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• What should you do if you suspect mental illness in a student?

  April 7, 2014 4:55 PM Comments Off on What should you do if you suspect mental illness in a student?

  One in five youth under the age of 18 has a diagnosable mental disorder. So in a classroom of 25 children, you can expect five to be struggling with significant emotional problems. How can you recognize the signs? What should you do if you see them?

  Kids develop along different dimensions: physical, social, familial, emotional, cultural, psychological. And there’s a continuum between “normal” and “abnormal”. Most mental illnesses represent an interaction between nature and nurture, and result in a failure of that child to be able to meet their “developmental tasks” (age-appropriate expectations) in the dimensions just mentioned.

  So, recent changes in behaviour that are unusually intense, frequent, and persistent for that child, should catch your attention. The definition of mental illness is basically subjective distress (“I don’t feel happy”) plus functional impairment (“I just can’t do what I used to do, or what my parents/friends expect me to do.”). A combination of these features is highly suggestive that the student is in trouble.

  Practically speaking, this can look like:

  • changes in sleep, appetite, or energy level;
  • social withdrawal or aggression;
  • new conflict with parents;
  • sadness, worry, or irritability and lack of self-esteem. 

  In the classroom, concentration, memory, organization, and participation can all be affected, with the net result being assignments not handed in and marks going down.

  Risk factors for mental illness include: 

  • recent physical illness in the student or a family member;
  • a family history of mental illness;
  • insult to the student’s brain (e.g. concussion);
  • lack of stable attachment figures (e.g. high conflict divorce, death of a loved one, or frequent moves);
  • single parenthood and poverty; neglect, abuse, or being the victim of bullying;
  • standing out as “different” for any reason (height, weight, intellectual capacity);
  • and difficult temperament (poor self-regulation, prone to hyper-sensitivity and hyper-reactivity).

  What should you do if you suspect mental illness in a student?

  1. Get help – don’t shoulder the burden alone! 
  2. Go slowly – talk to the student directly, and enquire about how things are going for him/her. Then voice your concerns, describing them in a neutral, non-judgmental, and behaviourally verifiable way (“I’ve noticed that lately you’ve stopped playing with your friends at recess, you’re more quiet than usual, and you’re not at the soccer games as much as before.  Is anything going on that you’d like to talk about?”) 
  3. Involve the parents – no student is an island, and often comparing your notes with the parents in extremely informative. If the parents share your concerns, suggest that they contact their family doctor or pediatrician to make sure there isn’t a physical illness. Once that is ruled out, together you can talk about whether a referral to a mental health specialist is warranted.

  The good news in all this is that when mental illness is identified and treated early, the prognosis is excellent. Seventy-five per cent of mental illnesses begin before the age of 20, but because the brains and environments of children are still changeable (“plastic”), the vast majority of youth can overcome their struggles and resume their course of normal development, flourishing, and reaching their natural potential.

  PS: A great resource for parents and teachers is The ABC’s of Mental Health, a free, on-line resource developed by the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre for Children and Families.

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  This blog post is part of CEA’s focus on student mental health, which is also connected to Education Canada Magazine’s student mental health theme issue and a Facts on Education fact sheet on what the research says about effective approaches to improving students’ mental well-being. Please contact info@cea-ace.ca if you would like to contribute a blog post to this series.

• Building Community through Online Contact

  April 2, 2014 2:45 PM Comments Off on Building Community through Online Contact

  Around the world, many children live and attend schools in environments that separate them from neighbours who are different in religion, race or ethnicity. They are living what British Prime Minister David Cameron has called “separate lives.”[1] In other places, children may be separated by distance or historical conflicts. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to cross these boundaries with face-to-face contact, so innovative educators in many countries have turned to online learning programs as a way of bringing children from diverse communities together. In this article, we will look at some examples of projects that bring students together in this way in Ireland, the U.K., Europe, and Israel and we suggest ways in which the approach might work in Canada.

  Community cohesion

  In the United Kingdom at the turn of the century, concerns about ethnic strife that focused on immigrant communities, specifically race riots in Bradford, led to a study commonly called The Cantle Report.[2] In that report, the authors found that Britain’s children were living in socially isolated communities, in what some researchers called “isolated, parallel lives” and others referred to as a process of “enclivisation.” The issues seemed similar to those that led to the famous 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision[3] that concluded “separate is not equal” when it comes to schooling.

  Concern about the impact of social divisions on school children is not limited to the U.K. and the U.S. Immigrants from former colonies face similar “parallel lives” across Europe, and there is religious and ethnic separation in Israel. There are tribal conflicts in Africa and ethnic divisions in Asian countries. We see similar phenomena in Canada in the “two solitudes” of French and English Canada, in the isolation of Aboriginal communities, and in efforts to deal effectively with the needs of new Canadians.

  The idea behind “community cohesion,” then, is to find ways to build a sense of inclusion or belongingness in which individuals who differ in religion, ethnicity, or other ways identify themselves with a common set of social goals.[4]

  Why use online learning to promote community cohesion?

  It might seem that the logical way to bring communities together would be to have people meet face to face to work collaboratively on issues that would give them shared experiences and a basis for greater mutual understanding. This is the reasoning that led the U.S. Supreme Court to abolish segregated schools. It is also the heart of what social scientists call the “contact hypothesis” – a clearly elaborated and highly researched argument that says when people from different groups work together, there is a reduction in prejudice among members of those groups.

  However, in Israel, teacher education researchers at the Mofet Institute have found that when cultural norms (and possibly safety concerns) demand separate schools for students of different religious and ethnic groups (as well as separation of the sexes in some cultures), both teachers and children can grow increasingly comfortable with cross-community communication in online environments that minimize the appearance of those differences.

  On the island of Ireland, the Dissolving Boundaries Programme has accumulated over a decade of experience in bringing children from the Republic of Ireland together with children in Northern Ireland to work collaboratively online on curriculum questions.

  We have found no examples of North American school projects that used online learning methods with the explicit objective of increasing community cohesion. In the U.S., the difficulty at present is that although many children attend racially and ethnically integrated schools, few are actually in classes with students who differ racially or ethnically from themselves.[5] If 60 years of bringing groups together in the same building has not resulted in increased social and academic contact, then it might well be time to try online communication that is designed to do just that. In Canada, the more pressing problem may be the great distances that separate many Aboriginal students from other Canadians, but once again, online communication could overcome the challenges posed by those distances.

  In short, the focus of online communication is communication and the goal of community cohesion is to get people communicating with others who differ from themselves. We have the technology; why not give it a try?

  International examples

  Ireland’s Dissolving Boundaries Programme[6] began in 1999 as a collaboration between the National University of Ireland at Maynooth, in the Republic of Ireland, and the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. Ireland was divided in two by a 1921 treaty that sought to end centuries of conflict between Ireland and England. Throughout the 20^th century, however, conflict continued until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. This history of conflict has left a legacy of suspicion and distrust that continues to affect relations between the two parts of Ireland, and also between those in Northern Ireland who favour union with the Republic and those who prefer to maintain a closer connection with the U.K.

  The Dissolving Boundaries Programme, importantly, was funded by the governments of both parts of Ireland. The project draws inspiration from the “contact hypothesis” and provides support for teachers who are willing to use technology to enable their students to work on common curriculum issues with students in the other part of Ireland. Currently, over 200 school-based projects involve hundreds of teachers and thousands of children who use online conference software, videos, and email to work together on teacher-developed activities that engage students in shared research, problem solving and writing in all curriculum areas. Face-to-face annual meetings are seen as an important motivational aspect of this program. Research and evaluations have consistently shown that the students enjoy the experience, that they feel they know more about students in the “other” community, and that they have more positive attitudes toward people who are different from themselves.

  The eTwinning program[7] in Europe seeks to address a host of challenges involved in creating a political and economic union of people from a variety of cultures with different languages and a long history of conflict – including the two world wars in the 20^th century. Additional challenges relate to the influx of people from former colonies and the further cultural and religious differences brought by immigrant workers. In 2005, the eTwinning program was created to promote the use of computer-based communication technologies to bring school children together in education projects that crossed national boundaries, with the intention of promoting mutual understanding and tolerance.

  It is telling that eTwinning changed its motto in 2008, from “school partnerships in Europe” to “the community for schools in Europe.” By July of 2012, there were 33 ministries of education participating in eTwinning and over 170,000 participants in more than 5,300 school-based projects. Assessments of the effects of the eTwinning program have largely been in the form of case studies and the perceptions of participants. In general, they indicate that participants believe the projects have increased technological skills, supported meaningful collaboration, and fostered improved understanding of other members of the European community.

  Israel’s Mofet Institute also uses communications technologies to bring together children from the country’s ethnically and religiously diverse community. (Major religious groups are Jewish, Islamic, Christian and Druze; major ethnic groups are Jewish and Arabic.) The task is complicated by the diversity within these major religious and cultural groups. Since some of these groups require religiously separate education and some also require separate education by gender, many of Israel’s children attend schools with classmates who are very like them; however, there are also schools with a greater diversity in the student population. The divisions reflect the divisions in society, including housing patterns, and for many of Israel’s children there is little opportunity for face-to-face interaction with children from other Israeli communities.

  Israeli researchers began their online work by bringing together teacher educators who were prepared to conduct online projects in the schools. The project leaders in the teacher education faculties have developed a variety of models of online educational interaction, including games that stimulate discussion of social issues. More recently, Israeli projects have engaged students in the use of social media to reach out across religious and ethnic barriers. Research based on interviews with teachers and students has generally showed that students begin the online class projects with concerns and reservations about communication with members of the “other” group, but that at the end, they report increased levels of trust and reduced levels of prejudice.

  Challenges to community cohesion in Canada

  How might such programs be of value in Canada? As noted earlier, many Aboriginal Canadians live in remote areas that impose a form of geographical isolation. We also have the French-English linguistic divide. Lastly, new Canadians often live in urban areas where school children may have contact with their own and other immigrant communities, but may not have much exposure to Canadian communities that were established long before their arrival. In each of these cases, in different ways, we believe that online school projects aimed at common curriculum objectives would contribute to a more cohesive Canada.

  Canada has the technology to implement such programs and many of its teachers (and students) already have the necessary technological skills, so what is stopping us? One major challenge may be the issue of jurisdiction – education is a provincial responsibility so there are different curricula and no formal mechanism for national projects. Exacerbating this issue, Aboriginal education is a federal responsibility. However, if we look at the European Union, the national differences are even greater than our provincial differences. The E.U. put eTwinning into operation as a voluntary program built on individual teacher initiative, with professional development and small financial support as incentives. The Council of Ministers of Education of Canada is well situated to take a similar leadership role in building a comparable pan-Canadian program, and doing so would be a nation-building enterprise of considerable importance.

  For this to work, we need to have faith in the ingenuity of Canadian teachers to find the curriculum matches that would make joint projects feasible. It may well be that such matches would prove to be easier than we might expect, given previous collaborative initiatives like the “Western protocol” and the use of a relatively common set of textbooks. Here, too, the example of the E.U. could be useful – the eTwinning website provides extensive guidance on how to find partner teachers and how to design and develop online learning projects.

  Online schooling services in many provinces could also be a strong catalyst to moving quickly once an initiative has begun. As a bonus, such a program could provide the incentive for technological skill development in some teachers who have yet to find a reason to bring technology into their classrooms.

  Language issues could, of course, be a sensitive point in developing Canadian online projects. While most eTwinning projects are conducted in English, the only language requirements of the program are that the teachers agree which language is to be used and the students have comparable levels of achievement in that language. In Canada we might want to encourage some bilingual projects in which learners use both official languages. Teachers working with Aboriginal students might see merit in projects that give their students opportunities to teach Native languages to other Canadian students. The key point is that the projects should encourage appreciation of linguistic diversity and support the learning of language skills.

  Having examined the use of online learning to build community cohesion elsewhere in the world, we see a grand opportunity for Canada to not only learn from what has been done elsewhere, but also to develop a homegrown version that could be an important part of Canadian nation-building in the 21^st century.

  Illustration: Dave Donald

  First published in Education Canada, March 2014

  
  

  EN BREF – Les comparaisons internationales des résultats scolaires ont suscité beaucoup d’intérêt au cours des 20 dernières années. Ces comparaisons tendent à porter sur la littératie, la numératie et les habiletés de résolution de problèmes, en partie parce que l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques a ouvert la voie à l’élaboration de mesures fiables. Toutefois, dans de nombreux pays, les gouvernements reconnaissent que les écoles jouent un important rôle pour développer l’identité communautaire ou nationale – elles ont la responsabilité de rapprocher les gens. L’article porte sur quelques exemples internationaux de programmes scolaires élaborés pour développer la cohésion communautaire et demande aux enseignants canadiens d’établir quelles leçons peuvent être tirées de ces initiatives.

