Dear Blake Community,
To help encourage conversations and dialogue about the importance of embracing change and staying relevant, our topic/question of the week is: As we help learners down the path of meaningful and transferable learning experiences, will it make sense to acknowledge the existence of change, change yourself, model the change, and continue to be yourself?
After a very full first week back after Thanksgiving, I hope that everyone has been able to relax and enjoy the holiday season. This was a busy weekend for us - chaperoning the dance on Friday, holiday parties with friends, getting our Christmas tree, all amidst kids' birthday parties and commitments! These are all good things, but it sure does feel busy. Sunday afternoon we enjoyed Maggie and Owen's piano recital. I would like to thank and recognize all of the staff who helped to chaperone the dance this past Friday evening: Nancy Deveno, Kelly Campbell, Matt Marenghi, Travis Taliaferro, Kelly Ruminski, Eileen Hurley, Kayla Armstrong, Patty Graham, Nancy McLaughlin, and Jess Waite. I so appreciate the cross-section of teachers who helped to assure a safe and positive experience for our students.
With Term 1 now at its end and Term 2 beginning this week, it is a good opportunity to take a step back and reflect upon our work thus far. Just as we want our students to take time to reflect, it is equally important for us as adults to do the same. At an administrative workshop that the evaluators attended last week, our facilitator Dave Castelline shared the notion of the 'fractal nature of our schools' - a mathematical concept/design that repeats itself on every level of scale. I hope to come back to this at a later time, but the idea is that a small snapshot of schools (classrooms or grade levels) are indicators of the larger structure of the school as a whole. It connects with the notion of looking at goals for students and adults being aligned. It has certainly been a busy few months with structural changes (new student information system, transition to GMail, continued rollout of Teacher Evaluation) and we are also tackling some important topics as a staff (homework practices, effective methods of progress reporting and student feedback, technology integration). All of this work is important and is 'on top' of the day-to-day teaching that is taking place. To follow through on my goal of practicing gratitude, I want to simply thank our entire staff for the effort that is put forth every day. Thank you.
I do believe we are making progress with our goals and these changes, but at times I have to admit that I find myself wrestling with certain questions in regards to initiatives -- Are we moving in the right direction? Will the educational pendulum just swing back in a different direction in the next few years? What is it that we really want for our students? How do we define innovation and is it better to stay with more traditional (tried and true) methods? How much should we push and how much should we hold back? How are we defining success and assessing our progress? These are all good questions to ask and do not have clear answers, and I hope they do not convey that I am unsure of our work and path. Rather, they are the questions that I hope will always be present to 'keep us honest' and 'in check'. At the end of the day, I want to make sure we keep centered on what it is that we really want for our students. These are not the only elements, but key traits that come to mind - a growth mindset, being flexible and open to learning, and reflective. These are great traits to carry us forward. And, keeping that fractal nature in mind, these are also what I want for the adults in our school community as well. And I certainly want to be included here as well - and held accountable for my growth and progress.
As we look at these initiatives, I am sometimes concerned that a new idea or initiative will come our way and we will shift our focus elsewhere and lose traction and meaning. The concern is sometimes expressed - 'What's next? We can't take on anything else.' This is a fair concern and is really a question I can not answer at this moment. The real and honest answer is 'I'm not sure.' But, for now, my answer is 'more of the same'. No matter what changes take place, structurally or philosophically, I hope we are constantly looking at these elements - student feedback, workload and homework practices, meaningful integration of technology, and progress reporting. I am sure you can read that I have been reflecting a great deal as of late and am working through these ideas. With this in mind, I am sharing two posts that I believe effectively model the healthy reflections of educators and directly connect to our work at Blake...
Relationships Plus Technology Equals...?
by George Couros (@georgecouros)
This post by Couros, in a stream of consciousness fashion, aims to answer the question, “Can you be a great teacher in our world today and not use technology?” I appreciate his thoughts and perspective, but more important I appreciate the openness with which he wrestles through the answer and is refreshingly honest. I especially like his ending line - 'Help me unmuddy this in my head. Thoughts?'
"To me, a teacher that teaches a student to learn is more important than one that focuses on content only...Teaching kids to learn, be flexible while also resilient, is so important in our world where technology surrounds us. In a world that is increasingly more complicated, we need to help our students be able to navigate what is coming their way and embrace change and see it as an opportunity. Teachers need to model this."
Methods: Tradition vs Relevance
by Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby)
As shared above this perspective from Whitby is one that I think is pertinent and worthy of reflection. Oftentimes, tradition is compared with innovation or change, but I like the idea of 'relevance' being the compare/contrast measure.
"The sources for learning today are much different from previous centuries when lectures ruled education. For the curious mind the digital journey seeking knowledge can be its own experience. Having control over one’s own learning is a very effective way to learn. It is also relatively new to a very conservative world in education."
"There will always be a need for lecture and direct instruction in education. However these methods can no longer be the mainstay of education. We need to develop newer methodologies to maximize the sources available to today’s learners. Since today’s kids approach learning differently, it stands to reason that we need to approach teaching differently."
"The technology has changed the way learning happens. That is now a given. Technology by its nature will continue to advance and evolve. It is easier for us to change our methodology and to use the technology than it is to withhold the technology to maintain the outdated methodology. My personal belief is that at least in education relevance is more important than tradition when it comes to methodology."
These posts are not to say that we throw out tradition and just embrace change. Rather, I think it is important to continue to ask questions, ask more questions, and reflect. And a key idea to keep in mind - are our practices relevant for our students? We will continue to wrestle with these ideas and initiatives and I encourage you to join me in this reflective process.
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Take care.
Nat Vaughn