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• The Space for Imagination in Our Schools

  October 1, 2011 9:06 PM Comments Off on The Space for Imagination in Our Schools

  It’s one thing to agree that more imagination is needed in our 21st century schools. It’s another thing to actually step aside and make room for that imagination to live and grow. Creating a model of school that will encourage, honour and nurture imagination on the part of both students and teachers will take vision and it will take courage.

  It will take a vision that values dreaming about the future just as much as learning about the past. It will take a vision that understands that creativity and innovation are not cheerleaders chanting from the sidelines for some pre-established truth, but important catalysts on our journey to explore and discover what can be known about the world. And it will take a vision that is grounded in the belief that schools can and should be places of deep engagement and engaging depth!

  One practical way to begin to make this type of vision a reality is to establish imaginative spaces within our schools, both physically and conceptually.

  A complaint that I’ve heard from a number of my colleagues, especially the ones that have recently moved into new school buildings, is that classroom space is getting smaller and less functional. Many comment that the physicality of their classroom is preventing them from developing the type of program that they dream about running. Alternative groupings, teacher-student conference areas and claiming spaces for physical movement and artistic exploration is all very challenging.

  Imaginative work is both inspired and supported by physical environment, and if teachers and students don’t have access to spaces that invite a certain degree of “spreading out” then it is unlikely that creativity is going to take flight!

  Beyond physical environment, conceptual/temporal (!) space is also important for imaginative work to be taken seriously. Currently, I would suspect that most school days are subject to a set of fairly rigid timetables, with very little space for thinking beyond the borders established by traditional curriculum.

  But, what would happen if we were to set aside an extended portion of each day to step outside the traditional curriculum boundaries and the accompanying instructional strategies and allow for some imaginative freedom? This could involve work in the Arts, design projects, work outside of the school building, or outside the school firewalls! What would happen if, each and every day, students and teachers and members of the larger community had the opportunity to collaborate on ideas that mattered to them and had that work matter to others.

  We can talk about imagination and creativity all we want, but the reality of the schools that I know these days leads me to believe that things are becoming more and more defined for us on every level: curriculum expectations, teaching strategies, timetable allotments and our ability to bring a sense of individuality to our work as teachers.

  Imagination, by its very nature, defies boundaries and borders, and until we decide to give teachers and students the ability to re-imagine what time and space could look like in our schools, then there’s not a great deal of chance that transformation will occur.

  But, I believe we can do it. I believe that there are enough educators and parents who have a different sort of vision of what this space called school could look and feel like. I believe that there is a growing energy and sense of courage building around the need to make room for imagination in our schools and in our communities.

  Schools are currently locked into a way of thinking that claims that if our work as teachers is well-planned, well-defined and well-executed, then students will be more successful. The spirit of imagination challenges that notion.

  Consider what might have happened if Martin Luther King had stood up and declared, “I have a plan.” Do you think he would have been able to inspire an entire nation into action. Instead, his words were, “I have a dream”. And dreaming, my friends, is what imagination is all about!

  So, let’s continue to dream about the education that we want for our children, and let’s continue to push for more dreaming and imagination in the work that we do in this place and space called school!

• Bossism in Public Education

  September 28, 2011 4:14 PM Comments Off on Bossism in Public Education

  In my last blog post, I railed against excessive centralization of public education using Ontario as an example. Now it’s time to flesh out some details.

  When I taught an education course at Queens University in the 1970s, I made frequent reference to the Ontario Education Act and had a copy in hand which I quoted sparingly – thus to minimize boredom. Recently, I scanned two new books about Ontario school law compiled by Jennifer Trepanier. She reveals that the current act (2010) and regulations fill up 1,200 pages of legalistic prose. This, presumably, is to be read carefully by the functionaries of the system (central bureaucrats and local administrators, political advisors, school board members, school superintendents, principals, guidance teachers, and other interested parties).

  In earlier years, the purpose of the Act was to make clear that the Minister of Education, a politician, was the top dog in all matters of public education in the province. There were lots of regulations but – and this is the critical point – there was ample room for interpretation at the board and classroom levels.  Not anymore. The age of monkey-see monkey-do in public education is upon us.

  Here are a few examples of legislative/regulatory overkill in recent years:

  • The Minister may establish a code of conduct governing the behaviour of all persons in school. Every board shall establish policies and guidelines with respect to the conduct of persons within the board’s jurisdiction and the policies and guidelines must address such matters and include such requirements as the Minister may specify. A board may direct the principal of a school to establish a local code of conduct consistent with the provincial code. These codes must set out clearly what is acceptable or unacceptable for all members of the school community (e.g. parents, students, staff, visitors, volunteers).

  • Activities leading to suspension or expulsion are elaborately described as well as follow-up actions thus to ensure that the affected pupil carries on with studying the content of the approved curriculum. To that end, the school must prepare a SAP (student action plan) for pupils on long-term suspensions (11 to 20 days) or expulsions. Many, many pages of regulations are filled up with the minutiae of managing suspensions and expulsions. A principal contemplating such action against a refractory pupil would have to spend long hours studying the law and regulations lest he/she make a mistake with bad legal consequences.

  These two examples with their abundant legal overtones exemplify the now-Stalinesque powers of the Minister of Education in Ontario. Presumably, other provinces and territories have cloaked the minister with comparable absolute power. The central authorities would, of course, defend this burgeoning of school law by saying that the Minister must ensure that there is consistency of treatment of pupils and teachers and parents all across the jurisdiction, that fairness and equity must be universally honoured. The question that is begged is this: Why must there be consistency in such a vast assortment of persons, places, traditions and social priorities as in Ontario? Surely the Minister should be satisfied that the elected boards respect principles of fairness and equity and, at the same time, have rules in place that respect local preferences.

  My concern is that teachers on the frontline, as long as their working lives are entangled in skeins of petty provincial legal niceties, are not likely to achieve professional status. In the current circumstance, they are passive union workers adhering to the terms of the collective agreement.

  Next time, I’ll offer my interpretation of teacher professionalism and explore some possibilities for its realization.

  The views expressed or implied by Peter J. Hennessy are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CEA. http://www.cea-ace.ca/terms

• Adding the 4Cs to the 3Rs: Making a Place for Creativity in the Curriculum

  September 23, 2011 5:09 PM Comments Off on Adding the 4Cs to the 3Rs: Making a Place for Creativity in the Curriculum

  Thought leaders, CEOs, and governments around the world universally agree that an organization/country’s ability to innovate will be one of the key determinants of success in the 21st century economy. IBM’s recent International survey of 1,500 CEOs re-affirmed that claim, citing creativity as the most important attribute needed for success in the global economy.

  The Conference Board of Canada ranked us 14th out of the 17 major industrialized nations on measures of innovation, further commenting that it was “Canada’s greatest economic weakness (a ‘D’ grade).” The World Economic Forum also ranked us 14th, and what is even more alarming, we are getting worse; last year we were ranked 13th. We are literally in a race for last place!

  The Conference Board of Canada ranked us 14th out of the 17 major industrialized nations on measures of innovation, further commenting that it was “Canada’s greatest economic weakness (a ‘D’ grade).”

  Our productivity track record has fared no better; we stand a troubling 15th, with the annual output per Canadian worker roughly 75 percent that of an equivalent American worker.

