Agreement/Disagreement

Our current UOI in Grade Five is using the central idea 'A balanced lifestyle contributes to well-being'. Although our hope is that they never truly end, we're coming towards the scheduled end of this inquiry. Over the past five weeks the students have explored the different body systems, how they function and interact; the different elements of lifestyle and how they influence each other; and the effect of reflection on achievement. Yesterday my teaching partner and I introduced a forum for discussion about some aspects of our learning. We presented the students with a series of statements and they were all required to take a stance in relation to their level of agreement. They could choose one of the following four options:

• Completely 100% agree
• More agree than disagree
• More disagree than agree
• Completely disagree

This was a great formative assessment opportunity for us as teachers because it required the students to make a decision and then justify it to everyone else. The strength of their justification provided an insight into their understandings about the UOI.

Philip Cam, in his book 20 Thinking Tools, states:

"In collaborative inquiry, agreement and disagreement represent patterns of convergence and divergence in thought that enable us to tack back and forth into the wind, and give our inquiry its forward movement"

We were lucky to have three teachers in the room during this task so while one of us was moderating the discussion, the other two could take notes on specific students and their responses. Later on we caught up to read over and discuss these. One example of a statement we posed to the students was this:

It is ok to spend a lot of time on your work if its something that you are passionate about.

This statement infers that if you are spending a lot of time working on something then your lifestyle is not balanced. It helped the students to test their understanding of balance, how lifestyle and elicited a variety of responses. One of our students said that she completely 100% agreed with this statement. When we asked her to explain why, she said that even though you're spending more time on your work, because its something that you're passionate about it means that your mental and emotional well-being will be strong. And you'll also be able to develop your social well-being because you'll be around people that are interested in the same thing as you. Wow. This showed us that she had a very strong understanding of the elements of well-being and how they can connect with our lifestyle choices.

This engagement also has benefits for other areas of the classroom community. First of all, it is inclusive. If someone doesn't have a solid understanding of the question or statement posed then they are able to discuss it with their peers while they arrive at a decision. They also have the ability to listen to other people's perspectives when they are giving reasons for their choices, and can change their position on something if their thinking shifts during the process. We have a lot of students with English language needs at our school and they were able to join in this activity without the fear of being put 'on the spot' in front of their peers. This activity also helps students to learn about and deal with instances where there are differences of opinion, clashing of ideas and debate over perceived truths. These are vitally important skills to develop and we were impressed to see the way that our girls handled themselves when challenged by their peers and teachers. 

Here are the statements that we used.

Lifestyle Agree:Disagree Statements by Dave Secomb

This video shows a discussion with Professor Cam and his views on teaching philosophy in schools.

Compassion, Acceptance, Tolerance.

I just watched this video and thought it would be nice to share. It highlights some key elements of education - it's not all about 'academics'. I think that's one fo the strengths of frameworks, such as the PYP. Focus on education of the whole child means that ideally students maintain an emotionally healthy mindeset - an important aspect of learning.

Dalai Lama Centre // Educate the Heart from Giant Ant on Vimeo.

A lasting impact

 Last week one of my colleagues commented on a photo of me on Facebook. It was of me holding my daughter and she had a light-hearted dig at me by saying that it was a good thing that Kajori looked more like my wife than me. I thought it was quite funny and, to be honest, there's a fair element of truth in the statement! I returned fire by commenting that if she put as much work into her planning as she did to her cheap shots at colleagues then we'd all be a lot better off. Feeling quite pleased with my witty response, I then headed off home via the shops. It wasn't until several hours later that I realised the chain reaction that my reply had set off.

It turns out that my colleague had a bad experience with a staff member some years before. This staff member would say things similar to my reply with the difference being that he meant it in a very serious way. Things could easily turn from 'jovial banter' to 'uneasy confrontation' in a matter of seconds. My reply had immediately bought back those uncomfortable feelings and my colleague had spent all afternoon worrying that she'd upset me. She'd sent an email to check if everything was ok but I hadn't been on my computer all afternoon so didn't reply. The lack of response from my part only served to increase her worry at an exponential rate. Later on in the evening I received an sms from her offering a heartfelt apology and I was able to explain the whole situation. I never once took offense to her comment and was suitable shocked to see how much it had all spiralled out of control so fast. My colleague explained that although we know each other quite well, the experiences she'd had all those years ago still stuck with her and that's why she was so worried.

It's amazing that something like that can have such an impact and stay with someone for many years afterwards. It got me thinking about how this can relate to our relationships in the classroom. The things we say and attitudes we show to our students can impact on them much more than just in that moment. This could also apply to the teams that we work in or even for an entire faculty of staff. Certain workplace cultures can be difficult to create, yet can be brought crashing down so easily by one or two simple things. These things can then make it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to rebuild, reshape or improve. It certainly makes me think more carefully about how I approach certain situations.