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  [1] D. Cameron, Speech on radicalisation and Islamic extremism (Feb. 5, 2011), reprinted by the NewStatesman.www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/02/terrorism-islam-ideology

  [2] T. Cantle, Community Cohesion: A report of the independent review team (London: Home Office, 2001).http://resources.cohesioninstitute.org.uk/Publications/Documents/Document/DownloadDocumentsFile.aspx?recordId=96&file=PDFversion

  [3] Brown v. Board of Education, United States Supreme Court, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=347&invol=483

  [4] S. Muers, “What is community cohesion, and why is it important?” The Guardian (March 21, 2011).www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2011/mar/21/community-cohesion-definition-measuring

  [5] G. Orfield, J. Kucsera, and G. Siegel-Hawley, E Pluribus . . . Separation: Deepening double segregation for more students, The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles (Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, 2012). http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/mlk-national/e-pluribus…separation-deepening-double-segregation-for-more-students

  [6] The Dissolving Boundaries Programme website is: www.dissolvingboundaries.org

  [7] The eTwinning Programme website is: www.etwinning.net/en/pub/index.htm

• 13-Point Bullying Prevention Plan

  2:24 PM Comments Off on 13-Point Bullying Prevention Plan

  How can a school combat bullying? This article outlines a 13-Point Bullying Prevention Plan that can be led by the principal of any school to both reduce the amount of bullying and provide a safety net for those affected by it. While there is really “nothing new” regarding each of the 13 points, my experience over 14 years as a school superintendent in charge of safe schools in a southwestern Ontario school district is that when a school adheres to all of them, there will be a reduction in bullying. These 13 elements in bullying prevention do not carry a financial requirement for schools and rely on effective principal leadership. What the 13-Point Bullying Prevention Plan is not about, however, is a “quick fix.” Successful bullying prevention in schools requires the united efforts of the staff and school community.

  1. Involve the entire school community

  It is very important that staff, starting with the principal and including all teaching staff and anyone else who works in the school – educational assistants, bus drivers, support personnel, and parent volunteers – be actively aware of bullying and able to address it. The school community must be on board with bullying prevention. Only through the concerted efforts of the school staff, in conjunction with the school community, can bullying be acted on both at school and at home. Start by providing bullying prevention information to the school community at the start of each school year, as well as outlining the consequences for bullying behaviour.

  As well, some class time should be devoted on an ongoing basis to discussing bullying and peer relationships with students. Bullying prevention themes and messages can be incorporated into daily activities and can be displayed in hallways and classrooms. It is critical that the bully prevention focus is not simply given “lip service” by staff. It must genuinely be a priority within the school and must rank as a topic of importance alongside literacy, numeracy, and secondary graduation rates.

  2. Establish a bullying prevention committee

  The principal, as leader of the school, should establish and lead a bullying prevention committee, with membership comprising representative teachers from different divisions or departments, non-teaching staff, and several parents from the school community. It is the responsibility of this committee to direct the bullying prevention initiative of the school. Since the principal has the legal authority to mete out discipline to students found guilty of bullying, it is appropriate that he or she be the leader of the committee. The committee cannot be allowed to stagnate; membership needs to be changed periodically but the principal remains the key driving force as, ultimately, the effectiveness of any bullying prevention plans rests with him or her.

  3. Create a caring school climate

  For any bullying prevention program to be truly effective, the atmosphere of the school must be warm and inviting. What does that mean? A warm and inviting school is one in which the staff take pride in their school and there are obvious signs of positive learning. Parent and visitors to the school are made to feel welcome by all staff; student work and awards are prominently displayed; staff greet students in the hallways; and there is a feeling of belonging within the building by all who work and study there. Both staff and students work in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Student discipline is fair, appropriate to the circumstances and judiciously applied. Teachers take a personal interest in all of their students.

  A school environment that is supportive, friendly and caring is not conducive to bullying; moreover, it is far easier for victims of bullying to obtain help and assistance in such a setting. Bullies can thrive in schools that do not provide an inclusive, caring, and accepting environment.

  4. Implement a school climate survey

  How does a school know where to start when addressing bullying? The answer begins with a school climate survey. Students, parents, and staff are surveyed about their perceptions of the school atmosphere, and specific questions about bullying that need to be posed, including how much bullying occurs and where it frequently takes place. Repeat the survey at least every two years to monitor any changes within the school community over time. This information can then be used by the bullying prevention committee to map out next steps. Each school is different in staff composition, student demographics, and physical plan; so, results garnered from the surveys will help pinpoint issues related to bullying that are unique to each building.

  5. Identify school “hot spots”

  Each school has certain locations where bullying is far more prevalent. Such “hot spots” necessitate increased adult supervision. At elementary schools, hot spots for bullying usually include the playground and on the buses to and from school. Change rooms for physical education and the cafeteria are places where bullying occurs in both elementary and secondary schools because there is minimal or no direct supervision. Class change times, when students are moving between classes in the hallways, are prime bullying opportunities in middle and secondary schools. All of these potential hot spots should be identified and the school bullying prevention committee must create a plan to provide more adult supervision in these areas, both as a deterrent and so that bullying can be quickly identified and acted upon.

  6. Ensure teachers know how to deal with bullying

  All staff should feel capable of effectively intervening in a bullying situation. When teachers observe bullying, they need to take direct and swift action to end it on the spot. Teachers should be able to support victims and help them to “save face” and calm down. Intervention by teachers into instances of bullying should be routinely and consistently carried out. All staff require some training on what bullying “looks like” and how important it is to nip the bullying quickly before it becomes more entrenched. Up-to-date literature regarding bullying can be disseminated to staff by the school’s bullying prevention committee. A good resource for both teachers and administrators can be found at www.prevnet.ca.

  7. Teach students bullying prevention strategies

  Inevitably, some students are going to be victimized. Those who do not have a cluster of friends to support them will be vulnerable. Students who have minimal friendships and who are non-assertive are at greater risk of being bullied. It is important that schools teach tactics to help students avoid becoming the victims of bullying. 
  Students also need to be made clearly aware of the potential risks that abound with current Internet access. Students should know that if they receive unwanted electronic communication they can IGNORE, BLOCK, and REPORT it.

  8. Establish clear, consistent consequences for bullying behaviour

  Schools must have clear and explicit expectations that bullying behaviour will not be tolerated. School rules/codes of conduct must identify that bullying of all kinds will be dealt with using progressive discipline. There must be teeth to the rules – appropriate consequences, from detention to suspension to possible expulsion for serious incidents, are part of the principal’s arsenal so that the school community fully understands that individual student safety must be upheld.

  Bullies also require support and counselling to help them change their behaviour and acquire empathy for their victims. The principal needs to involve the bully and his or her parents. Efforts to counsel the bully must be coupled with clear disciplinary action that lets the school community know, in no uncertain terms, that bullying is not tolerated.

  9. Don’t turn a blind eye to cyberbullying

  Cyberbullying is definitely here to stay. The rapidly changing and more sophisticated means that students now have to communicate with (and about) one another is a complex issue that must be dealt with by school administrators. Gone are the days when principals could reason that if it “didn’t happen at school” or “it didn’t happen during school hours” they need not deal with cyberbullying. On the contrary, when students target and bully other students through various electronic means, principals have an obligation to investigate, and when necessary, impose disciplinary consequences.

  A constant bombardment of cyberbullying can have a devastating impact on young people. When a student of any age is targeted through the use of e-mail, texting, sexting, Facebook, Twitter, or other means, the victim is at risk of emotional traumatization. This is not conducive to learning and must be brought to the attention of the school administrator. When it is, principals must investigate just as they would any other alleged misbehaviour involving students.

  A tremendous resource for both teachers and school administrators can be found at www.cyberbullying.us. This site is managed by two American experts in cyberbullying, Dr. Justin Patchin and Dr. Sameer Hinduja, who are co-directors of the Cyberbullying Research Center in the U.S.

  10. Establish a school bullying tracking system

  A means of tracking bullying incidents at schools – whether it is the tried-and-true binder containing a list of bullying incidents or an electronic database – is essential. The reason is quite simple: aggressors bully repeatedly. By having a constantly updated file listing all such infractions, principals have names, dates, types of incidents and consequences at their fingertips. As a result, a profile of who is victimized and who is doing the bullying can be accurately identified. Progressive discipline can be used on offenders while support can be provided to the victims. The most important benefit of such a tracking system, however, is the impact that it has on the student body. Students soon realize that bullying is being closely monitored and that there are clear, negative consequences in store for all who bully. Bullies are more closely watched by school staff because of their “track record.”

  Gone are the days when principals could reason that if it “didn’t happen at school” or it “didn’t happen during school hours” they need not deal with cyberbullying.

  11. Establish a confidential reporting system

  A confidential reporting system does not need to be an elaborate set-up that requires much time and effort. Some schools employ a “talking locker” where students can leave anonymous notes identifying bullies and/or victims. Some secondary schools have employed electronic communication between students and school administrators via a link from the school webpage. Whatever method is used, the critical issue is that there is a vehicle available for students to be able to let the school authorities know, in a confidential way, of victimization that is taking place.

  Just having the principal walking the hallways and grounds of the school is a useful strategy. When a principal is consistently present in the hallways and classrooms at class change, recess and lunch time, he or she gains valuable insights regarding student behaviour. By careful observation, an astute principal can sense when a student has been marginalized and potentially targeted. Potential targets of bullying can be identified and referred to the school’s bullying prevention committee.

  12. School staff must provide support for victims of bullying

  This is a critical requirement for an effective school response to any form of bullying. Victims of bullying need support to clarify the truth that what they have been subjected to was wrong and must not continue. Whether speaking to a classroom teacher, an educational assistant, a social worker, a child and youth worker, or a guidance counsellor, victims need to be able to sit with someone and express their feelings about being bullied and receive individual support and counselling.

  13. Bring new staff members into the program

  One of the many challenges that principals face is constant and ongoing staff changes each year. Principals need to ensure that all incoming staff members are immersed in bullying prevention policies and procedures. New staff members who may not understand the potential damaging impact of bullying need to receive this information upon their arrival. Buddying up teachers new to a school with experienced staff who can mentor them on how the school “deals” with bullying is a way to quickly help the new faculty recognize and understand the importance of student safety and the prevention of victimization. As obvious as it seems, students should be able to count on school staff for protection from bullying and it is important that new staff recognize what to look for and how to respond when bullying occurs.

  The 13-point Bullying Prevention Plan has no costs associated with its implementation and will have a significant impact on reducing school bullying. I encourage you to try it at your school.

  Photo: iStock

  First published in Education Canada, March 2014

  
  

  EN BREF – Comment une école peut-elle combattre l’intimidation? Cet article énonce un programme en 13 points de prévention de l’intimidation que peut mener la direction de n’importe quelle école à la fois pour réduire la fréquence de l’intimidation et pour fournir un filet de sécurité aux personnes touchées. Bien que ces 13 points ne comportent rien de vraiment nouveau, l’intimidation diminue lorsqu’une école les instaure tous, d’après l’expérience de plus de 14 ans de l’auteur à titre de surintendant responsable de la sécurité dans les écoles d’un conseil scolaire du sud-ouest de l’Ontario. Ces 13 éléments de prévention de l’intimidation n’imposent pas de charge financière aux écoles et s’appuient sur un leadership efficace de la direction d’école et sur les efforts conjoints du personnel et de la communauté scolaire.

• What are effective approaches to improving students’ mental well-being?

  12:00 AM Comments Off on What are effective approaches to improving students’ mental well-being?

  Youth mental health is of great concern in Canada and around the world. The Canadian Mental Health Association estimates that 10-20% of Canadian youth are affected by a mental disorder; other studies indicate even higher rates of depression, behavioural issues, and bullying in school settings. In addition to problems with attendance associated with these issues, learning is also often negatively impacted. Many researchers and practitioners believe that incorporating mental health programming into curricula is critical to addressing this issue. When the Mental Health Commission of Canada released the nation’s first national mental health strategy in 2012, child and youth mental health was identified as a priority and school-based programs were suggested as an effective tool to promote mental health.

  Many programs have been implemented on a board, district, or provincial level in Canada; a recent scan published by the School-based Mental Health and Substance Abuse (SBMHSA) consortium identified over 100 programs currently in use across the country. The challenge in determining which programs are most effective lies in the lack of evidence-based research. While the body of research around school-based mental health programs is growing steadily, it is scattered, often evaluating a single program in a single setting and few programs have more than one or two evaluations. Based on this limited evidence, two programs were strongly recommended in the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Toolkit developed by the Canadian Prevention Science Cluster (Atlantic). They are Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) and Second Step. Another program, Zippy’s Friends, achieved positive results in a Quebec study.

  Despite the scattered nature of program evaluation, the research that does exist indicates a common understanding on the characteristics of an effective program. School based programs should:

  • be part of a comprehensive school health initiative and reach all students rather than targeting those identified as having mental health issues;
  • be collaborative – with educators, students, parents, community agencies, and health providers working together;
  • focus on promotion of positive mental health rather than reaction to mental illness;
  • be adaptable to meet the needs and resources of the setting.

  Additionally, attention must be paid to how programs are implemented in schools. Even when adapted to suit the local circumstances, programs must be delivered with fidelity to the original design. The process and outcomes must be closely monitored to ensure the desired results are achieved. Resources need to be available for training and support of program delivery personnel.

