Archive
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Monkey-see…Monkey-do
Comments Off on Monkey-see…Monkey-doLast spring I wrote a series of blogs based on the proposition that our publicly supported schools should not only be in the community, but of the community. By that I meant that adolescent students approaching adulthood and the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy need to be significantly engaged in the ordinary affairs and activities of the community. I urged that 20% of the regular school time of students aged 16 to 18 should be spent in work/learning situations outside the school. Adequate staff resources would have to be provided to make it work satisfactorily both for students and community persons and organizations. An earlier blog of mine offered some practical working details.
A fellow blogger, Stephen Hurley, wrote recently about capacity building as the essential ingredient in implementing any improvement in education. In his list of “Schools are —“ statements he said this: “Schools are built on the assumption that students can effectively learn about the world by being removed from it for most of their formative years.” That statement goes to the heart of what I believe to be the most critical challenge in transforming education.
In that regard, the line that I wish to pursue for a few weeks is this: the structure of public education in North America is at odds with the needs of its clients, i.e. students and their parents. Put differently, the clients need a structure that will not only provide the skills and techniques for success in the digital age but also the attitudes and personal sensitivities for constructive citizenship in a democracy. In that respect, the typical power structure in public education is counter-productive. It is hierarchical, i.e. Minister of Education at the top, central administrators next, followed by school boards as hand maidens of the Minister, with principals and teachers serving the school board. At the bottom are students and parents dancing to the tune of the school authorities.
Of course, there must be a line of accountability satisfactory to the politicians who manage the tax revenue needed to pay for the system. What is lacking is sufficient operational flexibility at the local level to ensure that the clients (students and parents) are actively in touch with the realities of their own communities while their children are growing up. That for me would be a real environment for learning. More to come!
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Bullying: Responding to a Sad Fact of Life
Comments Off on Bullying: Responding to a Sad Fact of LifeBullying is a fact of life. It has always been so and it always will be, because bullying is part of our human nature. We see it in politics, in professional sport, in the movies and, not surprisingly, we also see it in schools – playgrounds, staff rooms and board meetings included. Aggression and dominance are a part of our make-up; it can be managed, but not eliminated.
That doesn’t mean, however, that we should accept it. What it does mean is that suppression is not an adequate response and is doomed to fail. Of course there has to be “zero tolerance” but the only constructive interpretation of this term is that we can never look away. Responding to bullying with vengeance doesn’t get at the root of the problem and therefore does not resolve it. It may push it away but it doesn’t eliminate it. The “just say no” approach is both naive and irresponsible.
There are much better ways to go. You can set clear expectations for behaviour, you can provide adequate supervision, you can teach students how to respond if they encounter bullying, you can intervene decisively if it happens and you can use restorative justice to heal, for example, but by far the best approach is to build students’ resilience.
Personal resilience is rooted in our own characteristics, of course, but also in the social environment that we construct for ourselves and others. We might refer to this as our personal network, or our community, or the social capital in our society. Schools have an important role to play in developing both students’ internal and external assets, but I want to comment particularly on the external assets – the social capital upon which students can draw.
In “Bowling Alone,” Robert Putnam defines social capital as “a norm of generalized reciprocity: I’ll do this for you without expecting anything specific back from you, in the confident expectation that someone else will do something for me down the road.” Others might talk about Social Responsibility or the Golden Rule. Whatever you call it, what matters is how we go about creating a society in which, when bullying occurs, there is immediate, supportive and constructive response from those who observe it – both for the victim and the perpetrator.
Schools are not solely responsible for building social capital, but they have a very important role to play. In fact, the creation of social capital is one of the main reasons for having a public school system.
So how might schools go about this task? Well, simply bringing the whole community together is a very good, indeed essential, start. But then, of course, schools have to operate in ways that exemplify and inculcate the values they espouse. If they operate on the basis of “might makes right” authority in which adults claim inherent dominion over children – for their own good, of course – they are not doing that. What students learn from such an experience is quite likely the opposite of what we would hope and what they require in order to forge a civil society in the diverse and dynamic realities of the modern world.
Therefore, as part of a pro-active response to the fact of bullying and and for the greater good of society, social capital development should be high on the priority list for twenty-first century transformation. This “hidden curriculum” needs to come out of the closet and take its place beside human capital development in the discourse about school quality. Without this rebalancing of educational goals, all the focus on individual academic achievements and technological prowess may be for nought.
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Canada as an Immigrant Nation: Implications for Educators Excerpts from an interview with John Ralston Saul
Comments Off on Canada as an Immigrant Nation: Implications for Educators Excerpts from an interview with John Ralston SaulThe kind of immigration and citizenship that we’re doing reasonably comfortably here in Canada causes horror and dismay and fear at far lower levels among all our allies. We mustn’t underestimate this. We’re caught up in OECD, NATO, G8, G20 – and all of these people are frightened by the idea of immigrants – new people arriving in their countries. And so, they’re creating an atmosphere of fearing the other, fearing the outsider. You see this happening in Europe all the time, you see it happening in the United States, building walls. So fear is becoming the dominant atmosphere, particularly in the Western Civilization, and we have a limited period of time to act with enormous self-confidence as Canadians to say, “Actually, we don’t agree. Actually, we’re not doing it your way. Actually, on purpose we’re doing it a different way, and it’s our way, and it works. We’re not saying you have to do what we’re doing. We’re not saying that we’re smarter than you. But we are saying, ‘Listen, we know how to do this, we’ve been at this for 400 years, we’ve been getting better and better at it.’” Even when we don’t have sufficient programming and government support, it’s still a very interesting, unusual, and particular thing we’re doing. If we start slipping on that in our schools – let alone elsewhere – then we’ll be in big trouble.
