through the sale of carbon credits. This underwrites other sustainability initiatives such as cycling education programs, bike racks, and water bottle refill stations. All of these initiatives have a measurable environmental impact: since 2001, there has been a 22 percent decrease in overall greenhouse gas emissions at the TDSB.
The benefits of the TDSB’s EcoSchools program are manifested in multiple ways, some of which are seen in improved learning experiences for students and their communities. An example of this is found in the rapidly increasing number of schools that have dug deep into environmental learning by creating their own school gardens.
“This natural area has also become a favourite part of the community for students and neighbours alike.”
Supported by a fertile partnership with Evergreen – a nonprofit dedicated to creating healthy urban environments – as well as the expertise of board staff, schools across the board are finding ways to use educational gardening to support the provincial curriculum.
Elementary students at Runnymede Public School planted native shrubs and trees on a hillside behind their urban school as a way to improve the biodiversity of their schoolyard. Twenty years later, they have a lush forest of walnut, maple and oak trees that support a wide variety of insect and wildlife, perfect for enhancing learning activities in science, art, math, and literacy. Not surprisingly, this natural area has also become a favourite part of the community for students and neighbours alike. In contrast, the Grade 6 students at Ryerson Community School have turned their classroom into an indoor garden with the addition of a hydroponic growing tower called a Good Food Machine. As they seed, nurture and harvest the kale, bok choy, tomato and cucumber plants, they learn about their life cycles, as well as how to prepare them as part of a healthy diet. And at Eastdale Collegiate, staff from the TDSB and FoodShare – an organization that works to make fresh, healthy food accessible to all – worked with students to turn a defunct tennis court on the roof into a 16,000 square foot farm. This huge rooftop garden provides hands-on, interdisciplinary learning experiences throughout the school year, connecting with science, business, hospitality and culinary courses. In the summer months, these secondary students are hired to gain important work experience through marketing and selling the fruits and vegetables that they grow on their school roof to nearby restaurants.
The EcoClub at Earl Haig Secondary School takes a very different approach to learning about climate change through its focus on garbage. While many are involved in the school’s waste audit, from the principal to teachers and caretakers, it is the students who lead the process by collecting and sorting the garbage, and then measuring and interpreting the audit results. This sticky, smelly form of learning brings with it groans, laughter, and disgust at the amount and type of waste created, but it also builds comradery and integrates learning in math, literacy and critical thinking to inform the goals for the EcoClub for the year. This immersive investigation could result in helping the school community to better separate out compostable and recyclable items from its garbage heading to landfill; reducing the amount of single-use plastics in the school cafeteria; or increasing understanding of the problems of micro-plastics in the lake. The results of this learning are quantifiable; research has demonstrated that certified EcoSchools generate half as much waste per student per year as do non-certified schools.
Students aren’t the only ones wanting to learn more about the climate crisis; their educators are growing knowledge, skills and expertise as they dedicate evenings, weekends and summer vacations to undertaking professional development to support their students in the EcoSchools program. Through an innovative collaboration with faculty at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), over 200 TDSB educators have taken Additional Qualification courses in Environmental Education over the last six years. These courses model the same experiential, inquiry-based approach that educators are encouraged to use in their classrooms: they learn from and in nature at TDSB outdoor education centres, learn on and from the Land with an Indigenous knowledge-keeper along the banks of the Humber River, and meet with environmental experts like Maude Barlow to study the impact of pollution on Lake Ontario. Most importantly, these educators share their promising practices in environmental learning with each other through discussions, presentations, and digital resources that are also shared with other educators across the school board. Those who finish this set of courses become members of the TDSB’s Action Research Team, which supports educators to conduct research into Environmental Education in their classrooms, alongside their students. This team also works with teacher candidates from OISE’s teacher education programs to ensure that the next generation of teachers comes into classrooms prepared to lead learning about climate change from the start of their careers.
Many positive steps have been taken by students and staff alike in addressing climate change and environmental issues over the last two decades at the TDSB, but the EcoSchools Program continues to encounter challenges as it does this important work. For program staff, getting thousands of educators, staff and parents from 575 schools on the same page about the importance of environmental learning is a work in progress, and makes for an intensive workload. It is still common for some educators to find themselves identified as the “ecochampions” of their school, not only modelling this work for their students, but also taking full responsibility for the EcoClub and the paperwork associated with the EcoSchools certification process. If this educator or principal moves to another school, it can take time to find another prepared to champion this work. Maintaining supports, both administrative and financial, are always an ongoing concern, as seen with the recent cutbacks by the Ontario Ministry of Education; cutting budgets has a direct impact on educators’ time and energy in leading this critical work.
Yet those involved in the TDSB’s EcoSchools Program are finding ways to make it happen. One way is by establishing and maintaining networks of professional learning, such as the one established with OISE; this provides ongoing support and development by those who understand the problems and solutions inherent to the EcoSchools program. Another is by nurturing “green leadership,” bringing together students, educators, administrators and parents who prioritize environmental learning and climate action in schools to ensure that the curriculum in the 21st century is rooted in real-world experiences. These emerging leaders often share a vision of schools as sustainability hubs, helping community members from all walks of life learn about living in more environmentally friendly ways.
School strikes are certainly one way to advocate for climate action, and perhaps a necessary one for capturing government attention. But the EcoSchools Program at the TDSB provides an alternative and successful model that keeps students in school, builds 21st learning competencies, and shows them how to become effective champions for sustainability in their own communities.
Join a network of over 50,000 schools around the world working to create a sustainable future.
EcoSchools Canada’s curriculum-linked certification framework supports student-led action that leads to tangible impacts throughout the school community.
Visit ecoschools.ca to learn about how you can get involved and become a certified EcoSchool.
Original photos: courtesy of the TDSB Sustainability Office
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
When maker-centered, community-based learning meets the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the resulting projects can be deeply meaningful to the students who created them. See how Brilliant Labs in New Brunswick supports students’ “hopeful action to build a better world.”
Young people can have tremendous agency and voice in influencing solutions to community problems if we ignite their creativity with a socially responsible mindset, and equip them with the entrepreneurial and digital skills necessary to leverage tomorrow’s technology.
With young people today becoming increasingly troubled and anxious with climate change, environmental degradation, social inequality, and other challenges impacting our world, it is important that we support student-driven projects that engage with these issues.
In doing so, we also acknowledge their personal autonomy and identity.
What if we approached this by challenging our students to take a good look at their world and have them ask: What does my world look like? Is my world missing anything? How can I be a changemaker, innovator and leader? What can I do now that will lead to meaningful changes tomorrow? We can inspire bold new thinking by students and give them a time and place to exercise their creative problem-solving, with innovative use of materials and digital technology-related skills.
Over the past five years, Brilliant Labs has engaged youth in more than 401,862 learning experiences that inspire and empower them to make an impact by addressing the urgent needs in their school and community. This impact has been, literally, made by applying the instructional philosophy of maker-centred learning, in which students are invited to create meaningful artifacts of their own knowledge, interests, and passions.
