Category: 21st century learning

Not Mincing Words: The Need for Future-Facing Conversations

Not Mincing Words: The Need for Future-Facing Conversations

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Sometimes, I want to roll my eyes when I hear something. Since I am an animated person, it’s hard to disguise my feelings. When I forget to tell my face to stay in a neutral position, my expression gives it away. This week, I had a moment when I slipped.

“We should call it evidence-based practices vs. data-informed decision-making.” 

Yup, this was a headliner topic at a recent leadership conference. It’s not abnormal that we split hairs on terminology in education, but c’mon, is this REALLY a hot-button topic in leadership these days? Why is no one talking about innovating our schools in meaningful ways? It seems like we are pulling out our “greatest hits cassette tapes” of redefining what we already do instead of having future-facing conversations. Has no one been paying attention to what AI is up to these days? Oh my goodness, let’s get our heads out of the sand and start actually grappling with how structures and systems need to change. 

It seems like since Covid everyone has “change fatigue” and we are still reeling from this disruption. But how much has really changed since Covid? Really? 

Our grading policies? Nope

Our content standards? Nope

Our school schedules? Nope

Our teacher evaluation process? Nope

Our school calendars? Nope

These are just a few  “bread and butter” aspects of our schools. We haven’t even touched on deeper issues such as what is the purpose of an education? Surely we can’t still claim that a university degree is the end-all-be-all for our students currently sitting in Kindergarten?

Long before generative AI came into the zeitgeist, the impact of technology has been spoken about. Most of us might be familiar with the work of the futurist Alvin Toffler who famously quoted that “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”   Or maybe some of us are aware of Toffler’s more obscure predecessor Norbert Wiener, who wrote in his book, The Human Use of Human Beings, who, back in the 1950’s shocking wrote,  “The ‘mechanical brain’ and similar machines can destroy human values or enable us to realize them as never before.” – which is something, 70 years later, that we are currently grappling with the possible trajectories of the use of AI. 

So, it’s hard to believe that we don’t have enough “evidence” to support a change in practices. Plenty of intelligent conjectures exist that can “inform” the need to continue to innovate and challenge our educational paradigms. Here are just a few reads that seem to highlight the potential uses of AI.

But here’s the thing: if we stopped for a minute and just took a moment to consider the possibilities, then we wouldn’t need to rely on predictions. Instead, we could actually take over the wheel and start driving our learning community toward improving humanity and our relationships with the planet with a true intentional shift to ensure that we use AI for Good. We must think backward from there and re-design what education could look like. 

Let’s stop repackaging our terminology and, as leaders, rally around some more interesting questions:

  • If you knew that 70% of the jobs that people have today will disappear in 10 years, what would you stop doing immediately at school?
  • How might your role in education change if we truly embraced AI as a learning companion rather than just a tool? 
  • What would education look like if we designed it primarily around ‘learning, unlearning, and relearning’ rather than content mastery?
  • What would happen if we replaced homework with ‘future-work’ – tasks that prepare students for emerging challenges?
  • How might we restructure education if we assumed every student would need to be both a creator and collaborator with AI?

If we were to coalesce on drafting some potential answers to these questions, we might be able to come up with a blueprint for education that actually serves our students’ futures rather than our past. We might discover that the most radical thing we can do is to stop pretending that minor tweaks to an industrial-age system will prepare students for an AI-augmented world.

The real “evidence” we should be examining isn’t whether our current practices work—it’s whether they’ll matter in the world our students will inherit. The real “data” that should inform our decisions isn’t last year’s test scores—it’s the rapidly evolving landscape of human potential and purpose in an AI-enhanced society.

So perhaps the next time you’re in a conference or a workshop discussing semantics or small-scale adjustments, ask yourself: Is THIS the conversation that truly needs to happen? Are we brave enough to face the future head-on and reimagine education from the ground up?

Because if we’re not, we risk becoming as obsolete as those cassette tapes we’re still playing.

What conversation will you start tomorrow?

New Year? 4 “Essentials” We Need for Education

New Year? 4 “Essentials” We Need for Education

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On the last day of 2020, I am struggling to meet my goal of publishing my 200th blog post. I have 77 partial posts in the queue but it has been so hard to string my thoughts together during this year that it felt impossible to complete any one of them.  There are just so many things that I feel befuddled by and have been contemplating and processing. I know that I am not alone. We all have had to put one foot in front of the other, but wondering if we are going in the right direction with so much uncertainty. 

In the past month, here in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the courts have been arguing if education is an “essential service”, as people seek to define what education is and get approval for reopening schools. Since March of 2020, schools have been closed in our area, and to get a ruling on this is an important precedent. 

That is an interesting topic to debate: is school an “essential service” to our society? And if it is, to whom? To businesses? To our governments? To the families? To the students themselves? 

Are schools factories? Do we mean to provide nationalistic pride and values? Or are we glorified baby sitters? Or instead, are we levers and fulcrums to opening up an individual’s potential and creativity? 

What IS our “essential service”? 

My 11-year old daughter told me it is to “learn” (not to “teach”, interestingly) and I think that no matter the stakeholder, they might agree with her. But to learn WHAT (content, skills, values) is exactly where definitions would diverge and split into self-interests. 

Throughout this year, I have had 4 concepts that I have been grappling with, going right into the heart of this idea about “essential service”. 

Power and Influence

I cannot speak for every country, but it is widely accepted that the purpose of public education in America was to spread Christianity and its values. Later “progressives” recognized that education was the key to democracy and hence “standards” were created in order to provide a fairly educated mass of citizens in order to make informed decisions. However, content knowledge was curated by those in power, and morals reflected those interests so that the narrative continued to benefit those of influence. It has only really been until Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement that we are opening up to new conversations around how information is shared and differing perspectives have been censored. 

White supremacy isn’t just a bunch of white-hooded men spewing hate speech, it has been a prerogative of so many power dynamics today and has hurt so many people; from the emotionally wounded parents of the Sandy Hook mass shooting massacre (because we value guns over our children) to the Chinese factory workers who live under polluted skies in order to manufacture consumer goods for the western economies. To deny that this willful greed isn’t at the heart of all this violence and environmental degradation is to deny reality itself. Thus, as educators, we cannot be merely sympathetic but actively engaged in raising our sociopolitical consciousness in order to involve our students in lively discussions about why things are the way they are and encourage students to see themselves as agents of social change and transformation. 

I believe that post-pandemic, providing learning experiences that challenge students to question structures, beliefs, and norms of power and influence is an “essential service”, in order for the history of inequity and oppression to not become our global future. 