  The mental well-being of children and youth is a critical issue for parents, educators, health care providers, researchers, and policy-makers. These groups need to work together not only to continue gathering evidence on programming models, but to also begin building effective or promising programs into curricula now.

  CHILD AND YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMMING

  • Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS)
  • Second Step
  • Zippy’s Friends

  CHILD AND YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS AND ONLINE RESOURCES

  • School Mental Health Assist
  • First Call – B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition
  • Canadian Health & Youth Health Coalition
  • Teen Mental Health
  • Related Videos
  • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)
  • Ontario Public School Boards Association
  • Canadian Prevention Science Cluster – Atlantic
  • Canadian Prevention Science Cluster
  • Pan-Canadian Consortium on Youth Mental Health – Positive Mental Health Toolkit
  • Fast Facts about Mental Illness – Canadian Mental Health Association
  • Improving Health and Wellbeing for Children and Youth in Challenging Contexts
  • International Alliance for Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Schools
  • OPHEA
  • Partners for Mental Health

  MENTAL HEALTH WEBSITES FOR YOUTH

  • Mental Health Commission of Canada Youth Council
  • My Health Magazine – Youth Edition

  CHILD AND YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM SCANS

  • A Scan of Canadian Practices – School Based Mental Health and Substance Abuse Consortium
  • Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development – Centre for the Study of Prevention of Violence
  • What Works Clearinghouse – Institute of Educational Sciences
  • CASEL Guide – Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs
    

  REFERENCES

  Dufour, S., Denoncourt, J., & Mishara, B. L. (2011). Improving children’s adaptation: New evidence regarding the effectiveness of Zippy’s Friends, a school mental health promotion program. Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 4(3), 18-28.

  Government of Alberta. (2013). Mental health capacity building in schools initiative. Author.

  Guyn Cooper Research Associates. (2013). Issue brief: Social and emotional learning in Canada. Carthy Foundation and Max Bell Foundation.

  Kutcher, S. (2013). Bringing schools to mental health and bringing mental health to schools: Challenges, confusions and opportunities. MASS Journal, Spring, 12-15.

  Kutcher, S., McLuckie, A., & Child for Youth Advisory Committee, Mental Health Commission of Canada. (2010). Evergreen: A child and youth mental health framework for Canada. Calgary, AB: Mental Health Commission of Canada.

  Leadbeater, B. J., Gladstone, E., Yeung Thompson, R. S., Sukhawathanakul, P., & Desjardins, T. (2012). Getting started: Assimilatory process of uptake of mental health promotion and primary prevention programmes in elementary schools. Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 5(4), 258-276.

  Leahy, M., & Robb, C. (2013). Building a better school environment for youth with mental health and addiction issues. Toronto, ON: Children’s Mental Health Ontario.

  LeBlanc, J. C., Parkington, K., Varatharasan, N., Donato, A., & Bilsbury, T. (2013). Social and emotional learning programs for schools. CPSC Atlantic.

  Levitt, J. M., Saka, N., Hunter Romanelli, L., & Hoagwood, K. (2007). Early identification of mental health problems in schools: The status of instrumentation. Journal of School Psychology, 45(2), 163-191. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2006.11.005

  Manion, I., Short, K. H., & Ferguson, B. (2013). A snapshot of school-based mental health and substance abuse in Canada: Where we are and where it leads us. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 28(1), 119-135.

  Mental Health Commission of Canada. (2012). Changing directions, changing lives: The mental health strategy for Canada. Calgary, AB: Author.

  Morrison, W., Kirby, P., & Joint Consortium for School Health. (2010). Schools as a setting for promoting positive mental health: Better practices and perspectives (literature review). Charlottetown, PE: Joint Consortium for School Health

  Morrison, W., Kirby, P., & Joint Consortium for School Health. (2010). Schools as a setting for promoting positive mental health: Better practices and perspectives. Charlottetown, PE: Joint Consortium for School Health.

  O’Mara, L., & Lind, C. (2013). What do we know about school mental health promotion programmes for children and youth? Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 6(3), 203-224.

  Omstead, D., Canales, C., Perry, R., Dutton, K., Morrison, C., & Hawe, P. (2009). Learning from turbulent, real-world practice: Insights from a whole-school mental health promotion project. Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 2(2), 5-16.

  Paglia-Boak, A., Adlaf, E. M., Hamilton, H. A., Beitchman, J. H., Wolfe, D., & Mann, R. E. (2012). The mental health and well-being of Ontario students 1991-2011: Detailed OSDUHS findings. (CAMH Research Document Series No. 34). Toronto: ON: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

  Santor, D., & Bagnell, A. L. (2008). Enhancing the effectiveness and sustainability of school-based mental health programs: Maximizing program participation, knowledge uptake and ongoing evaluation using internet-based resources. Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 1(2), 17-28.

  Santor, D., & Bagnell, A. L. (2012). Maximizing the uptake and sustainability of school-based mental health programs: Commercializing knowledge. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 21(1), 81-92.

  Santor, D., Short, K., & Ferguson, B. (2009). Taking mental health to school: A policy-oriented paper on school-based mental health for Ontario. Ottawa, ON: The Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health at CHEO.

  School-Based Mental Health and Substance Abuse (SBMHSA) Consortium. (2013). School-based mental health in Canada: A final report. Mental Health Commission of Canada.

  Tilleczek, K., & Lezeu, K. (in press). Journeys in Youth Mental Health. Education Canada

  Ttofi, M. M., & Farrington, D. P. (2011). Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: A systematic and meta-analytic review. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 7(1), 27-56.

  Wei, Y., Kutcher, S., & Szumilas, M. (2011). Comprehensive school mental health: An integrated “School-based pathway to care” model for Canadian secondary schools. McGill Journal of Education, 46(2), 213-229.

  Weist, M. D., & Murray, M. (2008). Advancing school mental health promotion globally. Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 1(sup1), 2-12.

  Wells, G., Biewener, M., Whitman, C. V., Sebian, J., Popp, J., Short, K., . . . Weist, M. D. (2011). The formation of a Canada-United States school mental health alliance. Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 4(3), 42-54.

• School Overload

  April 1, 2014 9:35 PM Comments Off on School Overload

  Over the past 60 years, our society has moved evermore toward a school-centric view of child development, which I’m calling here the schoolish view. The schoolish view is this: Children need regular adult guidance. Children benefit more when they are supervised and directed by adults than when they play on their own. Children, including adolescents, have immature brains and are ill equipped to make good decisions for themselves. Left to their own devices they will take risks and ignore dangers, so it is best to monitor them continuously. Learning derives mainly from school lessons and other adult-directed activities, not from children’s self-directed activities. Parents should be assistant teachers. They should monitor their children’s homework, reward their children for doing well in school, seek “teachable moments,” buy toys that are specifically designed to teach the kinds of skills and information emphasized in school, and encourage their children to join school-like, adult-directed sports, clubs, and classes outside of school.

  There are many reasons for the rise of this schoolish view, but we educators are at least partly to blame. We have allowed school to become more central to children’s lives (and to their parents’ lives) than it should be. We have forgotten that the most important lessons children must learn in order to grow into socially and psychologically competent adults are not taught in school, but are learned through self-directed activities, especially play. Here I will summarize some of the evidence for the damage that the schoolish view has done and offer some hints as to how we might help restore children’s freedom to play.

  Young parents and teachers may not even realize the degree to which our culture has shifted in its view of childhood. When I was a child, in the 1950s, school had not yet burst out of its walls to affect the child’s whole world. The school day was six hours long, as it generally is today, but in the elementary schools I attended we had a half-hour recess in the morning, a full hour of free time at lunch, and another half-hour recess in the afternoon. At lunch we were free to go anywhere we wanted, including off campus.

  Homework for elementary school students was almost unheard of. Out of school, most of us had some chores, and some had a part-time job (such as delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, or babysitting), but even that gave us a sense of personal accomplishment, self-direction, and maturity that is rarely found in schoolwork. The rest of our time, including all summer long, was largely our own, to do with what we wanted. We were free to go where we wanted, as long as we could get there on our own.

  If we played sports, they were almost always pickup games, where we had to negotiate the rules and solve all problems ourselves, without adult coaches or umpires to tell us what to do. Our hobbies were of our own choosing and under our own control. In the summer we read what we wanted, not assignments from a school-dictated reading list. There seemed to be a general understanding, not necessarily stated, that children need lots of time to play and explore on their own for healthy development.

  These are not just nostalgic musings. Social scientists have documented the continuous and dramatic decline of freedom of movement and play for children over these decades.[1] The historian Howard Chudacoff refers to the first half of the 20^th century as “the golden age” of free play for children in the United States.[2] But since about 1955, adults have continuously chipped away at children’s freedom, as the schoolish view has gained ever-greater momentum.

  As children’s freedom has declined, we have seen a gradual, but ultimately huge, increase in all sorts of mental disorders in children and young adults. These have been documented by analyzing the results of clinical assessment questionnaires given in unchanged form to normative samples of young people over the decades.[3] (The findings I describe here are from the U.S., where the most extensive studies have been done, but there is reason to believe that the same applies generally to Canada, the UK, and other Western countries.) By these measures, the rates of clinically serious depression and anxiety in young people increased five- to eight-fold between the mid 1950s and late 1990s.[4] During that same period, the suicide rate quadrupled in children under 15 and more than doubled in young people between 15 and 24 (and did not increase in older adults).[5] More recently, the rates of childhood depression and suicide, and some indices of anxiety, have leveled off or even declined somewhat, but these recent changes appear to be attributable to a huge increase in the prescription of psychoactive drugs to young people and to suicide-prevention programs, not to a cultural shift that has made children’s lives less depressing or anxiety-inducing.[6]

  Analyses of other clinical questionnaires given over the years to normative samples of children and adolescents have produced similarly sad results. Such research reveals that young peoples’ sense of being in control of their own lives has been declining continuously since the 1950s,[7] that narcissism has been increasing and empathy decreasing ever since tests for these were developed in the late 1970s,[8] and that creative thinking has been declining in K-12 schoolchildren, at least since the mid 1980s.[9]

  What has caused this deterioration in children’s mental and social well-being? The changes do not correlate with economic cycles, or wars, or with changes in the divorce rate, but do correlate very well with the decline in children’s freedom. In fact, these are exactly the changes that we would predict would occur as a result of a decline in children’s opportunities to play freely.[10]

  In play, children discover and pursue their passions, with no bells interrupting them, and develop skills related to those passions, which can lead eventually to rewarding and enjoyable careers. In play, away from adults, children learn to solve their own problems and take control of their own lives. In social play, children learn how to make friends and see from one another’s perspectives. Play, by definition, is an activity that you are always free to quit; so, to keep any game going, each player must be concerned with the other players’ happiness, so they don’t quit. To do that, each player must see from the other players’ points of view, which is the essence of empathy and the opposite of narcissism.

  Play builds emotional resilience that protects children from clinically significant depression and anxiety. In play children develop confidence that they can solve problems as they arise, so the world become less frightening and more manageable. When children play at “dangerous” things, such as climbing high in trees, they are testing and building on their own capacity to experience and overcome fear – a capacity that allows them to experience fear without panic, which may one day, in a real emergency, save their lives. Young mammals of many species also play at moderately dangerous activities, apparently for the same reason.[11] Children also inevitably, on occasion, get angry at one another in their play, but if they are to continue playing they must learn to control that anger. And so, in play, children learn to regulate their emotions. They learn to take life’s stressors with equanimity.

  When adults are always around to solve children’s problems, resolve their disputes, and stop them from playing in ways that look rough or dangerous, children can’t learn these things. Adults, of course, are crucial to children’s well-being. They are models, nurturers, sources of security, and teachers. But when adults take over children’s lives as completely as they do now, the results are harmful. Play, away from adults, is how children learn to become adults, because that is where they must be responsible for themselves and for one another. We need to permit children lots of opportunity for such play if we want them to grow up socially competent, emotionally resilient, and happy.

  We educators can help children by doing the opposite of what so many of us are doing now. We can advocate for less time sitting in classrooms, less homework, less pressure to pass tests or take honours courses or get high grades, and more opportunity for free play and exploration with no adults hovering. We can open up school playgrounds and gymnasiums and art rooms for free play after school hours, perhaps with a teenaged or adult supervisor present just for emergencies, not to intervene or interfere. We can work to reduce, rather than increase, parents’ concerns about their children’s school performance. We can help parents and others in the community realize that education is far more than schooling. It is all of learning, and most of what children must learn for a happy and healthy life can occur only outside of the classroom, when children are truly free. We can help our communities realize that safe places for children to play with one another are at least as important as good schools, and we can work in our communities to create those safe places.

