Blow it up... or crumble it down?

Dr. John Abbott spoke to the combined staffs of Quamichan, Mt. Prevost middles and Cowichan Secondary in lieu of our monthly staff meetings last week. As expected, the feedback was mixed with some people liking his approach, others not as much. That said, his talk on "Personalized Learning" was a success in my mind based on the number of conversations I had with different people coming from different angles in the days that followed. This got me thinking, are the barriers to making some significant changes breaking down?


Firstly is the willingness of teachers to look at curriculum differently. This process has been evolving slowly for many years, contrary to those who say we are in the same schools from 1950's. While the buildings may look similar on the outside, the pedagogy, programs and expectations on the inside are much, much different. Kids are given opportunity to work at different rates and skill levels as structures like the IEP (Individual Education Plan) have become a regular part of practice.

The expectations of parents is the next important step. The default position of most parents is to want school to look like it was for them, especially when their experience with school was a positive one. This is where the tension between experimenting with the system to make potential improvements can conflict with the parents' view of "thats great, but I don't want chances taken with my kid's education". So how does the system take chances without damaging individuals along the way?

The answer is not to "blow up the system" but to give the freedoms to make changes a bit at a time. If we are leaving Math and Science stable, could we combine English and Socials as an experiment? The integrated curriculum could free up time to go deeper into concepts while building skills, and if it works we continue if it doesn't then we rework the concept. If we had done that with the whole program, any problems would lead for calls to abandon all of the changes. 

Could we look at delivering electives in a package format where the kids naturally rotate between disciplines as opposed to a rigid 8 to 10 week time period? The package could be Stage Craft where 80-90 students are assigned to three teachers who will split them up into Drama, Wood Work and Art to create a big production with acting, set design, back drop and lighting. The school Yearbook could again be structured the same as kids move between Computer Studies, Photography, Creative Writing and Art. Music, Video and Technology can be worked into kids learning to play instruments, produce recordings and create music videos that could be posted. Does Marketing fit into any of these projects?

In this case, the "boiled frog" analogy can be a positive one. Regular, graduated changes can lead us to one day waking up to the realization that the system around us has fundamentally and permanently changed for the better. 

The good old days... and AFL

June... I quite enjoy retirement dinners, even though the speeches are often a bit long and there tends to be an over emphasis on the past. Its a bit like my father says, "The good old days: they weren't that good and you're not that old".

That said, it is great to celebrate someone's career, where they have come from, what they have done and the thoughts they leave us with. It is also a happy time; I have yet to hear a speech where the person is really sad about retiring!

In one of the speeches the host speaker took extra time to thoroughly describe all of the endeavours from the retiree's career, especially the past twenty five years. Later in the evening, after all of the formal speeches were completed, I was mingling with two respected colleagues, both of whom have thirty plus years of experience themselves.

Person A "Sure sounds a lot like what we are calling AFL"
Person B "True... but now it is better defined"

That struck me as an important distinction. Better defined means instructional improvement is intentional and conscious. This allows it to be more accessible which means it is more widespread. Widespread action is also called a "movement" which is what we have been looking for in education as we try to make changes for the better.

The groundwork for what makes good teaching is not new. Relationships with students, fellow teachers, principals and parents are still critical as they always have been. Having standards and pushing students to be successful will always be part of the equation. Add on the ability to strategically improve instructional practice collaboratively across a staff or district and we see a better system for our kids.

Too much of a good thing? I think that I have changed my mind

For those of you in schools… have you ever felt that you were doing too many initiatives and that it had gotten away on you? You worry that in sending kids off to conferences, bringing in guest speakers and pulling students out of class for events the regular school subjects are thrown out of whack and too much curriculum is missed.

Last week I had those creeping feelings. April was tremendously busy, especially when it followed many, many events that have been ongoing throughout the year. Several of those events specifically targeted our First Nations students in grade 8 and 9.  There was an Elders’ Poetry Project, a Crossing the Cultural Divide Projects, Girls Support Groups, Boys Support Groups, HIV Awareness in Aboriginal Youth sessions, the Friendship Centre Conference, a Tribes Health presentation on the effects of energy drinks, First Nations Dance group, Aboriginal Film Festival, a visit from the Chief, Canoe Races, Aboriginal Heritage Day… all great things, but it did cause wonder if they were taking away from our core function in education?

