Belinda Kuck of Davis School District contacted me recently through my blog and said, “We are starting a 1:1 pilot in our district this year. I am the library media supervisor in our district and I would be interested in your thoughts about 1:1 and how libraries support students, teachers and curriculum and digital libraries.”

This was my response:

1. I think the library should be the hub of the school.
2. It should be the place students want to go and it should be available whenever possible (no easy task in many schools with limited staffing)
3. Librarians today should spend just as much time, or more time, preparing and collecting digital resources for teachers as they do books etc.
4. Digital resources are not just web pages but web-based tools that enhance teaching and, even more so, learning.
5. Books are still an important part of a library and they aren’t being replaced, but a librarians job now goes well beyond books!
6. As much collaboration as possible should happen between the librarian and the teacher, and as much as possible it should be co-teaching time when a class goes to the library.
7. Students time in the library should not all be prescribed/teaching time, they should have time to read, research, and even play.
8. Reading is still one of the most important skills needed and libraries should run activities to promote reading.
9. Tools like diigo and delicious are invaluable to a library and they should be used by librarians, teachers and students.
10. I’ve collected some library links that I think all librarians (and for that matter teachers and administrators) should read, and they can be found here: http://delicious.com/dtruss/library/

I didn’t talk specifically about 1:1, but I hope I’ve given you some food for thought and once I get my school up and running I will be happy to share thoughts about Library support and moving to 1:1 as my school is also doing this for the first time this year, with our senior classes.

My father passed this on to me, (thanks dad). I love that the venue was a valedictorian speech, by someone who graduated at the top of her class. This is probably one of the best arguments I’ve heard against standardized testing and perhaps against standardizing education for the masses for that matter.

It starts with the ‘Try Softer‘ story that I have often used to make similar points. From there she basically describes feeling like a square peg in a round hole, with school being something necessarily required but not really about learning.

I’ve included both the video and also the full speech below, but I’d like to highlight two sections that struck a chord with me:

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

And also:

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

I’ve asked this before, and I’ll ask it again here:

Are you an agent of change? Are you a catalyst that makes things happen? Do you create opportunities for collaboration? Do you initiate and inspire Learning Conversations ?

We have amazing students in our schools and our schools are also filled with some incredibly hard working, bright and passionate teachers. It’s time to debunk the now famous quote by W. Edwards Deming: “A bad system will defeat a good person every time…“ Because Deming also said, “Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s job.”

How will you un-standardize your classroom? How will you be a change agent in the transformation of schools?

See my ‘SHIFTING’ series if this interests you:

Part I: Shifting Education Part II: Shifting Learning Part III: Shifting Attitudes

That’s enough from me! This speech was delivered by student Erica Goldson during her graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School on June 25, 2010. The video starts a few seconds past the beginning so you can read the part you missed just below the video.

Here I stand

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years . .” ?The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” ?Replied the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.”

This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn’t you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I’m scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don’t do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not “to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States.”

To illustrate this idea, doesn’t it perturb you to learn about the idea of “critical thinking.” Is there really such a thing as “uncritically thinking?” To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn’t for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don’t have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can’t run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be – but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, “You have to learn this for the test” is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a “see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let’s go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we’re smart enough to do so!

By Erica Goldson, June 25, 2010 [Text Source]

I had some fun this morning creating a Google Search Story.

The tag line (description) for this video is, “If you are just looking for activity worksheets, then you are missing the point!” I took advantage of my own high search-ability to do a little self-promotion in the search results, but the link that shows up is actually to my old blog site. Still, the whole thing took less than 20 minutes and the creation steps are really easy. I can see this activity being a lot of fun to do with students as an introduction to a topic in just about any subject. If you have students create some search stories, share them with me.

Enjoy the first day of school 2010!

Here is my YouTube channel if you are interested.

I firmly believe that “It takes a community to raise a child” and so without cooperation and communication between a school and their parent community, ‘we’ cannot fully support our children and their learning. That said, I often wonder about how we can more meaningfully engage parents in a way that they want to be engaged.

This past school year I had a ‘Parents as Partners’ section in my newsletter and I thought I’d share the monthly sections here. These aren’t really about creative engagement of parents in your school, but rather parenting suggestions to help maintain consistency of expectations both at home and at school.

