Making music magic happen in the classroom, my dad the music teacher

When it became apparent that my time with my father was getting near the end I began thinking about all of the things that made my dad amazing.  There were two faces to my dad, the head of the Collins household and the music teacher at Van Tech. I am not ready to write about my dad on a personal level yet, but I thought I could write about him as a teacher. He was an incredibly talented musician, one who could listen to a song on a tape a few times and then go to the piano and play it.  For 35 years my dad passionately taught music to grade 8-12 students at a school on the east side of Vancouver at a school called Vancouver Technical Secondary (Van Tech). 

When he passed away on September 18^th, 2011 I decided to set up a memorial page in his name on Facebook, hoping to get a few stories about a side of him that I did not get to see much.  I was not sure what would the response be as he retired nearly 10 years ago.  I have been blown away by the response of former students and I would like to thank them for taking the time to remember my dad, as all I now have are memories.  Many of the stories that have been shared are personal and have brought a lot of joy to my family as we always knew he was a special person.

My dad never sought attention, limelight and did not like to be the center of attention.  His focus was always on his students.  I would often see him sitting at his workbench with a collection of tapes listening to music that his students had given him to listen to and consider using in his class.  My dad taught me a long time ago that in order for students to be motivated to participate in classes they have to be interested in what is happening.  He chose music that would engage his students, and created a classroom environment that made students want to come. 

He had over 300 students taking in his choir classes every year.  All he asked was that you give it your all.  His classroom was always open at lunch and students would come in and spend their lunchtime singing. My dad would record himself playing songs requested by his students who wanted to practice certain songs or enter competitions.  If he could play the song on the piano and the lyrics were acceptable he was game.  Students loved coming to his class.

His memorial page after about 48 hours has over 130 people.  Words that keep coming up are passion, energy, kindness, welcoming, enthusiasm, belonging, joy and respect.  Students from years ago can still name the songs that they sung.  The funny part of that is that the very songs they mention are the ones I remember my dad playing on his stereo at home.  I remember his playing the Phantom of the Opera over and over again.  I remember giving him the Proclaimers tape and I also remember the Lion King.  These are just some of the songs mentioned by former students.

Former students credit him for becoming teachers.  Others would invite him to their weddings because of how important he had been to them.  Others were naming songs that make them think of my dad every time they hear them.  So many students commented on the connection that my dad seemed to be able to make with so many students.  Every time I bumped into a former student of his they would ask me to say hi to him.  I would pass on the message and my dad 9/10 would remember the student and also name any siblings the students had.  When he could not immediately remember the student he would immediately go and grab a yearbook, find them and then be able to tell me a story about that student which I would pass on when I would see that student again.  He loved his job, his students and his school and his memorial page shows that.

This all brings me to ask a crucial question- if you had a memorial page, what would your former students write about you?  What would they remember?  What words would they use to describe you?  Something to think about as you prepare your next day’s lessons.  Is your class one that students would be able to passionately describe 10 years later?  How about 20?  How about 40?  If not, why not?  What could you do differently?  How are you going to be remembered?

Please feel free to visit his memorial page and see what an amazing teacher he was http://www.facebook.com/groups/273224379363786/

I miss him so much, but I am glad that his memory lives on in so many people.  Thank you.

AFL, letter grades and dinner, a great combo

I had a wonderful dinner with the first few principals involved in this conversation and two of our assistant superintendents as well as Ruth Sutton.  The dinner time conversation?  Moving away from letter grades.  Everything we have read, seen, experienced and heard tells us this is the right path to follow.  Ruth had spent the day with around 100 elementary and middle school teachers talking about assessment and was generous enough to spend time with us afterwards giving us her experience, thoughts and ideas as to the steps needed to make this work.

One thing she said that really stood out is that we need to get the kids to focus on personal bests and not on their rankings.  The image that she painted was one of running a marathon and focussing on our time.  Every time we run we want to get better.  If we always finish first, second or third but our times are getting worse we are not improving we are regressing, but rankings would not show that.  I loved that analogy, encouraging the students to focus on their progress and not on their rankings.  She said that research shows that to keep students engaged that up until grade 12 they should not be ranked and sorted.  The longer we have them focus on improving, the more successful the students will be.  She also suggested that we bring in people from universities and big companies to talk to parents and students about what they want to see in their respective recruits.

The universities need to talk about the skills that the students need to STAY in university and not just to get in.  Many of us can think of students that we went to in university that bombed out of 1st year university because they did not know how to self-assess, critically examine their work, peer edit and so on.  It is almost a wasted group. What skills were they lacking that allowed for them to flunk out of university?  What is it that most employers are looking for?  Self-motivated, eager to learn, adaptable and goal setting individuals.

Every time we talked about what we needed to do, it came down to the assessment practices.  If we are telling parents that this is good for the kids then the proof has to be in the pudding.  The parents need to see the rich information that comes from formative assessment and standards-based assessment.  It will not work if we take away what they know, tell them this is good and then not have the assessment practices to back it up.

Lastly we talked a little about reporting, what should the new report card look like and what should it contain.  One of the ideas that I really liked was changing comment boxes to "Succeses and Next Steps".  This would have what the child is able to do and what the child needs to focus on next.  This speaks to planning, it speaks to record keeping, it speaks to solid assessment practices.  The other part that I really liked was including the child's own writing of his or her report card.  Have the student write "What I am good at?" , "what do I know?" and "what do I need to get better at?" as well as maybe "What are my next steps as a learner?" and have them present their own evidence to back it up.  If this is done properly the child's own self-evaluation should pretty much be bang-on.

After EdCampVancouver and this dinner, I am very excited about where education is headed.

Ed Camp Vancouver

Today was a most interesting day of most amazing professional development.  The day was presented as an unconference, no key note speaker, nothing lavish, just a bunch of dedicated people who are passionate about education.  It was representative of most stakeholders: parents, teachers, principals and some students. It is hard to describe the day in a way which accurately would reflect the conversations that were held today.

The beauty of the day was the respect for the knowledge of the group that was there, the fact that everyone had something to offer, something to share, something to reflect on, a question to pose and a desire to learn.  These were not sessions that were being offered by someone looking to pad a resume, someone who had not been in a school in years and was preaching nor was it someone who had already done the same presentation 25 times in the year and did not adapt it to the group present.  These sessions were lead by questions from people within the room. I was looking at the board of potential topics with people putting sticky notes on them to show which ones were of interest.

