In some schools, games of tag and other chase and elimination games have been banned, following particular complaints of injury or the bruising of self-esteem.

Some places have removed playgrounds, because there is some fear that children may hurt themselves.

At our school, we are very aware of risk, and – because of that awareness – we will not be banning tag, banning balls, or removing playgrounds. A friend of mine, Stephen Smith, who teaches and writes at Simon Fraser University (phenomenology and Physical Education) notes that risk is an important component of development in children. It is through the taking of risks that children learn to be competent, to overcome fear, to work with others, and to measure their own abilities and learn new ones. When children play outside, they are often very shrewd judges of their own capabilities; they will only go so far up the rope climber unless they are certain of their own capacities. Their sense of their own self-worth is developed through increasing their competence, not through avoiding challenge.

What is very interesting is some recent evidence and thought regarding the essential role of risk in childhood development. From the New York Times:

After observing children on playgrounds in Norway, England and Australia, Dr. Sandseter identified six categories of risky play: exploring heights, experiencing high speed, handling dangerous tools, being near dangerous elements (like water or fire), rough-and-tumble play (like wrestling), and wandering alone away from adult supervision. The most common is climbing heights.
Climbing equipment needs to be high enough, or else it will be too boring in the long run,” Dr. Sandseter said. “Children approach thrills and risks in a progressive manner, and very few children would try to climb to the highest point for the first time they climb. The best thing is to let children encounter these challenges from an early age, and they will then progressively learn to master them through their play over the years.”

Sometimes, of course, their mastery fails, and falls are the common form of playground injury. But these rarely cause permanent damage, either physically or emotionally. While some psychologists — and many parents — have worried that a child who suffered a bad fall would develop a fear of heights, studies have shown the opposite pattern: A child who is hurt in a fall before the age of nine is less likely as a teenager to have a fear of heights.

By gradually exposing themselves to more and more dangers on the playground, children are using the same habituation techniques developed by therapists to help adults conquer phobias, according to Dr. Sandseter and a fellow psychologist, Leif Kennair, of the Norwegian University for Science and Technology.

“Risky play mirrors effective cognitive behavioral therapy of anxiety,” they write in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, concluding that this “anti-phobic effect” helps explain the evolution of children’s fondness for thrill-seeking. While a youthful zest for exploring heights might not seem adaptive — why would natural selection favor children who risk death before they have a chance to reproduce? — the dangers seemed to be outweighed by the benefits of conquering fear and developing a sense of mastery.

“Paradoxically,” the psychologists write, “we posit that our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.”

At our school, too, we ensure that we teach children how to be inclusive, how to sort out the inevitable issues that arise on the playground, and how to take measured risks. We think that risk should be transparent, and also that the appearance of removing risk is actually much more dangerous than making sure that risk is understood and managed. When a playground is perceived by everyone to be safe, then actual risk may increase. Our playground equipment is, or course, designed with proper fall zones, appropriate surfaces, and manageable equipment. But we will never claim to have removed all risk. It would not be honest or educationally sound, and we want our children to grow to be capable adults who are able to take reasonable risks. It is just a part of a healthy life.

In this Morning’s Vancouver Sun, there was an Op-Ed by Geoff Johnson, a retired public school Superintendent, entitled, “Make report cards relics of the past”. Mr. Johnson suggests that “All the fuss about report cards and the importance of letter grades supported by vague generic comments is a fuss about the wrong thing. As public education moves toward 21st-century individualized learning, the systems of reporting progress will need to move with it and the traditional report card will become a quaint relic of the previous century.”

He is, of course, both right and wrong. We might agree that public school report cards have to change. We may also agree that poorly scheduled parent-teacher interviews, characterized by long lineups of parents, need to change. We agree that children need individual attention. However, saying that report cards should be relics of the past indicates that Mr. Johnson needs greater exposure to well-done and well-conceptualized report cards that pay attention to the individual child, and do not simply regurgitate comments that are found on a list, stored in some computer somewhere. Families and children do benefit from report cards – they may not, however, benefit from sloppy, poorly executed report cards, and ill-considered parent-teacher interviews wherein public school teachers are swamped.

