Educational Intoxication

This week, a team of six teachers from our school and I were fortunate enough to attend High Tech High in San Diego.  Several years ago I had heard Larry Rosenstock, the founder of High Tech High, speak at a conference that I attended.  I was captivated by his ideas around the equity in education, and the importance for schools to engage the heads, hearts and hands of children and teachers through project-based learning.  In order for our school to begin the process of articulating a guiding vision, I brought HTH teachers Chris Wakefield and Anthony Conwright to Sa-Hali last May to introduce the concepts of PBL to our school, and to open up a dialogue about the possibilities that a PBL approach could have for our students and staff.  And this February, after our Instructional Rounds observation team helped us discover that we need to develop tasks that enable our students to demonstrate our attributes of creativity, collaboration, and resilience, I knew it was high time for us to get to High Tech High. And as I sit here on the plane ride home looking back on the last three days, I realize that I will fail miserably at doing justice to describing the feelings I had during the experience, however, in the innovative spirit of “don’t worry, be crappy” from Guy Kawasaki--here goes my set of random thoughts. (I will blog more about more 'structural' things and 'what nexts', but this one will be more about the ‘feel’ of the place).

The moment that our stepped on to the campus (or campuses, as there are five schools on the property), we immediately felt welcome.  That might sound a tad cliche, so let me qualify ‘welcome’:  people were not just happy to see us, they were eager to see us.  High Tech High gets hundreds of visitors each year, yet students, staff, directors, support staff and, well, pretty much anyone around the campus wanted to talk to us.   And then, like a wave, this palpable and tangible culture washed over us.

Some random thoughts and memories...

• Students sitting in classes would invite us (and even pull us!) into their classrooms and immediately start talking about what they were doing and why they were doing it.  They would grab a couple of friends or classmates and say things like “look at Alicia’s comic strip, it’s REALLY cool”, and then Alicia would tell you about the why they were doing the project and about feedback and iterations she went through to make her project better.  There were dozens and dozens of kids in hallways and open spaces that would say hello and would take the time to answer questions, or give directions, or ask about you and where you were from. Classrooms were open to anyone.  
• Teachers I met (and I met dozens) in a hallway or meeting would say things like “Don’t forget, my name is Rob, and I teach in the end classroom of the far hallway.  Make sure you see what we’re doing today.”.  Or they would ask you what you were interested in, and then say “You know who you need to talk to?  Tom.  He is doing something that’s right up your alley with his kids today.  He’d really want you to see it.”.  And when you went to see Tom, he would say to you “Cool, I saw Jeff at lunch today and he said you would be stopping in, come sit with a couple of students!”
• If you made a request, maybe something something like “Would it be possible to chat with a Director (we call them Principals) for a few minutes?”, our host Angela would set up meeting with two Directors from different schools so that you could get a few different perspectives.  Everyone made time for you, and no one was flustered or exasperated to do so.  Quite the opposite in fact, they wanted to share!  When I asked a senior Humanities teacher about this, he said “I do a lot of work to prepare my day so that I can spend time talking to people like you so I can learn more.  The kids are working and learning, and I am working and learning.  It just seems to make sense.”  
• When teachers were chatting with you, the students were WORKING--peer critiquing, walking into another classroom to get something, sprawling across desks, and helping eachother.  But they were also RELAXING.  In fact, one of the Grade 6 teachers said that he didn’t want his students to “go too easy or too hard”.  When I asked him why, he said because learning is supposed to be enjoyable, NOT work.”
• If you had an idea for a project, the school get a chunk of time to do a tuning protocol seemingly out of thin air.  Suddenly, there would be a group of HTH teachers who were on lunch break or prep gathered around you in a room, and the protocol would begin, and 20 minutes later, ideas were amplified, modified, critiqued, and made better.  Much better.
• If you had a question, staff members would ask more questions of you, give you ideas, give you a book reference or an online resource, and then physically take you immediately to someone else who might be able to help.
• All Meetings were wide open to visitors.  I went to a planning meeting, and even a faculty meeting.  At the faculty meeting, every single person made me feel welcome there, asked me questions about our school, and wanted me to participate in the activities.  “Why wouldn’t you?  We always need more good ideas!” people would say.  The tone was relaxed, fun, friendly, and the work got done.  One of the staff members led a fun primer activity about Pi Day to get people talking to others that they hadn’t seen all week.  Then, in the carousel activity we did, the leader didn’t assign people to groups or tell them to start in different spots, but instead said “I know you all of you will want to make sure you visit each of the stations to see if  the ideas people are sharing spark new ones for you”.  And who’d believe it, people moved about the room to the different stations, dialoguing with whomever was there, bouncing ideas off each other, and jotting thoughts down.  At one point, one teacher commented on the attendance to the student sign-up X block that HTH has in their timetable.  Another said, “I guess we should be doing something worth doing then!”, and the other person agreed, and they moved along.

I could honestly go on.  And on.  And on.  And in future posts I will. But in our closing meeting with our host Angela, she asked for each of our ‘takeaways’ for the week.  And as we were sitting there, a thought hit me.

