Learner Evolution ~ Chris Harte

Deep thinking in French - Mystery Resource

 

Since the very start of my teaching career, I have been fascinated by seeing how learners make their thinking visible in card based "mystery" activities. I have written at length about this before, but I recently watched a movie with my Y11 French students called "Welcome" by Philippe Lioret and I was inspired to write a new mystery in French as an introduction to the ideas in the film (unfortunately about two weeks too late for my Year 11s!) Here is a link to the activity.

I highly recommend that you watch this film as it tackles very up-to-date ideas around immigration, refugees and the events of recent years in Calais. I am sharing this resource on a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license. This means you are free to use and even adapt the resource for non-commercial reasons with attribution. Please contact me on [email protected] if you have any feedback on the activity. 

#MakeSchoolDifferent

Girls of the national school, Llanymddyfri (1891) - CC Commons.wikimedia.org

So I read this post from Scott McLeod that challenges us to think of 5 things we have to stop pretending if we are to #MakeSchoolDifferent. I really like the 5 things he wrote and the idea of stopping pretending, but I am not a big fan of the hashtag. It somehow implies that a) school equals learning.... i.e. can we be at school and do things differently, but this does not necessarily lead to better learning and b) that different is better. My own, far too long, hashtag would be #MakeLearningIrresistibleByTacklingFalseDichotomiesRigidStructuresPseudoProblemSolving&HighStakesAssessment TechnologicalPanaceasAndPuttingLearnersAndPedagogyAtTheHeartOfLearning (and I think I could probably add on more characters!)

 

So for what it is worth, we should stop pretending...

• that schooling leads to deep learning
• that one size assessment fits all
• that we can quantify potential
• that we learn the same way now as we did 10 years ago
• that technology is optional

The one about 28 days later #28daysofwriting

Image courtesy of Kenny Louie on flickr

I love zombies. 28 Days Later was a triumph of fast zombies, great acting, great Danny Boyle direction and an awesome soundtrack. World War Z the movie was nice. Brad was nice. Effects were good. Story was nice. World War Z the book was amazing, so many different stories told by different voices written by the same author; great writing. The Walking Dead - addictively slow with deep emotional resonance. My wife "watches" The Walking Dead with me from behind her interlocked fingers and loves it too (as do my parents!). Zombieland is pant wettingly funny.

So why zombies and why so scary? Well zombies have long been an allegory for mass mindless consumerism in modern society, for the base beast within every person when you strip away their humanity and for the fear that we will eventually cause our own global demise. I don't think the fear comes from the cannibalism or the returning from the dead or even the unstoppable nature of the zombie (head shot...rule #2 double tap). Zombies are such fearful creatures because of their total lack of humanity. They function very much like us, but without the emotion, the relationships, the desire to have and make meaning in the world, basically the things that make us human.

You may ask why I am making my last blog post of #28daysofwriting about zombies, but I think zombies are such an interesting analogy. We cannot treat learners like a mindless mass of consumers without humanity (despite anything OFSTED tells you). My good friend Neil back in the UK posted on Facebook last night in response to yesterday's blog post about high stakes assessment and it struck me how wrong the system is;

So there is the first connection with zombies. We treat our kids like them. 

But there is another connection. When I started this challenge, I thought I would be writing about educational technology, thinking skills, pedagogy, learning and even maybe Google Glass (which I am trialling in school). But for the most part I didn't. For the most part I wrote about people, relationships, having and creating meaning in the world, being connected; I guess I kept writing about humanity, the lack of which makes zombies (especially fast ones) so terrifying. 

Zombie connection number two. 

I will leave this challenge feeling ready to keep on writing and although I am sure future posts will focus more on practical pedagogy and teaching and learning type stuff, 28 days later, I have realised that we can't separate these things from the human element within our education systems and society at large, that in the end (whether that is a zombie apocalypse or not) what truly matters is trying to make the lives of others' a little bit better. 

Peace out and keep running (rule #1 cardio)

The one about pain in the assessment #28daysofwriting

What is the purpose of high stakes summative assessment? Is it to rank students against each other? Is it a way to help maintain the intellectual pecking order? Is it to help people become better learners? Is it to feed league tables and the comparison of good and bad schools? Is it because it always has been? 

