A few years ago, I was introduced to the “Ameoba of Cultural Change” model. I found it to be an interesting way to describe how innovation happens in organizations. As simple, single-cell organisms, amoebas blindly step into the unknown, reaching for “food”; so too do organizations, as innovators and change agents push people towards new ideas and inventions. Although I agree with the personalities within this organizational change model, I don’t think that change has to happen this slowly.
Clearly, we are in unprecedently times and CoVid-19 has certainly been the catalyst for rapid changes in “how we do school” across the globe. And you see nations whose educational systems are paralyzed in the midst of this epidemic. It reminds me of the book, Future Shock by Alvin Toffler that describes the emotional anguish that people undergo as they try to adjust to rapid and disruptive technological changes. I feel that we are definitely in the midst of this feeling as educators who would have been labeled as “laggards”, “curmudgeons”, and “reactionaries” are now unwillingly forced into change. But even those of us who are the “change agents” and “innovators” in our schools can experience equally and acutely how terrifying and painful this experience of remote learning is. The only difference is that our “AHHHHHHHHHH” converts into “AHH-ha” in a shorter period of time. Toffler reminds us all that:
The responsibility for change…lies within us. We must begin with ourselves, teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely to the novel, the surprising, the seemingly radical.
~ Alvin Toffler
Wise advice for all of us, don’t you think?
Personally, I am excited by the forced change–not because I think we all need an Edtech facelift in our schools, but because of the transformation that is happening pedagogically. In a short amount of time, more and more educators are shuffling off traditional and inefficient models of practice to create more intentional and dynamic learning experiences.
At our school, we have transformed the way that we have been using SeeSaw in order to provide for asynchronistic learning activities and now we are using Zoom for real-time instruction and social engagement. In less than a month, the teachers have been moving fast and furious in developing a positive challenge mindset, figuring out they can be more collaborative, and fine-tuning intentional approaches to learning and assessment. Although it is very hard for some to see how amazing this metamorphosis is, as a PYP Coordinator, I am in awe of my teachers and have a deep respect for them plunging into the unknown of online learning together.
Whether we are doing distance learning for another 2 weeks or 2 months, I know that no one will be the same after this experience. At the very least, we will be more critical of curriculum-in-a-box approaches to teaching students and develop the skill of distilling the concepts and the strategies that students need to be successful. Alvin Toffler explains the importance of this skill well….
You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” ~ Alvin Toffler
To get good at reflecting on our practice is so crucial during this time. But I feel that after we retreat into our long holidays, all of us will have the opportunity to feel proud of our growth and willingness to tackle fears. Yes, there will be some of us who may feel traumatized and stressed by this technological kick-in-the-butt, however, I feel that a larger majority will be transformed and energized by their professional growth.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
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:
For teachers to PRACTICE online collaboration (with Google Meets)
For teachers to LEARN more about remote learning through social media and blogs.
For teachers to DOCUMENT their learning.
For teachers to NETWORK with other educators outside our organization.
For grade levels to feel PREPARED for our first day of remote learning.
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!
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
There are two words that are trending in education right now: Agency and Personalized Learning. It’s rather funny that these ideas have been around since the 1960’s and are now emerging as shaping forces in our educational paradigms. However, I hear them used as if they are synonymous, but are they the same thing?
Is Agency the same as Personalized Learning?
This is a question that has been tumbling in my mind for a while. Ever since the PYP introduced the new branding symbol, I kept staring at the center of it and wondering how schools were really going to be “enhanced” by the updates? I also have been seeing a trend in which schools are starting to shift from a guided inquiry into an open inquiry approach, giving primary students, particularly ones in the upper grades, more say in the content of their learning. Although I have not directly visited those schools, I am given the impression that the children get to write their own units and learning is on their terms, in this way, the learning is quite personal and self-directed. I think these schools must be highly motivated to be innovative and deeply committed to this ambitious approach; from leadership to every member of staff, they focus their energy on creating a student self-directed learning approach. So is THIS personal learning? Personalized learning, by its definition, is to customize learning for each student’s strengths, needs, skills, and interests. So what can be more agentic than this?-As a student, I ultimately choose what I learn and when I learn it and teachers just coach me into my next steps.
So should we, as PYP schools be creating more personalized learning for students in order to enhance our student agency? Hmmm…..
A learning community that supports agency offers opportunities for students to develop important skills and dispositions, such as critical and creative thinking, perseverance, independence and confidence. These are vital to the learning process and the development of self-efficacy. The learning community further offers students multiple opportunities to experience the impact of their choices and opinions, which support their evolving perceptions of their identity. In return, students with a stronger sense of self-efficacy bring a stronger sense of agency to the learning community.
From The Learner – PYP, developed by the International Bacchaleurate
After reflecting on that, it seems to me that the answer is NO. Personalized Learning and Agency are not the same thing. Moreover, schools do not have to create “Studios” or “Learning Labs” in which teachers are supporting 20 different personal units of inquiry that the students have created in order for students to have agency. Of course, this is fabulous to have these structures and resources but to assume that this is the gold standard that all of our PYP schools should be doing would be missing the point of the enhancements. It’s about student empowerment, not individual inquiries or personalized learning tracks. So we don’t need a lot of tech and teachers in order to do this. How this looks may differ according to the context and budget considerations of that school. But to think that we need to recreate the wheel in order for us to cultivate student agency would build more barriers to getting started now in our classrooms. We need to think about learner agency as self-efficacy and not individualization. When you look at that excerpt, its the culture of the Learning Community is what creates learner agency, and this is more about developing competency and confidence and less about designing specialized learning spaces.
Agency is Self-directed Learning
The book, Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Learning by John Spencer and AJ Juliani, to me is one of the best books out there that really articulates how student agency can happen in our classroom. When students have the motivation and skills to explore content, they can take action that goes above and beyond our expectations for them. They can develop self-direction. THIS is the GOLD STANDARD that we should be aspiring to.
Moreover, this book helps educators to cultivate the mindset necessary to relinquish control of classroom learning so that learners can become self-directed. It contained an important question in there that I think teachers should tape to their computers (or planning books) when they are sitting down to lesson plan:
WhatdecisionsamImakingforstudentsthat they could makeforthemselves?
I know I found myself going to my class and asking the students “How might we….”
show what we know about this concept
explore this idea
experience our learning differently
No bells or whistles were required. It was about bringing them into the planning of their learning and supporting their decisions. Sometimes students wanted to go off and do their own thing, but more often than not, it meant collaborating with peers. I think this is why we shouldn’t confuse personalized learning with agency, especially since we, as PYP educators, are social-constructivists. We shouldn’t create “learning islands” in our classrooms, rather learning hubs, in which we can connect with different people and resources because, in the real world, this is often what we do to solve problems. This is true ownership of learning. This is the essence of a true Learning Community. We need to work at getting REALLY GOOD at collaboration, so students know who and what can support them in their personal growth.
PYP Coordinator Footnote
As a leader of learning at my school, I can’t begin to express how much misunderstanding there is out there about student agency. I know I have to be careful to tread lightly on pushing student agency without being more informed about how I can support my teachers in supporting their learners. We get into vigorous conversations about this term and often teachers feel that this means that we should “kill” teacher-directed lessons or if we help students manage their decision making, we are squashing their agency. It seems that many teachers equate agency with kids having a free-for-all in classroom learning. Or, on the other hand, we should be differentiating every lesson all the time. Yikes! These are extremes.
So, I think we need to be careful about how we approach this at our schools.