  These measures lead to some obvious questions:

  • Since our economic health seems to be the envy of the world, what accounts for such a poor showing in our innovation and productivity?
  • How can our economy and culture be so tightly linked to the U.S., which is a world leader in innovation and productivity, when our own showing in these areas is much poorer?

  There have been numerous debates about the root causes for this lacklustre performance, with “too much reliance on our natural resource wealth” being the most common theme, but I believe there is another fundamental issue that has been overlooked for years across Canada – one that has had an even greater impact on the very foundations of Canada’s national innovation/productivity strategy and success.

  The Foundations

  Experts around the world agree that education is the key foundational building block for innovation skill development, and that the seeds of innovation – curiosity, inquisitiveness, experimentation, risk taking, teamwork, and interest in science and math – are best planted in Grades 3-7. The research further suggests that in Grades 8-12, the roots take hold, with creativity development being key to the whole process, and in university and beyond, the investments finally start to bear fruit.[1]

  So, here is the question: Is Canada’s K-12 system doing a good job of developing these key (and strategic) creativity and problem solving foundational skills – the ones that are the building blocks for tomorrow’s world class innovators?

  Over the past half century, fundamental change to Canada’s K-12 education system has definitely been a challenge. It is still very much fashioned after the Industrial Revolution model, with standardized testing the norm; individual results the focus as opposed to teamwork; memorization and regurgitation standard practices; the agrarian calendar with summers off; and little focus on developing higher level skills. 

  Over the past 18 months, I have had the opportunity to meet with more than half of Canada’s Superintendents/Directors/Directors General of Education. When asked to comment on these observations, they agreed: “We’re educating the creativity out of children…they’re afraid to take risks…they think there is only one right answer…they have limited if any team skills…success is measured only by grade point average… we’re doing a poor job in developing the key skills they need for the 21st century economy.” One summed it up best: “We need to add the four Cs…creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication…to the three Rs.”

  Additionally, our universities are adding fuel to the fire, often using grade point average as the only criterion for admission.

  To make the job even more challenging, the recent Kaiser Family Foundation Media Study found that 8-18 year-olds in America are now connected to some form of media (Internet, TV, music, etc.) 12 hours per day. Hence the question: Are today’s classrooms in sync with how these kids now think, or do the kids have to “dumb down” the minute they enter the classroom? 

  Billions of dollars have been invested by the Canada Foundation for Innovation since its formation in 1997 to improve Canada’s performance, yet we continue to fall behind. Could it be because our “National” Innovation Strategy doesn’t click into high gear until the post-graduate level? Have we left it too late? Why isn’t K-12 curriculum part of the national innovation dialogue? One Superintendent commented, “To use a hockey analogy, it would be like giving Sydney Crosby hockey equipment at age 21 and asking him to become a world-class hockey player, overnight! He started at age 3 in Tim Bits. K-12 has to be part of Canada’s national Innovation strategy.”

  Educators are the first to agree that there is a gaping hole in Canada’s national education strategy when it comes to  “4C” development, but what can we do quickly and cost-effectively to address this need? While there is consensus that the national K-12 curriculum needs to be revisited, a number of significant issues make reform difficult, including political risk, aversion to change, stakeholder buy-in, funding cuts, union resistance, lack of national standards, and parent pressures, to name but a few.

  Canada’s teachers continue to do an admirable job of bridging the gap between how 21st century kids think and the curriculum they are being asked to work with, but the gap is widening, and student engagement continues to be a daunting task. When Google puts the world’s knowledge base at our fingertips, do we need to focus as much on content? Should typing replace script writing? Should process/assessment skills be the new norm?

  Much needs to be done – and quickly. Some suggested actions include:

  • The Federal Government has to include K-12 in the national innovation dialogue…and now!
  • Every Ministry of Education should have 21st century skill development as their number one priority, with an ADM appointed to help drive the agenda.
  • Parents need to understand the challenge, and advocate for change, even though it may conflict with how/what they, themselves, were taught.
  • Every school district in the country should have a 21st century learning plan, with a pilot program starting this fall.
  • Business/industry needs to be actively engaged in the process of reform, as they will be the recipients of these changes.
  • Universities must broaden their entrance requirements to include alternate measures of success.

  Destination ImagiNation

  While curriculum reform must remain Canada’s number one education priority, shorter-term solutions must also be found that are cost-effective, scalable, politically acceptable, complementary to the curriculum, and agreeable to all the stakeholder groups.

  While curriculum reform must remain Canada’s number one education priority, shorter-term solutions must also be found.

  I have the privilege of supporting the world’s largest non-profit,  “4C” development program for students, Destination ImagiNation. If its principles – reflected in this article – were incorporated into every school district’s 21st century Development plan, we could go a long way toward nurturing creativity in our young people and closing the innovation/productivity gap that threatens to undermine our enviable economic status.

  Now in its 28th year – and literally millions of kids later – Destination ImagiNation helps young people discover their true creative potential and fills in the skill gaps that might be overlooked in the classroom. Children learn how to become better team players, communicators, presenters, researchers, budgeters. and “out-of-the-box” thinkers, all while becoming world-class problem solvers and innovators.

  Destination ImagiNation operates in all 50 U.S. states, nine Canadian provinces, and more than 30 other countries worldwide, and has a volunteer base measured in the tens of thousands. The program is competition based, with more than 400 tournaments held annually around the world. The program year culminates with a Global Finals competition, attracting more than 16,000 students and parents from around the world the last week of May. The event takes place in Knoxville, Tennessee, on the University of Tennessee campus.

  Typically offered as an after-school, parent-driven program (but with more and more schools now moving the program right into the classroom), teams of up to seven participants work together for an hour or two a week over several months to create solutions to exciting Team Challenges, which can have a scientific, technical, structural, theatrical, improvisational, or current events focus. Teams also learn and practice creative quick thinking skills for the Instant Challenge portion of the program, where they will have just five or six minutes to solve a challenge they have never seen before.

  The Destination ImagiNation program is a process-based program grounded in well-established creative problem solving theory, and helps young people build lifelong skills in a fun, cost-effective, and supportive environment.

  Conclusion

  Combining the “4Cs” with the “3Rs” will be key to strengthening Canada’s long-term international competitiveness. While volunteer-run, optional programs like Destination ImagiNation are filling the gap for some students, our school systems need to respond urgently to this country’s lagging performance by implementing similar programs for all children.

  EN BREF – Le Conference Board du Canada nous classe 14^e sur le plan de l’innovation parmi 17 grands pays industrialisés. Notre fiche de « productivité » n’est guère plus reluisante. Des experts du monde entier conviennent que l’éducation constitue la pierre d’angle du développement des compétences d’innovation et que les graines de l’innovation – curiosité, soif de connaissances, expérimentation, prise de risques, travail d’équipe et intérêt pour les sciences et les mathématiques – sont idéalement semées de la 3^e à la 7e année. Depuis son établissement en 1997, la Fondation canadienne pour l’innovation a investi des mil­liards pour rehausser le résultat du Canada, mais notre stratégie d’innovation « nationale » ne s’enclenche vraiment qu’au niveau des études universitaires supérieures. Destination ImagiNation, un programme géré par des bénévoles, comble le vide pour certains élèves plus jeunes, mais nos systèmes scolaires doivent réagir d’urgence à la faible performance du pays en instaurant des programmes semblables pour tous les enfants.