Standards

You can’t expect standards from over 20 years ago to remain relevant and meaningful for today. We have to really be looking carefully at our national standards and be asking bigger questions. Even the Common Core standards are a decade old–think about how much has changed in this year alone!–isn’t it time to re-examine the whole concept of a “standard” and if we are trying to use these “standards” to create “widgets” or compassionate humans? I’ve written before about the Post Pandemic: “New Normals” Worth Developing and looking at what we want students to achieve at certain ages needs to go beyond simple knowledge and skills. Benchmarks need to include our hearts along with our heads ad hands.

Recently I heard Jan Mills speak at the IB Global Conference about the initiative in the PYP to reform our scope and sequence documents. As I leaned in to listen, I felt a spark of energy for this project, not only because it called attention that curriculum documents need a constant revisiting but also because she spoke about learning progressions based on the Approaches to Learning (Atls), in which knowledge alone no longer takes the center stage. 

In my mind, this is an important transition into not just focusing on what students know and can do, but to really grasp what it means to be thinking and communicating through the lens of a mathematician or writer or historian, or musician. I think this could be an exciting change in how learning happens in our classrooms.

I believe that post-pandemic, providing an expanded definition of “standards” is an “essential service”, in order for students to grow into creative thinkers and compassionate humans. 

Truth (and Media)

There was a time in which we believed that facts were facts. Information was reported and information could also be censored. However, now we talk about “disinformation”. Where did this concept come from?

During all my binge-watching on Netflix, I came across The Social Dilemma. If you haven’t seen it, you really should. In my mind, it is a call to arms to us educators. 

I have never before felt so adamant about ensuring that our students can actually understand what is real and not real information. Moreover, they have to understand the algorithms that create these personalized realities and the echo chambers that exist within them. Students need to recognize when they have limited their access to alternative viewpoints and sources of information.

I believe that post-pandemic, providing authentic and relevant digital literacy is an “essential service” in order for our digital natives to become discriminating consumers and competent with discerning information.

Technology

There is really so much I want to say about this. Over the course of my years, I have grown weary of reading books about how technology is rotting our intellect and dissipating our attention. Technology is not at fault, just like a car cannot be blamed for more accidents just because it replaced the horse and buggy. It’s always been the misuse of something, not the thing itself, that is the culprit. This is the year in which we have finally learned how to embrace it as a necessity and begin to appreciate that not all screen time can be considered equal. 

This is completely accurate when it has come to online and distance learning. Teachers who attempted to replicate their traditional methods realized how ineffective it was with boredom and student disengagement becoming so glaringly obvious, not to mention the worry of low student achievement and critical parents providing their opinions.

So any teacher who still debates whether technology should be infused into our lessons and is recalcitrant to use blended learning structures in this classroom after this pandemic, cannot remain in education. Pining for the “good ole days” of traditional teaching would be an absolute affront to all the professional development that has transpired over the last year. Moreover, we have to improve our methodology and effectiveness in order to release control of learning to our students.

I believe that post-pandemic, improving our use of technology in instruction is an “essential service”, in order to democratize our classrooms and engage digital natives at higher levels of learning. 

So, there you have it–my 4 “essentials” that I think we need to change. Although I know that my list is actually longer and will continue to grow, as I move into 2021, I wonder if this will truly be a “new year” for us in education. I pray that it’s not just another go at the ideas and approaches to learning pre-pandemic (likely circa 2000). If we, as educators, are a genuine “essential service” to our society, then let’s embrace innovation and be committed to developing the personal best, not only from our students but of our humanity. 

Keeping Optimistic When in the Vice Grip of Crisis

Keeping Optimistic When in the Vice Grip of Crisis

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herding tigers

I’ve heard it said that we either make our decisions based on fear or out of love/passion. Fear is based on avoidance, anxiety, and maintaining current paradigms. Whereas love and passion are based on change,  potential, and new paradigms for a new world. In leadership, we need to balance both. 

Although I cannot speak for ALL schools, as I talk to others in different parts of the world, it feels like schools, especially private schools,  are caught in a vice-grip- the pressures and challenges of our teacher community coming from one direction and those of the parent community squeezing in from another perspective.  For example, communities in Brazil are grappling with re-opening businesses to keep the economy chugging along, but hasten to re-open schools. And there is a good reason for this since our transmission numbers are still high. However, from the parents’ point of view, it seems morally wrong to open bars and clubs while we fail to provide access to schools to educate children. I totally get that and I agree that this pandemic is bringing up misguided values in our societies. But there is this other issue–health and safety which has really hardly been addressed. Humans are highly social creatures so demanding that they remain distant from one another seems unholy for this extended period of time. Why is the best we can do is still to wash our hands and wear a mask? I can understand and appreciate why teachers are apprehensive to come back to face-to-face learning. Teaching isn’t a career with high occupational hazards; it’s not like when you join the military, you can expect to die when doing your duty. Teachers are public servants who haven’t considered these types of risks before, especially since their pay does not reflect the value that they offer society. Because of these competing ideas, it’s hard to find a way forward when all of us need to figure out how to co-exist with COVID and do what’s best for the long-term.

As I reflect on the uncertainty of these times,  schools are confronted often with challenges from a fear-based perspective. Fear of losing student enrollment…..fear of increasing anxiety and depression of community members…. fear of the inadequacy and outdated teaching methodologies…fear of going back to school with Draconian classrooms…..fear of learning loss and conceptual gaps…….fear of ….(fill in the blank)

These are issues that suck the oxygen out of the room. Somewhere, in the midst of this crisis, we have to find some hope and reach for the “blue skies”. 

As a curriculum coordinator, there are so many of these things that I can’t impact. I have no control of, but then again, who in leadership does these days? So I am reminded of this prayer that has been posted on my refrigerator for ages: The Serenity Prayer. This is great advice for times like these: accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

So when I look at those fears, I wonder if I have any power to change these things and if I do, what might be those actions. I think that everyone is working at their full capacity, but I wonder if there are some tweaks worth making in order to address the needs of our community and who might be those people that could be of support. Hmmm…

But what if we move into a more proactive approach? What if we looked beyond this pandemic and start to move into more visionary thinking. This is where I would prefer to spend my energy–in a state of enthusiasm and passion.

Lately, I’ve been enthralled by Dan Heath’s book called Upstream in which the main premise is how to solve problems before they even happen. Some of the most interesting phenomena he details are the concepts and barriers to change:

  • Problem blindness: I don’t see the problem or the problem seems inevitable. 
  • Lack of ownership: That’s not my problem to solve.
  • Tunneling: I can’t deal with that right now.

As I read that, I thought about all the systematic changes that we need to make in education. Equity issues, outdated curriculum, and standardizing the heck out of our students’ souls. But we fight over banal issues like should we teach cursive handwriting? Seriously? THIS is important?

I just have to shake my head when I hear that. 