Photo credit

The Choice Paradox

Professor Renata Salecl, a Slovenian philosopher, sociologist and legal theorist, raises an interesting perspective on the topic of choice. She highlights that the provision of rights and choice are generally thought to equate to social change. Apparently this may not be  necessarily true. Salecl points out that if we are overwhelmed with a raft of choices (think of being in the supermarket trying to decide which cheese to buy) then feelings of anxiety can arise and we can even become frozen in indecisiveness. How does this effect society? Salecl uses the analogy of a diner at a restaurant trying to decide on which bottle of wine to buy. They don't want to choose the lowest priced bottle in case people think they're cheap. They also don't want to choose the most expensive bottle for the fear of people thinking that they're showing off. The result is that we generally choose something 'in the middle' to appease society and the anxiety in choice.

Choice provokes anxiety in a number of ways:

• We never make individual choices. That is, we don't make choices separate or outside of society. We choose what other people are choosing. We do this because we ask ourselves 'how will others regard us in regards to our choice?' Choice is a very social matter.
• We try to make an ideal choice. For example, we are constantly switching mobile phone providers in order to find the best deal. This results in a certain level of constant dissatisfaction.
• Choice always involves a loss. When you make a choice then you immediately lose the possibility of having chosen the other option. Dealing with loss is something that can provoke anxiety.
• Another layer of anxiety comes in the form of ideology. The ideology of choice forces us to perceive ourselves as being guilty for the failures in our life.

So Salecl asks whether the ideology of choice actually prevents social change? Her opinion is that the ideology of choice actually makes us criticise ourselves rather than the society we live in, therefore inhibiting social change.

This got me thinking about how the ideology of choice applies to education. I've titled this post 'the choice paradox' because myself, and many other educators, encourage the availability of choice for our students. We give our students choice in the tools they use, the  topics they inquire into and the people they work with. This is because we believe in that every student learns in different ways, one size does not fit all, and everyone has a variety of needs. By offering our students these choices we must be giving them the best opportunities to develop and show their understanding. But what if these choices that we offer are actually working against the things that we think they are promoting?

Peter Dudley, in Assessment in Action in the Primary School highlights the factors that effective primary schools offer their students. They include motivation; high expectations and self-esteem; a belief that learning is important; literacy and numeracy skills; the ability to organise and learn independently; the confidence to take risks in learning and view mistakes as a necessary part of the learning process. Dudley highlights the interesting point that many of these factors relate not to cognitive processes but to how learners feel about themselves. He points out that these 'affective factors are vital to the process of learning and achievement'.

Is it possible that by offering our students too much choice that we may be initiating some of the factors that Salecl says provokes anxiety? Furthermore, do anxious students exhibit many (or any) of Dudley's behaviours listed above? How much choice should we be offering to our students? For me, the jury is out on this one until I can read some more about it but it has certainly given me something to think about.

The Education Miracle

This morning I read a very interesting newspaper article about educational performance of different nations. Its focus was on the recent high performance of Asian nations - namely Korea, Singapore and China and looks at their rise to the top of the international student rankings. It states, however, that this rise hasn't come without a cost.

These three nations, among others, have regularly topped these sorts of ranking tables in recent years. As a result, education reformers in search of similar results look to these countries' curricula for inspiration on how to enhance their own programs. However, according to Dr. Yong Zhao, from the University of Oregon, more attention needs to be paid to the other results that these systems yield.

The article highlights three key educational points:

(i) The development of the whole child - Dr. Zhao highlights the existence, in these systems, of high levels of psychological stress, the strong directional focus from the teacher to the student, and a lack of social experiences, which can lead to poor emotional development in a child. He also mentions the children's lack of confidence, for example, creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and imagination. To claim that an over-reliance on purely an academic focus - however that may be defined - is detrimental to a student's development is not ground breaking news. However, what still astounds me is some people's (and I include teachers, parents, students and policy makers in this group) fascination with academic scores and results. People talk about the importance of developing the 'whole child' but I sometimes get the impression that few truly believe it and even less actually act on it.