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  [1] Based on personal communication with Dr. Don Treffinger and Dr. Scott Isaksen, authors of numerous books/articles on creative and critical thinking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  Whole Education Partners at Work

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

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

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

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

  http://www.learningfutures.org/

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

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

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

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

  [4] Unicef, Child Well Being in Rich Countries

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

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

  [7] www.abetterbaccalaureate.org

• The Teaching Profession: Is There Still A Place For Imagination

  September 22, 2011 6:07 PM Comments Off on The Teaching Profession: Is There Still A Place For Imagination

  Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

  —Albert Einstein

  I think that we’ve come to a point in public education where we’re worried too much about the “public” and not enough about the “education”. More specifically, we’ve become far too concerned about the way our systems look from the outside that our ideas about what should be happening on the inside have become overly skewed. Consider current obsessions with test scores, international rankings and public satisfaction surveys. Each of these, in their own way, can provide some insight into how a system is doing, but to focus on them as the inspiration for the work that we do in our schools is a little like using gas consumption as the primary indicator of whether your cross-country vacation was a success.

  For my blogging colleague, Peter Hennessy, some of the transformation necessary in our schools has to do with looking outwards to the power of community involvement and relationship. I agree with Peter that, teaching and learning that is somehow embedded in the reality and relevance of local communities is extremely vital to the life of authentic school communities.

  Yet I continue to do great deal of thinking about the need to look inward as well, inward to the spaces and possibilities that could be created in our schools if we were to begin to honour the role of imagination and creativity. And this week, I find myself thinking specifically of this profession that I call home.

  When I first began my life as a teacher, I felt a tremendous sense of freedom to bring my own personality and gifts to a fairly general set of educational aims and objectives. This is what motivated me about the work that I was beginning. I remember spending hours in the evening, on weekends and during summer months collecting ideas, creating lesson and unit ideas and dreaming up new approaches that might engage my students. Of course, many of these dreams and schemes needed to be altered once my students walked into the classroom, but that was OK; it was all part of the process. 

  In those days there was a sense in which a teacher’s identity was wrapped up in the way that they taught. There were teachers who were known for their use of media, others for their love of music, and others for their affinity for sports statistics. 

  While it could be argued that there is still room for imagination and creativity in the teaching profession, there seems to be a growing positivist approach to our professional lives. In many provinces, as much time is spent on making sure all teachers are using the same teaching approaches and strategies as we used to spend on making our teaching styles uniquely our own. Common resources have been mandated by many school districts. Databases of report card comments have served to take teacher voices out of the mix. And centralized teacher evaluation protocols, coupled with copious amounts of data collection have done a good job of ensuring that compliance trumps creativity. 

  The underlying narrative of the profession has shifted. We now tell the story that there is a set of truths about teaching and learning somewhere “out there”. As we speak, these truths are being discovered and collected into a massive database. Our success as teachers relies on our ability to learn and adopt these “best practices.”

  That’s it, no need for innovation, no need for copious amounts of creativity and certainly no need for imagination! After all, if we’ve decided that something has been deemed “best practice”, why would we be using anything else?

  Now before you get the impression that I’m on an anti-research bent, please know that I love education-based research. But my years in the classroom have also taught me that, while learning is a fairly natural part of being a human being, teaching is not. Sure, we need to listen to the experiences of those who have been this way before. We need to listen to those who have spent much of their life’s work on investigating how human beings learn and how that learning is affected and enhanced. 

  But I really believe that we have to drop this notion that it is possible, let alone desirable, to figure this whole thing out. In our efforts to rationalize, and even simplify the process of school-based teaching, we are losing sight of just how complex this project we call school actually is! 

  It’s a complexity that requires openness, a sense of adventure and a whole bunch of imagination. I’m afraid that in presenting teaching practice as a given, we’re going to dissuade a large number of people from the profession who possess the artistic sensibility and vision that we so desperately need.

  Transformation must respect scientific inquiry and the accompanying rules of evidence provided by that perspective. And, I’ll even agree that some standardization of curriculum is likely a good thing. But there’s something that is being lost in our attempt to make teaching and learning a purely scientific, data-driven undertaking. And what’s being lost is the very thing that is going to help re-professionalize teaching. Our conversations need to become more infused with the language of imagination. It is in doing so that we’ll begin to find room for talk of hope, of possibility and of school systems that promote meaningful learning, civic engagement (and, yes civility) and autonomy. 

  And that is the type of school system that I imagine and dream about!

  What about you? What is the role of imagination in the work that you do? Would you like to have more room for imagination and creativity? Do you have stories where you were led more by your imagination than your curriculum guide?

• 2011 Ken Spencer Education Award – $15,000 in Prizes

  September 19, 2011 5:51 PM Comments Off on 2011 Ken Spencer Education Award – $15,000 in Prizes

  Ron Canuel, CEA CEO, invites educators to apply for the 2011 Ken Spencer Award.

• It’s Not Time For Imagination?

  September 14, 2011 4:05 PM Comments Off on It’s Not Time For Imagination?

  “But daddy, it’s not time for imagination!” My four year old son, Luke, was doing his best to rescue a toy that his two year old brother, Liam, had been playing with. The problem was that, according to Luke, his brother was not using the toy for its intended purpose and should, therefore, be required to give it up. I had tried to explain to Luke that Liam was using his imagination and had come up with a different way of playing. Needless to say, my reasoning didn’t wash—at least not with Luke.

  In a recently posted CEA video, John Ralston Saul has some rather poignant things to say about what we sacrifice when our school systems are focused on efficiency, managerialism and content over form. And while authentic intelligence is held up by Ralston Saul as being one of the victims of the rather utilitarian model of education that has been taken shape around us, I would argue that imagination has suffered as well.

  And, you know, it makes total sense.

  Think back to the opening conversations that you’ve had in your schools and district offices this year. Have they been more focused on strategies for increasing test scores, or on ways of creating engaging and exciting learning environments for students? Have they been more concerned with mitigating risk through policy statements and rules, or with ways of encouraging entrepreneurship and intellectual risk-taking? Have they been more centered on assessment and evaluation, or on fostering real and powerful learning in our students and teachers?

  More and more the priorities and values that are promoted in our public schools push to the side the types of energy and thinking that are going to make real differences in the ability of public education to prepare students for dynamic citizenship in the 21^st century. More and more, we’re saying to our students and our teachers, “It’s not time for imagination.”

  Imagination and creativity cannot simply be inserted into our school systems as a “value-added” feature. It’s not about developing a curriculum that teaches imagination, and its certainly not about creating a box on the report card that accounts for imaginative thinking.

  No, imagination must become part of the culture of the way we look at schools and the work of education in Canada. It needs to be infused into the discourse used by policy-makers, administrators, teachers and students. Public will and resolve can open up the space for a shift in the types of conversations that are considered valuable in our 21^st century schools. Imagination can help us to keep those spaces open!

  Have you encountered a shift towards thinking of schools from a more imaginative perspective? In what areas of school practice do you see room for the infusion of imaginative thinking? What could imaginative thinking look like in your school context?

• Motivation and Autonomy

  September 13, 2011 2:14 PM Comments Off on Motivation and Autonomy

  “A man stands in front of a tank in China.” Families stand in the streets for days in Egypt. And, on a different scale, children everywhere contemplate running away from home when denied a later bedtime / another cookie / a sought-after toy. In Drive Daniel Pink makes the case that the longing – and sometimes fight – for autonomy is part of what makes us human. He defines autonomy as the desire to have control over a task, our time, our technique and our environment (including deciding who is on our team).

