Archive

• Entering the Third Space

  June 17, 2011 4:36 PM Comments Off on Entering the Third Space

  In early autumn, as the wheat turns to gold and the geese begin their escape from the harsh winter to come, a young girl carries large thermoses of steaming coffee over stubbly fields. She tows a young brother and heads to a group of men – father, uncles, and neighbours working the fields. Seeing the approaching child, the men stop their work, wipe the sweat from their brows and settle into the long grass on the side of the field. The young girl pours coffee clumsily, and listens while the men drink and talk of acreage, cost per bushel, and the impending war with Germany. When the men are finished their coffee, the young girl and her brother gather the thermoses and lug them, with less urgency, back across the fields. The men, refreshed, return to their work.

  My mother tells me this story, has told me this story. She frames her life by coffee. When my father was alive, she would have the kettle on and they would sit in the warm sun drinking coffee each morning and late each afternoon. When I was in university or between jobs, I would join them. Now, without my father, my mother continues the long tradition of coffee drinking with neighbours and friends. When my children arrive at my mother’s home to visit, they go expectantly to the table, understanding that coffee is the start to the day. In the late afternoon, before returning home, we linger for our afternoon coffee, understanding that this ritual brings with it something necessary and nourishing.

  Ray Oldenberg writes about the “third space”– a space removed from home and work, free from government or institutional influence, from responsibility, rules, and institutional norms. He suggests that we all need such a space, that it is in this place where classes, ideas, ages, and ideologies mix and where civic life and democracy are built.[1]

  Today, civic spaces within our society are shrinking. Both the private and public selves of children and youth are increasingly being driven by external agents and institutional policies. Their private spaces (home, after-school time, and weekends) are being claimed by television, technology, homework, and structured activities. Their public spaces (schools, sporting events, extracurricular activities) are being claimed by technology, industry, and corporate interests. Expectations of childhood and constraints on time are increasing. Accordingly, third spaces become ever more important as they carve a little freedom into the lives of scheduled children and youth.

  With shrinking civic spaces, I look to the event of coffee drinking in the creation of the third space. Drinking coffee involves men sitting in tall grasses at the edge of fields while discussing war and economics.  Drinking warm milk with grandmothers involves remembering old dreams and envisioning new paths. Drinking coffee involves students gathering in dimly-lit coffee shops to discuss dissent and society. The event of coffee involves, of course, conversation. In this conversation, a middle ground between home, school, work, and institutional life can be occupied.  In this conversation, individuals prepare themselves for active citizenship.

  The Third Teacher (published in 2010 by design architects Cannon Design, VS America, and Bruce Mau Design) resonates with the idea of “third spaces” and suggests that these spaces can be created through thoughtful reflection on the design of educational spaces. Some of their ideas include the promotion of spaces that are connected to the community, spaces that allow for exploration, spaces that support bodies in motion, and spaces that sensibly facilitate students’ ability to engage in learning and life. They theorize that the design of our learning spaces can lead to open moments where students prepare to become active citizens.

  If schools are to promote democratic ideals, they need to provide spaces where students can explore what it means to be a citizen within society. These spaces may be events (coffee drinking or cookie eating) or places (gardens and lunchrooms where you want to linger). They may also be something completely different…new schedules (open times for exploration and social interaction), curricula (fort-building for inner-city kids), ideas (schools organized around social justice or citizenry themes), and professional learning directions. In an increasingly fragmented and pressured world, the spaces on the edges of fields, on the edges of our classroom schedules, and on the edges of our daily routine, provide centering and democratic possibilities for our children, our youth, and ourselves.

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  [1] R. Oldenberg, The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of Community (New York, NY: Marlowe & Company, 1999).

• Ranking Our Responses to PISA 2009

  3:54 PM Comments Off on Ranking Our Responses to PISA 2009

  In 1997 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) partnered with countries around the world to design the ambitious and innovative Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Beginning in 2000, and every three years since, OECD/PISA has assessed 15-year-old students in participating countries to gauge the extent “to which youth have acquired some of the knowledge and skills essential for full participation in modern societies.”[1] 

  PISA results have been an important part of my career. I am not positioned to do much with them, but I value the perspectives they contribute to my understanding of education, within Canada and abroad. And so I looked forward to the new round of reports; but when they arrived, I was more captivated by the public response that unfolded around them than by the results themselves.

  As we all chimed in with our interpretations, I couldn’t help wondering if we were clear about what the results were (or were not) telling us.

  I’d like to put some of the blame for public reaction to PISA scores on the OECD, itself. It’s easy to feel intimidated by the volume of figures and explanations that flow from each assessment. But this alone cannot explain the overwhelming amount of attention paid to a single, league-style table ranking the 65 participating countries on combined reading, mathematic, and scientific literacy scores. Witnessing how results get taken up in the public domain, it is hard not to feel that the PISA country rankings have become the Olympics of the education world.

  These international comparisons can be valuable, of course. Within policy circles, PISA has provided a context for new learning about factors that may contribute to successful school systems. This year, authors of the report profiled a number of countries whose results show notable improvements, including Germany, which was “jolted into action when PISA 2000 revealed a below-average performance and large social disparities in results.” Since then, they have made significant gains on both fronts.[2]

  As often seems to happen with the release of any rankings, however, comparisons slip into competition. Public discussion of rankings becomes particularly alarming when it is played out to the detriment of young people (e.g., “our country’s ranking would be higher if only we had the ‘right’ type of students”) or when nations endure weeks of stereotypical comments serving to diminish high rankings or justify low ones.

  Public fascination with international rankings also overshadows other important comparative results presented in PISA reports. Take, for example, the fact that differences between countries represent only a fraction of overall variation in student performance when compared to differences within countries, which can represent gaps equivalent of multiple years of schooling between the lowest and highest performing students.[3]

  Often also left out of the dialogue is the fact that countries vary in the extent to which high performance is accompanied by equity of educational outcomes for all young people. Writing about Canada’s performance in PISA 2009, Christa Freiler (Director of Research and Strategic Initiatives for the Canadian Education Association) notes that the equity factor is, “arguably, more important to the social and economic future of young people and Canada as a whole than small changes in overall standing (i.e. whether we are 3rd, 4th or 5th).”[4]

  Finally, as PISA becomes a trusted source of information on educational quality, the public needs to understand an important qualification: PISA does not assess students’ knowledge or understanding of school subjects. Its results are, in fact, a measure of the cumulative impact of a young person’s formal and informal learning and the extent to which this can be demonstrated through the application to “real life” reading, math, and science scenarios. PISA does not assess students’ achievement of curriculum outcomes, and results cannot be attributed to schools alone.

  This important qualification does not limit the value of PISA; there is much to learn from data designed to tell us how well young people are prepared to “fully participate in modern society.” However, as Sjoberg reminds us, we need to “discuss and use the results with some insight…we need to know what we might learn from the study, as well as what we cannot learn. Moreover we need to raise a critical (not necessarily a negative) voice in public [and] professional debates over the uses and misuses of the results.”[5]

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  [1] T. Knighton, P. Brochu, and T. Gluszynski, Measuring Up: Canadian Results of the OECD PISA Study (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, Council of Ministers of Education Canada, and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2010), 39.

  www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-590-x/81-590-x2010001-eng.pdf

  [2] PISA 2009 Results: Overcoming Social Background – Equity in Learning Opportunities and Outcomes, vol. 2 (OECD, 2010): 4.

  [3] Knighton, Brochu, and Gluszynski, 157.

  [4] C. Freiler, PISA 2009: Let’s Not Underestimate the Importance of Equity in Education.

  www.cea-ace.ca/blog/christa-freiler/2010/12/3/pisa-2009-let’s-not-underestimate-importance-equity-education

  [5] S. Sjoberg, “PISA and ‘Real Life Challenges’: Mission Impossible?” in PISA According to PISA, eds., Hopmann and Brinek (University of Vienna: Wien Lit-Verlag, October, 2007), 2.

• Safe Schools: The Threat From Within?

  June 16, 2011 4:21 PM Comments Off on Safe Schools: The Threat From Within?

  In Ontario, the first steps toward implementing safe school legislation and policies began in the early 1990s, with public demands for more surveillance and safety measures in schools following several violent incidents. In many urban schools, principals began putting security guards in their schools, installing electronic surveillance, and demanding that students wear identification tags. The emphasis was on discipline and zero tolerance, with the brunt of those efforts aimed squarely at a school’s own student population. In June, 2000, the Ontario Ministry of Education passed the Safe Schools Act, which set out a list of offences that could trigger expulsion, suspension, and other disciplinary responses. Interestingly, it did not define safety. 

  At the same time a parallel effort was playing out in Toronto public schools, culminating in 1999 when the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) adopted The Equity Foundation Statement – a comprehensive commitment to equity and a rally against racism, homophobia, sexism, and oppression based on class.

  Standing Up for Equity: Two Teachers Speak Out

  Sharon Dominick teaches English and Media Studies at Burton School – not its real name – a high school of over 1,200 students in metropolitan Toronto. One student described Burton School as a school for “rejects” and that anyone with academic ability – and means – transfers out. A large number of the students are Black, although their numbers are dwindling.

  While the students view Sharon as a person of some leadership, because she is White, both she and Melanie Rangan – another teacher in Sharon’s department – believe the real power in the school is held by the male physical education department and the “tech” department, who dominate Burton School’s Safe Schools Committee and Dress Code Committee. In Sharon and Melanie’s view, these two committees use their power to control students, not to make school space safer. Melanie attributes the undisguised and widespread use of this controlling power to the Safe Schools Act, which allows schools to dictate student behaviour and remove students from school in the name of safety.

  Now, this is a very heavy thing, to get rid of students, but they do it under this whole umbrella of making the school safe for students. [These two committees] are very powerful groups because they really do make the rules.

  Melanie offers a calm assessment of her own role in the school, describing herself as “a colonized person”.

  The students see that I am one of the unimportant visible minority teachers in the school. They know that if they need help, they have to look to the White teachers who are either in the Tech Department or who are closer to the administration. And that’s the only way they can get help.

  When a Black male principal replaced the White principal two years ago, membership on the two committees opened up, and Melanie joined both. But even with the new principal, she saw these committees ignoring equity issues and trying to “shape the identity of our students.” The rules seemed aimed solely at Black students and “most of what the school was concerned with was controlling who they were.”

  The “crackdown” on hair, and the implementation of other security measures in the name of school safety, was really a “crackdown” on the identities of visible minority students, particularly Black students, primarily Black male students.

  Under the Safe Schools Act, one of the first things the school did was to implement a hat policy. According to Melanie, “students were not allowed to cover their heads – no hats or head coverings of any kind.” Both Sharon and Melanie understood this rule to be directed at keeping students’ faces visible for the two security guards who patrolled the school, as well as for the cameras. And yet, girls were told they could not use scarves or barrettes to manage their hair. Melanie talked about the policy.

  When I went to the Safe School Committee, I brought up the point that Black people have different texture of hair. It’s very wiry, very curly, and it stands up…And maybe the students tie their hair in scarves or whatever they do, to hold their hair back. If they don’t do this, they either have to straighten it, they have to tie it up. They have to spend money to fix their hair if it’s not shaved off or cut off short.

  Later, a committee member said in a staff meeting, “Well that might teach the Black kids to wash their hair before they come to school, and maybe then it would lie down.”

  In Melanie’s view, the “crackdown” on hair, and the implementation of other security measures in the name of school safety, was really a “crackdown” on the identities of visible minority students, particularly Black students, primarily Black male students. The Safe Schools Act was being used to materially and symbolically reconfigure the composition of students at Burton School – and at other schools. The rules restructured the school in one of two ways, either by eliminating Black students from the school’s population or by reconstructing the pupils who remain as “White”. In this sense, the dress code, for example, could be read as a cultural device reinforcing dominant social relations and restricting cultural identities.