So many issues are floating to the surface right now that are more worthy of our attention and focus. But maybe we have “problem blindness” or feel powerless with a lack of ownership and tunnel vision. But what if, instead of looking at the standards as our compass for student achievement and commiserating about learning gaps, we looked at those as a reference guide. Instead, what if we could address “heart gaps”, using the Sustainability Development Goals to direct our outcomes? What if solving these issues became the student focus instead of test scores?

Okay, SDGs too political for your school? What about happiness? Surely that is a neutral topic. If you aren’t going to empower learners to change the systems of the world, then why not bring more joy to the planet? I admire the work of Project Happiness Global who’s goal is to impact 10,000,000 lives through developing kindness, mindfulness, and all the other tools to bringing out the best in us, and our society. When organizations cooperate with schools, then we can get change happening. Looking at schools in New Dehli, India, it is inspiring to see how they are really projecting new possibilities for our world. Personally, if our children learned these skills early, I think the SDGs would take care of themselves because no compassionate human being would be able to tolerate people languishing with poverty, a lack of wellbeing or education, nor could they stand by passively and watch out earth be destroyed.

So, as I keep one foot present in the current trauma of this reality, another foot is planted in the future–the future I want to build for our school community and for the world at large.

Recently, we have been involved in strategic planning and one of the goals we have set is to be a “learning hub for excellence”. I love this goal! But we don’t have an expanded description of “excellence” yet and those indicators that we could measure for its achievement. We have defined traditional hallmarks like higher “quality” teachers and creating more professional development opportunities for our teachers in our community and around the region. But I feel that if we only judge success in traditional academic ways, then we have really missed an opportunity to be worthy of admiration. We have to include our mission, which is based on developing “compassionate agents for a better future”. I think we need to really unpack that and reflect on whether the decisions we are making during this pandemic are getting us closer to that goal or further away. We need to be pulled by our vision instead of being pushed by the pain of shattering paradigms. So, I’m still lingering on how we can establish Post-pandemic “New Normals” and thinking about what S.M.A.R.T. goals we can create in order to achieve our school’s mission and the larger mission of the IB. This nagging for a new normal helps me to generate optimism and hope. The time is ripe for change and we must look to the horizon beyond this crisis to see an improved state of education.

What about you? How might you stir your heart and move your mind to envisioning a future world that works for everyone?

Post Pandemic: “New Normals” Worth Developing

Post Pandemic: “New Normals” Worth Developing

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What is education?

Childcare?

Job Training?

Citizenship Development? 

It seems like so many countries are grappling with the purpose of education, trying to balance the risk of bringing kids back to school. It is a critical moment in time when we really can evaluate our guiding principles in our societies. In so many ways, globally we are undergoing a “dark night of the soul”, deep in introspection as we reflect on all the incongruent “normals” in our educational systems. 

I digress for a moment……

I like to explore the word education semantically for a moment. Its Latin origins, mean “to bring out; to lead forth”.  The root implies that our intelligence is innate and can be developed.

When I think of this definition, I wonder what this global crisis has revealed about our educational systems? 

Inequity between public and private education–YEP!

Teacher-Driven models of education are not sustainable or appropriate online–YEP!

Misguided or completely absent set of values in our systems?–YEP!

Inadequate training and professional development of our teachers, particularly in using technology in our instruction–YEP!

More care and concern are focused on our current-day economy than designing a more equitable future?–YEP!

But the most disturbing is the lack of organizational leadership and creative problem solving since the best we can do is hole ourselves up in our homes until this thing blows over. This fact right here is the absolute reason why we have to look carefully at our educational systems and make changes as we create more agile and dynamic schools. We can’t keep educating our future generations to look for answers outside of themselves–we need an “all hands on deck” approach that involves integrated and collaborative communities of problem-solvers. 

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you do not blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need more fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You look for reasons it is not doing well. You never blame the lettuce.

-Thich Nhat Hahn-

Now is the time to seize upon this opportunity to make constructive changes in our schools and educational systems. When we look at our current crop of “lettuce”, I feel a powerful and urgent need of changing minds and hearts when it comes to reconstructing education. 

Purpose: Develop our Humanity

The International Baccalaureate is one of the few frameworks that actually defines who we want our students to become as a result of their learning. In a nutshell, we want to make “good humans”.

This shouldn’t be an exception, but should be a rule in ALL of our schools.

Yet so many schools still reflect a factory-model, industrial age approach to learning. In which when the system “spits them out” at the end, they have a conforming pattern and standardized base of knowledge. This is in direct opposition to what we know about our human design. Every aspect of who we are is unique and essential.

As educators, we must question the directives of our national and local authorities in order to change these definitions. We must demand to infuse our policies to account for improvements in our humanity, rather than look at defining our systems by creating subordinate and compliant masses who keep our economies chugging along.

But even if we can’t get change within our higher authority, we must be willing to be way-showers and make changes in our schools that move away from these vestiges of this outdated paradigm.

This graphic is from Bold Moves for Schools, ASCD, 2017, H.H. Jacobs and M.H. Alcoc and provides consideration of the areas in which our schools can shift from the traditional factory-model paradigm to a more fluid and contemporary model of education.

Teachers shouldn’t be waiting for leadership to make these changes. The level of complexity that it takes to make this shift is almost prohibitive. Teachers must dream and co-design with school leadership so that this is a thoughtful and collaborative grass-roots effort. Schools can’t restructure without a teamwork and ingenuity.

These shifts are not minor, these are transformational. We are providing structures that empower learners and create real-world applications that act as “training wheels” for dealing with challenges.

I hear Gandhi in my head …

It might take time but with collective and persistent patience, we can create a new future for education.

Redefine: Indicators of “performance” for evidence of learning

I remember a time when the standardized testing craze was contagious. I can recall a day when one of my Kiwi friends was lamenting that New Zealand was embracing the American antidote for education with school grading based upon students’ achievement on the general skill-based tests.  As she was explaining the new direction that the NZ education system was going, her cheeks turned red with emotion. I had to sigh, remembering my own experience and stress of teaching to a test. 

However, many schools get “graded” on student performance. The word performance implies some action or behavior that demonstrates a specific ability.  Learning, on the other hand, is a process, an accumulation of knowledge gained through experience that changes behavior. Although there is a thread that links the two, we often confuse student data as an indicator of learning, when, in fact, it is really the other way around. Learning can only be demonstrated by actions taken by students of the skills they have acquired.  Because of this, learning describes this innate capacity to “bring forth” our intelligence and creativity.

After this COVID crisis dies down and we return to our school, we must broaden our definition of performance that goes beyond knowing the “answers” to knowing the “problems” so that students can predict potential threats to our societies and create proactive solutions that innovate and address these areas of concern. It’s less about demonstrating knowledge and more about awareness.

A colleague of mine recently pointed out that there is not one standard in their national curriculum around discrimination and oppression. This is an example of how we censor reality.