Then came the Labour Relations Board ruling that report cards must be issued on May 1^st and that those report cards will give an indication of progress to date (if anyone reads this post 5-10 years from now… it is currently 2012 and we are embroiled in one of the most acrimonious contract disputes between the BCTF and BC Government in recent memory so there has not been any reporting so far this year).

As I sign report cards, my normal practice is to keep a list of students that I need to have “achievement chats” with because their marks are not satisfactory. This is somewhat subjective, but I am consistent with myself, and over the years I generally look for students with more that one “I” in courses and poor overall grades. I was pleasantly surprised to find my list was shorter than I expected. In fact it was noticeably shorter than last year.

I think that I think this is an indication of success and I think that I think it might have something to do with all of the initiatives!

It may be like Pro-D for staff. When you have a one-off session, it is often motivating but does not stick long term. The events for our Aboriginal students were different topics, but there is a common theme and that is something along the lines of “respect others, respect your community and respect yourself”. I am thinking that the net effect of multiple sessions with many of the same students attending them has been to build confidence and motivation in our First Nations students… I think.

What is our core function from grades 7 to 9? Maybe it is indeed to build confidence and motivation in places where it is lacking so those students transition to high school and pursue their studies. For students who already possess those attributes, probably missing classes is less desirable.

What is our purpose in education? It is certainly “learning”, but perhaps a truer definition is indeed “to improve the life chances for our students”. How do we accomplish this? This is the beauty and frustration of education… it allows us to think about what we are experiencing, although we are never entirely sure about what we think.

21st Century Learning... Intellectual Freedom and Structure

The BC Ministry of Education has rolled out the new "21st Century Learning" direction, a large component of which is self directed learning. This is clearly a move that we need to be making... or is it?

I worked in many roles (teacher, advisor, department head, vice principal) at Frances Kelsey Secondary from 2000-2008. The philosophy of the school has been to educate within a self directed/self paced model since 1995 and we worked hard to make it work for students with much tweaking and re-tweaking.

There was one particular project where grade 9 students would complete a self directed project on the topic of Child Labour using examples from the 1800's Industrial Revolution and modern times to gain credit in both English and Social Studies. The project was well designed and well explained as the teacher librarian took the lead on organizing sessions with the classroom teachers. It was a great learning experience for some and for others it turned into the  biggest roadblock to completing those courses as they did not get it done. Why?

Interestingly, some of the students who struggled with school completed just fine, while some of the kids who struggled were high achieving. It wasn't necessarily about ability. It also wasn't only about effort, as some of the hardest working students breezed through this topic easily while others became frustrated trying to figure out where to start and what to do. There was also the biggest challenge of all, which was how to create a sense of urgency to get it done... putting in our timelines while trying to respect the kids' goal of planning their learning. As with most of us, procrastination is a powerful enemy.

It was important to have that project in the curriculum for those courses. Kids learned about planning, research and organizing their learning. However, I would not want to have had another similar project back to back with this one. Maybe that is the point. Self direction is great, but it cannot be all the time.

Think of yourself. I enjoy taking on a project where I see a need and an opportunity, but in between these endeavors it is comforting to have the tasks someone else is requiring that I do. The real challenge is to find the balance freedom to design your learning within a framework of structure.

Testing and Survey Season... a time for contemplation

It is that time of year in public education that I affectionately refer to as "survey season". In the month encompassing late January to mid February, schools will complete provincial exams in grade 10, 11 and 12 the FSA tests in grades 4 and 7, the provincial satisfaction survey in grades 7, 10 and 12, social responsibility ratings for grades 7 and 9... and I may be forgetting to list one or two as my mind is also focused on the 1701 enrolment re-count, the Bill 33 compliance forms and mid year class rotations.

If this sounds like a complaint, it is only a conditional one.

It feels like the Satisfaction Survey, while a good idea on paper, is not reliable in practise. Very few parents and almost no staff participate. Students do not want to do it, but are made to which means they are not vested in their responses. I have to question the investment of time and energy on this one.