We’re caught up in OECD, NATO, G8, G20 – and all of these people are frightened by the idea of immigrants – new people arriving in their countries. And so, they’re creating an atmosphere of fearing the other, fearing the outsider.
What is the source of the Canadian idea of immigration and citizenship and multiplicity and complexity?
Where does it come from? Go back to England; it doesn’t exist there. They spent 500 years banning Gaelic and getting rid of as many competing cultures as possible, and putting forward this very monotone culture; the French – they banned every language they could get their hands on, and turned themselves into this idea of the Gaulois, single language, single myth. So, it doesn’t come from our mother countries. It doesn’t come from the United States, which in many ways is a European culture with the melting pot – the European idea that everybody becomes the same. So you’re stuck with this intellectual conundrum. Did we just invent this out of the air? Does it have no roots? Does it come from nowhere?
This question has a direct effect on the way we should be teaching citizenship in our schools.
[Looking back to the earliest European settlement of Canada, we see] 1,600, more or less, immigrants arriving in the country, and they are basically poverty-stricken, ill-educated, not well washed, and pretty hungry people from France. And then there are some equally ill-educated, poverty-stricken, lost Scots with the Hudson Bay Company. Generally speaking, immigrants who came to Canada were poor and more often than not the losers, and they found two million people here who actually were doing not too badly, thank you… and for 250 years those people were the dominant force here. So what happened? They used the Aboriginal model of welcoming the outsider, getting them in the circle, providing they followed a certain minimal number of rules. And once they’re in the circle, you work out how to fit them into the society…what their contribution is going to be. You balance the individual with the group as opposed to putting them against each other, which is the European tradition. And, there you are, they’re the citizens.
It was the old Aboriginal idea of the circle. That changes radically the way we ought to be thinking about and therefore teaching Canadian citizenship, and the roots of Canadian citizenship.
So that’s where it comes from. It was the old Aboriginal idea of the circle. That changes radically the way we ought to be thinking about and therefore teaching Canadian citizenship, and the roots of Canadian citizenship. They do not lie in Britain; they do not lie in France; they lie in the people who were and are here, the Aboriginal people, and they’re not rational linear, they’re circular. They’re not looking for that metaphysical transformation of someone who is one thing into someone who is another. Instead, it’s a much more complicated, relaxed, living with difference approach. Again, Aboriginal.
That’s a very, very big deal. If you could get that into the heart of our education system, the kids would be so happy, because they’d know who they were, they’d know actually where they come from, and they wouldn’t be fiddling around with this kind of pretend Englishness and pretend Frenchness, and stuff that comes from Europe – and then, when they look at Europe, it doesn’t seem to fit.
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Cdn EdWire: With Students Back in Classrooms, Education Media Kicks into High Gear
Comments Off on Cdn EdWire: With Students Back in Classrooms, Education Media Kicks into High GearCLASSROOMS
Video in the class keeps savvy students engaged – Globe and Mail
It’s back to school for cellphones in Toronto – Globe and Mail
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Hockey Riots and Public Education
Comments Off on Hockey Riots and Public EducationThe special report into the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots concluded that, “No plausible number of police could have prevented trouble igniting in the kind of congestion we saw on Vancouver streets that night.” In fact, policing can never create such harmony. It is an essential tool, but it is not the root source of the peace and order that we all desire. Civil society rests on what sociologists call the “social capital” in our culture; that is, “the information, trust and norms of reciprocity inhering in one’s social networks.” (Putnam, 2000) Without this foundation, no amount of authority or force can either create or preserve peaceful coexistence.
Social capital is created when all elements of society meet, share common experiences and learn to live with and respect each other, thus establishing norms of inclusiveness and reciprocity. Where it exists, social capital acts like a civic immune system, responding to protect the “body politic” from the anti-social behaviour of individuals and groups within it. With high social capital the need for policing decreases and when it is used it is more effective because the public actively support it. Without social capital no amount of force can impose order on a society.
In “Bowling Alone,” Robert Putnam explains that, “Networks of community engagement foster sturdy norms of reciprocity … [Sometimes] reciprocity is specific: I’ll do this for you if you do that for me. Even more valuable, however, is a norm of generalized reciprocity: I’ll do this for you without expecting anything specific back from you, in the confident expectation that someone else will do something for me down the road … Trustworthiness lubricates social life. Frequent interaction among a diverse set of people tends to produce a norm of generalized reciprocity.”
We hear a lot about the duty of schools to increase the life chances of students by building their personal skills. Clearly this is important, but it is equally important that schools foster the sort of civil society in which students experience the “peace, order and good government” that our constitution envisages. Schools provide not only private good for individuals but also public good for society as a whole.
