57 Flavours ....... or just 1?

A long time ago I wrote  a post called 57 flavours? about how teachers are hired because they will bring the school something it needs, because they will add their own "spice" to the mix. I wrote that teachers should not hide their uniqueness or worry about the fact that they are not quite like anyone else at the school.

However, lately, whenever I talk to colleagues I feel that things are changing. I participate in activities, such as the Teachers' Guild, where I meet teachers from private and public schools all over the world. I am hearing from teachers - constantly now - that administrators want more consistency across classrooms in each grade, and are asking teachers to do the same things, the same way, on the same schedule. It sounds like administrators do NOT want teachers who bring their uniqueness: it sounds like they would prefer to have teachers who are as identical as possible.

I must admit that part of me completely understands this need: it must be difficult, for administrators, to keep an eye on progress across a grade if the teachers are teaching different parts of the curriculum, in different ways, at different times. And, of course, parents tend to compare notes, and a parent who feels that another teacher in their child's grade is doing something better, is going to be unhappy and may complain. Every time two teachers do things differently, at least some parents are going to think the other teacher's way is better, and be unhappy. Unhappy parents are bad for the school, and there is an easy "fix" for this sort of unhappiness: make all the classes do things as similarly as possible.

So, I understand the drive for consistency, but a part of me wonders... by eliminating the things that make us (teachers) different, by making all teachers do everything just the same, are we giving our best to the students?

If we all teach the exact same lesson, the same project, in exactly the same way, don't we lose some of the passion a teacher brings by communicating in the way they feel most excited about, feel is most natural for them? If we don't vary our approach and timing based on the students' response, don't we lose some of the differentiation our students need? If we send the same letter to all parents in the grade every week, don't we lose some of the authenticity we are trying to build in our relationships with them?

This is difficult stuff. We want to make sure that admin can properly track progress in each classroom. We want parents to be happy, and not to feel that their child would have a better experience in another teacher's classroom.

And yet...

Consistency means that innovative, creative teachers must stop innovating and creating. Consistency means that teachers are being asked not to do their best, but to do only those things that all the other teachers can do equally well. Just as every teacher has unique strengths, every teacher has some relative weaknesses: consistency means every teacher must level down, in each area, to match the teacher who is least strong in that area. One result is that it is easier for the school to monitor the classrooms and be sure that every student is getting the education they were promised. But leveling down to every teacher's relative weakness means the students have a very different experience, compared to one where they can benefit from their teacher's greatest strengths.

I have many friends in schools around the USA and around the world, and I am increasingly hearing that many of them are moving schools with the hope that, in a different school, they will again be allowed to keep their "spice" alive. They were hired for their track record of talented teaching but now are being asked to stop being different.

At the Teachers' Guild, I have come across teachers who are trying to find people at other schools who can implement their ideas, to see if their ideas would work, because they are not allowed to do so themselves. You can imagine how frustrated they feel!

The drive for consistency seems to be happening everywhere, all at once. I certainly understand why. Certainly, "creativity" and "uniqueness" should not be used as excuses for failing to properly teach the curriculum; it is important to identify teachers who need help, and to get it for them. But, it does make me wonder: is this the best way to ensure that every student has the most amazing possible experience? Or are we guaranteeing somewhat poorer - but equal - experiences for everyone? And, how can we get the best of both worlds?

Teachers Guild

I have not written for a while. Inspiration is everywhere but the will to sit down and write sometimes is not! But I want to tell you about Teacher's Guild - so time to warm up the keyboard!

I discovered Teacher's Guild (TG) this summer, and had a blast! TG is the result of a partnership between IDEO and Riverdale Country School, and I received an email asking if I would like to join the Beta version during the summer. I answered yes and was invited to join a Google Hangout (GHO), which I did.

Here's how it works: the Guild posts a challenge and you are invited to come up with, develop and select ideas to address the challenge. The process is structured in phases: Discover, Ideate, Evolve, Select, Favorites and Reflect.