Our national standards are helpful in understanding the cognitive milestones that we expect for numeracy and literacy, but they do not really reflect the “standards” we want for our humanity: kindness, resilience, cooperation, generosity, appreciation, curiosity, and joy. Content knowledge no longer holds the capacity for future success. We need “heart-based” standards and, as educators, model and facilitate the growth of emotional and situational intelligence.

Our students’ performance may not be as measurable and easy to assess when we focus on this area but I believe that we can still observe “learning” when students can manage conflict, articulate concerns, and self-manage their learning, returning home inspired and energized. Instead of knowledge, HOPE can be an indicator of performance standards.

Imagining New Normals

These are the “new normals” that I believe is worth striving for in a post-pandemic era of education: Value-based Goals for Education, Restructuring Systems of Learning, and Creating New “Performance Standards”.

When I consider the root meaning of “education”, I can’t help but contemplate what I wish to “to bring out; to lead forth” as a result of this experience. As difficult as this time is, we must lean on potential and think of the possible good that can come out of this experience.

What do you believe should become “new normals”? What do you hope to dream and scheme about as we reconsider the purpose of education?
Chaos to Clarity: PYP Practitioner Checklist for Synchronized and Asynchronized Learning

Chaos to Clarity: PYP Practitioner Checklist for Synchronized and Asynchronized Learning

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Six months. Half a year. 

That’s been the length of this experience, and, as the Covid-19 numbers are not abating, the “finish line” is not in sight. Shutting ourselves up in our homes and pivoting suddenly has been quite agonizing. When schools all had to suddenly go online, we scrambled to figure out the technology to continue learning.  Very few schools had the systems in place to support a smooth transition and while we trained teachers, we also had to train families and students. But here we are. 

I think about the gifts that are “wrapped up in sandpaper” from this collective experience. The prize chief among this is developing resiliency, in which I can build mental and emotional strength. There is a real possibility for ‘Post-traumatic’ growth. So when I look at that graphic, I can reflect on all the domains and see how I am for the better due to this pandemic.

And, although this has been hell, there has a great opportunity to turn this into a positive experience for us professionally. This is really a powerful moment when we are being confronted with what we truly believe about student learning and the role of the teacher. So we are really grappling with how to figure out how to create self-directed learning and do online learning really, really well. 

So, I feel one of the most important things I can do as a leader is to create clarity out of this confusion, provide structure despite the backdrop of turmoil and ambiguity.  Thus, when our school revised our online learning plan, I really wanted to define how we can do the PYP online because what we would have done over the course of a day now must be condensed into a handful of learning experiences.  I’ve developed an architecture around lesson planning for our teachers in order to support a meaningful and engaging learning experience for our students. For my new-to-the-PYP staff, I really wanted them to be able to name and notice the key areas of learning that we need to be planning for in our online learning program. Here is some of that thinking:

PYP Practitioner Checklist for Synchronized Learning

During this lesson, have I ….?

  • Lead with a Guiding Question so I can start with an inquiry stance
  • Developed a Concept 
  • Provided opportunities to grow one or more Approaches to Learning (Atls)
  • Cultivated the Learner Profile (in the guiding question or as a part of self-reflection)
  • Taught through interaction in order to honor Social Constructivism (dialogue brings new understanding)
  • Embedded Assessment

Structuring our lessons intentionally to “cover” this checklist will eventually lead teachers to develop “muscle memory” with practice. It’s important that teachers can name and notice these aspects of the PYP in daily synchronized lessons, which we conduct through the Zoom platform. We continue to reflect and refine how we teach our live lessons. 

But we also do a fair amount of learning through activities posted on SeeSaw. So, again, I have created another concise structure to delineate the elements that are important to cultivate self-navigating learners:

PYP Practitioner Checklist for Asynchronized Learning
  • Guiding Question (start with an inquiry-stance)
  • Concept Development
  • Success Criteria
  • Timely feedback

Here is an example of what a post looks like:

Although not stated in the checklist, teachers also have to include video, audio (translated into Portuguese), and visual instructions so that they can be successful in their learning. This is also included in our school’s online learning plan. 

As we continue to reflect and review our practices, I think these structures will serve us post-pandemic because it helps to develop teacher efficacy or as it is more commonly known as “competance”. They say that Practice makes progress, so I am hopeful that these structures facilitate the process of progressing from incompetence to competence as a skillful PYP practitioner.

So, in my heart, I want to support my teachers with this clarity and design frameworks for online learning that will help all our teachers, new or experienced into refining their ability to “make the PYP happen” online. Although this is not perfect, I believe it is a step forward in helping teachers and can act as a catalyst for the mindful practice of our pedagogical principles. 

 

Thinking About How to “Make the PYP Happen” Online

Thinking About How to “Make the PYP Happen” Online

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Here we go again! Schools are beginning their 2020-2021 school. For many of us, this is another time at the bat to try on this thing called “online learning”.  Last spring, online was an “emergency” learning situation, but now we must have a more planned approach. Even those schools who are are coming back face-to-face still might see an uptick in numbers of COVID and be forced back into remote learning. Uncertainty is the new normal.

So this means that teachers have to get good at using technology in a thoughtful and intentional way. For our school, we have really been digging into the question of how do you do the PYP online? During our school holiday, I read Teaching and Technology During a Time of Crisis which provided stories about the myriad of approaches to dealing with the sudden shift to online learning. And as I read through these experiences, it got me wondering about how might these experiences be articulated through the lens of “Making the PYP Happen ONLINE”.

Hmmm…

Now that many of our schools get another crack at this, I think we must be truly reflecting on how our PYP students will experience learning differently than in other schools online. What is the difference in our pedagogical approaches?

Well, let’s be clear what online learning is NOT for our students:

It’s rather obvious that we don’t do an inquiry into “worksheets” or stop teaching certain subject areas because it’s too “hard” to do online. It’s not a bunch of choice boards either and calling that “agency”. These things might have been okay during “emergency learning” but now that we face prolonged online learning, we have to be much intentional and develop skillfulness in teaching in this new way.  It’s also not asynchronized lessons only (Google Classroom, SeeSaw, Schoology, etc..) or parking kids in front of a screen and doing synchronized lessons only (Zoom, Google Meets, Microsoft Teams). Why?  Because the heart of who we are as PYP educators is a firm belief in social constructivism.

Social constructivism: pedagogical approach that believes that knowledge is something that a learner ‘constructs’ for themselves, rather than passively absorbs.  Students construct their knowledge through conversation and interaction, with each other and with teachers. In this way, students cultivate a better understanding of concepts when they work together and discuss ideas. (Piaget + Vygotsky)

So, as we develop our online learning plans 2.0 and transition into hybrid learning we must keep in mind that students need time to construct meaning on their own and through group discussion. This is why we need a balance of synchronized and synchronized learning experiences.

