next-ed

I’m at the CEO looking at a new Digital Citizenship course to be offered to high school kids in the near future.  Have you seen the research that explores why anti-smoking campaigns and anti-drinking campaigns for young people are doomed to fail?

Any parent knows that kids don’t like being told what to do by grown-ups.  My concern is that the more we say Facebook is evil; the more we say be nice online; the more we say don’t share identifying info the less likely our young people are to buy into our messages.

Citizenship, however, carries a message of shared responsibility that I find quite powerful, but the messages have to be targeted and authentic.

I’d really like to ask kids what they think might work.  Would they prefer to hear the voices of their peers?  Would they like to produce the content.

I have a feeling what would certainly work: get the kids to create Facebook groups that promote the authentic messages.  Create Facebook games where people compete to earn citizenship points, or promotions.  And who knows what might be possible when Google+ comes out of Beta?

But, back to citizenship.  Young people thirst for a strong sense of belonging, as we know.  We should leverage this desire for belonging and the need to identify, and associate it with the really positive outcomes of social network: social activism and justice, community celebration, networks of support, personal learning communities, etc.  That way, citizenship has its benefits.  Isn’t that what community has always been about?

I was chatting with some students who observed that I never “throw” a student out of a class.  It’s true.  I can’t see the point.  Now, I’ve been teaching for a long time, and maybe I have a few tools in my toolbox that younger teachers don’t, but I have rarely made the assessment that excluding a student is the only way to solve a problem.

Continuing the conversation with me about classroom management, a boy said “You know we don’t actually mind being thrown out.”

“Why is that?” I ask.

“Because it means we have won the argument!” he said.

Sad but true!  How much of what happens in a classroom is about power and identity?  In its worst guise it turns teachers into bullies.  Even in more milder forms, the concern with power in the classroom leads to tightly controlled environments where nothing is left to chance, and where every variable is accounted for: including the students themselves.

If I feel that the behaviour of students is getting away from me, it causes me to ask the questions:

• What is creating this?
• Can I shift the focus and the mood?
• Are the kids busy enough?
• Is this an engagement problem?
• Am I feeding the poor behaviour?

I have little in common with the maniacal Joker from Batman, however, I do look at life in school, particularly in the classroom, and wonder where the joy went. Of course, teachers are not entertainers and classrooms are not Vaudville theatres, but we are in a very human enterprise which brings people together in the same space every day for years and years – let’s live a little.

I get the pressure of accountability and high stakes testing, but just think about the positive outcomes if I approached the classroom with a little bit more joy…

• my students might do more than endure their time with me
• the lesson will more easily be linked to our experience of being human
• my students will know that I like to be with them
• there might be less unfocused exuberance from the easily distracted
• I will go home healthier at the end of the day, week, term and year

I did a presentation for the Sydney CEO Assistant Principals recently and, in preparation, developed an analogy you might enjoy.

What we have here is the researcher, the classroom teacher and the student….

The researcher refuses to see what the reality of the classroom is like. With eyes resolutely covered, they can happily design systems and theories to create learning nirvana.

The teacher feigns deafness whenever they hear a researcher speaking. At the very mention of ‘educational research’ the oh-so-busy classroom teacher plugs their ears and sings “la-la-la-la”.

The student conducts constant evaluation of the learning process. She monitors her own motivation levels and assesses her own mastery of the lesson content. But, out of politeness, tradition or apathy, never shares this data with her teacher. Could it be because we never ask??

The punch-line? Practitioner enquiry opens the eyes, unstops the ears and frees the voice of the student in one sustainable and iterative process.

Easy! (see the ‘Learnopoly’ presentation here)

A few unpredictable things have happened to me in my interactions with kids lately, and all of them point in one direction: my students are conservative and risk-averse. Sure, what they do on the weekends may be an entirely different kettle of cetaceans, but as learners and social beings they seem, well, prudish.

First, we ask students about their politics, they say they have none, but ask them to take a stand on political issues, and they begin to lean further and further to the right.
Second, we asked the students what changes they’d like to see in the school rules. They want stricter, clearer rules with punishments that modify behaviour!
Third, I offered all of our new college leaders access to social media tools to manage their profiles in the college, create networks and spread good news about their work. What do you think happened?
Nothing.
Awkward silence.
Then came the type of skepticism you’d expect from end-of-career teachers, retired on active duty. The students said “Whoa, that’s a bit too risky in the school environment!” One student said “That couldn’t work”, another just asked “What for?”
So the real question is, in the face of the social media megalopolis – what is it the students don’t get?
I think the answer is, nobody is teaching these kids how to use powerful tools.
If I asked all of the MySpace, Facebook and Twitter users in my school “How could these tools improve your learning?” they would not know where to start.
Hey, it’s St Mary’s… maybe we should just start another club!

Sometimes I think we could do a much better job listening to students.  I was at a forum on Catholic Education where leaders, parents and students responded to thoughtful questions about what we do well and what we don’t.  It was refreshing, frank, confronting, but not at all surprising.  The students assembled all love learning, love their schools, but did not unanimously love the experience as it was mediated by their teachers.  In response to a question about the teaching of Religious Education, one student said “Schools are not authentic and tend to cloud belief”.  Challenging!