  Safety, Equity, and Sexual Minorities

  Targeting visible minority students has had a corresponding and inevitable chilling effect on the environment of the school for sexual minority students. Both Sharon and Melanie told me that sexual minority students would not come out at Burton School.

  “Sexual minority students are not on the administration’s radar and they know it,” Melanie told me. “I am aware of one girl who tried to come out. I think when they do want to come out, they get bullied and picked on. They transfer as soon as they are in Grade 11. I think they’re afraid to come out if they’re gay and lesbian because nobody respects anybody here. It’s a whole cycle of control of some, neglect of others.”

  The TDSB’s Equity Foundation Statement calls for significant content of queer issues in curricula and is thorough and specific in championing the equality rights of these students. It also provides the means of recognizing, accommodating, and allowing safe and welcoming spaces for minority students – particularly sexual minority youth. 

  For most sexual minority students, the emphasis on safety, security, surveillance, and punishment found in the Safe Schools Act does not translate into safe schools, even where incidents of physical violence are low or subject to a quick response. So what is the potential of safe school legislation and equity policies to combat the bullying and oppression of sexual minority students in high schools? I spent three months in ten Toronto high schools (including Burton), interviewing approximately 25 sexual minority students, to find out how they define safety – particularly in the absence of legal guidance – and how they perceive the ways in which safety is pursued at their schools.

  Most of the students I interviewed indicated that safety policies should incorporate equity, but most also reported that their own schools pursued safety in terms of security rather than equity, with an emphasis on responding to physical violence. 

  I asked Sarah, a sixteen year old, White lesbian, if she thought her school was a safe place.

  At this school, safety is framed as an issue of control, not equity. Security guards, surveillance cameras, always talking about crime and the dress code. The dress code forbids hats so that our faces are not obscured for the security cameras. Baggy pants and anything to do with hip hop culture is out. There’s a toxic environment at this school. It’s not safe for students because we don’t see safety in the same way the school does. Queer students don’t even register. Nothing is being done for us.

  A Failed Policy

  According to Melanie and Sharon, the school’s refusal to conceptualize safety in terms of equity is contributing to the very problems the Safe School Committee had intended to eliminate. They insist that such a re-conceptualization is the only way to create safe schools for visible minority students and queer students. Students who were targeted victims of “safety as control” and “safety as security” have rebelled against it – and were consequently removed from the school.

  Most of the control issues revolve around the dress code, which strikes at the heart of student identity. In the name of security, the Burton School Dress Code Committee first banned coats, and then backpacks, from the classroom, on the grounds that they could be used to hide drugs or weapons. Then they decided that if students were going to house their belongings in lockers, the Committee should have access to the lockers, and so imposed an additional rule that required students to purchase locks from the school. Failing to comply with any of these rules resulted in suspension from the school or other disciplinary action.

  When I was visiting Burton School, the Dress Code Committee was discussing whether or not to introduce a school uniform – white shirt and dark, tight pants for boys, dark pants or skirt for girls. According to Melanie, this is a direct affront to student identity.  

  It was like they weren’t allowing the kids to be Black. They had to try to be White, by dressing and straightening their hair and doing things that looked more like the White culture.

  For Melanie, lanyards – which she compared to “dog tags” – were the most intrusive control mechanism used by the administration and an impediment to learning. Several students and teachers noted that students constantly lost their lanyards, and if they were caught without one by the security guards or in random classroom checks, they were suspended. “Sometimes it’s a day; sometimes they can’t come back unless they buy a new lanyard. So strictly speaking, without these ID cards, they can do nothing in the school. It’s policing, not a safety issue.”

  Students Speak Out

  Sharon and I are sitting in her classroom nearing the end of lunch period. Lots of students came to Sharon’s class during lunch to use the computer and because they feel safer in her classroom than in the cafeteria or in the area outside the school. When class starts, Sharon introduces me to the class. “Everybody, I want you to meet Donn. Donn is interested in safe schools. Does anybody have any questions for Donn? Use your hands.”

  Immediately, several hands wave in the air. “What do schools have to do with the law?” I am prepared for this question. I mention the Education Act and the Safe Schools Act; I talk about school boards and policies; and I explain how the laws and policies regulate schools. I also talk about informal laws – the ways in which students regulated themselves according to their own “laws”.

  “Okay,” says Sharon, “Let’s discuss school safety. What are we told will keep us safe? You don’t have to use hands.” One student shouts, “Lanyards.” Other answers produced a long list:

  • lanyards
  • security guards
  • police
  • cameras
  • rules

  “Okay, let’s make another list. What are we told about equity?” There is absolute silence in the classroom. Sharon repeats the question. One student ventures, “Muslim prayer on Friday?” Sharon writes down the one response on the board and asks, “Anything else? Okay, then, what equity policies do we have?”

  A tall black male student, Wayne, says: “There is no equity. It’s garbage.”

  This gets the ball rolling. and there are several answers are shouted at once: “Dress code…No hats…No nothin’…Black students are stopped more.” Sharon listens until there are no more suggestions. “And is that equity?”

  Wayne answers again: “Here it is. Equity is shit.”

  Connecting the Dots

  At Burton, as at most of the schools I visited, there was a disconnect between students’ conceptualization of safety and equity and how they experienced them on a day-to-day basis. I did find two schools – just two – where the students felt that equity and social justice were integrated into the concept of safety.

  At these two schools, the sexual minority students I interviewed indicated that safety was pursued in terms of equity, emphasizing equality and incorporating queer realities into the curriculum and in extracurricular events, such as school dances and assemblies. At one school, students characterized their school’s approach to safety in terms of a general climate concerned with social justice issues. The students at this school were aware of the TDSB’s Equity Foundation Statement, but felt it was just “a starting point”.

  There is little doubt that that the work being undertaken by students and teachers like Sharon and Melanie is complicated, political, and long-term. These stories ­– not just the stories of their students, but of their experience as well – are a diary of accomplishments and resistance on the ground. Sharon concluded, “The school fights everything I want to do. My goals don’t fit with their idea of what makes a safe school.”

  The purpose of my research has been and will continue to be to listen to the voices of sexual minority students, grounded in their own experiences, in an to attempt to understand how they perceive what most threatens their personal identities, as well as their physical safety, as one means to measure the effectiveness of constantly shifting conceptions of how to construct safe schools. Only with this knowledge can more effective reforms be imagined. Other researchers have produced data that confirms the legitimacy of the experiences of the students and teachers I interviewed.[1]

  Since Ontario first introduced the Safe Schools Act in 2000, the legislation and policies have been amended significantly to deal with bullying as a specific threat to school safety, with a greater focus on homophobic bullying. We need more research to understand how successful those amendments have been and to what extent the needs of sexual and other minority students are being met.

  This research was part of a study funded by the Law Foundation of British Columbia. A national study of teachers’ perspectives and experiences of homophobia and transphobia in Canadian schools will be conducted by Dr. Catherine Taylor, Dr. Donn Short, Dr. Tracey Peter and Dr. Elizabeth Meyer, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and will be undertaken over the next three years.

  Les gardes de sécurité, la surveillance électronique, les insignes d’identification d’élèves, la discipline et la tolérance zéro caractérisent les politiques de sécurité scolaire de nombreuses écoles urbaines en Ontario. En 2000, le ministère de l’Éducation de l’Ontario a adopté la Loi sur la sécurité dans les écoles, qui énumère les infractions susceptibles de provoquer le renvoi, la suspension et d’autres mesures disciplinaires, sans définir, toutefois, la sécurité. Parallèlement, le Conseil scolaire de Toronto a adopté The Equity Foundation Statement en 1999 – un engagement global à réaliser l’équité et à lutter contre le racisme, l’homophobie, le sexisme et l’oppression fondée sur la classe sociale. Cet article contraste les conceptualisations de la sécurité et de l’équité des élèves et du personnel enseignant, ainsi que la façon dont ces aspects sont vécus au jour le jour.

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  [1] See for example C.J. Pascoe, Dude You’re A Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); George W. Smith, “The Ideology of ‘Fag’” The Sociological Quarterly 39, no. 2 (1998): 309; and Kevin Davison, “Masculinities, Sexualities and the Study Body: Sorting Gender Identities in School” in Experiencing Difference, ed Carl E. James (Halifax: Fernwood, 2000); Rob Gilbert and Pam Gilbert, Masculinity Goes to School (London: Routledge, 1998). 

• Can We Accurately Predict a Student’s Future Success?

  June 14, 2011 6:06 PM Comments Off on Can We Accurately Predict a Student’s Future Success?

  Educators often feel that they can predict students’ academic futures. For instance, they may think that they can tell how students will perform in Grade 8 or Grade 9 as early as Grades 1 or 2. There is research evidence to show that predictions about students’ futures are often wrong.

  There are strong links between characteristics of students, such as their socio-economic status or their school readiness, and their later achievement but these relationships do not hold for all individuals. Many studies show that these predictions turn out to be wrong much more often than most people think. Canadian data shows that more than 40 percent of students scoring at the bottom reading level at age 15 were in post- secondary education at age 21. Research also shows that the accuracy of predictions about students declines over time; that is, one year’s achievement predicts the following year’’s quite well, but is less accurate in predicting achievement 3 or 4 years later.

  The key thing that the research tells us is that students can and do change. With the right supports, students can achieve far more than anyone thought they could. Encouragement and support from both schools and families can also make those negative predictions less likely to be true.

  Parents and educators should be cautious in assuming that the future of their child may be predicted based on their current performance. Secondly, parents should be actively involved in supporting and advocating for their child rather than accepting a negative future. This might include being optimistic with the child about the future, or the child’s teacher to identifying areas where home and school can work together

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  Additional Resources For Parents

  Promoting Parental Involvement, Improving Student Outcomes by Gina Gianzero: This paper discusses how different forms of parental involvement increases student success in school.

  http://www.sandiegodialogue.org/pdfs/Parental%20Involvement%20doc.pdf

  Ontario Ministry of Education: This site provides tips on a variety of ways to help parents may help their struggling children.

  http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/abc123/eng/tips/

  Special Needs Opportunity Window: This link provides web based resources and community organizations that support parents whose children may have special needs.

  http://snow.idrc.ocad.ca/content/view/242/132/

  People for Education: This site provides tip sheets to parents on various ways that they can help support their child in school. The tip sheets are offered in 19 different languages.

  http://www.peopleforeducation.com/resources/tips.html

   

  Research References Informing this Issue

  Badian, N. (1988). The Prediction of Good and Poor Reading Before Kindergarten Entry: A Nine-Year Follow-Up. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21(2), 98-103.

  Brownell M., Roos, N., Fransoo, R., Guevrèmont, A., MacWilliam, L., Derksen, S., Dik, N., Bogdanovic, B., & Sirski, M. (2004). How do educational outcomes vary with socioeconomic status? Key findings from the Manitoba Child Health Atlas 2004. Winnipeg, MB. Manitoba Centre for Health Policy.

  Bowers, A. (2007). Grades and graduation: Using K-12 longitudinal cohort data to predict on-time graduation. Paper presented to the American Educational research Association, Chicago.

  Gleason, P., and Dynarski, M. (2002). Do we know whom to serve? Issues in using risk factors to identify dropouts. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 7(1), 25-41.

  Morgan, P., Farkas, G. and Wu, Q. (2009). Five-Year Growth Trajectories of Kindergarten Children with Learning Difficulties in Mathematics. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42(4), 306.