You will often start with your own idea,  and you will read other people's ideas, soon there are self-selecting teams forming around ideas and developing them, and you find yourself working with people who are enthusiastic and curious and creative and fun - remember, these are people you have never met! And, you are not just working on your idea - you may be working to develop several ideas.

I really enjoyed working on them with typically about seven people, sometimes more. I was surprised how much fun we had, and how committed people were to the process - remember, everyone is doing this because the want to. The discussions were amazing and rewarding. The Guild is a place that I found that the children and the learning community is center and front.

The specific question we were looking at was, "How might we create rituals and routines that establish a culture of innovation in our classrooms and schools?" and we brainstormed, we streched our minds and we worked hard as a team to answer a common question.

We started at the Discovery phase with 210 contributions, at the Ideate phase we had 121, followed by Evolve and Select with 51 then we had Favourites with 13 ideas. From this 13 ideas, 6 were from the NYC Design Team, the team I now belong to!

We don't have ownership of ideas, we have sharedship and I must tell you sharedship is AWESOME.

Check the Guild out:

Teachers Guild

There will be a new Challenge in October, and we would love to see you there! Let's collaborate, it is a safe place, your mind will be stretched, you'll meet some great people, and you'll have fun!

iTravel

Great News!

If you enjoyed reading about iTravel earlier in this blog you can now download the iTravel booklet at the Apple Bookstore for Free.

iTravel is booklet 1 of planned series called Spreading JAM. Book 2, iCity will be available soon.

iCity - STEAM

STEAM in the Classroom

Have you ever heard the word STEAM

Science/ Technology/ Engineering/ Arts and Math

Plus Design Thinking. (see previous post)

The activity combines learning about the world, nature & weather (science); designing and building something (technology and engineering); crafts (arts); and an understanding of spatial relationships, and of shapes (math). The activity is STEAM – all in one!

iCity

Now for something completely different!

Yes, it has been quite a while. I have been reading a lot and inventing a lot.

My latest idea is not an old one or one that other teachers haven't done yet, I also have done models before, but I have never done one with Design Thinking in mind.

A while ago I wrote about iTravel and we end iTravel activities by "returning" to New York. 

and when returning to New York (this year) we will build STEP BY STEP a model (last year we had a cooking show for this Unit)

So, we will move from a global view to a local one.

In Model City, the children discuss the elements of a city (roads, buildings of various types, etc.). They each choose an element that they will make (a crafts activity), and then we build a model city. In building the model city we discuss whether the relationship between the various elements makes sense, and the children can move the elements around until they arrive at a configuration that works. While doing this, we discuss the notion of process (Step by Step is one of our Interdisciplinary units). More broadly, this activity also helps us to practice "design thinking", where we use what we know about the world to come up with solutions, and in the process we identify things we don't know yet (and need to learn about!)

.

As I read about Design Thinking, I realize that the process of coming up with this activity did follow the Design Thinking process:
- Discovery: I have a challenge
- Interpretation: What does this challenge tell me?
- Ideation: What can I create that might address this challenge?
- Experimentation: Try it and see!
- Evolution: It doesn't always work perfectly right away - iterate and improve, based on feedback from the children and parents, and our own observations.

The first thing we did last week was to decide where the streets would go, and how big the Model City blocks would be, then each child chose a "building". Once they had their buildings, each child traced its base on their own Styrofoam block, and thought about what they would put on the surrounding part of the block (grass, gravel, etc.). Then we glued our buildings in their designated spaces and painted them white. Next, we started a discussion on what our buildings were going to be - shops, apartments, offices, hotels, hospitals, etc., and why, and what kind of things each of these buildings would have and need, e.g., parking. (We will relate this to the neighborhood walk and eventually connect it to our last Interdisciplinary unit: Where Are We.) 

Each child has its own styrofoam block (18 in total), they are all numbered because they must be put together in a certain way. Every class starts with a discussion, with the challenge, we brainstorm, then the child works on their block alone as they are doing the basics. later they need to work with the friend that has a block next to theirs and sort out their common spaces. This model making is about collaboration, brainstorming, overcoming challenges and finding solutions and above all observing the world around us. one of the pre assignments I gave the students was to do a neighborhood walk so when they start looking at the details they can look at the pictures they took and see if their city has what needs.

