And The Winner Is...

The thought of the annual awards ceremony made me feel nervous and anxious. As the days passed, I found myself filled with thoughts of how to avoid going. Last year it was really embarrassing to have to walk on stage in front of my peers. The evening of the ceremony, as I waited in line, my palms sweated, my pulse quickened and I was barely able to think straight.  When my name was finally called I walked out on stage and felt absolute terror as the many eyes of my peers press down on me. In what seemed like an eternity, I walked to center stage, accepted my award and returned to my seat as quickly as possible. I then sat and wondered how many other students felt the same way.

This scenario has played out in high schools many times over.  Are we doing the right thing? Is the giving of subject awards and honour roll recognition achieving what we want it to achieve in our schools? Are our students driven to achieve at a greater level because they value being recognized on an honour roll or winning a department award? This question is being bantered around educational circles more than ever these days. Was there ever a time when we didn’t give out awards? Is this discussion just another swing of the educational pendulum?

In discussion with some educators and students, we hear that awards ceremonies are often disengaging and that fewer and fewer students want to attend. The perception is that the same students get recognized every year and often don’t want the repeat recognition. Why is it not cool to be recognized at school?  What’s driving this need to continue holding awards ceremonies? Where is the research that states awards based on merit lead to success? We know that high achieving students often work harder for extrinsic motivation. If all students acted based on such motivation, we would see fierce competition in every class.  Just imagine a class where all students fought for the mantle of top student.

If we apply the 21^st century model of education where the belief is that every child is truly good at something, then shouldn’t we be celebrating every child for who they are and rewarding their efforts for the work they do. For some students it requires a great amount of effort to make the honour roll but for others, it requires very little effort.  The same applies to athletic awards.  For most athletes, athletic ability is inherent. If this is true, then is it right to award a top athlete certificate to someone based on their inherent ability? Shouldn’t the top athlete award go to the student who works and hustles the most and should the top student award go to the student who puts forth the greatest effort? It seems to us that most schools offer their effort awards as consolation awards.

As we move forward down the road of defining our new educational model, we should also take time to review the manner in which we reward our students. Let’s make sure that the work habit and effort based awards are more than just consolation prizes. In order to do this, the rubric we use to measure effort and work habits must be calibrated effectively and everyone must use it. The development of an all-encompassing work habit assessment tool will reward all students who put forth effort and show growth regardless of baseline. The more we value work habits, the more effect it will have on our students.  Currently most universities don’t take into consideration the value of work habits. This needs to change. If high schools place greater value in work habits, more students will work harder. If you find school difficult, what incentive is there for you to work hard to get a C or C+? You work really hard get the C or C+ and still you’re the one who sits in the honor roll ceremony watching the same kids get their awards year after year. 

Identify the stakeholders…       Trust the process…      Trust the people…

Curious George Plugs In

Last Tuesday, we attended a very informative "Digital Learning" session with George Couros, the Division Principal of Innovative Teaching and Learning for Parkland School Division in Alberta. A primary theme of the session was that learning can (and does) exist in a variety of contexts – classrooms are not necessarily the ultimate learning center. Given the expertise and “innate” abilities students bring to the use of technology, access to learning outside of the classroom is easier than ever. As educators we must embrace this notion and change our practice to include the use of as many Learning Experience access points as possible. If students don’t have the opportunity to access with us, they will inevitably access on their own.

It appears that the gauntlet has been thrown down for educators to start challenging the way we deliver education. If a student wants to learn how to do something, they can learn it on the Internet in a wide variety of formats, pressing stop and rewind many times over until it is learned.  Are teachers becoming obsolete? There seems to be an undercurrent of fear washing through the current wave of educational change. No one really says it; it’s just a feeling. Maybe it’s the fear of not knowing what will change, or maybe it’s the fear of change itself that is so threatening.

We need educators and we will always need educators! 

…There we’ve said it.  Ahhhh... now that feels better. 

Now can we just move on with it!

It has been the past hubris of our educational system to think that the only effective way to learn is with a teacher in a classroom. In previous blogs we have been discussing the shifting role of classroom learning. This discussion, for us, always seems to mire down in shades of grey. We’re having a difficult time pinning down what exactly it is that is going to change. Maybe it’s just simply the letting go of the notion that the teacher is the keeper of the knowledge. This can be quite a fundamental shift for some educators because it  translates into a loss of control or power in the classroom. This is a very scary proposition and a real fear for some educators. In order to overcome this fear, our perspective and view of learning must change.

At every ring of the school bell, we enter into a contract with our students: they occupy a designated location and we work to ensure there are appropriate learning opportunities. Former Deputy Superintendent of Surrey Schools Peter Drescher describes the teacher’s role as one of “Designing meaningful learning experiences”. The words here are key: they are “experiences” that are “meaningful” in the context of the individual, the class, the school, and the community. They are learning experiences, not teaching experiences.