We provide students with agency and a supportive learning environment where they are encouraged to integrate new techniques and technologies with familiar materials, all while constructing authentic solutions to problems they identified in their own communities. The prototypes they develop often become incredibly viable solutions to addressing our society’s most intimidating problems.
In partnership with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in all four Atlantic Canadian provinces, Brilliant Labs has worked with tens of thousands of teachers and hundreds of thousands of students in support of a maker-centered learning approach that fosters hands-on, experiential, and inquiry- and project-based learning in classrooms throughout Atlantic Canada.
The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals – also referred to as the SDGs or the Global Goals – were adopted by Canada and 192 other members states of the UN in 2015.
The SDGs universally apply to all countries, and cover a wide range of sustainability issues intended to build a better world for people everywhere and the planet. All the countries agreed to implement the SDGs within their own country in order to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
By highlighting local, national and international priority areas, the SDGs strive to end all forms of poverty, improve health and education, fight inequalities, make cities more sustainable, and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left at a disadvantage.
Converging student-driven projects with the SDGs not only educates and engages them to support the Global Goals in real and meaningful ways, it also empowers them to transform that support into hopeful action to build a better world and contribute to Canada achieving its 2030 Agenda.
One framework that is particularly helpful when encouraging projects that address environmental sustainability is design thinking (see Figure 1). Popularized by the Stanford School of Design, design thinking can be used by students and teachers as an instructional methodology that brings some order to what can become a chaotic cycle of multiple iterations of their project throughout their design process. While Brilliant Labs provides support for students as they work through each component of the design and making process, it has been the empathize component of design thinking that has been most helpful in creating a culture of localized environmental literacy.
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There are many interpretations of the design process, and it is important to remember that conforming your instructional practice to any framework that is not your own may constrain the creative actions makers take as they move through the iterative process and construct a prototype.
For this reason, we have developed our own interpretation of the Design Thinking Process entitled “The [blank] process of making brilliant things.” We hope that inserting a personalized name into the title will inspire a sense of personal agency in whatever process teachers and their students choose to bring their constructions to life.
It is enormously meaningful to understand the culture of your community, your own identity and the identity of your audience prior to jumping into any prototyping. This way your process will be refined to the needs of your end-users in your target community.
Specifically, what is it that you will make?
It is important to know how your desire to make relates to the empathy you express for your community.
The definition of what you wish to make should be specific so that you can clearly communicate your intent with those same community members, for whom your project is intended.
This component of the process is where your imagination will run wild.
To ideate means to imagine all of the possible implications and functions of your project.
Brainstorming outside of the definition of your project or the time you have allotted for your project during the ideate phase will ultimately lead you to an exciting project design that leads you to keep asking. “What if…?” We encourage this unbridled ideation!
However, it can be valuable to have one group member recognize when the ideas fall too far outside your definition to keep you on track.
This is where you begin to make your ideas come to life.
Turn sketches into diagrams, with multiple views and precise measurements.
Discuss your ideas and design decisions with your intended community of end-users.
Live within the ambiguous constraints of low-cost construction materials like cardboard.
Embrace each prototype for the reflective opportunity its disposable nature provides.
Finally, never underestimate the value of any prototype. Time has a way of getting away from the best of us. Be proud of each of your prototypes.
This phase may be at the end of the diagram, but in the design thinking and making process there is never an end – it is recursive, iterative, and ever-changing.
The testing phase is similar to deployment. Take your current prototype, demonstrate it to multiple groups of end-users, take notes, discuss the user experience and decide whether you want to cycle back to an earlier phase of your process (the answer is often yes).
Atlantic Canadian youth are truly empathetic to their local community’s sustainability challenges and their resulting projects inevitably become projected onto the larger challenges framed by the SDGs and Canada’s 2030 Agenda. For instance, a middle-school classroom decided to join a local campaign to solve their city’s hunger and nutrition issues. This group of students were not only interested in positively contributing to the food available to the hungry but to ensuring that this vulnerable group had access to healthy, locally grown produce. After days of brainstorming, these Grade 8 students decided to build a series of hydroponic flood tables to grow as much lettuce as possible in their school.
The students continually refined their design to maximize the growth as well as their contribution. Brilliant Labs became involved in this project when one student who was particularly interested in chemistry, gardening and coding, requested our assistance in developing an autonomous, electronic system that adjusted the pH of the nutrient-rich solution that became the essential component to maximizing their lettuce growth.
Integrating students’ projects with the SDGs localizes them in their community to make them real. This framework also provides engaging and creative opportunities to further cement student learning about how their local position can relate to one much larger: both globally and for their own learning.
When constructing projects that consider sustainability, students often authentically express a number of SDGs, as well as global competencies that are critical to establishing themselves as life-long learners.
The pan-Canadian global competencies outlined by Council of Ministers of Education, Canada are:
Examples of this in Atlantic Canada include students at all levels:
Students in an Environmental Studies class at Fredericton High School developed a project in support of SDG Goals 15 (Life on Land), 14 (Life Under Water), and 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation). While learning about wetland ecosystems at Corbett Brook Marsh (a 3.64-hectare forested wetland), they combined drones, microcontrollers, 3D design and printing, robotics, and coding to collect water samples in a hard-to-reach wetland without further damaging the local ecosystem. The student-created prototype featured two detachable platforms that carried four test tubes and a sensor. When the drone came within 10 cm of the water surface, it automatically triggered a robotic mechanism that filled the test tubes with water.
The project was a success, tying for first place at the Regional Science Fair at the University of New Brunswick and also catching the attention of local conservation and technology communities. Ducks Unlimited Canada purchased a new drone for the school, with funding from the New Brunswick Environmental Trust Fund. The project not only far exceeded everyone’s expectations, it provided a creative, problem-solving opportunity for students to learn how to apply their unique interests, skills and talents in a meaningful way.
As students work to provide sustainable and environmentally responsible solutions within their schools and communities, we have a tremendous opportunity to engage them with the UN SDGs to develop their global competencies and support Canada’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Connecting students with projects and purposeful technology in an authentic and impactful context not only sparks learning through action, but will go along way to creating innovative solutions to complex and urgent problems, and develop a growth mindset.
Brilliant Labs is looking forward to continuing to support students, teachers and educators along this journey as we engage our young people to boldly solve real problems with innovative technologies. Our youth are the biggest and brightest hope to improve the lives of people everywhere and transform the world by learning about the SDGs and mobilizing Canada’s 2030 Agenda.
Formed in 2014, Brilliant Labs is a not-for-profit, hands-on technology and experiential learning platform based in Atlantic Canada.
In converging student-driven projects with the SDGs, our vision is to provide every child in Atlantic Canada, and beyond, with the opportunities to access, learn, and leverage new technologies and programming to create, innovate and inspire solutions for a sustainable and environmentally, socially, and entrepreneurially responsible future.
Photo: Courtesy Brilliant Labs
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
When I visited a high school recently as a guest speaker, I was surprised by how quiet I found the crowd of students in the entrance foyer.
There must have been a hundred students, but rather than the noisy, chatty hallway I was expecting, they barely seemed to speak at all.
Instead they were looking down, apparently completely absorbed, at the phones in their hands.