And yes, we have a long way to go and the discussions are fantastic!

Because in this process the important part (as in most) is the journey not the arrival.

Communication - more on the newsletter

I guess people really do read these posts - I got a lot of complaints from people who don't want to wait to hear more about the newsletter!  :-)

Actually, I will say I was fairly excited myself, when I thought of it. I woke up early on Sunday morning with the thought in my head, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I held out until, oh, at least 9am before waking up my boyfriend to tell him all about it!

As I see it, there are three things to think about: What do you want the children to get out of it? What process will do that for the children and also deliver a finished newsletter? And, what do you need from the school to make it all work?

From the children's point of view, I want them to have a fun experience doing something "cool," partly on their own and partly as part of a team. Educationally, I want them to use the skills they have learned in school (reading, writing, researching, planning) while their focus is on something else, because this is how learned skills become automatic skills. They may even learn some new skills, like how to structure an interview and organize a project. I also want them to develop greater autonomy through working on their own, improve their team skills through working together, and to develop the skill of switching between solo and team work as well!

How will it work? Well, you have to understand that I haven't done this with children this age before, so the answer is, partly, "I guess I'll find out!" :-)   But, I do have a plan.

I am thinking of recruiting 15 students in total, 10 from J4 (age 10) and 5 from J3 (age 9). I plan to minimize the burden on their teachers, but I will need them to help identify the children who will participate. In our school we have an existing process for things not unlike this (for example, there is a Junior Student Council that involves the junior school in events such as Food Harvest), so I will use that process. First, I will ask the teachers to let me come in and describe the newsletter to the class. Then, the teachers will see if anyone is interested. I can take up to 2 per classroom in J4, and 1 per classroom in J3. If we have more applicants than that, the teachers will hold a class vote for who will join us, and we will keep the others' names in case anyone drops out.

I will ask the older (J4) children to act as the team reporters, with each having a "column" to write (actually more like several paragraphs) and the younger (J3) children to act as the photographers for the stories. We will meet for half an hour, one morning a week, before school, in my classroom to discuss our projects and progress, and next steps. Then, one afternoon a month we will meet for an hour so the children can type up their columns on school computers. At first, I will do the editing and formatting, but I hope that by later rounds I may be able to involve the children in that. My goal is to produce one newsletter every 2 months.

So, what will the columns be about? I expect that we will have one on what's happening in each grade (e.g., a field trip) from the children's point of view; a language column (e.g., an overview of the Oxford Reading Tree reading system, by the children); math (e.g., what they think of the Investigations); humanities (e.g., UN Day); two profiles of members of the staff/administration; and 2 guest book reviews by non-regular contributors (could be from younger children, too).

I realize that the up-to-date thing to do would be a blog (like this!) but I'm going to try it as a physical newsletter first. I think that it would be nice for the children to have their work distributed around the Junior School in physical form, so they can see it and see others reading it. I hope that will be a big part of the fun; but if blogging seems to connect better for them, we can do that! The physical newsletter would have 4 pages, printed double-sided on 2 sheets of paper. With 10 columns, plus 2 book reviews, we have 12 columns total, or 3 columns per page on average.

Oh - a very important factor in getting buy-in to this: I will be volunteering my own time! Why? Because I think it will be cool for the kids, and I think it will be a lot of fun for me!

For now I plan to start next term!

Communication

Most schools are very active communicators. They send regular communication out to the parents, letting them know what's going on in the school through newsletters, classroom blogs and emails. Of course, they also communicate regularly with the teachers and staff - and that's still adult-to-adult communications. In addition, the older grades have newspapers and blogs done by the students.

It's much less common, though, for the students in the Junior Schools to produce newsletters or blogs. On the other hand, producing a newsletter would be a fun way for the Junior School students to practice the skills they are learning, outside the classroom environment, without worrying about whether it will be graded. That got me thinking: what would it take to enable the elementary school children to do their own newsletter? After all, we were able to do a book club for six-year-olds, and that worked very well - it's not just for adults!