This was one of the fundamental reasons for the creation of public schools. “In1829 at the founding of a community school in the bustling whaling port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, Thomas Greene eloquently expressed this crucial insight: We come from all the divisions, ranks and classes of society … to teach and to be taught in our turn. While we mingle together in these pursuits, we shall learn to know each other more intimately; we shall remove many of the prejudices which ignorance or partial acquaintance with each other had fostered … In the parties and sects into which we are divided, we sometimes learn to love our brother at the expense of him whom we do not in so many respects regard as brother … We may return to our homes and firesides [from the school] with kindlier feelings toward one another, because we have learned to know one another better.” (quoted in Putnam, 2000)
Assessment of school performance focuses on “human capital” (i.e., accomplished students) but seldom considers “social capital” (i.e., socially responsible citizens). The latter purpose deserves more attention. Schools cannot prevent hockey riots, but unless they do their job in building social capital, it is certain that in a diverse and dynamic world such tragedies will be more common and more severe.
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
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Canadian EdWire – The back-to-school media crush begins
Comments Off on Canadian EdWire – The back-to-school media crush beginsBack to school: New rules help curb homework meltdowns – Toronto Star
How to curb your child’s back-to-school anxiety – Globe and Mail
The Dilemna of Paying for School Essentials – Ottawa Citizen
Photo courtesy of Caramel – http://www.flickr.com/photos/grandmaitre/2848251258/
B.C. teachers talks off to a rocky start as back-to-school looms – Globe and Mail
A crash course on the B.C. teachers’ labour dispute – Globe and Mail
OTHER NEWS
Embracing technology – Calgary
Schools are moving to integrate new devices into the educational processOntario picks up tab for new French school in Etobicoke – Globe and Mail
EDUBLOG HIGHLIGHTS
What we can learn from Canadians – The Great Debate (Reuters
There is a debate, if that’s what you can even call it, raging in America about how to improve our public education system. While disparate groups rip each other apart, it would seem wise to look to our neighbors to the north. Americans love to casually pick on Canadians, but we should be seriously analyzing their public school system, which has emerged as one of the most successful school systems in the world…Can you afford to close the door? – Doug – Off the Record (Doug Peterson)
There’s an old saying in education that goes something like this – once the students are in the classroom, you can close the door and only you and they know what happens. Whether said seriously or in jest, it can be true if you want. After all, it’s not like there are a large number of people who really want to drop into your classroom at a moment’s notice or even care what’s happening… -
Prevent Teacher ‘YouTubing’ by Giving Students More Freedom to Learn
Comments Off on Prevent Teacher ‘YouTubing’ by Giving Students More Freedom to LearnI cringe when I hear the horror stories from other teachers about how their board has banned cellphones, Facebook and YouTube. If privacy in a public classroom is the sacrifice that we have to make in order to get the educational benefit out of these devices with video capability, then by all means do it. Students need to be taught that the polite, respectful thing to do would be to ask for permission to videotape your teacher and then respect his/her wishes. It is far better to take these moments where cell phones conflict with lesson plans and teach how to better use these devices properly.
The key is reculturing ourselves to accept this technology in more ways for learning. If you’ve ever wanted to text someone during a meeting, or Google something at the dinner table to fact-check, then you’ve got a taste of what’s happening in classrooms worldwide today. Devices that connect to the internet come in all shapes and sizes and there is no way that the public school boards can attempt a 1:1 ratio of equipment to student. So we depend on students to bring their own tech. If a smartphone (or tablet or laptop) allows students to have that kind of access, then I’m all for it. Students are capable of deciding how they can use technology to improve their learning, and school needs to provide the environment to help them be productive. Instead of eliminating their technology from the classroom, we need to teach students the consequences for texting or being on Facebook. They’ll miss out on opportunities for learning, if they can’t learn to communicate well. Giving students, parents and the whole school community multiple ways to communicate will benefit everyone. This year my new Grade 9 library helper emailed me and ‘cc’ed’ her parents so that they could sync her library schedule with her parents’ Outlook calendar. Open communication with the broader community of learners that pertain to my school is my goal.
The dilemma of society learning when and how to use technology is not in saying “No” to students. The answer lies in the best teaching method in the world: give the students more choice.
The dilemma of society learning when and how to use technology is not in saying “No” to students. The answer lies in the best teaching method in the world: give the students more choice. We need to let students Tweet to each other about their geography lesson to deepen their learning, if that’s their choice. We need to let them choose how they will publish, and determine their own privacy settings. We need to teach them how. To eliminate technology from the classroom is to deny our students access to the three most important concepts they’ll ever learn: communication, collaboration and creation. It prevents them from moving forward and it prevents the greater community from moving forward with them.
Photo courtesy of Dean Shareski http://www.flickr.com/photos/shareski/3268690032/
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2011-2012 School Calendar
Comments Off on 2011-2012 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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Canadian EdWire – Our Public Schools: Consumer-driven?
Comments Off on Canadian EdWire – Our Public Schools: Consumer-driven?Skateboard school or single-sex? Niche schools take off – Globe and Mail
Fight brews over petition to move prestigious education program – Toronto Star
OTHER EDUCATION NEWS
B.C.’s schools to cut optional exams, no longer required for university – Vancouver Sun
Scholarships will now be based on marks in five mandatory testsGetting ‘YouTubed’ big issue facing teachers, professors – Toronto Star
From ‘sexting’ to truancy: A world of woes for school principals – Toronto Star
Dropout chiefs imperil a generation of kids – Globe and Mail
What news am I missing? Can you recommend some education blogs for me to follow? Please tweet me at @max_cooke, e-mail me at mcooke@cea-ace.ca or better yet, use the comment box below to suggest additional articles happening in your region so that others can check it out.
