Archive
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Brave Educators Possess an Inquisitive Nature to Pursue Change
Comments Off on Brave Educators Possess an Inquisitive Nature to Pursue ChangeOur traditions characterize our lives with meaning and structure, providing a foundation on which we can depend. We treasure the security they provide because we know what to expect. They also provide opportunities to build memories that begin to define us and bring us closer to others. Of course, this is an ideal situation; some traditions make us cringe when we anticipate certain gatherings and the memories that are just waiting to be made.
When we think of our childhood and adolescent years, where are most of our memories made? I would challenge you to think back to your own experiences of school, your day-to-day lessons, your difficulties and successes. I would also challenge you to think of the advice you received from your parents before you went to school. Was their advice based on their own experiences? Do you now have children, and is your advice based on your memories at school?
Technology is captivating the attention of many brave educators, and is beginning to upset the balance in the world of school. Our established tradition is starting to become unsettled as it begins to evolve, as small pockets of ‘teacher learners’ take a second look at the system in which they nurture young minds each day.
Have our memories and expectations of school begun to define it as a tradition? If so, the tradition of school has achieved a status that is difficult to question simply because of its hallowed perception within our society. So many people have experienced the very same lessons year after year, resulting in a mass understanding of what school should be.
Most people don’t change unless they have to. If we’re not given a reason why we have to disrupt our daily routine, sometimes we’ll put it off until it’s absolutely necessary. To counter this, I want to be sure to mention those who don’t wait – those who are curious. Curiosity is distracted from normality and is captivated by something new. Brave people not only possess an inquisitive nature, but they also pursue new possibilities with a fervour that may upset the balance of what is ordinary and expected.
Technology is captivating the attention of many brave educators, and is beginning to upset the balance in the world of school. Our established tradition is starting to become unsettled as it begins to evolve, as small pockets of ‘teacher learners’ take a second look at the system in which they nurture young minds each day.
To allow for this change to continue, support must be provided to those who are willing to follow their curious nature. It is difficult for a teacher to explore new possibilities in education without having a team to provide guidance and reassurance. In fact, an educator who questions the norm may feel like they’re sticking their neck out, risking their pride for the sake of their questions, experiments and attempts to work in a new way.
Change is well within reach if enough support is provided for those who search for new possibilities in education. Bit by bit, they will be driven to share their discoveries with others, building on new knowledge, making new memories, and challenging the traditions and expectations of the past.
This blog post is part of a series of thoughtful responses to the question: What’s standing in the way of change in education? to help inform CEA’s Calgary Conference on Oct 21-22, (#CEACalgary2013) where education leaders from across Canada will be answering the same question. If you would like to answer this question, please tweet us at: @cea_ace
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Escape from the Classroom
Comments Off on Escape from the ClassroomThe classroom we know is a small room, crammed with desks and a blackboard, in front of which the teachers pose and explain concepts for us all day. As the 21st century is upon us, however, classes like Gifted Grade 6/7 split of Dalewood Middle School have taken a much more modern approach to learning. Their classrooms have no boundaries. G67 is not confined between the margins of their school building, never withdrawn from that sunny day for their studies. They are free, and their escape is not only the school playground – it is the heart of our city itself.
Into the city
Local university students look up from their cellphones, surprised by the racket we make as we clamber onto our local city bus. It’s almost as if we are shouting, “We are G67! We have escaped our classroom, and we are off to see the world!”
In our learning situation, the average teacher would generally instruct her students to fetch a textbook, read an article and write a response.
However, we have no ordinary teacher; we have Mrs. Pipe. You got it, Zoe Branigan-Pipe, one of the world’s leading educators and, in most of our cases, the only teacher we’ve had who was willing to listen to us and give us what we needed to improve our learning. Believe me, she has.
This is why today, instead of responding to a textbook story, we are responding to community stories and learning social studies at the same time by asking stall owners about fair trade and locally grown foods. We are going to the Hamilton Farmer’s Market and asking stall owners about real events that actually happened to them. We are telling the farmers in our city, Yes! We care about you! We want to learn about your lives and your businesses! We care about our community and we are here to show it!
Best of all, our big projects are more than just oral presentations. They get us involved in community discussions and making a difference in our city. We are currently working on creating a plan, design, and proposal for the Barton-Tiffany area in Hamilton, and in the process responding to many opinions on multiple proposals for this area. This leads us to the Hamilton Public Library, where the archives were made available for our research on these projects.
Influencing 21st century learning is, in turn, influencing the world. The way we teach our students is the way we teach society. Our teaching methods shape the minds of the future, and give learners an opportunity to make a difference now. Our class trip into the community is just one of the many tiny movements taking place around the world and, bit by bit, promoting, advancing and influencing 21st century learning for us. This could eventually lead to kids visiting specialists to learn concepts, and finding examples of where these concepts could be applied in class outings. At some point, classes around the world could collaborate, and students could work on projects that influence society. Let’s face the facts: school is no longer defined as a classroom, where the only tools for our students are a desk, a pen, and paper. School can be everywhere, and students can use anything to learn.
Learning can take you anywhere. You just have to open your eyes to see the way. But do we really have the strength to stand up and take advantage of what’s possible for our learners?
First published in Education Canada, September 2013
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Culture Re-Booot: Reinvigorating school culture to improve student outcomes by Leslie Kaplan and William Owings
Comments Off on Culture Re-Booot: Reinvigorating school culture to improve student outcomes by Leslie Kaplan and William OwingsA reveiw of Culture Re-Booot: Reinvigorating school culture to improve student outcomes by Leslie Kaplan and William Owings, Corwin, 2013. ISSN: 9781452217321
What can principals and teachers do to generate collective action and transform school culture in efforts to improve student achievement? How can the collective capacity of leadership teams revitalize well-established instructional and leadership practices and learning processes?
Using the analogy of re-booting a computer or application to start afresh, experienced instructional leaders Kaplan and Owings argue that the school environment is an established culture undergoing rapid social and technological change, and that a culture re-boot is possible through transformation of all parts of the interconnected system. Re-boot is defined as “rethinking, redesigning, and enacting new practices in leadership, teaching, ethics and relationships. It means readjusting the student learning environment, working with parents and community in ways that reshape the school culture, and restarting a cycle of positive dynamics that result in improved student outcomes.”
Each chapter begins with focus questions, followed by a discussion of topics with practical action-oriented strategies for developing collaborative school cultures. Relevant research and additional resources complement each chapter. The first chapter provides the framework for understanding the complexity of school culture and change, including the characteristics of a learning organization. The next five chapters are organized around elements of school culture necessary for school improvement: school leadership; ethical behaviour and relational trust; professional capacity for shared influence; a student-centred learning culture; and strong parent-community ties. An entire chapter is devoted to improving relationships with parents in culturally diverse communities and developing school-community partnerships to benefit student learning. The final chapter presents a road map for a five-year plan of action for redesigning school culture.
Despite the authors’ narrow view of technology as a tool to facilitate personalized learning, and the limited discussion of the implications of the digital age on instructional leadership and culture transformation, this is an excellent handbook offering practical strategies for school leadership teams to collaboratively initiate, enact and sustain a culture re-boot.
First published in Education Canada, September 2013
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In and Of the World
Comments Off on In and Of the WorldThe rain came down in lancing spears of cold. The wind carried the rain forward in great wet sheets. Into this mess, only a day removed from the last of autumn’s sunshine, we trudged – two teachers and ten students from the St. Bonaventure’s College garden and compost program. We came carrying buckets and bags to gather up the bounty from our school garden plot – our first harvest! I looked round, taking in our small garden. Tomatoes clung pluckily to vines. Some had fallen and split, reclaimed by the ground that nourished them, but most were still in good condition. The zucchini had multiplied prodigiously. I had almost convinced myself that it was our collective green thumb that led to such size and quantity, until a friend took the wind from my sails.
“They’re prolific,” she said. “A nuisance really. I mean, who eats that much zucchini?”
I pushed on. The potato plants had largely withered to a deadened brown from the recent cold snaps. I took a pitchfork out, dug them up and found the potatoes hard, golden and plentiful. They quickly washed clean in the exposing rain. The carrots were stubby, orange and deliciously sweet.
As we worked, I found it hard to think of the garden plot as anything besides a garden. Though I had been here when it was nothing but grass edging towards the treeline, it seemed to me it that this place had always been a garden planted over with vegetables. Perched atop the hills that rise away from St. John’s proper, I could see all the way to Cabot Tower and beyond to the blue-grey expanse of ocean that separates Newfoundland from Europe.
To see it worked over, planted, weeded and now harvested was to see the land transformed. We had put our stamp on this place. The swampy heat of summer had given way to the cold lash of autumn’s storms. Through it all we had come, learned and taken away a successful haul of vegetables.
As a student and teacher, I have found some of my most rewarding educational moments happened beyond the walls of the classroom. The garden and compost program is a case in point. When we began it, we did not foresee it as anything beyond an extracurricular program. Yet it grew into something that students, teachers and the wider community became invested in. C. A. Bowers contends, in Revitalizing the Commons,[1] that vegetable garden plots offer an opportunity for intergenerational dialogue, whereby young people see older folks as reservoirs of experience and knowledge. This isn’t curriculum-based learning and teaching, per se. Rather, it is a dialogue, seeped in learning and teaching of the world, that helps buttress a local community. In this way are plant, animal and human communities able to find common ground, a shared space of interaction.
Those of us who have been involved in the garden and compost program have been moved by it. We’ve developed relationships with pioneering organic farmers like Mike and Melba Rabinowitz, who’ve farmed in Newfoundland for over 30 years. They have mentored our students and teachers in the finer points of planting, weeding, and harvesting. Though this work might be described as tedious, it has fostered a dialogue. This narrative, shared between students and the Rabinowitzes and their workers – ranging in age from their 20s to 60s – has allowed young and old, doing the same job, to find common purpose. Students genuinely clamour to help out at the Rabinowitzes’ Organic Farm, as much for the conversation and Melba’s post-labour lunches as for what they learn.