  OECD (2010). Pathways to success: How knowledge and skills at age 15 shape future lives in Canada. Paris: OECD.

• Canadian Education Wire – School Boards Grapple with Anti-Homophobia Policies

  June 10, 2011 4:41 PM Comments Off on Canadian Education Wire – School Boards Grapple with Anti-Homophobia Policies

  ‘Rainbow’ ruckus hits Catholic high school – TO Star

  Catholic school board bars lesbian comedian from performing in Toronto – Globe and Mail

  Burnaby school board to consider revised anti-homophobia policy – Burnaby Newsleader

  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

  Anti-Tory effort could backfire on teachers – National Post

  Stelmach awakens sleeping teachers’ union – Calgary Herald

  Ontario Student Survey allows students, parents to have a say – Cottage Country Now

  83% of Grade 10 students pass literacy test – TO Star

  INTERNATIONAL

  The Futures of School Reform – Education Week
  A working group on the “Futures of School Reform,” organized by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and led by Robert B. Schwartz and Jal Mehta of Harvard and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, includes more than a dozen researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from around the country. Education Week is running a seven-part series of Commentary essays expressing visions of members of the “Futures” group. 

  EDUCATION BLOG HIGHLIGHTS

  The Millennials are Googling Us – Shannon in Ottawa (Shannon Smith)
  Caveat:  Although not a member of the Millenial Generation, I should disclose that I scored an 87 on the Pew Research quiz, “How Millennial Are you?”  Go ahead and try it out 
  Over the past few weeks we have been in the thick of staffing and hiring for next year.  As my principal, Jen, and I have reflected after each set of interviews, I have been formulating a blog post giving some pointers to teacher candidates hoping to land not only the interview, but the position.  But that isn’t this post.  This post is for my colleagues in administration who are still reluctant to start a professional blog or switch to a blog for their schools.

  Making Transparency Concrete – Culture of Yes (Chris Kennedy)
  Transparency has become an overused mantra in the workplace, and in the public sector, in particular, leaders have faced an increased demand for transparent thinking and actions. In my role as superintendent of a 7,200-student school district, transparency is about promoting accountability and accessibility, providing timely information for students, staff and parents about what their school district is doing. Essentially, it demystifies the work of schools and school districts.

  Do I serve you or are you to support me? – For the Love of Learning (Joe Bower)
  As a classroom teacher, I spend the majority of my time working with students while they are still learning, so I have an intense understanding for how important it is for kids to be engaged in learning by doing projects that are in a context and for a purpose. Without the information (read: observations) that I gather from such projects, I could not call myself a teacher, nor could my students call themselves learners. But how often is data defined like this?

• Let’s get serious about community-based education

  June 8, 2011 6:09 PM Comments Off on Let’s get serious about community-based education

  It does not take much persuasion to grasp that engaging high school students in the everyday activities of the community is terribly important to their maturation. A list of reasons pours out of my fingertips:

  • An escape from the school cocoon – its boredom, repetitiveness, irrelevance, passivity.
  • Innovative power of involvement in community activities where imagination is tempered by practicality.
  • Hands-on activity as a supplement and relief from textbook learning.
  • Adult role models to stoke the admiration of teenagers.
  • Interaction between teachers and the world of economic and social activity around the schoolhouse.
  • Career counseling from the grass roots.

  The obstacles are nearly as numerous and much more formidable:

  • Personal safety anxieties in a fear-ridden society.
  • Professional jealousies.
  • Curriculum erosion, which might devalue the graduation diploma.
  • Job security fears among teachers.
  • Loss of monopoly power over schooling by the politicians.

  Any one of these obstacles could strangle a proposal for community-based education at birth. But the ways and means of a democracy are ingenious and quite durable. A start-up committee broadly representative of the community (i.e. inclusive of the public and private sectors) would likely need a year or more to explore the multiple possibilities for implementing the idea. After that it would be a matter of trial and error for another year or longer to get it right. A myriad of questions would bedevil the committee:

  How to gain the approval of the central education authority?  Recruit the support of the municipal council? Engage the private sector in the planning? Respond positively to media curiosity and criticism? Assure the teachers and administrators that community-based education is a well-tested idea that will not cause the sky to fall.

  It is obvious that the committee would need to do a lot of homework. The question will be asked a thousand times: Why bother? We’ve got a good working system now. My answer: the publicly supported schools of Canada and the U.S. are under threat. Home schooling and private schooling are undermining the walls of the public system. Changing the system to foster civic enthusiasm, democratic enhancement, and vocational excitement can reverse the slide.

• Pasi Sahlberg: A view from Europe: What is next for Finland?

  June 7, 2011 3:29 PM Comments Off on Pasi Sahlberg: A view from Europe: What is next for Finland?

  Pasi Sahlberg, Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation in Helsinki, discusses Finland’s education performance.

• Canadian Education Wire – Thinking About a New Way to Rate School Performance

  June 2, 2011 8:18 PM Comments Off on Canadian Education Wire – Thinking About a New Way to Rate School Performance

  How Good Is My Kid’s School? – The Tyee
  David Chudnovsky feels for the parents who wonder, “How good is my kid’s school?”“We in education often answer, ‘The Fraser Institute sucks, and standardized testing doesn’t tell you much about how the school’s doing.’ And that’s true, we’re right about both of those things, but we haven’t answered [their] question,” says Chudnovsky, a public education advocate and former New Democratic Party MLA.

           Related publication:
           The Great Schools Project – How good is our school? How can we know? 
           Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

  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
  
  The job of principal is becoming too focused on paperwork, report says
  Globe and Mail

           Related report: 
           People for Education’s Annual Report on Ontario’s Publicly Funded Schools

  History suggests all-boys schools don’t help with academics: study – National Post
  
  Don’t sweat teacher strikes: The kids are alright – Globe and Mail
  
  Wait lists for special education double for low-income students – Toronto Star
  
  Looking for solutions in the classroom – Chilliwack Progress
  
  Parents start campaign for more school funding – CBC Calgary
  
  Mental health top issue facing schools, coalition says – Toronto Star

  Suit opposes Quebec ban on teaching religion at subsidized daycares – Montreal Gazette
  
  Teachers bargaining for some respect – Similkameen Spotlight

  INTERNATIONAL NEWS

  When should you teach children, and when should you let them explore? – The Economist
  
  EDUCATION BLOG HIGHLIGHTS

  So what is it about Finland’s schools? – 2 Cents Worth
  Big question — and it’s probably a big answer. But several days ago, Swiss educator, Vicky Loras started a conversation with Finnish School Principal Esa Kukkasniemi. You can read the entire interview here in her blog as well as opportunities for you to talk with educators in Finland. But here are some statements from Esa that I highlighted in Diigo, as he ticked off major important points that have led to success in Finland’s education system.        

  CEA Video: Pasi Sahlberg – What is next for Finland? 
  Pasi Sahlberg, Director General of the Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation in Helsinki, Finland, shares seven things that you need to know about Finland’s exceptional education performance and what the future holds for this country’s education system in the ongoing pursuit of social fairness and equality.
  

  New Documentary: The Finland Phenomenon – Inside the World’s Most Surprising School System

  Teaching to the test is malpractice – Joe Bower

  Testing is not teaching. If you want proof of why, you need not look any further than this: Learning is messy. Real learning is really messy. Testing is, if nothing else, orderly. See the problem? Talk to any test-maker or psychometrician, and they’ll tell you the tests were never devised to make large sweeping, all-encompassing inferences. Even those who speak in favor of using test scores in moderation in low-stakes contexts understand that tests are merely a small sample of a much larger domain that we want to know about, and that great caution must be made in making inferences based on these tests.

  The Fabric of Community- The Key to Transforming Education – 21st Century Learning 
  I have been thinking a lot about how to manage the needed change process in education. Looks like a lot of folks have been playing with that idea as well. ISTE released their new NETS for ADMIN framing it as having the potential for  

  Transforming Education– Administrators play a pivotal role in determining how well technology is used in our schools. The NETS for Administrators enable us to define what administrators need to know and be able to do in order to discharge their responsibility as leaders in the effective use of technology in our schools.
  
  And take a look they are NOT too shabby when thinking about the characteristics leaders need to reform education in today’s fast changing world. The rub for me comes in when I try and look at these and other efforts to “transform” education and wonder if we aren’t really just talking about reform- small principled changes that look at change as we always have – through the lens of problem solving.

• Isolating public education from the shifting winds of politics

  1:54 PM Comments Off on Isolating public education from the shifting winds of politics

  Over the past few weeks, I have argued that the publicly funded schools in Canada and the U.S. are not doing well in terms of educating youth for citizenship in a democracy. The nub of my argument is that the graduates of our public schools, with outstanding exceptions, fall short of parental hopes and expectations – specifically in their too-frequent lack of readiness to take on the responsibilities and accountability of adulthood.

  A reliable measure of that shortfall is the explosive growth of private and home schooling over the past generation. There are now about 3,000 private schools in Canada and as many as 80,000 kids or more being home schooled. The consequent loss to the public schools of some of their most promising students raises the spectre of a public system, in the not too distant future, beggared of quality staff and resources. Already in some big cities in the U.S., the public schools are populated mainly by underprivileged youngsters under the eye of teachers, many of whom hate their work. A doleful picture.

  There are impressive records of community-based education changing the climate of public schooling in the direction of civic mindedness and away from mere careerist ‘self-centredness’. On the dark side of the ledger is the history of political reaction against progressivism in public education dating back to the 1980s. The reactionary forces have easily carried the day – more prescriptive curriculum, standardized tests, penalties for under-performing schools, merit pay for teachers, austerity in funding, enthroning of accountability for school boards and schools. As the saying goes, the natives are restless. Proposed major changes include isolation of public education from the shifting winds of politics, greater autonomy for school boards as education agents, official encouragement of professional status for teachers, involvement of community bodies both private and public in the education process.

  My preference leans to the last one of the list, which, in turn, depends heavily on all of the above for realization.  This will be hard sell. A good place to start without upsetting too many apple carts would be the engagement of service agencies and private entrepreneurs in the education process — in limited ways but with potential for major impact on the maturation process of teenagers. I shall return to this next time.  

• Big school infrastructure funding announcement shines media spotlight on Alberta

  May 27, 2011 5:57 PM Comments Off on Big school infrastructure funding announcement shines media spotlight on Alberta

  The Government of Alberta made a big education announcement this week.  It will spend $550-million over the next several years to build 22 new schools to address the significant population increases in various areas of the province.

  In boom-and-bust Alberta, it’s feast or famine for schools – Globe and Mail
  As Alberta’s population spikes and shifts with a booming economy, its education system has become a tale of two realities – one with hundreds of millions in new spending and a glut of students, and another facing hundreds of teacher layoffs, empty classrooms and budget shortfalls. The province, facing a baby boom in some areas that will add another 100,000 students to its enrolment by 2020, on Tuesday announced that it will spend $550-million over the next several years to build 22 new schools and renovate another 13.