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• Cdn EdWire: With Students Back in Classrooms, Education Media Kicks into High Gear

  September 9, 2011 7:34 PM Comments Off on Cdn EdWire: With Students Back in Classrooms, Education Media Kicks into High Gear

  CLASSROOMS

  Video in the class keeps savvy students engaged – Globe and Mail 

  It’s back to school for cellphones in Toronto – Globe and Mail

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• Can You Imagine?

  September 7, 2011 5:01 PM Comments Off on Can You Imagine?

  One of the comments that often appeared on my early school report cards, one that was then emphasized during parent-teacher interviews, had to do with my habit of getting lost in daydreams. Apparently, it was not uncommon for me to zone out during regularly scheduled classroom lessons, returning to “reality” only after being admonished by my teacher for not paying attention.

  

  Photo by: mollyollyoxenfree http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollydon/5358808933/

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• What Will You Open First At The Beginning of the School Year?

  September 2, 2011 12:31 PM Comments Off on What Will You Open First At The Beginning of the School Year?

  Canadian thought leader, Rodd Lucier, asked me the following question last week, and it has had me thinking ever since:

  “What is the first thing that will be opened on the first day of school: the textbook or the stories?”

  I remember clearly preparing for the first day of school at the beginning of my career. In those days, I would spend most of August in my classroom (much to the chagrin of our caretaking staff), preparing bulletin boards, photocopying worksheets and activities, designing curriculum tasks and devising complex incentive schemes. On the very last day of summer vacation, I would spend my time arranging desks in neat arrays, making sure that pencils were sharpened and that notebooks, textbooks and name tags were on every desk. I wanted to guarantee that when students walked in on the first day of school  they knew that I had been diligently working on their behalf and that I was, indeed, ready to go.

  I recall those First Days of School being characterized by a great deal of talking and a great deal of listening. Looking back, however, I know that I was the one who did most of the talking, and the students did most of the listening: listening to who I was and what my expectations were; listening to me outline the rules and procedures for the year. I thought that was the way to do it. I thought that was the way to establish control, rapport and student buy-in. I thought!

  Fast forward twenty five years and my current method of preparation for that first day of school:

  Bulletin boards are started but not complete. A large, blank piece of butcher paper runs along one entire wall of the classroom. Tables and desks are pushed to the side and the chairs form a large circle with several pieces of wood resembling a campfire as the centerpiece. A guitar leans up against one wall. I am ready to go.

  It took me too many years to realize that I had been starting off on the wrong foot! The structures and infrastructures of school, while important, are not central to what my work is all about. Textbooks, bulletin boards, notebooks and all of the other scholastic trappings that my students and I are used to hiding behind are not what are essential to the ecology of my classroom.

  For me, the core of teaching and learning has become the story: my story, my students’ story, story of our community and, indeed, our world. And if it’s true that our stories lie at the core of who we are as individuals, then why not recognize that in the way I begin my school year.

  Our stories connect us to one another; our stories set us apart and allow us to express our uniqueness. Our stories allow us to relive both the highs and lows of life. Our stories allow us to express our hopes, dreams and our fears.

  To take the time to open up our stories is to lay the foundation for empathic relationship which, I believe, is the cornerstone of any safe and nurturing environment.

  So, the bulletin boards I begin are now designed to leave room for my students’ own creativity and insight. The butcher paper that runs along my classroom wall acts as a living, breathing record of what we learn and are thinking about on a daily basis. The tables and desks are sidelined in order to encourage openness and vulnerability. And the campfire? Well, that’s my new metaphor for teaching and learning, for it’s around the campfire that the art of living is played out: in story, in song, and in dance.

  The textbooks—well, they still have a place in my teaching, but they won’t be seen for a while. If you walk into my classroom on the first day of school these days, the first things that you’ll see us open up are our stories.

  So, come in, grab a chair around the campfire and get ready to learn!

  Note: For a powerful example of how another teacher has adopted this approach on an ongoing basis, take a look at Children Full of Life a Passionate Eye documentary released several years ago. 

• Prevent Teacher ‘YouTubing’ by Giving Students More Freedom to Learn

  August 25, 2011 4:21 PM Comments Off on Prevent Teacher ‘YouTubing’ by Giving Students More Freedom to Learn

  I cringe when I hear the horror stories from other teachers about how their board has banned cellphones, Facebook and YouTube.  If privacy in a public classroom is the sacrifice that we have to make in order to get the educational benefit out of these devices with video capability, then by all means do it.  Students need to be taught that the polite, respectful thing to do would be to ask for permission to videotape your teacher and then respect his/her wishes.  It is far better to take these moments where cell phones conflict with lesson plans and teach how to better use these devices properly.

  The key is reculturing ourselves to accept this technology in more ways for learning.  If you’ve ever wanted to text someone during a meeting, or Google something at the dinner table to fact-check, then you’ve got a taste of what’s happening in classrooms worldwide today.   Devices that connect to the internet come in all shapes and sizes and there is no way that the public school boards can attempt a 1:1 ratio of equipment to student.  So we depend on students to bring their own tech. If a smartphone (or tablet or laptop) allows students to have that kind of access, then I’m all for it.  Students are capable of deciding how they can use technology to improve their learning, and school needs to provide the environment to help them be productive.  Instead of eliminating their technology from the classroom, we need to teach students the consequences for texting or being on Facebook. They’ll miss out on opportunities for learning, if they can’t learn to communicate well.  Giving students, parents and the whole school community multiple ways to communicate will benefit everyone.  This year my new Grade 9 library helper emailed me and ‘cc’ed’ her parents so that they could sync her library schedule with her parents’ Outlook calendar.  Open communication with the broader community of learners that pertain to my school is my goal.

  The dilemma of society learning when and how to use technology is not in saying “No” to students. The answer lies in the best teaching method in the world: give the students more choice.

  The dilemma of society learning when and how to use technology is not in saying “No” to students. The answer lies in the best teaching method in the world: give the students more choice.  We need to let students Tweet to each other about their geography lesson to deepen their learning, if that’s their choice.  We need to let them choose how they will publish, and determine their own privacy settings.  We need to teach them how.  To eliminate technology from the classroom is to deny our students access to the three most important concepts they’ll ever learn: communication, collaboration and creation.  It prevents them from moving forward and it prevents the greater community from moving forward with them.

   

  Photo courtesy of Dean Shareski http://www.flickr.com/photos/shareski/3268690032/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Why the UnPlug’d Canadian Education Summit Matters

  August 17, 2011 12:08 AM Comments Off on Why the UnPlug’d Canadian Education Summit Matters

  A few weekends ago I had the extraordinary opportunity to participate at UnPlug’d – a PD gathering like no other.  A group of deeply committed Canadian educators converged upon Toronto and rode a train to the western edge of Algonquin Park to share the aspects of teaching and learning that mattered most to them.
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• Raise High The Roof-Beam Carpenters

  July 28, 2011 7:54 PM Comments Off on Raise High The Roof-Beam Carpenters

  This blog entry was originally written in May 2011 and appeared over my own site, Teaching Out Loud. This week I sat down to write something on the same topic, having just heard an educational leader speak quite enthusiastically about capacity building. I realized that the thoughts expressed here still form the foundation of my thinking around this. I submit the same entry here, in its original form, for your comments and feedback and, hopefully, some further conversatio.