As we move into the Anthropocene Era – the Age of the Humans – we need more opportunities, as students and teachers, to recognize the effect we have had on the world around us and dialogue with the world we live in. In a previous article[2] I noted that the skills of reading a landscape are slowly being lost. The people who needed these skills – fishermen, farmers, loggers, trappers – are finding themselves pushed to the economic periphery, expendable to the demands of profit. Their knowledge of place – of geology, meteorology and culture – is out of touch with the dictates of a global market. The dominant curriculum in our society is one of consumption. Even (and maybe even particularly) here in Newfoundland and Labrador, we are caught in the throes of this trap, enjoying the golden glow of an oil boom. As though no lessons need have been learned from the collapse, after 500 years of extraction, of that previous Newfoundland boom, codfish.
We need to find the courage, as teachers and students, to see beyond the world that we have created. I had thought that the garden and compost program would be a means of access into the commons: a place where students and teachers could find themselves in the world, participate in it, get dirt under their fingernails. In and of itself, the program has been successful. Yet, in being just one of a score of extracurricular activities, our program suffers from attracting only a certain type of student. These students are extraordinarily keen, committed and often see the larger picture. They are the program’s greatest strength. However, when we only reach these students we are preaching to the choir.
Extracurricular programs like ours should not supplement a curriculum that refuses to encourage learning and teaching of the world in the world. Rather, we need to rethink the manner in which curriculum is delivered. Increasingly, I find that the curriculum we teach our students ignores the possibility of economic models beyond consumer capitalism, speaks of climate change barely at all. Students today are asked to be proficient across a broad scope of learning outcomes, learned largely from a textbook or from lectures and notes delivered by a teacher in a classroom. These same students spend most of their leisure time in front of a screen of one sort or another. We need a curriculum that encourages care and love for the communities we live in, by situating the learning-teaching conversation in our lived places. Colin Trudge notes in The Secret Life of Trees that, “when science is done its primary role is not to change the world but to enhance appreciation…”[3] I would extend that over the entire ecology of learning. We need to learn, anew, to appreciate the world we live in.
The day was overcast, but humid. The last of the season’s blueberries, ripe, beckoned with promise for those who would seek them out along the trail. We were walking into Freshwater Bay, an abandoned outport community just beyond the growing sprawl of St. John’s. Once there were a hundred souls living there, alongside cattle and sheep, with vegetable gardens and haying grounds. To this day, an apple tree remains, gnarled but bearing fruit in the lee of the winds that swirl round the island. The community was supported by the inshore fishery, which flourished well into the early 20th century. Then, like so many other outport communities, Freshwater Bay lapsed into a state of abandonment. There were better jobs to be had in St. John’s, with better wages and hours then those of the fishery.
We need more opportunities, as students and teachers, to recognize the effect we have had on the world around us and dialogue with the world we live in.
Which was the reason we were visiting. A class of Grade 8 students were hiking in to explore and document the community. They were looking for what might have allowed people to settle here, of all places. Two other teachers walked in with us – the Science and Literature teachers – to broaden the scope of the day. To see a community for what it might have offered its inhabitants is beyond the capabilities of one academic specialty area.
At one point I stumbled across Ms. Power, the Science teacher, explaining which plants were edible, and which were not. This would have been crucial knowledge for the first pioneers settling Newfoundland’s shoreline – as important as building a shelter, or being able to “see the boat in the trees,” as old boat-builders used to say. In short, knowing what plants were useful was a skill crucial to survival. Seeing her hand around plants for students to try that would, just moments before, have blended into the greenery struck me as a particularly powerful learning moment.
Students spoke in their journal entries of how much they’d enjoyed the day for the hiking, the time out of class, the opportunity to swim in the freshwater pond, which gave the community its name. But they also spoke of being able to better see the outport community. And that, for me, was crucial. To be able to imagine a place beyond the textbook – a place where they had spent a day, experienced the community, explored the ruined house foundations, eaten plants previously unknown to them – is to know a place a little better; to understand its roots. Too often students today are divorced from their history. And once we are removed from the world, it is harder to imagine how we might change it.
First published in Education Canada, September 2013
EN BREF – Tant à titre d’élève que d’enseignant, je constate que certains de mes moments éducatifs les plus enrichissants se sont produits ailleurs qu’en classe. Les élèves et leurs enseignants sont souvent coupés du monde. En effet, nous ne sommes pas suffisamment exposés à la nature pour en apprendre quelque chose, peu importe le sujet. Dans son livre The Secret Life of Trees, Colin Trudge écrit : « lorsqu’on fait des sciences, leur rôle principal ne consiste pas à changer le monde, mais à en rehausser l’appréciation… » [traduction] J’étendrais cet énoncé à toute l’écologie de l’apprentissage. Nous devons réapprendre à apprécier le monde où nous vivons. J’ai tenté, par un programme de jardin d’école et de compostage ainsi que par des voyages enrichissant le curriculum dans des collectivités locales, de combler ce fossé afin que les élèves et les enseignants connaissent mieux le monde où ils vivent – et qu’ils en viennent ainsi à s’en soucier et à en prendre soin.
[1] C. A. Bowers, Revitalizing the Commons: Cultural and educational sites of resistance and affirmation (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006).
[2] Chris Peters, “Finding Place in Education” Education Canada 50, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 26-29.
[3] Colin Trudge, The Secret Life of Trees: How they live and why they matter (London: Penguin, 2006).
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Word Play
Comments Off on Word PlayDanielle Workman’s* Grade 3 class loves to play Whirly Word on their iPads. I learned this from interviewing the children as part of a research project on iPad use in Language Arts. Whirly Word is a simple software application (app) involving six scrambled letters, with the purpose being to find as many words as possible with three letters or more. The ultimate goal is to make a six-letter word from the letters given. This reminded me of Patricia Cunningham’s work with Making Words,[1] so I was not surprised that the Grade 3 students found the game appealing.
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Giving and Getting
Comments Off on Giving and GettingDuring the blustery winter of 2012, Nevella Schepmyer-Erwin was excitedly anticipating a move the following school year from her six-year stint teaching core French and Physical Education to her newly assigned Full-Day Kindergarten (FDK) classroom. She prepared for her new role by taking the Kindergarten Part I Additional Qualifications (AQ) course, with the hopes of completing her Kindergarten Specialist AQ in the future. But she also sought out information by researching online, using Facebook, Pinterest, and an assortment of Kindergarten blogs to virtually meet with educators more experienced with early learners in a play-based environment.
One of the groups she regularly visited was the Ontario Teachers Facebook Group, which primarily focuses on ideas and resource sharing. When she inquired about FDK topics such as inquiry-based learning, she noticed the same member typically answered her questions. As this repeated and continued, these two educators had a virtual conversation about creating their own group with a more specific focus. After checking to see if such a group was already in existence, Nevella became one of seven facilitators or administrators of what is now the Ontario Kindergarten Teachers Facebook Group. This group is currently close to 2,000 members strong – a rich group formed of not only Ontario Certified Teachers, but also Registered Early Childhood Educators working in both school and child-care settings, educational assistants, and out-of-province educators from as far away as the Northwest Territories. The challenge in this group isn’t encouraging its growth – simply with a posting to the Ontario Teachers group, some word-of-mouth promotion, and an announcement made at the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario Summer Institutes conference, it grew almost on its own and very quickly – but rather managing to continue to support its membership in an authentic way.
Like all of the administrators, Nevella signs into the group regularly, checks for spam, approves and welcomes new members, reads almost everything posted, and responds to questions or comments where she can provide support or point the way to resources (either saved in the not-so-user-friendly online filing system of the Facebook Group, at other online locales, or offline). She may “tag” members to point the way to a potential collaborator, photo, file, or resource; or “pin” important messages to the top of the group, so others are encouraged to read them – for example, on a hot topic like the current discussion on appropriate iPad apps for the Kindergarten environment. Other topics of high interest, discussion, and debate include inquiry-based learning, guided reading, welcoming new students, and behaviour issues, though these tend to ebb and flow with the demands of various phases of the school year. In theory, Nevella and the other administrators also help to manage the professional behaviour of group members, encouraging respect and support in their online postings; however in practice, such reminders have not been a necessary role in managing this enthusiastic group.
Though she helped to start this group as a means of supporting others and sharing resources, such as her classroom strategy descriptions and visuals using the Notability iPad app,[1] her intentions were not purely altruistic. She is getting as much as she is giving. Nevella finds that, in general, social media is a positive and impactful way to share resources, ideas, points of view, experience, and information about professional development events – and just to network with others in the field. The Ontario Kindergarten Teachers Facebook Group itself is, she says, almost a “one-stop place for anything you are looking for.”
The feedback she has received from other educators shows that others feel the same way:
“What would we do without it?”
“This Facebook page has been a lifesaver!”
“Thanks for starting this group; it has been a great inspiration.”
“A ton of appreciation for all you’re doing with this FB group – it is THE MOST helpful resource out there for us Ontario FDK teachers new to the role.”
“It has helped me (and so many others so much).”
“I love the group and you always have amazing ideas to share!!”
Nevella easily summarizes her thoughts and feelings about the group: “As a teacher teaching a brand-new grade, social media (and specifically our Ontario Kindergarten Teachers Facebook Group) has been a lifesaver! Whenever I have a question, I know that I can post and within minutes I will receive several replies from fellow educators. It’s wonderful to be able to share information and advice with likeminded professionals who have a similar goal.”
Social media and teachers
Online social media can be defined as “sites that allow for a public profile, a public list of friends and visible friend connections” and which are “making visible social interactions between people.”[2] Many professionals newly entering the workforce – including teachers – have grown up with social media, which have their roots in the late 1990s. For them, social media is a part of everyday life and work, while more seasoned professionals may see their use as a major individual benefit, both personally and in the development of their professional identity and skills.
Whether used as a professional tool or in the classroom, cautions for the judicious use of social media still apply. Education’s professional organizations both utilize social media and simultaneously provide warnings about its use. Refer to your professional association, federation, or college to find best practices, guidelines, tips, rules, cautions, and concerns (e.g. potential legal and disciplinary implications).[3] (See “Cautions and Best Practices” for a summary of some of these recommendations, as well as feedback from educators on the front lines of teaching.)
Within these needed cautions, guidelines and regulations, exemplary practices are happening. Nevella Schepmyer-Erwin and The Ontario Kindergarten Teachers Facebook Group are not alone in their positive experiences with the professional use of social media.
Across Canada: three perspectives
Three front-line educators shared their experiences with the professional use of social media. All of these educators use social media in their personal lives as well as professionally, and all three use these tools in a different manner professionally than for their own personal needs.