This sort of commentary is, as might be expected, the result of public school teachers refusing to comply with reporting provisions in the School Act as part of their job action while negotiating with the BCPSEA. That has been met with the Deputy Minister noting that report cards are a legal requirement, and so principals must send them out, even if blank. With the normal hurly-burly of incrimination and recriminations , statements were made by the BCTF that report cards were not very important, and that teachers will link with parents anyway.  One local union leader was quoted as saying:

“Report cards are not essential to communicate to parents the progress of their child,” said Jason Gammon, acting vice-president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association. “Teachers have many options around how they can communicate with parents, and teachers will communicate with parents as they deem appropriate.”

“If students are struggling, teachers are proactive in communicating that concern to parents and this information is usually addressed well in advance of the first reporting period,” he stated.

However, while many teachers are working to somehow keep parents informed, a number seem to be a bit more reluctant. As usual, generalizations are impossible. In some districts, teachers will only meet with parents if provided with time during the school day. Most teachers will communicate if alarmed about something, but there will probably be little communication for the majority of children whose work is generally satisfactory. (one teacher, in a blog, said this: “Many parents do not know they can ask about their child but if a parent wants a LENGTHY conversation about a straight A student with me just telling them how wonderful their child is, I am not conferencing with those parents on my own time at this time”.)

The point is that the current blethering about report cards is contained within a highly polarized and politicized confrontation between public school teachers and their employers, with sideline comments from observers who want to support one side or the other. Somehow, children – often used in the rhetoric of care – seemed to have been forgotten.

Here is what good report cards do:

1. They provide a point where teachers must pause to consider each individual child, and allows accountability of the teachers for what is said.
2. They make phone calls and emails more concrete.
3. They summarize how the child is doing as a person in relation to others, separately from academics.
4. They note strengths, and specifically consider those opportunities that children may take to become stronger learners.
5. They provide a tangible set of discussion points between teacher, child, and parent (students should always be invited to participate in, or to lead, conferences…which should be scheduled, and, if needed, extended).
6. They provide a place for children to reflect on their own progress – in writing – and set personal goals..
7. They provide a picture of academic  progress and of achievement against a set of standards.
8. They ensure concentrated attention for each child.
9. They support the child in applications for university, work, and volunteer positions.

Geoff was commenting about the types of non-informative report cards that he may be used to seeing. My own child’s report card from the end of last year was six pages long, written with care by teachers, and it was not a relic of the past – it was a document that spoke volumes about their knowledge and care regarding our children. Report cards do matter, and they matter a lot. But they have to go beyond the rhetoric of care, and demonstrate the real caring and individual attention that good schools provide.

For more on the subject:

“Teachers “more than willing” to meet parents”

“Education scene heats up on several fronts”

The headlines in the Sun yesterday were about teachers in Vancouver who had planned a professional development day which included Ping-Pong, hay rides, playing guitar, and on and on.

In this context, parents may feel a bit puzzled as to the realities of teacher education and development. The B.C. Public School Employers’ Association have addressed such situations in a document that states desirable practices, which includes:

• Professional teaching standards that are second to none.
• A disciplinary system worthy of the public’s trust.
• Fully qualified, highly competent teachers who are well suited to the profession.
• The right teachers in the right positions.
• The ability for school districts to make human resource decisions that are effective and efficient.
• Regular performance feedback for every teacher and support for improvement.
• An effective evaluation process to help good teachers become great and under-performing teachers become good. It should also identify those unsuited to the profession.

“We want to align professional development with teacher performance evaluations and school district policy requirements,” the document says. “We want to ensure that professional development days and investments are suited to the needs of districts and individual teachers.”

Every parent knows that the most critical relationship in school is between their child and their teacher. If we want to really prepare our children for the future, then, we need teachers who are also committed to that idea, teachers who continually learn, continually grow, and continually seek opportunities to collaborate with other teachers.