  Of all of the terms and phrases that have worked their way into the school change discourse (and there are many) over the past couple of decades , the one that I find the most curious is capacity building.

  It seems that whenever a new initiative or program has been introduced into our schools over the past 20 years, the key to effective implementation is most often identified as capacity building.

  “We have to engage in some capacity-building around this”.

  This is code for “We really aren’t ready to do this.”

  Writing teams are usually formed, release days are organized and Power Point™ presentations are designed and distributed throughout the system. It then becomes expected that the change has become part of our culture. In a very real sense, capacity building is seen as a training challenge!

  Yet, despite all of these efforts at capacity-building, I haven’t noticed a whole lot of substantial change. Have you?

  I would like to suggest that the lack of change has nothing to do with the individual initiatives being proposed. In fact, there is likely a good deal of untapped potential in many of them.

  Instead, I’m thinking that the reason very few of them actually take root has to do with the fact that capacity building in today’s schools is actually a misguided idea. The term sounds sexy enough but in its current form it is, at best, unfeasible and, at worst, simply not possible!

  Capacity refers to the ability to receive or contain something. Most often, the term is used when describing how roomy something is. We talk about the maximum capacity of a concert hall or stadium, the capacity of a box or other container and, though no longer an accurate metaphor for learning, the capacity of the mind to grasp something. In essence, capacity has to do with the amount of space available to hold something.

  As my father-in-law likes to say, there’s the rub!

  The reality is that our current model of thinking about schools is full. It has already reached its maximum capacity. There is no more room at the inn!

  It’s not physical capacity that I’m talking about. Our own district is currently in the process of closing and selling off several of its schools. The school in which I teach has three empty classrooms. We have extra keyboards in our music lab.

  It’s not the temporal capacity that is the limiting factor. Increasing capacity is not about extending school hours or increasing the number of instructional days. It’s not about eliminating recess, morning announcements or shortening lunch hours.

  And it’s not the capacity of the individuals who come to work in our schools every day. At all levels of the system, we have access to creative, innovative and enthusiastic educators who are committed to transforming our schools in powerful and exciting ways.

  The place where we have reached capacity is in our vision of what school needs to be about. We have been convinced that the only way to do school is the way that we’ve been doing it for the past century and a half.

  Schools are built on the assumption that our age-based, grade specific set of curriculum expectations are the only way to fly.

  Schools are built on the assumption that a one grade/one teacher management system is the most effective.

  School are built on the assumption that if it doesn’t happen between 9:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., it’s not really school.

  School are built on the assumption that the teacher assigned to each classroom is the most valuable learning resource present.

  School are built on the assumption that students can effectively learn about the world by being removed from it for most of their formative years.

  Schools are built on the assumption that the best way to evaluate the effectiveness of the work that we do is through a series of written tests.

  Schools are built on the assumption that the best way to report on the progress of students in our care is through a series of written reports.

  Schools are built on the assumption that good use of new technology measn using it to do old things.

  These are just some of the things that prevent us from making headway on most new initiatives.

  When educational decision-makers speak of capacity building, they are most often referring to the amount of training necessary to introduce a new program or initiative. In order for real change and transformation to take place, however, we need to think of capacity building in terms of altering some of the fundamental assumptions that we make about this place we call school.

  I’m all for talking about capacity building, but let’s make sure that we’re focusing our efforts in the right place. Let’s begin to make room in our vision of schools so that it can finally hold all of the potential that 21st education holds.

  With deference to J. D. Salinger: Raise high the roof beam carpenters…we’re going to fill this school with life!

  Are there other assumptions about school that stand in the way of transformation? Is capacity building an accurate description of the work that needs to be done to improve schools for all?

• Starting Points in Education

  July 13, 2011 11:38 AM Comments Off on Starting Points in Education

  If you’re find yourself needing some reassurance about the future of public education in this country, I would suggest spending time in a faculty of education. My prediction is that you won’t have to hang out long before you are able to breathe a sigh of relief that our children and our education systems are in good hands. 

  I’m not saying that the structure of teacher education is perfect. I believe that there are many things about teacher preparation that can and should be examined: course offerings, overall program design, length of initial preparation and even that strange relationship that exists between field-based practice and university-centered research and knowledge. There is a good deal of room for discussion in all of these areas. There are important conversations to have around these and other aspects of the way that we get candidates ready for a career in the profession. 

  These structural and infrastructural issues aside, there is something about the candidates, themselves, that give me a sense of hope and confidence in the future of our schools. 

  When I first entered the Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto back in 1983, I really didn’t have a sense of what I was getting into. If someone had asked about my teaching philosophy (I’m sure that I had to include something about that in my original application) I would likely have said something about helping kids learn, and how education was an important part of living a full and satisfying life. But that would have been the extent of it! 

  But in the early 80’s, there were still plenty of jobs to be had. In fact, in areas of suburban growth, some school boards were hiring upwards of 500 teachers every year. I know that growth wasn’t the same in every region of the country, but if you wanted to teach full-time in Canada, there were jobs to be had. Today, however, job prospects across the country are less than bright and many young graduates choose to leave Canada to get experience and a regular paycheck. 

  And employment isn’t the only challenge for new graduates. On the other end of the process, Canadian universities are, themselves, very selective about who actually gets into their programs. Academic success and experience in teaching and learning contexts are still important keys to admission. Add to that the fact that questions about teacher quality and school effectiveness have become favourite talking points for both politicians and talk show hosts. Finally, schools themselves are under great pressure to use a rather limited rubric of success to demonstrate year-over-year progress.

  Yet despite these institutional and social gatekeepers (or, perhaps, because of them?), Canadians of various ages and experience profiles are still coming to the profession. And they are coming with a sense of resilience, perspective and a sense of what it means to be a teacher. It has taken years for me to develop some of these same habits of mind.

  But don’t take my word for it. Listen for yourself. In the final episode of this season’s Teaching Out Loud podcast series, you’ll meet three teacher education students from across the country. Monica Batac, Holly Thiel, and Michelle Horst speak confidently and articulately about their hopes, dreams and sources of inspiration as they prepare to enter full-time practice and take on the challenges of teaching in the 21st century. Their voices, I believe, are representative of those across Canada who are poised to play an active role in the transformation of schooling and education. You’ll hear confidence, but you’ll also hear a sense of vulnerability. You’ll hear hope, but you’ll also hear an awareness and appreciation of the challenges that face today’s teachers and students. You’ll recognize some of their local context, but you’ll also hear the heart they have for diversity and global literacy.

  I think that you’ll agree that these are the voices that we need as we move deeper into new conversations about teaching, learning and this place we call school. I think that you’ll agree that with voices like these, the future is bright!

  Have a listen. There’s always lots to talk about when you’re Teaching Out Loud!

• The Education Reform Movement (Part 2)

  July 4, 2011 3:39 PM Comments Off on The Education Reform Movement (Part 2)

  It will be a tough slog achieving even a modest measure of my proposal in earlier blogs, i.e. diploma credit for community activity at the senior high school level. It might have been  easier 20, 30 or more years  ago when, for a brief time, there was popular support for  social, political and judicial reform – e.g. the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982; peacekeeping when and where needed; The International Criminal Court, 1990s; co-operative and alternative education experiments everywhere; apprenticeships of various kinds.