  Photo: iStock

  First published in Education Canada, March 2014

  
  

  EN BREF: Depuis plus d’un demi-siècle, notre société évolue de plus en plus vers ce que l’auteur appelle une approche « scolarisante » de l’éducation des enfants, qui sont pratiquement toujours surveillés et dirigés par des adultes et où le jeu libre tient très peu de place. Cette diminution de la liberté pendant l’enfance s’est accompagnée de hausses marquées de la dépression, de l’anxiété, du sentiment d’impuissance et du suicide, de même que d’une baisse de l’empathie chez les jeunes. L’auteur soutient que ces déclins du bien-être mental et social correspondent exactement à ce qu’on devrait s’attendre par suite d’un déficit de jeu et d’autres possibilités d’autodétermination. Il attribue aux éducateurs, du moins en partie, la responsabilité de ces changements sociétaux et nous incite maintenant à faire ce que nous pouvons pour les renverser.

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  [1] Peter Gray, “The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents,” American Journal of Play 3, No. 4 (2011): 443-463.

  [2] Howard P. Chudacoff, Children at Play: An American history (New York: New York University Press, 2007).

  [3] Gray, “The Decline of Play,” 443-463.

  [4] Jean M. Twenge, “The Age of Anxiety? The birth cohort change in anxiety and neuroticism, 1952-1993,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, No. 6 (2000): 1007–21; Jean M. Twenge, Brittany Gentile, C. Nathan DeWall, Debbie Ma, Katharine Lacefield, and David R. Schurtz, “Birth Cohort Increases in Psychopathology Among Young Americans, 1938–2007: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of the MMPI,” Clinical Psychology Review 30, No. 2 (2010): 145–54.

  [5] For suicide rates by age group from 1950 to 2005, see: www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html#axzz0zVy5PKaL 

  [6] Jean M. Twenge, “Generational Differences in Mental Health: Are children and adolescents suffering more, or less?” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 81, No. 4 (2011): 469-472.

  [7] Jean M. Twenge, Liqing Zhang, and Charles Im, “It’s Beyond My Control: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of increasing externality in locus of control, 1960–2002,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 8, No. 3 (2004): 308–19.

  [8] Sarah H. Konrath, Edward H. O’Brien, and Courtney Hsing, “Changes in Dispositional Empathy in American College Students over Time,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 15, No. 2 (2011): 180-198; Jean M. Twenge, “The Evidence for Generation Me and Against Generation We,” Emerging Adulthood 1 (2013): 11-16.

  [9] Kyung Hee Kim, “The Creativity Crisis: The decrease in creative thinking scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking,” Creativity Research Journal 23, No. 4 (2011): 285-295.

  [10] Peter Gray, Free to Learn: Why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better students for life (New York: Basic Books, 2011). 

  [11] Marek Spinka, Ruth C. Newberry, and Marc Bekoff, “Mammalian Play: Training for the unexpected,” Quarterly Review of Biology 76, No. 2 (2001): 141–68.

• World Traveler

  9:16 PM Comments Off on World Traveler

  I love maps! In my filing cabinet at home I have multiple maps from places I have been and places I would love to see. I dream of traveling around the world, and in my classroom I try to inspire my students’ curiosity about the world.

  Three years ago, I began the World Traveler project, which is based on the Flat Stanley books by Jeff Brown, with my Grade 6 students. This is a project that is part tourist and part chain letter. Here’s how it works:

  My students’ first task is to find someone they know, or someone their parents know, outside of their hometown – the further away the better. Once the students locate an initial contact, they start making a paper character to act as their traveler. Much like the old custom of travelers in days past presenting a letter of introduction, my students write a letter introducing their paper traveler to all the people their character might encounter. Each traveler is enclosed in a school notebook with the student’s introductory letter and a note from me. In my letter, I ask each person who receives this journal to take the traveler around their location, documenting the visit with a written account and pictures and/or tourism pamphlets of their locations in the notebook. I then encourage whoever receives the journal to pass it on to someone else they know. The notebook acts as the passport chronicling the journey of our travelers. Each participant is asked to send a postcard with a small update of our travelers’ progress around the world to the class. I also ask whoever has the traveler on June 1st of that year to return it to our school.

  I wanted my students to see multiple adventures through the eyes of their paper stand-ins. The students and parents of my first group embraced the idea, and we started making our travel buddies. At the front of my classroom waited an empty world map, begging to be filled with pins marking the path of our travelers.

  By the end of that first year of “traveling,” our characters had seen the depths of the Grand Canyon and the heights of the Himalayas. That first year was a fantastic success. I knew I had to do it again.

  This past year when I moved schools and grades, I wondered how my project would succeed. My Grade 3/4 students were curious, the parents were receptive, and so we made our travelers, packed their books, and sent them into the world.

  Just as before, postcards started coming in the mail and the world map began filling with pins.

  The first postcards came from North America and Europe. Pictures of the London Eye, Venetian gondolas, and the faces of Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Francis were among the early arrivals. Halfway through the year, images of Egypt and Machu Pichu in South America arrived. By the end of the year, some of our travelers had made it to the pyramids of Egypt, Jerusalem, Australia, the Great Wall of China, and the mythical lands of Middle Earth in New Zealand. Some lucky travelers had lounged on the beach in Cuba and Jamaica, and caught a parade at Walt Disney World. One traveler ventured to Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point in Africa, to see where the Atlantic Ocean met the Indian Ocean.

  The kids were thrilled to hear about the latest adventures of their world travelers, and we started learning about the countries where our travelers were sightseeing. The students were making connections to the world beyond the classroom. 

  The last weeks of school were filled with wonder as the travel journals and the paper travelers started to return home. Their journeys were detailed for the students in writing and with accompanying photos by the willing participants.

  This current school year I am back teaching Grade 5/6 in a new town, with a chance to try my project on a new group of students. This year I plan to create a website for our travelers and their friends to upload pictures and blog about their adventures. My Grade 3/4 students had travelers that made it to six continents; I wonder if this time we could make it to Antarctica?

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  Getting started

  To start your own World Traveler project, begin by reading Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown to your students. Then send a letter home to your parents explaining your project and asking them to locate someone they know, either family or friends, who can help be a part of this project.

  At school, have the students create a paper character. I have always provided the students with the outline of a paper character; they colour and decorate it, then I laminate it for travel. After the character is created, I have the students write an introductory letter about their character, describing the unique characteristics of their paper friend. This allows for a couple of assessment opportunities in Language and Visual Arts. When that is done, the letter is stapled to the first page of each student’s travel journal, usually a classroom notebook. On the cover I paste my letter explaining the project and the goal of continual travel for our friends until the first of June, which requires the initial participant to find someone else to forward the traveler to. The students take the journals home, and with their parents they mail them off.

  This is a fun project, but it requires faith in others. Though all students send out a journal, sometimes we lose some world travelers in the mail. It is important to stress at the beginning that this can happen, but that we as a class experience the world through all our travelers.

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  Photo: courtesy Bill Gowsell

  First published in Education Canada, March 2014

   

  EN BREF – J’adore voyager, et pour aider mes élèves à s’ouvrir sur le monde, j’ai lancé un projet appelé World Traveler (voyageur du monde). Les élèves créent une voyageuse ou un voyageur de papier et amorcent son voyage en l’envoyant à une connaissance qui apporte ensuite le personnage de papier dans ses déplacements dans la ville où elle vit (et lors de tout autre voyage effectué), puis rend compte à la classe au moyen de cartes postales traitant des progrès du personnage voyageur. Les élèves rédigent une lettre de présentation décrivant leur personnage et, à la fin de septembre, ils postent à leur destinataire un paquet contenant la lettre, le personnage voyageur, un cahier et une lettre que j’ai rédigée. La classe attend ensuite des nouvelles des aventures.

  Au début de juin, le trajet prend fin, les cahiers de voyage commencent à revenir à la classe et les élèves peuvent constater la grande distance parcourue par leur petite création.

• Minding Your Mind

  March 28, 2014 7:46 PM Comments Off on Minding Your Mind

  Recently, in Canada and indeed globally, the unmet emotional and mental health needs of young people stand squarely in the spotlight. Many young people navigate the changes of adolescence well, yet some experience serious difficulty. Mental health problems such as anxiety and mood disorders, psychosis, eating disorders, personality disorders and substance abuse begin in childhood, during peaks in brain development and impacted by complex social contexts.[1] One in five Canadian youth is at risk for a mental illness,[2] while only 25 percent of youth get the help they need, in the way they need it.[3]

  Stigma is a massive barrier for youth experiencing mental health challenges. It contributes to feelings of shame for being different and perpetuates silence. A young adult describes the burden of stigma during her extended high school experience: “You don’t know how to tell them (peers) and it’s not something they can visibly see is wrong with you… I wish I could go back now, stand in front of my class and just say, Hi I’m Paige and I have an anxiety disorder and that’s that.” Instead of finding support from her peers, she tackled completing high school – something that felt impossible – alone.

  Removing the barriers of stigma requires increased understanding and improved recognition of mental health problems, and this can begin in the classroom by incorporating mental health content. A recent Canadian study found that older teens and young adults are most inclined to self-manage or seek support from friends or family before accessing more formal, traditional interventions for mental health care.[4] To support self-care, it is essential for adults and youth to be equipped with knowledge and resources to draw upon in their daily lives.

  mindyourmind

  Building this knowledge base early is one of the goals of mindyourmind, a not-for-profit program funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. The program recognizes that young people want credible information and provides a 24-hour-a day space – through a website and social media platforms – where youth can seek out resources about mental health that appeal to them. Resources on the website, designed to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness and increase access and use of both professional and peer-based support, are created in collaboration with youth. This partnership ensures that resources resonate with the user. By engaging youth in mental health promotion online and in person, mindyourmind promotes relevant mental health awareness and inspires youth to act, to “reach out, get help and give help” during difficult times.

  Community partnerships

  Responding to the need for resources, Learning Coordinators in the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) in Southwestern Ontario approached mindyourmind to develop resources for Grade 11 Physical Health Education and Grade 9/10 Guidance and Learning Strategies. Over several brainstorming sessions, mindyourmind’s clinical and educational staff and TVDSB Learning Coordinators collaborated on the outlines of the “Minding Your Mind” lessons. The lessons are based on Ministry expectations and the unique needs of the TVDSB’s populations, and reflect a comprehensive view of mental health rather than solely a bio-medical model. A teacher’s guide is included in the lessons, which offers class discussion primers and activity extension suggestions. 

  The team decided on digital formats because it allowed for student-directed units and for information to be presented using multiple delivery methods, appealing to a variety of learning styles and differentiated learning. Existing interactive digital tools, previously created by mindyourmind’s youth-adult teams during intensive “charette” or design workshops, were integrated into the outlines of written content to provide different representations of facts about mental health. These tools and other resources find a permanent home on the mindyourmind website in addition to being used in other resources. One of the interactive tools in the Grade 11 lessons, “The Anatomy of a Panic Attack,” was co-developed earlier by a group of 10 youth aged 15-24 from across Canada and describes what a panic attack looks and feels like while offering suggestions on coping.

  Existing and custom-created videos of youth discussing mental health issues provide concise information, and personal stories written by young people convey an authenticity that learners can identify with and learn from, allowing for reflection and a transfer of knowledge between youth. 

  Once the technical and graphic design team added their expertise, field-testing began. As part of testing, Learning Coordinators facilitated meetings between mindyourmind and TVDSB department heads, where lesson delivery was demonstrated. Questions were addressed and then feedback from classroom surveys was collected. During this phase, the Mental Health Commission of Canada[5] put out an offer to evaluate existing programs that aimed to reduce stigma in youth, and an evaluation of the Grade 11 Minding Your Mind lessons was accepted.

  Evaluation of the Grade 11 lessons on stigma reduction

  As part of the MHCC evaluation, Dr. Heather Stuart’s research team at Queen’s University found that the students’ attitudes moved toward understanding that the course of a mental illness is not entirely in one’s control. One student responded, “… it (having a mental illness) doesn’t make them any less than you.” Beliefs about the potential for recovery from a mental illness were shifted positively. The most positive shift for students occurred in a category focusing on unpredictability and social distance. Questions about unpredictability addressed the myth that all people with mental illnesses are unreliable or unpredictable. Questions about social distance asked about a person’s comfort with being a classmate with or even dating someone with a mental illness. A student responded, “They are normal people too and deserve respect.” Attitudes also changed around valuing socially responsible actions such as volunteering with a program that benefits people with a mental illness.

  The changes in stigma and the increased social tolerance in student responses as a result of the Minding Your Minds lessons showed that this digital approach was effective. Together with the TVDSB Research Manager, mindyourmind co-presented preliminary evaluation results to the TVDSB Mental Health and Wellness Committee and then participated as Youth Team Advisors in the five-year School-Based Strategic Mental Health Plan.

  In the classroom

  Many positive responses indicated that the students enjoyed the delivery of the lessons. In a computer lab, students access and use the modules in either a self-directed or guided way, depending on teacher preference, to learn about and practice increased self-awareness through goal-setting, decision-making, and interpersonal skill building. Students explore the positive and negative effects of stress, describe the influence of mental health on overall well-being, and encounter personal stories about young people dealing with mental health issues ranging from everyday stress all the way to specific illnesses such as anxiety and schizophrenia. 