So after reflecting on this, I sat down and considered the tech tools that classrooms might use to not only increase student engagement but also provide for social interaction online. This 2×2 matrix represents some of my thinking when it comes purposefully using technology to support the PYP online. I also thought it might help teachers think about what platforms they might need to not only get good at for student engagement but also for developing relationships online. Obviously this doesn’t represent every app out there and there’s a lot of nuances missing in how apps can be used, but I wanted our teachers to be thinking about purposely choosing platforms to support social constructivism, whether it was through a synchronized lesson or through synchronized learning. So let’s take a look at some apps and how they might support social constructivism.

Google Jamboard (Free)

If your school has a Google for Education account, it is typically in your suite of apps and is very easy to use. We use Zoom for our live synchronized lessons but when using the Zoom whiteboard in breakout rooms is really different to save and share work. So, Jamboard really comes in handy to promote small group discussions–whether brainstorming ideas, solving math problems, or doing visible thinking routines–this is a great platform for capturing student thinking.  

Pros: Whether you are using Google Meets (need a chrome extension for Breakout rooms )or Zoom, you can have students using this collaborative whiteboard through synchronized lessons in order to share ideas and develop conceptual understandings. It has basic drawing features, the ability to add images, sticky notes, and a variety of backgrounds to support different kinds of learning. 

Cons: Only provides for 16 “touchpoints”, which means that you can only have 16 persons working on a Jamboard at a time so this makes it tricky for a whole class to work on one Jamboard. No audio or video features so student thinking can only be captured in written form. Thus this wouldn’t be good for asynchonized learning. 

FlipGrid (Free)

For synchronized learning, this is one of the best platforms to have a “conversation” online. Students create video responses in order to discuss a topic or describe how to solve a problem. This has soooo many learning applications, that every teacher really should have this tech tool in their teacher toolbox. I’ve used this from everything like a Reader’s Workshop partner reading to sharing unit projects. How you use this platform is only limited to your imagination. 

Pros: Easy for teachers to create discussion topics and can embed a lot of content from other apps. Students love making and engaging in video responses but have the chance to “cover their face” with an emoji in order to protect privacy. Flipgrid has also added written responses as well for those truly camera shy. Also, has assessment embedded into the platform, making it easy to get feedback and have a well-round academic experience online. 

Cons: App smashing can sometimes be clumsy. For example, when students shared a Google Slide presentation, we had permission issues due to restrictions with our Google admin set up. That was more of a Google hiccup than a FlipGrid one–but you always need to test your boards to see their limitations. Also, since their recent updates, boards aren’t as easy to respond to now with their required email sign-in, making code sharing not as simple as before. If you use this with young ones, consider creating a “private” passcode that is easy enough to type in so that young students can make responses. 

Padlet (Free, but limited)

There are so many ways to use this platform, whether you share a padlet during a live lesson to facilitate a discussion or during an asynchronized lesson.  This also has many learning applications: you can curate resources for students, engage in a discussion, or collaborate on a project. 

Pros:  Super simple to use which makes this good for younger as well as older students. Just click on the page and add your content. As you can see in this image, there is a variety of content that can be shared. 

Cons: Adding content to the board is easy but making comments on this content is very limited, especially in the Free edition. So if you want students to make a comment on something shared, it has to be text-based. If you upgrade and get a paid account, there are a lot more features available but I don’t see how responses can be more versatile in this regard. 

Voice Thread (Paid)

This app makes me wish I was still “in the classroom” and not a dedicated PYP Coordinator. On their website, they claim “VoiceThread is a platform where students develop critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity skills.” After looking at some of the projects on Voice Thread library, I can see how you take a typical video lesson and amplify through creating interaction for students. 

Pros: Teachers can upload, share, and discuss documents, presentations, images, audio files and videos. Over 50 different types of media can be used in a VoiceThread, so you can literally have a discussion ON a particular piece of content. Students can comment using either a microphone, webcam, text, phone, or an audio-file upload.

Cons: For $79 per year or $15 per month, you better be committed to using this or you’re throwing your hard-earned money away. Also, I think teachers would need to spend a weekend, at least, at figuring out how to create and train students at creating responses. It’s a robust platform but may need some time to figure out how to use its bells and whistles. 

Parlay (Paid)

I came across this platform when researching new tech tools for online learning. I really liked its concept of chunking discussion into parts, making this very useful for social constructivism. If you look at how discussions are structured, students are provided a provocation and prompt in which they must reflect on it in written form. Then other students can engage in written discussion and provide peer feedback. Then, in the next phase of the discussion, students go “live” during a “roundtable” on Zoom or another video conferencing platform.

Pros: It has a solid approach to developing deeper learning through a process of critical thinking and discussion. 

Cons: You will notice immediately that this platform is better suited for older students because it relies on discussion forums and it frames discussions around a “course” (seems like the target is high school and college students) so test it out during PLC to have teachers think about how you could approach this with intermediate grade levels. 

Although there are lots of choices out there for apps to increase student online engagement, I hope teachers value interaction as a “must-do” for PYP instruction. Hopefully, this blog post provides some food for thought. 

What apps or platforms might you recommend for cultivating social constructivism through online learning? Please share!

Wabi-Sabi Collaboration in a Time of #RemoteLearning

Wabi-Sabi Collaboration in a Time of #RemoteLearning

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As we transitioned to remote learning, our struggles have been largely dealing with technology and finding ways to problem solve the glitches that showed up in online lessons. When I saw this graphic shared by Dr. Jennifer Chang Wathall on Twitter, I could relate to where our school’s teaching teams were at with instructional design with remote learning. stages of elearning.jpeg

However, what this graphic doesn’t show is the fierce collaboration that underpins moving from one stage to the next. Collaboration is how we move through those e-learning stages: from survive, to strive, to thrive, to arrive.

Perhaps it has been different at other schools, but our leadership has really demanded our teachers work together as a team, co-planning and co-creating lessons for online learning. We did this for 2 main reasons.

  1. Divide and Conquer: If teacher teams could collectively share lessons and post them onto SeeSaw, then they would feel less overwhelmed with the new demands.
  2. Team building: The collective struggle would help support teams to form stronger bonds, nurturing relationships despite our distance.  Teachers wouldn’t feel “alone”, they’d feel supported during this time.

This has been a transformative process for our grade-level teams. Earlier this year, we did some professional learning into team teaching and best practices for co-teaching. One of the artifacts that we co-constructed was a reflective tool that helped us to define what are the stages  we were at as teams:

What has been interesting, is that since we’ve started remote learning, every one of our teaching teams has encountered conflict which, as they navigated their emotions and processed their perceptions, has deepened their ability to communicate and collaborate. And, as they work through their team challenges, it has moved them through lower-level stages into true “knot working”.  Remote learning has been the catalyst for really digging into our toolbox and using strategies that help members to share openly, be vulnerable and remain open to change. So, instead of confrontation, we have CAREfrontation.