As we were looking at the board of topics there were other conversations that started and new topics were posted.  As new topics were posted some stickies migrated, others added their stickies to the new topics and 16 topics were chosen for the day.  4 sessions per time slot, 4 different time slots.  There were conversations around assessment for learning, bringing English LA into the 21st century, Social Media 101, moving away from letter grades, engaging all partner groups, moving away from awards ceremonies, creating online communities as well as many other great subjects.  We were there from 9 am to 4 pm, and then some of us went to a pub to continue the conversation afterwards, those who had the long commute home had their continuing conversations in the car, the #edcampvan hashtag continued to be used long after the day was over.  It is now 10 pm and that hashtag is still showing up and being used!  Talk about powerful pro-d!

I took in 4 amazing sessions, each one passed quickly, with conversations continuing long after the session was over.  The discussion were so rich, provocative and reflective. The varying points of view from different districts, levels, stakeholders and experience was so enriching.  I honestly feel that I would have happily attended each session for a day instead of just the 45 minutes sessions (which often continued well after the time elapsed unlike other sessions where people were packing up their bags before presentations were over).  It just felt as though we were just warming up.  To have that many people together is powerful pro-d.  There was so much to listen to, so much to share, so much to think about and so much to bring back to schools.  As I was driving home I started to wonder how we could make our pro-d days much more like this.  Good solid conversations, professional dialogue and getting to the meat and potatoes.  Let's get it all out on the table.

I would have loved to have school boards and Ministry of Education representatives there.  They need to hear our thoughts without the bureaucratic red tape that can exist when meeting with govenment representatives.  Open honest conversations without politics so that they can hear what it is that we are trying to do, hear what our barriers are, understand how it would be better for students and we could hear what their vision is without a podium and a rehearsed speech, what their concerns are, what their barriers are.  If we can truly have all stakeholders represented then we can really begin to make magic happen.

There is much to bring home to our schools and a lot to think about how the day was shaped and how we can use this format.  Is this the future of pro-d?

Changing the Face of Reporting Through Assessment Practices

A little while ago I wrote about how a number of schools in my district were looking at changing our reporting practices, moving away from letter grades to standards based reporting.  Based on the recommendations of @tomschimmer and @birklearns when it came to re-examining our assessment and reporting practices, I picked up two books by Ken O'Connor:  How to Grade for Learning and A Repair Kit for Grading; 15 Fixes for Broken Grades.  I have just started reading A Repair Kit and already in the first chapter there is a great list which would be a very good conversation starter for any staff.  The discussions on these points alone could take a while.

15 fixes for Broken Grades
Grades are broken when they -
• include ingredients that distort achievement
• arise from low quality or poorly organized evidence
• are derived from inappropriate number crunching, and when they 
• do not support the learning process

Fixes for ingredients that distort achievement

1. Don’t include student behaviors (effort, participation, adherence to class rules, etc) in grades; include only achievement.

2. Don’t reduce marks on “work” submitted late; provide support for the learner.

3. Don’t give points for extra credit or use bonus points; seek only evidence that more work has resulted in a higher level of achievement.

4. Don’t punish academic dishonesty with reduced grades; apply other consequences and reassess to determine actual level of achievement.

5. Don’t consider attendance in grade determination; report absences separately.

6. Don’t include group scores in grades; use only individual achievement evidence

Fixes for low quality or poorly organized evidence

7. Don’t organize information in grading records by assessment methods or simply summarize into a single grade; organize and report evidence by standards/learning goals.

8. Don’t assign grades using inappropriate or unclear performance standards; provide clear descriptions of achievement expectations.

9. Don’t assign grades based on student’s achievement compared to other students; compare each student’s performance to preset standards.

10. Don’t rely on evidence from assessments that fail to meet standards of quality; rely only on quality assessments.

Fixes for inappropriate number crunching

11. Don’t rely only on the mean; consider other measures of central tendency and use professional judgment.

12. Don’t include zeros in grade determination when evidence is missing or as punishment; use alternatives, such as reassessing to determine real achievement or use “I” for Incomplete or Insufficient Evidence.

Fixes to support the learning process

13. Don’t use information from formative assessments and practice to determine grades; use only summative evidence.

14. Don’t summarize evidence accumulated over time when learning is developmental and will grow with time and repeated opportunities; in those instances, emphasize more recent achievement.

15. Don’t leave students out of the grading process. Involve students; they can - and should - play key roles in assessment and grading that promote achievement.

The first chapter resonated with many of the thoughts that I have had, namely around the punishment/rewards aspects around letter grades and what they represent. O'Connor writes that grades have served a variety of purposes including: to communicate student achievement to students, parents, school administrators, post-secondary institutions and employers as well as sorting and selecting, motivation and punishment.  These purposes are in conflict with communicating their successes and ranking and sorting.  The first chapter is a lot to chew on.


Which ones are the most important? which ones resonate the most with you?

My struggles with the FSAs

Earlier this week I was sitting in the computer lab watching the students complete the grade 4 numeracy portion of the FSA  (Foundation Skills Assessment - British Columbia's standardized tests for grade 4 and 7). There were many thoughts going through my head during this time.  I had looked at the rankings that the Fraser Institute published and saw that my school had jumped significantly in the standings.  I knew that we would be moving up from where we were last year, our focus has been on writing for the past few years.  We have enjoyed some rich professional development, had great discussions, found different ways to emphasize and promote writing in the school and continued to work with different writing programs.  These have all lead to improvements.  I do believe that the students have improved in writing because of these changes, but that does not tell the whole story.

Our results are directly impacted by the number of eligible students who write the different tests and the number of students who have been excused from writing it for a variety of reasons including parental request that their child not write the tests.  If a number of very strong students are excused from writing the test, our results will drop, conversely if the number of students excused from writing are struggling learners our results will rise.  If there is not a flu bug running through the school around that time then the results go up, if there are a few kids who families all go on vacation at that time our results could drop.  There are so many external factors that impact the results of the test beyond the teaching that if they fall in your favour as they mostly did last year, the result is a rise in the rankings, if they do not, as was the case two years ago and this year, they will drop.

To give you some insight as to how it works I will include a brief description.  We received the package a few weeks earlier and I decided to wait to start.  Over the past few years the system has had problems where students will be kicked out of the electronic portion and have to log back in.  For some students this would happen 3-4 times over the course of the time they were working on one portion of the test.  This caused a lot of stress and caused some to panic and become very anxious, worried that they would have to start again.  (I cannot even begin to imagine what would be going through a high school student's mind when writing a provincial test and this happens!).  I hoped that by waiting there would be fewer students using it at the same time, thereby reducing the possibilities of crashes.