So, I am working to design a program for a newsletter prepared by 9-and-10-year-olds.

If it is a success I will let you know how it works. If it is not, we need not speak of it again :-).

It is not about doing what you love the most; it is about loving what you do!

The late Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford has been in the news lately. It's a wonderful speech; go and read it now, if you like - I'll wait.

One of the parts of the speech that has been celebrated is this:


"I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

The thing is, that's a lovely idea, but it gets read as meaning something like "do what you love, and the money will follow." That's not what he said, though. Steve Jobs became fabulously wealthy doing what he loved, but Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs: he was one person out of several billion on the planet. His experience was unique. To put it simply, "You are not Steve Jobs".

I wish he had said something in the lines of:

"You might not be as lucky as I was, to be able to do what you love straight away and be successful at it. You may have to choose between things you already love, and things you could come to love, and things you know you will never love. Whatever you choose to do, try to love it because you might spend the next 40 or 50 years of your life at it. It probably won't make you rich, although it might, but you will have spent much of your life in a project you love. There's a lot of reward in that."

Mick Jagger was asked in an interview if he thought that electronic music downloads would destroy the music industry, and make it impossible for musicians to get rich as he did. Jagger said that electronic downloads were making it possible for many, many musicians to get their music out there without needing big record labels. Sure, he said, it probably would be much harder to get rich - but through history there have been very few musicians who got rich. Jagger reflected that he had been lucky to come at a special time, when a lucky few - like himself - got fabulously rich from music. Such a thing had never really been possible for musicians before and maybe, he thought, it would never happen again.

Many people love making music. Few will get rich from it. Many people love making new gadgets, but few will get rich from it. Few people naturally love dentistry, but it may be a better career choice, for some people, than making music. As you decide what to do in your life, you may have to, so to speak, learn to love dentistry. But, in our world, you don't have to - and should not think you have to - do something you could never love. So don't.

Schools, Creativity, Sir Ken Robinson and JAM

I first heard of Sir Ken Robison last year when I was doing a Harvard Wide World course online as a team member. Our team was compromised of two JAM teachers, Adriana and I, and we were blown away by how magnificent his lecture was (see "Schools Kill Creativity" link in the Recommended section on the right).


After we saw the video, we felt inspired to try a new experiment in the classroom, and for our Harvard course we wrote about both the video and the experiment. Here's what we wrote:

"Sir Ken Robinson says that education will take us to a future that we can’t grasp, and we need to educate the children so they can be ready for that future.  We believe that this is very true. We are preparing the children for a world we don't yet know about.  Are we giving them the basic tools?

He also says that children are not afraid of being wrong, and that if you are not prepared to be wrong you will never create anything. This was particularly inspiring to us, as we are always aware that the little children in our classroom will be adults in the blink of an eye, and we need to provide not just the information they'll need, but the confidence in themselves to be comfortable with who they are, as well as with their knowledge; to be adaptable, to be listeners, enquirers, and thinkers.

Well, after watching this video lecture we decided to do something completely unorthodox in our classroom. Our students, at times, are afraid of trying things and getting them wrong, so Paula brought a remote control helicopter into the classroom. As it happens, she is not very good at flying it, so there were crashes. As she showed the children that it was quite hard for her to fly it, we asked, what does she need to do to get better at it? They answered: Practice!

In this AHA! moment, we asked then straight after: what do you need to do to get better at writing? - and they answered with huge smiles: Practice! Afterward, we showed them that the controls of the helicopter have two parts: one to go up and down and another for turning and going forward and backward. We then explained that for me it was easier to learn the up and down on its own first, and then start using the other control and for Adriana it was easy to use both at the same time. We then related that to writing…left to right…sounding out….and so on.

We kept the helicopter in the class, so the children could use it (and crash it – no harm done, it's almost indestructible!), and it was a reminder that we need practice to get better at things, and it’s okay if we don’t get it right at first: it's ok to get things wrong – it can even be fun while we’re learning."