At this time, our school exceeds the standards and expectations that are being sought by our public school employers. We provide a host of professional development opportunities, including:

• Well-planned Professional Development days that ensure collaborative planning time and outcomes.
• Staffing decisions based on the needs of students.
• Additional accreditation for our teachers (and we pay for it).
• Directors of Learning who work continuously with teachers for improvement of instruction.
• Some early release time so that many teachers can get to graduate classes in Education.

Currently, we have about eleven teachers pursuing graduate studies, and many have already completed Master’s degrees. We have a number of teachers who are workshop presenters for the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), and also some who work on accreditation teams for the Ministry, CAIS, and the IBO. Several have been, or continue to be, sessional instructors at SFU in Education. This year, the Directors of Learning will be working with the Head to ensure that our teacher performance evaluations are harnessing best practice in ensuring teacher development as part of teacher evaluation.

Click to view slideshow. Our teacher development supports our students to live up to the IB Learner Profile.

More than all of that, we constantly strive to live up to the IB Learner Profile to which we hold our students accountable. The IB Learner Profile calls on us all to be:

• Inquirers
• Caring
• Knowledgeable
• Risk-takers
• Thinkers
•  Balanced
• Communicators
• Reflective
• Principled
• Open-minded

And if that is what we want for our children, then we all need to be models of these characteristics. After all, children learn what they live, not what they are told.

We want our children to be very good at digital media, and at technological ability, as these offer many advantages. But we also want them to be good at, and learn, many things. Studies in neuroscience suggest that we benefit from doing many things, and the more we do – in a substantive way – the smarter we get. Since we want our kids to be smart, we offer a course called “Design and Technology”, in which kids face problems for which they must design a solution. Through a constant process of design, and reflection, and tryout, and redesign, they learn about how to think through a challenge. They may have to design a device to hurl an egg a given distance – without breaking it. Or they might design a small barge that can carry a tin can across a lake.

Computers can help, of course, but computers cannot build their devices, or reflect on them, or work collaboratively with others. Computers become a tool like the others – a tool
that is used, but does not become the point of the exercise. Last year, a teacher and a group of students designed and built a workbench – to help them do the other things they needed. They could have watched a film about workbenches, but a film would not teach much.

Constant inquiry is what we do, and it is through inquiry with others that we best learn, especially when guided by a skilled teacher.

Our children can learn through computers, but real learning means actually doing something with other people. The current fad to depend on technology in order to streamline learning has little evidence to support it; some schools are engaged in an experiment without controls, and with only a fuzzy idea of where they are headed. At our school, we will engage properly with technology, with an understanding of how technology is best used: when, where, and under what circumstances, whether hammer or laptop.

To facilitate this well-rounded sort of education, we will be creating the means of applying technology: a woodshop, space and tools for gardening, materials for sewing, knitting and crocheting, science materials for fieldwork, and so on.  And we will be ensuring that these learning situations are enhanced by good teaching.

In my next blog, let us consider teaching for the real world, and how teachers prepare for the sort of meaningful teaching and learning that seems so important.

Our school wants to go forward to the eighteenth century! We are, of course, already caught up to the 21 century, but we seemed to have left some valuable things behind, things that help us to think and act in the world. Let’s begin with a little checklist, to see how our children are doing.

Take a minute and just think about your child, and whether or not he or she can:

Now, do they have:

 Which ones get used most often? Why?

Here is an interesting thing: children learn by doing things. If most of what they learn is by pushing buttons, they do not learn much…they only seem to do so. Real understanding of sand comes from playing in sand; real understanding of physics comes from using objects in the world, not just watching video clips and reading. Real reading comes from reading text on a page; reading from a screen is very different, and has different effects.  A real understanding of responsibility comes from being responsible.

Our school is going to parallel our teaching of the digital world with much more engagement in the real world. We want to strongly enhance our experiential education, making it even stronger than our digital program. Sometimes, the best technology is older technology. That is why we are going to build a woodworking shop at the same time as we buy more computers for primary kids.

But the best engagement is through the home, when a child learns to get up,  get dressed, make the bed, make lunch,  help around the house,  answer the phone properly,  set the table, and even learn to cook a little. Television has many good qualities, and so does the internet and telephones and stereos; but our kids should also love to read, and talk around a dinner table, and build things, and create some art, and play games with others, and sing and dance, and ….well, enjoy their world.  