  The digital format is designed to meet youth “where they are,” in terms of readiness and learning preferences. Students determine the speed of learning and return to previously viewed materials, encouraging self-regulation and responsibility. Assessment for and as learning are dispersed throughout units, prompting learners to reflect and to review where necessary. Evaluations are differentiated based on learning preferences, allowing students to work to their strengths to demonstrate learning. 

  Students taking next steps 

  Using a format that builds on the pillars of youth culture (e.g. music, fashion, technology, art, sports), the modules scaffold learning about mental health in relatable, relevant and practical ways using materials co-created by their peers. Students are better informed about mental health issues and know where to go later if and when information is needed for themselves or for friends. Lessons introduce students to resources in the community as well as mindyourmind’s website. Through the lessons, students see the positive results of their peers’ volunteering in the community. At the end of the lessons, students are invited to initiate activities and get involved in their own personal networks, schools or wider communities to make change.

  The most effective change happens when youth, educational teams and community partners work together. In order to engage youth in the discussion, we need to start where they are, using ever-changing youth culture as an entry point for partnerships and in the classroom to participate in dialogues that concern their health, and to build the capacity to reach out, get help give help.

  Photo: Ethan Myerson (iStock)

  First published in Education Canada, March 2014

  
  

  EN BREF – L’amélioration des connaissances en santé mentale constitue une façon essentielle de répondre aux besoins non comblés des jeunes en matière de santé mentale. Les jeunes, les équipes pédagogiques et les partenaires communautaires peuvent travailler ensemble pour réduire la stigmatisation et habiliter les enseignants et les jeunes. Grâce à un partenariat entre mindyourmind, un organisme communautaire axé sur l’engagement des jeunes, et le conseil scolaire local, des leçons numériques ont été instaurées en 9^e, 10^e et 11^e années. Une évaluation réalisée par l’initiative « Changer les mentalités » de la Commission de la santé mentale du Canada a constaté des changements en matière de stigmatisation et une tolérance sociale accrue dans les réactions des jeunes par suite des leçons, indiquant que l’approche fonctionne.

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  [1] T. Paus, M. Keshavan and J. N. Giedd, “Why do many psychiatric disorders emerge during adolescence?” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, No. 12 (2008): 947-957.

  [2] Canadian Psychiatric Association, Youth and Mental Illness (2013). http://publications.cpa-apc.org/browse/documents/20 

  [3] Statistics Canada, Canadian Community Health Survey: Mental health and well being (2002). www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/030903/dq030903a-eng.htm

  [4] M. Marcus and H. Westra, H., “Mental Health Literacy in Canadian Young Adults: Results of a national survey,” Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health 31, no. 1 (2012): 1-15.

  [5] Mental Health Commission of Canada, Opening Minds. www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/English/initiatives-and-projects/opening-minds?routetoken=4e7e3879325d7eb9d62c51a03176d8ac&terminitial=39

• A Teacher’s P.O.V. on Inquiry-based Learning / Exploring Big Questions

  February 12, 2014 9:54 PM Comments Off on A Teacher’s P.O.V. on Inquiry-based Learning / Exploring Big Questions

  In 2013, Saint Anne School (Saskatoon, SK) was recognized with a CEA Ken Spencer Award.

  https://vimeo.com/86548067

• A Teacher’s P.O.V. on Starting Inquiry-based Learning in the Classroom

  January 30, 2014 9:04 PM Comments Off on A Teacher’s P.O.V. on Starting Inquiry-based Learning in the Classroom

  In 2013, Saint Anne School (Saskatoon, SK) was recognized with a CEA Ken Spencer Award.

  https://vimeo.com/85470752

• The Peaceful Village

  January 27, 2014 9:31 PM Comments Off on The Peaceful Village

  “If I can hear the Djembe drum heartbeats, I know that I am close to The Peaceful Village. This is a place where I am loved even though I am so new to this place. Here I will become someone who will make my new community stronger.”

  – Peaceful Village high school student

  ---

  When you visit The Peaceful Village after-school program, you will find physics tutors who make high-level math sound beautiful and soccer players who defy 
those same laws of physics. Around every corner a symphony of languages erupts, because a microcosm of the world gathers in this remarkable place each day after school. The cultural commons in Canada is enriched each time a new family arrives, and although many former refugee youth face daunting barriers when they enter the public school system in Canada, many of their settlement stories are filled with powerful lessons about survival, love and resilience.

  The Peaceful Village after-school program offers academic, social/emotional, arts, and sports programming across three sites to over 300 former refugee families who live in Winnipeg’s inner city. Since the program’s inception in 2009, every learning activity, conversation, meal, artwork, game, and musical note has been an attempt to contribute to the development of a more critically conscious, healthy, and joyful community. All Peaceful Village community members are strongly encouraged to bring their knowledge and talents to bear in order to enrich Manitoba’s extraordinary cultural mosaic. Program director Daniel Swaka describes this commitment in relation to his own story:

  “As a former refugee and a newcomer myself, I easily identify myself with the youth and families and with all the challenges they are going through in their new communities. The diversity in The Peaceful Village speaks volumes. Everyone has a sense of belonging and all voices are heard. Despite enormous challenges, we believe in developing our program from the ‘roots up,’ meaning we build and evaluate our program with students and parents. It is not a top-down approach. And we stay connected with our families after their children leave the program. Once in the Village, always in the Village.”

  This article examines a few of the lessons The Peaceful Village staff and partners have learned about making space for newcomer youth to thrive in their new school communities. The four essential tenets that frame our work are: start with questions; open multiple artistic learning opportunities; see the power in intergenerational learning; and challenge youth to drive program direction and evaluation.

  Start with questions

  The Peaceful Village program was born out of a participatory action research project conducted in 2009 by the Manitoba School Improvement Program (MSIP) to identify the barriers that were impacting former refugee families in two school communities. As MSIP consultant, I spoke with parents, youth, settlement service providers, community leaders, teachers, administrators, and representatives from Manitoba Labour and Immigration. The action research process yielded profound results. The program’s mission, key activities, and evaluations are directly connected to the testimonials given by the families and community leaders during the action research phase. We learned that inquiry processes can build coalitions of committed and passionate community and school advocates who are able to work in solidarity to reduce the “push-out” rates of former refugee youth in high schools.

  One of my former Grade 10 students once told me that “the world would be a lot better if people asked questions before they started giving answers. We need to get curious.” Her profound comment continues to influence my work as a teacher, educational consultant, and researcher. All of our partners are continuously asked to critique the program in relation to their own understandings about the gaps in services for newcomer youth. These cyclical “problem posing” conversations ensure a higher degree of resonance between our mission and our practices, and have spread beyond the program itself. As one of our school partners, a high school teacher, stated, “Because of The Peaceful Village in our school, I have become a better informed and conscientious teacher who seeks out others’ viewpoints and experiences and attempts to include them in designing the curricula of my students. It has also caused me to be more aware of various communities in Winnipeg, whose populations are continually changing.”

  Offer multiple artistic learning opportunities

  Arts-based learning helps us to think more deeply about who we are in the world and the ways in which we are sometimes marginalized by other people or systems. In fact, powerful artworks can compel us to see the world as it is, and then incite us to work towards a more just and joyful future. We invite all Peaceful Village participants to use their wisdom, deeds, beats, and words to make their lives and their communities works of art. For example, The Peaceful Village Drummers use djembe drumbeats to make space for youth empowerment at various community meetings and celebrations. Our hip-hop dancers use movement and their music to disrupt negative social constructions of youth and resistance.

  In The Peaceful Village program we also use the language of the theatre to address challenges that cause some of the difficulties in our lives. The students play theatre games, put on plays in the wider community, and invite audience members to wrestle with shared dilemmas. After a recent Forum Theatre performance that focused on the program participants’ struggles with language barriers, one of the youth actors discussed the impact of the work on her personal development:

  “I learned a lot about myself and about a lot of other people. And kind of like I’m more to who I am going to become when I grow up. Like I said before, don’t be afraid to stick up for yourself, you know? And I think that really stuck to me. So I think that’s going to be one of the parts that’s going to make me who I am.”

  See the power in intergenerational learning

  We are committed to building assets across families. Each of The Peaceful Village sites operates a “Learning Centre,” which students and parents both attend to access tutoring and mentoring supports. Over 84 percent of the youth participants receive an additional 15 instructional hours per week. On Saturdays, parents and grandparents can gather together for three hours to work on their own literacy development goals. Children often learn new languages more quickly than their parents, so many newcomer children act as interpreters and liaisons for the family. This gives too much power to the children and undermines the leadership capacity of the parents. Therefore Peaceful Village staff members work hard to ensure the parents are able to access the settlement and literacy supports they need in order to be successful. As one of our parent participants noted,

  “The multicultural parenting classes organized by Peaceful Village are really important for us to learn about many positive things. It helps me a lot to improve my language and it promotes my ability to deal with several school challenges that might come up in my family.”

  Each month we host Village Kitchens to provide parents with another opportunity to advocate for their children’s education and to build relationships with other families in their school community. Interpreters are available to break down communication barriers. On average, there are over 150 parents and children who attend each community feast. According to one of our high school participants,

  “The Village Kitchens are the best moments to be in The Peaceful Village. Every Village Kitchen is unique, different guest speakers motivate us, seeing my family present, the fun games, and different cultural displays from the villagers. The food is always great. I love the Village Kitchens.”

  These events build bridges within the community and have fostered the development of several informal parent support networks. According to one of the parents in the program,

  “The Village Kitchens give me an opportunity to visit the school of my daughter, and see her drumming. It gives me joy and smiles. Through the Village Kitchens, I get a chance to meet other newcomers and to make new friends.” 

  Youth-driven program development and evaluation

  The Peaceful Village program is committed to youth empowerment and mentorship. A number of our junior community development tutors are graduates of the program. Just like our senior staff, all of our junior staff are multilingual and understand the unique challenges facing former refugee youth in Canadian public schools. One of our junior community development tutors eloquently explains the importance of mentorship and her commitment to the ethos of the program:

  “In 2010 I started going to Peaceful Village as a student in order to get help with my studies. I loved Peaceful Village since it was the only place where I felt equal and I could fit in. There were many different students from very different countries and cultures. As a student in Peaceful Village I had some expectations such as having healthy snacks, and being tutored individually which I always got from PV. In 2011 I finished high school; before graduating high school I did some volunteering during my second year in PV helping other students. A few months after graduating, I wanted to be part of PV. It was easy for me to get to know other kids and give them the attention they deserve. My role in PV has changed. My past experiences as a new student taught me how to take care of these kids. I know what they are going through as new students and as people who are new to the country. I know what kind of help they need because I’ve just been through it and I’m also a student myself at university.”

  Each Peaceful Village site has a youth leadership team that is responsible for ensuring students’ voices legitimately inform program planning and evaluation. Students collaborate with staff to assess the effectiveness of their tutoring supports in relation to their successes and challenges in their school subjects. Another example of student voice in the program is that all summer and spring break activities are determined by the youth participants. Students are able to provide their feedback in numerous ways. Program staff use image theatre, forum theatre, interviews, focus groups and photo-voice to gather information. Recently, several of the students used poetry to share their thoughts and feelings on the program (See Sidebar).

  In Canada, public schools are one of the few social institutions where children, adolescents, and adults have the potential to gather together to become living expressions of the codified dreams and judgments about what constitutes the “good life.” They are places where students and families share a myriad of experiences that promote both community renewal and the individual questioning of the status quo. It is imperative that former refugee families are given the opportunity to influence the method and matter of education in their new communities.

  ---

  The Peaceful Village
  Very calming and silent
  Until we arrived…
  I’ve learned much
  Quizzes were given
  We got ice cream treats

  The village helped me
  Solve many of my problems
  Keeping me more calm

  I am not perfect
  The people in the village,
  No one is perfect

  In my lonely room
  Or in the peaceful village
  I am not alone

  My experience here
  Was a long learning pathway
  It wasn’t easy
  But totally worth it all
  I love The Peaceful Village
   

  – a Grade 7 Peaceful Village student

  ---

  For more information about The Peaceful Village Program, contact Program Director Daniel Swaka at dswaka@msip.ca or 204-949-1858.

  Photos: Courtesy The Peaceful Village

  First published in Education Canada, January 2014

   

  EN BREF – Le patrimoine culturel canadien s’enrichit chaque fois qu’arrive une nouvelle famille. Bien que de nombreux jeunes qui étaient des réfugiés soient confrontés à d’importants obstacles lorsqu’ils intègrent le réseau d’écoles publiques du Canada, de puissantes leçons de survie, d’amour et de résilience caractérisent souvent leurs récits d’adaptation. Cet article examine certaines des leçons apprises par le personnel et les partenaires du programme parascolaire The Peaceful Village au sujet de la façon d’encadrer les jeunes arrivants afin qu’ils s’épanouissent dans leurs nouveaux milieux scolaires.

• Embracing diversity

  8:51 PM Comments Off on Embracing diversity

  When I was 16, my family moved from Montreal to Markham, Ont. At that time, it was as monocultural as any place in Canada. There were only a couple of non-white kids in the whole school. I remember feeling utterly perplexed at a classmate’s anger that some men were speaking Italian on the bus. I may not have spoken much French in my Anglo Montreal suburb, but I was at least used to hearing a different language.

