I just want to write...

A number of students struggle to put pen or pencil to paper. In many cases it's more than just "writer's block" that affects them - many of these students sincerely struggle with the mechanics of writing to no fault of their own.

Students of all levels want nothing more than to express what they are thinking. We are, after all, social beings living in a social world growing increasingly connected. Students want to be able to write, to draw, to talk - to express themselves in any way they can so you can imagine how frustrating it must be for some of them when writing is so difficult. I suspect that many of them start to give up and "just write the minimum" when pressed by a teacher or a parent.

Although there is an unprecedented level of technology available to students to assist, in many cases access can still be a barrier. And in some cases, even after students are able to access a computer with a word processor - the software itself can seem overwhelming to them.

What appears to be working at our school is an updated old technology that has been around for quite some time. We introduced 4 "recycled" dedicated keyboards known as AlphaSmarts (Neo's) in the Fall. At first there was a bit of cautious apprehension from both teachers and students alike, but once they started using them and seeing how easy they were to use...their use has taken off. I recently ordered 6 more brand new ones that will now bring us to a total of 12 in the school.

So why are these devices having such an impact? Hard to tell exactly at the moment, but I suspect it has to do with a variety of factors:

• They start up almost instantly. 
• They basically just "type". Even the "word processor" that comes pre-installed is very bare bones and easy to use. 
• There are not a lot of extra bells and whistles and this is actually one of the POSITIVES! 
• They are built fairly well and often can survive being dropped; Because they don't do much else other than type (they don't even access the Internet) they are not desirable items to steal. 
• They are easily shared amongst students in the class. Each device can store 8 separate files in flash memory. 
• Printing is a breeze on almost any device. 

As with most technologies...Neos are not the answer to every writing challenge; however, in many cases they can help unlock expressive minds.

Caine's Arcade - imagination, creativity and failure

Recently, I watched Caine's Arcade on Vimeo. As usual, I wasn't the first to see this video clip...in fact...more than 3.5 million people beat me to it on YouTube alone. That aside, if you haven't seen the video you really should take 10 minutes to view it. It's an uplifting and inspirational look at what is possible when a single child is left alone with his imagination.

We're not given much information about Caine other than he is spending the summer with his Dad at his Dad's used auto parts shop in East Los Angeles. The parts shop appears to be located in a somewhat sparsely populated area with not a lot of walk-up business. At one point, Caine's dad admits that much of his business has moved online.

It was in this environment that Caine had to come up with some way to entertain himself so he built a basketball-shoot game out of an old cardboard box using tape and a tiny basketball hoop he got from Shakey's Pizza. After making that first game, Caine continued to build an elaborate maze of games that took over most of his Dad's storefront - and thus Caine's Arcade was launched. 

He tried to attract customers to his arcade but didn't have much luck until one day one person stopped to play - he purchased a "fun pass". Unbeknownst to Caine at the time, Nirvan Mullick was also a writer and filmmaker and he decided to create a flash-mob for Caine and to create a short film out of it: "Caine's Arcade" on YouTube and now also "Caine's Arcade 2".

Watching Caine's Arcade I was struck by how much his experience lined up with what today we're calling "Twenty-First Century Learning" and "Personalized Learning". Caine had time to think, to create, to imagine, to play, to experiment, to explore and to fail. Things many kids today are not given by our current education system. 

“We should be fostering a culture where failure isn’t considered the opposite of success, but an integral part of it.” -- Arianna Huffington

Now that we have installed high stakes accountability measures in most educational jurisdictions along with a common standardized curriculum we're worried about kids not having enough imagination and creativity. How ironic! 

Pet Walker

Why would anyone find it shocking that we don't have enough creativity and imagination in education today? Students, teachers and parents, are too afraid of failure and bad test scores to allow creativity and imagination to gain a consistent foothold in classrooms.

I'm proud to say that I was able to witness first-hand that creativity and imagination are alive in students in a class I recently visited. The entire class had been working on the theme of "inventions" and this was their big showcase day where they showed off all the inventions that they'd been working on for so long. I was amazed at what I saw (see pictures). There were so many creative and imaginative inventions - I had to run back to my office to grab my camera.