How will Meadowridge help parents instill these things?  Next blog: Woodshop, gardening, neuroplasticity, and Design/Technology courses.

That seems to fit some data that is emerging: In February, 2011, the average number of texts by American teenagers was about 3300 per month. But youth are not the largest users of digital technology: Adults, with their computers and phones and banking and online movies and so on, are larger users than are the youth. The idea that youth are “digital natives” is a silly one, when one looks at usage over time. The danger is that some people are suggesting that technology should change what we learn, and how we learn. We are, as a society, engaging in a huge social experiment with more enthusiasm than thought. Just a few weeks ago, Maclean’s Magazine ran an article on the significant decline in the ability of young people to perform simple physical and mechanical tasks, from tying shoes to tightening screws. The loss of physical abilities, of course, is the visible symptom of the loss of particular kinds of knowledge and cognition.

Certainly, there are some advantages to computer use in our schools. However, there are also some significant disadvantages. For example, we know that multimedia presentations seem more interesting than focused lectures; we also know that retention from the lecture is greater than that from multimedia. Many of us like the news shows that feature many pictures, and text rolling across the bottom of the screen, yet we should also be aware that we remember less from such shows than from old-fashioned news read by an Anchor, without constant interruption. We learn more from sustained attention, but are engaging in constant distraction.

It may be a great thing not to have to remember a lot of information, on the grounds that we can just “find it” on the “web”, but we should also be aware that such a process undermines our ability to think deeply, as we have little stored knowledge with which new information can connect. Creativity depends, in large part, on knowing things in ourselves, knowing deeply. With this knowledge, creativity arises from encountering a problem that needs solution; it does not consist of random new ideas. Memory matters.

People who spend a lot of time online read almost as much as those who read books, but the reading is different. It is not as constant or focused. The eye moves in a different pattern on a website, and sustained attention is much more difficult. Writing on a computer is very much different than writing by hand – not worse, but very different. The hand, the eye, and the brain work together in a different way, and from what we know from neuroploasticity, the brain develops very differently in a world of social media, and in a world where letters do not have to be fashioned by hand, and written work needs to be carefully written and sustained.  This difference may include the developed ability to hold a sustained argument, and then to be able to evaluate it based on what one already knows: this is the centre of Western thought, and we will ignore it at our peril.

There are those who claim that we are moving into a post-literate time, an age where reading is less like reading a book, and more like reading chatter, gossip, or other forms of conversation – it is somewhere between an oral culture and a pictorial culture, written in
chalk. We are awash in “information” but little knowledge. And our society is losing the capacity to filter out nonsense because there is so much self-publishing, so little editing, and just so much stuff that old ideas of proof, evidence, sustained argument, and reason are being lost in the riptides of popularity.

We want our children to be able to use computers and other forms of communication and media. But we also want them to retain what is best, to be able to remember things, to develop the literacy of sustained reading and writing, to understand the connection between saying something and doing something, the hand-eye-brain connection that is being lost. We want them to function in a literate world, and a post-literate world.

Since we become, in some ways, the tools that we use (gotta have my cellphone with me! Have I checked my email? What is on TV tonight?), what we want is to ensure that our children have the best of the new technology (laptops, iPads, SmartBoards), and also the best of the older ones – pens, books, hammers, spades, pots and pans). We want our children to be competent and capable in many ways, and to develop both broadly and deeply through the use of many kinds of tools. In my next blog, I want to tell you about our plans for the Design and Technology courses, the woodworking shop, the gardens, the library, the bouldering wall, and even our new digital technology.

