Un-discouraged again – Thanks @Joe_Bower and many others!

It is sometimes difficult not to feel discouraged.  The world is changing so quickly, the bureaucracy moves so slowly, the gaps between what we need and what we have is growing, the time to learn what we need to know and to make sure we know what we need is shrinking, and even though I’m game to be a pioneer, there are days when trying to implement and initiate technological reform without adequate infrastructure or systems support can be wearisome.

Luckily I work with the best colleagues in the world.  It’s hard not to be buoyed up by the educators who are keen to learn, to think together, to share, to take risks, to generously and whole-heartedly give their time, their energy and their commitment to learning and learners.    Every day I meet with teachers who make my heart sing.  Of course, many of them don’t even know my name.   This morning, I followed a tweet from @Kyttie (a new BC teacher) who tweeted a link to an old blog post by @Joe_Bower (Alberta educator) where he had shared a video – the Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun.  I realized that my discouragement this week was because I’d forgotten the fifth principle:  Stop taking it all so damn seriously.  Instead, I need to continue to do what I believe matters, to scare myself every day, and to just start something – instead of worrying that nothing is getting started.

Learning is a "we" business.

On our Provincial Specialists Day, we usually host a small local event for teachers who can’t get away to the big provincial conferences.  This year, we had a great idea!  With help from our CUEBC colleagues (thanks @msilverton!), we live-streamed their keynote presentation from David Warlick on embracing emerging technologies.

Everything was set up, people had settled into the gym, the video was live with a notice that the start time was delayed, so we had just enough time to acknowledge organizers and introduce the keynote from our end.  The timing was perfect.  As soon as David Warlick stepped onto the stage, we turned up the volume and – horrors – the sound was a garbled mess!  Happily, Bill Boyd (a truly 21st century teacher-librarian) was there and disappeared into the sound room.  Minutes later, all was well again.

At the end of the day, as we gathered up bits and pieces of conference paraphernalia (chart paper, scissors, tape, coffee urns), stacked chairs and turned out lights, Bill joined us to see if we needed a hand.  Bill, I said, it’s so lucky we were able to fix the sound this morning!  And by we, I corrected myself, I mean you.   No, it is we, he replied.  We cannot put on events like this unless it is we.  This is a “we business.”  We have to each contribute what we can.  (This was generous, of course, since all I contributed to the morning’s near disaster was hand-wringing.)

But I’ve been thinking about “we” a lot.  It isn’t just for events, but for the daily business of classrooms that “we” is necessary.   The abundance of information, the diversity of learners, the changed goals of education (from sorting to inclusion) has made the stand-and-deliver “I”model obsolete.  But it’s hard to shift. In classrooms, we are trying by including students (peer learning) and experimenting in co-teaching models.  In professional development, we are trying to move away from our traditional workshops (the expert at the front who tells us how to do stuff) toward collaborative conversations and “do-shops”.

It’s easier said than done.  I organized two sessions for PSA day.  I opened up a computer lab and I also put out iPads and iPods in another room.  My plan was to set up some resource pages on the Working Together wiki and then float between the rooms to support, problem-solve, answer questions, connect people to resources.   But the night before I had a nightmare:  I left the computer lab to check on the Apple room and everyone there was staring blanking at the iPads and then accusingly at me, saying – what do we do?  We don’t know what to do.  After getting them started, I scurried back to the computer lab to find everyone was watching movies.  You weren’t here, they said.  We didn’t know what to do.

Of course this is always what teachers fear.  If I am not in front, in control, going through the steps, organizing and orchestrating the learning, nothing will happen.  But when we let go, we discover that the opposite is true.  When I get out of the way, allow people to pursue what’s important to them, provide time and resources – learning happens in a way that has NEVER occurred when I walk people through the steps.  I cannot count how many workshops I have put on about blogs and wikis: reviewing steps, providing handouts, working VERY hard.   And almost no one actually set up a blog or a wiki.