Parents as Partners: Questions & Advice

I am happy to offer some advice to parents about supporting your child’s learning. However, please note that I will often answer questions with questions since I believe that there is no such thing as the ‘perfect parent’ and what works in one family or with one kid, may not work as well with others.

Children and Computer Time

Here is a question I often hear: How much computer time should my child have?

(Or how much ‘screen time’, since television time can also be a concern.)

Here are my questions to you. Again, there is no ‘right’ answer here, but discussing this as parents, and/or as a family, can help you decide what your limits and comfort zones are:

How long does your child spend on the computer or in front of the TV? Are you comfortable with that amount of time? Have you discussed this with your child?

Do you know what your child does on the computer or what he/she watches on TV?

Is the computer in a central location in the house? Is there a better place for it?

Does your child have a computer, or internet access, or TV in their room? If so, is it on when you ask them to have it off? How do you know what they are doing online? Do you ask them to show you?

Is it a good idea to have a computer or television in a child’s bedroom?

What computer games does your child play? Are these games appropriate for their age? For older kids: What social networks does your child belong to? Are you their online friends?

The younger your child is, the more important it is to determine these things for them. As your child gets older, it would be wise to allow them to negotiate these terms with you, although I firmly believe that parents should maintain the right to make the final decision. (Also see ‘Raising Digital Kids’ below.)

Homework Routines

Often it is difficult to determine just how much homework a child has to do. “I got most of it done at school”, “We don’t have any today”, and “It isn’t due until later”, are all comments that most parents have heard at some point. Here are some questions to discuss.

Does your child have a specific location where they do their homework?
Is it done at a specific time? Are there minimum time requirements for homework?
What are the distractions to homework getting done? Can they be removed?
Do you monitor what is done for homework? Do you talk to your child about their homework? Are you available to help them? Is someone else?
If they have no homework or limited homework, are they ‘done’ or can they spend more time doing review or pre-reading to prepare them for the next day?
Is reading part of their homework or evening routine?
Is there such a thing as too much homework?
When should I speak to my child’s teachers about our homework concerns?

There are no ‘right’ answers here, but discussing these as parents, and/or as a family, can help you decide what your limits and comfort zones are.
Thank you for being our partners in your child’s education!

Students as Partners

Not just parents, students are our partners in education too!
I think we sometime forget that our children have a vested interest in their own education. Often we go to meetings and talk about kids rather than going to a meeting with kids. As students get older, it is important to include them in conversations about their learning. When you are going to a meeting with a teacher or with me, please ask yourself first, ‘Would my child benefit from being at this meeting?’ Sometimes the answer will be ‘No’, but more often than not, they would benefit from contributing to the conversation. Furthermore, it is helpful for your child to see that their parents and teachers are on the same team, working together to make their education the best that it can be.

An Engaged Parent

Often we can get trapped in a routine where our only conversation with our children is ‘What did you do in school today?’
When my children were younger, I stopped asking them that, and started asking them two other questions:

1. ‘Who did you help today’– A question that shows that I value generosity and kindness. I accepted ‘No-one’ as an answer, but that answer decreased over time.

2. ‘What was your favourite part of the day?’ – A question that gave me far more to talk meaningfully to them about than what I got when I asked ‘what they did’.

It doesn’t matter what you ask your child about their day, what matters is that you ask, and that you show a genuine interest in what they say. In my years as an educator I’ve learned that students both want and need to be heard, and students who have parents that they talk to, openly and regularly, tend to be much better equipped to be successful in the future.

Saying “Sorry”

Childhood involves making mistakes. What makes us better, wiser, adults is what we learn and remember after making mistakes, so that we do not make them again. Too often a child will be quick to say “I’m sorry”, without really thinking about what they did, or why they should be sorry, other than the fact that they know they will be in more trouble if they did not say it.

There are actually 3 parts to an apology and when we expect all three parts from our children, then they are more likely to think twice before making a poor choice for a second time. The three parts of an apology are:
1. Saying “Sorry”.
2. Saying what they are sorry for.
3. Making a commitment to do something else, better, next time.
For example:
1. I’m sorry
2. I should not have hit you even though you made me angry.
3. The next time that you say something mean I will tell you that it hurt my feelings and I might even tell a teacher, but I won’t hit you.