The drive toward complex technical achievement offers a clue to why the U.S. is good at space gadgetry and bad at slum problems.  ~John Kenneth Galbraith

Many people have claimed that technology will fundamentally change how children learn, and how schools are organized. It clearly will not. For example, in 1967, Marshall McLuhan wrote about what “The Class of 1989” might be like, and why:

… By the time this year’s babies have become 1989′s graduates (if college “graduation” then exists), schooling as we now know it may be only a memory…

When computers are properly used, in fact, they are almost certain to increase individual diversity. A worldwide network of computers will make all of mankind’s factual knowledge available to students everywhere in a matter of minutes or seconds. Then, the human brain will not have to serve as a repository of specific facts, and the uses of memory will shift in the new education …

Central school computers can also help keep track of students as they move freely from one activity to another, whenever moment-by-moment or year-by-year records of students’ progress are needed. This will wipe out even the administrative justification for schedules and regular periods, with all their anti-educational effects, and will free teachers to get on with the real business of education. …

Television will aid students in exploring and interacting with a wide-ranging environment. It will, for example, let them see into the atom or out into space; visualize their own brainwaves; create artistic patterns of light and sound; become involved with unfamiliar old or new ways of living, feeling, perceiving; communicate with other learners, wherever in the world they may be…

Clearly, McLuhan was somewhat misguided in his hopes for 1989. We hear the same sort of thing today, however, in the claims that all the information that kids need is “out there”, but readily available, and that this will somehow change everything. It won’t, of course. Information is not knowledge. Meaning does not reside in multimedia or keyboards.

A leading thinker in this area is Neil Postman, who noted the threat to our children from this focus on the huge supply of easily accessed information:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Currently, it is difficult to argue with this point. The internet is filled with trivia, with disinformation, with entertainment, and with the detritus of unfiltered thought. Pornography accounts for a very high proportion of internet use. Facebook has led to a completely different meaning of “friend”. The internet is also filled with much that is useful and thoughtful and illuminating. But the information highway is a bit like a woodpile: It needs to be sorted, and stored well, and used appropriately. As Postman writes:

If students get a sound education in the history, social effects and psychological biases of technology, they may grow to be adults who use technology rather than be used by it.

It seems clear that technology is now a part of our institutional and personal lives. The old notions of “teaching” computer use, or of “computer labs” may not serve us well, in the face of rapid change. By the time we have developed a curriculum, it will be outdated. We need to understand that technology is not an option, but central, and that we need to accommodate for it. The accommodation must be ongoing, rooted in educational beliefs, based on continuous reflection, and wary of gimmickry.

The rise of digital communication and social media present a challenge and an opportunity for our school. Our children now carry devices with which to access telephones, photography, video, games, texts, music, encyclopaedias, blogs, and a whole range of human representation. Our students from grade five and up have laptops, and are capable of doing things which were unthinkable fifty years ago, from communication to analysis to multimedia. We create online classroom communities. Teachers have their own websites, and send voice threads to parents. Some teachers use Smart Boards; others make very good use of the projectors and sound systems in the classroom. Our theatre lights can be controlled from a laptop. We send out emails to students, rather than newsletters each day. Report cards are online. Our school has numerous servers, and printing capabilities for students and staff. Televisions loaded with images of the students and parents are located throughout the school. The students in the Headmaster’s Philosophy class downloaded films and images and text, while he was teaching, about what he was teaching.

All of this has certainly changed things within the school. Yet the centre of the school continues: there is no different literacy, as the work involves reading and writing and drawing and representing and music and dance and movement and working together.  Our students still love books. They enjoy working together more than online, and will travel to each others’ houses to work together. Parents get to talk to each other more, and in different ways. Social media and digital communications have enhanced classroom learning, strengthened human connection, supported a range of representation, and created better teaching and learning conditions.

Most importantly, we see that information is not knowledge, connection is still personal, and learning is not simply information processing, but active meaning-making. There is something deeply human in schools, and technology does not replace it.

The uses of technology in our school are driven by, and controlled through, our central beliefs about learning. It is not the technology which has created the conditions for constructing meaning in learning. In fact, technology can be used to drive any form of teaching, whether boring or exciting. Computers do not change teaching methods, but beliefs about teaching and learning influence the use of computers. Technology in our school must be seen as intimately connected to, and supportive of, our views of teaching and learning. As teachers reach for the technology that supports active learning and excellent teaching, we must support them.

However, it is not enough simply to encourage the use of technology. Everyone in our community should come to understand that technology has biases, and that the medium changes the message.