I’m wondering what other terms like “personalized learning” are getting confused with Agency at your schools. Please share so we discuss and debate, arriving at greater clarity and purpose when implementing the PYP enhancements at our schools.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
As a curriculum coordinator, deciding where to begin with the Enhancements has not been easy. I have read through all of the Programme Resouce Materials on the IB’s website and stared at this new re-branding symbol in the hope of greater clarity. When I gaze at the word Agency, I recognize that it isn’t a small word–it’s full of big ideas and demands a significant amount of energy and change in our schools’ culture. Agency, in my mind, has become the driving and sole mission of the PYP Enhancements. But there isn’t a guide book on this topic–A sense of “Start Here”! I feel as if we are defining this collectively as we inquire into Agency in our PYP schools.
My reflection on the rebranding symbol, which feels connected to the work of Simon Sinek and his beacon call to Find Your Why.
So, you can’t simply direct staff to change their paradigms overnight. One of two clever provocations during a staff meeting isn’t going to cut it. It’s a process and will take time to evolve our thinking. I recognize that I am deeply and personally involved in the changing of mindset as well. I do not sit outside of others. I too am a caterpillar incubating in its cocoon. I am completely in the midst of transforming what school is to what school could be. This is as much a personal as well as professional journey that we all are engaged in.
So, as a pedagogical leader, I have decided to start with our “What”–our written curriculum. It feels like our map on our journey. We need to have the “right” map in our hands before we go about transforming our school. With that in mind, our school has embarked upon enhancing our school’s Programme of Inquiry and in the first phase of change. To be clear, it’s not about rephrasing central ideas– if we are going to do this, we need to do this with our students. The students need to be involved in this process. They need to have a say in WHAT we learn so teachers can start developing new strategies into HOW they learn it.
We are breaking with the traditional approach that we, as educators, get to decide what is important to learn. The students are our “standards” and they will guide and decide our “learning outcomes” through means of direct input into our POI. Agency into the WHAT we learn at school feels like the first step in figuring out the HOW we can put kids in the center of our pedagogy.
So we have embarked on a “listening campaign” that involves the students first and foremost, but we intend to mine for the gold in our community–What are the values and concerns that our families hold? What are the cultural forces in our community and the resources that we can tap into? This is also a component of our Listening Campaign.
Teachers have formed teams that will help organize and collect the information we need to start re-envisioning our POI. There are 4 focus groups that will capture the elements of student agency, transdisciplinary learning, international-mindedness, and the Learning Community. Throughout the coming months, we will be doing a school-wide inquiry into the following areas which will influence how the POI will be enhanced:
Student Voices
Our current thinking is that we will have students in Grades 1-5 reflect on the units of inquiry from the grade level below, their current grade level, and the grade level above in order to gauge their level of interest. In order to do this, we will conduct a special school assembly that will explain how we will do this.
Outside of classroom discussions, we intend to have these grade-level POIs posted and give students the chance to have discussions and rate the units. For the ease of data collection, we will use stickers to have them “mark” how they feel about the learning within a unit of inquiry. Here are the stickers: Along with critiquing the current Programme of Inquiry, we will provide opportunities to make suggestions and express how they enjoy “showing what they know” as well as improving current units. In this way, we have more insight and feedback into the current units of inquiry.
Student Hearts
There is a myth in our world that children lack depth. I believe that we are hardwired to care and empathy is a skill that can be developed naturally in our learning communities. As an educator, it simply isn’t true that kids are completely selfish and self-absorbed. Yes, their worlds are small, but it’s obvious when you teach young children that you can see how learning about issues impacts them.
With that in mind, teaching the United Nations’ Sustainability Goals is something that needs to be embedded in our Programme of Inquiry. Currently, it is not a trend, let alone an expectation to do so in our schools. There is a smattering of educators who take it upon themselves to discuss and include the goals in their units. I find this to be a missed opportunity. The Sustainability Goals are for our current generation of students, as it aims to achieve these goals by 2030–that’s only a decade away!
So, in order to draw awareness of these issues, we want to tap into the hearts of our students and call their attention to these goals. We have decided to create a school-wide week of provocations (March 23-27th ) since there are lots of international holidays that tie into the goals then. We would send out announcements to families about our intended activities and then use our Art Fair as an opportunity to reflect on the Goals and see what inspired them. That school event is in high attendance so it could be a great chance to get the parents educated a bit too.
We would use these reflections from this week to inform our curriculum, considering which SDGS really sparked a natural interest and could gain overall support from our community. You see, in my mind, it’s not enough to just “expose” kids to the UN’s SDGs, but we would want them to take action to actually work on them. Garnering their interest and using it as a springboard for continued efforts toward achieving these goals would help cultivate the change agents that they would need to become in order to make their goals a true reality.
Community Values
Every school has a unique composition of its members, from parents to teachers to other community members. In short, we want to determine the strength of our Learning Community by tapping into its main shared values. This will help us to determine our main mission and focus of our Programme of Inquiry. It’s easy for our Learning Community to rally behind its school’s pillars when its member believes in it and want to support it. This is the essence of what we want to do and who we want to become: grounded in our values and driven by our larger mission.
So, we have designed an activity that we will promote during the Art Fair that will help us collect data about the values that our families. They will, in short, share their top 5 values and help us to appreciate why they are important to them. We will use these values as a component of strengthening our Programme of Inquiry, particularly in developing stronger bonds between home, school, and our local community. We hope to have more coherence and collaboration with the “big L” of the Learning Community as a result of including this information in our decision-making process.
Resources
This is a tremendous effort underway to create a database of people and places that we can have access to which will enrich our learning. We are lucky to have a wide swath of professionals in our parent community who are willing to come in and share their knowledge and experience with our children. So, this database will include families just as much as it will include other community members who can benefit and expand the experience of learning in our school. We will also include information for planning field trips to streamline the vetting process and help teachers design more authentic and meaningful experiences outside of classroom learning.
One of the important aspects of curating these resources is that it must be organized in such a way that it makes it easy to filter information and locate the resources we have. So, this group is not only researching and collecting this information but also determining what is the best way to sift through it.
Whole Learning Community Listening
Needless to say, this isn’t a little endeavor, but a larger desire to listen to the WHOLE community. To get everyone on board and engaged. We want our students to be truly inspired and ignited into action. We want to tap into their interests, their concerns, and their families’ values, so we can truly have agency that is authentic and relevant to them.
Needless to say, this journey into creating a truly “enhanced” POI is an experiment–an inquiry in and of itself. At our school, we say “it takes a village” to educate a child, and we believe that this listening campaign can help us capitalize on “our village” and inspire the generation of students we have in our school today. Once we have collected this data, we will use it to revise our current Programme of Inquiry to reflect the students, the families and our community at large.
**Please feel free to comment and add questions that will spark ideas and help us to further refine our process. How is your school ‘enhancing’ the Programme of Inquiry?
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
I think to ask and not assume is probably the most important part of my job description. One skill that I believe needs constant effort for improvement. So, during this past year, as I moved to a new country and a new school, I was very aware of the need to understand the complexities of my new environment and my role in shaping a more agentic culture. As a new leader to an already established learning community, I created a 90-day inquiry into my school in which I explored and examined our current practices and asked questions in the following areas:
Who We Are…
What are the values and beliefs of our community?
What level of influence do parents have on our school’s decision-making process?
What do we believe collectively and as individuals about education in the 21st century?
Who are the influential and important people on staff?
What are the beliefs that teachers have around technology? What are the beliefs around technology use in the home?
Where we are in place and time…
Where are we with respect to accreditation recommendations?
Where are we with transitioning to the enhancements?
Where are staff in their depth of understanding of the PYP?
How is the technology used? (SAMR/TPACK)
How we express ourselves…
What are the ways and means that we communicate?
How frequently do we communicate? What gets communicated?
How is information shared on Social Media
How we organize ourselves…
How do we order resources?
Where are important docs “housed” and how are they shared?
What do timetables look like?–What are the teaching/non-contact periods ratios with co-teachers? How much does each subject “get” on the time table?
Sharing the Planet…
What are the expectations and responsibilities of teachers and staff? Beyond teaching, what else are teachers expected to do?
What sustainability initiatives are underway?