When I remarked to the principal who greeted me how odd I found it that the students didn’t talk with each other, she explained I was mistaken. They were talking. On their phones. They were texting. Or Snapchatting. Or WhatsApping – or some variation of these.
“Convincing students to unplug and get outside? That can be challenging.”
I’d been invited as a speaker to motivate kids to “unplug” and get excited about nature. I could see I had my work cut out for me. I’m a professional adventurer, the Explorer-in-Residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
Normally, I’m out in the wild, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest other person, in some of the most isolated places on Earth. I get to spend months out of the year unplugged. If that’s your idea of paradise, then we think alike.
My days are pretty simple: ploughing through arctic ice floes in a canoe, sleeping alone with polar bears, paddling across lakes that stretch beyond the horizon, trekking in places where there are no trails, coming face-to-face with wolves and muskox, and wandering across ancient lava flows. Pretty relaxing stuff. But convincing students to unplug and get outside? That can be challenging.
According to a recent report, “Kids and teens age eight to 18 spend an average of more than seven hours a day looking at screens.”1
That data was from a study in the U.S., but there is little reason to think the numbers are any different here in Canada. Researchers have linked excessive screen time to increased anxiety, stress, difficulty concentrating, unhappiness, and other unhealthy outcomes.
The American author Richard Louv has even coined the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” to refer to the growing trend of kids (and adults) spending too much time indoors.
It turns out that a steady stream of social media, emails, online content, video games, and binge-watching shows, does not lead to a well-balanced, healthy life. (Which is not to say any of these things are bad in moderation.)
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When I cast a glance back at my own childhood and education, I count myself lucky. I happened to grow up with a forest on my doorstep. We lived on a country road without streetlights or sidewalks. My playground was the woods that surrounded our home on all sides. Out there, among the oaks and sycamores, the birch and basswoods, I learned about plants, tracks, birds and other animals. I developed a deep love for forests, nature, and the wild that has never left me.
But I was also lucky that my interest and enthusiasm for the natural world was nurtured and encouraged by the Ontario public school curriculum and the teachers I had.
In elementary school, we gathered leaves from our schoolyard and made rubbings of them, identifying the different species. Nearby was a conservation area where we learned orienteering and played predator-prey games about the food chain and web of life.
I vividly recall learning about environmental issues in my Grade 3 class from Mr. Sibley, and how alarmed I was at the thought of forests disappearing.
In Grade 4, our class did projects on endangered species (I chose the wolverine).
In Grade 6, my teacher, Mrs. Stock, had our class do projects on an individual tree species. I did mine on tulip trees – towering giants found in the Carolinian forests of southernmost Ontario.
I still have my Grade 7 project on “Canadian woodlands,” where I studied different types of forests in Canada and what makes each unique. For that project, I was able to do research in my own backyard.
We had many other projects involving nature and field trips to nearby nature parks. All of this helped encourage my appetite for the outdoors.
Now when I write about my expeditions in my books, I try to re-awaken people’s dormant sense of awe and delight at the mysteries and magic of the natural world, in the belief that doing so will inspire people to want to know more about the outdoors and then get active in working to preserve and restore natural habitats.
That’s why I write about trekking alone through ancient forests of spruces and tamaracks, or meeting arctic wolves that look you in the eye, or wandering over weathered rocks that were already a billion years old before the first dinosaur ever walked the earth.
At schools, I entertain students with tales of adventures in the wild, of sleeping under stars, of mapping northern rivers that snake across the land like giant anacondas, and of meeting bears and wolverines.
Once I’ve stirred up a suitable sense of awe at the wild and eagerness to experience the great outdoors among screen-addicted students through adventure stories, my next step is to give them the mental tools they need to experience nature for themselves in an exciting way, in their own backyard or local conservation area.
I think there’s a two-pronged approach that can do wonders to accomplish this in schools.
The first is teaching more nature in the classroom – things like leaf rubbings and tree identification, and plant and animal ecology.
The second is getting students outside more in the woods or wetlands. The crucial part is that these things need to be combined.
A common mistake is only emphasizing one element, instead of both together. But just sending people out into the woods without any knowledge of how to interpret them is like assigning Shakespeare without first learning to read. On the flip side, learning about nature only indoors is like studying music theory without the music.
So I place a lot of emphasis on both classroom learning and getting outdoors.
For students, I like to begin with a focus on things that are immediately at hand and almost always visible – trees and birds.
These are nature’s ABCs – the fundamental building blocks that will let anyone begin to “read” the woods. But then we go beyond just tree identification, to figuring out more about the character of each tree. How old is it? What are its traditional uses? How does the wood compare? Soft basswood is a wonder for carving, while hop-hornbeam is rock-hard. Why did that tree grow in a particular way? We compare the big spreading branches of the white oaks to the wiry understory witch hazels. Why do silver maples grow in swamps? Hemlocks in shady ravines?
Then, suddenly, those generic trees around the schoolyard aren’t just “trees” anymore – they’re red oaks, white pines, and sugar maples. They begin to tell a story – the story of the natural world.
“It’s not only that we need nature. Nature needs us. Now more than ever, the natural world is under tremendous pressure.”
The other thing I like to focus on at first are birds. Birds, like trees, are almost always around – even in urban settings – and since many are migratory, they connect us immediately to faraway places, from the warblers that spend their winters in the Amazon to the snow geese that in summer migrate to the Arctic.
Like the trees, each bird has a story to tell. As we learn about them, gradually the birds flying by or singing in the cedars aren’t just catch-all “birds” anymore.
To borrow a digital metaphor, now the picture starts to come into High Definition, and we can make out white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, gray jays, tufted titmice or black-capped chickadees.
The more we learn, the sharper the focus gets as the natural world becomes more and more intelligible, and ever more fascinating.
Long after I left school, I’m still learning about nature. My expeditions for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society have taken me everywhere from exploring caves in the Arctic, to gathering marine fossils along isolated rivers, to tracking down and photographing Canada’s most elusive snake, the endangered blue racer. Currently I’m preparing for a new four-month solo canoe journey, in part to be based on following bird migration routes. When I return, I’ll have new material to share with the schools I visit.
There’s another reason why I think it’s critical we re-awaken our sense of awe for the wild.
It’s not only that we need nature. Nature needs us.
Now more than ever, the natural world is under tremendous pressure.
A landmark UN report last year laid out in stark detail the grave loss of biodiversity directly from human actions – chief among them habitat loss. The UN report’s key conclusion was that humans now threaten over one million species with extinction. The report found that over 100 million hectares of tropical forest were lost between 1980 and 2000 alone. Even more severe was the disappearance of wetlands: an estimated 87 percent of the world’s wetlands are already gone. All of this habitat destruction is driving sky-rocketing rates of extinction.
That’s why I think it is so critical we reconnect with nature – not only for our own well-being, to live healthy, balanced lives, but for the fate of the plants and animals we share our world with.
The first step is learning to care more about the wild all around us. In doing so, we’re not only helping students lead healthier, more balanced lives; we’re planting the seeds for a greener tomorrow.
Photo: Adam Shoalts
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
Note
1 Victoria Rideout and Michael B. Robb, The Common Sense Census: Media use by tweens and teens (San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media, 2019).