Here’s what really happened on PSA day when I got out of the way.  The Apple room was stuffed with people just playing and talking and thinking about possibilities for education.  When I came in a few people looked up – there were one or two questions and they ignored me.  They were too busy learning.

Meanwhile, back in the computer lab (down a long hallway and up two flights of stairs), people learned massively – without me.  Here is a short list of what some of the participants did:  Heather set up a wiki with the help of Sue and then Heather shared great links with Sue who added them to her wiki and together they learned about some new features. Glen and Peter set up their own blog with the help of Maryah who updated her wiki, set up a delicious account and began collecting digital story telling links.  Rebecca, too, set up a delicious account, scrolled through mine, found a great link to a site that she is going to use in her class and shared ideas with Loa who focussed on storytelling ideas, set up delicious and “got a baby step” into blogging.  Meanwhile, at the back of the room, the English department at Barsby created a school-wide blog for independent reading.

And me:  I answered a few questions, solved a couple of problems, engaged in some exciting conversations about technology in education - and got a lot of exercise!  But finally (!), after years of facilitating unsatisfactory technology workshops, I had a successful day – by not teaching.   Which, I guess, makes sense:  learning is a “we” business.  It goes better when “I” gets out of the way.

Less Work??

I was shocked to read that BC Public School Employers’ Association are meeting this morning to consider reducing teachers' pay since under job action they are doing less work.  Less work?  The teachers I meet daily are doing MORE work to ensure that the most important things – the things that make the most difference for kids – are getting done.  Here is a short list.

On Monday, I co-led a meeting of the professional development representatives from each school.  It was during the school day – funded by the BCTF in a twice yearly training session.  This is a group of teachers who volunteer to organize the three school-based days – polling staffs to see what they most need to learn to serve this year’s students, getting speakers to match the needs, setting up workshops and organizing resources.  Monday’s meeting was a chance to mentor new reps, to gather ideas from each other and to figure out ways to collaborate to share costs to maximize each opportunity.  Then they were off to organize the first PD day on October 11th.  When? After school, on weekends, during lunch, before the bell rings in the morning.

Teacher-Librarians at 5:00 on a Thursday afternoon

On Tuesday, I met with a group of Teacher-Librarians who had signed on to reflect on the role of libraries in a digital world.  We learned about twitter, blogs and social bookmarking and they left with a long list of homework to complete over the next month to practice learning these new tools so we can begin to use them effectively to gather and share resources for teachers to more effectively meet the needs of students.

On Wednesday, we had an Open House at the DRC to showcase the resources available to teachers, followed by a workshop from 4:00 to 6:00 to show our latest acquisition:  iPods and iPads.  We shared how these tools could be used to engage all learners and powerfully support our struggling readers and writers.  After the workshop (full!), they filtered out slowly (I pushed out the last one just before 7:00) filled with ideas and plans and organizing how they could continue to learn together.

On Thursday, I had a dilemma.  I could meet with Teacher-Librarians again – they hold five after school meetings to share resources, ideas, plans – or the Kindergarten teachers (monthly meetings and a large learning group that meets in-between) – or the Math teachers (monthly meetings). In the end, I went to meet with the teacher-librarians since they had some specific questions they wanted me to address related to our digital libraries initiative.  One item on the agenda was starting an additional learning group: a dozen people signed up immediately.

And this weekend?  I’ve answered dozens of emails from teachers who have been working on an application for Project Success – our year-long inquiry into how we can improve learning for vulnerable learners.  In fact, I’d better get back to the real work of the day.  I have a half-dozen emails to answer about the project (the application is due today) sent to me after 7:00 on a Sunday evening.  Oh, I see there is also a twitter follow from one of the teacher-librarians who did her homework this weekend.  Ah, another from a PD rep looking for a word sort on assessment-for-learning words to use on PD day - planning on the weekend, of course.