What opportunities exist for student action and community service?
How the World Works…
How is professional learning encouraged and fostered?
What are the budget restrictions?
How do we plan excursions or get involved in community action?
What are any political considerations when we consider initiatives?
Now that the 1st semester is over and I have a sense of “How We Do School Here”, it’s time to turn my attention and focus to the students themselves. I am currently engaged in what I am calling a Listening Campaign–a term generally used for a communication strategy that helps to identify and prioritize the concerns of stakeholders. In this case, I want to dig into the hearts and minds of our students. I have created a simple survey using Google forms which provides the opportunity to deeply listen to students and I am interviewing each student one by one to get a sense of what they care about and how apt they feel at engaging in our learning community. So, as I record their ideas, there is an interaction that I hope communicates how keen I am to hear from them. When I think of my practice of mindfulness, deep listening is a vital component of our relationships–whether it is with our closest and most beloved people in our lives or people who we have more obscure relationships with. I hope that as I sit with them, I communicate that I care about them–they are a valued school member– and I wish to support them on their learning journey. I love how this practice is described in the quote below:
There is only one purpose of deep listening: to help him or her to empty their heart.
“Darling, I’m here for you. And, Darling I know that you are there.”
The gift of your presence is powerful and transformative.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
And, so, I find the answers to my questions revealing if the students feel they have agency and how they might use their agency to make an impact. Here are some of the questions I am asking:
Do you feel that if you have an idea, adults at school will let you try it out?
The reason why I think this way is because…..
In your homeroom classroom, do you feel that you are interested and active in your learning?
The reason why I said that is because…..
How often do you give feedback or offer suggestions to your classmates?
What kind of feedback do you receive from others?
If I got to be the boss of school, the first thing I would change about how I learn is…
If I got to be the boss of the school, the first thing that I would change about snack/lunch and recess is…
One more idea that I have about how to improve the experience at school is…
Is there anything else you want to tell me...
Now I know what you are thinking, they probably answer that we should eat candy at school and be able to play whenever they want. But I have to say that when you lean in, and they know that you want to authentically listen to them, the issues and ideas that come up really expose a deeper level of concern that they have.
I consider this time spent a great privilege and rare opportunity afforded to me. Since this is the first year of implementing the PYP enhancements, I really wanted to get a snapshot of how students see themselves as learners and what issues do they feel need addressing in our learning community. I call this an Agency Audit, and I hope to repeat it after we implement more of the strategies that create the culture of agency at our school.
What questions do you think we need to ask students? How would you approach talking to students? What other questions do you think are important to developing a larger understanding of the learning community?
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
I think it’s time for new “standards” in education.
I believe that education, as a whole, is undergoing a transformation as we speak. Now we are at a precipice, questioning if this industrial model of education is still serving our future needs. We KNOW it isn’t but what should be our next purpose in education?
What if it was happiness?
When I think of the founding of my country, America, the pursuit of happiness was what they called “an inalienable right” to its citizens.
Ask any parent what they really want for their kid and what do they say–Happiness.
So why is it that we are chasing Knowledge as the carrot on the stick when we know that it doesn’t bring true fulfillment and meaning to overall lives to our students? When are we going to consider alternatives to our current paradigm in education? Certainly, policymakers and educational leaders have seen the growing body of research that shows that happiness is not only linked to positive emotions but includes all sorts of benefits, from higher earnings and better immune-system functioning to enhancing creativity. Surely we need to go back to the drawing board and rethink some things.
Numerous indicators of low psychological well-being such as depression, suicidal ideation, and self-harm increased sharply among adolescents since 2010, particularly among girls and young women (Mercado et al., 2017; Mojtabai et al., 2016; Plemmons et al., 2018; Twenge et al., 2018b, 2019a). Depression and self-harm also increased over this time period among children and adolescents in the UK (Morgan et al., 2017; NHS, 2018; Patalay & Gage, 2019). Thus, those in iGen (born after 1995) are markedly lower in psychological well-being than Millennials (born 1980-1994) were at the same age (Twenge, 2017).
This decline in happiness and mental health seems paradoxical. By most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever. The violent crime rate is low, as is the unemployment rate. Income per capita has steadily grown over the last few decades. This is the Easterlin paradox: As the standard of living improves, so should happiness – but it has not.
Although it not a surprise that “money can’t buy happiness”, it is alarming to think that with each new generation of children, their mental health is declining. For a parent of a young girl, like myself, I need to be on the lookout for symptoms of depression in my child in which she is experiencing five or more of these symptoms during the same 2-week period:
Sad mood.
Loss of interest in life, loss of zest, loss of vitality.
Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain, or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.
Sleep disturbance in which you can’t get back to sleep typically out of a helplessness dream.
Psychomotor slowness, being slow of speech and slow of motion.
Fatigue and Fatigability.
Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day.
Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day.
YIKES!!! Who wants to live devoid of joy and meaning for any extended period of time?
Well, the good news is that this trend is absolutely reversible. Although current research shows that our genes may predispose us to some mood disorders like depression, there are other factors that make up 50% of whether or not we will live in a pessimistic and depressed mindset. In fact, neurologists are now showing that we can create alternative thinking pathways in our brains that create more optimism and resilience towards life circumstances. According to Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, “Optimism is a skill that can be learned. Teaching people to realistically challenge their pessimistic explanatory style and to learn optimistic explanatory skills reduces anxiety and depression and increases resilience.”
So, with that in mind, some schools are taking mental health seriously. In places like Australia, India, and New Zealand, countries are starting to take notice of the impact mental health has on their citizens and starting to develop programs to address these concerns. It’s not that they are throwing academics out the window, but they are integrating a “happiness curriculum” into their schools and teaching academic content through this lens. So what are they teaching? The skills that develop well-being:
Awareness and Mindfulness
Resilience
Assertiveness
Creative brainstorming
Relaxation
Along with these and other coping and decision-making skills, taking a strengths-based approach to character development also helps to promote a positive self-image of children and reduce episodes of anxiety. In a nutshell, it incorporates Dr. Martin Seligman’s theory of well-being using the PERMA model to help shape the curriculum and develop the culture of well-being in schools. According to this model, cultivating these areas will promote more resilient and optimistic people comes from students knowing their signature strengths and doing those things they don’t enjoy using their strengths. (The test they use to determine their strengths can be accessed here) . So, what can we do, even if we aren’t in schools that are integrating positive education into our schools?
In the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear, he points out that habits that are 1% better (or 1% worse) may seem insignificant but have a compounding effect over time. So we can employ that knowledge into our classrooms and school routines. When I was in the classroom, I started our daily routine with mindfulness and an exercise in compassion. It took 15 minutes from our academics but it grounded our learning community and developed a culture around self-awareness. As a PYP coordinator, I begin every meeting also with a brief meditation and often bring in practices that encourage deeper and more meaningful work and relationships at our school. Although it would be nice to have a “well-being centre” on our campus and do more large scale practices, starting small in whatever ways you can, is always the best approach.
That being said, as a Primary Years Programme (PYP) school, it is also possible to design units and make larger school efforts around well-being. In order to promote a more vibrant and connected school culture, we can look for ways to embed the principles that unite our Learning Profile with the strengths-based approach found in Positive Education. So how might we do this? Well, let’s filter this question through PERMA:
Positive Emotion
In my mind, developing units of inquiry that explore emotions head-on and cultivate awareness is one of the effective to develop the skills that can generate positive emotion.
The rise in teaching Growth Mindset has certainly helped to reframe failure in our learning situations, however, I wonder if the “power of yet” is enough. Considering this, I think to move into other areas in which we teach other coping skills, along with gratitude, is of great importance.
Central Idea example: (*Who We Are) Humans grow and change over time
*I would recommend this theme so that we can bring in mindset and emotion. So often we think of growth and change as a physical aspect of who we are, but we mature mentally and emotionally as well. Wouldn’t this be fun to teach into? I think so.