Schools can play a crucial role in fostering environmental citizenship among students, but also in mitigating their own substantial carbon footprint.
Imagine a world where the highest paid job is salvaging treasures from once coastal cities now submerged beneath the expanding oceans. No, this isn’t a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie. It’s one of many possible futures our planet faces if we don’t take serious action on climate change.
There’s simply no denying it. Poll after poll has shown that Canadians are increasingly concerned about climate change. This is especially true among young Canadians.
Inspired by passionate young activists like 16-year-old Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg and the #FridaysForFuture movement, our youth are eager to see substantial action on climate change in their daily lives – including at school. The average student will spend at least 15,000 hours in the classroom from Kindergarten to Grade 12. During that time, they not only want to engage in activities and initiatives that promote environmental sustainability, but they also want to be immersed in an atmosphere where they live it. Today, John Paul II Catholic Secondary School in London, Ontario seeks to become Canada’s first carbon neutral school by 2021 through reducing greenhouse gas emissions to near zero. This is just the start.
The EdCan Network acknowledges the crucial role that schools can play in fostering environmental citizenship among students, but also in mitigating their own substantial carbon footprint. Once students and teachers become engaged, their heightened environmental awareness broadens to other issues, and spreads into their family lives and communities. Already, we have seen schools and school districts make great strides as trailblazers in this area.
Consequently, the EdCan Network is excited to announce that our March 2020 issue will focus on “Greening Our Schools” to tie in with Global Recycling Day on March 18, 2020. We’ll address topics like food waste in schools, energy reduction, how climate change is taught in classrooms, environmental leadership, and Indigenous approaches to environmentalism. But that’s not all. In the coming months, we will lead a national conversation on how the key players in K-12 education – students, parents, educators and other stakeholders – can be the catalyst to real, impactful action on climate change.
Today, talk and inaction can only take us so far in addressing climate change. If we desire a future that is closer to Star Trek than Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it’s time to go green on education.
The Edcan Network is a nonprofit organization that bridges research and practice by including voices from across the entire spectrum of K-12 education.
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First published in Education Canada, September 2019
Two resources of interest to teachers: The Canadian Science Fair Journal and UNESCO’s Voices of Future Generations books written by young authors.
By Aleena Naseem
By now most of us have heard about the Sustainable Development Goals (also referred to as Agenda 2030), adopted in 2015 by nations across the globe to help achieve peaceful and prosperous living both now and in the future. Children have a very important role to play in achieving these goals; therefore to encourage children to think and get involved in helping to achieve them, Voices of Future Generations (a UNESCO project) was launched. Children aged 8-12 were invited to write stories related to the Sustainable Development Goals and submitted them to a rigorous competition, after which selected stories were chosen for publication and professionally illustrated. The books are meant to make children think about their surroundings and their roles, and to empower them, which is a key principle of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The child authors come from different parts of the globe and share their own personal experiences and perspectives linked to the environment and the social issues addressed by the SDGs. The beautiful illustrations help readers visualize the setting the children are describing. For example, the story “A Tree of Hope” is set in the desert and talks about drought, while “Fireflies After the Typhoon” takes place on a small island and describes the causes and aftermath of typhoons, including the importance of children’s perceptions on the changing climate. Other small island experiences are mentioned in “The Voice of an Island,” which describes beautiful scenery from the author’s grandmother’s time, while the book “A Path to Life” highlights the importance of co-existence with the animal kingdom (especially tigers), in times when our cities have become concrete jungles. The Epic Eco Inventions, The Mechanical Chess Invention and The Great Green Vine Invention provide a first-world perspective on using science to tackle environmental issues.
Going beyond environmental issues, “Forward and Backward City” takes the readers through the varied experiences of people living in different parts of the same city (in Africa), whereas “The Visible Girls” highlights the need for girl/women empowerment. “The Sister’s Mind Connection” tells a story on learning disabilities and how other children perceive and treat children with learning disabilities.
These simply but effectively written stories describe real-life issues and also offer solutions and suggestions as to how children can become involved and play a role in their future. Written for children age six and above who wish to learn about the environment, climate, human (particularly children’s) rights and other compelling issues, these books can be used to invite dialogue and sharing experiences, especially about the Sustainable Development Goals.
For educators wanting to use these books as teaching material, Bloomsbury has consolidated and published an anthology (Voices of the Future: Stories from around the world) along with a teaching guide, available for purchase on Amazon (e-book and hardcover) and Indigo (e-book only). Individual stories can be downloaded free of cost from the Voices of Future Generations website: www.vofg.org/books ; hard copies can be purchased from Amazon (search Voices of Future Generations).
By Kira Slivitzky and Kirti Vyas
Kalie Bennett loves science.
At the age of 12, Kalie used her personal experience as motivation to create a science fair project that explored whether coloured overlays could improve the reading ability of individuals with dyslexia, like herself.
In May 2018, she won a bronze medal and a scholarship at the Canada-Wide Science Fair. For many young scientists, this would be the end of their projects’ journey… forgotten after the fair. Fortunately for Kalie, this was not the case. In September, she had the opportunity to publish her project with us, the Canadian Science Fair Journal (CSFJ).
With the help of our editors, Kalie was able to successfully publish her work. Most students, however, do not get this opportunity. Despite the vast number of high-level science fair projects completed by Canadian youth annually, hardly any are ever published. There are over 30,000 academic journals in which adults can publish their research, yet virtually none available to youth. According to a 2018 survey conducted by summer research students working at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, only 6 percent of National Science Fair competitors published their work in an academic journal.1
Figure 1: Publication status of Canada-Wide Science Fair participants (2005-2017)
Often, youth are not exposed to scientific writing until late high school or post-secondary school. Founding journal members recognized the need for an open-access platform where youth could publish their scientific research and receive constructive mentorship. This need birthed the creation of the CSFJ: a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes scientific research by youth ages 6-17 years old. The CSFJ helps develop an early understanding of the publication process and the scientific method.
The journal provides young authors with a unique personalized mentorship experience. Members of our editorial board (undergraduate and graduate science students) are paired with young authors and help guide them throughout the editorial and publication process.
To increase the journal’s value as a resource for teachers, we also offer online lesson guides. Teachers can educate their students on the peer-review process, review our published articles for critical reflection and use them as teaching points for scientific concepts.
Cindy Bennell, a Grade 3 teacher from Ottawa, Ontario, regularly uses the CSFJ with her students. “I use it to show my students how to conduct and present their research,” she says. In fact, one of her students was inspired to submit his own science fair project to us.
We released three issues in our first year of publishing (2018-2019) after receiving over 50 submissions by students across eight provinces and the three territories. In the upcoming year, we plan to add discussion points and companion guides with each article for an enhanced learning experience. Additionally, we plan to develop formalized lesson plans to further strengthen our journal as an important resource for educators.
KALIE BENNETT received recognition for her work when Dr. Cherisse Du Preez, a marine ecologist who is also dyslexic, came across her article on our website. Dr. Du Preez was moved to present Kalie’s project during a lecture at the Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa and invited her for a private tour of the Institute for Ocean Sciences in B.C. Through the CSFJ, Kalie created an important connection and was exposed to unique scientific opportunities.