What do you need from a teacher?  “I need to be engaged by someone who loves what they do.  I need an effervescent teacher.  I want to be able to see the learning fizzing out of them!” 

I don’t know about you, but there are few days when I feel effervescent in the classroom.  Maybe on a really good day I might feel a little fizzy (think asprin), but rarely would I communicate effervescence (think Verve Cliquot champagne).

So, what is the standard for student engagement these days?   I hate the thought of the new generation of teachers needing to be entertainers first: Late Show meets Early Class?!?  The related question is “will high engagement = improved learning”.  I know I may be sounding conservative (think old), but should the profession be competing for attention with popular culture?  I don’t need my doctor to deliver her diagnosis in rap just so I will pay attention: I want to know and understand what she has to say.

So maybe, just maybe, it is a combination of quality relationships and a compelling lesson.  If we place too much emphasis on engagement, we run a real risk of losing the balance and students will see the show for what it is:  froth and bubble!

I have just finished the script for a documentary about the Learning Projects at St Mary’s in Wollongong.  The film will trace the history of Action Learning at the College, our relationship with the Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools and the process for sustaining action learning in out context.  I am quite happy with the last scene where, scenes around the school slow dissolve with images of teachers engaging with students in collaborative learning, the voice over says:

St Mary’s:  a college where the students teach the teachers, where teachers submit assignments, and where no-one has all the answers.  It is fast becoming a community of learners deeply committed the development of everyone and to the notion of building knowledge through deep listening and powerful reflection.

Teachers learning – learners teaching.

Whaddya think?

Because I am teaching and being a principal at the same time, I am not always in the classroom with my students when I am supposed to be.  As much for my convenience as for the students learning, I use wikispaces to hold it all together.

One week into a new class, one of my students sent me this email, entirely unsolicited:

“In my opinion, I feel that using the wiki, is an effective tool for people who are unsure on what a particular topic may be about. However, uploading information onto it, has made me have a greater depth and understanding of the Hajj, and it is a great way to learn, because it is what I call ‘active learning’, and to have
effective knowledge and understanding of something, people need to be able to hear it, see it and do something with what they know, and then people will be able to succeed to the best of their ability – which is what I want everyone to do in these up – coming exams.

I hope this has made you realise that the wiki is excellent and I enjoy doing tasks like those – Brooke”

Some people, upon hearing I am a teacher, ask “How do you put up with teenagers every day?!?”

I spent two days interviewing students for Year 12 leadership positions at my college.  What a heartening and privilged job teachers have.  We spend every day surrounded by people with optimism, energy and an ‘unadulterated’ sense of ethics and justice.

The young women who presented themselved are, by process of selection, the best of the best, with CVs more impressive than mine, but that was not the aspect that touched me most.  It was the capacity they show to think deeply and express their yearning for community and connection.  They really want all young people to experience belonging and a sense of being valued and known.

Makes selecting leaders a difficult job when there are so many to choose from.  At least I know that the future is in safe hands!

I am very proud of the fact that my staff have reached a concensus about how best to care for kids in the learning process.  The debate about the effect teachers have on students’ well be ing is long over.  What is left is the ethical and paradigm shift within teachers.  We have gone a long way down that road at St Mary’s, producing a deeply ethical statement about what we do to enhance well being and learning at the same time.

It looks like this:

Teaching styles and methods
Teachers at St Mary’s use a variety of styles and methods to engage all learners and to meet diverse learning needs.  They plan and tailor their teaching to match the content, student ability, available technology and other situational factors which affect learning.

Learning styles and needs
Teachers at St Mary’s recognise and cater for students who learn in different ways.  They facilitate optimal learning experiences that nurture emotional well-being and personal achievement.

Authentic learning experiences
Teachers at St Mary’s create authentic learning experiences which engage students in the development of significant and life-centred knowledge and skills.  Their lessons promote problem solving, critical thinking and a love of learning.

Reflection in learning
Teachers at St Mary’s build reflection, assessment for learning and evaluation into the learning process.  They explicitly teach the skills of listening, questioning, goal setting and planning.

Assessment
Teachers at St Mary’s measure student learning in a range of meaningful and equitable ways.  They create assessments of high quality which support learning for all students and they provide feedback which is timely and constructive.

A positive learning environment
Teachers at St Mary’s create positive learning environments with a balance of challenge and support, where every student’s right to learn is protected and promoted.  They create stimulating lessons where students feel secure enough to take learning risks.

Expectations
Teachers at St Mary’s expect all students can learn and all students can achieve personal excellence.  They communicate this expectation to their students and encourage and support them to be motivated and optimistic learners.

Relationships
Teachers at St Mary’s model and promote empathetic relationships with students based on mutual trust and respect.  They engage with all students in a way that is purposeful and is directed to all students’ growth and well being.

Now we watch to see it come to life!