  School promised $550M – Critics worry new facilities will lack teachers – Calgary Herald
  
  Airdrie residents cheer additional schools
  Prototype schools to fill gap for now – Calgary Herald

  Crowded Beaumont schools to get relief – CBC
  Province promises two new K-9 schools for fast-growing community

  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
  
  Jordan Manners shooting death led to school safety changes – Toronto Star

  Toronto public schools slow to adopt JUMP math program – Globe and Mail
  
  Teaching grads are set to face grim future – Metro Edmonton

  Financial literacy: The kids weigh in – Globe and Mail

  U.S. Reforms Out of Sync With High-Performing Nations, Report Finds – Education Week
  
  Margaret Wente – We’ve institutionalized teacher abuse – Globe and Mail
  Related Education Canada feature article:  False Accusations: A Growing Fear in the Classroom

  CEA IN THE NEWS

  Some ideas on improving the school system in rural Yukon – CBC Radio Whitehorse Podcast

  EDU-BLOGOSPHERE HIGHLIGHTS
  
  Best day, everyday – The Principal of Change (George Couros)
  My Kindergarten teacher asked me if I was interested in taking one of the students around for a project that she is doing with all of the students in her class where the “Dragons Backpack” from our school goes on adventures.  I enthusiastically said yes as I have been bombarded with paperwork and finishing up things for the school year.  So at about 1:30 today, I got to walk around with an awesome Kindergarten student (Ethan) and followed his lead.  The first thing that he asked me was, “Where do you want to go?”, and I told him wherever he wanted to take me.

  The Honour Role – Webb of Thoughts (Kyle Webb)
  Right now, my younger brother, Kent, is on the final stretch of his high school career, and set to graduate at the end of June.  Just like anyone in his shoes, he couldn’t be more excited to be done and is counting down the days.  I remember how slowly those final few months seemed to go by.  As Kent’s older brother, I am extremely proud of him. Kent is profoundly deaf which, as you might imagine, has made his education a struggle over the years. 

  A Different Kind of Technology Integration – Thinking in Mind (Neil Stephenson)
  The vast majority of schooling is about epistemology – the transfer of stuff. Knowledge is usually broken down, detached from its historical or real-world contexts, sanitized from the messy arguments, issues and controversies that surround it’s creation, and presented in formulaic text books and hand outs. School presents a type of knowledge external to the knower – most of the time it doesn’t require any change in ‘being’ of the student. I’d like to see more schooling based around ontology – or the “being and becoming” of our students. 

   

   

   

   

• The Education Reform Movement

  May 25, 2011 9:14 PM Comments Off on The Education Reform Movement

  Earlier blog postings at this website have roamed widely over the field of needed changes: Teacher training and compensation, student assessment, community engagement by students, teacher-student relations, standardized testing, innovation, creativity, digital learning, discovery learning, etc.

  Some of the blogs have obliquely referred to the obsolescence of the school model. As I see it, schools are indeed dysfunctional places – fertile seed grounds for bullying, e-mail hate mongering, smoking, doing drugs, engaging in unsafe sex, negative peer pressure about nearly everything, competition as a prime value, materialism, cliques and gang codes of behaviour, the iron bands of teen conventionalism in dress and language – any of which can be factors in teenagers’ mental and physical health. In the worst cases, schools are hellholes of classism (see the movie Waiting for Superman). Fortunately for some, schools are happy places – for the winners on the playing field and in the high marks game.

  Historically, teenagers and many pre-teens worked side by side with adults in ugly circumstances. Liberal democratic societies invented public schools in the 19^th century or earlier as models of social advancement. In the evolution of the schoolhouse cocoon, we have by and large ended up with what is written above. We seem to be at a historical crossroads with a chance to turn the corner.

  To break the mould, it will be necessary to re-engage students with the adult world as part of their formal education, at least for those in their adolescent years. Done successfully, most school graduates, will have the benefit of adult role models to steer them in the direction of good citizenship – engaged, tolerant, open-minded, curious persons.

  This is not a pipe dream. There are examples of high school students involved in the life of their communities as pre-apprentices, job shadowing, carpentry assistants, personal support for institutionalized persons of all ages, hands-on work to beautify parks and school grounds, etc. There are stories of community-engaged students putting in as much as two hours daily within the school timetable in addition to their schoolwork. Less glamorously, to do this will be hard work for everyone concerned. But the result will be worth the effort if it enhances our democratic citizenship as a benefit for both the most and the least advantaged. I view this as the primary purpose of public education. All the rest is secondary.

• Rethinking School Design: Part Two

  May 23, 2011 11:39 AM Comments Off on Rethinking School Design: Part Two

  If I were to walk in through the front doors of your school, what message would I receive? Would I feel welcome there? Would I be encouraged to stay for a while, or would I be more inclined to complete my business and get the heck out? Would I be able to get a sense of the vision and purpose of the school?

  In my last entry, I started to do some thinking out loud about architectural design and, in particular, how values, vision and purpose can be expressed and affected by the physicality of this place we call school.

  For many educators, the physical design of their schools are a given, inherited and already determined. Often the only opportunity to change design features is through a retrofit or renovation process.

  But let’s start doing a little blue-sky thinking and imagine that, as a parent, a teacher, an administrator or a community member, you were invited to be part of the planning team for a brand new school in your district. What design aspects would be important to you? What architectural features would help to reflect your school’s values and vision?

  And let’s begin by making a grand entrance!

  Entrances are powerful places, possessing the ability to communicate so much about what goes on beyond the threshold. But I would also argue that what goes on in the rest of the building can be greatly affected by the design of the entrance.

  One of the “mantras” that I use to remind me of the vision for my own dream school is, “Let’s turn this school inside out”. This involves the idea of drawing the outside community into the life and work of the local school, and allowing students to engage in more frequent learning activities out in the community.

  So how could that vision be reflected in my school’s entrance?  One idea would be to dedicate electronic display space in the front foyer. A photo and video feed displaying recent school trips to local businesses, facilities and learning centres would help to underscore the importance of that connection to the immediate neighbourhood and wider community. The multimedia pieces would be student-designed and part of the curriculum-based follow-up to each excursion.

  Another design related to this same inside-out principle would be an established and jointly sponsored studio area, along one side of the foyer. Studio spaces for dance, drama and visual arts would allow local artists to “take up residence” in the school, have a place to work, and act as an on-site resource for teachers, students and the rest of the community.

  Another learning principle that should be reflected in my school’s entrance involves a commitment to the environment. An indoor garden area is a simple and sustainable project idea that could involve students, teachers and the local community.

  Important to both the life of the garden and to the sense of openness that I wish to inspire in my school is a substantial amount of natural light. Ground level window space might be impractical and pose some threats to security, but skylight and overhead window spaces would do the trick!

  A couple of final design features that would help to establish an inviting atmosphere.

  First, comfortable furniture! Nothing says, “Come in and stay awhile,” more than soft, comfortable furniture arranged in ways that invite dialogue and conversation. Coffee tables with copies of the latest school and parent council newsletters, as well as student-produced books and magazines would help to communicate what is happening in the school.

  Finally, background music can go along way to offering a subtle invitational quality to any open space. I’m not talking about loud or intrusive music, but something that complements the atmosphere created by other design elements. 

   

  Entrances represent more than a way to get to other spaces in a building. They are a type of calling-card for visitors and a reminder to residents and employees of what it means to be in that space. I’ve been to many schools where it is obvious that time and thought have gone into the design of the entrance space. I’ve also been to others, however, where the entrance is rather dull and uninviting. 

  But entrances can also help to inspire and influence the life of what goes on in the rest of the building. By making design elements interactive, dynamic and open to the input of students and teachers as well community members, it is quite possible that curriculum activity within classrooms will change to take advantage of the opportunities provided. 

  So, now it’s your turn. Tell us about the grand entrances that you’ve seen in some of the schools that you’ve visited. Perhaps your own school has a particularly engaging design feature. Or maybe you would just like to join me in some blue-sky thinking about the school of your dreams. 

  As always, I look forward to your input! 

• Education Media/Blogosphere Roundup

  May 20, 2011 3:26 PM Comments Off on Education Media/Blogosphere Roundup

  There were a lot of education-related stories in the media this week covering a wide range of issues, from curriculum reform to cellphones in the classroom to the extinction of school librarians, and homophobia in the hallways.  Get caught up on what’s happening by clicking through the stories during this nice long weekend.  

  What news are we missing? Please e-mail me at mcooke@cea-ace.ca or better yet, use the comment box to suggest additional articles happening in your neck of the woods so that others can check it out.  

  Curriculum reform results not positive so far – Montreal Gazette

  Discrimination in the hallways – Slurs a daily school occurrence: report – Winnipeg Free Press

  Librarians fight for a role in a digital world – Globe and Mail

  Black Students to get roadmap to success – Halifax Chronicle Herald

  Battle over exemption from Quebec religious course reaches Supreme Court – Montreal Gazette

  Toronto school board lifts cellphone ban – Toronto Star

  University students fare better with interactive learning, study finds – Globe and Mail

  EDU-BLOGOSPHERE HIGHLIGHTS

  A Discussion With Education Minister George Abbott  – The Wejr Board (Chris Wejr)
  A few weeks ago, a teacher whom I have come to know very well and whom I highly respect, David Wees, sent me a message on Twitter that he had an exciting opportunity to share.  The following day, we caught up on the phone and he asked me if I would like to help moderate a discussion on Twitter with the Education Minister George Abbott!  What a fantastic opportunity for people to engage Mr. Abbott in dialogue around education in British Columbia.  I want to thank David for this opportunity and encourage all you to follow along on June 13th at 4:00pm PST on Twitter (hashtag #bced).

  The special momentum of the status quo – Joe Bower
  Have you ever noticed how little schooling has changed since your parents or even grandparents’ classroom days? I’ve often wondered how a classroom in 1985 Communist Russia would differ from one in 2011 Canada or America. Oh sure, there would be nuances with what kids were learning, but I fear how they were expected to do so would look freakishly similar. Regardless of time, place and political affiliation, behavioral conformity, worksheet completion and pre-test memorization would be the name of both games.

  Kids Are Learning…Just Not in Ways We Want Them To – User Generated Education
  Kids are learning . . . just not in the ways expected of them through formal education.  Young people have always engaged in informal learning based on their interests and passions.  Kids have found and initiated these opportunities in the past through school clubs, reading, local community centers, and neighborhood kids’ ballgames and performances.  These informal learning opportunities have taken an astronomical metaphorical leap due to social networking and ease of access of interest-based information via online means.  I am that not sure if those involved in the institutionalized education of young people are unaware or choose to ignore that young people are often learning more outside of the school than within that learning environment.

  So…What do you do for a living? The Clever Sheep (Rodd Lucier)
  For me, the most apt time for me to use a short, engaging presentation, is in introducing myself. Whether meeting educators for the first time, or striking up a conversation with fellow golfers on the tee block, I’d prefer to pitch myself as something more than ‘teacher’. I just don’t appreciate the baggage that sometimes comes with the job title, especially when I’m not sure about the other person’s past scholastic experience. Maybe that’s why my most recent name badge listed my job title as ‘Education Change Agent’.

   

   

• How Effective is Sex Education?

  May 16, 2011 9:40 PM Comments Off on How Effective is Sex Education?

  Most research on sex education targets teenagers, a group that wants and needs accurate, complete and unbiased information about sexual activity given that a significant proportion of adolescents engage in sexual activity. In 2005, 43 percent of Canadian teens aged 15 to 19 reported that they had had sexual intercourse at least once. Eight percent of teens reported having had sexual intercourse before they were 15 years old.

  The effectiveness of most sexual health interventions is not evaluated. The research also has relatively weak research designs, such as poor use of control groups.

  However some conclusions are:

  • Adolescents who receive comprehensive sex education have a lower risk of pregnancy than those who receive abstinence-only or no sex education. Comprehensive sex education includes information on birth control and on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases as well as abstinence messages.
  • Programs that focus on abstinence without discussing safer sex behaviours do not seem to reduce HIV risk. Some abstinence-only programs can decrease teens’ sexual behaviors, although the effects are modest and short term.
  • Sex education programs often ignore youth with non-heterosexual orientations (i.e. homosexual, bisexual, transgendered).
  • Many students with disabilities receive poor sex education services or may be excluded entirely.
  • Studies have found that self-esteem and adolescent’s sexual behaviour and attitudes are not related, so self-esteem should not be the main focus of sex education.
  • Using peers to deliver sexual health education to young people does not seem to increase condom use or reduce the odds of pregnancy or of having more partners.