Summary

The central conception of learning in our school – that it is the active construction of meaning – controls our use of technology. Technology will not completely change schooling, or make it a thing of the past; rather, technology will continue to be seamlessly woven in to the fabric of our learning practices, and will enhance learning in the school, rather than change it.

Just as students learn constructively, so do teachers, and this work of teachers-as-learners must continue, with strong school support.

There is work to be done in ensuring access to technology, in designing spaces for technological use, in promoting reflection on technology, and in using varying technologies as one part of a design cycle; but what may be most important is to teach the history, social effects, and psychological biases of technology. Like any tool, as it is used, it can change the user, and we must be conscious of using it wisely.

We are serious about making sure our graduates are capable of shaping our common future, and not being shaped by forces that are out of their control. We need to make sure that our school and our students control technology, and are not controlled by it.

This first section will deal with what we should teach in the future. This will be followed, over the next two weeks,  by statements about technology in schools, and what we mean by learning in our school. I would like to invite your comments and questions.

On the Future: What should we teach?

I like my new telephone, my computer works just fine, my calculator is perfect, but Lord, I miss my mind!  ~Author Unknown

There is a preoccupation with the future in education. That is as it should be, since we are preparing children for success and happiness in a time yet to come. However, we are not certain that the future is any different from what it used to be.

As we consider the past, the world seems to have been awash in change, although the pace of change seems to us to be a bit faster now. The telescope changed how we perceived the universe, and the Great Chain of Being; it overthrew Kings and rattled the Church.  The microscope opened whole new worlds, and led to huge changes in medicine, public health, and human longevity. Industrialization shifted populations, and led to increases in productivity which staggered the world. In the 20^th century, the rise of materialism led to a belief that religion was declining, and the rise of consumerism has shifted whole cultures.

Marx famously wrote, in the Communist manifesto:

Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones … All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

Perhaps Marx did not foresee the rise of religion as a major force in world politics. But he seems to have been on safe ground when he predicted uncertainty and agitation; it has been around throughout history.

The constant state of humankind is change. Our past, our present, and our future are linked, and we always find ourselves, in the words of T.S. Eliot:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

The issue then becomes one of recognizing that we are always in flux, and that we cannot predict that flux with any certainty, but that our fundamental human nature is stubborn, and does not change easily. It is also important to recognize that there may not be a single body of knowledge which our children must know in order to succeed. There may be characteristics, dispositions, and abilities which will allow them to be continuous and lifelong learners. These are what will allow them to “dance” as they go through life, and fuel the lifelong learning and strong values which will enable them to lead in shaping our world.

There are probably some things that we can depend upon when we predict the future of the world, and our small part of it. These may include:

• Technological change will continue, and grow very quickly.
• The population of the world will grow.
• Resources will become more scarce, and more costly. This includes water and food.
• Advances in communications will create closer ties between different parts of the globe, and we will become more interdependent.
• The information explosion will continue.
• Much communication will be virtual, and there will be challenges in the construction of the digital self.
• Globalism will be matched by regionalism.
• Centres of global power will shift.
• Political structures will change.
•  Religion will continue to be a force.
•   There will be even more propaganda, manipulation, & persuasion by various forces.
•   Everyone will have a digital voice; there will be a sea of individual voices.
•   There will be a rebirth of agriculture as peak oil undermines agribusiness.
•   Human nature will not fundamentally change.

We may add more. To summarize,  population growth is a challenge to our world; communications are bringing us together, as cultural clashes set us apart. New technologies promise a different kind of relationship with others, but our relationships will still be defined by human needs. The virtues and the vices will continue; family (of all types) will continue; diversity will be embraced as distinctions are embodied in more and more people. People will continue to fall in love.

So what should we teach?

We want our graduates to shape our world, to serve and to lead.

As problems continue, we need to develop global citizens, people who are active, engaged, and involved.

Our children must be able to recognize problems, and to love inquiry: they must know how to gather information – gather through books, through digital means, through interviews, through observation, and through listening and talking and being curious.

They have to be able to use that information in a variety of ways – to comprehend, to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate, to create, to imagine, to produce.