  That is to say, the lead-up to the present (2011) has been marked by an explosive growth in the economics of size buttressed by conservatism in politics.  Bigger is better in both public and private enterprises. The larger the organization the greater the need for bureaucratic efficiency, employee conformity, firewalls against legal liability. In the outcome, lawyers are just as important  as specialized staff in the health and welfare of successful organizations, even hospitals, retirement and nursing homes.  

  Ask any large entity to accept a  half dozen high school students for a couple of months to help them learn about the everyday workings of the enterprise or agency, the answer will almost certainly be befuddlement and bewilderment. To whose office should the request be addressed?  How will accountability and responsibility be assured?  How will the organization be protected from legal liability? Will the receiving person or persons or officials have to endure a police check of the sexual offender registry?  How can the privacy rights of members of the organization be protected? How can an assignment deemed by the assigned student to be a failure avoid unfair blowback on the organization?

  These serious questions and others point to complications that would scare any school board away from community engagement for their students.  School trustees, too, have lawyers whispering in their ears. These men and women in public positions, more than most, are comfortable with the emerging police state about which many observers keep warning us.

  There is a ray of hope in this picture of timidity and uncertainty in the ranks of those in charge.  I am referring to the increasingly serious talk about reducing the voting age from 18 to 16. It is an overdue change for these reasons and more: earlier maturation of young persons coupled with encouraging signs of social responsibility. Digital communication has accelerated these trends. These positive signs emphasize the need to get our 16-18 year olds into the community so that they may  learn first-hand about the world of work, about economic productivity and social planning, about health care facilities and practice, about the global economy, about membership in the caring community and , outstandingly, about their own  personal career planning.  It remains for the political parties to take the initiative by broadening the electorate in step with the social evolution of the young and the parallel growth of the aged segment.

  In that social context, the health of our democracy is the real issue and the engagement of our youth is part of the solution.

• The “Canadian Way” in a Chinese School

  June 22, 2011 8:34 AM Comments Off on The “Canadian Way” in a Chinese School

  Recently I spent 10 days in China, mostly in Shenzhen for a conference but also two days in Xi’an, the ancient capital and home of the terracotta warriors, for my own touristy pleasure.  I was invited to China because my previous school district established a partnership with a school in Shenzhen during my tenure that involves placing teachers there and the Chinese students, staff and parents visiting Richmond for one month annually.  The Shenzhen authorities consider it to be the most successful international class in the city of 20 million, which is China’s richest and home to 20% of its PhD’s.

  The teachers in the program change each year and generally they are very young, sometimes straight out of University, and yet their students always do exceptionally well.  In fact, they get the top results in the school, and often the city, in the annual city exams, not only in English but also in every other subject, including Math and Chinese.  This is not because they are a select group – in fact they are quite typical of the school – so what might explain this astounding success (even in subjects that the Canadian teachers do not teach)?

  My opinion, which is based on discussion with the teachers and students over the years, is that the source of the success lies in a way of thinking about learning and about the role of a teacher that is common to teachers in the Richmond School District, and I presume others, rather than the attributes of any particular teacher or the specifics of their personal pedagogy.  In my remarks – which have to make sense across language and cultural differences, and are therefore boiled down to essentials – I suggested it was because all of the teachers we have sent believe that:

  •  the classroom should be a safe, supportive community
  •  children should frequently work together in small groups; there should be lots of conversation; and teachers should work with the students in their groups;
  •  mistakes should be welcomed as opportunities to learn; and children should be encouraged to ask for help from the teacher and also to help each other;
  •  students should respect the teacher and the teacher must also respect the students; because respect is a basic value, there is less need for large numbers of rules and self-discipline should be the focus; and
  •  homework should be limited so students have time for exercise and other activities and are able to get lots of sleep so they are ready to actively engage in learning in school the next day.

  These familiar beliefs are, in fact, quite radical in the Chinese context.  Other North American educators at the conference who had just completed a fairly extensive tour of China commented to me that in most schools they say a relatively rote form of learning but that in Shenzhen they saw much more active and engaged classrooms – but even here these ideas are generally seen as innovative.

  Initially, students, parents and other staff were very nervous and doubtful about the efficacy of a student-centered approach, but over the years understanding has grown and many of the staff have begun to incorporate elements of the “Canadian practice” into their own pedagogy in ways that make sense to them.  Such observation, reflection and adaptation is the the only way for educational ideas to cross borders – direct importation doesn’t work and, in any event, the local teachers have lots to add to them.

  The notion of group work is perhaps the one that has been most widely adapted and which the native teachers of Math and Chinese feel has been responsible for the increase in exam results.  The idea that homework should be limited, on the other hand, is still treated skeptically!

  What is most common between the Chinese and Canadian contexts is the passionate concern that parents and teacher share for the children and youth in their care.  All the surface features of local behaviour and educational practice pale in the face of this universal, which provides a solid foundation for our communication and mutual learning.

  
  

• Playing to Learn

  June 17, 2011 4:20 PM Comments Off on Playing to Learn

  A review of A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, 2011. ISBN-13: 978-1456458881

  Play is neither trivial nor frivolous; it is how we learn. Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown take seriously the role of play as a mindset that needs to be cultivated in education. In A New Culture of Learning, they invite us to see how a world in constant flux is not either a problem to solve or a challenge to overcome. Via richly textured stories about what learning and play look and feel like in digitally connected participatory cultures, the authors invite readers to imagine how teaching might respond to a world in constant change.

  In a skillful analysis of shifting learning contexts and cultures, the authors explore learning as a cultural, social, and continuous process of inquiry, engagement, and participation in the world around us. Given that knowledge and information are dynamic and changing, that current technologies are participatory and emergent, they argue that learning environments must be transformed into knowledge building collectives that constantly create and respond to change.

  They explore the power, nature, and benefits of learning collectives that shift away from a culture of solitary professionals and experts to worldwide webs of professionals and amateurs working together in knowledge building groups – groups like those highlighted in the book, Seeing in the Dark, a collaboration of amateur and professional astronomers interested in astrophysics theories, or like fan fiction collectives, which illustrate how interest-driven inquiry is about how people learn in addition to what they learn.  Harry Potter fans join an online community engaged in ongoing conversations to connect with like-minded enthusiasts and experts. Through contributions to wikis, blogs, and online forums, readers change the culture by participating in it. Readers learn the stories via the books and explore the meaning of the novels through active engagement with others online in rich, participatory cultural contexts.

  Thomas and Seely Brown’s key ideas about new learning cultures converge in a case study of a massive, multiplayer online game. In World of Warcraft, groups of players form guilds, go on raids, battle monsters, and progress through increasingly difficult challenges. A raid is a complex group action that can involve 25 globally dispersed players in six-to-eight hours of game play.  The authors invite us to imagine the ways in which players develop and hone dispositions and character traits – embracing change, understanding the power of diversity, using feedback for constant improvement, and living on the edge – valued competencies and attitudes needed for a world in constant change.

  A New Culture of Learning is an important book that disrupts notions of schooling built on stable knowledge and individual learning. In constantly changing contexts, where new ideas are exploding, learning has to be continuous, connected, and collective. Play becomes a strategy for cultivating our imaginations, engaging our creativity, and embracing change, not something to “grow out of”. As the world grows more complicated, complex, and fluid, our opportunities for imagination, innovation, and play increase.