INTERNATIONAL
The Missing Link in School Reform – Stanford Social Innovation Review
The Global Search for Education: More Focus on Change – Huff Post
EDUCATION BLOG HIGHLIGHTS
Further to my earlier blog recap of the UnPlug’d Canadian Education Summit, reflections of this groundbreaking event continue to pour in from the organizers and participants.
UnPlug’d 11 wasn’t perfect, it was real – Learning Together (Ben Hazzard)
The Process is the Product – The Clever Sheep (Rodd Lucier)
Why Relationships Matter – The Unplug’d Model – Pipedreams (Zoe Brannigan-Pipe)
Unplug’d 2011: The Change We Need – EnVisioned (Lorna Constantini)
Unpacking from UnPlug’d11 – Mrs. D’s Flight Plan (Headther Durnin)
Filling Your Apple Basket — The Continuous Learner (Joe Evans)
What I should have shared at #unplugd11….. – Teaching and Learning Together (Kelly Powers)
Not that kind of story – Barker Blog (Danika Barker)
Unplug’d 11 – Ramblings (Jaclyn Calder)
Unpacking, reminiscing, and wondering… Alana Learns about Educational – (Alana Callan)
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Canadian EdWire – Secular schooling disputes still make news in the dog days of summer
Comments Off on Canadian EdWire – Secular schooling disputes still make news in the dog days of summerSchool board sees dueling demonstrations over Muslim prayers – Toronto Star
That secular school for Morinville? It’s still not a done deal! – Rabble.ca
Preserve equality at publicly-funded Roman Catholic schools – Globe and Mail
Family meetings, ‘tech breaks,’ encouraged to keep tabs on kids’ online activity – Winnipeg Free Press
Cuts put students’ futures in jeopardy, says new president of teachers’ group – Fredericton Daily Gleaner
What news am I missing? Can you recommend some education blogs for me to follow? Please tweet me at @max_cooke, e-mail me at mcooke@cea-ace.ca or better yet, use the comment box below to suggest additional articles happening in your region so that others can check it out.
INTERNATIONAL
Darling-Hammond: The mess we are in – Washington Post
Unschoolers learn what they want, when they want – CNN International
Government Of Jamaica Seeking To Hold Parents Accountable For Kids’ Literacy – The Gleaner
Ministry Partners with RIM to Provide Teachers with Smartphones – Jamaica Information Service
Violent protests for education reform in Chile – Globe and Mail
Can Teachers Alone Overcome Poverty? Steven Brill Thinks So – The Nation
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Canadian Education Wire – As summer sizzles, so do ongoing secular schooling debates
Comments Off on Canadian Education Wire – As summer sizzles, so do ongoing secular schooling debates
Photo by: amrufm (flickr)Protesters oppose Muslim prayer in public schools – Toronto Star
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Canadian EdWire – All’s Not So Quiet on the Education Front
Comments Off on Canadian EdWire – All’s Not So Quiet on the Education FrontSpecial-needs integration guidelines unveiled by Quebec education minister – Montreal Gazette
Regular classrooms with adaptations and support are preferredBoard runs afoul of Education Act with prayer services – Toronto Star
Keeping Juniper school open shows fairness, says education minister – Fredericton Daily Gleaner
Teachers dispute nears end – Saskatoon Star Phoenix
Mediator suggests extra pay bumpStrike vote gets massive support from B.C. teachers – Cranbrook Townsman
Do you really need to tutor your 3-year-old for kindergarten? – Toronto Star
INTERNATIONAL
Atlanta teachers, principals caught fixing students’ mistakes in massive cheating scandal – Toronto Star
Indonesian schools – More cheating, or else! Scandals in the classroom – The Economist
What news am I missing? Can you recommend some education blogs for me to follow? Please tweet me at @max_cooke, e-mail me at mcooke@cea-ace.ca or better yet, use the comment box below to suggest additional articles happening in your region so that others can check it out.EDUCATION BLOG HIGHLIGHTS
This is not optional anymore… – The Principal of Change (George Couros)
Spending the last four days at a national leadership conference (CASA 11) in Niagara Falls on 21st Century Learning and Innovation (which had no Twitter hashtag until a few of us got together to start one), and then spending the week prior at ISTE, the conversation about technology in schools is a major theme. Although technology is dominant in the conversations, I keep hearing the following phrase:
“You can be an effective teacher without technology.”