During the couple of weeks leading up to us starting I had some conversations with other schools, people on my soccer team and elsewhere discussing the FSAs.  A couple of friends with students at schools outside of our district were telling me that the kids had been practicing the tests for a couple of weeks and were a bundle of nerves because they were told how important these tests are and that they had to do well to represent the school.  One of my colleagues was telling me that she had 3 different parents come to her and ask whether or not their child should be writing the test because they were worried that their kids would not be successful because of their IEPs (individual education plans) and would therefore bring the school results down.  She told the parents that it was their choice, but that they should not be excluding their children for that reason.  Would all principals have said the same thing?  At our school all students write the test unless we are concerned about the impact that this could have on the student, and we do not spend any time practicing.

I had a few parents come to me a little before we were going to start wondering why we had not started our tests when when some of the neighbouring schools had.  I explained my rationale and they felt that it made sense.  One then asked me if we all received the tests at the same time and I let her know that I believed that to be the case.  The next questions caught me off guard as it was not something that had entered my mind.  If you held onto the tests for a couple of weeks, is there anything stopping schools from practicing with the actual tests before starting?  Could they all do a rough draft and then copy the good draft into the booklet?  If they were not all doing the electronic portion at the same time, would it be possible for a class to begin the reading portion and then copy the stories, print them and be able to go over them with the other students to prepare them for the questions?  When I answered that hypothetically speaking this was possible she was stunned.  How was this standardized?  In order for it to be standardized should all the kids in the province be doing the tests at the same time, or at the very least, all of the kids in the same school at the same time?

There are other factors that concern me as to how the data is used.  Two years ago our school received additional staffing partly due to the fact that we had a larger number of students with learning challenges than we normally had.  That year, when the students were writing the FSAs, the flu went through the school and some got sick, 1 missed a lot of time from school so I decided to not have that student finish the FSA. Result, not meeting expectations in all areas.  2 students went on vacation part way through the test, result, 2 students not meeting expectations.  2 students broke down in tears because they were frustrated so we took the tests away, result, 2 students not meeting expectations.  I believe that 4 of those 5 students would have fully met expectations.  I had two students who would not be writing the tests for a couple of reasons and I used their identifications to show the students to log on.  Result- 2 more students not meeting expectations because I had logged them in and answered 1 question but did not click on submit thinking the results would not show, this was a boneheaded moment which I did not repeat.  When you have a cohort group of about 50 kids and 7 are not meeting expectations for reasons other than the results of the test itself is one thing that a school can address and explain to its community, when an outside agency is ignorant of what happens in the schools and publishes results is another.

Four years ago we had the exact same number of identified gifted students as student with learning challenges two years ago.  The school went from double digit number of students who were gifted to double digits with learning difficulties.  The cohort was completely different and something outside the control of the school.  The result was a huge drop in the number of students not meeting expectations.  I go over the results with the parents, give them the numbers as well as some background information.  I am able to explain why we have gone up or down.  Our community is aware of our context, an outside agency examining and working with the data is not.  When a school has their test data compromised because their electronic results have gone into an Internet abyss and suddenly 10 students results are automatically not meeting expectations and those results are published, the public perception of the school can be compromised.

From my vantage point, the FSAs can provide useful information for a staff to look at and plan our school goals.  We can use it as a measuring stick to chart our progress, knowing our context.  This is not shirking responsibility.  I still stand in front of our parents and share the data and listen to concerns that they may have.  My concern is that when a non-informed group that ignores or does not care about the contextual situations that can arise in schools, and publishes results that are challenged statistically it impacts the perception of the school.  Why are schools punished because H1N1 hit their schools hard one year?  Why are schools punished for not practicing for the tests for weeks and choosing to focus on the curriculum and using the FSAs as a snapshot as they were intended to?  Why are schools punished because the cohorts each year can be significantly different from year to year and give a false increase or decrease in the students' perceived success?  The number of students writing is also compromised, based on parent willingness to have their children write the tests.  There are some schools where only 30% of the eligible kids are actually writing the test.

If everybody is not writing the test at the same time, in the same way, under the same conditions, with the same number of kids in a room writing it together, with the same preparation, with ALL students writing the test regardless of abilities, with one large group of independent markers marking all of the tests in the same way and removing the possibilities of possible manipulation of the testing situations, intentionally or accidentally, the test is no longer standardized even if all of the questions are the same.  There are just too many outside factors possible to make this testing equitable.  Let schools use the information for the way that it was intended and not let outside agencies compromise the validity of a non-standardized standardized test.

The Twitter Effect and Standards Based Reporting

What has started off as a few innocuous questions is gaining huge momentum.  Who knew that responding to a tweet could have a potentially large impact on an entire district?  A simple twitter conversation around eliminating letter grades led to me sending an email to an assistant superintendent which then led to a conversation in person between the 3 main participants of that conversation.  From there it grew to a potential committee of about 9 schools, which then led to an email to the 70 some odd schools in the district to which about another dozen or so schools have responded that they are interested in taking this on.

I have to admit that I am borderline freaking out right now because I thought this might be a small group.  I was wrong.  My assistant superintendent is lining up potential facilitators, using connections to bring in some amazing people and looking for a way to get this project subsidized.  My superintendent is sending me references for material that I should be looking at.  We had our district volleyball tournament and teachers are coming up to me and telling me how excited they are to be a part of this.  I am stoked, but also quietly shaking in my boots.

I guess we are going to have to call this the "Twitter Effect" rather than the "Butterfly Effect".  If someone tweets in Coquitlam, BC, what can happen? Now I guess I get to the point of my post.  Help!!!!!  I had the opportunity to virtually take part in the Educon session Standards Based Grading: Is it fair? by Kristen Swanson and Mike Ritzius.  I loved the presentation and the conversations that I could overhear, but I really enjoyed the virtual chat that I was able to take part in.  Through that chat I was given 4 great resources as a starting point:

1. Waukee Community School District Grade 6-8 Assessment Principles and Guidelines

2. The Journey of SBG

3. Why do we grade the way we do? A Simulation

4. To grade, or not to grade: that is the question!
   

I am going to put together a quick google doc to try and collect as much information and resources on standard based grading/assessment.  Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated!  Please find the document here:

Standards Based Reporting

Thanks for any help, ideas or suggestions that you can offer.

Public Ed vs Real World

As the conversation around the elimination of awards and letter grades continues, there are many people who decry the changes because we are not preparing the students for the "Real World".  Most of the comments were along the lines of "In the "Real World" there are winners and losers so why are we sheltering them from that "reality"?".  The callers on the talk radio seem to feel that young adults think that because they put in the effort that their work should automatically be appreciated in the "Real World".  Based on the arguments offered, apparently you don't get the praise and recognition from your employers unless you are the best of the best in the "Real World".  The one sidedness of the comments was surprising, but it got me thinking.