Central Idea example: (How We Express Ourselves) We can recognize and appreciate beauty.
Teaching the skill of “awe” is something that we rarely do in the mainstream classroom–we leave that to “the Arts”. But why not help kids to zone on to the good in life and learn how to convert an annoyance into the realization of its blessing? I think a unit like this could not only hone into qualities of aesthetics but provide opportunities to become more mindful and grateful to the everyday wonder in our world.
Central Idea example: Our actions impact relationships.
This central idea could fit into multiple transdisciplinary themes, depending on the grade level, and what we want to spotlight, so I would likely put it under Who We Are or How We Express Ourselves, and even in How We Organize Ourselves for Early Years learners.
Most of the time, a unit like this is heavily focused on doing and not being. However, I could see a unit like this to be a perfect opportunity to develop the skill of forgiveness and compassion. When we teach mercy and perspective, it creates “heart muscles” which lead to reduced anxiety and anger. Furthermore, when we add in the spirit of generosity and altruism, the volume of positive emotion is amplified.
Central Idea example: (How the World Works) Curiosity leads to discoveries.
Honestly, this could be placed into other transdisciplinary themes as well, but I think it would be fun to break with tradition to just thinking of How the World Works as just “the science unit” and expanding that definition to include social-emotional learning. The skill of curiosity is most highly correlated to life satisfaction, happiness, health, longevity, and positive social relationships (Park et al., 2014; Buschor et al., 2013), so I think teaching it as such, would have a ripple effect in multiple subject areas.
Engagement and Flow
Although directly teaching this as a topic is possible, I believe that it would be better to simply create the conditions that promote this aspect of well-being. I find the increasing popularity of project-based learning to be one of those conditions. Also, adding more student agency into our classrooms further encourages and supports student engagement in their learning. Looking for ways to add these kinds of elements into learning would be the best way to approach this area, in my opinion.
Relationships
In the factory model of education, dehumanization was commonplace, with forced submission and punishments. Now we talk about school culture as a transformative agent, with the importance of valuing the learning community. But has our school discipline policies changed much?
Not only in Positive Education schools but other more traditional schools are taking an alternative approach to student “offenses” and incorporating “restorative practices” that are based on the premise that when a child who acts out in some way, they have to face the people that they have harmed in order to develop self-responsibility and empathy. The techniques used are modeled after restorative justice models, in which the child discusses the incident with their peers in a way that feels welcoming and provides the motivation for compassionate action. Here is an example of this practice in action.
Although we may not have some “true believers” in this approach (even though it has remarkable results) and schools may be hesitant to adopt this model, we can still bring the “circle” into our classrooms. We can co-design essential agreements for talking circles with students, and use it to discuss and diffuse situations.
Moreover, I think it’s vital that we teach students “how to be” with one another and manage conflict in situations. So with that in mind, I think teaching the skills of collaboration is a vital aspect of well-being. We often group kids together and ask them to do work without really helping them to understand what it takes to truly cooperate and share responsibility for learning. Lest we forget, when collaboration goes well, it has a high emotional quotient and makes for a more dynamic learning environment. Collaboration is a skill worth teaching.
Consider this quote:
You know the saying, ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’? Well, it gets even better. Happiness shared is happiness squared. When we share our joy with those we love, we feel even more joy. And when we love, we become more loveable.
With this in mind, instead of saying “Gosh, these kids just don’t know how to get along!”, ask “How might I teach these kids to get along”? That is a more empowering question that can be shared with others, including our students. This is the very basis of developing long-lasting and significant relationships in our children’s lives.
Meaning and Purpose
I already suggested project-based learning but if we want to elevate projects, then we need to take it a step further with challenge-based learning. This approach involves moving beyond the 4 walls and looking for opportunities to solve issues in the larger community.
Let’s take for example a likely project that one might see in a Kindergarten classroom, in which kids must create a puppet show (either digitally or in-person) that tells a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Instead of it ending at the classroom or school level, kids design these presentations for populations of people who suffer from depression, like the elderly or people suffering from chronic illness. They present their puppet shows at a nursing home or go to the children’s cancer ward at a local hospital so their learning goes beyond “the standards”. If the challenge is to cheer up people who are going through a tough time, then this project suddenly takes on a new meaning and turns an ordinary learning event into an extraordinary experience.
I also find challenge-based learning a wonderful chance to bring in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in order to teach into the difficulties we face collectively, whether it’s local or global. When we expand our context for learning into the real world, then we create purpose and value in our lives. Instilling the confidence that they can make a difference in the hearts and minds of our young people is much more than academic achievement, it’s a true accomplishment that will leave an indelible mark. We should also inspire that level of action.
Achievement and Accomplishment
Speaking of achievement and accomplishment, although I would hardly call this era of standardized testing the hallmark of “achievement and accomplishment”, I think it’s been our first foray into trying to define student achievement. Under harsh scrutiny, many educators are now in the rebellion of creating “standard” students and questioning whether this cultivates mediocrity in our schools. I think challenging this testing culture and asking if this is really what matters in education is exactly why we should pivot towards Happiness-based education/Positive Education.
I know in many schools, teachers give a general comment that speaks to the character of a child. Although I find this “report card” designed by the Knowledge Is Power Program (or KIPP schools) an interesting artifact that seems to capture more than the “what” of education with subject grades and defines the “who” we want our students to become. It intentionally focuses on developing key character traits, and, although I don’t know how I feel about scoring these areas (for example, what REALLY is the difference between a 4.17 and a 4.33?), I do see the value and impact it can have on student personal growth.
However, in our PYP schools “grading” the Learner Profile is something that would be taboo, but I don’t see why students couldn’t have a reflective tool likes this to assess themselves on a more consistent and continual basis. Furthermore, it could lead to goal setting and other activities that could help cultivate the type of students we wish to create as a result of the learning in our schools. I don’t think we should shy away from these sorts of things, but instead lean into them and co-design with our students. In this way, they understand the true meaning of “achievement and accomplishment”.
A final thought
As I consider the urgency to address the social-emotional issues that plague our world today, I know that our schools can be the best testing ground for this sort of work. It is my hope that we stop looking at trying to make kids the best in content knowledge and skills as the measuring stick of “performance” and start considering how we can teach strategies and mindsets that empower students to be successful in life, now and for the future.
I don’t know if we can necessarily eradicate depression, but I do think we can elevate community and joy in our world through education. In my mind, layering well-being into our curriculum is an easy tweak that everyone can do starting today. Positive education shouldn’t be for the few, but for the many. I hope you will consider what steps you can take today to create a future world that works for everyone.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
They say that life begins at the end of your comfort zone. This couldn’t be truer when we consider the full impact of bringing the Primary Years Programme (PYP) enhancements on board. Making AGENCY front and center of what we do is a major paradigm shift, and if you don’t think so, then your school is either on the cutting edge or so far from the edge that the thought of empowering intelligent children with the capacity to self-direct their learning is downright heresy. Most of our schools fall somewhere in between–in our hearts, we want this, but in our heads, we aren’t sure how to make it happen.
Recently we got together in Sao Paulo to discuss how the Primary Years Programme Enhancements were rolling out in our schools. So much to talk about…so little time. But planning was a topic that we kept coming back to. There are quite a few schools that are developing their own planners, and their teams had a lot of discussion about, not only what elements need to be on the planner, but also where they wanted to begin their focus on the planner. Here are some of the ideas that were shared that were Must-Haves and potential starting points of “The Planner”:
Reflection: Where are we now and where do we want to go?
Learning Goals: The purpose and conceptual focus of learning.
Language: Using the language of the PYP and developing academic language in meaningful ways.
Students: Their passions, interests, and resources that they can bring to the unit.
Assessment: Co-constructing success criteria and developing a continuum using solo taxonomy.
