IDEC in NELSON!

So IDEC is coming up!  It is the International Democratic Education Conference - so exciting as it is IN NELSON and I CAN GO!

I am going to be the Youth Zone Volunteer and I will actually get to see Yaccov do his talk!

ACEs: How Do You React to Them in Your Learning Environment?

Those extenuating circumstances that impact a learner's potential in the world.

Conversation for Professional Learning

Part of a question sheet our Principal asked to be filled in this week and part of a bigger conversation on Pedogogy I have been having with myself this year - especially in this latter half where I have been part of some astounding progress that has occurred outside of the traditional school environment/timeframe with some of the most at risk young people I am directly responsible for this year. 

While writing it I was constantly drawn (guilted?) into viewing my response through the 'academic' lens I mention at the start - "Doesn't this sound like I am making excuses for a lack of academic achievement in my students?"

 But actually there is progress, of course, and pressuring myself and my students to conform to the ideas of where they should be created by a government with a traditional view of education as something that produces a rich elite chained to a routine of gaining vast amounts of material possessions and mass producing minions to cater to the needs and whims of that elite.... wait.. I am monologuing (not to mention in danger of digressing!)... you probably get my point.

I am not dodging the question of progress. There is progress (and in many cases big progress and undoubtedly unacknowledged progress) PLUS I truly believe in my heart that the following is the greatest asset to pass on to my fellow learners...

1. Consider the overall progress in learning so far this year. How do you think things are going? 

Learning is a holistic dynamic and learning success, therefore, cannot be fully appreciated through a purely “academic” lens.

 I can see that all Nile Room students’ readiness for learning has increased; they have an ever-increasing awareness of their needs and the importance of being open to learning and putting in effort/work to attain goals.

Their ability to access the curriculum has improved as well as their awareness of themselves and relationship to others. They have a vastly different set of needs (from each other) and have such a tolerance for where each other are at with their own goals.

 All have made important progress in their greatest areas of need. For some this is purely academic and for others it is in learning to overcome (and better understand) their own academic progress barriers and actually allow themselves to progress and enjoy having academic success. 

In the forefront of my mind is preparing them to be happy and successful in the world after school. Writing legibly, reading fluently, knowing three different mental strategies to problem solve and understanding the concept of fair testing are important and certainly things worth knowing – however, I believe, the skill that will inevitably prove most useful to them (and keep them connected to the positive world of learning those important things and striving in their lives) is the ability to manage themselves through adversity, whatever life will throw up, with confidence and self assurance. 

The life experience that forms the foundation for this needs to start here... and now.

Hoping to work on a more expanded form for this blog this weekend (although, like most of my blog posts lately {and hence professional learning} it falls at the end of the never-ending list of squeaky wheel tasks linked directly to National Standards and reporting...).

And just for my own benefit, so that I don't forget later (which probably quite often happens but I forget so obviously don't notice it much...), another key component in my line of thought here is the  lack of resilience/persistence that students are teaching themselves by repeatedly copping out or taking the easy path. Ironic really because if they knew that they actually were employing the very skill they need to make academic progress to actively not make academic progress, they would create the very  life experience they need for their foundation of confidence and self assurance.

Hmm, I need to create a name for that little cycle of irony and start a lecture circuit!

Gateways to Learning...

Intense Interest Gateways

Like the story about the teachers who missed the potential of their block builders, some parents think their job is to smooth things out — e.g., if a child already likes art, then we need to gently push them into other areas.

Both at home and at school, we tend to focus on deficits. We concentrate on smoothing, balancing, trying to make things even.

We miss the opportunity to use that intense interest as a gateway.

Everything is connected.

That intense interest is so valuable — it shouldn’t be tossed away. It should be exploited.

Intense interests as opportunities for learning - not for "smoothing out" or  diverting to fill a deficit in knowledge.
I connected with this article quite a lot as I can feel this with a number of particularly disinterested learners. Those ones that cringe when you say "time for writing" (which I now fully attempt NOT to!)

I have found that for those learners who are having trouble in our traditional learning environments you really MUST find a way to turn their intense interest into their curriculum.

This is my argument for MINECRAFT in our classrooms... my suggestion still not taken seriously by anyway I have spoken to in my current range of colleagues!
Perhaps mostly due to fear of the unknown?

Shirley Clarke #2

The reading I referred to last week (from Change Team) is Active Learning Through Formative Assessment - Chapter 3:The Ideal Learning Culture

Dweck is sited a number of times...
I enjoyed the definition of motivation (by Dweck) as not only a desire to achieve but also 'the love of learning, the love of challenge and the ability to thrive on obstacles'. Instilling this to our poppets is one of our biggest barriers I think - merely being a passive model of it is not doing the job for our lot!

I have been thinking about the observation that boys more likely attribute failures to a lack of effort and successes to ability - whereas girls attribute successes to effort and failures to lack of ability.
In our poppets the link to self esteem is more even across the board and not just limited to gender. In my experience here failure impacts confidence in our girls and esteem in our boys.


Clarke's "fixed mindset' quiz was administered to us. In brief it highlights our own beliefs in our intelligence (e.g. do we think intelligence is fixed or can it change over time) - I am of the opinion it can change (I think this means I have a 'growth' mindset. This is my opinion because I remember a time when I was most definitely of a 'fixed' mindset - and I believed that my failures defined me and I was them rather than the belief I have now that they are problems to be faced, dealt with and most importantly, learnt from.

"High self-esteem happens for those with a growth mindset when they are using their abilities to the fullest in something they value (ME: Deep) rather than showing that they are better than someone else (ME: surface)."

Thankfully the reading lists some strategies for developing a growth mindset (for everyone).

• Active modelling - emphasising the process of learning. 
• Actively teaching (and having the expectation) that intelligence can be developed. 
• Re-languaging 'can't', 'difficulty' and 'problem' with 'challenge'.
• Emphasing our own excitement at new challenges.
• Activitely teach strategies for dealing with challenge (p. 23 of the reading)

Specific, repetitive, deliberate and systematic use of these things ensure that challenges and effort are things that enhance self-esteem rather than threaten it.

Big message in the reading - Praising effort and achievement rather than ability or personal attributes is vital!

Many things we say to our students (and children) have hidden messages

e.g. 'You learned that so quickly! You're so clever' = If I don't learn something quickly I'm not clever

Thankfully I have already thought deeply about my comments to students and even recharged again recently due to the Incredible Years programme (which is amazing!). One of the strategies from that is to take pleasing the teacher out of comments and be factual, putting onus back on the students where it belongs.

'Well done, that is a beautiful rainbow, especially the way you have worked so carefully at blending the colours,'

Resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness and reciprocity <--- appropriate at all our ages.

Exercising your learning muscles came from this article.

The importance of cleverly guided facilitating discussion.

Students don't learn anything they don't already know....

Ponder that a while.... I'll wait.