Print copies of the Canadian Science Fair Journal can be purchased as a subscription. Articles are also available free of charge online at www.csfjournal.com. Send any inquires or comments to: editors@csfjournal.com.
Photo: Courtesy Voices of Future Generations
First published in Education Canada, September 2019
Notes
1 N. Acharya, R. Ng, K. O’Hearn, and D. McNally (2018) Unpublished.
With so much knowledge literally at our fingertips, some argue that teaching subject knowledge is obsolete. But Dueck argues that “when it comes to understanding the world around us, exploring new topics and developing competencies, existing knowledge matters a lot.” Moreover, it is the vehicle through which students can develop “21st century competencies.”
Perhaps you’ve heard some version of this line: Knowledge is old-school…just look it up on your phone!
I’ve found this sentiment is all too often uttered in our school and community conversations. The underlying message is that with information so easily accessible through our smart phones, tablets and what’s left of our PCs, people question the value of covering “content knowledge” in the classroom. Further contributing to the downgrading of good old-fashioned knowledge is the shift in focus to “competencies” and their importance in the global economy. There’s an unmistakable emphasis being placed on students’ ability to communicate, problem-solve, think critically and demonstrate a host of other valuable skills. But emphasizing competencies to the neglect of knowledge would be unfortunate. Our choice shouldn’t be to focus on knowledge or competencies, but rather to develop an effective and healthy relationship between the two. As stated in Ontario’s 21st Century Competencies – Foundation Document for Discussion, “Research has identified the importance of developing competencies in relation to specific subjects, rather than as topics for separate teaching.”1
I find the term, “21st century skills,” used to denote this cluster of competencies, interesting for a few reasons. First off, in case no one noticed, we’re almost 20 percent through the 21st century. Considering this reality, we should stop talking about these skills as a future entity. Secondly, these “modern” skills are not actually all that modern. A saunter through the KVR railway tunnels in Hope, B.C., an acknowledgment that humans have likely visited the moon, and 20th-century advances in civil rights all suggest that problem-solving, critical thinking, communication and creativity are not a monopoly of our times. Recently someone told me, “Our students need to develop grit in the 21st century!” Yeah, that must’ve been absent aboard Franklin’s ships, Terror and Erebus, as they sought the route through the Northwest Passage… circa 1845!
Across Canada, and indeed the world, 21st century skills, or competencies as we will call them for the duration of this article, are being rightfully emphasized. However, I do not see them as a sort of new Holy Grail of education. Rather, I think we are finally looking at each learning target, and the medium we choose to achieve it, in the correct order. We’re realizing that we can use our course content to develop much more important, overarching competencies, rather than simply acquiring knowledge for the sake of it.
As we see different iterations of competency-based education adopted by provinces and territories across Canada, whether it’s New Brunswick’s Global Competencies, Ontario’s 21st Century Competencies or B.C.’s Core Competencies, it’s important that we not lose sight of educators’ valuable role in disseminating and filtering content knowledge. In light of some seismic shifts in our educational models, there are three critical ideas for educators to consider in how we balance knowledge acquisition and the development of competencies
We need to ground our quest for competencies in a knowledge-rich curriculum.
The depth of cognition our students experience will largely rest upon the verbs we choose in defining our learning goals.
There’s evidence to suggest that it’s the responsibility of all educators to develop competent learners by applying curricular content knowledge.
At a recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Jack Ma, the creator of the Chinese marketing behemoth Alibaba, was asked for his opinion on the state of modern education. I encourage you to view the two-minute segment on YouTube. 2 I agreed with most of Ma’s arguments, especially that students must be “taught to think differently than machines.” Though my head was mostly nodding in agreement, I was vexed at how he flicked his wrist as he mentioned “knowledge,” and his apparent criticism that we’ve based our education system around it for the last 200 years. I watched the video again and again, each time agreeing with the bulk of it, but bothered by the dismissive hand gesture at the mention of knowledge.
I’m concerned that in our ever-expanding digital prowess, we will be tempted to throw the baby out with bathwater – namely to toss knowledge to the curb as being old-school. Thankfully, I don’t think this will happen, and that’s largely due to the best educators out there finding ways to use their curricular content to build competencies. They instinctively recognize that knowledge plays an important role in authentic and contextual learning. We can ramble on about creative thoughts, but if they’re not grounded in something, they’re likely useless anywhere but in a philosopher’s circle. While I agree that knowledge is at our fingertips, that it’s everywhere, free and instantly accessible, that too is part of the challenge. Our students will more effectively sift through the mountains of information out there with the mentoring, guidance and structure of our learning spaces, educators and curriculum.
Decades of research focusing on human memory are also supporting the importance of a knowledge-rich curriculum. In his book, Creating the Schools Our Children Need, Dylan Wiliam argues that a well-stocked inventory of long-term memory is thought to increase agility in our short-term memory – the space used to grapple with ideas and solve immediate problems.3 Wiliam cites the work of Anders Ericsson, William Chase and George Miller in looking at how we best remember lists, the assortment of chess pieces or phone numbers. In short, we “chunk” items in long-term memory and pull these pieces into short-term, or working memory, when we need to solve problems, comprehend text or communicate ideas. To illustrate this point, I’ve put a Canadian twist on an example used by Wiliam. Can you make sense of this:
Due to the pressure of the fore-check, our team lost control of the puck, found ourselves running around in our own zone, and we were forced into icing. The resulting face-off led to a goal and we were off to overtime!
Did you recognize this as a hockey situation? If you did, realize that I never mentioned the term “hockey” but rather a flurry of terms like zone, icing and face-off. I mention “running around,” though people were on skates. The point Wiliam illustrates is that only with background knowledge of these terms does the reading make sense. I found this argument by Wiliam, though he used a baseball example, to be very insightful. We make sense of our reading, conversations and interactions by drawing on a wealth of long-term memory chunks. Like me, you may have watched countless games on Hockey Night in Canada and acquired ample doses of CBC’s Coach’s Corner. Or perhaps your knowledge came from playing, coaching or attending minor league hockey games in your community. Some readers may recall Howie Meeker’s magic pen. Whatever the method, your knowledge of the game of hockey helps you make sense of what non-hockey literate people would hear as gibberish. For this reason, when it comes to understanding the world around us, and exploring new topics and developing competencies, existing knowledge matters a lot.
When I was in school I hated any discussion of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. To this day I cannot tell you what a dangling participle is and I don’t care to find out. Trust me, I would only entertain the topic of verbs if I really, really thought it was important. And it is.
I recently started working with the Alberta Assessment Consortium and I’ve come to appreciate the fantastic document entitled, Assessment Conversations: Engaging colleagues to support student learning. In it Bennett and Mulgrew discuss the anatomy of a learning outcome and argue that “It is essential to focus on the verbs within the outcome in order to be clear about the skills students will need to demonstrate.”4 Simon Sinek, in his book Start with Why, argues that verbs, unlike nouns, are actionable and give us a clear idea on how to act in any situation.5 When I recently sat down with Dr. Lorin Anderson in South Carolina, he became animated over the topic. He considers the shift to the verb in defining what students should do as a “revolutionary direction in education!”6 Clearly I’ve been missing out on the importance of what my Grade 3 teacher called “action words.”