Bunk bed dumbwaiter

Just like with Caine, every time one of these students designed a new invention and modified it their minds grew a little. Every time they fixed a problem with their invention, just like Caine, their minds grew a little more. I don't know how you'd measure it (or if that's even that important) but, looking at the finished products, I would suggest that all of these student-created inventions were a great success and their minds grew a LOT!

Bunk bed linen-changer and top-bunk turn indicator

Sometimes in life we don't have time to fail, to experiment or even to think - but - often, when we're most successful, the most innovative creations come from having time to think, time to explore and time to play.

Met School in Winnipeg Manitoba

What an inspiring story of perseverance and faith. Faith in knowing that not all students learn in the same way and that, given the right circumstances and an opportunity...students will live UP to the expectations set for them.

“Seven Oaks Met School, the only high school in Canada that is part of the U.S.-based Big Picture Learning network of innovative schools, graduated its first class this spring. Internships with businesses and institutions in the community are a core element of the Met School experience. Students report on their internship experience, as well as on individual projects and their academic progress, through quarterly “exhibitions,” hour-long stand-up presentations for classmates in their advisory group, parents, staff, internship mentors and anyone else the student chooses to invite. The teacher-advisor for class or “advisory” remains with the same group of students throughout their four years of high school.”

Other articles about MET:

• Superintendent’s Frustration: There should be more takers for an alternative school that really works
• Guiding high school Students through applied internship projects in college environments: A Met School Story

Other examples of Alternative Model Schools:

• Quest to Learn – a public school in New York
• The Met – in Rhode Island
• Dennis Littky on “The Met”
• Carpe Diem Schools – in Arizona
• KIPP - Knowledge Is Power Program
• Inquiry Hub - a public Gr. 9 - 12 school in Coquitlam, BC
• SelfDesign - learner-directed private school in Vancouver, BC

Income disparity at the root of Canada's ills

Awesome column by Stephen Hume in today's Vancouver Sun. Although the Adopt-a-School program is amazing, much needed and very much appreciated, it makes me wonder if there's a larger issue at play - systemic (and possibly structural) poverty and an erosion of social programs over the years. If our school system and social programs were appropriately funded, would we even need an "Adopt-a-School" program?
Income disparity at the root of Canada's ills

A Different Approach in Finland

26 Facts about Finland's Education System:

1. Finnish children don't start school until they are 7.
2. Compared with other systems, they rarely take exams or do homework until they are well into their teens.
3. The children are not measured at all for the first six years of their education.
4. There is only one mandatory standardized test in Finland, taken when children are 16.
5. All children, clever or not, are taught in the same classrooms.
6. Finland spends around 30 percent less per student than the United States.
7. 30 percent of children receive extra help during their first nine years of school.
8. 66 percent of students go to college.
9. The difference between weakest and strongest students is the smallest in the World.
10. Science classes are capped at 16 students so that they may perform practical experiments every class.
11. 93 percent of Finns graduate from high school.
12. 43 percent of Finnish high-school students go to vocational schools.
13. Elementary school students get 75 minutes of recess a day in Finnish versus an average of 27 minutes in the US.
14. Teachers only spend 4 hours a day in the classroom, and take 2 hours a week for "professional development".
15. Finland has the same amount of teachers as New York City, but far fewer students.
16. The school system is 100% state funded.
17. All teachers in Finland must have a masters degree, which is fully subsidized.
18. The national curriculum is only broad guidelines.
19. Teachers are selected from the top 10% of graduates.
20. In 2010, 6,600 applicants vied for 660 primary school training slots
21. The average starting salary for a Finnish teacher was $29,000 in 2008
22. However, high school teachers with 15 years of experience make 102 percent of what other college graduates make.
23. There is no merit pay for teachers
24. Teachers are effectively given the same status as doctors and lawyers
25. In an international standardized measurement in 2001, Finnish children came top or very close to the top for science, reading and mathematics.
26. And despite the differences between Finland and the US, it easily beats countries with a similar demographic

Source: Business Insider

What's not highlighted in the article is that Finland has borrowed many ideas from other countries (including the U.S.) and their education "reform" movement started over 30 years ago. As their industrial economy was slowing down, the Finnish people realized that they needed to update their education system and a major priority for them was: EQUITY. They wanted a system that provided equity of opportunity to all students regardless of where they lived.