  I’m showing my age with this anecdote, because according to the Globe & Mail (Oct. 26, 2013), Markham is now the most diverse city in Canada, with over 70 percent of its residents so-called “visible minorities” – a term that is rapidly losing its meaning. And other cities across Canada are showing similar, if not quite such dramatic, trends.

  What does this mean for schools and educators? Like so many changes, the increasing diversity in our school brings both opportunity and challenges. The richness of knowledge and experience, the broadening of perspective a diverse school offers – these are gifts we can all benefit from. But schools must also put thought and effort into building welcoming, inclusive communities, and developing effective teaching strategies to meet the needs of newcomer students.

  Those needs can be complex, and our response may need to reach beyond the individual classroom. One of the most exciting articles for me in this issue is Alysha Sloane’s description of the Peaceful Village initiative in Winnipeg (p. 15). This school-based program, which engages newcomer students and their families in a wonderful community-building experience, shows what can happen when we embrace the challenge and beauty of diversity. Bringing it back to the classroom level, Luigi Iannacci offers many practical strategies for supporting the literacy development of young culturally and linguistically diverse learners (p. 18).

  I want to mention one more article, by a young man who felt trapped between cultures and conflicting expectations and nearly gave up. Instead, he turned his life around, and now shares his experience and insight through spoken word and hip hop performance. As educators, we all feel overwhelmed sometimes by the enormity of the task before us, but Wali Shah (p. 46) reminds us of the difference just one teacher can make to a student’s life. He was that student – and now he hopes to become, in turn, that teacher.

  Write to us!

  Send your letters or article proposals to editor@cea-ace.ca, or post your comments on the online version of Education Canada at www.cea-ace.ca/educationcanada.

  Photo: Dave Donald

  First published in Education Canada, January 2014

• A Parent’s P.O.V. on Inquiry-based Learning – Exploring Big Questions

  January 24, 2014 11:03 PM Comments Off on A Parent’s P.O.V. on Inquiry-based Learning – Exploring Big Questions

  In 2013, Saint Anne School (Saskatoon, SK) was recognized with a CEA Ken Spencer Award.

  https://vimeo.com/84994741

• Here we go loop dee loo…Pisa Announcements Unfold Pretty Much as Expected

  December 18, 2013 7:01 PM Comments Off on Here we go loop dee loo…Pisa Announcements Unfold Pretty Much as Expected

  Sometimes, it’s fun to be right.

  On December 3rd, I wrote a piece on my personal blog, later published in The Chronicle Herald about the then impending release of the PISA results by the OECD. At that time, I predicted that, on Tuesday, December 6th, the airways would be full of bluster and pomp as expert after expert would undoubtedly weigh in on the PISA results. And, waddaya know? I was right.

  From Saskatoon to Halifax, from Malaysia to the United Kingdom folks everywhere were abuzz with PISA talk. And, considering that Canada dropped in the PISA rankings from 2009, much of the talk in this country centered around the same old issues. “What” the alarmists cried, “is wrong with our education system?”

  

  Photo by João Trindade / CC BY

  Not surprisingly, of course, the commentary came from many sources. Everyone, it seemed had an opinion of why scores were low, and what needed to be done to “fix” the problem. From promoting charter schools to getting rid of the “New Math” solutions abounded, many coming with the familiar, tired rhetoric. The teachers are under trained. The new math is “soft and fuzzy”. The establishment is anti change. We need more standardized tests. And, the ever popular, it was better in my day.

  Well, before we throw yet another generation of students under the “Let’s change it now!” bus in our relentless pursuit of mathematical perfection, let’s pause for a moment, as a group, and consider a few factors.

  First off, let’s accept the fact that no one anywhere has the golden fix for teaching all students math. Seriously, if a method of teaching math existed that would ensure a high level of achievement in all students, it would have been accomplished already. Heaven knows we have spent loads of time, energy and not insignificantly, money trying to fix “the math problem”.

  Secondly, if jurisdictions who scored high on the PISA were actually doing so singularly because of what was happening in schools, why do countries ever slip in the rankings? Consider Finland, whose education system became the system to model after several years of high PISA results. If they had been having success in teaching math, why did their scores slip this year? Did they suddenly stop doing things that had been working? One theory I read prior to the PISA release stated that, in a nutshell, there has been an increase in the number of distractions that draw students away from all their school subjects.  When competing with things like social media, at your fingertips entertainment and “self-elected pastime activities”, perhaps kids in Finland just don’t care as much about math as they used to. PISA results may, at the end of the day,  have nothing to do with math methodology.

  The final issue with PISA, of course, is that it often compares apples to grapefruit. Education systems across the globe are very different, not just in how they educate, but also who they educate, and what they demand of their students. Serious concerns have been raised, for example, around the validity of PISA data that comes from China. The system in Shanghai, a top place finisher two cycles in a row, has been criticized by some as being nothing more than a continuous stream of tests. Students are required to write standardized tests from primary school onwards to advance to the next level of education. The higher ranked the school, the higher the admission requirements. Thus, in order to get into the” good” schools, tremendous pressure is applied by parents for students to achieve high marks. At the end of their secondary career, students must write the three-day long gaokao, a national standardized university entrance exam which can essentially decide a student’s future.

  In 2011 the Globe and Mail ran a report about this very issue, and focused on the PISA results from 2009, in which Shanghai had again placed first. They spoke to a Mr. Ni Minjing  a physics teacher who was, at that time, a director of education in Shanghai. Although Mr. Ni correctly predicted that Shanghai students would do well in the PISA in 2012, he expressed concern about the over emphasis on test taking within the system. PISA, he argued, simply focuses on what Chinese students are good at, memorizing facts and taking large, standardized tests. This success came at the cost of creativity and independent thinking skills.

  I was recently speaking with a colleague of mine, familiar with the Shanghai system, and he compared the Chinese approach to math and the Canadian approach to hockey. We have hockey camps in the summer, they have math camps in the summer. We have hockey practice after school, they have math practice after school. Our child scores a goal in an important hockey game, a name goes in the local paper, their child scores well in an important math exam…

  I’m not anti-math, nor am I particularly anti-PISA. I think that the results are interesting, and although I am unsure of the cost associated with participating in the PISA, I can only assume that they are relatively low. However, when we look at PISA and compare ourselves to others, I believe we would be wise to be cautious what we wish for. We want our kids to be good at math, and they are. But we also want them to be creative, and thoughtful, and active and happy. Achieving that as a national education goal might be a more fruitful endeavor.

  Yes, Canada would like to place higher in the PISA rankings, but surely not at any cost. Building a generation of good test takers, I feel, would never be articulated in the improvement goal of any jurisdiction in this country. And tell Canadians that PISA preparation is going to interfere with hockey practice?

  Well, you’d better be ready to drop the gloves on that one.

• Cultivating an Opposable Mind

  November 22, 2013 11:19 PM Comments Off on Cultivating an Opposable Mind

  “I learned I don’t have to sacrifice one option for another. I don’t have to settle. I can just create something new.”

  – Salah A., Student at John Polanyi Collegiate Institute

  The teachers at John Polanyi Collegiate Institute (JPCI) in Toronto were facing a not uncommon problem. Despite an established campaign of posters, assemblies and workshops promoting tolerance, homophobia remained a recurring issue at their school and students seemed largely indifferent to efforts to address it. Rethinking their approach, the teachers decided to engage an unusual group of consultants: Grade 12 students in the school’s Business Leadership class.

  This flagship course, first taught in 2010, was developed through a partnership between the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the I-Think Initiative at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.[1] Students in the I-Think program learn concrete metacognitive tools, based on Rotman’s Integrative Thinking curriculum for executives and MBA students. It is an approach that focuses on constructing powerful new solutions to complex problems.

  In response to their teachers’ challenge, the leadership students recommended a new framework for tackling prejudice at the school – one based on the recognition of their own values, experiences, and challenges. They did so by engaging in a profound reconsideration of their own points of view and by embracing a new way to think.

  An Integrative Thinking process

  Integrative Thinking began as an attempt to understand how successful leaders – in business and elsewhere – face their own critical challenges. Roger Martin, then Dean of the Rotman School of Management, set out to identify and teach a new set of reflective skills to business students hoping to solve their own tough problems. The successful leaders Roger met challenged conventional wisdom that tried to box them into unpalatable either/or choices. Instead, they found innovative ways to obtain the benefits of multiple, often seemingly incompatible, solutions.

  Engaging in an Integrative Thinking process helps students to reconsider and combine opposing choices without having to choose one at the expense of the other. At its core, it challenges the mindset that innovation is an innate capacity and therefore not teachable – a belief that, according to Sir Michael Barber and his colleagues in their 2012 report, is one of the core obstacles currently facing education.[2] Integrative Thinking teaches that the seeds of innovation lie in cultivating an “opposable” mind – one that seeks to find creative resolutions inside competing ideas.[3]

  That’s what the leadership students at JPCI were challenged to do. Over the course of six weeks, the business leadership students struggled to solve their teachers’ dilemma. The Integrative Thinking process helped them redefine their choices and reframe their problem from a constraining either/or choice into a creative design challenge. The following four steps capture the heart of the students’ process.

  1. Construct a two-sided dilemma

  The students were presented with a relatively unstructured problem: “How do we eliminate homophobia at our school?” Their teachers explained that they had previously launched an awareness campaign (in the form of anti-homophobia posters) and held assemblies to create more school cohesiveness, but that these approaches didn’t seem to have much effect. The teachers wondered if bringing anti-homophobia content into class would have more impact. Fundamentally, they were asking the students to choose how they should spend their time and energy to combat homophobia: in class or out of class?

  Integrative solutions emerge from exploring the tension between opposing ideas. So, the first step in the students’ process was to clearly define the opposing tensions that they would explore. At first, the choice seemed to be between fun assemblies focused on the community at large and in-class sessions aimed at individual learning. The students extended this tension, pitting “focus exclusively on the school community” against “focus exclusively on the individual.” By constructing a two-sided dilemma using extreme and opposing ideas, the students created a clear and manageable structure for their thinking and gave themselves two interesting choices to explore. 

  2. Articulate the benefits of the models

  Once the students had two clearly defined models to consider, they spent time understanding and exploring those models deeply. In order to think from multiple perspectives, the group chose three “stakeholders” or groups of people they felt were the most invested in their answer: students, teachers and the school administration. The students then posed a key question: For each of the options we’ve defined, how does each stakeholder benefit? What might cause each group to love the idea of exclusively focusing on individual students or on the entire school community? Why?

  The students looked only at the benefits of each option, not the drawbacks, aiming to “fall in love” with each model in turn. This allowed them to explore each possibility with an open (as opposed to a critical) mind. Rather than evaluating the viability of each option (“Is this the best possible idea?”), they simply sought to understand its value better (“What specifically makes this an interesting option to explore?”). Students were then able to develop a rich catalogue of benefits that would ultimately serve as the raw material for a new solution. At the same time, they avoided the unproductive sense of deflation that often accompanies the “con” side of a pro/con list.

  After conducting some interviews and surveys of their classmates and teachers, the students determined that community events are typically fun and unifying for the school as a whole. They can cause people to think of themselves in a broader context which can, in turn, lead them to see others (and themselves) in a new light. An individual focus, however, had the potential to spark better dialogue (because students would be more informed and thoughtful) and could lead to deeper understanding of social issues. More importantly, the students felt this model would create better relationships between students and teachers.

  It is worth noting that it wasn’t easy for students to turn off their inner critic when examining options. In fact, this is where students often struggle most, wanting to engage their analytical judgement and be “realistic.” As one student from Lakeshore Collegiate, another partner school, summed up the challenge:

  “In school you’re trained to think yes/no, what’s the answer? But through integrative thinking, you’re opening up your mind… to take in a million options that you wouldn’t have considered before. It can be frustrating because you don’t necessarily know how to do that. You try to teach yourself but it takes a while… so learning to think through integrative thinking was a challenge for me.”

  Through the challenge, students often change their perspective on what it means to be “realistic.”

  3. Examine the models and reframe the problem

  The next step in the process asks students to take a step back and examine the opposing models side by side. What similarities and differences stand out now that the benefits of each model have been made explicit? What, if anything, do they love about each of the models that they wouldn’t want to lose when building a new answer?

  When the leadership students examined their models, they noticed interesting things that they hadn’t seen before: The community model and the individual model both highlighted relationships, but in different ways. The community model was about strengthening student relationships to the school while the individual model was about strengthening relationships individual students (or students and teachers). This caused the group to pause and think about the problem they were solving in a new way. What if the core problem wasn’t really about homophobia at all? What if the problem instead had more to do with the relationships in the school in general?