Dr. Lorin Anderson teamed up with Dr. David Krathwol in the late 1990s to design Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. These two former students of Benjamin Bloom reconfigured the original 1950s edition of the taxonomy to achieve two things:
The result is a framework like the one in Figure 2. This is a fantastic tool for teachers to self-assess the extent to which a unit, activity or assessment reflects a well-rounded approach to knowledge and a variation in cognitive levels. I caution that educators not look at any cell being better than the other, but rather that we strive for a healthy balance of knowledge levels and cognitive domains. In the end, verbs are very powerful in helping us design learning opportunities that use knowledge in order to build competencies.
The importance of shifting to a competency-based model of education, and utilizing our content to do it, cannot be understated. In light of this shift, we need to consider that for too long we’ve tended to put the cart before the horse – namely to use competencies (say the ability to create) to cover content (math knowledge). Let me illustrate the need for a paradigm shift with a personal example. During my first years of teaching at a rural school in Morris, Manitoba, I designed a kite-building activity for a group of Grade 6 students to whom I was teaching both Math and Science. My students and I were excited to create kites of various sizes and designs. One boy built a 10-foot tall sled kite and the local paper arrived to take pictures. The Grade 6 students solved problems, thought critically and communicated in teams, but this was not the end-goal. Rather my purpose for designing an engaging activity was that they learn the content material: scale, angles, measurement, area, ratio and the basics of flight. There’s no question that back in 1996, I wanted to teach content via a creative process.
The paradigm shift that I am observing globally is that this process is being reversed. We are moving towards using content and our means of covering it (mathematical angles, story-writing, science labs, etc…) in order to develop competencies such as communication, critical thinking and problem-solving. It’s just looking at the process in a different light. Consider the shift in my goals, and the medium used to achieve them, from 1996 to present.
Goal: Students to learn ratio, scale, flight basics (content)
Medium: Create kites in teams (employing creativity and communication competencies)
Goal: Develop problem solving, communication and digital literacy competencies.
Medium: A kite-building activity that builds on students’ knowledge of content: ratio, scale, flight.
What’s essential is that we all own the development of competencies in each of our curricular areas, and it turns out research supports this notion. In the past, we’ve tended to compartmentalize competencies, tasking whole departments to take the lead on certain areas. You’re after creativity? You’ll find that in Ms. Field’s Art class – room 22! Oh, and if you’re after communication, our English department is on the third floor. It seems that this approach is misguided. As human beings, we are quite context-dependent in our development of skills. With the exception of collaboration, Wiliam contends that all other competencies actually do not easily transfer from one context to another, and he cites studies to prove it. People who learn something underwater better recall that learning when they’re back underwater.7 When we learn something in a certain room, we better recall it in that room8 and, interestingly enough, when we learn something under the influence of alcohol, we test better once we are again… slightly inebriated.9
Wiliam and others argue that if we want to develop critical thinking in Math, we need to teach critical thinking in Math. If we want students to communicate in Science, we need to purposefully teach communication in Science. The development of competencies is everyone’s responsibility, and only when students develop them in separate curricular areas, while interacting with separate content, will those competencies be expressed across the curriculum.
While I once agreed that knowledge was on the way out, that technology would render it a dinosaur, I no longer believe that’s true. In our quest to develop competencies, we need to use knowledge to anchor our development of enduring skills. While tackling knowledge, we must harness the power and variety of verbs to bring depth to the learning experience. And finally, we cannot rely on some other staff member to develop competencies – that’s on all of us.
Illustration: iStock
First published in Education Canada, March 2019
Notes
1 Towards Defining 21st Century Competencies for Ontario. 21st Century Competencies: Foundation document for discussion (Queen’s Printer, 2015,) Winter 2016 Edition.
2 Jack Ma, “Jack Ma on the Future of Education (Teamwork Included)” (2018). www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHt-5-RyrJk
3 Dylan Wiliam, Creating the Schools Our Children Need (Learning Sciences International, 2018).
4 Sherry Bennett and Anne Mulgrew, Assessment Conversations: Engaging with colleagues to support student learning (Alberta Assessment Consortium), 7.
5 Simon Sinek, Start With Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action (Portfolio, 2011).
6 Lorin Anderson: personal communication June 19, 2018.
7 D. Godden and A. Baddeley, “Context-dependent Memory in Two Natural Environments: On land and underwater,” British Journal of Psychology 66, No. 3 (1975).
8 Steven Smith, Arthur Glenberg and Robert Bjork, “Environmental Context and Human Memory, Memory and Cognition 6, No. 4 (1978).
9 G. Lowe, “State-dependent Recall Decrements with Moderate Doses of Alcohol,” Current Psychology 1, No. 1 (1981).
As I write this, I am on my prep period and lunch, a rather nice two-hour break. However, the Educational Assistants (EAs) I’m working with aren’t so lucky: yes, they get a lunch too, but they rarely seem to get a moment to relax.
EAs work closely with students identified as having special needs. These needs can be physical (e.g. mobility), learning-based (e.g. speech and language) or behavioural (anger or developmental issues), and of course they range in severity. Being an EA is a rewarding and challenging job, but, depending on the day, one adjective might overshadow the other.
My primary interaction with EAs has been in developmental education (DE) classes while working as an occasional teacher (OT). Let’s be frank: working with higher-needs kids isn’t for everyone. It takes patience, humility, and emotional strength. However, my stints in the higher-needs DE classes have been some of my most enriching, inspiring, and humbling experiences in teaching. And in each of the DE classes I’ve taught in, I see the same thing: the EAs love their students (yes, I said “love” and mean it), and regularly sacrifice their lunch hours and breaks to work with their kids.
One of the first things I’m given when I supply for a DE class is each student’s “Safety Plan”– a binder detailing the student’s diagnosed condition, his/her triggers, ways to deal with said triggers, and his/her medical requirements and emergency contact info. If this sounds more akin to language you’d associate with a hospital than a classroom, well, I agree. What’s not noted in the Safety Plan, however, is how adorable and fun some of these students can be. Some are incredibly social and affectionate – and they develop a very strong bond with their EAs.
As an occasional teacher, I rely heavily on the expertise of the EAs, and, thankfully, they never fail to make me feel at home and to maintain peace in the classroom. I am in their hands and am happy to let them direct me. Some DE students rely on consistent routines, and my presence really throws a kink into their day. It’s the EAs who smooth out any wrinkles, while I have the luxury of just helping out the best I can.
I’ve met many amazing students in DE programs: there was “David,” the boy with fetal alcohol syndrome who, I was told, played piano beautifully and would vigorously play air piano on his desk each morning along to “O Canada.” There was “Justin,” a wheelchair-bound student with severe speech issues who loved to tell jokes; and there was “Joseph,” who loved to play tennis. Joseph and I played a few times (really, just whacking the ball to each other without a net), and one incident has stuck with me.