(ii) The over-reliance on standardised testing results - Dr. Zhao states that standardised test scores are ''easily manipulated if you pay for college prep schools''. Long used to measure student achievement or academic ability (and more recently for other means), there is regular discussion about the methods and uses of standardised testing in many different settings. The use of standardised testing results to allocate funding, student class or level placement, and teacher performance has wreaked havoc among several countries with one of the most notable examples being the No Child Left Behind Act in the United States. Despite all this, Government representatives still seem to view this as the most effective way of evaluating many parts of a school's teaching and learning. And to be perfectly honest, it's hard to blame them. Many elementary school teachers advocate the end of standardised testing, citing student rates of development, over-reliance on factual knowledge over deeper understanding, and multiple intelligences as key arguments against the use of these assessment methods. But many Universities still base their student admission criteria on these sorts of tests. So, inevitably, as the student progresses through their schooling years, they need to learn how to perform on such assessments. It pleased me to read the section in the article that mentioned how some Universities are changing their selection process and criteria to not only rely on academic performance. They are doing this because students are performing well on standardised tests to enter their universities, only to find themselves being 'dragged back into the pack' once they're in. It is a small start, but these realisations need to come from the top (ie. universities and colleges) in order for the changes to fully filter through the complete educational life of a child.

(iii) The importance of collaborative working skills - The article also states that many of the students that enter 'top' universities are leaving without jobs in any of the Fortune 500 companies that they expect to gain. 'People talk about how they lack confidence, how they lack entrepreneurial skills, how they lack the ability to work with a group'. These skills need to be fostered and a focus on 'skill and drill' style learning experiences does little to enhance them. This loops back to the first point of developing the whole child but highlights that fact that it doesn't simply stop after elementary school. These skills need to be developed throughout a child's entire education.

It is sometimes difficult to have the vision and courage to change the ways of the past, especially when they are still used in many circumstances or if the reasons for the change are not completely understood. Fast disappearing are the days where mastering one discipline in one way would be enough to guarantee the successful completion of a task - or even a career. Today's workforce favours employees who boast a skill set consisting of creative thinking, the ability to collaborate, and the capacity to synthesise and transfer knowledge to new and related fields. It is the students that possess these skills that are the real miracles of education.

A balancing act

I haven't posted for some time now and this is my first one since the beginning of the school term this year. This isn't through want of trying - I simply haven't had the time to dedicate to writing a thoughtful post.

I had an email from one of my friends in Australia yesterday that really got me thinking. He was talking about trying to organise to have one day off work a week in order for him to focus on his own interests instead of being bogged down with work. He wants a better work/life balance. I think it's a great idea for him if he can work it out.

It got me thinking about my own situation. I have been putting in a lot of extra hours over the past month in order to get things to a level that I feel comfortable with for my grade. Part of this is due to my responsibility of being the Team Leader for my grade and I feel that it is my duty to ensure that what we're doing is up to scratch. The reasons for me having such little time are many. We are in the middle of several fairly major changes at my school and at the moment there is some confusion about the requirements and direction we are meant to be taking. The result of this is that there's a lot of 'discussing' and very little 'doing'. This has had a knock-on effect to the teachers as they also have the usual amount of class work to maintain and many people have experienced a build up that is unsustainable. There is light at the end of the tunnel though.

The other part of me allocating my spare time to work is that, no matter how stressful it can be, I really do enjoy it. I love it when my planned learning engagements hit the bullseye (although I'm devastated if the opposite occurs!). I like that our planners are clear and everyone has a shared understanding of where we are and where we need to go next. And I enjoy the discussions that have evolved out of the problems we've experienced. There is still a lot of work to be done but I am learning every step of the way from people that are more experienced and knowledgable than me. If my thoughts or opinions are questioned I feel motivated to explore the alternatives to see if I truly believe in what I say or whether I'm just following a crowd. This helps me to become a better educator.

I feel privileged to be working in a profession that I love. If I took a day off then I would probably spend most of it fine-tuning my lessons, updating my planning or reading books, articles or blogs related to education. To a stranger, my work/life balance is way out of line. But it suits me just fine.

Old Fashioned?

An Australian research project has shown that teaching children ''old-fashioned'' behaviour at the same time they learn to read can dramatically improve literacy, particularly among students who have been struggling.

The report states that integrating positive attitudes and behaviours for learning, such as confidence, persistence, working in teams and getting along with others, helps to prepare students for the challenges they will inevitably face - even learning something they think is boring. If teachers can develop students' positive attitudes and behaviours for learning, they become better learners and this makes teaching them much easier.

I find this report somewhat bewildering. I don't believe that it is correct to label these attitudes/behaviours/dispositions as old-fashioned. What makes them old-fashioned? When I think of something as old-fashioned I imagine something that was used or valued in a previous time or generation, such as using a typewriter. Is the author trying to state that they are not considered important or taught in this day and age at all?

The social-emotional development of a child is something that the PYP places great importance on. The Learner Profile and Attitudes aspects of the framework combine to place a huge emphasis on the development of the whole child. I certainly agree that they are important to foster within our students but to make a value judgement on teaching and say that these are not being addressed undermines the fantastic work that some teachers do every day.