Another great tension in teaching; how do we ensure that we are helping the learners in our charge to develop holistically as outstanding human beings whilst at the same time training them to pass and excel in the exams. It is a sad state of affairs that the measuring stick we use to judge the value of a person is their study score, their A-level results, the percentage or letter grade that defines them.

The system is flawed, but is so ingrained in our social norms that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot stop testing kids, we cannot stop organising them by age rather than stage, we cannot stop labelling and classifying them as if an A* were a golden ticket and a D an inevitable sentence to a second class citizenship (never mind those who do not even have the opportunity to enter the hunger games of formal education). 

 

So while educational celebrities are telling teachers the system is broken and that we should undermine governmental dictat in order to have creative curricula, it strikes me that while high stakes assessment wags the learning dogs tail, genuine learning will always come second place to passing exams. 

But like my favourite mythical hero Sisyphus, we must keep pushing that rock up that hill and surely we can get enough momentum to get it over the top.

The one about Polonius #28daysofwriting

Polonius:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

Laertes:
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82

"To thine own self be true" is Polonius's last piece of advice to his son Laertes and since studying Hamlet in 6th Form under the tutelage of the delightful Miss Claire Smith (wonder what she is up to now!), they are words that have always stuck with me. 

In the Elizabethan context, these words are possibly less about sticking to your beliefs and more about looking after yourself so that you can look after others. "To thine own self be true" is telling Laertes to be good, to neither borrow nor lend money and above all to take care of himself. Although this may seem selfish advice, it is indeed sage. If we do not look after ourselves, if we do not choose the path which while challenging us does not tip us over the edge, we will end up being no good to anyone. I have seen teaching colleagues end up like this. I have been there myself. Burning the candle at both ends and in the middle leads to fatigue, illness and the inability to function at our best. We think we can survive through the stresses and pressures of the week and then collapse on the weekend, but then we stress about not having energy for the family on Saturday and the dread of Sunday night trying to prepare for the onslaught of the next week. "To thine own self be true" should be tattooed on the arm of each exhausted educator so they can see it and perhaps stop for a moment of mindfulness, a moment of being human and end up being a better teacher because of it.

Perhaps there is a more modern interpretation of the words too. I believe that being true to your self and the beliefs you hold is also a key part of being human and is indeed what drives us to give our all as teachers. We believe that we are doing good for the young people in our care. We believe we are helping to build the citizens of the future. We believe we can take pride in the noble work we do. Aye, there's the rub. Being true unto ourselves creates an incredible tension between taking care of ourselves and giving our all in the name of our beliefs. We both want to protect ourselves and our families whilst giving our all to our job (what a pithy word), our career (worse) or what can best be described as our vocation. Once again, I am acknowledging this tension but have no definitive answer and maybe there is not one. But to quote another great man, my Principal His Eminence Peter Corkill (inside joke from assemblies...) "It is all about balance". Sage words indeed.

So in keeping with the theme of this post, perhaps the Bard himself describes darkly similar tensions through the words of Hamlet (who really should have listened to Peter and found a little balance);

To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action. 

The one about FOMO vs FOFU #28daysofwriting

One thing we are very good at in schools is planning. 5 year strategic plans, annual implementation plans, unit plans, lesson plans, floor plans, best laid plans. In such a highly planned world, it can be difficult to deviate, change the plan, abandon the plan and start a new one. We would love to be agile like the coolest start-up, have the legendary 20% time afforded to some Google employees to do with as we please (with the aim of improving the organisation), we would love to jump on every opportunity that passes before us, but doing so impacts on organisational health. We cannot take chances with the education of the children in our care, we must ensure that curriculum is covered and that exams are prepared for so opportunities pass, our agility arthritically stiffens and we stick to the safe and known.

But at what cost?

I try to balance my FOMO with my FOFU (for those of you not across modern acronymisation - FOMO is Fear Of Missing Out and I invented FOFU with my friend Suan over drinks - Fear Of F**king Up). I want to jump on opportunities for learners (and for myself and my family) but I sometimes have this nagging feeling in my guts of FOFU quashing my innovation and stopping me from going off piste. Take last week, Dr Grahame Rosolen a scientist who builds electron tunnelling microscopes was presenting to the students in ESV (the virtual science school of which I am Director) at the same time as I have Year 11 French. Now I had some highly important grammatical understanding to explore with my kids but it occurred to me this might be the only opportunity they will ever get to talk to a scientist doing this kind of work, so instead of the intricacies of adjectival agreement in French, we joined the virtual classroom and had our minds blown by the work this guy was doing in nano imaging and lithography. A small risk to take, but a wonderful outcome for all. 