I’m coming to understand that there is an “art” of being in intellectual communion with others. And I have noticed that these CAREfrontations employ the Japenese concept of finding beauty, Wabi-Sabi.

wabi-sabi (侘寂) 
Wabi originally referred to the loneliness of living in nature, remote from society; sabi meant “chill”, “lean” or “withered”. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to the object. Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, the life of the object and its impermanence Wikipedia

When I reflect on this definition, I think about how social distancing has the potential to bring out the worst and the best in us. This belies our own imperfection and flaws. But it is these idiosyncrasies that make us special, a one-of-a-kind. And when members on ouseth godin quote.jpegr teams can convert these flawed images of one another into a new perception, then our weaknesses can become our strengths. According to Barbara Bloom, “When the Japanese mend broken objects, they fill the cracks with gold.  They believe that when something has suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful.”

Isn’t that lovely? 

So how do we fill these “cracks” with gold on our teams?

I think the first step is having awareness. We know that having differences are inevitable. What matters is how we manage our differences. When we apply Wabi-Sabi to our relationships, we have to embrace the most fundamental aspects of who they are. Yes, we wish they were “perfect” but they are not. They are who they are, so we must accept and value them. This perhaps is the hardest part. Accepting what is. But when we can acknowledge a member’s uniqueness, we validate their worth and the effort that they make to the team. This is a must. It is the only way we can move through conflict.

This validation helps support teacher self-efficacy– the #1 factor that influences positive student outcomes. So the ability to support and appreciate one another on a learning team is a vital component of collaboration. We elevate the learning when we provide an emotional and professional boost to one another.

Through this process, I have come to understand that acceptance of others is a kind of generosity. It is an opening in our hearts to allowing what is presenting before us to be there. If this tender heart doesn’t exist, then we must find a way through this impasse. This becomes the work of leadership, to be the model, to demonstrate this unconditional love. If we can do this, then we can support teams to release their grip on this notion of “perfection” and expand the team’s definition of it to include all the failures and mistakes that are made as we fumble through developing amazing experiences for our students online.

When we can appreciate the learning process that we are all going through professionally and personally, then we can find humility and humor–the gold that can be used to fuse our teams’ gaps.

I cannot say that Wabi-Sabi alone is the only principle that can guide our teams through this transitional period, but it is one that is serving our personal and professional growth at this moment. Perhaps it can benefit your community as well.

 

Professional Learning: Gearing Up for #Remote Learning

Professional Learning: Gearing Up for #Remote Learning

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As I sit here with my laptop perched in my lap, I hear birds singing and a car tumble down our steep road. I can see the light start to peek out behind puffy clouds resting on the tops of buildings and mountains. Today seems to be like any other day here in Brazil, but if I were to turn on my TV or dare to look at my internet news feed, I would experience a different reality–one that is gripped with fear. Fear of catching a virus. Covid19. You would think that this is some kind of storyline from World War Z, a once-popular zombie apocalypse movie in which people scramble to contain a terrible virus. I don’t think Covid19 is going to lead to the destruction of mankind, but we sure are behaving in a very cautious manner.

So, here we are, as educators, in the midst of figuring out how we can do remote learning. For many of us, even the most tech-savvy, we are grappling with the lack of experience with this kind of learning. As I write this post, our school isn’t facing the reality of doing this quite yet, but we are preparing for when learning goes online. But I live in Belo Horizonte, tucked in the mountains of Minas Gerais, where we only have 1 case within the whole city.  In Sao Paulo, the city that has the most cases of coronaviruses, they face other challenges. Our biggest and most extraordinary conference in this region is set to take place next week–AASSA Educators’ Conference that has educational rockstars like John Hattie, Cindy Moss and George Couros who will be keynote speakers. Yours truly was going to present as well. I have never felt so excited about a conference in my life.

But we received a notice last week that it’s …..getting canceled? Nope, it’s going virtual!! My first reaction was surprise. Woah–kudos to them for not outright canceling! I loved how the organization was really taking the lead on moving forward, despite schools’ travel restrictions. Of course, I was bummed that we weren’t going to Sao Paulo. Traveling and networking are some of my favorite part of these events. But as we sat in our principles office, it became clear, as the leader of professional learning, it was my job to be a cheerleader. (For anyone who knows me, this actually isn’t a stretch.) I was eager to turn lemons into lemonade.  Because our school had actually created Professional Development days on our school calendar in order for the bulk of us to attend. We were going to have our staff come on-site in order to ensure that they were distraction-free and had access to technology. I started brainstorming ideas of how we were going to make it fun and engaging.

But on Friday (the 13th, no less) I saw the email from AASSA with the subject line that said: AASSA 2020 Educators’ Conference – CANCELED

I blinked. Did I read that right? So I clicked to read:

We have continued to monitor the developments related to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The situation is quickly evolving and schools in our region are attending to pressing demands that make participating virtually in a conference during this time extremely challenging.  Therefore, the AASSA 2020 Educators’ Conference is canceled.

When I read that my mouth dropped and my heart sank. it means that there are 2 unplanned PD days. Now, what are we going to do? Cancel those days and head to the beach? Hahaha–not a chance! With over 57 countries currently calling off school, my principal informed me that we are going to prepare for what now seems inevitable. Remote Learning.

The good news is that we have been preparing for remote learning for a while. Kasey Bell posted a really helpful blog post called: Coronavirus Closures? Online Learning Tips for Teachers and Schools that helped our school to create an Essential Agreement with our teachers for remote learning. For our lower school, it meant that we needed to get really good at SeeSaw and at Google Meets–the 2 platforms that we were going to focus on. (Less is more!)

Serendipitously, I had a recent chat with Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano, and she inspired me with some ideas. So with that in mind, I started scrambling to get these 2 days planned.

My current thinking is that during our PD days we will play BINGO. My principal always asks me when I go to him with ideas–“so what are your goals?”  So, with that in mind, the goals of my PD BINGO are as follows:

  1. For teachers to PRACTICE online collaboration (with Google Meets)
  2. For teachers to LEARN more about remote learning through social media and blogs.
  3. For teachers to DOCUMENT their learning.
  4. For teachers to NETWORK with other educators outside our organization.
  5. For grade levels to feel PREPARED for our first day of remote learning.
  6. And most importantly, for everyone to have FUN while we are in the midst of stressful times.

Here is the draft of the BINGO:

Even though this isn’t at the same level of awesomeness that an in-person, live conference is, I do hope that this helps our staff to feel less stressful by getting prepared, connected and feeling competent with using the tools that we have designated for our remote learning. This also provides a window into any technical hiccups that we might encounter and allow teachers the support they need before we actually go live with remote learning.

I know that most schools haven’t had the luxury of preparing teachers like we might have. It’s not even a guarantee that we will go remote. But the pressure is on the local and national authorities to decide. And when they do, we intend to be ready!