Tools and resources: The people, places, and tech that can be used to invigorate and engage learners.
Approaches to Learning: Ways in which student-initiated learning and agency can be nurtured.
Through these conversations, my mind wandered back to a blog post that I saw a few years ago: “We’re Going On An Expedition” and I keep wondering how we might make learning more like a journey for all students–not just during the PYP Exhibition–but for all grade levels. Moreover, asking the students who they want to become (Learner Profile Alert) as a result of their experiences this year and how teachers could be their guide through this journey. What if THAT was our starting point for planning?
Also, if I think about “The Planner” like the map of this journey, then I am wondering how we might open up the planning of a unit to the students themselves. Instead of “The Planner” being a teacher-directed document, what if we had our official “Planner” for student-created which became the basis of the inquiry? We flip the responsibility of this document so that students got to direct the learning. Hmmm….How might we structure the document in order for students to authentically co-plan with us teachers? I think THIS is the type of PYP planner that I want to create with my team. But what teacher team is so courageous to do this?
Now as someone who has co-constructed units of inquiry with students, I can attest that this made me uncomfortable. These kids don’t know about THE STANDARDS, so it’s not what guides them when we co-construct units. They think about what THEY want to learn, not what some educational body has mandated for them and outlined in THE STANDARDS. So I wonder how we can have true AGENCY if we are the ones telling them what they should know and when they should know it?
In my mind, Who gets to plan the learning? seems like the foundational question to ask when we develop new planning documents. Because if we, as teachers (bless us), get to plan the learning then I think we are the ones who “own” the unit. And if we define Agency as Voice, Choice, and Ownership, then clearly it will be a challenge for students to really take authentic action.
I’m am thinking about how we can use our Exhibition documents as the basis of creating an Enhanced PYP Planner, but I’m afraid that I have more questions than answers in how to approach this. However, the pursuit of these answers is something that I want to explore in earnest. The process of this Enhanced PYP Planner will be a journey unto itself, but I am willing to engage in going deeper into how we create genuine student plans for THEIR learning rather than documenting OUR teacher plans.
I’m curious if anyone else has embarked in this direction or would be keen to go what has-been into what-could-be? What approach would you take?
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
Whenever you move to a new school, you inherit a space that once was someone else’s classroom or office. And as you begin to inhabit this space, you have to rummage through all the “old stuff” that once belonged to another. Some of the remanents of my predecessor were binders full of old Programmes of Inquiries and Unit of Inquiry planners. It was felt like the “PYP Through the Ages” as I combed through the documents.
One of the PYP planners had the title (remember when we used to have titles for our unit planners?): Let’s Do The Hokey-Pokey. I never thought the Hokey-Pokey was that deep. I just about peed my pants reading that. Oh, man, so glad we don’t do that anymore!!
But it’s not just that shift away from titles as topics that has got me thinking about the Primary Year’s Programme’s (PYP) evolution. What are the “trends” taking place in education in general, and what really needs to be “enhanced” in our schools?
Do we need flexible seating, as much as we need flexible thinking? How can we “enhance” that?
I don’t think we need Slide Staircases in our hallways and trampolines in every classroom to inspire creativity. I think kids come naturally equipped with curiosity and imagination. Let’s not forget what is behind this trend–that our learners are unique and that there are optimal conditions for them to thrive. It’s about the kids, not the cushions. Let’s enhance our relationships as much as we enhance our school design.
Do we need better technology or the more skillful use of it? How do we enhance that?
I don’t think we need to have virtual reality headsets and 3D printers to prepare our students for their tech-infused futures. Yes, we must replace outdated iPads that we can’t update anymore with new ones. We want tech that improves instruction, not impedes it. However, let’s remember what tech does for our learning–we can go further faster in our research skills and do some amazing innovative projects when tech gets involved. Nevertheless, the trend with more technology in our classrooms is about enhancing student-directed learning and represents democracy in learning. Let’s enhance the student’s voice, choice, and ownership.
What really needs a facelift? It’s educators and our approaches to learning.
I share these 2 examples because I see a lot of schools are making superficial changes in their schools. Or schools that are being built from the ground up with some fantastic designs. The enhancements are not about the fresh paint and fancy bells and whistles. It’s about a shift in our practice. I know that doesn’t look as sexy on marketing brochures but it’s the truth.
And what has started with deleting the word, Title, on our PYP Unit planners is now evolving into something much bigger, much grander than these “school makeovers”. What is truly changing is the US, as we widen this definition to increase agency.
Now put your right foot in….and shake it all about do the hokey pokey And Turn ourselves around That’s what it’s all about
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
Being held accountable for improving the standard of learning is a weighty task, one that I take very seriously. It consumes a lot of energy in my role as a PYP Coordinator. Every Wednesday morning has been carved out for me to facilitate training and engage in a PLC (Professional Learning Communities). As you can see by this graphic, ensuring that our professional development time is well-spent is an important matter to be considered.
I’ve been in the field of education for 2 decades and I have definitely seen how it has evolved. In the book, Professional Learning in Actionby Victoria J. Risko, MaryEllen Vogt, it was interesting that they noted research done by Kragler, Martin, and Sylvester that described the stages of professional learning over the years:
the in-service era (1950-1960s)
the staff-development era (1970-1980s)
the professional development era (1990-2000s)
the professional learning era (the mid-2000s to present)
Our current era, suggests that teachers must become leaders in their own learning, no longer passive receptacles but self-motivated and responsible. As educators, we are to engage in problem-solving, which is guided by our social constructivists’ principles. When we are intentionally directing our own learning, we are more purposeful in our decision-making in order to advance our knowledge and expertise.
In Zen, there is an expression: Go as a River.
Zen philosophy always likes to represent a complex idea in simple terms, but this saying suggests that we have the capacity to receive, embrace and transform concepts, emotions, and difficult situations, in order to create peace, freedom, and community. The Nobel Laureate, Thích Nhất Hạnh, reminds us that we cannot reach the ocean like a drop of water, we must surrender our isolation and learn how to come together through compassion and a willingness to accept each other unique qualities in order for us to have the energy to do the work we dedicate ourselves to, which in his world, is mindfulness.
There is strength in community.
As a Primary Years Programme Curriculum Coordinator, the heart of my work is collaboration. I not only model it through my efforts with members of the leadership team but with other stakeholders. And, moreover, I strive to cultivate greater collaboration amongst my staff.
The types of collaboration I see teachers engage in happens on multiple levels
In the classroom: with the teachers who support learners, and the learners themselves.
In grade levels: with the team of teachers for that grade level.
In the division: with the various teachers and students at the different grade levels
In the school: with other divisions’ students and/or teachers, the school leadership or the parent organization.
In the community: with groups that are affiliated with the school or other organizations that they volunteer or work with. But in a sense, they are an ambassador of the school.
In networks: with individuals or groups that share common values or interests.
So I have taken this notion, to Go As a River, as the rational and objective of our Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) this year. In my mind, coming together to learn with one another is an intimate and vulnerable act, since it requires honesty, openness, and transparency. There are so many models of PLCs, mostly data-driven, however, I wanted a different approach. I wanted to bake a process into our PLCs that did the following:
developed the skills of collaboration within our division and our teams.
allowed for teacher agency.
taught teachers how to be researchers and guided them through a process of putting educational theory into professional practice.
cultivated supportive teams that helped individual teachers through the struggle in order to build teachers’ self-efficacy, something that has a high impact on student learning, according to John Hattie.
built the capacity to debate and discuss issues without personalizing it, so that people can have the experience of having productive and meaningful conflict.
In this way, teachers are pushed out of their comfort zone in a healthy and safe way, and everyone in our program benefits from our risk-taking efforts, especially our learners, who need us to be responsive. I also felt that it would be important to incorporate the “5 energies of high-performing teams” that you can see in this graphic:
Clearly, I have high hopes for our teams. Simon Sinek, a man whose work inspires me to stretch boundaries, reminds me in this TED talk, that developing the trust and will to cooperate is not something you can simply instruct team to do, (“Get along, people!) but it is a feeling that is cultivated through the climate you create to provide a sense of safety.