Lara Lacroix is a job-sharing educator in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. New to the province, Lara has three different classroom positions: Grade 5/6, Grade 6/7, and a board-level position teaching and mentoring educators about technology in the classroom. Lara explains the professional benefits of social media in the context of her multiple teaching environments: “Social media helps me grow professionally because it allows me to expand my personal learning network beyond the walls of my classroom, past the school and district boundaries and permits me to connect with teachers and educators from around the globe. Within seconds, I can discover the latest trend in education and within minutes I can access resources to help me incorporate my findings into my classroom or to share it with others.”
Krista Mackinnon is an Instructional Resource Teacher at Botwood Memorial Academy in Newfoundland and Labrador, about a four-hour drive from the province’s capital of St. John’s. In her 11th year of teaching, she primarily provides in-class support to Grade 6 classes for Math and Language as part of an inclusionary co-teaching model. Ashley Kean is new graduate of Primary/Elementary Education from Memorial University, and a first-year teacher in her native town of St. Anthony (and area). Located on the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula, she is a lengthy 13-hour drive from St. John’s. Since her graduation last year, Ashley has been substitute teaching in local schools in all grades and subject areas, including a three-month-long replacement Kindergarten position. For more rural and/or geographically isolated educators like Krista and Ashley, social media’s information-sharing capability is a paramount advantage. Ashley considers these issues from her northerly locale: “The greatest benefits of using social media professionally are that you can easily stay connected to other teachers and learn from and work with them in your classroom setting… not just from Canada but in different parts of the world. It also helps teachers who may be in small, isolated areas come up with ideas – with almost unlimited resources at their fingertips. It’s kind of a co-teaching opportunity online.” Krista would agree: “The greatest benefit would be the sharing of ideas and information. The truth is, teachers do not have a lot of time built into their day to be creative and generate their own ideas for every learning activity they plan. Teaching is a profession where collaboration is an essential part of the job. It is great to be able to have quick access to a wide variety of ideas.”
What do teachers value about the professional use of social media? The common threads in the opinions of these four educators are easy access, time savings, and most of all, the inherent communicative, collaborative nature of these venues – the giving and getting of resources, ideas, knowledge, strategies, and recommendations for everyday practical classroom applications. For these educators, and likely countless others across Canada, the advantages of prudently using social media for their own professional use outweighs its potential risks. Used intentionally, social media are not “just” a time for social sharing about everyday life, but a valuable venue for professional growth.
Cautions and Best Practices in Social Media
- Always read, know, and heed professional standards and professional boundaries when in your online presence, just as you would in person.
- Consider separating your personal and professional personas, online profiles and circles of contacts, even so far as using a pseudonym and an avatar as privacy safeguards.
- Think carefully before you share information, photos, videos, etc. online. Once posted, information typically cannot be retracted as it moves through cyberspace.
- Remember that, although you can carefully control what you share, you cannot always control what others share in or on your public spaces.
- Where possible, adjust your privacy settings to “high” so you can control who contacts you and who views the information you share.
- Be cautious who you link with or “friend,” especially when it comes to students and/or the parents of students.
- Use great care if suggesting or accepting less conventional communication from parents, such as text messaging.
- Don’t forget that that phone calls and face-to-face conversations are far better suited to complex and contentious issues than electronic-based communications.
- Teach, model, and monitor the safe and effective use of social media for school community members.
First published in Education Canada, September 2013
EN BREF – Cet article traitant de l’utilisation des médias sociaux pour favoriser la collaboration professionnelle des éducateurs de la maternelle à la 12e année au Canada présente la croissance et le développement du groupe Facebook Ontario Kindergarten Teachers, avec des commentaires d’une fondatrice du site. Trois enseignantes de Colombie-Britannique, d’Ontario et de Terre-Neuve-Labrador illustrent l’utilisation professionnelle positive des médias sociaux. Les mises en garde et pratiques exemplaires dans ces médias y sont également résumées.
[1] Notability (Ginger Labs, 2012) is an inexpensive iPad app for taking notes and annotating PDFs with Dropbox and Google drive sync. https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/notability-take-notes-nnotate/id360593530?mt=8
[2] A. M. Cirucci, “First Person Paparazzi: Why social media should be studied more like video games,” Telematics & Informatics 30, no. 1 (2013): 47-59.doi:10.1016/j.tele.2012.03.006
[3] Jurisdictions across Canada have compiled professional communication with respect to social media practices in the teaching profession. See, for example: B.C. Teachers’ Federation, Guidelines and Rules for BCTF Social Media and Discussion Forums (2012), http://www.bctf.ca/help.aspx?id=22472&libID=22462; Ontario College of Teachers, Professional Advisory: Use of electronic communication and social media (2011), http://www.oct.ca/resources/advisories/use-of-electronic-communication-and-social-media; Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association, Cyberconduct and Electronic Communications: Important information and guidelines for teachers (2012), http://www.nlta.nl.ca/files/documents/infosheets/info_26.pdf
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Seeking the Heart of Teaching
Comments Off on Seeking the Heart of TeachingFor teachers, professors and students, September is the real start to the year. It seemed to us the perfect season to explore this issue’s theme of teacher engagement. What keeps teachers passionate about their role, eager to learn new skills, excited about their students’ learning?
The Canadian Education Association’s own research initiative, Teaching the Way We Aspire to Teach, provides an inspiring window into the passion and dedication teachers bring to their work, and the conditions that sustain their engagement. In “The Teacher I Dream of Being” (p. 26), Stephen Hurley reflects on what we learned – and why it matters. But that’s only the starting point. In this issue, authors from B.C. to P.E.I. add their perspectives on what makes teachers tick.
If anyone doubts the direct link from teacher engagement to student engagement, I can think of nothing more persuasive than this issue’s Voice of Experience (“Escape from the Classroom,” p. 62), written by Grade 7 student Nicola Lawford. In this delightful essay, the contagion of enthusiasm from teacher to student is palpable. For the students in Nicola’s classroom, learning is an adventure, and the remarkable quality of her writing suggests that no rigour has been lost along the way.
Nicola’s testimony to the value of getting beyond the classroom – whether physically or virtually – is echoed by teacher Chris Peters in his essay “In and Of the World” (p. 57). The message from both is that schooling needs to be connected to “real life,” whether that’s the local community, the global community or the earth itself. “Let’s face the facts,” Nicola writes. “School is no longer defined as a classroom, where the only tools for our students are a desk, a pen, and paper. School can be everywhere, and students can use anything to learn.”
As the world changes, so, inevitably (though sometimes more slowly!), does education. But committed, skilled teachers – engaged teachers – and the relationships they build with their students, are still the heart and soul of good education. I, for one, hope that never changes.
P.S. This month we are launching a brief reader survey and I’d like to implore you to take a few minutes to complete it. If we know more about what articles interest and challenge you, our readers, we can ensure that Education Canada continues to be a valuable and thought-provoking resource. Go to to www.cea-ace.ca/edcansurvey to start the survey!
Write to us!
Send your letters or article proposals to editor@cea-ace.ca, or post your comments on the online version of Education Canada at www.cea-ace.ca/educationcanada.
First published in Education Canada, September 2013
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What Engages Teachers?
Comments Off on What Engages Teachers?IN 2009, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) Research Department conducted a teacher worklife study[i] which offered some insights into the issue of teacher engagement. We asked teachers what gave them satisfaction in teaching. There was a huge outpouring of fascinating and emotional responses to this question, which showed not just satisfaction but passion for, and engagement in, teaching. From these and other data we have found that many teachers report both great satisfaction and significant stress in their work lives, both of which change at different times of the school year and at different career stages.
What most satisfied teachers and engaged them most deeply?
It’s the students, of course!
The top two areas of greatest satisfaction came from teachers’ engagement with students.
Our first and most dominant finding was that teachers want to engage students in learning, and gain considerable satisfaction when it occurs – especially the “Aha” moment when a student understands an idea or can solve a problem:
“I still get tremendous satisfaction working with the kids. I love when I get to experience their ‘ah-ha’ moments.”
This and many other comments spoke to teachers’ positive engagement when they saw themselves as instrumental in developing their students’ learning.
The second key finding was that teachers gain satisfaction when they feel that they are a positive influence on students’ development and lives. This reflects satisfaction over time, as they experience and support the growth of a young learner. Consider some of the following comments from BC teachers:
I love teaching and making a difference in the kids’ lives most of all.
The most satisfying aspect of my jobs is getting to interact with the students at my school and in particular to get to know my 30 students and create strong, trusting relationships with them where they feel free to talk to me about anything they need to and they know I am there to listen and support them no matter what the issue is.
Other teachers are important, too
A third finding revealed the importance of a community of adults, including interactions with peers, to teacher engagement. Teachers reported satisfaction when they had positive and productive relations with colleagues:
“I find the atmosphere of working and collaborating with colleagues to be an intense source of satisfaction. I take pride in being a member of a profession where members are strong in their convictions, vocal and self-assured. The dedication I see on a daily basis is very rewarding and inspirational.”
This finding suggests that when teaching is centred in a community where teachers give and feel respect, and when the community of peers engages in positive communication and collaboration, then teacher engagement is high. Hargreaves and Fullan made a similar argument when they stated: “Teachers who can sustain their commitment notice when they are surrounded by excellent colleagues . . . Primary or elementary teachers especially valued teamwork, someone to talk to when things went wrong, and a feeling that everyone was pulling in the same direction.”[ii]
Autonomy is crucial
Our study found that for many teachers, satisfaction comes from having autonomy. The desire for and the satisfaction with a significant degree of autonomy was highly valued by many respondents:
I have freedom to teach . . . with a great deal of autonomy in regard to subject and curriculum focus, lots of freedom in how to deliver, what to deliver within the curriculum, how to support students in need.
I greatly enjoy the variety of the work I do: working with principals, vice principals, teachers, students, parents, agencies . . . I have a lot of autonomy. I am glad that the work I do is with people, helping students and families. This is very satisfying.
Teachers’ autonomy is a sensitive issue in British Columbia’s public education system, and is at the centre of a dispute between the BCTF and the BC Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA), with the BCTF advocating for strong levels of teacher autonomy and BCPSEA attempting to limit or curtail it. While this article is not the place for a major debate on autonomy, it seems from our Worklife data and from our review of the literature[iii] that autonomy contributes to teachers’ sense of professionalism and promotes greater engagement. The research also suggests that limiting teacher autonomy increases teacher attrition,[iv] as it removes one key factor (autonomy as a reflection of professionalism) which attracts people into teaching.