This is a tiny sliver of the kind of work that continues from my small circle - never mind the coaching and clubs and just daily beautiful hard hard work to ensure that each child learns.   If teachers are doing less work, my mind boggles:  how were they doing more?

What I learned in 35 minutes at Pleasant Valley School

After reading an Edutopia article about How Classroom Environments Can Ignite Learning and Cultivate Caring, I thought about the many teachers who are doing a fabulous job of this here in our own backyard.  The best thing is that we don’t have to travel across the country or bring in experts at great expense! So I dropped in at one of our local elementary schools on my way to work.

In 35 minutes at Pleasant Valley School I learned:

Teachers are passionate and committed to their students.  I knew this already, of course, but when you are out of the classroom, you tend to forget as you are awash in “how to fix the education system” conversations.  Of course, in the meantime, extraordinary teachers are just getting on with the deep work of ensuring that each child is learning.

Even kindergarten students can organize their learning.  In Teri’s kindergarten class students sign in (if they can’t yet write their names, they trace it).  They already know what to do next, going to the centres board and putting a clothespin next to the centre they want to play in.  And they already know about the “four no more” rule and choose a different centre if it’s full.  This year Teri added a new feature to her classroom – curtains to hide the bins of toys and books.  They are less distracted, she says.  What an easy solution for creating a calm “ready to learn” environment.

Across the hall in the other kindergarten room, Wendy shows off the carpet - it is multicoloured circles.  When students come in, they settle themselves on the circle with their name card. When I came in, Wendy and her EA were looking at the name tags and discussing  where each child would sit for this morning's lesson.  In a few simple routines on the carpet, student learn number, shape, letters, how to notice what’s happening and how to get along with whoever is sitting beside them.  What’s more, students who have difficulty participating in groups feel safe and able to join in when the space boundaries are clear.

Collaboration happens in a many ways.  We read about PLCs and argue about how best to implement them system-wide.  In the meantime, teachers just work together.  Wendy and Teri co-teach yoga and on “Fabulous Friday” half of each class swaps to begin to get to know more of the children who will be part of their learning community for years to come.  What a simple idea to ensure that students feel safe, connected and part of the broader school community.

Students can organize the classroom routines. Upstairs in Jan’s grade 7 classroom, students were getting their homework done before class started.  There is no guess work about homework;  students can see what’s expected in a glance and help each other.  Tell her, one of the students piped up, about the "while you were away" folder.  If we are absent, she told me, we know just where to look for what we missed.  On another wall, the job board lets everyone know who’s in charge of what and students set up for gym, fine arts, recycling and other jobs that make the class run smoothly so deep learning is the focus.

Student caring and courtesy is alive and well.  If you read the news too often or attend too many meetings, you’ll often hear that “kids nowadays” are rude and self-centred.  Jan was telling me about the food drives, buddy work and other acts of generosity the grade 7s are committed to and organize on their own with only a little coaching.   As she talked, with her “teacher eye” (teachers always scan), she noted a boy gently rocking and standing at a short, but respectful distance from us.  You look like you have a question, she said.  Thank you for your patience and polite signalling.  Relieved to have her attention before the bell, he launched into a very-important-to-him series of questions.  I left them to slip across the hall to see Lesley.

Self-regulated Learning is happening.  Our new superintendent wrote in his latest blog post about “Self Regulated Learning & the New Human Development Theory.”  There are always, of course, new theories and new initiatives and new programs.  And, of course, there are people (like me) who run workshops and share resources and send out articles.  Meanwhile, in classrooms, teachers get on with the work and find ways to ensure that the children in their care are learning.  I got to Lesley’s grade one room just in time to watch the children filter in.  It was only the third week of school and they clearly knew exactly what to do.   They quickly organized their coats and supplies and settled into their seats.  One boy got up quietly and went to the back of the room and returned with a little container of play dough and began to shape it.  Several other children, I noticed, also got out the play dough.  They talked quietly while their teacher greeted and had soft conversations with the arriving students.  All conversations stopped as the announcements came on.  A fire drill was announced and after the announcements, Lesley asked them questions about what they remembered and did a quick role play (students enthusiastically called out the things the teachers and students would have to say and do) to help them review the process.  The whole time her voice was soft and calm and instructions were clear and gentle.   How long do we have left? a boy asked.  Lesley gestured to what she called her new favourite tool – the timer at the front.  He nodded, satisfied, and bent to his play dough again.  These timers (like the play dough) are often used to support students with behaviour difficulties, but of course, are effective for everyone, giving all students a clear sense of “how long” or “how short”.   I reluctantly left the classroom to attend a meeting, but really, I felt calm, alert and ready to learn!  And I’m sure the grade ones were, too.

