Teaching Social Responsibility with Musicals

There are many ways that as educators we look at ways of working with children on self-regulation, social responsibility and bullying.  We tend to bring in artificial scenarios that the kids cannot relate to, blatantly obvious situations that the kids see right away but rarely happen in real life or we preach.  If the only time these lessons are taught is a contrived environment we risk losing them.

A few weeks ago I went to see Wicked with a friend of mine and had a chance to talk about all the different musicals we saw.  There is something about a good musical, the way the music just captivates you.  There are 3 musicals that really stand out for me for a variety of reasons.  The first is Les Miserables, I love the story first and foremost, and I am in the process of reading the novel by Victor Hugo again.  The second one is Wicked and the third one is Hairspray.

Les Miserables is an amazing story of personal transformation by a man who finally had someone believe in him.  The change in Jean Valjean when he is brought back to the Bishop's residence with the silver that he had stolen.  It is during this part that it comes to one of my favourite literacy moments:

The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice:--

"Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man."

Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered them. He resumed with solemnity:--

"Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God."

This leads to the amazing change in Jean Valjean from hardened criminal to heartened citizen. He becomes an upstanding citizen who never forgot the opportunity he was given.  There were times where he could have faltered but did not.  In the end he ends up making the lives of those around him better, because someone gave him a chance and believed in him. 
This clip takes you from his time in prison to his meeting with the bishop.
The clip shows you the new Jean Valjean and the way he is still viewed by the police officer.


Wicked was a musical that I saw for the first time at the end of June.  It was an interesting look into school life.  The way it delves into relationships, bullying, friendships, perceptions, seeing the person for who they are on the insider and many other lessons we try to instill in our students is remarkable.  There are so many rich conversations that could be had because of it.
A great clip from the musical of Elphaba standing her ground.


Hairspray is another great story that explores relationships on so many levels.  The story takes place in 1962 and delves into body image, racial relations, separation and segregation and again seeing the good in people, not just how good they look.  The ending of the musical is quite powerful and a heck of a lot of fun.


Great music, wonderful story lines, amazing life lessons and fantastic opportunities to discuss choices, acceptance, inclusion and giving people a chance.  A fun learning environment through music, why not?

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?

Education Finances

Education finances are a tricky thing.  I don't claim to be an expert in the field, but as the Liberal leadership campaign came to a close, it is time to wonder what will happen with public educational in British Columbia as a result of the new Liberal Party leader. The new leader of the Liberal Party, and Premier of the province, Christy Clark has had a tumultuous relationship with teachers in the past and has pledged to re-examine the funding formulas.  As to what exactly this means, I am not sure.  Over the past few years as education finances debates continue in BC with the Liberals, the cost of public education continues to rise.  There are costs to move forward and there are additional costs just to maintain status quo.

Trying to have a 21st century school is trying.  Districts are struggling with bandwidth, and our district is no exception.  At this point I am not even talking about the additional hardware necessary.  There is no point in adding hardware if the system cannot handle what we currently have.  From my understanding BC was one of the first to have Internet in the schools, meaning that the problem is that BC was one of the first to have Internet in the schools and needs to seriously upgrade the infrastructure.  Our Provincial Learning Network is outdated and maxed out.  In order to deal with this problem our district has had to examine different possibilities.  It was mentioned in an article that for the Coquitlam School District "A middle-of-the-road option that costs less than putting fibre at every school site but would still require a one-time $2.5-million investment plus $290,000 a year, or $785,000 annually to lease fibre over 20 years and the tools for five years."  

The district can either wait for additional funding to deal with this or take it on by itself.  To the best of my knowledge there is no additional funding coming.  That means that just to be able to have a manageable system the district needs to come up with nearly $3,ooo,ooo.  I just do not understand how the reigning provincial party can be talking about 21st century schools without providing the money necessary for the required infrastructure to make it possible.

Another finance piece that has confused me is how money is taken away.  Over the past few years taxes have been added, green initiatives have been put forth and schools have been footing the bill.  Perhaps it is just me, but I fail to understand why it makes sense to give schools $ and then take them back.  Here are a couple of examples.  This year, School District 43 will pay $232,000 to Pacific Carbon Trust to offset its energy, fuel and paper consumption but will get no money back for innovative projects, such as composting or recycling, that are cutting waste and dealing with climate change.  The second example is last year districts were saving money for required major renovations and yet had the money taken away because it was deemed to not be necessary because it had not been spent.  Since when is it prudent to spend your annual budget when you are not sure what renovations or major work might be necessary. 

These renovations would have replaced old and outdated boilers and made the schools heating systems more efficient, provide better air quality and make the schools "greener".  Better air quality, I would think, would result in fewer people being sick, another cost.  The great part of the Carbon taxes is that the money taken back was money school districts were going to use to make renovations and alterations that would have allowed the school districts to become more carbon neutral and now have to pay the Carbon tax because they were not compliant with the Green Goals.  To me it does not make sense to essentially fine a school district $232,000 because of a law that was enacted by the provincial party and then not giving the funding to the schools to make the necessary changes. 

Budget times are always interesting as districts have many difficult decisions to make.  It would be nice if there were not additional cost pressures added, but perhaps that is not reality.

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.

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.

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.