They must also be able to communicate, and be able to play the entire symbolic range: language, art, dance, movement, mathematics, photography and film, multimedia…but importantly, they must understand the qualities of excellent communication. They must be able to affect an audience and to understand when and how communication affects them.

They need, in other words, to know how to learn – to acquire, use, and share information – and how to apply that learning to the problems and challenges that await them. The way we teach our children to learn is what they will take with them to become the leaders of the future. Process has become the new content, and our model of learning is a strong curriculum.

As in every age before us, our children also need to look after themselves. They need to understand their bodies, and what keeps them healthy. They need to take risks, because life has no guarantees. They need to be able to regard themselves, and reflect on what they do, or think, or believe, because the only real knowledge is self-knowledge.

We live in and cherish communities, not just our selves, and so our children must be caring, so that natural justice will spread with them. This caring for others has to inhabit our school, and help our alumni to “Shape our world” as leaders.

They need to be principled in their decision-making and in their actions, in order that they live well with others and for others, and create just communities. They had best be open-minded, since the world is a changing place, and being adaptable requires open-mindedness. They need to be balanced, ensuring that they are looking after their heads, their hearts, and their hands: intellect, emotions, and body…thoughts and words and deeds.

And even though there may not be some completely stable body of knowledge which all should learn, every child should be knowledgeable. Without knowledge, there can be no “good things to think with”.  History, Mathematics, Rhetoric, Literature, Science, Physical Education, Drama, Dance, Economics, Business…and more…all have a place within the curriculum, and provide the basic knowledge needed to function within a society. This curriculum provides the substance with which children can learn those processes, dispositions, and characteristics that will shape them into life-long learners and leaders.

Hurried children are not good learners, and they are not happy children, so that learning has to be developmental, and support the natural developmental stages.

If we anticipate continual change, we should prepare continual learners. If we want a desirable future, we must help our children to be the creators of it.

Just today, I ran into one of our school parents at a local store. We chatted about our last Gala, and about the Parent Guild meeting last time, and about who would be driving for our kids’ team this week, and about who would be coming to the Scotch-tasting party that went in the Gala Auction on Saturday.

It got me thinking about the role of parents at our school, and how it is different from any of the public schools I have ever worked within. Often, parents within the public system feel disenfranchised – see the Ontario experience, and indicators of the B.C. experience here.

Our parents, on the other hand,  are essential to everything in our school.  First, our parents form our Board, our Finance Committee, or Advancement Committee, our Facilities Committee, and just about every other committee in the school.  Their oversight and scrutiny is essential to the continued high functioning of our school.  And at all of those levels, they have established Governance practices which are outstanding.

We have hundreds of volunteer parents in the school, and they are there often. Parents are intimately involved with, and run, the Gala, the Golf Tournament., and most other school events alongside of teachers and administrators.

The Parent Guild is an essential part of our school, invaluable in dozens of ways. Their support has been critically important to the growth of our school.

Since there are about 34 Administrator and Teacher children at the school, it is also true that many of our teachers are also parents at the school.

And here is the thing: I cannot remember the last time that any parent lobbied for some sort of special status for their children based on what they do at the school. Our parents are hugely supportive of the teachers, and of all the children, not just their own. They are thoughtful, and excellent to collaborate with. That is not to say that there are no disagreements; rather, than when anything  needs serious discussion, we have come to know that the parents at our school are people with whom we can work things out.  As a professional community, we often brag about how supportive our parents are, and how our parent interviews are amongst the best days of the year.

Over half of our families are now contributing to Annual Giving, and it is parents who give most to the Golf Tournament, and the Gala. Our parents have come to understand that philanthropy is essential to our success with the children.

Why the difference between us and the public schools? It might be size, or access, or trust, or many things…but being an independent school community is the most important factor.

Thank you to all the parents, who make this school such a great place to work!

I remember, too, when my girl started at the school. An Honour Roll student in French Immersion, she could not really read or write English in grade five. She got 3/20 on her first weekly spelling test. Her handwriting …well…wasn’t. She only knew how to print. I remember the two to three hours of homework every night when she first started, along with the frustration and occasional tears. Math represented the biggest stumbling block, and she kept on doing hours of Math homework until she was in grade twelve.