By providing a quality education across all regions and demographics, their education system had the same impact that a "rising tide" has on boats boats in a harbour...all boats rise, not just some. It seems that their emphasis on equity has also resulted in some impressive individual results as well.

Perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned by all nations is that individual achievement is important; but, creating a system that is truly equitable for all families in all regions regardless of socio-economic status raises EVERYONE'S academic achievement levels (and still allows for individual success as well).

Edcamp Leadership BC 2012

On Saturday November 17 I spent an amazing day at Delta Secondary School with a diverse group of education stakeholders discussing a wide variety of contemporary issues in public education. In attendance were Teachers, Principals, Trustees, Students, Parents and Superintendents.

One issue that arose from some of the discussions was a concern around how to "managing" communications in a highly connected environment between parents, students and staff. That got me thinking...now that I've been blogging for about a year...why did I start blogging?

My original purpose for starting a blog was to improve communication with all educational stakeholders: parents, teachers, students. Additionally, I believe that it allows me to discuss issues that are both relevant to my immediate community and to me. It's an opportunity to expand on certain topics and to offer some insight into other topics; an opportunity to express myself. Perhaps most importantly, it provides me with an opportunity at reflection - a chance to question myself and my beliefs.

My hope, over time, is that through blogging (and Twitter) I am able to build closer ties and greater levels of communication between myself and my broader educational community. It's interesting to note that when I attended my first Edcamp in Coquitlam last January I hardly knew anyone in the room. Since starting my blog and using Twitter, I've gotten to "know" many educators across the Province to the point where many names and faces at Saturday's Edcamp were familiar to me. Although I hadn't met most of them before, I felt like I knew many people through my social networking connections.

"Social media is eliminating social and structural hierarchies that used to inhibit communication".

Evidence of Learning

“The trouble with such ‘objective’ approaches is that while many things can be measured, there are also many important things that cannot, and the danger is that the things that can be measured easily come to be regarded as more important than those that cannot.... We start out with the aim of making the important measurable, and end up making only the measurable important....

If you make a particular performance indicator a policy target, and make the stakes high enough, then the people at the sharp end will do everything they can to improve the score on the performance indicator. However, because the areas in which we use performance indicators are so complex, there is always a way of improving the performance indicator without having any impact on the overall quality of whatever the performance indicator is meant to be measuring.’ (Wiliam, 2001 as cited in Damian Cooper’s, “Redefining Fair”)

Over the years within educational circles the word "data" has become synonymous with "accountability" and "accountability" has come to mean "competition" and "ranking" under a banner of "mistrust". This is SO unfortunate because, as all educators realize, we NEED data to inform our practice and in fact teachers use data every day (every minute) as they interact with their students.

Perhaps a better phrase that we need to move towards is "evidence of learning" which can include (but is not limited to) objective data, anecdotal data and observation. Teachers are expert observers of human development and behaviour and their day-to-day observations should never be underestimated.

I believe that "data collection" needs to evolve to a process of collecting "evidence of learning". Too often mere "numbers" do not tell the whole story nor inform the practitioner on next steps. As we move towards a 21st Century Model of education with greater emphasis on personalized learning, I suspect that measuring students against a set standard may become less important than measuring them against their personal “starting point” and how much closer they are to their personal learning goals. Learning becomes more of an individual endeavor rather than a competition. The question then should change from, "How am I doing compared to others?"...to..."How well am I achieving my personal learning goals?".

Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying, standards are still important and have a role to play; however, I believe that in the future (hopefully near) standards-based assessment will share equal space and importance with formative assessment practices, observational assessments, experience and authentic samples of student work. 

Learning becomes more of an individual endeavor rather than a competition.