The above statement is increasingly frustrating as it seems to give people an out from using technology in the classroom. There are so many skills that our students need in today’s world as the ability to collaborate, create, communicate, and apply all of these in their environment…
I blame you Twitter – Culture of Yes (Chris Kennedy)
Twitter, or more specifically those who I connect with using it, has influenced my thinking and work in a number of ways. Although, from time to time, I do hear “Twitter is a waste of time,” my experience has been that if it is a waste of time you are following the wrong people. While it is not the greatest tool for a discussion, or the best place to share deep, thoughtful commentary, it is a wonderful place to connect. Here are the three ways it has influenced me as I look ahead to the next couple months…Nurturing a Learner’s Sense of Wonder – User Generated Education
I started my work in education as an outdoor educator. I took elementary-aged kids on environmental education adventures and at-risk youth on extended wilderness trips. When taking the at-risk students on backpacking trips in Maine, some of my favorite moments came when we came over a knoll to an outlook that appeared to have a view of the whole state of Maine. Due to numerous trips to this location, I knew what was coming after our long day hiking through the dense woods. The kids did not. I would rush ahead so I could see their faces as they approached this magnificent view. It never failed. I watched their faces turn from the look related to the strenuous climb to that of pure joy and amazement at the view. These “too-cool” teens’ lit-up faces and cries of “wow’ reminded me of the same reactions I saw in the younger kids as they explored the nature world during our hikes… -
Starting Points in Education
Comments Off on Starting Points in EducationIf you’re find yourself needing some reassurance about the future of public education in this country, I would suggest spending time in a faculty of education. My prediction is that you won’t have to hang out long before you are able to breathe a sigh of relief that our children and our education systems are in good hands.
I’m not saying that the structure of teacher education is perfect. I believe that there are many things about teacher preparation that can and should be examined: course offerings, overall program design, length of initial preparation and even that strange relationship that exists between field-based practice and university-centered research and knowledge. There is a good deal of room for discussion in all of these areas. There are important conversations to have around these and other aspects of the way that we get candidates ready for a career in the profession.
These structural and infrastructural issues aside, there is something about the candidates, themselves, that give me a sense of hope and confidence in the future of our schools.
When I first entered the Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto back in 1983, I really didn’t have a sense of what I was getting into. If someone had asked about my teaching philosophy (I’m sure that I had to include something about that in my original application) I would likely have said something about helping kids learn, and how education was an important part of living a full and satisfying life. But that would have been the extent of it!
But in the early 80’s, there were still plenty of jobs to be had. In fact, in areas of suburban growth, some school boards were hiring upwards of 500 teachers every year. I know that growth wasn’t the same in every region of the country, but if you wanted to teach full-time in Canada, there were jobs to be had. Today, however, job prospects across the country are less than bright and many young graduates choose to leave Canada to get experience and a regular paycheck.
And employment isn’t the only challenge for new graduates. On the other end of the process, Canadian universities are, themselves, very selective about who actually gets into their programs. Academic success and experience in teaching and learning contexts are still important keys to admission. Add to that the fact that questions about teacher quality and school effectiveness have become favourite talking points for both politicians and talk show hosts. Finally, schools themselves are under great pressure to use a rather limited rubric of success to demonstrate year-over-year progress.
Yet despite these institutional and social gatekeepers (or, perhaps, because of them?), Canadians of various ages and experience profiles are still coming to the profession. And they are coming with a sense of resilience, perspective and a sense of what it means to be a teacher. It has taken years for me to develop some of these same habits of mind.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen for yourself. In the final episode of this season’s Teaching Out Loud podcast series, you’ll meet three teacher education students from across the country. Monica Batac, Holly Thiel, and Michelle Horst speak confidently and articulately about their hopes, dreams and sources of inspiration as they prepare to enter full-time practice and take on the challenges of teaching in the 21st century. Their voices, I believe, are representative of those across Canada who are poised to play an active role in the transformation of schooling and education. You’ll hear confidence, but you’ll also hear a sense of vulnerability. You’ll hear hope, but you’ll also hear an awareness and appreciation of the challenges that face today’s teachers and students. You’ll recognize some of their local context, but you’ll also hear the heart they have for diversity and global literacy.
I think that you’ll agree that these are the voices that we need as we move deeper into new conversations about teaching, learning and this place we call school. I think that you’ll agree that with voices like these, the future is bright!
Have a listen. There’s always lots to talk about when you’re Teaching Out Loud!
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Are You Twittering?
Comments Off on Are You Twittering?I am new to Twitter. I’m also new to motherhood. The Twitter thing developed as a result of me sitting down and feeding my baby multiple times a day. Now when I breastfeed (purists my gasp in disapproval) I alternate between looking lovingly at my baby and curiously at my computer screen.
I’m writing to all you educators who haven’t yet tweeted. Reluctance held me back for a long time and I don’t want you to miss out on what I had been missing out on simply because you are plagued by the same misconceptions I was before I became a Tweeter. Allow me to clarify:
- Other than my Masters degree, Twitter might be the best pro-d I have ever had. When you use Tweetdeck or something similar like Hootsuite (which I have not yet checked out) you can get tweets from anyone as long as they are discussing something that interests you (more on Tweetdeck below). This feature means that you can glean morsels of wisdom from anyone in the world who cares to share their thinking with the Twitter world. And the great thing is that A LOT of smart people tweet their smart thoughts on a regular basis. People tweet links to studies, articles, ideas, blogs posts, lesson plans, slideshows, and how-to plans.
- If it weren’t for Twitter I wouldn’t know about flipped classrooms, Alfie Kohn’s “Beyond Discipline”, an education technology conference that took place and which I was then able to attend remotely, ideas for infographics lessons, LiveBinder, a Cleaner YouTube, and digital portfolio possibilities.