It’s not just a job
Many teachers who responded to our question about satisfaction in their work were incredibly passionate about teaching, so that teaching, for many respondents, was more about passion for their vocation than about satisfaction with work.
“I love it every day, collaborating with my colleagues, knowing that what I do every day is important; constantly learning.”
“I love working with my students and can’t imagine doing anything else, even though it is a very challenging job. I love knowing that I have made a difference in my students’ lives and helped them to view themselves as capable and successful individuals.”
This repeated expression of passion is perhaps the most fundamental indication of engagement. While it clearly sustained many teachers, there is evidence that such passion can be lost if the work intensifies and becomes unmanageable.
Why and when do teachers disengage?
While few Canadian studies have explored this in any depth, Clandinin et al in Alberta stated: “A problem of concern in Alberta is that a very large number of beginning teachers (approximately 40%) are leaving teaching within their first five years with the highest number leaving between years four and five.”[v]
Eight factors were considered as pertinent to why teachers disengaged, and at first sight at least one of those factors appear to contradict the ideas expressed by Hargreaves and Fullan in Professional Capital:
The teachers in the intentions study and the teachers who left had complex feelings of belonging with colleagues and administrators. As noted above, support from colleagues was not enough to sustain them. Relationships with colleagues were fraught as they often found themselves feeling unsure of who they were, and were becoming, in these landscapes. Mentoring and induction programs were often not seen as safe places to explore their more authentic concerns.[vi]
Achinstein also addressed this issue of conflict in school communities: “The study challenges current thinking on community by showing that conflict is not only central to community, but how teachers manage conflicts, whether they suppress or embrace their differences, defines the community borders and ultimately the potential for organizational learning and change.”[vii]
These different perceptions of community are not contradictory – where school staff interactions are positive, teacher engagement in both community and in teaching is high; but if there is greater conflict than collaboration, then disengagement is the more likely outcome. Simply put, for some teachers who disengaged, the community of school was not the supportive environment described by some in the BCTF Worklife study.
The Alberta study continues the discussion about finding balance between teachers’ work and private lives, suggesting that work-life balance is needed if teacher engagement is to be maintained. Teachers in this study spoke of how they struggled to not let teaching consume them as they tried to maintain health and relationships while facing the pressures of teaching. This and other studies remind us that it may be important to consider both working conditions and career stages when we think about teacher engagement – and especially to consider what Clandinin et al identified when considering the disengagement of new teachers:
There was a misalignment between the needs of the system and the schools in relation to the lives of the teachers. They frequently had to “do anything” in order to obtain contracts and teaching assignments. They frequently took on extra responsibilities at the expense of personal well being and familial needs in order to try to receive contracts and continuing assignments.[viii]
Final thoughts
Teachers are highly engaged in educative processes when they are instrumental to students’ learning and development. They enjoy and benefit from a positive and supportive community of peers. For many teachers, autonomy creates the space for them to find the right teaching approach and to feel that they are trusted as professionals. But for teachers to be optimally engaged and productive, workloads need to be manageable, interactions need to be positive and sustaining, and autonomy needs to be respected and maintained.
First published in Education Canada, September 2013
[i] C. Naylor and M. White, The Worklife of BC Teachers in 2009: A BCTF study of working and learning conditions (Vancouver, BC: BC Teachers‘ Federation, 2010). http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/Issues/WorklifeWorkload/2009/FullReport.pdf
[ii] A. Hargreaves, and M. Fullan, Professional Capital: Transforming teaching in every school (New York: Teachers’ College Press, 2012), 60.
[iii] C. Naylor, The Rights and Responsibilities of Teacher Professional Autonomy: A BCTF discussion paper (Vancouver: B.C. Teachers‘ Federation, 2011). http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/Publications/ResearchReports/2011-EI-03.pdf
[iv] R. M. Ingersoll, “Short on Power, Long on Responsibility,” Educational Leadership 65, no. 1 (2007): 20–25.
[v] D. J. Clandinin, L. Schaefer, J. S. Long, P. Steeves, S. McKenzie-Robblee, E. Pinnegar, S. Wnuk, Early Career Teacher Attrition: Problems, possibilities, potentials – final report (Edmonton: University of Alberta, April 2012), 3.
[vi] Clandenin et al., Early Career Teacher Attrition, 6.
[vii] B. Achinstein, Community, Diversity, and Conflict among Schoolteachers: The ties that bind (New York: Teachers’ College Press, Columbia University, 2002), 421.
[viii] Clandenin et al., Early Career Teacher Attrition, 6.
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What’s standing in the way of educational change?
Comments Off on What’s standing in the way of educational change?You know who is one of my favourite teachers of all time?
Jamie Sommers.
That’s right. Jamie Sommers. The Bionic Woman.
Now, that’s not because she could write notes on the board at super-sonic speeds with her bionic arm, nor because she could hear the whispers at the back of the class with her bionic hearing. But because she was the first educator to show me the potential and simplicity of educational change.
Perhaps I should backtrack for those of you who may either be too young to remember or who came from populated enough centers to have had more than one channel to choose from and missed this particular televised gem. The Bionic Woman was a show that ran in the 70’s about a former tennis star who had several parts of her body replaced by robotics after a sky diving accident. It was a spin-off of the earlier TV series “The Bionic Man”, which followed a similar premise. And although the main character of that series, Steve Austin, was a full-time agent for the covert O.S.I. (The Office of Strategic Intelligence) Jamie Sommers had a much less glorious career.
In between tackling top-secret missions, she worked as a grade school teacher.
To this day, I can not remember one single “Bad Guy” The Bionic Woman defeated. Nor can I remember the plot of a single, solitary episode. However, I distinctly remember the way she changed my view of education forever.
In one of the episodes she arranged the desks in her class in a circle.
A small change, arguably. And granted, one instituted in an imaginary classroom surrounded by a ridiculous premise. However, I recall thinking, as a student at the time, that this was radical teaching, a new approach to the old standard. It represented a newer, younger, hipper way of schooling.
And I also remember very clearly how the next day everybody in my school wanted their classroom desks arranged in a circle too.
Change is an ever-present topic in the field of education. People are seemingly always a) calling for change, b) implementing change or c) resisting change. Conversely, people are seemingly always asking a) why so many others are calling for change, b) why so much change is being implemented or c) why so many are resisting change. The very topic of change, it seems, is probably one of very few constants in our field.
But there is a tension within change. Teachers, as a whole, are often blamed for being anti change, mired in their chalk and talk routines, rolling their eyes at “the next new thing”. However, it’s not that we are anti-change. Teachers, are, on the whole, some of the most innovative and creative people I have ever met. It is not the change that is the issue, it is the ownership and implementation of that change that remains the sticking point.
Consider the past twenty years of educational activism that originated anywhere but in the classroom. From whole language to standardization, from “No Child Left Behind” to Obama’s “Race to the Top”, time after time, initiative after initiative has failed to “get it right”. Not because they were necessarily bad ideas, (although if NCLB was not idea I have never seen one), or underfunded, or under-resourced. They failed to “fix” education because their approach was all wrong. Education can not be “gotten right” from outside of the classroom. Getting education “right” is inherently an inside the classroom event.
And every single classroom is different. As is every educator. There is no “right”. There is no “fixed”. There is only different.
Recently, I came across a piece in the Leader-Post out of Regina. The headline read “Changes on Backburner: Focus Needed” and it was all about how the government of Saskatchewan was “putting the brakes on curriculum and programming changes” for the time being. Instead of continuing to implement new initiatives around such important issues as anti-bullying and student achievement, Deputy education minister Dan Florizone has decided to take a moment and discuss with the school districts exactly what is working for schools and what is not. Florizone states that he recognizes far too many of these changes are coming from the top down. After all, he stated “If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.”
This is the type of statement which makes classroom teachers stand up and cheer.
True educational change is happening. It is happening daily. It is happening in ways both high-tech and low-tech, both obvious and subtle. It can not be canned, it can not be forced. It can not be brought down from on high. But change is happening in our classrooms. In technology integration, in engagement, in assessment. Change is occurring. And as long as teachers feel that they are the ones in control, as long as they are given the freedom to adopt what works for them, and as long as they are supported when they try what does not, then positive change will continue to happen for students.
There are no actual barriers to educational change unless you consider barriers thrown up by a system that insists change must happen in a very limited, very specific, and very systemic way.
Speaking of how education is changing, I was actually interrupted in the middle of writing this piece by the ringing of my home phone. It was my daughter’s 3rd grade teacher calling to introduce herself and ask if I had any questions about the upcoming year.
At 9:00pm.
On a Sunday night.
I find myself wondering if the desks in her classroom are arranged in a circle, too.
This blog post is part of a series of thoughtful responses to the question: What’s standing in the way of change in education? to help inform CEA’s Calgary Conference on Oct 21-22, (#CEACalgary2013) where education leaders from across Canada will be answering the same question. If you would like to answer this question, please tweet us at: @cea_ace
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‘Twas the Night Before School Starts and All Through the House
Comments Off on ‘Twas the Night Before School Starts and All Through the HouseFor most Canadian students, teachers and parents, the Labour Day weekend is a mix of emotions. As the calendar is—reluctantly, for some— flipped from August to September, this three-day weekend is often filled with attempts to tie together the experiences of the preceding couple of months: family trips together, that summer romance, that summer job, playing outside until after dark, those special adventures that are made possible by the extended hours of relative leisure. All of this suddenly bumps up against the reality that, on the other side of the weekend, lies the First Day of School. In many households, the Night Before School Starts has all the markings of a religious vigil. There may be a special meal, special clothes laid out for the next day, some special storytelling and even a special bed time. And accompanying these external signs that mark the occasion, there are often internal cues as well. For many students excitement, anxiety, fear, hope, and anticipation are combined in various ratios to create a soup of emotion that is hard to explain but very easy to recognize. And if you happen to be part of a household led by one or more teachers, then the wonder of this weekend is even richer!