As someone who gets to “set the tone” of not only how we collaborate but who we become as professional learners, it would be easy to turn to the many books written about how to construct Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and just copy and paste those systems. But the heart of these systems was designed for standardized test scores and relied on student data in order to inform practices of school improvement. I struggled with this for several reasons, chief among them is that I don’t want our students to fit into a “standard”, I want them to be looked at as unique and special. I didn’t want them to reduce to numbers. If we only use data as the foundation of what we do, then we would miss out on opportunities for genuine teacher inquiries. Speaking of which, I examined the structure of teacher action research and thought perhaps that applying this practice into professional inquiries would be the route to go. However, I found that this was a goal-orientated structure that didn’t actually “teach” teachers how to collaborate, and may not appeal to all teachers since it typically culminates into a research paper. I felt that this put pressure on teams, and why would I want to stress out teams for the glory of publication? The last professional learning structure I examined was the Lesson Study I felt that this was a great tool to incorporate into our PLCs but wasn’t the PLC itself. Thus, I wanted to take what was great about all of these systems and create something that is unique, something that represents, perhaps even mirror, what we might expect in our Primary Years Programme (PYP) classroom.
Speak the Same Language (Intellectual Energy)
In a previous post, What Can Pedagogical Leaders Do to Grease the Wheels of Innovation in Their Schools? I’ve talked about the importance of ensuring that teams have a shared instructional language. Our principal, Matt Ihle, says it best: “Building understanding is the purpose of communication”–and thus by coming into an agreement of what PLC means to us, is the foundation for the work we will do this year.
This is our working definition of a PLC
So, the first order of business was not to come up with “norms” but to come up with a shared working definition of what it means to be “professional learners in our community”. We have to make sure that when I say we are having a PLC meeting, staff know exactly what that means because we have co-constructed a description that is full of vision and purpose.
Be over Do (Social Energy)
Often times we create these agendas and rush into the “doing” of the work before us, squandering really important time to develop teams. I can’t begin to tell you how many schools I’ve either worked at or visited that have leaders who feel that all they need to do is to throw adults into the room, give them a 1/2 hour to establish “norms” and collaboration happens. No! And No!
Conflict happens and what we do with conflict determines the capacity to do good work in our schools and creates the climate in our schools. How we move through conflict has everything to do with trust. In the book, Speed of Trust, Stephen Convey explains that “Speed happens when people truly trust each other.”--one of the reasons why teams are more productive and efficient is due to working through conflict faster. Think about this quote:
“In a high-trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing, and people will still get your meaning. In a low-trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise, and they’ll still misinterpret you.”
― Stephen M.R. Covey, The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything
You know that is true–communication and trust go hand in hand. You can probably think back to a time when someone said something to you that triggered in you some negative emotion and it made it hard to be around that person. However, you may have a friend or colleague who can say something critical and you can reflect on it without being offended by it. Why is that? The reason is that this friend or colleague shares your values. As a result of that, you choose to see how you are connected rather than distinct. Finding common ground is easy when you share common ideals.
So, again, we didn’t talk about “norms”, instead we talked about values. In our first meeting, we ranked and shared personal values with our co-teachers, and in the next meeting, we unpacked and discussed our professional values. It was incredible to see the shift and hear the conversations. People really got to know one another and have discussions that were meaningful, even if they weren’t directly about the PYP Enhancements and student learning. They had permission to be who they are, and what became the “norm” was acceptance and appreciation.
Tribes Vs Teams (Spiritual Energy)
Tribes represent a culture with shared interests and values. Leadership roles are distributed and dynamic. Individuals work toward a common goal, for the sake of their community. This is exactly what I wished for as the engine behind our PLC. These meetings should the development of a coalition that is dedicated to a purpose, so I wanted to turn teams into tribes.
So teachers took a Google survey to put their interests and questions around student learning. I looked for keywords and patterns in order to form the basis of the tribes, then sorted them into their inquiry groups.
Encouraging Curiosity and Inquiry
Translanguaging
Student Agency
Play-based Learning
Student Motivation
Differentiation and Universal Design for Learning
Language and Literacy
When the tribes were inaugurated, I gave them a guide for this “vision quest” and referenced the work from the Center for Courage and Renewal as the premise for our rules of engagement and the Circle of Trust Touchstones became the “norms” of our tribes.
Tribes came together to discuss why this topic matters to them and unpack their philosophies and beliefs that will guide their practice. During another meeting, they crafted a mission statement for the work they will do throughout the school year. In their meetings, they would choose their roles, which were flexible, and purely determined by the group. In this way, they could see the significance of their collaboration and develop a strong support system among them. Mid-year, we would examine and reflect on these mission statements, in order to determine the next steps. And, although some tribes were larger than others, every group has found their way to work through their challenges.
As a part of their PLCs, we had some meetings dedicated to going back to their grade level teams to share what they have been learning about and what their experience has been like doing the Lesson study and peer observations. We used the framework of the constructivist listening tool to provide for deep listening as people had time to share without interruption or judgment.
Acknowledging the Learning Pit (Psychological Energy)
I feel very strongly that if we are to take the profession of education seriously, then we will always be in a state of cognitive dissonance, as we grasp and reach for the “best practice” for the students that we teach. In my post, Why There is No Escape From the Learning Pit, , I explain this conundrum:
“It’s sort of ironic–me, the teacher, who is supposedly the expert, is often shoulder-deep with the students, trying to figure out the course and direction of the inquiry, instead of being assured and confident about the path we are going. It seems that bewilderment, frustration, and struggle have become the perks of being in a state of wonder and anticipation.”
I think there is a real danger in not acknowledging the struggles we face when we start walking the talk, putting principles into practice. I wanted our teams to be prepared for it and accept it. Remember that Go As a River means that we the capacity to receive, embrace and transform concepts, emotions, and difficult situations, in order to create peace, freedom, and community.
The Learning Pit is inevitable, in which we debate and grapple with who we are to who we wish to become as teachers. Furthermore, I explained that it was my job to get them out of their teacher’s comfort zone and that the structure of our PLCs was intended to push them into the pit, but it would also be designed to pull them out. Setting up this expectation was important because I wanted to normalize discomfort but also emphasize that it is safe to do it.
The Cycle of Professional Learning (Physical Energy)
Years ago, I read the book Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and the one big idea that I took away from it was that mastery comes from commitment. So I wanted to ensure that staff had the opportunity to test out and practice ideas, all the while, developing “staying power” when they face challenges with implementation. Thus are PLCs would be cyclical so people could problem solve and celebrate accomplishments. So our PLC meetings would include discussions around the following:
Research:Ask questions and seeking professional literature and learning resources that shed light on the most effective practices.
Implementation: Discuss the challenges and successes of implementing new ideas and practices.
Lesson Study: Develop lessons and integrate ideas into your learning community.
Peer Observation: Watch a lesson related to the research topic. Engage in discussion and self-reflection afterward.
Data evaluation: Discuss the results of either formative, summative or anecdotal evidence of learning.
Self-reflection:Consider your practice and develop your next steps on your learning journey.
Review and Debate: Examine ideas that have arisen as a result of your reading, feedback from your peer observation and implementation of new practices.
These ingredients would the agenda items for our meetings and represent the types of things we would do within our Action Learning Cycle.