The other is the FSA. I do not object to the idea of "light testing" of the system. I remember a comment from a seminar I attended with Linda Kaiser and Judy Halbert (provincial leaders in education) where they made the comment that low stakes testing at grades 4, 7, 10, 11 and 12 was appropriate as "checks on the system". I agree. Provincial testing is by no means perfect, but don't we want an indication that kids in Nelson can demonstrate learning outcomes at similar levels to kids in Prince George to kids in Vancouver to kids in the Cowichan Valley... and bodies who use that information for questionable purposes should not deter us. As a respected colleague of mine stated at a staff meeting "I am not a card carrying member of the Church of the Fraser Institute... but measuring performance matters".

The FSA is too politicised and it is probably too long. What would happen if it were replaced with one hour provincial exams in Math and English (reading and writing) that were worth 5-10% of a final grade? Low stakes, worth something to the students and provides an indication as to how the system is performing.

I (and I might be in the minority here) like the provincial exams as they currently exist. The grade 10 Math, English and Science exams as well as the Socials 11 exam are worth 20% of a student's mark. That is a good percentage. It means the exam in meaningful in the calculation of the final grade, but it is not high stakes testing. We always wanted our students to go in with a "magic 63%" as their course mark as that means no matter what happened with the test, they would know that the blended mark would be a passing 50% (by the way, I never had a student score a 0 on an exam). In this way, students are nervous, but not paralysed by fear. If I had a suggestion here, it would be to consider moving the only other mandatory exam, English 12 or Communications 12, from 40% of a student's final mark to 20%.

I also like the fact that most provincial exams are an ending assessment of mandatory courses that students have been taking since elementary school. SS 11 is the last of the Social Studies courses for graduation before it breaks into electives such as History 12, Law 12 and Geography 12. Science 10 is mandatory and then it can be a choice of one or more of Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science and others for the grade 11 Science requirement. English or Communications 12 is the last of the mandatory courses for graduation.

Interestingly, English has both a measurement at the grade 10 and 12 level.  What about Math? Students need to complete a Math 11 course to graduate, so why not have the final measurement at that level? If we want a check on math skills between grade 7 and 11, why not move the Math 10 exam could be moved to grade 9?

It feels good to get these thoughts out now, as in two weeks we will be knee deep in "survey season" for another year.

Middle School exploratory options... and the value of conversations

In mid December, I was able to meet with Janet and Nancy (the Principal and Vice Principal) from Kitimat in the Coast Mountain District as they will be moving to a middle school structure in their school next year and they were in the Cowichan Valley looking for some ideas. We discussed many things, one of which was how to best run exploratory and elective courses.

At Quamichan, we have the grade seven and eight students stay with their class as they go through two to three main teachers (Humanities and Math/Science with French, Literacy and PE mixed into the teaching assignments). We then have the exploratory blocks as eight to ten week cycles that the groups rotate through (this is where we mix classes so the kids have a chance to be in classes with different students then their home room).

In grade nine we have the students assigned block by block to ensure specialized instruction and prepare them for secondary school. What we have done this year is to then group all of the exploratory options in the same blocks so we can offer the students half or full year exploratory options. In this way, the grade nine students, instead of only selecting three exploratory choices, have the option to experience as many as six different half year electives or to stay in the elective all year if they have a passion for the subject. This also allows us to use some of the half year blocks for IDS, tutorial and LA options.

We also made some hard decisions this year as declining enrollment means that choices must be made. In grade seven we dropped the formal computer studies elective and combined woodwork with art to allow us to offer a "Coast Salish 7" course, the goal of which is to build common understanding of the First Nations history in the Cowichan Valley for all of our students during their first year at Quamichan. In grade eight we were able to maintain a full slate of elective options as it is a larger group. Choices will have to be made next year. In grade nine, the half year elective options allowed us to create a contemporary "Music 9" class that runs in addition to band and kids can learn to play guitar, piano, sing, record, produce, make videos... for modern music. 

Maybe the most important point of this whole exercise was that, in discussing these exploratory issues with Janet and Nancy, it also had a very positive effect as a reminder that we, at Quamichan, are experimenting and being creative to better the educational experiences of our students. Sometimes during the year, in between the constant politicization of education amongst the different "adult" groups and the normal day to day stressors, it is vitally important to "keep our eyes on the prize". Having a chance to talk with others, especially those who are from another district, can be a real shot in the arm.