Labour Day has always reminded me of the highest elevation on a roller coaster—that point where everything seems to stop for a very brief time. It’s a moment of anticipatory exhilaration. Although in that tiny moment in time, you’re able to get a brief glimpse of some of the ups and downs, the curves and the loops that lie ahead, you also know that there is so much about what is going to take place that is out of your control. Physicists will tell you that this brief pause occurs just before the potential energy that has been stored during the coaster’s long climb up the hill is tranlated into the kinetic energy that drives the thrilling descent that is about to occur! There’s a rather ironic sense in which Labour Day represents that mystical transition between building energy and putting it to work!
For the Hurley family, we try to keep as much of our Labour Day to ourselves, resisting those invitations for dinner, a swim or a visit that were so freely extended and accepted during the rest of the summer. We have a special breakfast, try to get out into the woods for a walk, go and see a movie (it’s Planes, this year) and head home for a simple dinner and a bath before heading for an early bed. The early bed is important because we know that at least one of us will be awake during the week with the First Day Jitters. (In the past, that has usually been me!)
But just like you rarely look behind you on a roller coaster, Labour Day is mostly a time of hopeful anticipation. As I drag my body to bed, after a day of trying to squeeze that make the most of the last remnants of summer, and as my head finally hits the pillow, the sugarplums that dance through my head are almost always sweet. Tonight, they will be thoughts of the many educators that I have met over the past year in my travels across the country. They will be dreams of renewed conversations about transformation and change in our schools, of more powerful forms of engagement for both students and teachers. They will be hopes for strong connections between community and school. They will be inspired by SIr Ken Robinson’s continued plea for imagination and creativity and Ron Canuel’s consistent message of courage and conviction.
And just before I nod off to sleep, my final thoughts will likely be of Merrill Mathews, Mary Marshall and the staff of Irma Coulson Public School in Milton, Ontario. They have been working tirelessly all summer to get a brand new school ready for tomorrow’s opening. And they’ve spent their entire Labour Day weekend putting the final touches on the place where my family and I will be living, learning and growing for the next several years! On the one hand, it’s a rather personal example, but it’s also a metaphor for what I have come to understand about Labour Day: a time to think about brand new starts, new hopes and new challenges.
‘Twas the Night Before School Starts and All Through the House…
I would love to hear about your Labour Day rituals and some of the things that may be going through your mind as you and your family begin another school year? What are your hopes and dreams for 2013/2014? As an educator, are you using any new approaches or strategies this year? As a parent, is there a new program or initiative that you’re interested in tackling? As a student, is there a new challenge that you’re planning on taking on?
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2013-2014 School Calendar
Comments Off on 2013-2014 School CalendarThe School Calendar provides all opening and closing dates, statutory holidays, and spring breaks for elementary and secondary schools across Canada. This free resource, compiled annually, is an essential tool for conference, event and vacation planners. The School Calendar is published in mid-August.
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Nova Scotia Report Cards make an odd bit of summer reading
Comments Off on Nova Scotia Report Cards make an odd bit of summer readingI have spent the better part of my first two weeks of summer vacation actually vacationing away from my home in Halifax this year. And although I promised to unplug, I could not refuse myself the guilty pleasure of checking the papers late at night by the campfire to see what might be trending educationally. And I was surprised to find the comment columns of Nova Scotia’s largest daily publication fairly awash in gripings, groanings and complaints about, of all things, report cards.
The entire kafuffle began on July 2nd when a piece appeared in The Chronicle Herald entitled “Parent’s Weary of Report Card ‘Mumbo Jumbo'”. The article was an attack on jargon filled report cards whose comments on student achievement left parents baffled. The next day, the CBC’s Nova Scotia office also ran a piece on how many parents were confused by the comments that were written on their students’ report cards, and how this complaint was widespread. As is often the case in this neck of the woods, criticism in the media was followed the very next day, July 4th, by an announcement from our Minister of Education that she would be looking at the way report cards are written in the province. The final word went to the papers, as it always does, this time in a scathing, wrap-it-up editorial on July 8th. The piece questioned Minister Jennex for claiming that these were the first complaints she had heard on the matter, Deputy Minister of Education Carole Olsen for suggesting that parents who were confused should call the school for clarification, and provided an overall berating of the Nova Scotia Department of Education for using an assessment software program called PowerSchool for this purpose in the first place.
Apparently, I should have delayed my vacation.
This issue, unfortunately, can not be faulted to any one individual or organization. It is actually the assessment experts who lie at the base of this ugly and unlikeable tree. You see, a few years back, the Province of Nova Scotia decided that it would begin to institute outcomes based education, or O.B.E., to standardize what was taught in schools.
And that’s when the trouble began.
As OBE took hold through the late nineties and early oughts, the idea began to develop that outcomes were carved in stone and were the only thing that could be assessed in the classroom. Curriculum guides were no longer guides as much as they were commandments. Teachers were told that they could no longer reduce points because a child submitted work late. Lateness was not an outcome. They were told that marks could not be reduced for work that was messy. Neatness was not an outcome. Teachers were told that they must not reduce points for things like homework, or class work, or behaviour. Because as important as these things might be, they were not outcomes.
There was research to support these ideas. Names like O’Connor and Guskey became well known around staff rooms. And as these ideas grew in popularity, the next logical step was reporting on student achievement using only the outcomes. If I could not give a student a mark on something that was not an outcome, how could I address it in a report card?
Now, all might have been right in the world if that had been a simple instruction to teachers. “Hey, folks. Let’s lay off the ‘Johnny is a good kid’ comments for awhile and tell parents what the kid needs to do to improve in the outcomes.” But, alas, many jurisdictions here in Nova Scotia took it one step further, instructing teachers that comments needed 1) an anchor statement explaining the student’s achievement of the outcomes followed by 2) an area of strength, 3) an area of required improvement, and 4) a strategy for making those improvements. These comments were to be solely outcomes based, less than 400 characters and approved by administrators. Comments deemed as not following the guidelines were sent back to be redone, often under exceptionally tight timelines.
So here was the dilemma of the classroom teacher. Create purposeful comments about student achievement following a rigorous standardized format using only references to the outcomes and wording that parents can understand and, oh, by the way, do not change the intent of the outcomes when messing with the wording. Got it?
Yeah, me neither.
The result, of course, was a recent series of report cards that have been aptly referred to as “robo-cards”. As more and more administrators concerned themselves with following assessment trends, more and more teachers were asked to redo, reword and recreate report card comments. It has finally reached a point where the only safe approach for many has been a “give ’em what they want” capitulation. This essentially boils down to an edu-jargon based report that, although satisfying the criteria, does almost nothing to tell parents how their kids are doing in schools.
The maddening thing for us teachers is that we have seen this coming. We knew the “outcomes only” approach would, if practiced chapter and verse, result in chaos. Because at the end of the day, we know that the outcomes are not important. It is not the destination, it is the journey that creates brilliant education.
We have learned many good things from the last few years of the standardization movement. But it is time to recognize that educating teachers in good practice then refusing them autonomy in the application of that practice is counterproductive at best, and counter-education at its worse.
Oh, and one last thing. I’ve done up a little report card for the CEA. They scored an “A”. My comment reads “The CEA had a great year in my class. Enjoy your summer!”
Mr. Frost
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Regulation or Invitation?
Comments Off on Regulation or Invitation?Imagine that you are driving or walking up to a school you frequent. It may be the school your children or grandchildren attend, one you work in, or one in your neighbourhood. Close your eyes and visualize the school. What signs do you see as you pull up in your car or walk up to the school on foot? Do a mental walk around the exterior of the school building. What signs are evident – in the parking lot, posted on the exterior of the school, on entrance ways? What are the messages that you are immediately presented with? Now mentally enter the front entrance of the school. What are the messages you are greeted with inside the school – in the foyer, the front office, the hallways?
A climate of regulation
Since the signage at schools is typically very uniform, I am certain you will have visualized signs surrounding the school such as, “Park only in designated areas,” “Staff parking only,” or “Not a student drop-off or pick-up zone.” As you walked around the exterior of the school, you will have been informed of all the things that are not allowed on school grounds: “Smoking prohibited,” “No dogs allowed on school grounds,” and perhaps, “No bicycles,” “No skateboards,” and “No rollerblades” as well. As you walked into the school entrance, you will have been asked to “Remove all wet or muddy footwear” and told that “All visitors must report to the school office.” Upon moving further into the school, you may have met with messages that said, “No food or drink in the auditorium,” “Staff only,” or, “This door must remained locked at all times.”
In the name of efficiency, safety and liability, educators post signs like these all over their schools and school grounds. Inadvertently, they create a climate for parents and for family and community members that positions them as trespassers, as unwanted guests, as intruders. They send a message that the school is only a place to be when they have an official role to play, when they have been invited, when they remain in designated spaces, and when they follow the rules the school has set out for them. Parents, family and community members experience the school through a climate of regulation: one of control and of rules and directives.
A climate of invitation
Let’s now c ontrast this experience of entering a school landscape with the experience of going to visit someone’s home. This time, imagine you are walking up to or entering the home of friends, neighbours, or family members. What do you visualize as you drive up to their house or walk up their sidewalk? What signs might they have posted or what messages might be evident in their yard, on their porch, or on their front door? As you walk inside, what further messages greet you?
Some of the first things you may have noticed when you made your imaginary visit to friends or family were the plants or flowers in their yard or the objects on their lawn or front step. Perhaps they had a welcome mat at their threshold, a wreath or decorative item on their door, a light turned on, or perhaps a seasonal display to greet you. As you stepped inside, did you find a chair or a bench to sit down in, a place to remove your shoes or to linger? Did you see family photos, artwork, or signs like “Families are forever” or “Together is a beautiful place to be?”
When people establish and decorate their homes, they typically do it with the intention of creating a feeling of welcome for the visitors who come to see them. They want their guests to feel an immediate extension of their hospitality, their friendship, their warmth and caring. They purposefully and consciously create a climate of invitation.
Creating a safe school climate
It is not difficult to understand why a climate of regulation is so pervasive in schools. When hundreds of people enter and exit a building on a daily basis, educators are concerned with maintaining the orderly flow of traffic and the school’s cleanliness. More importantly, they are concerned with school safety: ensuring that the individuals who are entering the school have a legitimate reason for being in the school or on the school grounds and ensuring that individuals who have an intention to harm, whether through gangs, drugs, violence, theft, abduction, or any other form of threat to person or property, are kept outside the school landscape. Besides posting regulatory signs such as those stating that all visitors must report to the office, school personnel may enhance their safety measures through such practices as hiring security guards, mounting security cameras, enacting sign-in and sign-out procedures, or locking their school doors after classes are underway. As school safety and security measures increase, schools become places that are less accessible to parents and community members, less inviting and welcoming.