Many people may think of High Tech High as a sort of unattainable educational utopia.  They erroneously may feel that it is some sort of elite, private, wealthy school with limitless resources and ‘gifted’ students (whatever that means…). They might be blinded by pictures of projects and palm trees, robots and resources, and some bit of technology in every child’s hands.  And because of this, educators in other, more ‘traditional’ schools might easily become discouraged with what ‘they don’t have’ compared to the perception of the resources they see at High Tech High.  

But High Tech High is not private, it is publicly funded according to daily student attendance. Their students come from every zip code in the San Diego area, regardless of socioeconomic status. The school has funding constraints just like my school does.  They do not have endless piles of money or resources--they have to make cuts and tough choices just like the rest of us. Their students are just kids like any other kids; they talk, text, laugh, get bored, and have attention spans identical in length to every student that I have met.

But there IS one thing that would make me think of High Tech High as ‘elite’.  There IS something that our group wholeheartedly agreed that was truly limitless in supply, and that has changed my thinking as an educator and as a person.

High Tech High is elite in its limitless commitment to the idea of service to others.  From students and teachers alike, we felt this culture in each of the schools from the moment we got there.  People were helping people. They were celebrating risk-taking and amplifying ideas for the greater good. And for a brief couple of days, we seven were invited to be a part of it. It was educationally intoxicating, and to a person in our group, this culture of service was why none of us really wanted to leave.

I look forward to the conversations and questions that will arise from our visit to High Tech High going forward at Sa-Hali. To try to replicate what High Tech High does would be impossible, and not something I would wish to do. Before I came to HTH, I had my own driving question that I was hoping to have our school community take on as a project, which was "How can we enable our people to do their best work?". However, HTH has inspired me to change my driving question to "How can we enable our people to do their best work in service to others?" and co-create our own feeling of 'educational intoxication' for our students, staff and community.

I want to thank our team that attended HTH - Jordan Backman, Susanne Blohm, Tanya Cail, Jen Cacaci, Cecile McVittie, and Kirk Smith.  The professionalism that you showed, the questions you asked, and your willingness to learn would make any Sa-Hali student, staff member or parent proud.

I also want to thank Chris Wakefield for inviting us HTH, Angela Guerrero for her passion in being the most accommodating host, and the entire HTH community for opening your doors and your arms to us!

In Position

I recently read a thought-provoking post by my colleague and author Bill Ferriter (@plugusin) called "Tired of Being the Nation's Punching Bag" in his excellent blog "The Tempered Radical".  In his post, Bill discusses The Global Achievement Gap, a book by Harvard Education Professor Tony Wagner. Having seen Tony Wagner as a guest speaker at the Connecting Leaders Conference in Vancouver in October of last year,  I was eager to hear Bill's take on Wagner's book.  From the conference, I remembered that Wagner was quite scathing in his views of the current state of K-12 education, and I guessed (correctly) that Bill would have some great points and counterpoints about The Global Achievement Gap.

One excerpt from Bill's blog really resonated with me:

Wagner writes: “Finally, I have observed that the longer our children are in school, the less curious they become” (Kindle location 323).

Bill's response: Tony’s right, y’all: Kids really DO lose their natural curiosity after spending years in our school system. 

How sickening is that?  And to be perfectly honest, I don’t know a ton of teachers who do a great job encouraging natural curiosity in their daily lessons.  There’s no point, really.  You see, curiosity isn’t measured by the standardized tests that our nation have embraced as tools for holding students accountable.

This made me reflect on the skills that we value in education (or rather the skills we SAY we value) versus the ones we demonstrate that we value through our actions as educators and policymakers.   At our Grade Assemblies a few weeks ago, I talked with our students about the importance of the "7 C's" of 21st Century Learning--communication, collaboration, creativity, cultural understanding, career knowledge and computing skills.  I gave a brief description of these skills to our students, and challenged them to find ways to 'sail the 7C's' during their career at our school because these skills were the important skills to learn.

But bearing Bill's comment about standardized tests and their inability to evaluate valued skills in mind, I began to think that as educators, we should 'be careful what we wish for' when we talk so freely about these skills for our students.  In my own learning situation, I need to examine my own practice to see whether I am truly prepared for the movement towards the personalized, 21st Century Learning movement.  I need to determine whether I am well-positioned to be a 21st century leader, educator, and learner for our staff and our students.

Several years ago, the province of British Columbia introduced the concept of the Graduation Portfolio as an authentic 'exit product' for high school graduates in BC.  Students were to put different artifacts of their learning from their high school years into a physical or digital binder that they would display to a panel prior to their graduation.  Students were asked to provide evidence of their learning in focus areas such as the arts, humanities, science, business, and fitness.  Evidence could be written, web-based, video, projects that they had done, or whatever the student thought best represented their learning in that particular focus area.  Even the method of presentation was up to the student.  The student could be creative demonstrate their ability to communicate with a panel of educators and community members. They would think critically about their presentation and reflect on the evidence that showcased their learning. They would demonstrate many of the skills that we value, that we now say we want them to demonstrate here in the 21st century.