 
Bias, Prejudice, and Racism–Oh My! 2 Ways to Uncover Blind Spots in Curriculum

Bias, Prejudice, and Racism–Oh My! 2 Ways to Uncover Blind Spots in Curriculum

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Every vertebrate on this planet has a blind spot. There is a break in our visual field when the optic nerves converge and exit the eye to connect into the brain. In that tiny area, there are no light-sensitive cells and thus our ability to perceive something is diminished. Would you like to test this? blind spot test.jpeg

Now wouldn’t it be so lovely if all of our blind spots were that obvious to demonstrate and discover?! However, most of us have biases and prejudice that are concealed and seemingly obscured by the busyness of our lives. We are rarely conscious of them unless someone who is wise to it and courageous enough to bring it to our attention. Although there are tests that can reveal our implicit bias, we have to take action on it if we are sincerely keen to be a better human being.

“Wait?–a better human being?! Why would I want to do that?”

Well, why wouldn’t you want to do that?

Did you know that when we are working at the highest levels of compassion, altruism, and kindness, our brain sends out signals that create shots of happy chemicals like serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine that bath our bodies (and mind) to generate well-being? So doing good is good for us. That’s why it feels so wonderful when we appeal to the better angels of our nature.  Thus when we take action to overcome racism, poverty, and injustice, it’s not just for the benefit of others, but it also has a personal physical benefit for ourselves. And, what may become a selfish motivation becomes addictive over time, with a positive feedback loop created by these neurochemicals.

bias vs principle.jpegOh and it should not just be us, the adults in the room, but we have to inspire the students in our class to do the same. If we are to do real justice to addressing societal issues then, first of all, we need to draw awareness to the “implicit” biases that serve to favor “white people” against Blacks and other people of color.  Sustainable action can only be possible when we shine a light on understanding and overcoming those biases. When we become conscious, a pathway becomes possible to shift energy away from frustrating and hurtful debates over who is or isn’t “a racist”; I think all of us can agree that this name-calling isn’t helpful in directing our efforts toward the problems we are actually trying to solve by confronting racism.

We can no longer go about pretending we do not see race, since it is a construct deeply embedded into the social conscious of (American) society. We assign it to our children at birth. We check race boxes on our applications. We select it on our identifications. We include it in our educational text and use it to tell the story of our country. More important, we recognize that disparities in education, economics, criminal justice and health exist across racial lines. Therefore, pretending we don’t see race and that racism doesn’t exist is not only socially immature; it is also irresponsible and dangerous—it ends up placing blame for racial disparities on those being marginalized rather than tracing those disparities back to a long history of oppression based on color.

Rethinking Racism, by Focus Hope

The term of Culturally Responsive Teaching has started to get attention in educator circles. So what does it mean?

In a nutshell, it describes the ways in which schools and educators recognize, respond to, and celebrate the fundamental cultures within classrooms, as well as providing equity for students from all cultures to gain access to the curriculum. It is divided into three functional dimensions: the institutional dimension, the personal dimension, and the instructional dimension.

Even though there are distinctions between them, when you think about the curriculum, you can see how all of these dimensions are connected. So what makes up our curriculum?….. The units we teach, the books and resources we use, and the ways we develop the culture of learning in our classrooms. To that end, there are  2 main areas, in my opinion, in which culture is transmitted in our school and “blind-spots” begin to develop.

#1-Supporting “The White Man’s Burden” of Curriculum Topics

Most of us have probably not read the poem by Rudyard Kipling which encouraged the Western expansion of the colonial reach of its culture to other parts of the world. It was a “burden” that white people had to bear, to civilize other non-white people, whether they be in the far places of other parts of the world, or to indoctrinate native and immigrant people into their way of living. Of course, this sentiment was prevalent long before the poet’s plea for colonial imperialism, with its basis from the Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries displacing the natives’ religion,  proposing that the “white race” is morally obligated to rule the “non-white” peoples and to encourage their progress (economic, social, and cultural) through domination.

Well, many of us are not marching into neighborhoods and demanding that different cultures change and adapt a “white man’s” habits and perspectives, it’s hard to deny that there is definitely a prevalence of “whiteness” in our curriculum, whether we acknowledge it or not. We teach about the “Koren War” or “Vietnam War” when, in Korea and Vietnam, they call those wars the “American War”, which is much closer to the truth of who wanted to make the war in the first place. If we were to look at our educational standards, the depiction of history in either neutral or positive light of this “white man’s burden” perspective, instead of drawing to mind the misconceptions and malice actions that “white” people did; and furthermore, how they strained to find rationale for the atrocities they engaged in.

More often than we like to admit, very little attention is given to the history or culture of “minority groups”–the very fact that people call “non-white” people “minorities” is a hidden bias lurking in our language. Why are they called “minorities” to begin with? Is it due to population size? Well, that’s a myth that needs to be challenged because more minorities are the new majority. But in terms of which culture is favored and appreciated in our world, you’ll hardly find these “minorities” painted positively. More often than not, they are described as being less intelligent and lazy.

Needless to say, imbuing our curriculum with culturally responsive teaching practices provides not a one-off learning experience for global holidays like Chinese New Year and Martin Luther King Jr Day but opportunities to go deeper with concepts by having ongoing multicultural activities within the classroom setting in order to increase a natural awareness of cultural history, values, and contributions. When you think about cases like Henrico High School‘s Black History Month assembly that went wrong, it’s not surprising because those students and that community had never had to confront other perspectives of history in their schooling and thus got annoyed by the “white guilt” they felt as a result of it. When we provide context for some of the social issues we see today in our world, we have to keep in mind that if we only present this information once a year, then it’s going to bring up backlash. However, if we have continual conversations and design curriculum units that unpack our bias and prejudice, then dealing with conflict and controversy can have a more reasoned approached instead of feeling affronted by the truth of history.

 

#2-Bland and Myopic Libraries

Books take us through space and time like no other instrument of learning. We get into character’s heads and learn about places far away. So it’s easy to see how reading influences our thinking and understanding of others.

Now, let me ask you this if you were to “audit” your classroom library, how many books were either written from the perspective of a character of color or were written by a non-white author? Pretty slim selection, right?

And in my mind, early reading books are the worst! When you look at your guided reading/leveled reading books, whether it is Biff and Chip or I Can Read reading sets, you will see a deficient of multiculturalism.  Now there are some publishers like Reading A to Z that try to include a variety of characters of difference but rarely write about cultural issues from their perspectives. Needless to say, we don’t promote culture and difference among the youngest learners, especially in fiction.

Now I dare you to take a walk into your school’s library–what do you see? The same myopic view of the world according to “straight, white, middle-class Christians” or do you see other texts being highlighted and valued that describe the lives of others? Furthermore, do you see other languages being valued along with English?