We must ask ourselves what is lost in schools when educators trade off a welcoming climate to get what they believe will be a safer or more regulated school. As Delgado-Gaitan states, “. . . the major reasons that parents do not participate in schools are primarily structural: Schools either include or exclude parents.”[1] When my eldest son, Cohen, was in Kindergarten, the Kindergarten dismissal hours were earlier than those of the rest of the school. To prevent any noise or disruption in school corridors for other classes still in session, we parents were told that we were to stand outside the school each day when we arrived to pick up our children, until the teacher’s assistant came to let us in. I remember feeling like I had been slapped when I heard this announcement. I felt untrusted and disrespected; I felt a deep sense of alienation from the school. This early experience as a parent on a school landscape shaped all of my experiences to follow. Throughout my three boys’ schooling, in three different Canadian provinces and in both elementary and secondary schools, I continued to feel uneasy in their schools and tentative about my presence there. I did not linger when I dropped my children off or picked them up, nor did I enter the school landscape without an invitation. As Delgado-Gaitan indicates, I felt largely excluded.
We must ask ourselves what is lost when educators trade off a welcoming climate to get what they believe will be a safer or more regulated school.
What is lost when parents, family and community members feel excluded from our schools? There is an extensive and conclusive body of literature in the field that demonstrates the impact parent engagement has on student achievement and on other educational outcomes such as attendance, behaviour, on-time course completion and graduation rates, and an increased likelihood of movement into postsecondary education.[2] In 2002, Anne Henderson and Karen Mapp analyzed 80 studies of parent engagement, preschool through high school. They found that “when schools, families, and community groups work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school, stay in school longer, and like school more.”[3] Since parent engagement makes a difference to educational outcomes for students, I believe maintaining a climate of regulation in our schools, at the cost of the exclusion of many parents and community members, is too big a price to pay.
A safe AND welcoming school climate
So, a critical question to ask is: how do educators establish a climate that makes schools both safe and welcoming? Princess Alexandra Community School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, gives us a way of thinking about this question. Princess Alexandra is located in the Riversdale neighbourhood in the city’s core, a neighbourhood in which the complexities and multi-faceted nature of poverty play themselves out. Combined with the adjoining neighbourhood of Pleasant Hill, Riversdale has the highest crime rates in the city.[4] Regardless of these statistics, the staff at Princess Alexandra decided to take down all of the regulatory and unwelcoming signs – including signs asking visitors entering the building to report to the office – in order to create an inviting climate and to engage parents and family members in their children’s schooling. Instead, they taught everyone within their school to be “greeters.” They introduced and discussed the concept at a school assembly and they continue to practice and reinforce it.
Any time I enter Princess Alexandra, I am warmly greeted, and often multiple times. The greetings may come from a passing student, from a teacher or staff member, or perhaps a parent or community member who happens to be there when I enter. From the people who know me, I hear such greetings as, “Welcome! It’s good to see you.” From those who do not know me, I may hear, “Hello, my name is ____. How can I help you?” After I’ve introduced myself and/or shared my reason for being there, I am asked if I need help finding my way or if I would like a cup of coffee. Within a moment of entering the building, I am noticed, greeted, assisted, and welcomed. It always feels so good to be there!
Consider receiving this greeting, though, if I am an individual who does not have a legitimate purpose for being at Princess Alexandra. Imagine my feeling when I enter the building and someone immediately notices my presence, stops to speak directly to me, and asks me if I need help. What do I say? What do I do then? While in most instances, the greeting extended at Princess Alexandra is intended to be a form of welcoming, it also serves as a form of “natural surveillance.”[5] The “greeters” at Princess Alexandra are highly visible because they make direct contact with those who visit their school. Through their casual greetings, it is apparent to visitors that individuals at Princess are observing their environment and awake to the people and activities around them. For someone ill-intentioned, this signals an increased risk of being caught and acts as a deterrent, both to remaining in the school and to perpetrating the intended act.
The result of Princess Alexandra’s efforts to welcome and engage parents, family, and community members is that there are a larger number of people within the school and on the school grounds, and traveling back and forth to the school, who know and care about the students, and who are able to watch out for and protect them. While parent engagement is typically conceptualized as a strategy to enhance the learning outcomes of students, it is simultaneously a “people-oriented crime prevention strategy.”[6] Parents and family members have first-hand knowledge of the communities in which they live and of who belongs in their communities. Just as with community-based crime prevention and crime interruption programs such as Citizen Patrols, Community Watch, and Community Mobilization Movements, it is the web of relationships among people and their connectedness to one another and to the school community that will keep our children safe in schools. “A trusted neighbour is one of the most effective crime prevention tools ever created”[7] – at home and at school.
By replacing climates of regulation in our schools with climates of invitation, thus creating more space and possibility for parents and family members to be present on school landscapes, we achieve two significant outcomes. We create opportunities for parents to be included in the teaching and learning of their children, enriching opportunities to enhance student outcomes in academic and in social/behavioural ways. We also create webs of connection and relationship in our schools that provide a people-oriented approach to safety, placing the leadership and ownership for the well-being of students in a greater number of caring hands.
First published in Education Canada, June 2013
EN BREF – Pourquoi, sous prétexte de sécurité, les écoles deviennent-elles des lieux inhospitaliers aux parents, aux familles et aux membres de la collectivité? Pourquoi ont-elles tendance à leur fermer la porte ou à les réglementer? Pourquoi les éducateurs croient-ils devoir sacrifier un environnement accueillant au profit de la sécurité? Cet article examine et compare la notion d’un climat réglementé à l’école à celle d’un climat invitant. Les lecteurs sont amenés à prendre conscience de la façon dont un climat invitant à l’école peut stimuler la participation des parents, des membres de la famille et des membres de la collectivité, tout en accroissant la sécurité des enfants et des adolescents à l’école.
[1] C. Delgado-Gaitan, Foreword in J. Allen, Creating Welcoming Schools: A practical guide to home-school partnerships with diverse families (New York: Teachers College Press, 2007), ix-x.
[2] Examples include Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001; Fan and Chen, 1999; Henderson and Mapp, 2002; Hoover-Dempsey et al, 2005; Jeynes, 2005; Redding et al, 2004; Sui-Chu and Willms, 1996.
[3] A. T. Henderson and K. L. Mapp, A New Wave of Evidence: The impact of school, family, and community connections on student achievement (for the National Center for Family & Community Connections with Schools, Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 2002). http://www.sedl.org/connections/resources/evidence.pdf
[4] J. Cooper, “Concentration of Poverty in Riversdale,” JordanCooper.com: A weblog about urbanism, technology, & culture (October 4, 2010). http://www.jordoncooper.com/2010/10/concentration-of-poverty-in-riversdale
[5] British Columbia Criminal Justice Reform, Community Crime Prevention Guide (undated). http://www.criminaljusticereform.gov.bc.ca/en/what_you_can_do/crime_prevention/index.html
[7] Saskatoon Police Service website, “Community Watch” (2013). http://police.saskatoon.sk.ca/index.php?loc=programs/community_watch.php
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Testing, testing . . .
Comments Off on Testing, testing . . .So it was refreshing to receive this cheery note from our son’s French Immersion teacher:
“Bonjour, parents! The children and I have planned our strategy for getting through the upcoming EQAO testing period:
Day 1: cookies
Day 2: popsicles
Day 3: popcorn . . .”
And so on. There was a party snack planned for each day of testing, and volunteers were sought to provide one of the designated snacks.
In these days of healthy nutrition awareness, that would probably no longer be allowed. But as a parent, I really appreciated that this teacher was making an effort to reduce the stress of her students’ first, rather intensive, experience with standardized tests and give them something fun to look forward to each day.
A decade later, standardized testing is entrenched, to one degree or another, across the country – but it is still controversial. In “Telling Time with a Broken Clock” (page 24), teacher and blogger Joe Bower takes a swing at the assumptions behind standardized test scores.
Of course, it’s the assessment that takes place in the classroom that affects students and teachers on a daily basis. Assessment of learning and assessment for learning are the warp and weft of classroom assessment, and this theme issue deals with both. In Robin Tierney’s “Fair Classroom Assessment” (page 20) and Anne Davies’ and Sandra Herbst’s “Co-Constructing Success Criteria” (page 16), you’ll find ideas that can be applied right away in any educational setting, while Kurtis Hewson and Jim Parsons offer a thoughtful reflection on setting effective school achievement goals (p. 9).
June, with its focus on final report cards and year-end assignments, is perhaps too full of assessment to allow much time to think about it! But we hope this issue will send you back to school in the fall with new plans for making your assessment practices more effective, all through the year.
Have a wonderful summer – we’ll be back with you, in September!
First published in Education Canada, June 2013
Write to us!
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STEMming the tide of creativity in schools
Comments Off on STEMming the tide of creativity in schoolsThis time of year, I find myself having the same conversations with students with what seems like increasing frequency.
Me: “Hey Janice! I see you are doing your course selections for next year. Coming back to drama?
Janice: (With a pained, embarrassed and somewhat apologetic expression) “Sorry, Mr. Frost. I can’t take Drama in grade 11. I have to get my (*Insert Science class here) next year. I will be a) too busy or b) have no room in my schedule.”
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I might actually be able to retire at a reasonable age. Whether it be Advanced Placement this or High Academic that, students in our public schools, it seems, are often forced to choose. And for many, the choice is not really a choice. As a society, many Canadians seem to think of Arts education as a quaint little endeavour, meant to serve no greater purpose than to “round out” a course load. A nice little diversion from the rigors of academia. Not to be dismissed, mind you, unless of course, it gets in the way of true educational pursuits.
It seems that even here in Nova Scotia, where we tend to be fairly Art centered, we are not immune to the view of Arts education as secondary subjects. We like to say that we consider the Arts as valuable as the core sciences, but proof to the contrary can be found in the latest move by our Province towards a full year math program in grade 10. One day, the media is reporting that our math scores are low and the next day, BAM!, a brand new full year math course and a brand new curriculum. This may mean better math students, but it may also means students with fewer course options. I would love to see what sort of media storm could bring about a similar result for, say, dance.