It’s amazing how much you can learn by just spending 35 minutes in a school.  What struck me most was that in each case, when asked about their “best thing” for starting the year, what the teachers shared with me were the simple routines and tools that set up each student to be ready to learn (removing distractions, clear routines and organized space, strategies to help them be calm, alert and to feel safe) and best of all - to be in charge of that learning themselves.  Lucky students.

Unplugging to Plug in Powerfully

I’ve been waking up too early:  my “back at school again” lists of things to do keep playing in my head.  Usually I succumb and get up to start on my list, beginning by answering emails (sent to me by teachers very late at night, no doubt after they've done their marking and lesson planning for the day – why do I keep hearing that teachers only work from 8:30 to 3:00?).  On this particular morning as I answered emails, I kept my twitter feed open and followed a couple of good links, read several articles, tweeted two, revised my to-do list for the day (adding the items that woke me too early), noted two birthdays from my Facebook “friends” and sent messages, and researched which screencasting tool would work best in an elementary classroom before I was distracted by the sunrise sky filling my window.   

I had been reading lately about the positive effects of getting “off the grid,” that reflective downtime is necessary to learn, remember and come up with good ideas, that moral and emotional reasoning, in particular, demand adequate time and reflection, that we are “hooked on busyness” (and my morning routine and sleepless nights suggests I am), that our obsessive clicking, the endless stream of information, the constant connection with anyone and everything, our relentless pursuit of “friends” and “followers” is reducing our capacity to think deeply, relate meaningfully, or to know ourselves.  Indeed, as one researcher contends (in an article that tries to find the benefits of our attention deficits), our digital distractions are “a cognitive plague that has the potential to wipe out an entire generation of focused and productive thought.”   The final argument that made me back away from my screen (in an article that is part of the firehose of information that streams across my desktop daily):  people learned significantly better after a walk in nature.  (An interesting recent study showed that students with ADHD have less severe symptoms if they have regular access to open green space.)  So despite my list, I resolved to walk my way into deep thought and good ideas with the sunrise.  (Did you follow the links?  There are hours of distractions embedded into this short post!)

As I walked (the morning air was soft, warm), my mind began to flip through its own archive of clicks:  I remembered the Slate writer who set up fake birthdays, three in a row, to show the shallowness of Facebook birthday greetings.  He says we are using social media, first as a self-promotion (look how many friends I have and how many of them wished me a happy birthday – or how many articles I’ve read and created as links in my blog or tweeted for my “followers”), but also to fool ourselves that we’ve made connections.  Real connection, he argues, takes more effort than a 30 second post.  It’s more, even, than a retweet or “twitter love” or a comment on a blog post (although it is nice to have comments on my blog posts).  Breathing in the fresh sea-scented air, I began to regret my cheery FB wishes earlier (and my childish glee in comments and “followers”). 

Of course we get caught up.  When there are more than 750 million active users on Facebook spending cumulatively over 700 billion minutes per month at the site), when millions of twitter users send 1 billion tweets per week, when there have been 500 new blog posts since you started reading this one - we begin to accept the norms these new media create.   Now our grandmothers, banks, department stores, NGOs, writers, reporters and schools all blog, tweet, and post to Facebook.  It must all be good, right? 