In an incident like this I would also want the person who said something mean to apologize. However, often the person who hits or retaliates thinks that the other person started it so their behavior is justified. Here at school we try to show both children that their behaviors contributed to the problem and yet it isn’t about blame, it is about admitting their own contribution and thinking about how they can make things better next time.
When your child says, “Sorry”, does he/she mean it? Are you focused on punishing the behavior or having your child learn from their mistakes?

Value Reading

There are many websites that will read stories for you and your child, which is very helpful for families that do not speak English as their first language at home. The best resource that you have is YOU! Read to your child (in any language) and read with them, or at the same time as them. Show them that you love reading!

Report Cards

Report card time can be both exciting and scary for a child. We all want our children to be the best that they can be. As tempting as it is to focus on the letter grades on the last page of the report, please take the time to read the comments (translating them to your language if necessary). Comments can provide you, your child, tutors & other teachers, and future institutions with concrete and specific information about your child’s progress.

Your child’s teachers have taken time to carefully analyze what your child is able to do, and provided details about the specific things that he or she are working on – in every subject. This snapshot is a wealth of data about where your child is right now, and what teachers are working on to help your child be more successful. Talk to your child about their report card comments, and also about their work habits too if those need improving or commending.

Spend some time finding out what your child likes and dislikes about their report cards and ask them what they are proud of, and what they would like to improve? We learn from our mistakes and if we come to school knowing everything then there really is no purpose for school. In the end, it is our hope that every child leaves school with a love for learning and so report cards should be an opportunity to seek new opportunities to learn.

When seeking improvements from your child, set learning targets rather than letter grade targets. Ask your child what skills, such as proofreading, note taking, and editing, that they can work on and help them determine a schedule or plan to meet their goals to improve. As always, continue to show an interest in what your child does at school and they will be far more likely to find future success than if they are punished or rewarded for letter grades.

Photosynthesis and Learning

Students learn that plants make sugars using the energy of the sun. A byproduct of this process, called photosynthesis, is oxygen but the goal of the process is to produce food, not oxygen. In a similar way, marks are the byproduct, and not the goal of learning. We all want our children to be successful students but sometimes our approach to this is not an approach that successfully motivates our children. Asking a child about how much they liked a project and asking them questions like, “If you could change one thing to make this better, what would you have done?” will go a lot further to improve their future success than just worrying about the marks they get, or rewarding or punishing them based on their marks. We all want our children to do well and get good marks, but let us please remember to promote a love of learning (the goal) not marks (the byproduct), and we will be sure to see more positive results from our children. (post link)

Giving Children Choice

We make a lot of decisions for our children. This is a good thing, since children do not always make the best choices for themselves. But often we don’t give children enough choices when they are older, or we give them too many choices when they are younger. Here are some strategies for giving students choices. What you have to ask yourself is, “Am I giving my child good choices?”, “Am I giving my child enough choices?”, and “Are the choices I give them legitimate?”

Here are some examples to help guide your answers to the above questions.

“Am I giving my child good choices?”

A bad choice: “Do you want to go and brush your teeth?” ~ What if they say no? A good choice: “Do you want to brush your teeth before or after you put on your pajamas?” ~This is called an embedded command as brushing teeth is not a option, when this is done is where the choice comes in.

“Am I giving my child enough choices?”
After school, are there times when your child can decide what they want to do, or is all their time structured? Do your children (sometimes) have a say in where you will go out for dinner? Do you ask them for their opinion when shopping?

“Are the choices I give them legitimate?”
Sometimes we offer ‘no win’ choices to our children: “Come here right now or else you are in big trouble” ~ Either way they are in trouble!

When dealing with a tough situation (with older students) here is a simple strategy: Either give them 3 options, not 2, as this makes the decision easier for them, or you can make the choice open-ended, (“When are you going to get your homework done this weekend?). Then, make sure they follow through with which choice they make, even if it isn’t your ideal choice!
If we want our children to feel empowered and that they have some control over their own lives, then it is important that when we give them choices, we actually allow those choices to happen!