There is a large body of research that points to the retention of math skills being inversely related to time away from the classroom, so I certainly see the value in a full year math credit. But why must there be a trade-off? Why must the pursuit of one academic path so often eliminate the exploration of another?
For many students in our schools, this is the reality that is their high school experience. In school after school, year after year, this conversation is repeated. Students must choose between courses which they feel, (and are often told), are valuable and those which are self enriching. The recent rabid “slash and burn” approach to cutting public education funding certainly has not helped the matter. I have always considered this constant, often one-sided battle for students as a fundamental structural flaw in the system. And the more I read about education, the more I see people who are agreeing with me.
All over the world, from Canada, to the US, to the U.K., people are recognizing that in order to remain vibrant and innovative, economies need to embrace areas of development outside what has been referred to as the STEM core (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). Just this past week, the Globe and Mail carried two such stories, one talking about how educator’s in Oklahoma are working toward focussing more on the Art , and one from the UK, which had an expert exclaiming that “creative types…are key figures who have the potential to push stagnant economies back into growth.”
It is interesting to note that both these articles appeared in the paper’s business section.
I am not anti STEM. I am simply pragmatic. We want innovation and creativity in our villages, towns and cities. We want vibrant, engaged next generations. We want new ways of approaching old problems. If this is what Canadians truly want, then we need to see the value in a wide based approach to public education which equally foots Chemistry and Drama, Physics and Dance. Yes, it will cost. But to not encourage creativity and innovation among our youth will ultimately prove much more expensive.
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Drama Festival Proof of Value of Arts in the Schools
Comments Off on Drama Festival Proof of Value of Arts in the SchoolsAs the Rehtaeh Parsons tragedy moves slowly, sadly and inevitably off the front page of the country’s newspapers, there can be little doubt that her death has had an impact beyond the massive hole it has left in the hearts of those who knew and loved her. In the fervor that immediately followed her death, politicals from Prime Ministers to Premiers took to the soap box to decry the incident. Thumping their chests soundly, they railed that more needed to be done. More by government, more by the police, and, of course, more by the schools. As a result, promises have been made, consultants have been hired, and policy will be written.
And all that effort won’t make one damn bit of difference.
This is not an issue that can be fixed by policy, or by governments, or even by schools. No, this issue can only be fixed by the kids themselves. This very sentiment was echoed last week in Toronto where experts gathered at a conference hosted by the Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network (PREVnet). According to a Canadian Press article on May 8th, the focus of the conference, the 7th of its kind to be held, was on developing tools and strategies to combat bullying. And whether it was Rehtaeh Parsons or Amanda Todd, British Columbia or Nova Scotia, speakers were of the opinion that the focus needs not be on the policies. The focus, rather, needs to be on helping kids deal with the issue and step up to confront bullying when they see it happen.
Well, last weekend, quietly and out of the limelight, I saw that exact mode of thinking validated when I attended the 41st Nova Scotia High School Drama Festival, at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
For those who may not know, this festival brings high school students and their drama teachers from all across the province to a three-day gathering to celebrate all things dramatic. During the day the kids take workshops in everything from lighting to make-up, stage combat to musical theatre. In the evenings, they have a chance to perform dramatic pieces they have written for an appreciative audience of peers. And every year it is a celebration of all the things that make drama great for kids, characterized by a buzz of positive energy that can, at times, make your hair stand on end.
This year, however, was different. This year was…well…subdued.
Oh there was excitement of course, particularly on the first day when the kids arrived in the early hours of Thursday morning to start attending classes and workshops. But as the evening rolled around it became clear that, for many of our students, the tragedy of Rehtaeh Parsons was still very raw. For show after show after show dealt with the topic of bullying and its horrific effects.
These are truly rare moments for educators, for the student production gives us a glimpse of how the world appears through the students’ eyes. It is a world that can be harsh, a world where words like “policy” have little impact, and a world where the fumbling attempts of adult interventions are often greeted with tolerant disdain. “I know you want to help, teacher, but you just don’t understand”.
You could see the kids struggling through their emotions, wrestling with their own behaviours as well as the way they have been treated by others. Trying to craft pieces on stage that would provide some hope, some glimmer of an answer as to how to stop this sort of thing from happening again. Shows performed without cameras flashing or media paparazzi looking for some kind of an angle. Shows performed without fear of recrimination or judgment. Performed in front of the most trusted of adults, and the most trusted of peers.
And it was a thing of beauty.
You see, in many cases, drama classes and clubs are filled with the outsiders, kids on the periphery. The geeks. The bullied. And they understand the pain that can be caused by an errant word or an inopportune comment. But drama also draws in the cool kids. The jocks. The beauty queens. And as their shows played out on stage, one thing became very apparent.
All the kids get it.
They don’t need a policy. They don’t need procedure. They understand the power of bullying. They have bullied. They have been bullied.
And they struggle with what to do about it.
By the final day of the festival, the kids were back to their normal “love of life” form, and the Dalhousie Arts center was abuzz with time-honoured shouts of “Kumquat!” and “I lost!”. It almost seemed as if they had, collectively, healed somewhat. None of them, I am sure, actually believed they had stomped out bullying, nor had they forgotten Rehtaeh’s death. But surrounded by caring teachers and accepting peers, they were able to, at least for a weekend, address the issue head on in a form that they have come to trust.
And I am humbled to have been a part of it.
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Drama teaching experience NOT going to help Trudeau
Comments Off on Drama teaching experience NOT going to help TrudeauRecently, a great deal of concern has been expressed around the Tory ad campaign attacking Justin Trudeau as “too inexperienced” to tackle the complexities of being Prime Minister. As well, a great deal has been made about the slant the Tories have taken in this campaign, which points to Trudeau’s past work experience as a detriment to true leadership. In particular, his experience as, of all things, a drama teacher, has caused his leadership ability to be questioned.
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Stormy weather for standardization may be on the horizon
Comments Off on Stormy weather for standardization may be on the horizonWell, folks, we may be in for some rain.
Much as we here in Nova Scotia tend to get our weather from the West, so too do we often inherit educational practices and policies. Much of what we “create” in education here at home is borrowed from other jurisdictions, such as Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan. Although we do often get to put our own colloquial spin on things, many times the price we pay for being a have-not province is that we must clad ourselves, to the best of our ability, in the educational hand me downs of our more well to do cousins.
Now, I for one have always been against this trend. I hate the thinking among some policy makers that ideas must come from somewhere else to be any good. Our province is full of top-notch educators, right from the Department of Education on down, and I often wish that we would tap that particular resource a bit more often to find educational leadership. I recognize that there is a good case to be made for not re-inventing the wheel each time we would like to look at educational change, but I also recognize that, just like cars, not all educational systems are created equally. A wheel from a Chevy may never perfectly fit a Ford, no matter how much you hammer on it.
However, there currently is a rather interesting educational storm a brewin’ out across the prairies that has me, quite frankly, praying for rain.
It looks like Alberta has written the “No Zero” policy out of existence and is reducing the amount of standardized testing in public schools.
Now before those of us who dream of such occurrences go running through the fields shouting “Hallelujah!”, a word of caution. The Edmonton Public School trustees have not completed reviewing their policy on “student assessment, achievement and growth”, but the signs are good. Board chair Sarah Hoffman said in a statement released on April 10th that they were pleased with proposed changes, which reportedly may include allowing teachers to give students a zero for non-submitted work and removing the grade three provincial assessment.
Certainly not everyone is pleased. Some folks, in fact, are down right grumpy. In a recent article in the Edmonton Journal, writer David Staples decries the idea, stating that abandoning these tests will “leave parents in the dark”. He worries that without parents being able to see these test scores and compare them to the provincial norms, parents will be unable to see how their student is actually “doing”. They might even be robbed of the ability to pull their kids out of schools that are underperforming (collective gasps of horror abound).
Well sir, let me tip back my straw hat for a second and tell you a few of my thoughts on that.
You see, there are several issues with standardized tests, not the least of which is the nasty effect they have on programming. They force schools and teachers to focus on that certain aspect of the curriculum which is to be tested. For example, if it is revealed that 80 percent of this year’s math test will be looking at long division, there is a huge amount of pressure on boards, principals and teachers to make sure the kids can do long division. All that extra focus is probably going to cost you in double-digit multiplication.
And what if, as Staples suggests, parents start making decisions on where to send their kids based on these results? The school with the higher mark may not be any better at anything, other than, presumably, teaching long division. But once the trend starts, the school with the more rounded education actually gets labelled as a bad school, and kids are pulled out in droves.
You want to know how a school is doing? Visit it. Ask the kids. Talk to the teachers. Go to the school concert. Attend the musical. Volunteer. The measure of excellence in schools should not be what the students score on a test, but on the quality of overall education being offered within its walls. It is excellence in innovation, in creative thinking, in creativity which we must strive for, not patterning and practice. It is an excellence that can not be measured. It can not be counted. It can not be put into a chart to be displayed behind some crooning politician.
Belief in that form of excellence, true excellence, in education, must come from faith in the system.
I am not sure if we will ever see the death of standardization. But as I metaphorically sit on my back porch and look out over educational fields, parched of creative teaching practices by years of data collection, I believe that maybe, just maybe, we might be in for some rain.
And to my mind, that particular storm from the West can not arrive soon enough.
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Parent Engagement
Comments Off on Parent Engagement- Parenting Helping parents fulfill their role as parents, providing information on items such as health, nutrition, child development, etc.
- Communicating Effective ways to keep parents informed about student progress and happenings at school.
- Volunteering Includes examples of how parents can be volunteers even when they can’t come to the school building.
- Learning at Home Involving families in homework and other home learning activities. The Teachers Involving Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS) program is a great resource for encouraging learning at home. Parents are provided with activities that directly involve them with their child in classroom work. My favourite is an activity that uses liquids like ketchup, corn syrup and oil to learn about viscosity.
- Decision Making Ways to include families in school decision-making and governance. Schools normally establish annual goals and objectives and the framework suggests including parents in this process.
- Collaborating with the Community Describes how schools can build links among family, school and ex-ternal groups and services.
For more details on how to use this helpful framework, I recommend the book The School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your handbook for action. [1]
As host of the Parents as Partners webcast at EdTechtalk, I am fortunate to have met many great people who work hard on building trust. Below I share some of the lessons I have learned about working with parents, and some of the initiatives that put these tips into action.