  In technology-enabled learning environments, teaching can be transformed in ways that recognize learner participation and engagement in networked conversations as fundamental to knowledge building. In new learning cultures, teachers design learning environments to cultivate creativity and the imagination, offer flexible boundaries, and support learners in undertaking meaningful, challenging, and collaborative tasks – playing with rich resources and making collective contributions to their culture.  Evaluating the collective act of knowledge building involves a shift of focus from the individual effort to the quality of the product.  Reminiscent of Seymour Papert’s ideas about hard fun, the authors argue that when students feel passion for a topic, they will seek out the tough problems, work hard to solve them, and have fun doing it.  Participatory learning environments sustain student motivation and engagement in powerful ideas and in questions about things that matter to the learners and to the world.

  Thomas and Seely Brown’s book will appeal to prospective and practicing teachers, school leaders, graduate students, post-secondary teachers, and leaders who need to understand how complex learning happens beyond school in order to design participatory learning environments. The authors’ examples of beyond-school learning, from blogging, to multiplayer online games, to Wikipedia, serve to illustrate the new, fluid culture of learning.

  The authors call for a balance between the structure that educational systems provide and the freedom to play in new participatory and connected cultures. Education should be a place where we embrace the many online resources and rich opportunities for play, exploration, and cultivating the imagination, not attempt to shut them out.

  Readers can access the book’s online community for reviews, videos, and additional resources at  www.newcultureoflearning.com

• Stuck in the Groove: A Critique of Compulsory Schooling

  3:04 PM Comments Off on Stuck in the Groove: A Critique of Compulsory Schooling

  As a critic of formal schooling, I feel guilty about criticizing it. I am a product of the system, yet my accumulated knowledge and experience screams at me to clear the record on its contradictions and failings.

  As a child in elementary school, I was singled out early for my undisciplined, mischievous behaviour. I was strapped for a misdemeanor in my first week in Grade 1. From that moment to this, I fear “getting it wrong”. Perhaps this anxiety can be explained by a healthy regard for my working class roots; or it could be that I am reconciling incidents like the strapping that may have set my formal learning onto a less than functional pathway. Whatever the case, I feel like a survivor of the school system rather than a self-actualized graduate.

  Balancing my own life experiences with the way of learning entrenched in schools has defined my professional life as an educator – as if my development as a human being has been directed in ways that, in retrospect, did not suit my personality or needs. And so, I am both apprehensive, and compelled to set the record straight.

  The Problem with Schools

  Learning in formal schools violates several simple principles. The first is that no one can learn on an empty spirit. The second is that true learning requires an absence of fear or authority. A third is that learning is the most natural of human instincts. It doesn’t need to be forced or institutionalized.

  These principles of child and adult development can be found in the education and psychology literature, but also in the recesses of our minds when we step outside of our formal learned behaviour patterns and think independently – not easy to do after being confined in formal learning institutions for long periods of time. Indeed, some thinkers have characterized such confinement as a form of imprisonment. By contrast, these basic principles of learning are often respected by other cultures. Indigenous philosophies of learning, for example, value oral and experiential forms of learning. Tradespeople value learning by apprenticeship or doing. Artists often think and act spatially.

  So, what is the problem with schools – or, perhaps more accurately, what is the problem with the way we think about schools? The following interrelated random comments, when taken together, shed light on both questions and re-frame the problem.

  “Why shouldn’t mothers…, who spend all day with their children, teach them to read, to understand money, to think about numbers, to understand the calendar, the clock, time, space? Now that these are necessary requirements for a full humanity, just as walking and talking and understanding kinship relations and the local terrain were once the requirements for a full humanity, why can’t all such essentials be taught at home? Do we know why not?” (Margaret Mead).[1]

  “She was due to start Kindergarten a couple weeks after her fourth birthday. When it was time to register I called to enquire as to how they would meet her educational needs. At the time, she was reading Charlotte’s Web and about three-quarters of the way through the things she would have learned in the Grade 1 math curriculum and was writing at a level I would have expected for a B student by the end of Grade 1…. She had, for the most part, taught this all to herself with me acting as a facilitator, answering questions, reading to her, etc. The school’s response was that she could come and learn her ABC’s and numbers to 10 with everyone else and be “socialized”. I started looking into homeschooling at that point. – [Kristen Moras has been a homeschooling mom for five years.]

  “I wasn’t a good student so I was afraid of criticism and it stayed with me. I was insecure for half my life” [Maureen McAllister is a former preschool teacher, mother, and now grandmother].

  “Traditions of ‘friluftsliv’ are simple, engaging, primal, interactions with nature: a morning paddle, a berry-picking excursion, a family trip, a walk with the dog, a well-planned outing. These are the practical activities of simply living first in nature. We need to be in joyous union with nature before risky adventures and intensive study dominate our experiences… within this we move seamlessly from activity to idea.” (Bob Henderson, a Canadian outdoor educator who attended an outdoor education conference/retreat in Norway, where he was introduced to a Norwegian tradition called friluftsliv).[2]

  “Science has brought the separation of knowledge and experience. In its wake came the rise of experts and decline of people’s trust in their own direct experiences.” (Ursula Franklin)[3]

  As these statements demonstrate, we have abandoned trust in our individual and collective experience in favour of experts and institutions. We need to ask: What assumptions have led to and sustain this imbalance?

  In this context, nothing is more important, in my mind, than the role of schools and, most importantly, the role of teacher education. Formally trained educators have come to measure achievement in a way that is antithetical to intelligence and to meaningful learning. Grundtvig and Lindeman, Danish education philosophers, identified the problem years ago: “[E]ducation conceived as a preparation for life locks that learning within a vicious circle. Youth educated in terms of adult ideas and taught to think of learning as a process which ends when real life begins will make no better use of intelligence than the elders who prescribe the system.”[4] By and large, teachers – who are often victims in the process – fail to understand this problem.

  Formally trained educators have come to measure achievement in a way that is antithetical to intelligence and to meaningful learning.

  The institutionalization of learning creates two dilemmas. First, institutions “provide procedures through which human conduct is patterned, compelled to go, in grooves deemed desirable by society. And this trick is performed by making these grooves appear to the individual as the only possible ones.”[5] The learner, who should be encouraged to develop his or her natural curiosity and instinct for learning, is asked to defer those tendencies, instead allowing the institutionally determined content and pace to define the learning process.

  Second, normative order inside the school exerts an absolute power, and those who wish to teach or learn within that organizational milieu are expected to conform to it. Most parents accept this as part of the socialization process. After all, children need to learn self-discipline and how to behave in the company of others. But sociologists are less accepting. They argue that those norms are “class-based” and favour middle-class children over those with working-class origins. Although the coveted goal of most public education institutions is egalitarianism – equal opportunity for all – educational sociologists like Pomfret and Jarvis argue that schools are not egalitarian places at all. [6] They privilege some forms of learning over others, some people over others. We homogenize and standardize people and cultures at a huge cost.

