What's the point of School?

Professor Guy Glaxton posed this question in the title of his 2008 book, "What's the point of School?" It's a punchy title that contains a huge question!

I've been writing a section for our school website called, "Our Future Direction" and I'm using this to ask largely rhetorical questions of the parent community at our school. I'm drawing attention to this via the school newsletter and am hopeful that people are considering the ideas ahead of some consultation that we will have about the future direction of our school.

I've come to this. What is the point of school? Things have got complicated. Really complicated. So, it's important to remind oneself of the moral purpose of what I'm doing. For me, and I hate to sound like a Miss World contestant here, but I do want to make the world a better place and to have world peace.

We need to consider what's really important here. What do we value most in education? In school? What are we all about? Why do we do what we do?

Watch the clip below and ask; why do we do what we do? What's the point of school?

Making it make sense

I'm so close to making it make sense that I can almost taste it. It's right there and it's becming clearer and clearer how to bring the parts if my school's curriculum together.
Context is that I've had 3 terms leading at my current school and I'm slowly getting my head around it.
It happens in phases. It has to. It goes like this. Phase 1: observe and ask questions.  Get to know people. Build trust. Build relationships. Be real. Give it time.
Phase 2: systems.
Phase 3: curriculum. Learning.

I'm almost out of the systems phase and have now got the head space for phase 3 and it's about time!

We have a pretty good curriculum.  It almost makes sense to me. I've inherited it and some aspects are taking me a while to fully understand but I'm respecting the fact that some good decisions have been made before my time and that it makes sense to others. By observing and listening there are so e loose ends that need bringing together.

And that's the work we're about to embark on. It'll involve everyone. It'll be messy for a while. It'll be challenging for some. It'll be rewarding.

We need to sort our learner profile.  Note learner not graduate profile. It needs to be about now not 6 years from now.

We need to know what we want our learners to be like and why. Is the ability to move quietly in single file from point a to b still important? Is neat handwriting valued or a thing of the past? Is critical thinking something we value? If we really want our learners to be creative, how might qe really give effect to this?

Once we have our core skills named then we can match the contexts from our rich curriculum to those. E.g. traditions, culture or entrepreneurship might fit under a "confident " type banner.

I've found viewing "Most likely to Succeed" again an inspiration and this clip here very thought provoking too.

https://youtu.be/1ZbGlDMF7HQ

I am looking forward to getting back to my desk and planning ahead for term 2. Talking with learners about what they want the school to be like and what they want to learn about is going to be interesting. 
Asking the same of parents and staff will be too. My job is to bring it all together and identify if we have any gaps.

What's most important - Teaching or Learning?

Over the past twenty years that I've been in education I think it's fair to say that the focus has been pretty much on the teaching side of things, not so much the learning side of things. Perhaps this is because we can really only truly control the teaching. I believe that learning occurs in the brain and therefore, I am unable to get inside the brains of the learners I work with. What then can I control? Quite a bit really; classroom environment, giving feedback,  using learner voice and giving choice and so on. As teachers we have plenty that we can control and over my time in education we have focused a lot on these things. A lot of money and time and effort, blood, sweat and tears have gone into the teaching of many different learning areas.

I'm wondering if we need to focus on learning, as opposed to teaching. Perhaps rather than teaching strategies it is learning strategies that need attention. I've worked with countless teachers who create wonderful conditions for their learners and despite everything, some learners just don't make (necessary) progress with their learning.
There's a bit of attention being given to how the brain works and we're getting better at talking with learners about how they learn best. I wonder if we need to further our work in understanding what effective learning strategies are, rather than effective teaching strategies.

I welcome your thoughts and ideas.

Lessons from 28 days of writing

27 days have passed. What have I learned from the +Tom Barrett challenge of writing each day for 28 days?

1. I do not stick with things. 15 posts. Not 28. It has however doubled my number of posts in total.
2. I like to post.
3. I don't have to worry about being an expert to blog. I am entitled to talk my work and my thoughts.
4. It helps me clarify my thinking when I blog.
5. There are a number of like minded people writing about similar things.
6. It doesn't matter what school you are at. There are incredible things happening almost everywhere it seems.
7. I like the connections I make through blogging. I have made some new contacts via Twitter, such as @GarethGilmour and +BridgeeNZ  thanks to this 28 day challenge and through posting.
8. I still have so much to learn.
9. I will continue to post.