Ask for input
I recently interviewed Aaron Puley, the Parent Engagement Facilitator for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board in Ontario, and that interview was a moment of enlightenment for me. I was lamenting how difficult it was to change the approaches used by schools when working with parents – there is lots of research and the programs are ready-waiting, but progress is slow. Aaron’s advice was about ownership. He observed, “Often principals and teachers are given binders for programs that they are asked to implement, sometimes without indexes and very often without input from the end user.” Ideally, input from both parents and schools is needed when developing activities for working with parents. That is the secret, not only to effective programs, but to willing implementation.
Sometimes just asking for input is all that is needed to build a solid relationship between parents and schools. Chris Wejr, principal at Kent Elementary School in Agassiz, B.C., shares his philosophy of building trust with parents in his school community on his blog, “The Wejr Board.” Wejr routinely invites two-way dialogue with parents. He encourages: replies to emails; face-to-face meetings focused on listening to parents; making parent phone calls; using websites and blogs that invite comments; Twitter announcements that encourage replies; Facebook and discussion boards that are open and moderated.
The number one way to engage parents is for you to personally believe that it works and makes a difference in the learning of your students.
Be open and honest
You may be thinking, “But what do I do when I don’t feel I can implement a parent’s input or when a parent doesn’t like the answers given?” It may not be possible to satisfy all parent questions and concerns, but in my experience open and honest communications help clarify issues, and your thoughtful responses can allay fears. For responding to shared parent concerns, a public forum can be very helpful. Wejr demonstrated this when he responded to parent questions about split grades on the school’s Facebook page. The Facebook conversation led to an extensive blog post that all parents were able to read addressing the question: “Will my child be OK in a split grade?”
Recognize the limits parents have in interacting with schools
Work schedules and commitments can conflict with the timing of school events. Language and cultural differences can inhibit participation. Joe Mazza, Principal (he calls himself Lead Learner) at Knapp Elementary School, an inner-city school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has found ways to overcome these barriers. Mazza believes that you should never lose sight of the need for meaningful face-to-face interaction. It is the number-one best way to communicate with parents.
He told me about the time his home and school team visited the local mosque to talk about the school and to help parents understand how they could participate, and how that participation benefits students. Using the mosque’s Internet connection, the team later held a monthly Home & School meeting from that location to bring everyone together. These efforts aim to “meet parents where they are,” whether physically or virtually. Parents at the mosque have been so pleased with the school’s efforts that they have begun to visit the school more often, and even dropped off lunch for the staff earlier this school year. It’s this positive relationship that matters most.
As Lead Learner, Mazza has not held back when it comes to trying new ways to work with parents. He uses applications like YouTube to feature a tour of the school, Twitter and Facebook to post information and activities and free streaming applications like Ustream and AnyMeeting to host concurrent face-to-face and online PTA meetings. He uses Poll Everywhere to collect responses from parents at home. Joe is so convinced that these tools work that he developed a Knapp Elementary mobile app, so parents can use their mobile phone to connect with the school.
How does Mazza find the time to tweet all day? He says it’s easy. “I walk around the school with my cell phone and I tweet out good news about what is happening in school. Not only is it good to send out information to parents about what their students are doing in class, but it also lets my teachers hear what other teachers are doing at school and how much they are appreciated.”
Parents and educators all over the world participated in the Knapp Elementary Twitter Hall meeting, held to teach parents how to use Twitter to interact with the school and each other. PTA President Gwen Pescatore, once new to Twitter, now connects with parents and teachers globally as an active participant in the #Ptchat that Joe hosts on Twitter every Wednesday night.
The results are telling. More parents are now present at Knapp Elementary school events and parents are accessing the online meetings from their own homes. The numbers have grown from an average of 12 parents in attendance to an average of 52.
Help parents understand
Some parents say it seems like teachers speak a different language. Terms like rubrics, curriculum, pedagogy – the language of teachers – can create confusion and apprehension in parents, and they can feel humiliated or even guilty for not knowing what they mean. At the same time, “eduspeak” often doesn’t convey the main thing parents want to know, which is simply what their child is doing in school.
Aviva Dunsiger, a classroom teacher with the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, uses classroom blogs so that her students can demonstrate their work online and engage parents with an invitation to comment on their child’s work. One appreciative parent gave this feedback to Dunsiger: “It was wonderful to see what my child was learning as well as how you taught, because I was able to use some of the same language you use to reinforce at home what my child was learning.” Blogs are an effective way to translate “teacherese” into parent understanding of student work.
Dunsiger also set up a class Twitter account; her students created a daily message together announcing what they had learned that day. Students were also able to tweet from home with their parents, to answers questions posed during the school day. For a busy parent unable to attend meetings at school or volunteer for class outings, these practices make a big difference in how they see the school.
Let parent leaders build bridges with you
Parents understand how and what other parents think and their volunteer efforts can make the connections between home and school more successful. Tracy Bachellier, past chair of the Avon-Maitland (Ont.) District School Board Parent Involvement Committee, is a parent who helped spearhead “Ignite Parents,” an event inspired by the Ignite Show. Twelve educators were challenged to present to parents their passions in education and how their students benefit. Each presenter had five minutes to present with 20 slides. The event was fast-paced, meaningful – and well attended. All the presentations are available at www.igniteparents.ca.
Use parents as inspiration
Heidi Hass Gable is an Ed Tech Consultant and the president of the District Parent Advisory Council in Coquitlam, B.C. Her YouTube video, “What I Want for my Children: Creating great schools together” has been enjoyed by over 38,000 viewers. This motivating and inspirational message for parents and teachers is well worth sharing with your school community.
I’d like to share some of her advice. Hass Gable would tell you to believe in parents’ desire to do the best for their kids, and to believe in yourself as an educator as well.
Communicate often
We need to be respectful of each other’s limitations and refrain from making assumptions. One reason relationships between parents and schools fail is poor communication. So communicate often and in different formats, to make sure your directions and questions are received and acted upon.
It’s worth the effort: Students do better in school when teachers and parents are on the same page.
First published in Education Canada, March 2013
Resources
Below are URLs for people and programs mentioned in the article:
- Lorna Costantini – Parents as Partners at Edtechtalk, www.ourschool.ca
- Aviva Dunsiger – Living Avivaloca, www.adunsiger.com
- Heidi Hass Gable – “What I Want for my Children: Creating great schools together,” . Blog: I was thinking, www.iwasthinking.ca
- Ignite Parents – www.Igniteparents.ca
- Joe Mazza – Electronic Family and Community Engagement, www.efacetoday.blogspot.com
- National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University – www.csos.jhu.edu/p2000
- Aaron Puley – www.bloggucation.learninghood.ca
- TIPS (Teachers Involving Parents in Schoolwork) resources – www.csos.jhu.edu/p2000/tips/index.htm
- Chris Weir – The Wejr Board, www.chriswejr.com
EN BREF – De nombreuses recherches démontrent que la participation des parents favorise la réussite des écoles et des élèves. Pourtant, les parents et le personnel enseignant éprouvent trop souvent de la difficulté à collaborer.
L’article indique que les écoles peuvent trouver des solutions pratiques pour développer des liens de travail positifs avec les parents, citant le fructueux modèle de participation des parents mis en œuvre par Joyce Epstein. L’auteure résume comment ce modèle engendre des partenariats entre l’école, les familles et la collectivité. Elle décrit également des pratiques suggérées par des invités de ses webémissions Parents as Partners. Ces innovateurs en établissement de liens entre les parents et l’école recourent à des moyens comme Twitter, des blogues, des webémissions et YouTube pour échanger avec les parents pour demander des commentaires, leur fournir des renseignements et les rencontrer en ligne.
Les approches que proposent ces éducateurs pour obtenir la participation des parents contribuent à surmonter les obstacles du temps, des occasions, de la culture et de la distance confrontant de nombreux milieux scolaires. Leurs exemples d’innovation s’adaptent aisément aux besoins de tout milieu scolaire.
[1] Joyce L. Epstein, M. G. Sanders, S. B. Sheldon, B. S. Simon, K. Clark Salinas, N. Rodriguez Jansorn, F. L. Van Voorhis, C. S. Martin, B. G. Thomas, M. D. Greenfeld, D. J. Hutchins, and K. J. Williams, School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your handbook for action, 3rd Edition (Thousand Oaks, CA, Corwin Press: 2002).
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Life at the Intersection: Community, class and schooling
Comments Off on Life at the Intersection: Community, class and schoolingA review of Life at the Intersection: Community, class and schooling By Carl James, Fernwood, 2012. ISBN: 9781552664704
Life at the Intersection: Community, class and schooling is an effort to challenge stereotypes about one of Canada’s most high-profile neighbourhoods, the intersection of Jane and Finch in Toronto.
Carl James, Director of the Centre for Education and Community at York University, puts forward a “counter-narrative” about the neighbourhood and its schools. He argues that public perceptions, reinforced by disproportionate negative media coverage, see such communities as “incubators of trouble and violence.” Perceptions of the community, in turn, become stigmatized markers of identity that affect students’ opportunities in tangible ways and limit critical reflection on the social structures underlying communities’ challenges.
The book focuses on the contradictions faced by students and schools in the neighbourhood. James argues that students are “con-fined to educational institutions that struggle and fail to recognize their inherent abilities, potential and hopes” and that most students and families see education as essential to their aspirations. He shows that students are committed to using their education to “pay their dues” and make their community stronger – while also using it to “escape.”
The challenges facing Canadian urban schools serving predominantly racialized students living in poverty are somewhat different than in the U.S. or U.K. James asks painfully honest questions. Why, with relatively equitable public funding and many educators “doing their best,” is school success still elusive? Why are the effects of initiatives like Model Schools for Inner Cities and the school-university partnerships disappointing?
Ultimately, James argues that a “community-centred approach to education” is required. Educators need to more effectively tap into the community itself as a source of “cultural wealth.” Program, curriculum and pedagogy must be informed by the knowledge, skills, and abilities used by community members to survive and resist an unjust system. Approaches such as Participatory Action Research build students’ capacity for critical reflection as well as the skills and credentials required for advancement.
The book is enriched by James’ deep involvement with the community, and the voices of students. This strength is also a limitation, as the portrayal of the problems depicted – ones he argues are “not merely about equity, class, race or social justice but life and death” – outweighs more nuanced and careful recommendations about how to make things better for these schools and students.
First published in Education Canada, March 2013
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