Raising Digital Kids

The ICD (International Club of Dalian) invited me to run a presentation titled, “Education in the Digital Age: A Reorientation for Parents”. The intentions of this presentation/workshop were to:
• Examine children’s use of technology.
• Increase awareness of the potential challenges around technology use.
• Learn practical, proactive parenting strategies to maintain connections with children using the media they are using.
• Learn how to guide children in appropriate and safe interactions on the Internet.
• Find support and resources to better understand these issues.
Here is the web-page ‘hand-out‘ with many questions that can promote conversations for your family to help guide your understanding of what guidelines and expectations your family should have when thinking about students and their digital (screen) time. (post link)

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Please contribute your thoughts and feedback. Also, I’d love some ideas for new things to share with my parents to help them be our partners in their child’s education.

Here is a little slide show of me in one of my ‘roles of a principal‘: Ball-retriever.

Before I got into administration, my good friend Dave Sands always used to say, “Being an elementary school principal is like being a rock star in a boy-band“… I got the first taste of that two weeks into being here at my school in China. Our intermediate boys always play soccer in the back corner of our playground and will often, accidentally, kick their soccer ball up over a large wall or on a nearby ledge. Usually they would have to wait until one of the school guard’s were available to retrieve the ball, but I decided that day that I’d just climb up and get it myself.

Well it didn’t take long before students would come to me first before the guard, as I spent almost every lunch period on the playground. And the ‘rock-star’ status began on that first effort when 1/2 the playground were chanting “Mr. Truss” while I was up on the wall being chief ball-retriever. I actually had to threaten not to go up anymore if they kept that up, as I found it rather embarrassing.

Today, the last day of school, I performed this duty one last time. It won’t happen again since our school is changing locations next year. So, in memory of this special role I played, I had my wife take a few photos of the occasion.

It’s a bitter-sweet time of year. As much as I look forward to summer, I always want a week more to do/say all that ‘should-have’ or rather ‘could-have’ been done and said. And the end of a school year brings so many ‘one last times’ to the forefront of our minds. This wasn’t a huge thing, but the fact that so many of my ‘lasts’ here at the school are fond things, I feel great about the year that has passed and I’m excited too about the year ahead.

To all the students, staff and parents at our school, I’d like to say one last time…
Thank you for playing your part in making this year a great year!

This was sent to me by a good friend and mentor, (and a leader in his district). It refers to news about my school moving to a BYO Laptop program. The humour in it is that he lives in Canada and I’m in China… beyond that it speaks volumes about how important school level leadership is in creating a current, meaningful, learning environment in a school.

Dear Mr. Truss,
I was pleased to see your inclusion of a laptop project for the school. This is in direct contrast to my children’s current school where the principal has announced “that there will be no technology between 8:30 and 3:30 without the direct supervision of a teacher.”

May I ask what I need to do to have my 3 lovely children attend your School?

I’ve talked about this kind of ‘miss-management’ before and it has certainly made the news recently. If we want our children to grow up prepared to live in the current media scape, we need to start with school level leadership living and breathing in that same media scape.

I’m confident that my friend will be asking his children’s principal about this decision. He is a leader that recognizes that ‘we’ need to deconstruct old notions and construct schools that foster learning in the digital age for the sake of ‘our’ students.

A few weeks back I was in a Grade 9 class that was working on Lit Circles. The conversation progressed to the teacher asking, “So why do we do lit circles?”

The first student to answer said, “To get an ‘A’.”

I know the student well enough that I was able to interject and say, “That’s a horrible answer!”

Some teachers like to say that, “All answers are good answers,” and in a way this was a good answer in that it brought up a really good discussion. However, I believe that when a student gives a really weak or ‘easy’ answer to a big question, there’s nothing wrong with calling them on it and telling them, ‘that’s a really bad answer’!

To explain my response, I asked a few questions:

“You have all learned about photosynthesis in Science, right?”

“What is the purpose of photosynthesis?”

A few answers later we got consensus that it was to create sugars, or ‘food’ for the plant. Then I asked, “What is a byproduct of photosynthesis?” To which the first response was ‘Oxygen’, a very useful byproduct of this process.

I then explained that like photosynthesis, “Getting an ‘A’,” is the byproduct, not the purpose of learning. An ‘A’ is a positive byproduct that can come from hard work, understanding, and a passion for what you are doing, (and hopefully a mixture of all three of these things!) “So what is the purpose of a lit circle?”