Explore and Plan
First, each teacher inquiry needs to start by sharing the personal research around our areas of interest. We set up a SeeSaw PLC group so that people could post the things that were inspiring them. There’s a proverb: “to know and not do, is to not know”; so I wanted to ensure that teachers developed the capacity to read articles or watch videos with the impetus of testing ideas out in their classroom. To take curiosity and put into action, that would be the heart of the work we would do as life-long learners. Here is an anecdote from our PLC that facilitated this practice:
Pre-planning of a lesson: Translating Research Into Action
The research article I’d like to share:
A summary of the article:
The teaching actions are reflected in this article that I don’t do, but I want to try is….
Nothing fancy here, but it’s the lubricant of change and was the prerequisite for the lesson study. Again, I didn’t design anything complicated for that either. I wanted a simple format that would have the basic ideas for the peer observations:
The Plan: Framing the Peer Observation
What questions will drive the lesson? What planned actions will take place in the lesson? (Use the chart to simplify the “looks fors” for your peer)
What the teacher(s) do(es)?
What do the students do?
As a result of applying my new professional learning into the lesson, I expect (my hypothesis about the unplanned actions) the students to…..
Act
This is the implementation phase when a teacher conducts a lesson that integrates their learning from their research and has a peer observe their attempt. The peer observation not only shares practice but it also holds teachers accountable to initiate their growth. Peers come together to share their notes and provide feedback.
And although implementation seems like an obvious action, going back into the research is also an action too. Research includes looking at student data, which can be formal or informal, and also examining more articles and videos–whatever resource they want to use to further their practice.
Bends in the River
As much planning as I put into cultivating the collaborative and trusting climate of our tribes, I have to also be willing to throw things out, as I reflect on what is happening in classrooms and in discussions. I must allow for things to happen organically. Sometimes it means allowing tribes to hold tension, giving them the opportunity to grapple with issues around what is the “best” approach. However, I think this is the kind of spirit that is imbued in the concept of “Go As A River”, as we transform conflict (whether it is trivial or substantial) and trudge out of the Learning Pit, becoming better for it, together.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
How do you see your parents? What words would you use to describe the families in your learning community?
Are they a nuisance? Are they demanding? Or are they helpful? Supportive?
Take a moment and think about the words you have used recently to talk about a family in your learning community. Were you complaining or complimenting? And, if you had to evaluate the language you use to talk about parents, in general, would you say you use mostly positive language or negative language?
In the Ubuntu tradition of South Africa, they have this expression: “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu / motho ke motho ka batho” which translates to “A person is a person through other people.” Or also said, “I am because you are”.
The expression …means that we are recreated anew in every encounter with another person, bringing to each other the unique gifts of our humanity. Those gifts include our differences, which are worth celebrating and preserving. You enrich my life with your unique difference….Ubuntu does not ask that we erase differences and become the same. It asks that we interpret others positively, recognizing that whatever our differences, our humanity is equal. It is an invitation to dialogue, to understanding, even without agreement, and with understanding comes compassion, tolerance, nobility, sharing.
When you consider these words, it makes you wonder how are you interpreting others around you? Needless to say, it’s important to reflect on our “normal” discourse about our families at our schools because we need to consider if we have compassionate perspectives or critical viewpoints of them. Moreover, we need to recognize that those points of view create a bias in how we interact with them.
In the book, Letters to a Young Teacher, Jonathan Kozol provides advice and insight into how we make judgments of parents:
It is even more important to reach out with special care to parents who may seem to have the least involvement, or least commitment to, the education of their children….it’s all too easy to for young teachers, even quite unconsciously, to write off the parents who are not cooperative at first, instead of trying to discover why it is that some of them will not respond to messages that we send home or seem reluctant to show up to meetings that we schedule.
The parents that are most reliable, and the most cooperative…quickly win the loyalty of teachers because they are genuinely helpful. They also tend to share more of the social styles and the value systems of the teachers, so that teachers feel a natural rapport with them and find it easy to converse with them. In the case of the less cooperative parents, on the other hand, I’ve known teachers who throw up their hands and, out of sheer impatience or a feeling of futility, give up on any serious attempts to engage their interest and end up really knowing them.
I feel that he accurately describes the tendency we have to relate better to parents who seem similar to us, and, on the other hand, judge harshly the parents who seem disconnected. However, if we can recognize this bias and reflect upon it, I think it will help us to stay open to the ways in which we can “discover why it is that some of them will not respond to messages that we send home or seem reluctant to show up to meetings that we schedule.” I wholeheartedly agree with his advice to pursue a relationship with those families who seem detached from their child’s life. Whether or not it’s written in our job description, all educators must make parents a priority if they are going to create transformative learning experiences for their students. We must engage with our families.
Finding a Sweet Spot
Although I hate to simplify complex relationships, you can think of parents on a continuum, in which there is a range of engagement practices from completely disinterested and uninvolved to over interested and obtrusive.
As I consider why it is that some parents, whether they are busy or not, make the effort to engage with schools, I think it boils down to trust. Sometimes, we have those helicopter parents who hover around the school, who are often seen as meddling. Often times, they appear intrusive and seem to lack confidence in our ability to meet their child’s needs. They are one level of the extremes and on the other side are those parents who seem to care less about their child and school. We often wonder why they drop off their kids and seem apathetic about their child’s cognitive and social development? In some painful instances, their children seem like more of an inconvenience than a blessing.
Oh and in the middle? These are the “helpful” parents, the ones that are easy to love, in which trust is freely given by the parents to the teacher and reciprocated by the teacher regarding the parents’ efforts to develop their child as a learner.
But what about other those “difficult” parents? The ones on the extremes. Well, I think we all recognize that we can’t match disinterested parents with our own disregard, nor can we get stressed out over the parents who are trying to prepare their child for the SATs in 1st grade. However, we need to “turn to wonder” and become deeply curious about the causes of this apprehension, and not only have an open mind but also have an open-heart to the struggle and conditions that create an unwillingness to partner with teachers. Likewise, the same ingredients that develop trust and get parents to “move toward the middle” work for both sides of this continuum. And this comes down to communication. Although others have identified that there are 9 traits of trustworthy people, in particular, there are 3 main messages that must be communicated to demonstrate to families that you are deserving of their confidence and time:
Competence: Trust me, I know what I’m doing.
Integrity: Trust me, I keep my word and am acting in your best interest. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.
Kindness: Trust me, I like your child and want to help.
Of course, if teachers can connect and develop a rapport with parents, it is easy to communicate these messages. The question is how do we establish these opportunities? And who’s job is it to initiate the contact? Well, in short, it’s EVERYONE’S!
The Institutional Handshake
School-wide communication
These are the newsletters, Twitter feeds, and other channels of communication that go out to the whole school community. In general, these are passive forms of communication, in which there is a one-way flow of information with very little expectation for parents to respond. In my mind, these forms of communication are the bare minimum that a school needs to do to keep families in “the know”. However, the school leadership and administration must plan school events to create occasions to celebrate learning and inform families of the progress that is underway in the learning community.
The School Calendar of Events
Creating school events that make face-to-face communication possible is really important to create a vibrant and engaged community. Sports Day, an International Fair, and concerts/performances are such events that mix fun with learning. They are low commital events though for families, but are necessary for culture building and are important opportunities for families to have exposure to staff to engage in informal conversation. Conversations are the heart of any relationship, which is why academic conferences are also sprinkled around the school year so that more directed discussions can take place around student learning. I know some schools have Celebrations of Learning after every PYP unit. That’s a tremendous amount of energy put forth into a class presentation, but Student-Led conferences are also a great way to share learning which may be less work to pull off on a frequent basis.
Listening Campaigns
In Stephen Convey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit #5 is to seek first to understand, then to be understood, in which the ability to listen with empathy is a key skill. When we genuinely listen to a person, it not only opens our eyes to their concerns but also validates them as a human being. This has the opportunity to build a lot of trust between the organization and the families they serve in the community. The possibility to generate an atmosphere of caring and positive problem-solving is high when schools engage in this level of communication.
Depending on the nature and size of an issue, schools can host “listening campaigns” in which they invite families and employees and students to give feedback about their experience of the system. There is an open invitation issued to participate in gathering and analyzing information.