  Parents can support their children at home through open discussion of information about sex, and by reinforcing messages about condom use and other forms of birth control as well as around the risks of and social pressures related to sexual behaviour. Role-playing hypothetical situations can be a useful strategy. If the child is not comfortable talking to his or her parents or vice versa, finding someone the child can talk openly with would be a good alternative.

   

  Additional Resources For ParentsManitoba Healthy Schools:

  This website gives advice to parents, teenagers and teachers on the realities of sexual health. It outlines a section on how parents can talk to their children about sex.http://www.gov.mb.ca/healthyschools/topics/sexual.html

  The Sex Education and Information Council of Canada: SIECCAN is a Canadian non-profit education organization with the mission of informing the public about all aspects of human sexuality. This website links to a resource page with articles on sexual health.http://www.sieccan.org/resources.html 

  Alberta Health Services: This link provides a guide for parents on sexuality and developmental disability. The document was prepared by the Calgary Health Region and includes information for parents, tips on ways they may to talk to their children and a list of further resources. http://www.calgaryhealthregion.ca/programs/sexualhealth/pdf/sdd.pdf

  The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada: This webpage includes a focus on information and tools for parents to guide their children to be sexually healthy. There are also hypothetical scenarios for parents to discuss and role-play with their children.http://www.sexualityandu.ca/en/parents

  PFLAG Canada: PFLAG Canada is a national organization helping Canadians struggling with issues surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity.This link provides information for parents trying to understand their children, links to useful websites and a list of readings that may be of interest.http://www.pflagcanada.ca/en/index-e.asp 

  Research References Informing this IssueBennett, S.E., & Assefi, N.P. (2005). School-based teenage pregnancy prevention programs: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Adolescent Health. 36(1), 72-81.Duke, T. (2011).

  Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth with disabilities: a meta-synthesis. Journal of LGBT Youth. 8, 1-52.Goodson, P., Buhi, E,. & Dunsmore, M.S. (2006).

  Self-esteem and adolescent sexual behaviours, attitudes, and intentions: a systematic review. Journal of Adolescent Health, 38, 310-319.Harden, A., Oakley, A., & Oliver, S. (2001)

  Peer-delivered health promotion for young people: A systematic review of different study designs. Health Education Journal, 60(4), 339-353.Kim, C., & Free, C. (2008).

  Recent evaluations of the peer-led approach in adolescent sexual health education: A systematic review, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 40(3), 144-152.McKay, A., Fisher, W., Maticka-Tyndale, E., & Barrett, M. (2001).

  Adolescent sexual health education does it work? Can it work better? An analysis of recent research and media reports, The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 10(3/4), 127-136.Oakley, A., & Olive, S. (2001).

  Peer-delivered health promotion for young people: A systematic review of different study designs. Health Education Journal. 60(4),339-353.Oakley, A., & Fullerton, D., &Holland, J., & Arnold, S., & France-Dawson, D., & Kelly, P., &McGrellis, S. (1995)

  Sexual health education interventions for young people: A methodological review. British Medical Journal, 310(6973), 158-162.Rottermann, M., (2008).

  “Trends in teen sexual behaviour and condom use.”, Health Matters. Statistics Canada Catelogue no. 82-003-XPE • Health Reports, 19(3). http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2008003/article/10664-eng.pdf ( accessed April 24, 2011).

  Underhill, K., Montgomery, P., & Operario, D. (2007).

  Sexual abstinence only programmes to prevent HIV infection in high income countries: systematic review. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from http://www.bmj.com/content/335/7613/248.fullWainwright, P., Thomas, J., & Jones, M. (2000).

  Health promotion and the role of the school nurse: a systematic review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32(5), 1083-1091. 

• Schooling for Democracy

  May 11, 2011 9:00 PM Comments Off on Schooling for Democracy

  A lot of persuasion is needed to make the case for community engagement by students as the best way to enhance future citizenship. For many reasons, it’s a very hard sell:

  • most parents are comfortable with the status quo;
  • school officials and their lawyers worry a lot about safety and security issues;
  • unionized teachers are opposed to para-professionals and “ordinary” citizens engaged in any teaching role;
  • the central education authorities in the provinces and territories insist on full control of the curriculum as the condition for grant support of school boards;
  • businesses, community agencies, and citizens are often uninterested in having kids around to complicate their busy lives;
  • school graduates can learn what they need to know about citizenship from the school of “hard knocks ” after they graduate.

  These arguments for keeping students wrapped in the schoolhouse cocoon until age 18 are not persuasive. Let’s concede that most children younger than age 15, with exceptions, are not ready for organized community learning. For that large segment of students at or after Grade 10, the case for planned learning experiences outside the school is overwhelming:

  • the burgeoning of private schools in Canada (more than 3,000) attests to the dissatisfaction of many parents with the character development of their children in the public school milieu;
  • private school education tends to exacerbate the inequality of social classes in our multicultural country;
  • democracy is a tender reed best served by excellent, inclusive public education;
  • many publicly-supported-school students and their parents deplore education by numbers; (e.g., the overwhelming value placed on marks, the unseemly scramble for higher marks, standardized test results, percentages of diplomas granted, admissions to post-secondary education). None of these numbers is inherently bad. They simply over-emphasize numerical records that have very little if anything to do with readiness for democratic citizenship which should be first and foremost a matter of character development. School sports can be helpful but cannot be a substitute for broad community involvement;
  • students on the cusp of adulthood are able to contribute substantially to the improvement of health services, the mentoring of younger children, the sprightliness of life in private homes where domestic skills can be passed on, where the idea of service in the company of adults can become ingrained.

  As I see it, reform of public education is overdue but not likely to be achieved by the interested parties now in charge. How then to do it?

• Citizenship Education is More About Process than Content

  May 2, 2011 9:36 PM Comments Off on Citizenship Education is More About Process than Content

  A piece in The Globe and Mail, April 29, 2011, featured advice from five smart people about how to get more citizens out to vote, thus to improve the health of our democracy. In light of my work on citizenship education since the 1950s, I avidly read their offerings.

  One of them suggested adoption of the American system of primary elections as a means of ensuring that candidates for public office are tested in advance for their popularity. Another argued for digital involvement at the grassroots level. That is, leaders at all levels from the Prime Minister down to the Mayor would regularly engage citizens in digital conversation about everything from staying in Afghanistan to building that new bridge. That way, more ordinary folks would become engaged in politics and policy. Still another said that students should be required to pass a civics test as a condition of high school graduation A fourth one thought that giving everyone ten dollars for voting would improve turnout and be a powerful incentive for low income people.

  These suggestions all have some merit. They declare in their different ways that citizen participation in the political process is seriously deficient in our democratic country. Only one of them directly involves the schools which came as a surprise to me since civic sensitivity is powerfully affected by the school experience.

  Let me explain. Becoming aware of the obligations of citizenship is much more than the cumulative effect of supper table conversation and genetic inheritance. More significant is the atmospheric effect of a dozen years in the schoolhouse, six hours a day. Fixed in a seat most of that time amidst two or three dozen seat mates, all passively ingesting information to be regurgitated later is no way to encourage active citizenship. Indeed, it has a powerful dampening effect.

  That is to say: Citizenship education is more about process than content; more about daily life experience than about subjects of the curriculum. One of the five contributors to the Globe article believed that a compulsory course in Canadian history before graduation would help. Maybe. Canadian history poorly taught to passive students would more likely be destructive of the intended aim.

  The key to student civic sensitivity is in the community, not the schoolhouse. In 1982, I spent a day at Miami Central High School in the heart of Little Havana. The school had a full-time staffer who coordinated the community work of the students where they helped in hospitals, schools for disabled children, homes for the aged, social service agencies, to name a few. Most of them volunteered for 200 hours or more each year in contrast to the token 40 hours required over four years before graduation in Ontario.

  Miami Central was one of scores of schools in North America where community engagement was the forerunner of social responsibility in adulthood. Isn’t that the essence of citizenship education?

• How Best To Motivate Students?

  April 20, 2011 4:32 PM Comments Off on How Best To Motivate Students?

  Students’ interest and desire to participate actively in the learning process is central to their success at any level of education. All students are motivated by some activities; in schools, student motivation is deeply affected by what happens in classrooms. Research drawn from several fields suggests ways we can improve students’ engagement and motivation:

  • Relevance – Building on students’ interests and making the lessons relevant to students’ lives and what they already know are good practices.
  • Choice – Giving students more choices in their learning, both about what to study and about how to present what they know and can do, makes learning more interesting and heightens curiosity.
  • Recognizing Effort – Success is a big spur to further effort. Students’ motivation increases when their efforts and contributions are consistently valued.
  • Feedback – Timely and specific feedback tells students what their strengths and weaknesses are. Feedback must be given so that students understand what they need to do in order to improve. Multiple opportunities to demonstrate learning are also important.
  • Teaching Methods and Tools – Students learn best through a variety of teaching techniques and strategies that challenge them and encourage them to explore ideas. The use of technology, such as computers, and SMART Boards, can also help to motivate students.

  Parents are valuable partners in the learning process. They can support their child’s learning by suggesting strategies to teachers that they have observed to be successful at home. This will help teachers meet the child’s learning needs.

  Teachers and parents support their children’s learning when they praise effort and hard work rather than intelligence. There is growing evidence that children’s intelligence is not fixed, and the children who do best are those who develop “growth mindsets” so that they are prepared to put in the effort to succeed.

  ---

  Additional Resources For Parents

  Canadian Education Association: This article from Education Canada Magazine presents ways to engage students through effective questioning. Parents can try these strategies at home with their children.

  http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/engaging-students-through-effective-questions

  Concordia University: This website provides links to detailed tips that parents and educators can implement to encourage children to improve in their academics.

  http://teaching.concordia.ca/resources/teaching-strategies/motivating-students

  Scholastic: Scholastic provides information on children’s learning styles and a short quiz to help you determine your child’s needs.

  http://www.scholastic.com/familymatters/parentguides/backtoschool/quiz_learnstyles

  Scholastic: Scholastic provides practical suggestions that parents can implement to motivate their children to succeed.

  http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=1304

  Ontario Ministry of Education: This website provides a link to a report entitled “Me Read, No Way” with practical strategies on motivational strategies to improve reading among boys.

  http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/index.html

  Research References Informing this Issue

  Brophy, Jere. (2004). Motivating Students to Learn. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

  Hidi, S., & Harackiewics, J. (2000). Motivating the academically unmotivated: A critical issue for the 21^st century, Review of Educational Research, 70 (2), 151-179.

  National Research Council Institute of Medicine (2003). Engaging schools: Fostering high school students’ motivation to learn. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

  Palardy, Michael. (1999). Some strategies for motivating students. NASSP Bulletin, 83, 116 -121.