The following conversation was pretty rich. My Grade 9 teacher, only in his second year, is very skillful in using “Talk to your neighbour, then talk to me” as a strategy. He has built high expectations that when he says that, students are expected to take the ideas being discussed and meaningfully share them in pairs or table groups. He maximizes the depth of conversation using this strategy to help students develop their ideas before sharing them with the class. He broke down the conversation to “What are the qualities of a good lit circle?” on route to answering the bigger question of ‘purpose’.

On my way out the door a student asked me, “So what do you think is the purpose of a lit circle?”

I shared a story about one of my favourite books, The Alchemist. I bought and read this book, and did something I don’t usually do, but that a friend of mine often does when he reads books. I wrote page numbers and references down on a blank page at the back of the book, I took small notes on interesting things. After reading it I lent it to a friend and I requested that he do the same thing. Then I lent it to another friend and asked her to repeat the process.

When I got the book back I read their notes and something really neat happened. A few of their notes reminded me of things I read and passed up taking notes on. Today, years later, one of my favourite parts of the book is something that one of my friends ‘reminded’ me of in the back-of-the-book notes… not something I had originally noted to remember.

This wasn’t a lit circle in the same sense that was happening in the class, but it shared the same purpose: a greater understanding and appreciation for the book (and for reading).

__________

Related post: Chasing the ‘A’

Excerpt:

Marks seem to take our attention away from what matters. I find it funny that we can assess young kids without grades and then around Grade 3 we suddenly start indoctrinating students into the paradigm of good marks = success…. and the really important things we learn in Kindergarten about sharing, respecting and loving one another, as well as communicating how we feel and getting along with each other, suddenly takes a back seat to achieving some sort of success beyond these things that really matter.

_____

Also see George Couros’: What Makes a Master Teacher

Excerpt:

6. Focuses on learning goals as opposed to performance goals – Reading “Drive” by Dan Pink, he talks about the difference between performance and learning goals.  A performance goal would be similar to having students wanting to receive an “A” in french where a learning goal would be a student wanting to become fluent in the language.  Many students are smart enough that they know how to meet the objectives of a rubric and still not grow much in their learning.  A master teacher sets the goals based on learning not on receiving a grade.  This type of assessment is not about understanding what a students knows and reporting on it, but it is a tool used for learning.

It can also be oversimplified and boring and taught very poorly.

A boy rides his bicycle for 30 minutes and he travels 7.5 kilometers. How far can he travel in 3 hours?

If you do the (simple) math, with the three basic pieces of information given- an oversimplified strategy many math books employ, you’ll see that the boy traveled 45 kilometers in 3 hours.

Really? A kid rides a bike for 3 straight hours… at the same speed? Where there no hills? Didn’t he obey street signs? Did he stop for a Slurpee?

More importantly, if I don’t factor these anomalies in, is the math interesting? Is it teaching anything? Or rather, is it teaching anything meaningful?

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“Except in mathematics, the shortest distance between point A and point B is seldom a straight line.” -Anonymous

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I remember giving a bonus question in my Grade 8 class once where I told students the speed of a train that went from Vancouver, BC, Canada to Los Angeles, California, USA. I told them the distance and the time it took. Then I gave them the distance from Vancouver to Honolulu, Hawaii and asked, “If the same train traveled from Vancouver to Honolulu at the same speed as the trip to Los Angeles, how long did it take to get there?”

I have always been known for my ‘Killer’ bonus questions. This was not one of them. I had a general rule for bonus questions that if students worked to a final solution… even if it was wrong, but they showed their work, then they would get some credit for trying. Well, did I ever upset some of my students when I refused to give them any credit for the (completely irrelevant) Math that they did on the question above!  The most humourous argument to gain credit was, “There could be a tunnel!” The best argument was, “I got the answer right and had time so I just did the Math anyway, do I get extra bonus marks?”

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“The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.” ~Aristotle

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Watch Dan Meyer‘s TEDxNYED talk Math Curriculum Makeover. Check out one of his lessons. Dan teaches Math, but more importantly, Dan teaches students to think, and to see the beauty of Math.

Math doesn’t always have an easy answer, and it shouldn’t always be about the answer. We should relish in the mysteries of Math’s beauty.