So what is a listening campaign? In a nutshell, this is a research process, in which leaders strive to:
Examine a problem or issue in which school leadership would benefit from multiple perspectives, so as to identify and define a specific issue that needs to be addressed.
Explore possible solutions and find the necessary resources to implement the desired solution
Identify the decision-maker with the authority to resolve the issue
Gather “intelligence” on the dynamics that contribute to the problem.
More Up Close and Personal: The Classroom level
As a teacher, what words do you think parents might use to describe you? How do you make them feel?
I find it important to reflect on these questions because those answers depend on your level of communication. In general, parents are more satisfied with their child’s teacher when information about the learning is being conveyed. So what, when and where is this information being announced and shared?
Digital Communication
This is probably the most common form of communication–the emails, the SeeSaw posts, Google Classroom announcements, etc..
But how often do you communicate learning? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day?
One Harvard study shows that the frequency of communication really matters:
We find that frequent teacher-family communication immediately increased student engagement as measured by homework completion rates, on-task behavior, and class participation. On average, teacher-family communication increased the odds that students completed their homework by 40%, decreased instances in which teachers had to redirect students’ attention to the task at hand by 25%, and increased class participation rates by 15%.
When you consider this, how often you communicate really plays a significant role in your ability to create partnerships with parents. Moreover, the predictability and persistence of your communication matters.
What does that mean?
It means that you are sending out messages on a consistent basis such as a summary of the learning in a Friday email. Also, when you are sharing information or a request for support, do it with expectant gratitude. Here’s an example of a big ask (dedicating time to help your child research), followed by an affirming message of their support.
Dear Families,
We are embarking on our first research mission for our unit and need your help! During this project, students will be responsible to research the different points of view when it comes to screen time usage for their age group. I have provided some websites for them already, but I’d like them to find 2 more so that they explore at least 5 different perspectives. In this way, they are not only learning HOW to research but also getting into the habit of discerning the information on the sites. Naturally, this complex task needs guidance and so I am so grateful for your support of your child, helping them to be independent and confident researchers. Your encouragement and assistance will make all the difference to their success, so please contact me if you need help in supporting your child with their use of the research guide I provided. I know that when we are partners in their learning, your child achieves more.
As always, I am grateful for your support and care. If you have any questions or concerns, I am happy to help.
All the best,
Ms. Judy
What do you think- Would you, as a parent engage? Why or why not? Do you feel that you could contact me with questions? As an educator, never underestimate the power and precision of your message. What you communicate and how you communicate creates the culture of your classroom–even to parents! They are a part of your learning community! And YOU train your parents to be kind and helpful when you deliver messages in the same way–it’s those mirror neurons kicking in, so develop your “teacher voice” in your digital emails to be one that is courteous and encouraging.
The Face-to-Face
At the end of the day, I used to love running out with the kids to have an opportunity to chat with parents. I know you may be tired and have a long list of things to do, but a few minutes of chit-chat is worth its weight in gold. It’s a good time to be friendly, share an anecdote about a child’s day and ask questions.
“Oh my, Mia seemed so tired today. Is she sleeping well at night?”
“Paulo really made me laugh today. He told me that he knows all about the past since his mom comes from the past. Apparently, you are an expert!”
“Ollie mentioned that his grandma is in the hospital. Is everything okay?”
It’s these little conversations, more so than the formal parent meetings, which makes for the lasting glue in a relationship and the information you mine from these conversations–PRICELESS. And when you do have to conduct a formal parent meeting, families aren’t as nervous and defensive because whatever you are going to share with them comes from a place of genuine care for their child. They know that since you’ve been nothing but considerate and approachable from Day 1 of school.
There are a lot of really great teachers who squander the opportunity to meet and greet families on a regular basis. This frequently happens in the upper grades since you may not have to escort students out at the end of the day and so stay in your classrooms. But when you avoid parent contact, families don’t actually think you’re so hot. They find you aloof and often discredit your teaching approaches. You end up being a source of complaint in the WhatsApp or WeChat group, which sometimes ends up with an email to the principal. All it takes is a smile and a bit of banter to change the tides. The time spent is absolutely worth it.
“I am because you are”
In the PYP, we are social constructivist. We grow through each other. Keep parents in that equation. They matter. A LOT. They are a part of our learning community. Lean into the challenges of your parent groups and enlist them through positive and productive conversations. It is our collective positive effort that lifts everyone–all members. So, I hope I have inspired you to reflect and consider your communication style and its impact on student learning and relationship building. Please share any unique way that you or your school cultivates parent involvement. We all do better when we do it together.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
I also have been seeing a trend in which schools are starting to shift from a guided inquiry into an open inquiry approach, giving primary students, particularly ones in the upper grades, more say in the content of their learning. Although I have not directly visited those schools, I am given the impression that the children get to write their own units and learning is on their terms, in this way, the learning is quite personal and self-directed. I think these schools must be highly motivated to be innovative and deeply committed to this ambitious approach; from leadership to every member of staff, they focus their energy on creating a student self-directed learning approach. So is THIS personal learning? Personalized learning, by its definition, is to customize learning for each student’s strengths, needs, skills, and interests. So what can be more agentic than this?-As a student, I ultimately choose what I learn and when I learn it and teachers just coach me into my next steps.
articulates how student agency can happen in our classroom. When students have the motivation and skills to explore content, they can take action that goes above and beyond our expectations for them. They can develop self-direction. THIS is the 
Along with critiquing the current Programme of Inquiry, we will provide opportunities to make suggestions and express how they enjoy “showing what they know” as well as improving current units. In this way, we have more insight and feedback into the current units of inquiry.
We would use these reflections from this week to inform our curriculum, considering which SDGS really sparked a natural interest and could gain overall support from our community. You see, in my mind, it’s not enough to just “expose” kids to the UN’s SDGs, but we would want them to take action to actually work on them. Garnering their interest and using it as a springboard for continued efforts toward achieving these goals would help cultivate the change agents that they would need to become in order to make their goals a true reality.
In this case, I want to dig into the hearts and minds of our students. I have created a simple survey using Google forms which provides the opportunity to deeply listen to students and I am interviewing each student one by one to get a sense of what they care about and how apt they feel at engaging in our learning community. So, as I record their ideas, there is an interaction that I hope communicates how keen I am to hear from them. When I think of my practice of mindfulness, deep listening is a vital component of our relationships–whether it is with our closest and most beloved people in our lives or people who we have more obscure relationships with. I hope that as I sit with them, I communicate that I care about them–they are a valued school member– and I wish to support them on their learning journey. I love how this practice is described in the quote below:
When I think of the founding of my country, America, the pursuit of happiness was what they called “an inalienable right” to its citizens.
also helps to promote a positive self-image of children and reduce episodes of anxiety. In a nutshell, it incorporates Dr. Martin Seligman’s theory of well-being using the 
Although I find this “report card” designed by the 
Also, if I think about “The Planner” like the map of this journey, then I am wondering how we might open up the planning of a unit to the students themselves. Instead of “The Planner” being a teacher-directed document, what if we had our official “Planner” for student-created which became the basis of the inquiry? We flip the responsibility of this document so that students got to direct the learning. Hmmm….How might we structure the document in order for students to authentically co-plan with us teachers? I think THIS is the type of PYP planner that I want to create with my team. But what teacher team is so courageous to do this?
But the heart of these systems was designed for standardized test scores and relied on student data in order to inform practices of school improvement. I struggled with this for several reasons, chief among them is that I don’t want our students to fit into a “standard”, I want them to be looked at as unique and special. I didn’t want them to reduce to numbers. If we only use data as the foundation of what we do, then we would miss out on opportunities for genuine teacher inquiries. Speaking of which, I examined the structure of 
as the premise for our rules of 
to understand, then to be understood, 