But the Graduation Portfolio concept fell apart.  Among the variety of reasons for its demise, it failed because it was cumbersome.  It was difficult to 'store' at schools in terms of student artifacts.  It was challenging to evaluate.  It was hard to get a panel of community members and educators to see the portfolios of 300 graduates (to use our school as an example).  The evaluation process was seen as a huge amount of time to invest.  It was criticized because it was 'pass or fail' rather than having a grade associated with it.  The product was seen as separate from the content areas.  And as a result, for many (most?) students, the Graduation Portfolio was seen as another 'hoop to jump through' when the important tasks such as government exams were at hand.  In a relatively short couple of years after its inception, Graduation Portfolio was replaced with a truncated and abbreviated Graduation Transition Plan that is viewed by many as much more manageable, but viewed by most students in much the same way--another hoop to jump through that has little relevance to them.

This post is not meant to champion the aforementioned Graduation Portfolio. However, the demise of a vehicle such as Grad Portfolio that allowed students to demonstrate many of the qualities and skills that we want for our graduates indicates that we need to be better positioned to support personalized, 21st Century Learning.  There are many questions that I need to consider in terms of  'the 7C's'.

• How do we demonstrate that we value the skills of a 21st Century learner?  Are they an integral part of our curriculum and instruction?
• Are we well-versed in these skills at every level?  In what they are?  In how to give feedback to a student on something like creativity?  In how to determine progress in a skill like collaboration?  And if not, what resources (professional development, resources, technology) do we need to provide to make sure we are prepared to work with this set of skills?
• Do we know how to evaluate these skills in our students?  And perhaps more importantly, are we able to help students to become reflective learners who can self-evaluate and determine their own progress in these areas and how to apply these skills to their own learning situation? 
• If we value these skills, how are we emphasizing this value to students, parents, and the community?  How are we going to report out so that a parent knows how their child is progressing in terms of something like critical thinking?  What does a 'report card' look like?
• Looking through a post-secondary lens, are these going to be valued at the next level of education for our students?  Are the admission requirements for colleges, technical schools and universities going to reflect the need for these skills?
• Currently, BC Ministry of Education Scholarships are completely based upon scores on mandatory, standardized government exams.  Will this continue, or will the criteria for these financial awards be indicative of what we say we value in education?

I am sure there are other factors that I am not considering in preparing ourselves for personalized, 21st century learning that I will only be able to understand through conversations with students, staff members, and community members.  Other factors such as what is valued by the community, what is meaningful for students, and what is needed for our teachers to meet the needs of our learners.
However, one thing is certain, as an educational system we need to put ourselves in a position that allows us to practically and logistically value those skills that we say we value.  In the coming months, I will be seeking answers to the questions above from experts around the world in our PLN and input from our partners in the community so that as a school, we too are in position to continue to provide a personalized, 21st century learning experience for each of our students.

I'm Getting Engaged!

As a part of our South Zone Administrator Meetings in the Kamloops School District, we build in time for professional development and dialogue on a variety of educational topics.  For example, we have done book studies on Visible Learning by John Hattie, discussed strategies around Special Education, and examined the use of social media for Board Office administrators, Principals and Vice Principals.  I find these meetings invigorating and meaningful, as it gives me a chance to learn from other administrators of both elementary and secondary administrators through these topic lenses. 

In preparation for our meeting next month, our Assistant Superintendent invited us to 'crack open' a new book called Tuned Out - Engaging the 21st Century Learner by Karen Hume.  And while I have only read the first two chapters, I am fascinated by the format of the book.  Mrs. Hume has written the book very accessible language, broken it down into small and easily digestible chunks, and has created a dynamic web guide that provides online discussion areas, activities, and resources so the reader has an interactive experience with the book (and even with Mrs. Hume through a blog--Cool!).  It is very 'engaging', and models many of the characteristics of the educational experience that we want for our students.

I have several thoughts and questions about this book and engaging the 21st century learner.

1) What is a working definition of a 21st century learner?  Am I a 21st century learner?
2) How do we define (and perhaps even measure?) an engaged learner?  Is this a fluid definition that varies from person to person, or are there specific characteristics that I can look for in classrooms and with our faculty during staff meetings to let me know that the learner is actively interested and participating in the class?
3) What can we do to further encourage the creation of these rich and interactive learning environments in each of our classrooms?  What resources do we need to provide for teachers? Professional development? Tech infrastructure?  Time to collaborate on these topics? Peer-to-peer modeling?
4) In terms of technology, are we using web tools to their fullest potential to engage learners, or are we using simply doing with technology what we could do without it (ie. using powerpoint for notes, using digital projectors to show videos, etc.)?
5) What skills are we hoping for our students to acquire in these rich learning environments?  Are we engaging for the sake of keeping kids 'entertained', or are there some baseline competencies that we want for our students and for ourselves as educators?


And while I am going to write more about this book and about 21st century learning skills in future posts, right now I am looking forward to having a better grasp on the answers to these questions as I read Hume's book. 

I encourage each of you to pick up a copy--it looks very useful!