  Perry, N. E, Turner, J. C., & Meyer, D. K. (2006). Classrooms as context for motivating Learning. In Alexander, P. A., & Winne, P. H. (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (327-345). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

• Mandated Community Involvement: A Question of Equity

  March 24, 2011 8:39 PM Comments Off on Mandated Community Involvement: A Question of Equity

  Contemporary education discourse makes widespread (at times, even panicked) reference to a “crisis” in citizenship among youth, commonly describing young citizens as ignorant of basic civic knowledge, alienated from political participation, and sceptical of the values of democratic citizenship. The assumption is that civic engagement is a “marker of maturity”, and civic inactivity is attributed to youths’ lack of interest, knowledge, or cognitive sophistication.[1] If adolescent populations are perceived to have withdrawn from their civic duties (for example, by not volunteering or voting in elections), these actions (or lack thereof) may be considered an indicator of young people’s indifference or “bankrupt sense of citizenship”.[2]

  Mandated Community Involvement

  Some educators argue that community involvement activities can decrease young people’s so-called democratic deficit by imbuing them with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for participation in a vibrant democracy. For example, Conrad and Hedin’s oft-cited review of community involvement research in K-12 educational settings provides evidence that such educational programming is associated with students’ civic-related learning outcomes – notably, self-esteem, appreciation for diversity, responsibility toward the community, political efficacy, understanding of socio-historical contexts, and willingness to volunteer in future.[3] Furthermore, youths’ active engagement in the local community is hypothesized to have a “trickle-up” effect, whereby students’ experiences completing community involvement are generalized into a greater sense of duty towards the national and global communities.[4] This theory also presumes that wider social problems (such as poverty and environmental degradation) can be mitigated by young peoples’ active participation in society.

  Community involvement activities are typically described as dual-purposed: benefiting both the individual server and the larger community. As Volunteer Canada notes, “By caring and contributing to change, volunteers decrease suffering and disparity, while they gain skills, self-esteem and change their lives. People work to improve the lives of their neighbours and, in return, enhance their own.”[5]

  Based on the assumption that all young people and their communities would benefit from students’ active participation in community endeavours, some Canadian provinces and U.S. states have mandated completion of community involvement activities as a condition of secondary school graduation. British Columbia, for example, has required secondary school students to participate in at least 30 hours of work experience and/or community involvement as part of their “Graduation Transitions Program” since 1995. Similarly, eight states provide secondary school credits for students who complete service-learning activities; in Maryland, secondary school students have been required to perform 75 hours of community involvement since 1992.[6]

  In September 1999, the Government of Ontario began requiring all secondary students to complete 40 hours of community involvement in order to graduate. Ushered in during the Progressive Conservative era of Premier Mike Harris, the policy language suggested that this requirement was primarily designed to build students’ personal responsibility and to strengthen the qualities assumed to drive individual success: “the requirement will benefit communities, but its primary purpose is to contribute to students’ development.”[7] Students are seen as independent individuals who are responsible for, and capable of, making beneficial contributions within their neighbourhoods and beyond.

  Debates continue over whether students should be “forced” to volunteer, as mandated community involvement is not necessarily equivalent (in process or in outcome) to voluntary service. One argument in favour of mandated community involvement is that such policies engage the students who would not have volunteered on their own accord. This appears to be the case in Ontario, where a 2007 study of students who had recently graduated from an Ontario secondary school found that, on average, they did not harbour negative attitudes toward the compulsory nature of the community involvement requirement, and that the program had been successful in mobilizing students who otherwise would not have volunteered.[8]

  Unlike Ontario’s community involvement initiative, the paramount concern of “service-learning” programs is to further students’ understanding of social problems through community-based and classroom learning opportunities.

  Ontario’s 40-hour community involvement requirement is an interesting case study because of the level of autonomy it affords to students. Students are given the freedom to choose how they will complete their community involvement hours, provided their proposed placement type is listed on the school board’s catalogue of approved activities. They may choose to complete all 40 hours at one location or to accumulate hours through a smorgasbord of activities. They may spread their community involvement activities over the four-year span of secondary school, or hurry through the bulk of their requirement in a few weekends. Since these activities are performed outside of school hours without teacher supervision, accounting for community involvement hours runs somewhat on the honour system. When students finish their contracts at each community involvement placement, they fill out their school board’s prescribed completion form and provide verifying signatures from placement supervisors.

  The “service-learning” model frequently adopted in the United States sits in sharp contrast to Ontario’s approach, and is often heralded as the “best practice” of citizenship education. Unlike Ontario’s community involvement initiative, the paramount concern of “service-learning” programs is to further students’ understanding of social problems through community-based and classroom learning opportunities. In addition to the service experience itself, such programs incorporate preparatory orientation (such as researching the problem or conducting a needs-analysis) and follow-up activities (such as self-assessing the work completed or arranging future programming) directly into classroom curriculum. Additionally, service-learning diverges from other community involvement initiatives by incorporating structured reflection (often in the form of journals, short papers, and/or discussion groups). Advocates of the service-learning model suggest that the inclusion of such structural elements provides a platform for students to think about, and make sense of, their personal experiences, as well as an avenue to explore the social problems underlying the need for community involvement.

  Equal Opportunities for Citizenship Learning?

  I entered secondary school as a member of the “double cohort year”, a term that was used to describe the convergence of two graduating secondary school classes during Ontario’s 2002-2003 school year. The “double cohort” was the result of then-Premier Mike Harris’ policy decision to phase out the OAC year (Ontario Academic Credit, or Grade 13) in favour of a four-year secondary school diploma. This restructuring was one part of a series of secondary school reforms (colloquially referred to as “the new curriculum”), which also involved a number of changes to students’ diploma requirements, including the addition of the 40-hour community involvement requirement. I was grouped in the elder half of the “double cohort”, and consequently I experienced Ontario’s educational reforms from an interesting vantage point: I witnessed the changes unfold during their seminal year, but was not personally affected by the incoming policies.

  Initially, I was enthusiastic about the 40-hour community involvement requirement, based on my own (largely positive) experiences participating in school councils and community youth organizations. In my view at the time, the requirement would provide a refreshing modification to the academic focus of the formal school system, and help connect students with the social world beyond their classroom. However, my later professional experiences in priority neighbourhoods and my exploration of the research literature suggested that students’ opportunities for citizenship-related learning are not distributed equally. Specifically, privileged students may have disproportionate access to community involvement activities based on their greater access to resources and social networks. Thus, my own research focused on the role of social class – a powerful factor influencing young people’s civic engagement – in relation to students’ community involvement experiences.

  My analysis of surveys and focus groups among 50 current and recently graduated secondary school students from widely contrasting socio-economic settings focused on the ways participants reported their school staff members’ support (or lack thereof) for community involvement activities; participants’ direct or distant relationships with service recipients; and participants’ sense of their own individual and collective agency to effect social change. (The full thesis can be accessed online at: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/25654)

  This study found that high- and low-income participants, on average, met their community involvement requirements with different types of community involvement activities. High-income participants tended to complete a more diverse range of activities at a greater variety of locations than low-income participants. Furthermore, 46 percent of the low-income participants admitted to forging or exaggerating their community involvement hours, while only one high-income participant reported falsification. High-income participants’ wider breadth of community involvement activities and low-income participants’ relatively limited (and sometimes negative) community involvement experiences were consistently spoken about throughout the qualitative focus group discussions.

  Participants described the level of school staff members’ support as an important factor mediating the entire process of finding and completing community involvement hours. High-income participants most often described their school staff members as positive role models and reported receiving ample support in identifying placements and completing their community involvement hours. In contrast, most low-income participants reported receiving virtually no guidance in locating a community involvement placement and perceived this lack of support as indicative of a wider lack of concern for their civic engagement.

  High- and low-income participants’ opportunities to develop relationships with service recipients varied considerably as well: some (mostly high-income) participants heralded their newfound bonds with community members as the chief benefit and main positive memory of their community involvement experience, while others (mostly low-income) reported seldom having exposure to anyone outside of their project supervisors or other volunteers. Some high-income participants spoke about overcoming stereotypes, reflecting on their own circumstances, and becoming aware of social problems to varying extents as a result of their direct interactions with service recipients. Low-income participants, by contrast, expressed an expectation of encountering social problems through their own lived experiences, and did not usually describe their community involvement placements as having broadened their horizons.

  While mandatory community involvement may require all students to donate equal amounts of their time, it cannot guarantee equal access to meaningful community involvement placements.

  Finally, when reflecting on their personal sense of agency to “make a difference”, high-income participants tended to view themselves as capable social actors who were responsible for improving their communities. On the other hand, low-income participants more often spoke about needing to prioritize income-generating opportunities over community involvement hours in order to meet their own basic needs. Furthermore, high-income participants spoke about feeling obligated to participate in community involvement as an expression of gratitude for their fortunate status, whereas low-income participants did not often articulate a sense of indebtedness to their communities. While high- and low-income participants spoke differently about their individual agency to effect change, only one participant believed that students’ short-term community involvement activities would actually solve underlying social problems.

  While this study design does not support broad or predictive generalizations, it does show that high- and low-income participants differed in the ways they spoke about virtually every aspect of their experiences completing the Ontario community involvement requirement. So, while mandatory community involvement may require all students to donate equal amounts of their time, it cannot guarantee equal access to meaningful community involvement placements. Differential access to time, resources, and social networks may markedly influence the types of community involvement activities in which high- and low-income students participate.

  On the surface, the flexible choice available within Ontario’s community involvement requirement would seem to be responsive to individual needs. However, downloading the responsibility for securing community involvement placements onto students may actually exacerbate educational inequalities. Students’ choices, after all, are constrained by their awareness of, and access to, desired volunteer placements as well as by other social, cultural, educational, and economic factors. As a result, all students (perhaps especially those of less privileged backgrounds) may benefit from structured and/or teacher-guided community involvement activities, similar to those described in the service-learning model.

  As of this writing, Ontario’s Ministry of Education has not allocated funding to support the community involvement requirement in individual schools, raising questions about the government’s commitment to all students’ opportunities to learn and to practice active citizenship. If all students had greater access to resources and support for their community involvement activities, the apparent disparities between high- and low-income students’ experiences could potentially decrease. In particular, the Government of Ontario could place greater priority on making the community involvement requirement more explicitly educative and responsive to the needs of an economically diverse population.

  While I continue to question the structure and merits of the 40-hour requirement as implemented, this questioning should not be construed as cynicism or contempt. Even though I believe Ontario’s approach requires considerable revision in order to facilitate students’ constructive citizenship learning, I consider the requirement to be worthy of preservation and extension. I base my support on the fact that some participants in my research study had encountered opportunities to complete personally meaningful community involvement activities in which they developed strong partnerships with other people (school staff members and service recipients), and reflected positively on their personal agency to “make a difference”. Given the context in which this requirement was introduced and its potential positive consequences for students and communities, I hope to stimulate a dialogue among educators that re-imagines citizenship education strategies for a diverse student population.

  EN BREF – En se fondant sur l’hypothèse que tous les jeunes – et leurs collectivités – pourraient profiter de leur participation active à des initiatives communautaires, des provinces canadiennes et des États américains exigent maintenant qu’ils participent à des activités communautaires pour obtenir leur diplôme. On débat encore s’il est pertinent de « forcer » les élèves à faire du bénévolat. En Ontario, les 40 heures obligatoires de services communautaires constituent une intéressante étude de cas, car les élèves ont l’autonomie de décider à quoi consacrer ces heures. À l’opposé, le modèle d’apprentissage du service civique de la plupart des programmes américains approfondit la compréhension qu’ont les élèves des problèmes sociaux au moyen d’activités communautaires et d’apprentissage en classe. Une étude menée auprès de 50 élèves actuels et ayant récemment obtenu leur diplôme d’études secondaires en Ontario, provenant de milieux socioéconomiques très diversifiés, a constaté que, à temps bénévole égal, les élèves n’ont pas également accès à un placement de bénévolat porteur de sens. Le statut socioéconomique influe sur le temps, les ressources et les réseaux sociaux des élèves, et donc sur les types de bénévolat communautaire qu’ils peuvent faire.