Are there winners and losers in some aspects of life? Absolutely.  There are people who are going to be offered jobs and those who get the thanks for applying letters.  There are people who are going to get promoted and then those who will be fired.  Top sales reps will get awards, top actors will get awards, top athletes will get awards.and so on.  There are people who will see those people getting the awards and the cash bonuses and will push themselves.  To deny this is foolish, but for how many more does this have little or no impact, or even worse, the complete opposite effect. 

So what will happen in schools, if honour roll and awards ceremonies are removed?  How will this impact the students?  I feel that it would not have a significant impact nor be detrimental to the students' learning.  Many secondary schools now do awards on separate nights, so often the general student population are not present to see the awards being handed out.  There are many students who aren't motivated by the awards.  If they are motivated about their learning intrinsically, they will put in the time regardless of whether or not their name goes on a plaque.

If it is crucial to celebrate the best of the best, why is a "B" average celebrated?  Does this not water it down?  How was a "B" average deemed the cut-off point? If we are to truly recognize the top students, let's eliminate all those who do not have straight "A"s in every course they take.   No "B"s allowed.  Period.  Why is this not done?  Because we want all students to be encouraged to give us their best.  The top students will be rewarded with scholarships, university entrance letters and choices of post-secondary institutions.  Those whose grades are not as high have a limited choice of post-secondary institutions.  If the students are unsure as to what they want to do when they graduate and were only motivated by letter grades, what are they going to do once they graduate?  What becomes their motivation?  I doubt that their employer is going to return a document that they have worked on with a letter grade attached.

Another question to deliberate is how many of those students have tutors? How many of those students have parents who have the ability and the confidence to help them with homework?  How many other students could achieve that level of academic achievement if their home circumstances were different?  What if they did not have to go and pick up their younger siblings, feed them, help them with their homework and then go and work a part-time job to help the family put food on the table?  For some students, a C+ represents an amazing achievement.  For others, it is an incredible achievement that they even made it to school.  I have seen students who in grade 6 are waking themselves up, making their own breakfast, walking for 30 minutes and getting to school on time while watching some of their peers getting dropped off in 500 series Mercedes Convertibles.  I am blown away every time I see those kids in my class and in my school being an active participant and I am going to find every possible way to recognize that.

Whenever I am out with friends and we talk about our various work environments, recognition and praise seem to be a big part of the satisfaction of the job.  Those who do not enjoy their work tend to comment on how they are working hard and not being recognized for it, their boss takes credit for their work, does not even know who they are or only talks to them when there is a problem.  Those who enjoy their work usually comment on how much they appreciate the fact that their boss acknowledges their work and effort, that they take a personal interest in their lives and that they are approachable.  Why would kids be any different?  People, as a general rule, like to be acknowledged for what they are doing, adults and kids alike.  The praise must be authentic and not contrived.

Self-assessment has also been questioned.  Why do we let students assess themselves?  Because it is a crucial life skill to have.  Learning how to critically look at your own work and be able to identify areas that need improvement and strengths are essential in many jobs.  Learning how to look at someone else's work and  identify areas that need improvement and strengths are also essential in many jobs.  This is not the teacher passing the buck, there is a lot of interaction, teaching, modeling and dialogue that has to be in place for this to be effective.

The last point that I wanted to address was late work, as that was another point that seemed to come up a lot.  Yes, it is true that many teachers accept late work.  Yes it is true that fewer teachers are penalizing students who hand in the work late by reducing the mark.  Students receive 2 marks on a report card, one that is supposed to represent their knowledge and understanding of the material covered and another that represents the work habits.  The letter grades are supposed to be a reflection of how well a student understands the material being covered, not a due date.  When there are issues with work that is continuously late there are meetings scheduled, plans set up and regular updates given to try and change it around.  We meet with parents to try and determine if there is a root cause for the work not being done.  Are there issues that we are not aware of at home or at school?  More often than not, penalizing a student for late work does not motivate them, in their eyes it often justifies why they don't bother.  Many students who are struggling with their homework or assignment completion are kept in at lunch or after school.  Sometimes it is arranged that they will be dropped off early on some days in order to get additional support.  There are consequences given when the work is late, but it should not be reflected in the marks.  The key is support and working with all partners to have them improve their work completion. If they have poor work habits then they receive an "N" for their work habit mark.

I guess it comes down to a philosophical perspective on the role and purpose of school.  Are we to be a sorting system where we continuously rank kids and in one form or another and tell them what their place is in the school?  Most people would agree that seating kids according to their marks is very damaging, I saw it firsthand when I went to school in France.  Why do it on a grand stage?  We are there for every student from the most gifted to the most challenged.  Our goal is to find that inner spark, that inner passion that will move that child to give us everything he/she has.  Our responsibility is by the time they leave the school system we have given them every opportunity to be the brightest, shining light they can be, that they have developed as deep an understanding of all of the curricular content as possible and are the best citizens possible.  For every child this is going to be different.

The students are already ranked and sorted in every competition out there whether it be track or debating, writing contests or basketball, Verbathon or other academic challenges.  Those that strive off of competition have many opportunities to do so at school and outside of school.  We see it every lunch hour, but we also see students who are reading quietly, skipping with friends, taking care of the school garden or picking up litter to keep the school grounds clean.  Knowledge, understanding, respect and support are a school's responsibility.  If society determines that there is a need to rank and sort once they are outside the school system, then that is society's choice.  When students leave school hopefully they are confident, independent young adults with the ability to think critically and are self-motivated.  To me these are essential skills for the "Real World".  If gold stars, A's and awards are the only things motivating them then we are in trouble.

If you want to eliminate letter grades, what do you need to do?

We are in the process forming a committee in our district that will be re-examining report cards at the intermediate (grade 4-7) years, with the initial starting point of the conversation being the elimination of letter grades at the elementary level.  I do feel that letter grades should be eliminated at the elementary level.  I do not feel that you can change assessment practice without changing the reporting practice.  But can you have this conversation without discussing assessment?  Can this conversation be had without involving parents? What kind of information needs to be presented and how would it need to be presented?  How long will it take to change it over?  Is it possible to overcome the emotional/cultural/historical values of letter grades and reporting formats?  So many questions to ponder when looking a major philosophical shift in reporting practices that have existed for decades.