If FOFU had been greater than my FOMO, I would still be teaching in the north of England which, whilst being my spiritual home and filled with people I love dearly, does not afford me and my family the opportunities I have here living in Australia. 

It is not a bad thing to have plans, indeed it is necessary, but we must not let plans get in the way of opportunities. Whilst too much FOMO can distract us from being mindful of the good things around us, it is sometimes a good thing to engage with our FOMO and let it push through our FOFU, taking us down otherwise unexplored paths into the world of opportunity knocking and serendipity. But don't forget to strap in for the ride.

The one about being kind, specific and helpful #28daysofwriting

If there is one thing that has really improved my learning design practice in the last few years, it is the use of critique protocols. I was first introduced to this by my great friend and inspiration Darren Mead. Daz was lucky enough to visit High Tech High to see some really powerful project based learning, and one of the things he brought back to share at school was a critique protocol. Critique is a really powerful lens through which learners can look at their own and others' work in order to improve it. 

At this point, I would like to use another phrase that I coined in a different professional learning session Darren was leading on feedback and assessment for learning; feedforward. Essentially, feedback is a description of what and how you have done so far in your learning and feedforward are the steps you can take to improve and critique protocols are essential in developing this. 

After Darren talked to use about being kind (but realistic), specific (focussing on the parts to improve the whole) and helpful (providing feedforward) I wanted to further understand this simple but powerful concept, so I read and continually recommend the book "An Ethic of Excellence" by one of the former High Tech High teachers and one of my edu heroes, Ron Berger. So as my understanding deepened, I really started to build critique into my everyday practice both in my classes and in my wider working life. I also realised the importance of being mindful when giving and receiving critique and started to integrate the idea of the Chinese character ting which means to listen and is built up of symbols meaning ears, eyes, heart and undivided attention. Bringing these things together gave me a language which allowed me to promote this type of thinking in the classroom. 

Last year Tom Barrett and I worked on a graphic which could be used to support this and came up with the image below:

To briefly explain, the top left quarter represents the need to be mindful when giving and receiving critique. Unless you are totally in the moment you will miss what is important feedforward. On the top right, we specify that it is ok to be hard on content, because everyone wants their work to be as good as possible, but we need to be soft on people because people feel emotionally attached to the work they produce and critique should be seen as about the work, not an attack on the person. In the bottom left, we acknowledge that if you are quiet and do not participate, it is important to step up and say your piece, whilst equally important, if you are always giving your opinion it is important to know when to step back and listen. Finally, in the bottom right hand corner, we hit the crux of critique and feedforward; all critique should be kind, specific and helpful if it is to be of any value at all. 

I love the way that this video exemplifies the power of critique and often use ot with my learners;

I truly find critique an incredibly valuable part of the learning process and encourage you to try it. Here is a post I wrote a long time ago with a very specific critique fine tuning protocol and here is a photo of Ron Berger the time that I missed meeting him...

 

The one about remembering to be human #28daysofwriting

So I have been away from this blogging challenge for a few days now. I am sure this has not had a major impact on your life, Dear Reader, but if it has, then I can only apologise. You see I have been busy remembering to be human. 

I came back from the Year 12 camp on Friday after 3 wonderful days with some amazing young people and some pretty awesome older people too. In that time I put up a volleyball net on the beach, I played beach volleyball, I supervised students swimming in the sea with dolphins, did a beach walk, went to a session on careers, watched "Eternal Sunlight of the Spotless Mind" (which I had not seen for many years) in an outdoors amphitheatre with 220 year 12 students discovering the movie for the first time with popcorn, went stand-up paddle boarding (but stayed mainly on my knees), attended a lecture on astronomy and saw the storm on Jupiter's face, dealt with home sick kids, sick kids, kids who just wanted to chat with me and kids who just wanted to chat all night. Now you may think that was a long sentence, but the days flowed like that, with little interruption, a gentle tide of learning and being human with over 200 others at the beach. I was not being a teacher with a lesson plan and learning objectives, I was simply being and the learning came on its own. 