  ---

  [1] S. Condor and S. Gibson, “Everybody’s Entitled to their Own Opinion: Ideological Dilemmas of Liberal Individualism and Active Citizenship,” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 17, no. 2 (2007): 115-140.

  [2] J. E. Kahne and J. Westheimer, “In the Service of What? The Politics of Service Learning,” Phi Delta Kappan 77, no. 9 (1996): 592-599.

  [3] D. Conrad and D. Hedin, High School Community Service: A Review of Research and Programs (Madison, WI: National Center on Effective Secondary Schools, 1989).

  [4] Condor and Gibson.

  [5] Volunteer Canada, “Message from the Board Chair” (2010). Retrieved from http://volunteer.ca/about-us/board-and-staff/message-board-chair

  [6] National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, “State and School District Policy for K-12 Service-learning” (2008). Retrieved from www.servicelearning.org/filemanager/download/twopage_fs/Policy_in_K-12_SL_Short_FS_FINAL__Mar08.pdf

  [7] Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, Ontario Secondary Schools Grades 9 to 12 Program and Diploma Requirements (Toronto, ON: MET, 1999).

  [8] A. Henderson, S. D. Brown, S. M. Pancer, and K. Ellis-Hale, “Mandated Community Service in High School and Subsequent Civic Engagement: The Case of the “Double Cohort” in Ontario, Canada,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 36, no. 7 (2007): 849-860.

• The University of Winnipeg and Community Learning

  8:02 PM Comments Off on The University of Winnipeg and Community Learning

  It is hard to believe that my tenure as the President of the University of Winnipeg began six years ago already. When I think back to that beginning, I remember that while the University of Winnipeg had always held its own as an excellent provider of post-secondary education, at the time it found itself in a dire financial situation and had lost its direction. In search of a remedy, we set about conducting an intensive consultation both within and outside of our university community with a view to changing the strategic application of our mission to include our role and responsibility in the community. That consultation revealed that in the downtown neighbourhood of inner city Winnipeg, where we are located, many residents face barriers to higher education. It turned out that for many in our community the university was an unknown, strange, and unwelcoming territory. It became clear to us that there was a disconnect between the changing realities of the communities around us, and our vision for a sustainable, prosperous city.

  Aboriginal peoples strongly believe in the importance of education and its transformational effect as one of the biggest drivers for empowerment.

  Take, for example, the influx of New Canadians and Aboriginal peoples into urban centres. Winnipeg itself is home to the largest urban population of Aboriginal peoples in Canada, nearly 70,000. It is a distinctly young population, and one whose growth will only be surpassed by those who immigrate to Winnipeg from outside of Canada. These shifting demographics, which are not unique to Winnipeg, represent changes of great importance across the country as a growing pool of learners emerges from the rich and diverse cultural backgrounds in our cities. They also put enormous pressure on our institutions to ensure that the transitions are successful ones.

  So far the pressures are not being met. As the latest census figures show, the educational attainment of Aboriginal peoples is far lower than that of the non-Aboriginal population. This achievement gap is undermining the future of the economic and social health of the broader community. If Aboriginal Canadians were able to achieve the same level of education by 2017 that non-Aboriginal Canadians achieved in 2001, Canada’s gross domestic product would increase by more than $70 billion over those 16 years. If the education gap were closed completely and educational parity achieved by 2017, Canada’s gross domestic product would increase by more than $160 billion.[1]

  At the same time, there is a great appetite for education among the Aboriginal community. In our many conversations with residents of our inner city neighbourhood, one of the most important findings has been that Aboriginal peoples strongly believe in the importance of education and its transformational effect as one of the biggest drivers for empowerment, for securing a job, and for financial stability. Yet they report financial obstacles, curricula that are not reflective of their history and culture, and a lack of moral and emotional support for those pursuing a post-secondary degree.

  These obstacles are undermining both the future of the University – by reducing the pool of potential students – and the future of the economic and social health of the broader community – by denying the potential of a highly talented young workforce to replace those who are retiring. To quote Phil Fontaine, the former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, speaking about the education of Aboriginal peoples: “We see education as a way out of poverty for our people … education is our future. Education is about making it possible for us to be contributors to Canada’s future.”

  Ultimately, what we saw in Winnipeg was an opportunity to fill a role within the community that was obviously lacking. And so we developed a strategy and a plan – for the future of the University, but also for the city. It will be as the ancient Greeks prophesied, first we shape our cities, then they shape us. We realized that the fundamentals of how we live – our prosperity, our security, our sustainability – will be largely determined by what we do in our cities. With our strategic location in Winnipeg’s downtown, we wanted to position ourselves as an anchor for renewal. We were already a well-established educational institution with a good reputation. We were already producing the future leaders and business people who would shape the future of our city. We were well positioned to make a difference. We were supported by the understanding that education can be a catalyst for positive change, but it was going to take some strong leadership. 

  We started with a series of internal changes of people and practices and enlisted the help of Aboriginal organizations and other community groups to show the way. We are teaching institutions, but we recognized that we had a lot of learning to do as well.  As part of building this vision, we involved ourselves in a major strategic effort to re-define ourselves and to enhance our role in the rapidly transforming local and global community. We called it our Community Learning Strategy.

  What is Community Learning? It describes the active integration of the university into the social, cultural, and educational life of the community. It recognizes the responsibility of the university to function in an accessible manner and to open itself up to the wide diversity of knowledge and experience represented within society.

  Broadly speaking, community learning, as applied at The University of Winnipeg, consists of:

  1)    the provision of innovative learning opportunities for various populations currently under-represented in the University population;

  2)    the use of the resources of the University to analyze and address social, economic, cultural, and environmental issues in partnership with community organizations and other groups;

  3)    the cultivation of dynamic and reciprocal relationships between the campus and the surrounding community in which University resources are used to facilitate community-university learning development in ways that are sustainable in social, economic, cultural, and environmental terms; and

  4)    the understanding that these initiatives serve as learning opportunities for our students and others from within a broad range of local and global communities.

  What does Community Learning actually look like? We have developed a number of programs targeting various members of the community around us. Our goal is to bring them into the University fold, to make them feel welcome on our campus, and to get them excited about learning. We have realized that for some, the benefits of a university education may not be obvious. But through appropriate intervention and the active engagement of students, starting as early as possible, we can show them that the possibilities are limitless.

  Funding for our community learning programs is not part of the University of Winnipeg’s present public funding structure. The programs we’ve initiated and the successes we’ve achieved are all dependent on private sources of funding.

  ILC programming serves as a “tap on the shoulder” for these children and youth so that they can begin at an early age to see that a post-secondary education is indeed possible for them.

  The Innovative Learning Centre

  In recognition of the importance of early intervention, we have created an Innovative Learning Centre (ILC) that brings a host of young students from across the city into the University to participate in a series of unique learning initiatives designed to close the graduation gap for inner city, Aboriginal, and new Canadian youth. 

  Since it was established three years ago, the ILC has served over 5,000 students aged 7-21 through programming both during and after school hours, on weekends, and in the summer months. The ILC develops strong partnerships with school superintendents, principals, and teachers from inner city schools and with the families of the children and youth involved. Using the resources and the infrastructure of the University, ILC programming serves as what Coordinator Kevin Chief calls a “tap on the shoulder” for these children and youth so that they can begin at an early age to see that a post-secondary education is indeed possible for them.

  During the regular school year, students from local elementary and high schools are engaged in our Eco-Kids and Enviro Techs programs, which provide on-campus learning experiences in science, sustainability, human rights, and community engagement.

  Over the past three years, 2,400 children have participated in the ILC’s Eco-U Summer Camp initiative – one of the largest day camps in the city for inner city and Aboriginal youth in Winnipeg. Campers are engaged in a full slate of activities from traditional dance, to tending a community garden, to participating in smudging ceremonies and traditional Aboriginal storytelling, to environmental science and sustainability experiments. Eco-U Summer Camp employees, drawn from high schools and the University, are often participants in other ILC programming.

  Model School

  These direct community learning activities have been augmented with what is perhaps our most innovative and complex program: a Model School set up in cooperation with the University’s Collegiate High School and based on successful models developed in Chicago and several other jurisdictions in the United States. The idea was to re-engage students of potentially high achievement who were at high risk of dropping out of the regular school system or who were running into behavioural problems, addictions, or criminal activity. The Model School offers an individualized style of education that helps students achieve success by drawing on their individual strengths, talents, and interests while integrating them into the mainstream programs of the University of Winnipeg’s well-regarded Collegiate High School. Its location on campus has been extremely beneficial to the students as they have been able to utilize all of the resources and materials of the Collegiate while developing a sense of identity as members of the University of Winnipeg community.

  In April, we celebrated the first three graduates of the Model School. It was a powerful experience to see these students cross the stage to receive their diplomas. All three students have now returned to the Model School to upgrade their courses and prepare for eventual studies at the post-secondary level. Students and their families have said that this University-based programming has removed a stigma that they have felt with some other programs targeted at low-income students; they feel that the University is a place for them and not an exclusive, closed institution situated within their neighbourhood.

  Opportunity Fund

  To deal with the fundamental issue of financial need, we created an Opportunity Fund to enable us to establish tuition credit accounts for participating students in which the University will register credit for specific academic or community achievement. Children earning these credits can apply them toward a post-secondary education when they graduate from high school. They are an example of earning by learning and appear to be a positive way of attracting family support.

  A secondary component of the Opportunity Fund resulted from recognition that the conventional way of awarding bursaries was creating a number of handicaps for low-income students, such as the initial cost of registration at the University, and the waiting period while financial need and income capacity were assessed. As a result, we incorporated a fast-track bursary option into the Opportunity Fund that offers students financial support through a relatively quick and simple process when they are endorsed by a community group. The values of these bursaries vary for each student depending on need, but can be given to a maximum of $5,000. There was initial concern that this approach would not yield a high retention rate. However, during the two years in which we have given fast track assistance to over 300 students in need, the retention rate has been equal to the average for the student body as a whole.

  Wii Chiiwaakanak Learning Centre

  To supplement these initiatives the University maintains, on an ongoing basis, the Wii Chiiwaakanak Learning Centre, a drop-in center for inner city residents managed by our Aboriginal Student Services Centre. Wii Chiiwaakanak offers free computer access along with complementary academic programs, traditional language programs, Elders’ circles, and a homework club located directly across the street from the University’s main campus. The centre plays an important role in redressing what is sometimes called the “digital divide”, a gap in effective access to digital and information technology. The demand for such access is dramatically demonstrated by the fact that an average of 2,500 students per month use the computers and services of the centre.

  The Global Welcome Centre

  We have established a mirror program to help meet the needs of newcomers. The Global Welcome Centre, (GWC) which is directly supported by the Manitoba Department of Labour and Immigration, assists new Canadians in preparation for learning activities and other transitional issues. The GWC offers a university preparation course, mentorship and tutoring programs, computer skills classes, and an Immigrant Access Advisor to provide academic advice and support tailored to the needs of newcomers and refugees.

  These efforts at community learning have convinced us that impacts on both the community and the University are positive and that these initiatives have added a new dimension to our role as an urban University with a mandate to tackle the unique challenges of our times.

  It has also taught us a great deal about how to make more effective use of the resources and infrastructures of the University, and about how to form community partnerships. It has suggested that partnerships involving a combination of various techniques of intervention can make a difference in outlook and achievement.

  Engaging with the Community

  We continue to find new and innovative ways to draw the residents of the inner city onto our campus. In 2009, we completed a new student residence with a mixed-use housing model made up of both University of Winnipeg students and other neighbourhood residents seeking additional education. The same year we were able to open a new day care centre, with spaces for the children of both University and community families. For the 2009/2010 school year, the University moved away from contracting out to traditional food service providers and established its own. Under the name “Diversity”, the new food service provider is committed to hiring and training local inner city residents who will ultimately be eligible to own 25 percent of the stock in the company. Its mandate is to supply locally grown, diverse menus that fit the contemporary needs of our multi-ethnic campus.