We had a very good first discussion pondering the first steps that need to be taken.  An important part of the discussion was about the fact that there is an emotional attachment to letter grades that needs to be addressed both inside and outside of the school setting.  We can all think of letter grades that have impacted us emotionally in a very strong way.  I remember when I got a C- first term of grade 11 Chemistry (I learned that I might actually have to study).  I was sick to my stomach and preparing myself to go and do my French Military Service in order to avoid a very uncomfortable conversation at home.  The C- that I got in 3rd year genetics was the happiest C- in my life as I managed to pass the course on the first attempt, unlike roughly 50% of my classmates.  These letter grades mean different things to different people depending on the circumstances.  For some they are a driving force, for others they result in crippling anxiety.

Parents are used to letter grades, they understand, or they believe that they understand what the letter grades mean.  They usually only remember getting letter grades, and tend to not be able to recall what their earlier report cards would have looked like.  They remember the conversation that they would have had at home with their parents, and they remember the incentives and/or the consequences of those letter grades.  There is a degree of comfort in the familiarity. Many teachers are used to letter grades as a means of communicating the varying degrees of academic success of the students to their parents.  This means that a significant shift in thinking that will be required should we change our reporting practices.

Assessment practices also came up, with a large emphasis on their importance in changing our reporting practices.  Is it possible to change the culture around the report cards without changing the culture around assessment practices and communication about the assessment?  Can changing the way we report change assessment practices? If we are to come up with a different reporting system, what needs to be considered?  Is it possible to retain a previous reporting system that was based on an entirely different methodology of assessing?

Part of the reasoning behind the elimination of letter grades is that assessment practices do not match up with letter grades.  Formative assessment is supposed to be a significant piece of the puzzle. How are students progressing?  What have they learned from the feedback?  Also, in my opinion, the assessments are not meant to be averaged out.  If you are a true believer of formative assessment, then the September/October assessments are teaching tools, not measuring tools.  A December report card should be reflective of where the student is now and include comments on how they have progressed based on the feedback.  The students should be able to self-assess quite accurately because they have been actively involved in their learning.  They should be credited for learning from their mistakes, not punished for having made them.  The parents should also have an understanding of the assessment strategies, philosophies and purpose so that when assignments come home they know what the feedback means and have an understanding how to support their child's learning.

This means that there is a significant educational/information aspect that needs to be included.  Presentations to parents about the language that will be used and what it means are key.  If parents understand the rationale and terminology, they are more likely to support it.  There will also need to be an important investment into professional development in order to ensure a common understanding of the philosophy behind the new reporting ideology within the school system.  Trust is also going to be an issue.  Trust with the parents as well as trust with the staff.  How is this going to be better for the kids?  How is this going to be better for communicating a child's progress to parents?  How is this going to be more effective for the teacher?

Will focusing on performance standard language and assessment practices be sufficient to make this change?  Any suggestions as to what are the next steps we need to take?

What is the Role of Report Cards?

When report cards are sent home I always wonder what the reactions will be at the different homes. What conversations will they have? How much money will be given based on the grades, or how much will be offered if they improve? How many comparisons to siblings' or friends' report cards will be made? How long the students will be grounded or what will be their consequences for a substandard report card in their parents' eyes?  There are so many external pressures on our students that it has made me rethink report cards and what their purpose is and whether or not letter grades serve a purpose at the Elementary level.

In my district we are starting the conversation about the purpose of letter grades, are there better ways to report the information and what changes can be made to report cards to alleviate some of the pressure on our younger students.  What essential elements must be maintained in an elementary report card?  What information needs to be in there, and how can it best be conveyed?

I feel that grade 4-7 is a transition time between the parent being the one primarily responsible for taking ownership over the student's learning to the student taking full ownership.  The students need to develop critical thinking skills in order to be able to take on that responsibility.  Parent support is always hugely important, but if the child does not know how/where to make changes in their work, then the capacity for improvement diminishes.  Every child has skills that they need to develop further letter grades can distract them and their parents from what needs to be focussed on.  I am also not convinced that 9 year olds are necessarily mature enough to understand what these letter grades mean, and if they are to have meaningful dialogue with their parents, they need to understand.

Here are what I believe to be some essential elements that need to be in a report card:

1. What are the student's strengths?  Every student has amazing talents and we need to find ways to celebrate them whether they fall in Mathematics, Athletics, Language Arts or Fine Arts.  Every student should have experienced some triumph in that reporting period. There needs to be something celebrated for every student.
2. What are some learning goals that the students can work on at school and that the parents can support them with at home?  Parents want to be involved, but unfortunately there are too many who are unsure of what to work on or how to help.  If it appears to be too general then they become overwhelmed and feel helpless.  Focussing on a few goals makes it tangible for the students and for the parents to see how they can progress. This is the same for students who are excelling and for those who are struggling.
3. Where have they progressed?  What are some areas or improvement that need to be celebrated?  This should be tied into the learning goals.  If there were learning goals that were put into the last report card, has the child met them, are they progressing with them?  Is this an area that requires even more attention than originally thought?
4. How is the child doing developmentally?  Is the student meeting the expected learning outcomes for their age?  I believe for the most part the parents want to know that their child is doing OK, not where they might be ranked.
5. Conveying to the parents that you know their child.  If the parent feels as though the child that is described in the report card is not their's, then the rest of the report card becomes moot.   What can you put into the report card that show you know the child, what can you comment on, what personality aspect can you describe?  There is always the possibility that the child behaves differently at home, or that you and the parents see things in a different light, but for the most part they should be reading it and thinking "He/She really knows/gets my kid".

Does there need to be any more information than this?  The report card becomes more individualized, the learning becomes more focussed and the dialogue between home and school becomes easier.  If parents know how and where they can help their children then the dialogue about assignments that come home is richer and more purposeful, the dialogue between the teacher and the parents is richer and more purposeful and the dialogue between the teacher and the student becomes richer and more purposeful.  At the end of the day, is that not what a report card should be doing?   I am not convinced that our current report cards do that.

Now, what should the report card look like? hmmm

Why do I blog?

I have been trying to figure out what made me start blogging and I am not 100% sure.  I never particularly enjoyed writing at school, but perhaps that was a result of being limited in what I could write about or just some negative experiences.  It was not until I started my Masters that I discovered that I actually enjoyed writing, although the deadlines were a challenge every once in a while.  It was the first time that I was given license to write about something that I actually cared about or was interested in.  I was reflecting on my practice, with thought and accountability for the first time since I was doing my teaching degree, and as I think of that now, there is something seriously wrong with that.