- Twitter discussions get deep. On any given night you can bet that people are getting together at an arranged time to Tweet on a certain topic. Within my first week of using Twitter, I participated in a Twitter chat with British Columbia’s Minister of Education George Abbott and joined a weekly professional book club chat. I held some skepticism about just how much I could get out of a conversation that flows like a river in 140 character length bursts, but it proved to be an enlightening experience. The character limit forces people to be concise – a welcome difference from many face-to-face discussions where participants sometimes communicate their passion with verbosity.
- If I ask a question, I get a lot of answers – almost immediately. The Education Twitter community is generous with its thinking and knowledge. I’ve also found it one of the least judgmental places to seek out understanding. People of all levels and experience are online so the adage holds firm: no question is a stupid question.
- I don’t have to be chained to my computer to find value in Twitter. Some teachers believe, as I did, that I’d have to spend too much time online, staring at a computer screen and forsaking my “real” life in order to participate. Not true. I can log in to Tweetdeck for five minutes and learn something of interest and value that provokes my thinking.
If anything I’ve mentioned above sounds even remotely intriguing to you, get on Twitter and find out for yourself. And if you have any questions, Tweet me at @bmooreintheloop. I’d love to hear from you.
PS: Tweetdeck is like an organizer for tweets. It organizes people’s tweets in columns. You can have all tweets on a certain topic come in one column and all tweets on another topic come under another column. For example, I have a column that gets all tweets about education and another column that gets all tweets about teaching English. Topics are organized around hashtags. The hashtag for the education tweets is #edchat and the hashtag for the English tweets is #engchat. See? If someone I am not “following” adds one of those hashtags to their message, I’ll get it in its column. Tweetdeck has made Twitter’s process make sense to me.
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The Education Reform Movement (Part 2)
Comments Off on The Education Reform Movement (Part 2)It will be a tough slog achieving even a modest measure of my proposal in earlier blogs, i.e. diploma credit for community activity at the senior high school level. It might have been easier 20, 30 or more years ago when, for a brief time, there was popular support for social, political and judicial reform – e.g. the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982; peacekeeping when and where needed; The International Criminal Court, 1990s; co-operative and alternative education experiments everywhere; apprenticeships of various kinds.
That is to say, the lead-up to the present (2011) has been marked by an explosive growth in the economics of size buttressed by conservatism in politics. Bigger is better in both public and private enterprises. The larger the organization the greater the need for bureaucratic efficiency, employee conformity, firewalls against legal liability. In the outcome, lawyers are just as important as specialized staff in the health and welfare of successful organizations, even hospitals, retirement and nursing homes.
Ask any large entity to accept a half dozen high school students for a couple of months to help them learn about the everyday workings of the enterprise or agency, the answer will almost certainly be befuddlement and bewilderment. To whose office should the request be addressed? How will accountability and responsibility be assured? How will the organization be protected from legal liability? Will the receiving person or persons or officials have to endure a police check of the sexual offender registry? How can the privacy rights of members of the organization be protected? How can an assignment deemed by the assigned student to be a failure avoid unfair blowback on the organization?
These serious questions and others point to complications that would scare any school board away from community engagement for their students. School trustees, too, have lawyers whispering in their ears. These men and women in public positions, more than most, are comfortable with the emerging police state about which many observers keep warning us.
There is a ray of hope in this picture of timidity and uncertainty in the ranks of those in charge. I am referring to the increasingly serious talk about reducing the voting age from 18 to 16. It is an overdue change for these reasons and more: earlier maturation of young persons coupled with encouraging signs of social responsibility. Digital communication has accelerated these trends. These positive signs emphasize the need to get our 16-18 year olds into the community so that they may learn first-hand about the world of work, about economic productivity and social planning, about health care facilities and practice, about the global economy, about membership in the caring community and , outstandingly, about their own personal career planning. It remains for the political parties to take the initiative by broadening the electorate in step with the social evolution of the young and the parallel growth of the aged segment.
In that social context, the health of our democracy is the real issue and the engagement of our youth is part of the solution.
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School’s Out For The Summer. What A Silly Thing To Do!
Comments Off on School’s Out For The Summer. What A Silly Thing To Do!Finally, summer has arrived. School’s out and we can all frolic for 9 long weeks, by which time the euphoria of the moment will have faded and everyone will be quite excited to get back to school. In the meantime students will forget a great deal and the productive habits and behaviours honed over the school year will have faded so that September will be devoted to getting back into the flow. With what is often a drift through June, that makes for 17 weeks of lost learning, or one-third of the school year.
In addition to the lost opportunity for all students, research shows that over the summer the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students grows so that increased inequity must be added to the negative side of the ledger.
And why do we do this? Simply because its a habit. If there ever was a good reason, it is long forgotten and now irrelevant. So, why not change it?
How about shaving three weeks off the summer, which still leaves a healthy six weeks for foreign travel and lazy days at the cottage for those who can afford it, and adding this time onto mid-year breaks, perhaps one week to the winter break and two weeks to the spring break? This would allow for three semesters, with three-week breaks after the fall and winter semesters, and six weeks after the spring semester.
Evening out the year would enable more continuous learning, alleviate the downside of an excessively long summer and provide mid-year breaks that are actually long enough to be restorative. The extended spring holiday in particular would undoubtedly benefit both students and teachers by breaking up the exhausting run from January to June. Perhaps that and the slightly shortened summer would also reduce the inclination to coast through June and add productive learning time without extending the school year.