  As the city’s only downtown university, we have accepted the responsibility for addressing the important issues that are affecting the communities that make up the City of Winnipeg. We have worked on the basis of partnership, and we have achieved some success. But there is still much work to do. We must promote community learning as the best way to engage people from all walks of life, ages, and interests and use our combination of resources to build seamless, connected learning systems that ensure everyone has a chance. In doing so, we will enlist the schools, the community organizations, and the universities and colleges in a comprehensive learning partnership in our downtown neighbourhood, both to build skills and enhance talents and to build bridges and integrate our efforts so that we become a community of learners – learning about each other and learning what our duties and responsibilities are as citizens. Does it cost money? Yes, but far less than we have to pay if the fragmentation of lives and communities continues to grow.

  It is encouraging to witness the progress we’ve made since those first consultations six years ago. Out of it all, we’ve learned some very significant lessons. We’ve demonstrated that the University has the capacity to listen to and share with the community and to move beyond the conventional orbit of University programming. Even as an institution dependent on public funding, we have succeeded in setting new paradigms for public policy as well as starting conversations around what we can achieve in the revitalization of Winnipeg’s downtown. We’ve endeavoured to dream big – responding to and encouraging a thirst for innovation and leadership in downtown renewal. We’ve learned that supporters will come forward with financial contributions. Finally, aiming at the very heart of the matter, we have learned that community learning can make a real difference. Just ask the most recent graduates from our Model School.

  EN BREF – D’après une consultation intensive entreprise par l’Université de Winnipeg, de nombreux résidents – en particulier les nouveaux Canadiens et les Autochtones vivant dans les centres-villes – font face à des entraves aux études supérieures et, pour beaucoup d’entre eux, l’université est un territoire inconnu et inhospitalier. Winnipeg comprend la plus nombreuse population urbaine d’Autochtones au Canada – soit près de 70 000 membres d’une population distinctement jeune et croissante. Cette démographie changeante représente un groupe grandissant d’apprenants, exerçant d’énormes pressions sur nos institutions chargées d’assurer le succès de leurs transitions. Consciente de sa responsabilité de fonctionner de manière accessible et de s’ouvrir au large éventail de savoirs et d’expériences au sein de la société, l’Université de Winnipeg a lancé plusieurs initiatives pour s’engager dans la collectivité environnante : un centre d’apprentissage innovateur, une école pilote, un fonds de possibilités et le Centre d’apprentissage Wii Chiiwaakanak offrant de l’aide scolaire aux résidents du centre-ville.

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  [1] Andrew Sharp, Jean-Francois Arsenault and Simon Lapointe, “The Potential Contribution of Aboriginal Canadians to Labour Force, Employment, Productivity and Output Growth in Canada, 2001-2017,” Centre for the Study of Living Standards, CSLS Research Report No. 2007-04, 6.

• Can Music in Schools Live Up To Its Promise?

  7:25 PM Comments Off on Can Music in Schools Live Up To Its Promise?

  Hussein B. is an ESL student in Grade 9. He speaks very little English and is nervous and shy in his classes. But when he enters the band room, his eyes light up. He takes up his trumpet, and for an inspiring hour he is united with his peers in the universal language of music.

  Amy T. is a very quiet Grade 4 student. She lacks confidence and rarely raises her hand to answer questions in class. But there’s been a real change in Amy. The school started a choir recently, and Amy’s clear voice sails alongside her classmates. She smiles broadly when asked to sing a solo part and does so with a gusto that she is beginning to exhibit in other areas of learning.

  “I know my son is really keen to come to school now, and that’s really surprising from being a kid that didn’t want to get up to being at school by 7:30 for band practice.” – Michelle, Parent 

  Hunter D. is in Grade 12 and about to graduate. He almost dropped out of school in Grade 10, but his music teacher encouraged him to get involved in a stage band where he’s been playing guitar for the past two years. School is still a challenge, but music has helped him not only get through it but graduate with an average that could get him into college or university.

  “You can see engagement, you can see teamwork, you can see pride, commitment, dedication, all of those things that we know are important to how successful they are outside of school.” – Jan Unwin, School Superintendent

  These students are out there in schools right across the country. You know them – or kids like them. Music really does help to bring out the best in young people. It nourishes self-esteem, keeps them engaged, and creates a respectful community. Clearly, our communities benefit when schools engage students in music. Interestingly, most education ministries across the country seem to recognize the importance of arts education in their curricula. But, somehow, many gaps appear between the official stand – as expressed in speeches and curriculum documents – and classroom practice.

  The Coalition for Music Education recently undertook a survey of Canadian school principals to map out the musical landscape in schools across the country.[1] If music education can reap such important benefits to our children, it’s important to understand what’s happening at the grassroots; and public education is the only way to ensure that all children have access to quality music programs, regardless of geography, social status, or family income. But, as our survey found, the delivery of quality music education varies considerably across the regions and for many reasons. In this article, we will focus on one particular challenge, the use of qualified music teachers. (The survey also yields surprising information in other areas, including school board support, fundraising pressures, timetabling, and resources.)

  “Four years ago, we were able to hire a specialized music teacher (preptime delivery). What an improvement. Having a well qualified, dedicated teacher brought music to the school, from Senior Kindergarten to Grade 8!”[2]

  The starting point for any good school program is the teacher, whether that program teaches English, math, science, history, arts – or music. So why is it that, at the elementary level, we have so many generalist classroom teachers – with no background in music or music education – attempting to deliver the music curriculum?  In response to the question “Who teaches music in your school?”, 38 percent of responding elementary schools across the country indicated that they have a classroom teacher with no music background in that role! Not surprisingly, the provincial picture varies widely. In the Atlantic provinces, four out of five responding schools have a music specialist delivering the curriculum. In stark contrast, in Ontario, our most populous province, 58 percent of those teaching elementary music have no music background.

  This situation raises a number of questions:

  • Without proper training or support, can curriculum expectations be met?
  • Can students really be given the opportunity to maximize their success at school if they have no music program, or if it’s being poorly taught?
  • Could we envisage math or science being taught by people who had no training or expertise in these subjects?

  “The scary part is, without any musical background, you could just photocopy sheets about music notation for the kids to fill in all year and claim to be delivering the curriculum. But that’s like teaching kids the alphabet without showing them the joy of reading a book.”[3]

  If we are to maximize the benefits of music education to students, it’s important to offer a variety of musical opportunities – activities that go well beyond passive listening to the minds-on, hands-on music making that creation-and-performance type learning can provide. Yet, in elementary schools, listening is the most common form of music education.

  Music really does help to bring out the best in young people. It nourishes self-esteem, keeps them engaged, and creates a respectful community.

  Why is listening ranked so high – well ahead of activities such as choir and instrumental music that truly reap the benefits for children? Could it be a symptom of the lack of knowledgeable music specialists in the classroom, who find it easier to put a CD into a player than to teach the rudiments of music theory? Listening is important, but it is active music making that has the strongest impact on kids.

  “Musical training has a profound impact on other skills including speech and language, memory and attention, and even the ability to convey emotions vocally…What’s more, children who have had music lessons tend to have a larger vocabulary and better reading ability than youngsters who haven’t had any musical training. And children with learning disabilities, who often have a hard time focusing when there’s a lot of background noise, may be especially helped by music lessons.”[4]

  So where do we go from here?

  The survey points out that, for most of the past decade, student participation in music has been rising while overall funding for music education has been falling. Clearly, as a community of stakeholders that includes teachers, parents, administrators, and policy-makers, we must continue to promote the value of music for children in our schools and ask for the resources – not just the material resources but more importantly the human resources – that will strengthen those programs.  Given the importance of having a qualified music teacher in the classroom, what strategies can be deployed to make sure that the talent at the head of the classroom is equipped to create the best learning environment for students?

  1. We not only need more qualified teachers in our classrooms; once they are there, we need to keep them there. Some education ministers claim there are more music specialist teachers now than there were five years ago. This may be true, but many such specialists are teaching other subjects.

  “It is really sad that I have a music specialist on staff who is not teaching music. Unfortunately, we are so short of qualified personnel to teach French (we are an immersion school) that I cannot afford to use her as a music specialist at this time.”[5]

  2. Ministries of education and school boards need to do a better job of promoting and supporting professional development among those who are required to teach music but may not have a strong music background. One principal took the time to respond in the survey with this savvy recommendation, “I would like to see a whole year set aside at our board with funds attached (from the Ministry) for systematic professional development for generalist teachers from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 6 for the following purposes: 1) to show them how much joy music brings to our lives; 2) to boost their confidence levels by providing tools to make their understanding of musical terms easier and their access to a variety of music activities to do with their students easier; 3) to build ‘teacher music networks’ with a mix of different ability levels in each group (perhaps these networks could meet once a term, with release funds, to share successful teaching strategies in teaching music to their students).”[6]

  3. Our universities in general need to be doing a better job of providing teachers with the necessary skills to teach music effectively. While we firmly believe that more schools across the country should be hiring music specialists, we know this is not going to happen, at least not in the short term. But with better training for generalist teachers, more children in more schools will reap the benefits that a quality music education can bring. We owe it to this generation of students to move past the point where, as one teacher described it, “Music is the ‘extra’ that is done when there is time, and for which there is no space other than the classroom.”[7]

  Hussein, Amy, and Hunter are among the fortunate students whose lives have been enriched by music. Their parents might even go further and say that music changed their children’s entire experience with learning and with school. Strengthening music programs may require resources, but more fundamentally, it requires a will and a belief that music can change young lives.

  “It is my belief that every principal, through creative timetabling, can have a music specialist teach all the students in the school.… If a principal values music education, he/she can find a way to ensure it happens.”[8]

  EN BREF – La musique aide les jeunes à se réaliser, nourrissant leur estime de soi et maintenant leur intérêt. L’enseignante ou l’enseignant constitue le point de départ de tout bon programme scolaire, que ce soit en anglais, en math, en sciences, en histoire, en art – ou en musique. Alors pourquoi, au primaire, y a-t-il tant d’enseignants généralistes – sans formation ni expérience en musique – qui tentent de livrer en classe des programmes de musique? Bien que jouer activement de la musique ait le plus solide impact sur les enfants, un sondage de la Coalition pour l’éducation en musique a révélé que l’écoute se situait au premier rang des activités musicales des écoles. Serait-ce le symptôme d’une pénurie de spécialistes en musique dans les écoles, où il est plus simple de glisser un cédérom dans un lecteur que d’enseigner les rudiments de la théorie musicale ou d’organiser une chorale ou un orchestre? Renforcer les programmes de musique peut nécessiter des ressources, mais plus fondamentalement, la volonté doit y être et il faut détenir la conviction que la musique peut changer la vie des jeunes.

  ---

  [1] A Delicate Balance: Music Education in Canadian Schools, (study commissioned by the Coalition for Music Education, conducted by Hill Strategies Research Inc., 2010).

  [2] Ibid.

  [3] Kevin Merkley, York Region District School Board, as quoted in Louise Brown, “Majority of Music Teachers Lack Musical Background: Survey” Toronto Star (4 November 2010).

  [4] S.L. Baker on a study by Northwestern University Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory. From “Music Benefits the Brain, Research Reveals,” naturalnews.com, July 30, 2010,

  [5] A Delicate Balance.

  [6] Ibid.

  [7] Ibid.

  [8] Ibid.

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