Joseph and I had finished our game and were about to go in; however, one of his balls had rolled under the chain-link fence into the school’s garden. I opened the gate so Joseph could retrieve it, but as he walked in, the back of his T-shirt caught on the latch and ripped – badly.
Joseph said he didn’t care about his ripped shirt, but once in the classroom he became increasingly agitated and distraught, tugging on the rip, making it worse. I spoke calmly to him, telling him it would be okay. I put my hand on his shoulder, but Joseph snapped, “don’t f#@king touch me.” From there the situation escalated, with me watching the heartbreaking sight of a 15-year-old boy bursting into tears because he “wouldn’t look nice for his doctor’s appointment” later that day. Of course, the EAs took control, working to calm him down, but I felt I had failed Joseph. My negligence had ruined his day.
But the day wasn’t ruined, not really. Joseph eventually did cheer up. Our class dismissed earlier than regular classes, so at 2:00 p.m. the kids headed out. With a half-hour until the official end of our day, I read a magazine; the EAs spent their time differently. They talked about their “kids”: They shared accomplishments, funny anecdotes, and surprising behaviour; and offered each other encouragement for the next day. There was no bitterness, no expressions of fatigue, defeat, or frustration. Needless to say, I was impressed and humbled.
I don’t often utter the overused word “hero” – but here I wish to unequivocally state for the ages: EAs are heroes, at least to me. I am eternally grateful for their presence and wisdom and wish to thank them for the guidance and patience they bring to their jobs every single day.
Photo: iStock
First published in Education Canada, March 2019
To effectively teach with technology, educators have been expected to set boundaries for appropriate use, help establish guidelines for inappropriate content, and guide students in how to take responsibility for their actions in networked environments. If we look at how education has traditionally supported the ability to form, communicate and exchange ideas, we know that opening and engaging in dialogue about sensitive topics is an ideal first step. But in digital citizenship education, we still find headlines, community advocates, school districts and parent groups who are continually sourcing evidence of misuse of emerging technologies to argue for a “ban and limitation” approach when crafting policies for digital citizenship and the online participation of students.
After almost two decades of evolving Internet and social media education, educators have to recognize that a fear-mongering approach to aspects of digital citizenship is not beneficial for students who are already fully engrossed online. Instead, a practical approach, rooted in classroom experiences with the realities and concerns of Internet communications, can foster students’ understanding of healthy Internet uses.
Ask young adults if their student experiences between 2000 to 2012 included digital citizenship lessons and whether they were invited to have their voices heard, or if they had an educator who was willing to meet them on their level with tech use in the classroom. More often than not, young adults will say that the majority of their digital citizenship lessons involved being told rules of proper use and how to be safe online, with a primary focus on being aware of predators and threats. Few will report discussing consent or the production of online content.
One difficulty with this primary focus on appropriate use is that the Internet does not acknowledge boundaries structured on guidelines for appropriate or inappropriate; it is a free-for-all that students will explore online despite attempts to block content or websites. The norms of technology and Internet use are incredibly malleable. Being open to the online interests of students helps educators identify where students have found their voice through the Internet, and what they have been exposed to. Students bring their online experiences into the classroom. In a paradoxical conflict of “too much, too soon,” educators today are often addressing themes of the Internet with students as they arise. While the themes can range from video gaming, online interactions, accessing pornography, or peer conflict, the experiences of youth online become conversations because of current and emerging Internet trends.
Educators have an unenviable task of addressing the Internet experiences that their students bring to their attention. An educator who recognizes that in a networked society, controlling the Internet is not about blocking content but about being prepared to address the content experienced and disclosed by students, will be better prepared than the educator who dismisses these experiences as “bad use of the Internet.”
We do need to establish norms of behaviour concerning technology use and Internet participation, and this definition has to work within the evolving classroom. Using technology skills in a social studies class must be approached differently than in a science class, but a similar foundation of participation and responsible sourcing of information is vital for student success. For teachers, the goal of digital citizenship education should be establishing a culture of appropriate use, as defined by the student voice and expanding outward to the networked online communities that students share.
For primary teachers, this means potentially introducing expectations of use of tech that may conflict with what students have experienced at home. In intermediate education, the challenge becomes one of providing learning opportunities that engage students in a different way from the communication app, video game, or meme that is currently popular. We know that students in middle-school experience a variety of Internet content that would make most parents at the parent council meeting cringe. Guidance in class may be the oversight desperately needed and discussing the media themes and content accessed can help guide students towards more appropriate Internet usage as students progress to secondary school.
In secondary education, how can educators support students’ understanding of how appropriate versus inappropriate use of the Internet is defined – especially when the measuring stick continues to move in each micro-generation of use? Secondary students live in a world where they see any number of examples of “inappropriate use”: mainstream celebrities display their excesses online while YouTubers and streamers on Twitch push boundaries. Perhaps most importantly, the world of social media politics is now on the radar of students, who see that elections have become littered with allegations of fake news without context, voters cast votes solely based on information sourced from social media, and even an elected President ignores the barriers of so-called “appropriate use” of social media with total disregard for traditional decorum or consequences.
Preparing students for the realities of the connected world is critically important. The 21st century learner needs educators who are aware of the importance of providing digital citizenship support to students at all grade levels and within all subjects. This includes dialogues on how the Internet influences learning and community participation, and a recognition that the Internet allows us to see one another and connect around the planet. It is imperative that learners think critically about not only how the technology helps to bring us together, but how much it can separate us.
It is vital to help students recognize the positive opportunities that exist as they demonstrate their online participation as networked citizens, and to see how their online interests fit into their educational experiences. Examples of digital citizenship can be incorporated into many lesson plans.
For an example of positive video game use, check out students in British Columbia who play online video games in an eSports tour. These students, competing professionally playing video games, earn more than a teenager could ever make working at a fast food restaurant. Where health and wellness dialogues may support kids who feel isolated, share the story of a student in Texas who inspires others daily by sharing photographs of their skin without makeup, to increase positive support for those coping with debilitating cystic acne. Imagine a student who wakes in the morning feeling like they are the only person in the world with a skin problem; they only have to turn to their smartphone for an emotional, visual, and community-driven support system that lets them know they are not alone and things are going to be okay.
With hundreds of positive and negative examples of how the Internet and technology use impacts children, digital citizenship lessons have to not only support learners in their online endeavours from classroom to classroom, but expand to the family home, to extra-curricular activities, and everywhere the Internet takes them along their education and communication path. Digital citizenship education should not be just an introductory concept or policy delivered at the beginning of the school year to establish expectations for learning; it should be a continual classroom pedagogy that extends to the home, with students leading the charge.
First published in Education Canada, December 2018
It started when one teacher saw a TV ad about saving the bees – and grew into a national program, Bee City Schools, integrating outdoor education and technology into school-wide projects focused on saving pollinators.
We would like to introduce educators to the Bee City Canada/Bee City School Program, an important initiative that is quickly making its way through elementary and secondary schools across the country. The original objective of the Bee City School Program was to encourage an inquiry about the bee crisis and the role that pollinators play in our food cycle. Currently, Bee City Schools are expanding this inquiry by integrating outdoor education and technology into school-wide projects while encouraging parents and communities to join students in their learning.