This is not to say that I was not reflecting on my teaching, but the reflections were more to do with day to day teaching in terms of what worked and what didn't work with individual lessons.  I was not thinking pedagogically, I was not pushing myself to improve my practice.  Eventually I started to join some learning teams and was fortunate to be a part of the numeracy task design team with some great teachers under the guidance of Peter Liljedahl from SFU, and for the first time I was really thinking about my practice as a whole and I ended up completely rethinking my teaching.  The problem here was that I was only sharing my practice with a few people, and only getting feedback from people who all thought the same way, it was like we all had our own mini-cult (who all became administrators).  This would have been a great time to begin blogging.

By blogging I open myself up to criticism, helpful suggestions and accountability.  I know that if I am going to put ideas out there I had better be ready to back up and be prepared to defend.  I have been limiting myself to topics which I am very comfortable with as I begin to wrap my head around this.  I am steeling myself to begin being a model of reflective practice for my staff.  If I am not willing to put myself out there and expose my practice to criticism, how can I expect those around me to do so as well?  I love the ideas put forth in this following blog entry.

For the first time in a long time I am really trying to put together my thoughts coherently for others to be able to reflect on, give suggestions, thoughts and criticisms.  But rather than just an instructor, faculty advisor or sponsor teacher, I am opening it up to the world.  I am trying to move outside of my comfort zone, my school, my district and my province.  I am hopefully going to be a model for the students in my school and my colleagues. I am getting back into the practice of writing about things that I am passionate about and trying to move my practice forward.  Let the journey begin.

Global Collaboration Part 2

For lack of a better way of putting it, this is basically a request for some ideas, links and suggestions about the potential of Twitter.  Over the past few weeks I have been trying to encourage staff, colleagues and members of the British Columbia Principals and Vice-Principals Association (BCPVPA) to use Twitter because it provides an effective communication and sharing tool.  The best part of it is the fact that it is free and global.  In a few weeks I will be meeting with some other members of the BCPVPA to look at effective communication between members across our province.  How is it a collaborative tool?  I guess there are many ways to try and explain it and Chris Kennedy in his post A Recipient in the Sharing Revolution summed it up really well.  A few days after I posted this blog I came across the blog of @Nunavut_Teacher who gave a great explanation of this very point in his post The Power of Twitter: My geographic location did not stop me from meeting these Tweeters!

Much of the talk about the power of Twitter centers around PLNs. Hashtags, such as #edchat, #education and #edtech are quick entries open up potential PLNs.  I am amazed at the world wide wealth of knowledge that is out there, but also the world wide wonder wonder when it comes to education.  When I wrote my post about Twitter I may have had 30-40 people following me (mainly fabulous colleagues from my school district in Coquitlam, BC), none outside of North America and yet if you look at the page views of my blog below you can see the global possibilities that are there in terms of contact with the World.  Last time I checked I know no one in South Korea, Russia, Japan nor South Africa and 1 person in Australia.

Today I had a brief Twitter chat about #Autism with @Grade1 @fiteach @MrWejr  as @MrWejr  was putting out a question about extrinsic motivation (I hear many times about using rewards 4 studnts w/ autism. I don't normally agree w/ rewards - is it diffrnt 4 stdnts w/ #autism? ) and had a number of people respond to it.  None of them live in his city and I was the only one in his province, yet we all have experience with Autistic children and are able to share our experience, strategies and thoughts.  It is amazing how many point of views and ideas that can be generated from the use of hashtags and PLNs.  A parent from his school had arranged for a video conference on Autism and @MrWejr  decided to tweet a few questions and then shared it with the staff and parents present.  They were amazed at what came out of a simple tweeted question.

@MrWejr uses his PLN very effectively.  Just today (a week later from the original post) he sent out another question.  This question was sent out to myself, a principal in China, Alberta, Pennsylvania, and Massachusettes. 5 principals working in 3 different countries discussing the same issue.  We all have different training, experience and school boards but we all work with kids.  Why limit ourselves to our neighbouring schools?  Are we ever going to get better at what we do by always conferring with the same people?

I am looking for examples of this.  If you have written a post on this topic or are able to share an experience that directly impacted your profession as a result of putting out a question via Twitter, could you please share.  I have found many great resources and fantastic articles and have my own personal experience but I am looking for other perspectives as I would like to have something more to demonstrate other than my own experience.  Any contributions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Remi

Below are some examples that I have picked up from an #edchat discussion:

http://harrison.warsaw.k12.in.us/index.php/classrooms/index.php?option=com_joomlaconnect_ce&Itemid=87&task=showPage&page_id=3

http://www.globaleducationconference.com/

How do we encourage other teachers not online to begin collaborating with peers? #edchat Be role models by doing it ourselves

What are the most effective tools for international collaboration projects? #Edchat wikispaces, skype, Flasmeeting, Animoto

Doing a stu twtr discussion tonite "what is the responsibility of the student" @ 7cnt time. Invite ur stu - use #ohs2010 - #edchat

You cannot understand your own culture completely without understanding it's relationships to other cultures. #edchat

show them the benefits of collab online "work smarter, not harder" #edchat

Remembrance Day Assembly

I was struggling with how to represent the reason that we make such a point of Remembrance Day.  In my post on Remembrance Day I was comparing my life to that of my grand-father.  the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that this might be the message that the kids could understand in a K-5 school.  Below is what I presented.  Before I get to that, I also wanted to say how proud I was of our school yesterday.  

It was the best assembly in terms of listening that we have experienced this year, we had a huge collaborative effort on the part of 3 French teachers to present Quand les hommes vivront d'amour which was followed up by another great performance of another class which sung Flanders Fields as it was put together by Anthony Hutchcroft. What was really cool about that performance is that our music teacher shared the link last Thursday and the teacher had it ready for our assembly a short 6 days later.

Another teacher, through KidPix, had her students represent what peace meant to them as a slideshow to show before the assembly started.  We were joined by a veteran who was a tail gunner during WWII, who was brought over from the local Legion Home by a parent who works there.  We also had a trumpet player who played Taps and Rouse for our assembly, which was arranged by another family.  It was such a great community effort.  It is our best attended assembly of the year after our year-end assembly.  There were many parents and staff who felt that the message was well communicated this year.

Remembrance Day

There are many privileges that we are able to enjoy because of the sacrifices made by many men and women. It is difficult to explain when our lives are so different than those of our parents, grand-parents and great-grand-parents. I have struggled with how to explain something that I myself have never experienced.  I thought that I would compare my life to members of my family to show you how fortunate we are and why it is important that we never forget.