  A Look at our Assumptions

  “One of the fundamental aspects of life learning is contrary to one of the most basic assumptions our society makes about education… that learning can and should be produced in people. This assumption is based on the idea that learning is the result of treatment by an institution called school…. which is, of course, one of the many conventional beliefs that life learning families are overturning.”[7] (Priesnitz, editor of Natural Life Magazine)

  Priesnitz makes a timely and profound comment. We are in the midst of a technological revolution that we don’t fully understand, and for which we have no policy reference points. We responded to the industrial revolution by making schooling mandatory and turning schools into what some critics call “factories”. A careful look at the industrial age assumptions and the contradictions that followed exposes how those assumptions have failed us, and suggests how we can avoid the same fate again.

  Compulsory schooling assumes that assimilation into society via academic achievement is a right and a necessity for all citizens (government induced grooves?), predicated on the notion that matters of the mind are superior to matters of the body and spirit. Recent research, however, suggests the “academic-diet-for-everyone” assumption is flawed.[8] A critique of the following three underlying assumptions helps expose the magnitude of the problem.

  1. Book learning in schools is an irreproachable method by which to learn.

  Schools perform both positive and negative functions, but missing from our analysis is an honest assessment of both the advantages and the disadvantages that 12 years of institutional confinement and academic programming bring. The positive functions can be found in the school literature in the form of goals and purposes. The negative functions are not well understood or widely discussed. They include the “holding” function that schools perform, the conformity function, and the standardization function. As graduates of our schools, most of us have come to accept the way in which knowledge is packaged and dispensed without seeing how it contributes to these negative functions.

  The experiential learning tradition, by contrast, provides some hope for re-thinking the formal school curriculum and for allowing more students to learn in alternative ways. Boud, among others, concludes that learning, when not undertaken in a school environment, is a natural problem-solving process that encourages a balanced approach and results in lasting and meaningful learning.[9]

  Most elementary school teachers understand and respond to children’s natural tendencies for learning. At the secondary school level, however, curriculum emphasizes the abstract rather than the concrete. This deferment or postponement-of-practice mentality is the overarching reality of learning in formal institutions. As research in educational psychology has shown, we do mature in our capacity for abstraction. However, this does not mean that our concrete learning tendencies and preferences are any less important or that they should be abandoned. In spite of the school system’s push to separate concrete from abstract learning, experiential learning is an integral part of our natural desire and capacity to learn. Most of us find some things easier to learn through emotional and physical, as well as cognitive, pathways.

  2.  An academic curriculum enhances human development and self-esteem.

  The assumption that didactic learning and an academic curriculum are essential to human development, fulfillment, and self-esteem is a second prominent and largely unchallenged assumption. It implies that such learning enhances both personal and cognitive development; that there is a correlation between cognitive and personal development; and that academic endeavour is essential to individual and societal growth (more government grooving?). However, Harre and Gillett conclude that having a “sense of physical location”, not academic accomplishment, is what leads to self-esteem.

  In some practical school subjects, like technological education and physical education, learning involves utilizing a range of sense-making capacities and assumes physical action, as well as knowledge acquisition, as an essential component of understanding. Unfortunately, student success in achieving this wisdom is tempered by the models of learning perpetuated in teacher education institutions, where the pedagogy associated with practical problem solving goes largely unheralded.

  The curriculum framework and teaching methodology teachers are expected to adopt is philosophically too narrow to include workplace and life experience. The challenge is to find a way to express an experiential “way of knowing”. Only then can we know how and to what extent school learning displaces experiential and life-course learning.

  3. Knowledge-based curriculum is superior to experienced-based curriculum.

  The assumption that knowledge-based learning leads to understanding is the single most prominent but unchallenged assumption we make as educators working in formal education institutions. Knowledge-based learning has been elevated to such a high degree over recent years that it is taken as a universal and exclusive standard for achievement, especially in secondary schools. The irony is that most knowledge conveyed in formal educational institutions is constructed knowledge. It is packaged for delivery and consumption the same way as a new product for the retail market, and its consumption reinforces human capital thinking, thereby diminishing the “human development” purposes of learning. “The more formal education I get, the richer I will be, and the more I can shower myself with material things.”

  As a rule, factual, school-based knowledge in western society is legitimized at the expense of experience. However, as critical education theorists maintain, “Knowledge acquired in school – or anywhere, for that matter – is never neutral or objective but is ordered and structured in particular ways; its emphases and exclusions partake of a silent logic. Knowledge is a social construction.”[10]

  Again, teacher education perpetuates this assumption. In Canada, teachers who enter the profession are the high achievers from universities. They are not required to have any work experience in their respective fields or disciplines. They have mastered the narrow cognitive world of schooling and are not asked to account for life-course experience. Furthermore their attraction to, and acceptance into, teaching ensures that the status quo is maintained. In the words of Pan-Qing-yu, “The paradox of modern education is that it divorces knowledge from life, practice, and values.”[11] Teachers are seldom fully aware of this paradox.

  As I reflect on this analysis I am struck by a new thought. Not only is it hard to sort out the independent or critical problem-solving value of one’s formal learning years, but life experience – and therefore one’s perspective – is also limited­. What the Norwegian friluftsliv teaches us is that we shouldn’t make education the target of analysis. Instead we should look at our culture and how our learning institutions fit in the larger cultural patchwork. Yes, schools serve a valuable custodial and socializing function. But we learn as much from nature and life as we do from formal study. So, let’s stop deluding ourselves and celebrate who we are in the most primal sense – inquisitive and self-directed learners capable of far more than any single institutionalized learning program could possibly offer.  Learning is not getting ready for life; it is life.

  EN BREF – L’apprentissage dans des écoles structurées baffoue plusieurs principes simples : que personne ne peut apprendre lorsque son esprit est apathique, qu’un apprentissage véritable nécessite l’absence de crainte ou d’autorité, que l’apprentissage est l’instinct humain le plus naturel. En rendant obligatoire la scolarisation, nous avons abandonné la confiance en notre expérience individuelle et collective au profit d’experts et d’institutions. La scolarisation obligatoire présume que l’assimilation à la société par la réussite scolaire est un droit et une nécessité pour tous les membres de la société, que l’intellect est supérieur au corps et à l’esprit. Des recherches récentes laissent toutefois entendre que la notion du « régime scolaire pour tous » est imparfaite.

  ---

  [1] Margaret Mead, Teachers College Record 63, no. 2 (1961): 92.

  [2] Bob Henderson, Nature First (Toronto: National Heritage Books, 200), 148.

  [3] Ursala Franklin, The Real World of Technology (Toronto: Anansi Press, 1990), 116.

  [4] Edvard Lindeman, The Meaning of Adult Education (Montreal: Harvest House, 1929), 3.

  [5] Michael Berger, cited in P. Jarvis, The Sociology of Adult and Continuing Education (London: Croom Helm, 1985), 194.

  [6] Alan Pomfret, Introduction to Sociology: A Canadian Focus (Scarborough: Prentice Hall, 1995).

  [7] Wendy Priesnitz, 2011. www.lifelonglearning.ca/articles/learningisnotdonetochildren.htm

  [8] R. Harre and G. Gillett, The Discursive Mind (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1994).

  [9] David Boud, in Making Sense of Experiential Learning, eds. S. Weil and I. McGill (London: Open University Press, 1989).

  [10]Peter McLaren, Life in Schools (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1998), 173.

  [11] Pan-Qing-yu, “The Educational Spirit of Times and Current Missions of Teacher-training,” Journal of Shandong Teachers’ University 2 (2004).

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