Of course one could also divide up the year with three four-week breaks but the 3-3-6 pattern is less dramatic in its impact on all the established patterns of behaviour in families and communities.
I am hard pressed to think of a logical reason that this would not be a better approach than what we do now. It seems to be only inertia and lack of political will that stands in the way of a simple change that would be better for everyone.
What do you think?
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Honesty in the classroom
Comments Off on Honesty in the classroom(Note: Yesterday Stephen Hurley invited us to share the professional reading we enjoy or are looking to do over the summer. I’m currently in a book club on Twitter (#kohnbc, Thursdays at 8pm pst). We’re reading Beyond Discipline by Alfie Kohn. My post today comes from that reading.)
In his book Beyond Discipline, Alfie Kohn states that people tell lies when “they don’t feel safe enough to tell the truth” (p. 16, 2006). This idea suggests that even “good” learners (and people in general) will lie – and the environment we create in our classrooms will encourage or discourage honesty.
It reminds me of something a veteran teacher told me when I was in my first year: “As the teacher, you bring the weather into the classroom.”
When I was in Grade 3 my teacher had this rule about signing out balls for recess: if we did not return with the ball we would suffer serious, ominous and vague punishment. Most of us were so scared of this possibility that we always returned with the ball safely clenched tight to our little bodies.
One day I let some grade 5s use the ball I had signed out. When the bell rang I ran back to class – without the ball. My teacher stood at the threshold and wouldn’t let me pass until I told her what happened to the ball. I remember being scared to tell her the truth. So I lied. I looked up at her looming over me and told her that some older kids had taken the ball.
Five minutes later she was trooping me through the Grade 5 classrooms, demanding that I identify the miscreants. Those Grade 5s looked big and scary too, so I kept up the lie insisting that I couldn’t remember what the older kids had looked like.
Unsurprisingly, she discovered that I had, in fact, lent the ball to the older kids and was not a victim of theft. Once again she greeted me at the threshold of our classroom, this time at the post-lunch break bell. She looked down at me from great height and in tight clips told me how foolish I had made her look, how bad I was for being a liar, and how ashamed I should feel.
I still feel shame at the memory, the burning of my face as I crumbled into my seat after the lecture.
All this causes me to reflect: how can I ensure the learners in my classes feel safe? How have I treated dishonesty in the past? How might I encourage more honesty in the future?
This concept applies to behaviors, but it also works for plagiarism: if students felt safe to take risks with their work, wouldn’t they be less likely to cheat at their learning?
Please, share your thoughts!
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The Education Reform Movement
Comments Off on The Education Reform MovementIn the aftermath of the defeat of the Canucks in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup on June 15, 2011, there was a serious riot in downtown Vancouver. The orgy of destruction points to the stunted sense of social responsibility within the ranks of youth in that city. Without any attempt at analyzing the multitude of factors at work through that long night (impersonal atmosphere of the big city, adolescent boredom, alcohol, youth unemployment, fringe radicalism), let me add to the list: the negative effect of the school cocoon.
My earlier blogs have argued the merits of community involvement as an integral part of secondary school education. In blog seven, I went so far as to offer details of implementation, — risky business. Sam Slick, the fictional clockmaker of 19th century Nova Scotia, once said “If you think you’ve got a man convinced, stop ! Your reasonin’ and details will ruin you!”. So true! Ignoring Slick’s advice, let me press on with the argument.
First, a couple of news stories. A Vancouver journalist, Gary Mason, wrote for The Globe and Mail (June 18, 2011) about the riot under the title “Hidden faces, painful truths”. Mason presented evidence that it was mainly the sons and daughters of middle class folks who trashed the streets of Vancouver. He wrote “… time and again in North America, violent behaviour at festivals and sporting events tended to be more accurately identified as middle class blowouts than rational political protests.” Where was the social responsibility of those otherwise nice kids? A couple of days later the same newspaper began a series focused on youth unemployment in Canada . (It’s twice as high as adult unemployment). The opening shot of the series was under a heading that might have been the title of this series of blogs : “Give youths access to the working world”.
The newspaper has taken up the notion of mentoring whereby all students registered in professional programs leading to a degree or a diploma would, as a requirement for graduation, serve a certain number of hours or days being mentored by a person in their chosen field. That was within the broad scope of my recommendation in earlier blogs but there are two significant differences : the Globe recommendation would be implemented in post-secondary schools whereas mine would begin during the last two years of high school. Just as important, the Globe series is predicated on ways and means of reducing youth unemployment where mine is anchored to the idea of citizenship education.
It is not clear to me how mentoring all students in professional programs will do much to change their prospects for long-term employment in an economy needing fewer employees. But it is perfectly clear to me how a substantial community experience while attending school can make better citizens. By better citizens, I am not talking about Boy Scoutism, but more simply about a youth segment (16-25) displaying hallmarks of maturity : sympathetic understanding of the adult demographic, personal connections with the world of work and public service, appreciation of conventional modes of communication, respect for the traditions of past generations and not least, sensitivity to the need for social and political change. In summary, becoming a good citizen is not a quantifiable process so much as evidence of everyday progress towards a state of mind labelled adulthood.
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How to set up community-based education?