Me	Family
5 years old – catching snakes is the backyard and going to the park	Dad 5 years old- practicing bombing drills where a siren would go off and he would have to know where to go in case planes would drop bombs on his city
12 years old – going with my parents to buy clothes, having a some choice of what to buy, not being happy with what my mom would allow me to buy.  Would lose clothes fairly often- just like our own lost and found, lots of clothes that kids leave behind	Uncle 12 years old- clothes, material for clothes limited, pyjamas were made from curtains and made way too big so that he could grow into it to save money and materials.  Every clothing item was stitched, patched, passed down, extended.  Nothing was wasted
19 – second year of university, not sure what courses I would take, enjoyed hanging out with friends, playing soccer	Grand-father 19 – part of the French army, fighting, hoping to stay alive
20 – 3rd year of university, trying to decide what I wanted to do career wise with my degree	Grand-father 20- captured by enemy soldiers and spent the next 5 years in a prisoner of war camp, wondering if he was going to be able to eat enough, wondering if he was going to survive
23 – a friend of mine got married, was able to go to different stores to find her wedding dress, try on many dresses until she found the one she wanted	23- grand-mother- wedding dresses and materials were very limited.  She borrowed the wedding dresses from 3 friends, unsewed them, put together her own wedding dress, after the wedding had to take it apart again and resew her friends wedding dress exactly like they were before
25- working, having fun with friends, playing soccer and golf, beginning to realize that I wanted to become a teacher and started planning what courses I would take, spending a lot of time with my family	Grand-father 25- war was coming to an end and the prisoners were being marched for days to come to a point where they were released to France where my grand-father for the first time in 6 years saw his mom, dad, sister and brother and other members of his family as well as my grand-mother who he would marry a few months later
26 – Went back to university to take the courses that I was missing, able to shop at Costco and able to buy what I needed and things that I wanted,would throw away food I did not finish, go to all you can eat sushi, fish and chips (in other words eat too much and then not always feeling well because I ate too much)	26- grand-parents had groceries rationed, only able to pick up small amounts of food.  Everything was eaten, could not afford to throw any food away.  Having just enough to eat, special treat if they were able to have seconds

We live in a time where we have choices and opportunities thanks to the many men and women who have fought to protect our right to be safe, go to school and have choices of what we would like to do when we are adults.  We do not have these memories because of what the many brave men and women have sacrificed for us.  Canada has not had a was on its soil in over 100 years, which means that the Canadian Forces have been going overseas to help provide the peace that our nation has enjoyed for so many years.  It is important that we take the time to be thankful for our veterans so that we can continue to live in peace.

Global Collaboration

Yesterday I had the opportunity to take part in the British Columbia Principal and Vice-Principal's Association (BCPVPA) Professional Development Representative training.  At this meeting were representatives from all around the province, representing 42 different school districts.  Towards the end of the meeting one of the members asked how could we share? Well that is a good question.

There are many ways that we could share, including a privately paid, restrictive portal that only members of the BCPVPA can access or do we do something that is wide-open?  Is there a place for both?  I guess it depends on what is being shared.  If we are sharing ideas, collaborating on projects that would benefit many outside of our group, shouldn't we be sharing this more than we are?  I understand that there can be documents that need limited disclosure, but professional development, templates and information that is beneficial to other teachers and administrators probably should not be restricted to a private portal.

The more we share, the more that is available out there, the more feedback we get on projects, documents, ideas and conundrums and therefor the more the very group we are targeting, the kids, benefits.  Why limit ourselves to a select group in a select area and not open it up to the world.  Blogs, Wikis and Googledocs are just a few examples that are out there.  We are putting laptops and internet connections in classrooms, supposedly to open up the classroom to world, yet we seem to be restrictive is how these resources are used and how the information is shared.  Its almost akin to bringing a kid to Central Park but limiting them to a 10 x 10 foot square.

I feel fortunate to have a superintendent that supports our endeavours and desire to extend beyond the curriculum, and work in a district where there are many amazing teachers on Twitter sharing their thoughts through articles, blogs and quotes.  I feel fortunate that there are many great educators around, but I do not feel that we have even begun to tap into the World Wide Wealth of information.  Is it a resource challenge or a way of thinking that needs to be altered?  I would argue it is the latter.  It is time we changed our way of thinking about how we collaborate and set the examples for out students for their benefit and ours.  So, what is the next step? 

I think this quote from @gcouros (http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/1364)  sums it up: If administrators are truly to be leaders, we need to continuously learn and connect with others to shape ideas.  We are the role models for our staff, students, and community.  You should never ask something of your staff that you are not willing to do yourself.

How can I get mad when I did the same thing as a kid?

A few days ago, a couple of my grade 5s were running towards the playground with a monster-sized umbrella.  Looking at the two boys, I knew exactly what they were up to.  I called out "Don't even think about it!"  They looked at me quite befuddled as to how I knew what they were going to do before they even got to playground.  They were planning on climbing to the top of the playground, probably around 7-8 feet high and see if the umbrella would act like a parachute.  How did I know?  Because I did the same thing as a kid, and truth be told, there was a part of me that was very tempted to join them.

Every once in a while I have a student who has been sent to the office.  They tell me the story and I have to stop myself from laughing, or try to act upset, when in the back of my mind I am thinking "Yikes, I did that around that age", or even worse "that sounds like a lot of fun...".  Of course I would never admit it to the kids in the office, but it is always good at a dinner meeting or two to share the story about using sticks as swords, rolling down muddy hills on your side, running on sheets of ice...

A couple of weeks ago I saw a boy wet a paper towel look skywards and was about to launch it towards the ceiling when I happened to check in because I was hearing some noise.  He looked at me, I looked at him, he put it in the trash, apologized and we had a little chat about respect.  In the back of my mind I am thinking, hmmm, grade 7 if I recall.  I had walked into the boys washroom and saw a ton of toilet paper that had been stuck to the ceiling and I started to wonder if paper towel would stick as well as toilet paper.  Now there was a ton of tp on the ceiling and I have some rather cursed luck when it comes to timing.  I launched it at the ceiling and just as I did the custodian came in and saw me throw it, looked at the ceiling and next thing I know I was talking to M. Talmanis, my principal.  The worst part of it was that my mom taught at my school so it did not take long for her to find her way down to the office to join in the fun or berating me for my lack of respect for the school.