Here is a wonderful video “Nature by Numbers” on Phi, the golden ratio. A pattern found in nature and admired and appreciated for its’ beauty for centuries now!

Here is the math behind the video. Math is beautiful if we let it be so.

Have you made the Shift? Are you an agent of change?

Where do you fit?

This is Part III of a 3 part series. When I started this series I had an outline that I only vaguely ended up following, but I knew from the start that what I wanted to say was too much for a single post.

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Part I Shifting Education

Are you unshifted, shifting, or shifted?
“To the shifted: You have an obligation to serve others.”

Part II Shifting Learning

“The shift is happening now and if we aren’t shifting the learning experience for students then what kind of education are we giving them?”

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Part III Shifting Attitudes

So where do you fit? Do you offer support to others that have not shifted? Are you helpful to the shifting? Are you effective? I’m not sure that I always am? I’ve been told that my Brave New World Wide Web video, “Preaches to the converted”. I’ve been a tech evangelist that has overwhelmed the unshifted and the shifting too! It’s part of my own learning journey, but a great learning journey with mentors, inspirational – leaders, and teachers in the trenches, doing more than I ever did in the classroom. I’ve also provided support and inspiration to others, helping to guide them and provide resources, giving my time and energy (in very personally rewarding ways).

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I CAN’T!

I first explored the notion that, “I CAN’T” in my presentation ‘The Rant, I Can’t, The Elephant and The Ant’. In this presentation, I had slides (#46-49) that moved from “I Can’t” to “I Can” to “I Must” to “I Will” and that is what inspired the wording for my Shifting Attitudes venn diagram (above).

One of the biggest reasons people feel they CAN’T is FEAR, which is another topic I spend time on in the presentation.

I talk about the hinderance ‘fear’ causes frequently in my blog, such as in my blog post about my POD’s presentation, (on bringing Personally Owned Devices such as iPods & cell phones to schools). In my POD’s presentation I also discuss how our Attitude can be a ‘Big Wall’ that prevents meaningful change.

These are important ideas because I think our ATTITUDE can be both the biggest impetus for meaningful change and also the biggest barrier.

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I CAN!

As leaders we need to have the right attitude and see opportunities where others see obstacles:

“I’ve seen a real shift in my own thinking recently. Forget whining about access, disregard the slow speed of change, get over the obstacles! Go after meaningful results. Engage and empower students. Be a leader and a role model.”

I think that the two areas that we can be the greatest influence to others are:

1. Influencing educators that are stuck believing that they can’t shift, (can not use technology innovatively in the classroom, can not differentiate learning in the classroom, can not let go of who controls the learning in a classroom, etc.)

2. Influencing educators who are shifting their practice, but need support in doing so.

The needs are different, but some of the scaffolding and support we offer one of these groups can also be helpful to the other. (Note: These are not mutually exclusive groups! For example, we can be stuck simultaneously at both of these points around different strategies or tools.)

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I WILL!

So when we offer our colleagues, our teachers, our fellow educators support, what does that mean?

The key elements of SUPPORT are: Time, Resources, and Knowledge, (as well as Inspiration and Motivation).

• Time: Professional Development, Collaboration and ‘Play’ time. (‘The Time’)

• Resources: Equipment, access, (digital/networked/collaborative) repositories. (‘The Tools’)

• Knowledge: Best (actually good) Practice, know-how, and research. (‘The How’)

• Inspiration: Examples, possibilities, and role modeling. (‘The Wow’)

• Motivation: Acknowledge the positive, and High Expectations- for teachers as well as students. (‘The Now’)

That’s just a work-in-progress list, (with a hint of a future post). At a different logical level, there is more required such as a common vision, collaboration and leadership on different levels, learning communities, responsibility and even accountability, (see my pyramid based on Andy Hargreaves 4th Way). But for the purposes of this post, I have been focussing on what we as individuals can do to help shift attitudes, and offering support in these areas is an excellent start!

In creating the Shifting Attitudes venn diagram, I realize that ‘I WILL’ only suggests future action and not de facto ACTION, but to put this final destination into the present tense, (such as ‘I AM’ rather than ‘I WILL’), would be to suggest an end-point or achievement plateau. However, I think that as leaders and as change agents, we are constantly adjusting what we will do as we (also) learn and grow.