Comments Off on How to set up community-based education?Exactly how would one go about setting up community-based education? Alas, there is no exact answer. A single high school with authorization to run an experiment on a conditional basis would proceed very differently from a whole school system with the green light after public debate and a full airing of the pros and cons. Let us assume that we’re talking about the latter. The political debate is over, the administrative leadership has been set up and a set of community bodies and organizations, public and private, have signified their willingness to participate.
Here are some features of such a plan in operation:
STEP ONE – Students in third or fourth year high school may participate with parental permission. The approved students, without regard to their academic standing, will select a community posting from an approved list. Each posting will be for a minimum of two weeks and may be repeated. The maximum posting in any year will be the equivalent of 20% of the total regular class hours. A limit of two credits towards a diploma may be earned through community placements.
STEP TWO – The receiving persons or organization will ensure that an assigned student receives daily opportunities to learn through managed participation in the activity originally identified. For example, a student assigned to an auto repair shop, will be able to assist in actual auto repair and become familiar with the shop as a whole. One assigned to a department store will be involved in merchandising decisions, display, and maintenance work on the floor. A student in a chemical lab will be able to see the practical relationship between the lab’s function and finished products or services in the market. A student with a construction company will learn about the tools of the trade and have some practice in actually using the tools. One assigned to a seniors’ home will meet on a regular basis with an inmate or more for socialization. In other cases, teams of students will engage in modified apprenticeship roles in house building projects. An assignment will be deemed a failure, but not the student, where the student is merely left on the sidelines.
STEP THREE – A pivotal role will be played by the school team. They will keep records on each assignment including assessment of outcomes. The school team will be in pursuit of pre-determined objectives as agreed in the original approval process. School team members will familiarize themselves with placement opportunities without interfering in the working details of the placement.
STEP FOUR – Each student on community placement will keep a file about the experience including descriptive material supplied by the community agency, essays about the experience, pictures and sketches. The file (excepting private material) will be part of the assessment process managed by the school team. There will be one of two grades assigned after a community placement: Successful or Unsuccessful. Comments from the community agency may be included in the student’s report card.
Anyone reading this brief sketch will be tempted to say: “Why bother?” Why, indeed. The answer lies in the near certainty that teenagers with a good dollop of community experience under their belts will have acquired a sense of social responsibility needed for citizenship in a democracy. More to come!
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Canadian Education Wire – Effects of Ministerial Belt Tightening Felt by Current and Would-be Teachers
Comments Off on Canadian Education Wire – Effects of Ministerial Belt Tightening Felt by Current and Would-be TeachersTwo-thirds of new teachers can’t find full time work – Macleans
Teaching grads face slim prospects in crowded job market – Vancouver Sun
Man considers abandoning dream of teaching – Fredericton Daily Gleaner
Hundreds of teachers lost to budget cuts – Edmonton Journal
Nunavut education department seeks $18M boost – Nunatsiaq News
Group says it might sue over education cuts – Fredericton Daily Gleaner
What news am I missing? Can you recommend some education blogs for me to follow? Please tweet me at @max_cooke, e-mail me at mcooke@cea-ace.ca or better yet, use the comment box below to suggest additional articles happening in your region so that others can check it out.
OTHER EDUCATION NEWS
Does year-round schooling make the grade? – Globe and Mail
Give students shorter summer holidays – Globe and Mail editorial
Ottawa to support Inuit-English schooling – Canadian Press
Iqaluit’s French-language school spreads its wings – Nunatsiaq News
Many teens tap web for sex education: study – Canadian Press
Choice of school sets stage for kids – Saskatoon Star Phoenix
Full-day, all-day kindergarten a growing consideration for parents of young childrenNew agreement reached for special needs students – Montreal Gazette
Slave Lake grads scattered in aftermath of fire – Edmonton Journal
Grade 10 literacy scores at lowest in four years – Ottawa Citizen
Why teaching your kids to write (not just type) is important – Globe and Mail
EQ over IQ: How play-based learning can lead to more successful kids – Globe and Mail
Betrayed? Halton parents fume over high school proposal – Toronto Star
EDUCATION BLOG HIGHLIGHTS
For you or for me? – The Principal of Change (George Couros)
…But if both models work (Google and Microsoft – sic), why would we change our schools from the traditional model (Microsoft) to the more comfortable, yet still innovative (Google) model? There is often this feeling that “work” has become a dirty word to many of our students, but it also seems that to many work is not something that makes you happy. Why can’t you have both? Why can’t we do amazing and innovative things, that are hard work, and enjoy it? Sounds like flow to me. When people are engaged and enjoy what they are doing, doesn’t the work and their own sense of value and purpose increase? This doesn’t only make what we do better, but it makes why we do it more important.The Power of “THE NETWORK” – Culture of Yes (Chris Kennedy)
We spend a lot of time talking about how our network influences our professional lives and how technology often assists in that networking. But, when B.C. educators talk about “THE NETWORK” it means something quite different.For more than a decade, the Network of Performance Based Schools – school-based teams with an administrator and teachers – have focussed on B.C. Performance Standards with some of the deepest, most powerful professional learning in our province.
Instrumental to this professional learning, Judy Halbert and Linda Kaser have brought a network of teachers and administrators together in ongoing conversations about improving education opportunities for all students.
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