When you think about it, it’s no wonder prejudice and bias becomes embedded so early in our learners. Their lives are embued with a bland perspective that may encourage the “love of reading” but not the “love of others”.  We need to stop and question this.  

As educators, we need to demand more of our children’s book publishers, and of our school libraries, for a start. Furthermore, we must take the time to pull those books off the shelves that promote other cultures, reading them aloud and discussing them in class. Exposing kids to “difference” helps them to develop compassion. And for the kids of difference in our class, how do you think it makes them feel–valued and appreciated? –Why wouldn’t we wish to provide that experience for them?!!

There are so many good things that come from this. In this article from The Schools Catalogue Information Services, they list at least 4 benefits from multicultural libraries:

  1. Promotes empathy and unit
  2. Promotes cross-cultural friendship
  3. Helps students to look critically at the world
  4. Encourages identity formation

So, with this in mind, the value of diversity in our classroom and school libraries cannot be understated. We need to examine it critically and work towards having a more culturally-aware and robust selection of literature while using these types of books in our instruction.

We can’t change the past, but we can alter the future

When you examine these 2 areas, content and resources, it is easy to see how bias and prejudice become established in the minds of our learners. The implicit bias becomes formed early in our lives and is not challenged unless we work to dismantle these blind spots. For some of us, this might take a real conscious effort on our part, but for others, it is a natural beacon call to create more peace, understanding, and justice in our world.

Everyone benefits when these blind spots are revealed and barriers to appreciating our differences are removed. We cannot change the conflicts and injustices of the past, but we can alter the future through education. And with enough love and persistence, I do believe that we can collectively, around the globe, can create a better world that works for everyone.

 

Becoming “Educated”: How to Give Up Control and Gain True Power

Becoming “Educated”: How to Give Up Control and Gain True Power

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I just turned the last page of the book, Educated by Tara Westover, an engrossing read about a girl who struggled with her “homeschooling” by her fundamentalist Mormon family and pursued a formal college education. I was deeply touched by her internal conflict to find herself in the midst of the incessant drone of her upbringing to follow a path of a “righteous” compliant woman who remains ignorant of the world and tolerant of abuse. And, although her story has a backdrop of extremism, there are many parallels that many of us can relate to. Think about this quote for a minute:

“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

As I ponder this quote, not only can I see the connection between roles and power in my family dynamics but also in our educational system. Most of us have been brought up by the “Shoulds”, an unrelenting group of people who we have given our power over to. We have been socially engineered, and they influence how we design and navigate our lives. And now, as educators, we are presented with a challenge to create agency in our students, something that many of us never had a direct experience of as a child. This paradigm-shifting requires a deep examination of our beliefs about education and what it means to be “educated”.

One of the turning points for Tara Westover was when she read Isiah Berlin’s essays about Positive and Negative Liberty, in which she came to recognize that personal freedom and political freedom are interwoven. And when I say political freedom, I am not talking about Democrats vs. Republicans or Labour vs. Conservative parties, it is broader than that: the ability to choose and exercise one’s values and beliefs in society.

To coerce a man is to deprive him of freedom–freedom from what? Almost every moralist in human history has praised freedom. Like happiness and goodness, like nature and reality, the meaning of this term is so porous that there is little interpretation that it seems able to resist…… Men are largely interdependent, and no man’s activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in anyway. `Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows’; the liberty of some must depend on the restraint of others.  Two Concepts of Liberty, Isiah Berlin

powerAs we move further away from our “totalitarian approach” of teacher-directed learning and transition into more student-led learning, it may appear that our role as a teacher is becoming irrelevant. That ‘Freedom for the pike is death to the minnows’, in which empowering students to be self-directed diminishes the need for teachers altogether, especially with the technology that is out there. But I disagree. As we provide for more opportunities for students to determine where the content takes them in their learning journey, our true power lies in the craft of empowering them to manage themselves wisely. So, on the surface, it looks like we are giving up control, but in actuality, when we are eliciting more student voice, choice, and ownership, we are amplifying our influence and consequently we need to develop more skillfulness in the practices that shape and promote agency:

  1. Fostering aspiration. Cultivating a vision that is orientated in inspiring others to follow their interests and solve problems that seem impossible.
  2. Reflective Conversation. Having discussions that lead students to think deeper, beyond the “what” and more about the “why”.
  3. Feedback. Appreciating that there are levels of quality and students understand where they stand in order to feel empowered to take the next step.
  4. Seeing Systems. Developing the classroom as a living system so that they recognize what they are teaching each other. And then what is the awareness of the larger context in which we’re operating in beyond our classroom?
  5. Actions Matter. Reminding them that you always have a choice; even inaction is an action–a choice to do nothing is still something, so make better choices.

I think all of us can agree that in the midst of our shifting paradigm in education, our knowledge of content is less important and instead, our knowledge of our craft is more highly valued. When I think about professional development for educators, there are 3 things that we have to get particularly good at: Motivation, Feedback, and Awareness.

I think honing our ability to motivate students is a necessary component of our craft. The focus of “classroom management” is becoming less to do with bending the children to our will but more about helping them to sustain their learning through practical and organized systems in our classroom. No more “I’m done” because they appreciate that there is another step along their learning path to take.

Hence, developing real acumen with giving timely and effective feedback is another area for developing expertise. Knowing when to say less yet ask more can be a real talent. Using the ancient wisdom of Socrates to dig deep with questioning is an art of revealing understandings and misconceptions to truly coach students to their next level. Needless to say, teaching students how to engage in this process with each other is just as vital. When we recognize the relational quality of learning, it goes without saying that conversations matter and students need to learn how to communicate ideas and opinions thoughtfully.

So it goes to reason, self-awareness and social-awareness are the driving forces that make education worth pursuing. When we come into an understanding of our own beliefs and behaviors and take action on them for the betterment of our world, that is truly a life worth living. Creating self-mastery involves appreciating the recesses of our minds and the caverns of our heart, and recognizing the consequence it may have on others is another layer of complexity that is worth learning. Now the “why” can be extending into the “how”, creating a meaningful impact on our relationships and communities. To foster this is a great honor that is bestowed upon us as educators. We should not take this lightly and should endeavor to become proficient in it. Though, of all the areas of our craft, this might be the hardest one to master, since it requires an equal amount of our own personal development as it does professional development. As the saying goes, “You can’t teach what you don’t know.” So we are standing elbow to elbow, right along with our students, as we become masters of our own emotion and influence.

To that end, we now must consider what it means to be a teacher, a true leader of learning, a role model of curiosity and open-mindedness. As our roles change, we gain insight and clarity into the value and purpose of education. We no longer need to stand with clenched fists but instead open palms in order to evolve our notions of learning and expand our reach of the classroom. In giving power to the voice of children, may we find our own in the process.

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