And therefore, it goes without saying that the tools to access these social media so you can access your friends any time of day, check your RSS feeds, “like” pictures on Facebook, and post interesting tidbits to Twitter are essential.  And, of course, if they are essential, and their uses are good, we need them in schools; children, too, should use Facebook, twitter, blogs, instant messaging, polling, video and more to connect to information instantly, to find what they need immediately, to follow their passions, to personalize their quests. 

At the top of the hill behind my home overlooking the glittering ocean and the red sky, I began to question my morning routine, the screen-facing hours, to wonder if technology matters more to education than quiet moments and fresh air.  My mind clicked to the recent NYT article that revealed years of technology implementation has not improved test scores forces us to at least ask questions. The first question, I hope, is – what are these tests testing and is it relevant?  But it isn’t enough to simply dismiss the findings as another black eye on testing.  We can’t keep saying that because Facebook is used by millions, it is good; because technology is pervasive, we must therefore buy technology for schools.  Industrialization must have taught us a lesson or two. 

We want to be sure to ask – what do we, as educators, want to do with technology.   Right now our conversations seemed to be mired in more and better.  More computers.  Bigger computers.  Smaller computers.  More friends.  More followers.  More programs.  New programs.  Apps, apps, apps. More links.  More sites.  But just as more money doesn’t bring more happiness, more technology won’t bring better education.  Quoted in the NYT article, education researcher Brian Goodwin says of the pinnacle of “more” – a device in every students hands: “Rather than being a cure-all or silver bullet, one-to-one laptop programs may simply amplify what’s already occurring — for better or worse.”  If technology isn’t amplifying students’ ability to do the things we traditionally test for (reading, writing, math, general knowledge), what is it amplifying?  And is it good? 

I love technology.  I love the possibility, the creativity, the choice, the now-ness.  I love being able to read or learn whatever I want whenever I want; I love being connected, that I can see my family, my friends, colleagues when they are far away, that I can participate in a conference as I did recently – live! – half-way across the world in London. The possibilities for education are dizzying.  And yet, you can have an extraordinary education without technology and a shallow one with it.  While it is no doubt true that technology can only amplify what already exists, the amplifying power of our current technologies is so vast, its reach so pervasive, the change it brings, as Neil Postman warned, not just additive, but ecological, that we must be much much clearer about what is important in education. The danger of amplifying indifference, ignorance, banality, shallowness, inequities, injustice is greater now than ever before. 

Technology is a given.  What is still up for grabs is how we’ll use it.  I think it will take a lot unplugged thinking so we can plug in for powerful learning.  

Seven Years is a Long Short Time

Seven years.  Time, as Einstein explains, is relative: "When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute -- then it's longer than any hour. That's relativity!"  There are days when the seven years since my brother died seems thick with time, forever ago.  On other days, like Wordsworth, when I'm "surprised by joy," the time is lost and I will think - I can't wait to tell Marc.  Feeling the weight of the years again is the hard part. 

Seven years.  It's surprising to think of all the things he'd never heard of that are an everyday part of my life now:  YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, iPhone.  Befunky.com.  And that's the short list.  And the events he missed.  A (very) short list:  Hurricane Katrina, the Boxing Day Tsunami, the election of President Obama, the Global recession, the earthquakes in China and Japan, the fall of Tiger Woods, the Vancouver Olympics, the Canucks big run (and the subsequent riots), his youngest son's graduation from high school, his oldest son's graduation from university, my daughter's wedding. 

What's important quickly reveals itself against our greatest losses.  I've been thinking about what's important to teach in school again.  I feel inarticulate always.  I keep wanting to say, let's teach each child as though he is the one who will save the world.  Because he will.  She will.  Who else is there?  Let's teach each child as if he were the brother we lost, the daughter we yearn for, the children we hold in our arms.  Doesn't it seem that what's important is easier to see?  But still, it's so very hard to move from an idea to action in schools.