So that's it. I'm not likely to post tomorrow for the final day due to a family gathering. I'm about to visit some schools as part of my sabbatical so there'll be plenty of ideas to post about.
If, like me, you're not a frequent writer, I hope you keep going to. It's a great record for yourself and you never know who might gain inspiration from you.

What is learning?

I love this question! I don't have the perfect answer YET. What I do know is that I used to believe that learning occured because of me as the teacher and during times with me. What I'm thinking more about now is that learning isn't linear, despite our long term plans, carefully sequenced unit plans and weekly planning. Learning doesn't just occur near the teacher.
I've been watching our little girl, who is now 13 months, learn. Babies seem quite random at times, but watching closer as she has learned to pull herself up to stand has been quite a testimony to her resilience, ability to self assess and act on feedback. She has systematically tested just about every object in the house to see if it will be stable enough for her to use. Thinking about this for the classroom, we need to allow learners free range on their environment, time to test and freedom to explore.
Next she has self assessed and acted on feedback received. She has given up on going to some objects and favourited others. This was achievable through her willingness to repeat her actions hundreds of times to make sure she was making the correct evaluation. For our classrooms we might need to allow many many opportunities for our learners. Sometimes I was too quick to move on and didn't allow the time that some learners would have wanted. I controlled the pace. Silly mistake.

So, lessons from a baby. Learning occurs when and where she is involved. Sure, we've modelled standing, not deliberately, but she has been watching. She has worked out things on her own. We praise her and clap our hands and tell her how clever she is. Because she is. It's genuine.
I'm thinking what other lessons we can learn from babies.

Day three of 28. I won't bore you with more baby stories. Promise.

Students need to learn how to learn. Teachers need to teach students how to learn.

"Students need to learn how to learn. Teachers need to teach students how to learn." 

This was a quote discussed at a recent PLG . I had to agree. But what is it that students need to learn in order to know how to learn? And in some cases, what is it that teachers might need to learn so they know how to teach students how to learn?

One answer to that second question is that a teacher might need to learn how to change their practice, step aside a little and observe rather than lead what is happening. Sometimes it's scary taking a step back and seeing what happens when you're not quite so helpful and not controlling everything that is going on. Sometimes students show you that they clearly have no idea of what to do, what they're really learning or how to progress. Isn't that wonderful? How powerful it is to find out what a student can and can't do without you leading them all the way. You now know more about that learner and gain clarity on their learning.

I wonder if all students already know how to learn? They spent 5 years learning before they came to school, they're obviously capable of learning a number of things. I wonder if sometimes that some students simply feel they have to hand over their learning and simply become passive rather than active learners. It's those students who need to re-learn how to learn and how to be active participants in their learning journey.

Fortunately, most students I encounter are active life long learners. My job is to get out of their way and let them guide their own learning.

How one small change can transform outcomes..

To get a feel for what I mean, watch the following clip... The collaborators on this project didn't tell people to use the stairs - they gave them a reason to want to use them and the way they did it was through fun which led to engagement and motivation. If we want to bring about different outcomes, we will need to make changes! Here's a short clip from Ken Shelton's ulearn13 keynote address on change. I need to underline the point he makes here, it's not necessarily a massive change that could bring about different outcomes for learners. In the example above, the stairs were not ripped out or taken away, but something was added to them to make a the change that was required. (I'm thinking now of how the SAMR model applies...) In looking through edtalks there are lots of excellent examples where teachers have made changes to an aspect of their practise and the outcomes for students have gone way beyond what the teacher could have ever imagined. Here are some examples that could provide inspiration for others:
Newsboard for the 21st century from EDtalks on Vimeo.
It's a great idea from Laetitia - all classrooms have cameras in them - use them! Checking out her Hauora TV is quite inspiring with 5 year olds interviewing and presenting. And how lucky are the parents of those parents to have such an open window into their children's classroom. This travel buddies idea is a small change from what a lot of new entrant teachers might do with a class toy or mascot that goes home with students, but rather than a written diary that comes back to the teacher and might be shared with the class, this takes the same idea to a whole new level. And Emma Watts talking about engaging struggling writers: What we have here are a number of examples where changes have been made to existing practise that have led to exciting outcomes for students.