For us, this begs the question, did Gutenberg transform society or did the application of Gutenberg’s invention allow society to be transformed? We’re arguing that it’s not the tool that really changes anything, it’s the application of the tool that allows change to take place. Some might say this is semantics, but we think it is deeper than that. The use of technology in schools will not change the way students learn. Students will just have greater access to learning experiences. In the end, the teacher is the one who, through their myriad on experiences, provides the contexts, connections and relevance. A student that learns to dance from a video on YouTube may learn how to dance, but they will be void of the greater historical context and implied meaning of dance. Yes, we value learning at your own pace and time, but for learning to have depth, it must have deeper, richer more connective understanding.  As Couros says, “If all you’re using the Internet for is to look stuff up, then you’re missing the point”. Ironically, learning follows the same suit: if learning is nothing but a downward process (teacher down to student) then we’re all missing the point.

If our obligation and objective is to meet the learning needs of the students, are we able to still justify mandated classroom time if students can access learning elsewhere?  As students are exposed to an ever-expanding volume of access points to learning, it becomes our work to include these avenues in the delivery of education. If we don’t provide enough variety of learning opportunities, our students will inevitably find it elsewhere.

Identify the stakeholders…       Trust the process…      Trust the people…

Colliding Codes

How do we uphold, nurture and foster a proactive, positive school culture when the gender codes runs in the background undermining all our efforts? This question was posed in response to our previous post entitled “How’s your Code”.

Before we can work on re-visioning our school culture, we must have a solid understanding of the intricacies that drive the Boys and Girls codes in our school. Research tells us that imprinting begins the moment we emerge from the womb and every experience thereafter continues to help shape who we become.  For example, parents who tell their little girls that they look pretty in a dress or their hair makes them look cute, sends the message that we value looks. We all do it, in some form or another; we all contribute to the barometer of social norms. An example for men is seen in how we collectively learn to keep our emotions in check and that the only real emotion to show is strength and power. These beliefs are solidified at a very young age when we tell out little boys to be strong and don’t cry.  These are powerful mechanisms that build our social being and define how we think we should behave.  The outcome of all this is the solidifying of an inner code that governs how we behave. In school, during our formative years, these inner codes often come into direct conflict with how schools want students to behave. Many adolescents struggle with conflicting emotions because their inner code tells them to behave one way, while their true emotional state tells them to feel another.

This struggle between conflicting emotions creates a gender code that often works to undermine the values we want our students to espouse. Here is how Pollock (1998) explains the Boy Code phenomena:

“When boys show their emotions, the Boy Code makes boys feel ashamed of themselves. By the time boys reach school age, years of training teaches them that neither their mother nor their father will respond warmly to their expressions of emotions. By elementary school, most boys know and honor the Boy Code even if it deeply hurts them….Yet when boys rebel against this push to separate -- when they cry, get injured, or tell friends that they'd rather stay at home than go outside and play -- society's Boy Code makes them feel ashamed of themselves. Shame haunts many boys all their lives, undermining their core of self-confidence, eroding their fragile self-esteem, and leaves them with profound feelings of loneliness, sadness and disconnection." 

(1998, “Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood,” Pollock, W.)

For the girls, the code is defined as “Mean Girls” or the “Queen Bee” phenomena. Wiseman (2002) defines this concept in “Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence” as the ways in which girls in high schools form cliques and can be aggressive towards other teen girls. This aggressive behavior is driven by the desire to be at the top of the girl social circle. 

These gender codes often create a daunting barrier to overcome when we work to build school culture. How do we overcome gender codes and develop a “School Culture” that addresses and realigns conflicting codes? It is a daunting task for schools to undo what has been imprinted. What we can do is be aware of the social intricacies that define how our students behave and we can definitely take the factors into consideration when we work to define our own school culture.

We all need to play a part in helping temper gender codes that undermine the positive values we work to inculcate in school. We all need to role model what we want to achieve by: 

• Encouraging parents to give their child some undivided attention every day
• Encouraging the expression of a full range of emotions
• Avoiding teasing or taunting
• Avoiding using shaming language or language that defines looks
• Looking behind anger, aggression and rambunctiousness
• Expressing your love and empathy openly and generously
• Letting boys know that they don't need to be “The Warriors” in all they do
• Helping girls understand what it means to be a “Wise Woman”
• Creating a model of masculinity and femininity that is broad and inclusive

Coming together and understanding gender codes as being attached to the root of such things as the “code of silence” and “bullying” are crucially important when we work to foster and develop positive school tone and culture. We need to recognize that these forces work in the background against our efforts and further, we must avoid dismissing them by saying “they’re just kids”. Understanding that the code of silence is part of a gender code in action is the first step in beginning to overcome it.

Identify the stakeholders…       Trust the process…      Trust the people…