Marc often sent me quotes.  Just before he died he sent this one:  The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.  (Thomas Paine)

When I think about how much the world has changed in seven years, I begin to feel braver:  surely we can change schools enough for Zachary - and for the extraordinary children like my brother was, like so many of our brothers are, who are lost in schools today.

What do students really need to learn?

Michael Wesch asks a question I, too, am always pondering:  What do students really need to learn?  He says he's not interested in figuring out what information or skill sets are needed; "skills and information alone do not help us lead happier, healthier, richer, more ethical and more meaningful lives."  He thinks we need "a vision for who we are and our students need to be - not just what we should know."  In other words, he's seeking a metaphysical answer.  TS Eliot, writing in 1932, would say he's on the right track:  "Education which fails to clarify our central convictions is mere training or indulgence.  For it is our central convictions that are in disorder, and, as long as the present anti-metaphysical temper persists, the disorder will grow worse.  Education, far from ranking as man’s greatest resource, will then be an agent of destruction."

So who are we and what do our students need be?  Wesch looks back to 1991, before the Internet, to figure out, he says, who we were. His references to Charles Taylor sent me to reread Malaise of Modernity.  (I had to move away from my computer, shut down my twitter stream, RSS feed, email and text notifications.  Reading philosophy is a little like deciding to cook a meal from scratch - fast food and packaged shortcuts are just so easy and still fill you up.  But what a different "filling up" it is!)  Taylor reminds us, as Wesch says, that what we consider the "effects of the web" are not new at all, and in fact are, as Taylor says, the effects, rather, of modernity.  (TS Eliot, too, was concerned about the effects of modern life.)  Taylor identifies three "malaises":  the first, loss of meaning.  The individualism that defines modern life is a result of the dismantling of the old orders, which, while restricting freedom, nonetheless gave meaning to life.  (In education, our continued desire to "personalize" learning is driven by this value.)  The second malaise, the eclipse of ends, occurred as a result of the vacuum left behind after the old orders were swept away.  Instrumental reason became the yardstick to measure happiness: everything is calculated in terms of maximum efficiency and profit.  (We feel this deeply in education; we determine our success on graphs and data points. We decide what we teach by economic measure - how important those skills and that information are in the job market.)  Finally, a consequence of individualism and instrumental reason is the third malaise:  loss of freedom.  Political liberty is at risk, for the “institutions and structures of industrial-technological society severely restrict our choices”.  In a society in which people prefer to stay home and be private, “few will want to participate actively in self-government."  This “atomism of the self-absorbed individual” creates a sort of “soft” despotism: government runs things in a paternalistic way, which, without vigorous political culture, leaves people with little control.  The result is a kind of powerlessness of the citizen against the vast bureaucracy of state.  (In education, we feel this as well: we shrug our shoulders and "do our own thing" in classrooms, rather than "participate" in bureaucratic hoop-jumping.)

Where to from here?  The Internet has provided a vehicle for changing the last - the loss of freedom.  We now have the capacity to participate in ways we never had before.  We can connect with our community - become writers, newsmakers, change agents.  As Clay Shirky writes, in Cognitive Surplus, even 14 year old girls in Korea can change government policy (their protests led to a ban on imports of American beef). 

But just participating, surely isn't enough.  Just being passionate about something isn't sufficient.  The young men in Vancouver and in London are passionate, too, and participated in droves to loot and riot in the streets.  And it isn't enough to dismiss the rioters as mere thugs.  It isn't enough to argue that an economic fix (jobs) would solve the violence.  Or better parenting.  Or less TV, Internet, pornography, video-games - name your poison.   I'm afraid is connected to who we are.  I'm wondering if it is the effect of the first two "malaises": a lack of meaning in their lives, something to live for and love beyond their own self and a lack of a way to measure their worth and actions beyond a pay cheque.  Because then, of course, one is nothing without a job.    

So what do students need to be to participate meaningfully in their community to enrich their own lives and that of others?