  It occurred to the students that homophobia might be a symptom of a larger problem in the school – they saw that students who identified as “different” (due to cultural, economic or social identities) rarely mixed. In discussions with classmates, they found a pattern that fascinated them: Each social group saw themselves as ostracized and another group as having power. No group self-identified as being powerful. The students interpreted this as a signal that their classmates were feeling isolated and were not communicating with one another. Here is how the group described this reframe in their project summary:

  “Our first challenge was finding out what was causing homophobia in the school. We boiled it down to people being ignorant of each other’s cultures and expressing that lack of knowledge as fear and anger towards each other. But once again this found us wondering, why didn’t they know about each other? We found it was the lack of sharing between the [social and cultural] groups and that they weren’t learning enough about each other because they weren’t sharing enough about themselves. So that led us to our ultimate question: why aren’t students comfortable with sharing information about their cultures and lifestyles with each other? We decided that this was the problem that we would need to solve.”

  In isolation, this shift might look like a sudden burst of insight. But it was made possible by rigorous exploration of the competing models. The students’ analysis was not one of judging each model critically, but rather of considering what value they might find in each. 

  4. Explore the possibilities

  Armed with their new insights, the students now had a brand new design challenge on their hands – how might they help break down the barriers between the different social groups to enable shared learning?

  The students brainstormed a variety of options and settled on a set of activities to get students to mix and mingle, rather than educate about homophobia. They recommended a set of assemblies that would highlight the richness of different cultural heritages, followed by small breakout sessions where students of different backgrounds could learn about each other through facilitated activities. They also suggested a series of one-on-one discussions under the guise of student pot-luck lunches, to encourage informal conversation among students who otherwise would not connect. Each piece of their solution aimed at increasing awareness and dialogue to break down communication barriers throughout the student body. The recommendations met with surprise and delight from their teachers, who began to investigate how to implement them. The students came away with a new sense of agency in tackling the “wicked” problems in their own lives. As one student wrote,

  “This class has made me realize how powerful my thoughts are. Personally, I’ve always been impatient and… I try to get things done as soon as possible. Now I definitely take a lot of time to think more about my actions as well as other people’s actions. It’s definitely not easy, but it has helped me become less judgmental than I was before and has helped me make better decisions.”

  The limits of evaluate and choose

  Traditionally, students have been offered techniques for evaluating and choosing between competing options when they are trying to solve a problem. It is common to conduct in-class debates, ask students to research how “experts” resolve the problem or ask them to write position papers. Using the iconic “pro/con” list, students are told to carefully analyze the various benefits and drawbacks of a particular solution or point of view, pick a side and then defend their choice. (“Research the climate change debate between proponents of environmental protection and those who support industrial progress. Which side compels you the most and why? Write a two-page summary explaining your position.”) Students learn tools to compare and contrast, form inferences and apply various criteria for judgment.

  At their best, these tools aid what philosopher and educator John Dewey called “reflective thought,” where we work to apply an open-minded and scientific rigour to our analyses in order to learn deeply from our experiences.[4] At their worst, they create an implicit assumption that there is a single right answer. What these tools miss are processes that lead students to create unseen possibilities and form new connections when no answer exists at the back of the book. Howard Gardner touches on the importance of this skill in writing of the “synthesizing mind”:

  “The ability to knit together information from disparate sources into a coherent whole is vital today. The amount of accumulated knowledge is reportedly doubling every two or three years… Sources of information are vast and disparate, and individuals crave coherence and integration.”[5]

  While it is important to teach students specific domains of knowledge like math, science and literacy, it is even more important to teach them to think about how different domains work together. Above all, we must provide students with tools and opportunities to reflect on their thinking. These students, after all, will one day be tasked with solving some of the world’s most pressing problems.

  Illustration: Dave Donald

  First published in Education Canada, November 2013

   

  EN BREF – La pensée intégrative désigne la capacité d’innover dans la création de solutions à des problèmes complexes en explorant des idées qui semblent contradictoires. Au John Polanyi Collegiate Institute du Toronto District School Board, les élèves suivant un cours exceptionnel de leadership en affaires emploient la pensée intégrative pour relever des défis auxquels ils font face dans leur propre vie. En refusant d’évaluer les options et de choisir entre elles, en cherchant plutôt à établir de nouveaux rapports entre elles, un groupe d’élèves a redéfini l’approche mise de l’avant par leur école pour éliminer l’homophobie, engendrant une nouvelle façon de percevoir la tolérance dans leur communauté scolaire.

  ---

  [1] This partnership, originally a small pilot program with one class, has grown to include several pilot schools, including Lakeshore Collegiate Institute and Ledbury Park Elementary and Middle School, along with leadership training for more than 150 TDSB teachers and administrators.

  [2] Michael Barber, Katelyn Donnelly and Saad Rizvi, (Institute for Public Policy Research, 2012), 25.

  [3] Roger L. Martin, (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007), 15.

  [4] John Dewey, (New York: D.C. Heath & Co., 1910), 10-13.

  [5] Howard Gardner, (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007), 46.

• Summer School Gets R.E.A.L.

  11:00 PM Comments Off on Summer School Gets R.E.A.L.

  The Ken Spencer Award Winner

  As an elementary school principal, Bruce Grady knew students in Grades 4, 5, 6 and 7 identified as academically at-risk by his School District 42 in Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows, B.C.

  Later, as district principal with the same district and responsible for its summer school program, he saw the same students, now in Grades 8, 9 and 10, show up in July for the remedial instruction they required to return to class in the fall.

  “There was no success for those students, who every year were being identified as at-risk,” he says.

  In 2012, school district officials decided to break the cycle. They reinvented summer school, introducing inquiry-based learning and various strategies to reconnect students with school. First-year results were positive: high student attendance at summer school, improved academic performance in the fall semester and increased awareness by teachers of the value of bonding with students.

  To set up the new program, the district recruited eight teachers from its six high schools to design and teach a 20-day summer program for Grade 8 and 9 students from across the district who had failed one or more core academic courses. Six teachers worked directly with “pods” of students, while another acted as counselor and field trip coordinator and the eighth oversaw 12 high school and post-secondary students hired as extra-curricular activity assistants and mentors.

  Of the 149 participants, 23 had identified learning disabilities but were able to function independently.

  Known as “Get R.E.A.L.” – for resilient, engaged, active learning – the project aimed to put the fun back in school and equip students with skills to give them staying power for their return to class in the fall.

  On the first day, students took part in team-building exercises with each other and their teachers. Over the course of the three-week program, teachers took students on three field trips – one a rain-soaked canoe trip – designed to promote inquiry-based learning and build confidence.

  By the second week, teachers heard an unexpected complaint: students wanted more time for their academic work. “It blew us away that they said, ‘We want to cut down on fun activities to do more work’,” says Math and Science teacher Tom Levesque. “The work they were doing was not typical of the work they had done all year. They were doing the curriculum in a different manner and they were buying into it.”

  The core of the students’ studies was a project inspired by a National Geographic video on world population growth. Students were to explore what they would need to survive as members of a new civilization on another planet, an exercise that required they apply math and science, research and writing skills to learn about past civilizations and imagine those of the future.

  There were no textbooks – a negative symbol of rote learning and past academic failure for some students.

  Instead, armed with apps on iPads and laptops, students examined the survival theme from the perspective of their subject disciplines and kept a portfolio (print or digital) to document what they had learned, and reflect on their own progress. Discovery-based inquiry allowed students to pursue their own ideas about a post-Earth civilization while meeting the requirements of the provincial curriculum.

  “We were working with kids so they could see that learning can be fun, not just rote work, reading, writing and textbooks, and that learning can be physical,” says Mr. Grady.

  Every day, students selected from a menu of extra-curricular activities.

  When teacher Trevor Takasaki noticed that a lot of students rode bicycles without functioning brakes, he set up a workshop on bike repairs. This informal setting helped him get to know the students as individuals as they acquired expertise of interest to them. “They learned to be more confident on a broad range of things,” says Takasaki, an English teacher in Maple Ridge for the past decade. “Doing sports activities, bicycle repair and cooking, they started to realize they could have success in the school environment.”

  For 16-year-old Dusty Cooper, Get R.E.A.L was a stark contrast to his two previous summer school experiences, “where you just had work.” He enjoyed the extra-curricular activities and not having to make notes from a textbook. “It was pretty cool to get to work with electronic equipment other than a textbook,” says Dusty, who had never used an iPad.

  At the summer school, adapted life-skills and behaviour support teacher Erin Talbot did not have Dusty as a student. But they still developed an informal relationship over the summer that carried over into the next school year, when she was one of his advisors at Thomas Haney Secondary School.

  A Grade 10 student who previously skipped school, Dusty completed most of his assignments over the past academic year, says Talbot. “He has been really successful with his courses and has a wonderful rapport with all his teachers,” she adds. “Summer school gave him that opportunity to build resiliency and build that confidence in himself.”

  A self-described shy student, Dusty went on all the field trips, including a challenging tree-climbing course that took him 60 feet up into the trees. “I am sort of afraid of heights,” he says. “I discovered I could push the limits a little bit.”

  Ray Cooper, Dusty’s father, says he sees a big change in his son since his summer school experience. “He is happier and not anxious about going to school.”

  The teachers made their own discoveries.

  The absence of textbooks “forced me not to rely on the old normal,” says Tom Levesque. “I had to think of new ways I could get across the same concepts without saying, ‘turn to page whatever.’” No longer in the role of information disseminator, Levesque became a facilitator, helping students use their iPads and laptops to study the solar system, a unit in the Science course. “I had so much more one-on-one contact with students,” he says.

  Trevor Takasaki says teaching summer school was “a huge boost for all of us teachers, myself included, in the excitement we have in teaching.” He says the experience reinforced his belief in engaging with students to help them succeed. “It has definitely pushed us to recognize the need for the same sort of relationships [during the school year],” he says.

  In 2012, a district analysis found that 137 of 145 students (four opted out) earned one or more course credits, a higher ratio than for traditional summer school. In the fall 2012 semester, 57 percent of summer school students now in either Grade 9 or 10 were doing well enough not to need further remedial help.

  In summer 2013, the school district expanded the program to include 17 students from Grade 7 and 81 from Grade 10, along with 139 from Grades 8 and 9.

  “It says to me that some of our kids are re-engaged,” says Grady. “They have the potential and the intelligence and the tools to be successful.”

  Photo: Sue Beyer

  First published in Education Canada, November 2013

   

  EN BREF – En 2012, un conseil scolaire de la Colombie-Britannique a réinventé les cours d’été des élèves en 8^e et en 9^e année, offrant des activités en classe et parascolaires pour rehausser leur résilience à titre d’apprenants actifs engagés. Le programme « Get R.E.A.L. » du School District 42 à Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows a utilisé l’apprentissage par investigation et d’autres stratégies afin que les élèves renouent avec l’école. Au lieu de cahiers d’exercices, les élèves se sont servis d’iPads et d’ordinateurs portables pour effectuer leurs recherches et bâtir un portefeuille de réalisations au cours du programme de trois semaines.

  Les résultats de la première année ont été positifs : taux de fréquentation élevé des cours d’été, résultats scolaires améliorés au semestre d’automne et sensibilisation accrue des enseignants à la valeur de l’établissement de liens avec les élèves. 

• Exploring Big Questions – A Principal’s P.O.V. on Inquiry-based Learning

  November 21, 2013 4:17 PM Comments Off on Exploring Big Questions – A Principal’s P.O.V. on Inquiry-based Learning

  In 2013, Saint Anne School was recognized with a Ken Spencer Award for its inquiry-based learning community.

  https://vimeo.com/79931223

• Exploring Big Questions

  November 20, 2013 9:05 PM Comments Off on Exploring Big Questions

  The Ken Spencer Award Winner

  Saskatoon parent Megan Babyak remembers when her children brought home report cards stating “no conference required.” The children had no obvious academic or behavioural problems, so there was no need to talk to the teacher.

  Even so, her oldest son, Marek, described by Babyak as “the kind of kid who wants to know how everything works,” had lost interest in school. His parents found this alarming, so last year they transferred Marek – now in Grade 6 – and his siblings Burke (Grade 4) and Audra (Grade 2) to St. Anne School.

  The Babyaks had “heard good things” about St. Anne, a K-8 school within the Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools (GSCS). In 2011, the school had moved to inquiry-based learning, a change that recharged the learning environment and involved parents more deeply and expansively than before. Though they knew little about the inquiry method, the Babyaks marveled at how all three children began to thrive.

  Students “really have ownership of St. Anne,” says Babyak. “The whole learning philosophy is based on sharing ideas and working together and just supporting each other.” For example, her youngest child knows older students in other grades and can describe their projects. Babyak now regularly attends school events, including teacher conferences, and volunteers to read with students.

  The school day embraces both open-ended inquiry and structured learning on core subjects. Teachers promote a climate of collaboration that encourages learning by students across grade levels. The new focus came after almost a decade of declining enrolment at a school with about ten percent First Nations and Métis students and 25 percent from outside Canada.

  When Darren Fradette arrived as principal four years ago, enrolment was projected to slip further to 140 students. But this year the school population rose to 210 students. That’s due in part to significant population growth in Saskatoon. But the enrolment uptick is also driven by families like the Babyaks who, taking advantage of Saskatoon’s open-enrolment policy, have been attracted to St. Anne’s particular learning environment.

  The changes at St. Anne came as the GSCS was looking to strengthen its pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten early learning programs, which include inquiry-based learning as a core element.