A few years ago I had a kindergarten boy in my office because I had heard that he said a bad word.  Usually this consists of idiot, stupid or something like that.  Occasionally they are harsher words.  This boy had been told by a friend of his brother's that there was a word that he could use that was really bad and that it was fun to see people react to him using it, the F bomb.  When I asked him what was it that he had been saying he told me flat out, which caught me off guard, as usually they will just say "the f-word" and not the actual f bomb.  I asked him what made him say that and he told me the story, again dropping the F-bomb when he came to what he had said.  I told him that he should not be using the word anymore but he said that he had to because I told him that he had to tell me truth.  Got me on that one.  How did I relate? I was 4 or 5 when I found out about that word and loved to write it out to get a rise out of other people as well as writing it around the entire perimeter of my bed to the point that when my parents moved my bed they were greeted by that word written many times over.  My mom likes to share that story with people at dinner, although her reaction at the time was not quite as amusing.

I am not trying to justify the "Boys will be boys" attitude, but rather just share the random thoughts that pop into my head.  Every once in a while I look at many of my more intelligent ideas, some of which I can lay blame on my older brother for encouraging me to do it, others were purely of my own creation.  I deal with them appropriately, but every once in a while, after the kids of left, a staff member joins me and we get a good laugh out of it.

examples of not so great ideas:
1) Hanging out of a second floor window because my brother told me that I could easily jump to the ground and hanging from the window sill and screaming until my parents, who were having a dinner party, came up to pull me back in.

2) trying to climb a tree by attaching a rope to a very large rock and only watching to see if the rock went over the branch and not where it was going to land.  Not sure I ever recovered from that concussion as a 6 year old.

3) Being 15 and hell bent on doing a 360 while skiing meant finding a jump that was around 6-7 feet high, flying off of it, only getting around to do a 180 and crashing in the powder.  Then I would get back up and try again.  Never did do a 360, but I did have bruises 360 degrees around me.

4) Playing follow the leader, as a 7 year old, on bikes while crossing a major street (King Edward for those in Vancouver) and somehow only getting a sprained ankle from when the car hit me.

Is being stupid a right of passage for boys, or do we just become smarter about the stupid things that we do?  It does make it easier to see what is about to happen because, more often than not, I either did the same thing of thought of doing the same thing.

Sir Ken Robinson, Creativity and Pole Dancing

I had the great fortune of seeing Sir Ken Robinson in person twice this week.  Every time that I hear him, I re-examine my own actions in my school.  His thoughts on creativity are logical and path that we should be following.  Are we educating our children based on the skills that they will need, are we limiting their potential because we have narrow scopes as to what defines a successful student?

I kept on writing down some great quotes, and he is a master of powerful quotes.  He is
brilliantly funny, and some of his tangential comments are hysterical.  I believe that Sir Ken is person who can discuss the fact that dogs cannot pole dance and link it to education and creativity.  He was talking about the settlement patterns of humans, related to soil conditions, water availability, ports and so on, but that Las Vegas made no sense.  Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert with access to very little water and yet has been amongst the fastest growing cities in the United States.  Vegas was created on different principles then had existed before. Vegas -> Pole Dancing -> Dogs can't pole dance only humans can. 

Sir Ken is better in person that on video.  If you have not yet had a chance to see/hear him, you really should take the time.  Here are 3 links to different presentations that Sir Ken Robinson has done.
 Do Schools Kill Creativity
Bring on the Learning Revolution
Changing Education Paradigms

His views on education are bang on.  We seem to try to fit too many square pegs into round holes with many students being asked to follow the same course loads as their neighbour even if that is not the best path for them.  The time limitations are the same, the school year is the same, the blocks of time are the same.  We tend to use the same material with the same strategies even each year the classes are different and the kids are different.  He used a great metaphor that makes perfect sense:  A farmer knows that what made a successful harvest last year will not necessarily make a successful one this year. Conditions change and as those conditions change, they need to adapt to them.  Why are do many classes seem to be the same year in, year out.  Something else he said that brings this point home was that life is not linear but education is.

One of the more powerful comments that I heard was that creativity is a person's birthright.  Everyone is born with huge natural talent.  He defined creativity as putting imagination to work, it is the power to bring to mind things that are not present.  He showed a longitudinal study that measured creativity as the children aged.  When they were kindergarten-aged 98% scored at a genius level on creativity and as they aged the percentage of students who tested in the genius range decreased dramatically.

He often used the term organic, and linked it to culture, and that creativity was never dead but rather dormant.  He brought up Death Valley, the hottest and driest place in North America.  The reason that he discussed this was the fact that a few years ago it received about 7 inches of rain and suddenly, for a short time, flowers bloomed where they hadn't bloomed before.  I felt this was an excellent portrayal of a child's potential.  If you create the right culture in the classroom or at the school then the students will flourish.  Human resources are like natural resources, they are often buried and you have to find them.

He had an opportunity to work with Sir Paul McCartney and discussed Sir Paul's education.  Sir Paul mentioned that he hated music at school.  He and George Harrison, who attended the same school two years behind him, were both told that they had no talent.  Imagine having two members of the Beatles in your music class and not seeing their potential.  Will this continue to happen as we seem to define at schools useful and useless subjects.  If children are denied the arts and denied the opportunities to express themselves differently, how many other amazing people are we crushing?

As he was talking about the segmentation of the school curriculum it really got me thinking.  He mentioned that creative schools have creative timetables and do not separate everything into chunks.  Let's take Language Arts as an example.  Over the course of the year we might teach students poetry, expository writing, descriptive writing and so on.  Yet when it comes to projects and final assignments, how often is it limited to essay style paragraph writing with limited opportunities for the students to freely express their thoughts?  How many times does this occur in Science and Socials?  Do we allow students to write in verse, put together movies or presentations if they are more comfortable or better able to communicate their knowledge in different ways?  There is as much Art in Science as there is Science ad Art.  Why do they have to be segregated?

Sir Ken said that we are living in times of revolution, where things we take for granted are mistakes and things that we believe to be obvious are false.  We are in a crisis of of human resources where we process people in education with a certain type of role.  Students who are "quirky" tend to be shut down, when they try to do things differently they are told that it is wrong.  They begin to fear ridicule and failure.  If kids spend all day at school doing stuff they're not good at, they begin to feel as though they are no good at anything.

He said that great teachers make everything interesting.  If you are engaged, you do not watch the clock, you lose track of time.  He made reference to Ewa Mataya Laurance

He left us with some thoughts to process.  If the environment of the school/class makes a huge difference to how we feel, what changes can we make?  If being born is a miracle, what are we going to do with that miracle?  Lastly he discussed assessment.  He feels that assessment should be looking at the value and originality of the work under specific and relevant criteria.

We were very fortunate to have our Superintendent at our session as well as the BC Minister of Education.  Our Superintendent told us that he will support us in our endeavours to make this happen in our schools.  The challenge for me now is, what changes can I make to create the very environment that he describes.