In 2017, the Bee City School Program became a recognized certification from Bee City Canada. The origins of this initiative are modest and began in 2015 as we, two teachers in Scarborough, Ontario, were working on a partnering plan for an upcoming Science unit. It started when Ashleigh White, a Grade 4 French Immersion teacher, saw a CheeriosTM commercial that encouraged consumers to “bring back the bees” and decided to use the ad as an introduction to character education in her classroom. Thinking that this might also be an opportunity to begin working with a colleague on a Science Buddies project, Ashleigh approached Grade 8 teacher Doug Whiteside.
Together, we felt a call to action and were immediately motivated to open an inquiry project that began by asking, “What is happening with the bees?” A true inquiry often requires teachers and students to connect with resources and people outside of the school. Ashleigh began to reach out to organizations in Toronto, and with a little research, she found Bee City Canada, a charitable organization that was in the final stages of becoming officially recognized by Toronto City Council. She thought she might be overreaching, but Ashleigh took a chance and made a call to Bee City Canada. Director Shelly Candel responded within one day and graciously offered to visit the school and help answer some of the students’ questions. This was the first workshop that Bee City presented to students, and the response from both classes was beyond expectations. The seed had been planted and so came the idea to offer more workshops based on new questions stemming from the Bee City Canada classroom visit. The roots of the Bee City School Program sprouted that day.
Our aim with the Bee City Canada Schools initiative is to cultivate a climate that encourages students to ask questions and to be critical thinkers and problem solvers by examining real-world contexts. We strongly believe that our growing network of Bee City Schools has come to realize that through inquiry, experiential learning and “getting our hands dirty,” we can begin to make positive change in our communities. Our program is unique in that it can implement a broad range of current teaching practices into one school-wide initiative that welcomes all learning entry points. We also generate support from parent councils, local government officials, and businesses who are inspired by the team building that is now so evident throughout the hallways of our member schools and in the vibrant pollinator gardens that were established and are now diligently maintained by students ranging from Kindergarten to Grade 8. Our network has come to realize the severity and the implications of the declining bee population in Canada and around the world. We also know, however, that it’s not too late to do something about this problem. By taking action and planting bee-friendly flowers, as well as educating our communities on the dangers of pesticide contamination, we believe that we are helping to create a new culture of students as global citizens of character. We hope they will become the future leaders of collaborative inquiry devoted to reversing the decline of pollinators in Canada.
Bee City Canada, a federally recognized charitable organization, welcomed Toronto as the first Bee City in 2016. In the Spring of 2016, Tredway Woodsworth Public School in Toronto was declared Canada’s First Bee City School. We revamped our STEM program with a project that would offer students a lens into real-world, large-scale problems. This endeavour commanded collaboration among students and teachers in order to achieve our learning objectives.
Students were very eager to develop a strategy that would answer the call to action for citizens to reverse the decline of pollinators. Jeremiah, a Grade 3 student, stated,
“I really want to help the bees because they are important to our world. They spread the pollen that our fruit and vegetables need in order to flower. If the pollen isn’t spread to the flowers, then a lot of our food sources will disappear. Bees are helping our ecosystem to survive.”
This testimonial was one that came about through the exploratory stage of the problem-solving model that is typically used in math, but can and should be applied to early stages of inquiry work in science as well. Through brainstorming and communication, students were able to better understand the problem even if possible solutions were not yet conceptualized.
Following the exploratory stage, the inquiry captured the attention of Grade 7 and 8 classes. The older students created an action plan by designating a space for a small pollinator garden that would host indigenous plants, as well as some very creative and visually stimulating bee hotel structures. They discovered that pollinators respond well to colourful and stimulating artifacts and structures that are situated in close proximity to the plants. Vaidehi, a Grade 8 student, captured the class discoveries perfectly, stating,
“When we placed our bee hotels and sowed the seeds for the indigenous plants, we made sure that the hotels were colourful and that the seeds were pesticide free, as this is one of the leading factors causing the decrease in the bee population.”
Students took pride and ownership in preserving and protecting their pollinator garden space. The curiosity spread throughout the school, with questions such as, “What plants attract the bees the most?” and “Do bees communicate with each other?” Discussion and discovery became commonplace as evidence of inspired inquiry work.
Eventually, Bee City Canada invited us to help them develop an application process whereby schools throughout Canada could work on similar initiatives and inquiry. Realizing that our inquiry project could guide other schools to educate students about pollinators and the bee crisis, Bee City Canada relied on our experience to establish this new program. The Bee City School Program was created when Bee City Canada saw the work that was taking place in our school. This rich learning opportunity could not be contained to one school, and our school became the model for Bee City Schools to emulate. Subsequently, Bee City Canada has invited both of us to sit on the board of directors as representatives for the Bee City School Program. In June of 2018, Doug was given the title of Bee Schools Director and he now acts as the liaison for existing and future Bee Schools.
Small classroom projects may grow into school-wide initiatives once the school community becomes more aware of the issues that their inquiry addresses. The thriving pollinator and vegetable garden that was entirely established by students at our school, with support and funding from Bee City Canada, is just one example of the positive work that we are doing to support the community as a whole. Before embarking upon this project, we developed a solid connection with our local city councillor, Glenn De Bearemaeker. He is just one of our great supporters and he was thrilled to join our students at the “2017 Tredway Woodsworth Pollinator Fair.” Mr. De Bearemaeker connected the local community and our school by creating awareness amongst his constituents and engaging in the important conversations necessary to effect change.
Following a cycle of inquiry allowed us to let go of some of the rigidity of conventional teaching and, three years later, students have become independent learners, innovative knowledge builders and creative thinkers. By focusing on the authentic problem of the declining bee population, students are continually empowered to explore the potential of their own school community. Creating and tending to a pollinator-friendly garden has encouraged students to connect with nature as they learn about native plant species and how pollinators help to sustain natural environments. Researching and building structurally sound and visually stimulating bee hotels offers experiential learning and opportunities for students to solve problems using real-world contexts.
As recipients of the EdCan Network’s 2017-2018 Ken Spencer Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, we are dedicated to realizing the change that school communities can make by embracing the environment as an authentic outdoor learning space. Ultimately, an initial brainstorming session that was designed to involve students in their Science lesson has grown into a widely successful project that has become an ever-expanding network of shared learning and practice. We have developed a website – www.pollinatorcentral.com – where teachers and communities can blog with us about our experiences and understanding of the world of pollinators. We also launched an e-learning curriculum resource site with the introduction of our first course, called “Pollinator Protector Course,” in partnership with Bee City Canada. On our site, edu.pollinatorcentral.com, we will continue to develop and launch courses about healthy soils and sustainable planting practices.
Through this site, our shared practice continues to develop and offer support to fellow educators, students and communities. We are learning together about the role of pollinators, especially native bees, in our environment and the effect that a continuing decline in their population will have on future generations if action is not taken. Our students are answering the call to make a change, and we are eager to provide them with the tools that they need to successfully implement and expand this project for years to come.
All Photos: courtesy Doug Whiteside
First published in Education Canada, December 2018