  Serendipity played a role too.

  The office for the Catholic board’s early learning coordinator, Bonnie Mihalicz, was located in a vacant classroom at St. Anne. Informal conversations between her and Fradette led to a formal proposal for inquiry-based learning in Kindergarten up to Grade 2. When school staff joined the planning process, they lobbied to include all grades. In support, the board allowed release time to facilitate staff planning. Consistent with the school’s recognition of parents as partners, parents were deeply involved in the deliberations through their school council.

  In fall 2011, St. Anne introduced inquiry learning on a school-wide basis. The day begins with what Fradette terms “explicit teaching”: blocks of math, guided reading, physical education and religion. Afternoons are quite different: blocks of time are labeled simply “inquiry.”

  “When you’re engaged in these authentic [inquiry] learning opportunities, it’s hard to say ‘put away your science and take out your language arts,’ because the science is the language arts oftentimes,” Fradette explains. A “big question” forms the core of an inquiry unit and students, in small groups, decide what they want to learn, what sources they’ll consult for answers and how they want to present their own learning.

  In Lorie Newberry’s Grade 1-2 class this past year, the question was: “Where do we hear rhythm in our world?” Students explored environmental music, The Blue Man Group and stomp, poetry, drumming and beatboxing, and presented a rhythmic performance at a school assembly for their finished product. Students in St. Anne’s upper grades probed big questions such as, “What are my rights and responsibilities as a concerned citizen in regards to living conditions of First Nations people?” and “How do natural occurrences and human behaviour affect self, society, and the environment?”

  Beyond content, inquiry-based learning as practised at St. Anne accommodates individual differences, including students with learning disabilities. “All students have a talent in some area,” observes teacher Carol Engel. When her Grade 3-4 students decided to write stories about medieval times, “They did reading together, they did research together, they buddied up and worked together,” she says. “So you can meet a lot of needs that way.”

  By design, the new program encourages a respectful, open relationship among students, staff and parents. Students present their learning to their teachers and grade-level peers, to other grades and to parents. The collaborative atmosphere has resulted in a sharp reduction in behavioural issues referred to the office, says Fradette. “We also see kids teaching kids.”

  What do the students think?

  “It’s way easier because instead of raising your hand every time you have a question, you can ask a group member,” says Grade 4 student Sam Fritz. He entered St. Anne in Grade 3 after attending a school where he was “bored and not having a lot of fun,” says his mother, Heather Fritz. In Sam’s mind, she says, “Teachers were there for discipline and for handing out work.” At St. Anne he has regular conversations with his teachers. “I think it’s given him confidence in dealing with adults across the board,” says Fritz.

  When Cristin Sawchuk’s daughter, Ella, was in Kindergarten, she proudly told her mother that her teacher had called her a scientist. “From the very beginning, these little Kindergartners were being treated like real learners,” says Sawchuk.

  For their part, teachers regularly share with each other what is going on in their classrooms. “You share ideas, you build on ideas, and it develops into something greater than you could do on your own,” says Newberry. “It kind of opens up that classroom door and looks at a community of educators, versus just a teacher in a classroom trying to get the work done.”

  Engel, a teacher for 23 years, believes the school’s new approach to teaching and learning will pay dividends for students. They “are going to be really great at working with others and being collaborative partners,” she says. “I think they’ll be really good at questioning things, thinking deeply and knowing how to share their learning.”

  The school’s enthusiastic embrace of inquiry-based learning has impressed Joanne Weninger, a superintendent of education with responsibility for St. Anne and 12 other schools, plus child care and early learning. “Every time I go there, I’m amazed at what they’re doing… It’s at a point, and I’m really happy to say it, where I could move Darren and the school would sustain the program.” This is critical, she notes, because parents have a right to expect that the learning environment will be sustained year after year, regardless of staff changes.

  Adding to the sense of momentum at St. Anne, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education last spring licensed a nonprofit organization committed to early learning and inquiry to operate a 30-space daycare in the school.

  “I’m starting to see that this isn’t just a Kindergarten-to-Grade 8 school,” says. Fradette. ”This is an 18-month-to-Grade 8 inquiry-based learning environment.”

  Photo: Courtesy of St. Anne School

  First published in Education Canada, November 2013

   

  EN BREF – Instauré depuis un peu plus de deux ans à l’école St. Anne (maternelle à 8^e année, Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools), l’apprentissage par investigation a transformé cette école dont les effectifs d’élèves diminuent constamment. Le matin, les élèves étudient encore certaines matières en tant qu’unités distinctes; l’après-midi, ils forment de petits groupes et font des recherches sur une « grande question », puis présentent leurs apprentissages à d’autres élèves. L’apprentissage par investigation a engendré une relation de collaboration entre les élèves, ainsi qu’entre les élèves et leurs enseignants. Les parents déclarent que cette façon de faire a ravivé le goût d’apprendre chez leurs enfants. 

• We Must Help Education Grow Forwards

  November 5, 2013 6:34 PM Comments Off on We Must Help Education Grow Forwards

  This content has been re-posted from Janet Lauman’s Blog at: http://jmlauman.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/whats-standing-in-the-way-of-change-in-education/

  ---

  I was fortunate enough to attend the recent CEA (Canadian Education Association) conference in Calgary Alberta last week, with a team from my district (Delta – in British Columbia, Canada).  I say fortunate because the question we were being asked to ponder/interrogate/delve into (What’s standing in the way of change in education?) is one of interest to many of us in education who are looking to help education “grow forwards in a positive direction”… and I am particularly interested in larger and broader educational system change.

  A quote by John C. Maxwell comes to mind in regard to this, “Change is inevitable.  Growth is optional.”  The key here is, as a society we are undergoing vast changes, yet in education, while there are pockets of positive forward growth, these pockets are not widespread or systemic.  This perception comes to us from a variety of sources (for example the What Did You Do In School Today? data – see http://www.cea-ace.ca/programs-initiatives/wdydist)

  Some of the following ideas were discussed/presented at the conference:  the explosion of technology in mainstream society and how this impacts society generally and therefore meaningful experiences in schools as well (see thoughts of Charles Fadel here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHCliGPByf4),  how the brain works, the importance of ethics and social/emotional learning, the impact of student engagement on the success of learning….to name a few).

  Alma Harris, a leading education writer and international researcher from the UK recently wrote the following (http://t.co/AcRkExwN16).  In a nutshell, she recommends that we consolidate rather than innovate in order to have successful educational reform at scale.  She has a point in that educators have been engaged in the “change” conversation for a while.

  At the conference there was time devoted to examining and discussing the desire to move forwards and the barriers in place making it difficult to do so.  This information is being collated and will then be the focus of further discussions and hopefully action as well.  I humbly suggest that a more living systems (http://summit.sfu.ca/item/11268) way of moving forwards (developing interconnected learning communities that involve individual educators, students, parents, schools, broader communities in which schools are embedded, districts, provinces…in an iterative process – more inquiry focused in nature) will be more helpful than a mandated way of moving forwards.  This would allow those who are part of the education process to consolidate as needed (Harris) as well as to move forward in a way that makes sense within the particular system….to encourage continuous positive growth. (Halbert & Kaiser’s Spirals of Inquiry For equity and quality [2013] is a good Canadian source in regard to positive growth using an inquiry stance.)

  In moving forwards, it is important to not destroy those patterns that are helpful (life giving).  The following words from Capra are illustrative of this notion within a living systems lens.

  I shall argue that the key to a comprehensive theory of living systems lies in the synthesis of two very different approaches, the study of substance (or structure) and the study of form (or pattern). In the study of structure we measure and weigh things. Patterns, however, cannot be measured or weighed; they must be mapped. To understand a pattern we must map a configuration of relationships. In other words, structure involves quantities, while pattern involves qualities. The study of pattern is crucial to the understanding of living systems because systemic properties, as we have seen, arise from a configuration of ordered relationships. Systemic properties are properties of a pattern. What is destroyed when a living organism is dissected is its pattern. The components are still there, but the configuration of relationships among them–the pattern–is destroyed, and thus the organism dies. (p. 81, 1996)

  While my words above do not explore all that was discussed at the conference, this is what is resonating with me at this point in time.  I look forward to continuing to be a part of helping education systems to move forwards in a positive, growth oriented way, and welcome the thoughts of others on this topic as well.

• Educating Our Schools

  October 24, 2013 6:10 PM Comments Off on Educating Our Schools

  The following is the first in a series of entries inspired by CEA’s What’s Standing in the Way of Change in Education event, held October 21-22 in Calgary. As a member of the facilitation team, I did not have the opportunity to fully participate in all of the rich and engaging conversations that took place around the room, but I am looking forward to using the vision statements, table reports and artifacts collected from the event to offer one perspective on the question that inspired so many to participate.

  JEAN BRODIE: To me, education is a leading out. The word education comes from the root “ex,” meaning “out,”and “duco…”I lead.”
  To me, education is simply a…a leading out…of what is already there in the pupil’s soul.

  HEADMISTRESS: I had hoped there might also be a certain amount of putting in.

  JEAN BRODIE: That would not be education, but intrusion…from the root prefix “in,” meaning “in,” and the stem “trudo…” “I thrust.”
  Ergo, to thrust a lot of information into a pupil’s head

  There’s an important nugget of truth in this bit of dialogue between the young, creative heroine and her principal in Muriel Spark’s 1961 novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It’s a truth that, no doubt, resonates with many of us who actively participate in conversations about school change. And it’s a truth that was certainly winding its way through many of the table group discussions that took place this week when the Canadian Education Association convened over 300 educators, students, parents, political leaders, system administrators and members of both related profit and not-for-profit groups from across the country in Calgary. For me, it’s a truth that directs our attention to one of the most essential points around which the question that inspired the event turns: What’s Standing in the Way of Change in Education?”

  I”m not suggesting that we need to take a this or that approach to the conversation about the purpose of schools, but I do think that Miss Jean is right in pointing out that we need to be careful about how and when we use the term education. I would go even further by predicting that, if Miss Brodie were to visit a typical Canadian public school next week, she would be forced to observe that much of what is happening there is more intrusive than it is educational. In fact, I would argue that our schools aren’t designed to honour the fact that students—and, increasingly, teachers, bring much of anything to the table.

  Consider, for example, the way that curriculum is designed and organized. The lock-step set of expectations that become the law of the classroom for most Canadian educators doesn’t leave a whole lot of space for drawing out the interests, talents and passions that lie deep within the souls of students or teachers. Think about the way that physical space is arranged. The one-teacher-to-many-students classroom, complete with standard seating, relatively small space allocations are accompanied by the underlying belief that real teaching should be centered on instruction rather than construction. It becomes a challenge to imagine many alternatives. Oh, some have been successful in accepting that challenge, (Read the story of change that Calgary teacher, Deirdre Bailey shared at the CEA event) but, to a large extent, they are considered outliers. 

  The reality is that practically every aspect of schooling has been designed for putting in rather than leading out. And that is why I think that this could very well be where our conversations about change need to turn. The most basic assumption that we make about the educational quality of our schools is not one that we’re accustomed to having. But I would be willing to bet my pension on the fact that, unless we’re willing to grapple with it in all of its depth and thorniness, we’re not going to get very far.

  What would it look like if a school were deeply committed to valuing what its students and teachers brought into the building every day? What would it sound like? What would it feel like? How might it be organized in terms of time and space? What new roles and relationships would be necessary if this commitment were going be supported? What assessment practices might find a home in this place of leading out? How would long- and short-term planning be different? What new alliances might be formed with the community? What would the role of parents be?

  These are all questions that you’ve likely heard before, but how might the responses be different if we turned our attention away from the strategies and processes designed to filling minds rather than divining what might already be there in the lives, minds and, as Miss Jean suggests, the souls of all learners, both young and old(er)? What might the results be if our schools became more…well…educated? Instead of thinking of what additional things we can put into the system, how can we build a vision for our schools that somehow enabled what is there in terms of human capital and capacity to be drawn out in a way that enlivened learning?

  Over the past several years, the Canadian Education Association has joined others in pointing to strong evidence that we need to think about schools differently. We heard from students in Imagine a School and What Did You Do in School Today? We heard from teachers in the Teaching the Way We Aspire to Teach initiative, and we’re beginning to hear from school administrators in Leading the Way You Aspire to Lead. This past week, over 300 passionate and informed Canadians gathered in Calgary to begin moving to take what we’ve learned to the next level.

  It is relatively easy to identify the things that stand in the way of change in education. It is more difficult to zero in on the reasons why these barriers seem to be so stubborn. The opening snippet of dialogue from Muriel Sparks points to one way to deepen the conversation even more. For me, it represents that central core of the discussion around which everything else turns!

  I have a feeling that we’re about to move closer to that centre!

• As Past Students, We Think We’re ‘Experts’ in Changing Education

  October 15, 2013 7:43 PM Comments Off on As Past Students, We Think We’re ‘Experts’ in Changing Education

  One little discussed obstacle to changing the public education system in this country is that most Canadians feel they are experts in the field.

  (more…)

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