Homework. Always homework.

This year, I have had parents say that their kid deserves to have some relaxation, or that their child competes in high-level sports, and finds homework getting in the way of practices. Some speak of tears and frustration with homework.

I understand those frustrations, and that wondering.  In the past forty years of teaching, I have seen waves of pro- and anti-homework come and go. Both views can be supported; the mistake that both sides have made is in generalizing too much about homework, as though it were always the same thing. It is work that is done at home…but all kinds of work are done. What we should attend to is the nature of the homework: How much of what is done for what purposes how often?  In other words, homework is like food…not all food is the same, and it can’t be treated as though it were the same.

First, homework will vary in time spent. Now, there is a difference between time spent and time worked (what we in the Education business call allocated time, vs. time-on-task).  I have watched some kids spend an hour on a task, but only ten minutes working. Between bathroom breaks, fiddling with music, finding materials, calling friends, and so on, really not much homework gets done. Sometimes it is just hard to concentrate. Often, students will not get their work done in class, and then translate it to their parents as “homework”, yet they might easily have finished during the day. Other times, getting started is the hardest part (especially in writing)…Kids can often write as much in a one-hour  essay test as they do in a one-week essay assignment. Getting started, and having some sense of a time limit, is a key.  (Try using a timer to start and stop assignments for your child – it really helps!)

When a single subject seems to be taking a lot of time every night, then I advise calling the teacher. It should not be taking so much time. Measure it first, and then let the teacher know, and work out some plans.

Homework should serve some purpose. Reasonable ones might include practising a skill which has been taught, reviewing vocabulary in a language, carrying out research for an essay or inquiry, finishing a lab write-up, and so on. That is, the material should have been taught, should be monitored in class, and should present no learning challenges. If homework is assigned that your child does not know how to do, again, a phone call or email to the teacher is important. Frustration is not very useful at home.

One great type of homework is designed to let parents know what is being studied, and also intended to engage parents in conversation. Just a while ago, my son had to investigate the history of his own family. We searched online, talked about past generations, looked at family photos, and generally had a great time. Another type is to make sure that parents know what their children are doing in school – signing tests, helping with vocabulary, and so on. Again, this seems reasonable.

There is a flow to homework. Many kids complain of having too much homework at some times, then not much at other times. It seems reasonable that the school would attempt to smooth this out. We do, and are. We have just switched to a digital calendar which will show all assignments and tests at any grade on a single sheet. We have undertakings from every teacher that they will try to avoid “bunching up” homework. We intend to monitor this. One thing might get in the way: Time management of our kids. Assignments are given which may take two weeks, but we all know what can happen: Two days before, panic mode sets in, and suddenly there is all the work of two weeks packed in to a day. Place a few of these on top of regular homework, and we get the “wave” of work. Solutions include teacher and parent checking on progress, and teaching children to plan over a longer time. But we will probably never stop it completely; even in business, it seems to be an ongoing issue.

There is also the question of who is doing the homework. Some kids are perfectionists. The teacher may think that they have assigned something with a paragraph answer, but the child is driven to write pages about it. Sometimes a drawing is in order, and we get artistic renderings back, worthy of an architect. If this is happening, a three-way conference with the teacher is badly needed! As well, some kids are just faster than others, so the same amount of homework can be both too much and too little. Constant collaboration with teachers is the key to figuring out most issues.

Finally, I want to tell you a story. I got a call when my daughter was in the first year at McGill. She was swamped with homework, and it was very hard. I asked her what she planned to do. “Well”, she said, “It is a lot like grade five. I’ll just have to organize, and work harder”. She did, and so do many of our kids. Remember, the drop-out rate at Canadian universities after first year is about 50%. But Meadowridge kids have learned how to balance life with work, and so our retention rate at universities is much, much higher. In the end, how we teach kids about managing homework is part of how we teach them to manage life itself. When in trouble, speak up. Be organized. Work hard, and with focus. Strive for excellence, but not at the cost of balance. If something does not seem right, work it out.

And, in the end, recognize that everybody is a little bit different, and that no generalization will always work.