Upon my return, I  saw the other side of being human; the unconditional love of my amazing wife and the fragility of my 9 year old son who was suffering gastro. One is most human at 1am washing vomit off the bedclothes and reassuring your child that it is ok. He has been quite poorly over the weekend but is much better now and bouncing back to his normal, jovial and loving self. 

It struck me during both of these events; the camp and the gastro, that not only does being human mean an acceptance that, on the universal scale (in comparison with Jupiter's red storm for example) we are insignificant, living our short lives on this pale, blue dot, but at the same time, being human allows us to fill others' universe with love, compassion, caring and laughter. 

So my challenge to myself and perhaps to you is, amidst the hubbub of planning, teaching, assessing, meeting, working to meet targets and robotically fulfilling deadlines, always remember to be human as it is the one thing that really matters. 

The one about learning being bigger than school #28daysofwriting

I hope for all of the young people I teach and my son to be life long learners. There I said it. The answer to every teaching job interview question; "help develop young people holistically and empower them to flourish as life long learners". But what does that actually mean? Is it even possible to not be a life long learner? Life is so full of learning that we only need open our eyes and hearts to see it everywhere. 

I am very lucky to head off to Year 12 camp tomorrow. 220ish Year 12 students, a bunch of teachers and careers and pathways staff set for 3 days of learning. The venue is the stunning Lord Somers Camp on the Mornington Peninsula, a footbridge between the camp and the beautiful beach with its wild pod of dolphins cresting through the waves. Does not sound like school, but it is dripping with learning. There are formal sessions around careers, wellbeing, English exam technique, motivational talks by the likes of the hilarious and inspiring Paralympian Sam Brahman and funny yoga with Guru Doudou. But the learning goes well beyond this; the conversations, the exploration of the beach, the astronomy lectures, the comedy skit show, the music played and the community grown is where it is really at.

One of the most incredible shared experience in past camps was swimming with the pod of playful wild dolphins. The joy and excitement of 18 year old young men and women being in the water with these beautiful animals was palpable and piqued curiosity and generated questions; where do they live? how may are there? what do they eat? This shared experience made us feel closer as a community of learners and demonstrated to me the importance of experiences beyond the academic classroom, authentic experiences in the real world. It made me realise the difference between learning and schooling. 

So the adventure starts again tomorrow and one of the joys and sources of anxiety of going on this camp is the lack of reliable wifi, so rather than writing for the next three days, I am going to enjoy reading other #28daysofwriting bloggers' work and hopefully leaving some comments using my phone. Until we meet again, Dear Reader, I hope you have a fruitful three days and I hope I get some more dolphin photos.

The one about false dichotomies #28daysofwriting

Enquiry vs didactic, teacher lead vs student lead, pedagogy vs andragogy, individual vs collaborative, knowledge vs skills so may dichotomies to choose from and so few of them real. Life and learning are so full of dichotomies and yet very few of them stand up to close analysis. In reality, learning is so much more subtle with beautiful shades of grey (and many more than 50 I would guess). Unfortunately, it makes for a good argument to say that enquiry based learning is better than expertly taught content, that collaborative work is superior to learners learning alone and that knowledge is more important than skills, so that is what fuels the education debate.

With a little common sense and a realisation that life and learning is always a blend, we can avoid these pointlessly subjective debates and focus on what is important; designing learning that gets the best out of learners. Indeed, we should actively take on the dichotomies and ensure that some of the learning that we design for our learners is enquiry based and that some of it is expertly driven, that sometimes we have quiet individual learning and that this experience is blended with active and collaborative learning, that sometimes we use the newest technologies available to us, and sometime we use a piece of chalk and a stick. My friend Tom did a great keynote at Edutech looking at this polarisation and the need to enjoy and celebrate the complexity, not push it into a corner.

Learning and designing learning are about making the best choices for the learners in front of us and personalising a blended approach to experiences that help build understanding. Teaching for effective learning is in itself a blend of science and art, knowledge and skills, knowing when to speak up and drive learning and when to sit back and light the fire of curiosity. If we only deal with dichotomies then we are missing the point. So maybe we should talk less about pedagogy and the illusions of polarised dichotomies and more about learning design and designing the best experiences for the those who are on the learning journey with us.