The reality is that what I am able to learn and do now is staggering compared to 5 years ago and the educational landscape (or mediascape) is moving at an incredible speed. In the last 5 years many 1-1 programs have buckled under economic strains, but the idea of students bringing their own Personally Owned Devices was not feasible. When I did my POD’s presentation last year, I didn’t imagine that schools would be talking about netbooks and laptops as POD’s, I was thinking cell phones and iPod Touches… The landscape keeps changing. Tools are cheaper, easier to use, and my network is continually keeping me up to date on some amazing possibilities.

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An ‘Open’ Attitude

Attitude can also be a reference to orientation relative to the direction of travel. I said in reference to the idea of education becoming more ‘Transparent’ in the future that,

“Teaching ‘openly’ empowers educational leaders to be educational co-learners. It isn’t about sharing lessons, its about sharing the process and the progress we are making in providing meaningful learning opportunities. Transparency is changing teaching practice into a perpetual learning practice.”

Our orientation towards open, collaborative and networked learning is critical to shifting education, and shifting learning. It isn’t the network or the tool that matters, but rather that we create meaningful connections as part of our learning practice. As George Siemens says in his TEDxNYED Talk, “The network, it’s incidental in my eyes, it’s the connection that’s critical”.

To summarize the importance of openness and networked learning compared to formerly closed learning models, it’s the difference between Wikipedia [stats] and a 5-year old Encyclopedia set sitting on a bookshelf.

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… And so ends the Shifting Series

To summarize my thoughts behind this series:

a) Our educational land/mediascape has shifted;
b) We have an obligation to shift with it, and to help those that have not shifted, or that are shifting;
c) The landscape is still shifting and we have to identify the trends that are heading our way;
d) We have an obligation to our students to look ahead and continue our own learning to support them;
e) Our attitude towards the shift will determine our influence.
f) We need to be leaders that support change, as well as inspire and motivate others to change.
g) ‘We’ have the power of networked collaboration on our side to speed up the shift.

I believe that although the shift has been slow thus far, the networked learning model that we are building is the foundation for exponential rather than incremental growth… Knowing that, I can’t help but have anything less than a positive attitude!

Choose your position: Are you a gatekeeper, policemen, guard… or teacher? All these jobs are necessary, but which one belongs in schools?

Choose your battle:

Filters that also filter learning -or- High expectations about appropriate use?

Banning POD’s -or- High expectations about appropriate use?

Teaching without technology -or- High expectations about appropriate use?

Make no mistake, having and following through with high expectations is a battle. It takes time and effort to mutually establish expectations, it takes time and effort to develop a trusting relationship, and it takes both consistency and a willingness to follow through on consequences. This is a classroom management issue… and it provides new challenges. It is a battle worth tackling! Why? Because you are a teacher, not a security officer.

Students today carry their unfiltered internet connections in their pockets. They have access every minute that they are not in the classroom.

“… But it is a distraction.”
“… But it makes them lazy.”
“… But they don’t use it for learning.”

As I said in a comment yesterday morning:

I have a hard time seeing technology today as ‘creating more lazy students’ because I don’t see many students today that are more lazy than I was. I was a disengaged, often bored, student. Does technology create a distraction… YES, a huge distraction that can be hard to compete with.
So what do we do? We don’t let kids misuse pens (writing notes to each other) and paper (making paper airplanes) in class http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/miss-management/ … We place high expectations on their proper use! Keeping technology out of class won’t work nearly as well as placing high expectations of their use in class. Listen to Sonya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kowGRhWAJeM

We can’t ‘compete’ but it is even harder to ignore. It’s a classroom management issue and it’s hard to deal with because it is new. We’ll lose the battle if we spend our time trying to compete with the entertaining world technology has to offer, but we will engage students if we learn to meaningfully integrate technology use when appropriate and then put it away, like we do for pens and paper, when it doesn’t add value… using our skills as a teacher to make sure that when students use any ‘tool’ in our class, that they are being used effectively and affectively.

So which battle will it be? Do we make classrooms a war zone? A battle zone to keep technology out? Or do we make it a learning zone? A place where we close the gap between digital distractions and digital classroom tools?