Wandering, Exploring, Reflecting, Refining

."Not all those who wander are lost." 
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
When you try to innovate, when you do something that is different you have to wander a little bit. You have to experiment. You have to expect it to include failures, and you have to expect it to take time. 
We said good bye to Term 3 last week and I've had a bit of time to reflect on the last three terms. I've been teaching full time in our Middle Years learning community this year. And we've certainly wandered. We've tried new things, refined some, discarded others.
We've been wondering for a while how do we prove it's working? What is IT? What is success?
Is it success as it would be judged in a traditional environment? What does that look like? 
Is it achievement? How do you measure that? Some test scores on a few standardised tests that represent a very small portion of what it is we hope these learners are developing.
Is it engagement? I've had the privilege of participating in some amazing PLD this year and one thing that has stuck with me was a comment made about confusing compliance with engagement.
I think that many schools, classes and teachers have compliant children in them and teachers are mistaking that compliance for engagement. Just because a student doesn't cause trouble and hands in everything they are asked to does not mean they are engaged. Just because classrooms look structured and/or there is a quietness or a "busy"ness does not mean real learning is happening. 
What do we know is different for our learners than from 9 months ago?
We have done a series of standardised assessments over the last few weeks. They show some tremendous growth in nearly every young person we have the comparative data for from last November. Some are still below where they should be for their age. But many of those same students they have shown two or three years growth over the last nine months. A few have shown four or five years growth. 
We know that engagement is a lot higher than it was six months ago, and tremendously more than it was two-three years ago. We feel that and see it every day.
We haven't got it all right and we haven't got it right all the time. But we have courage to wander, to get lost a little and to constantly search for what will make it better. We have built a strong capacity for reflection. And a measure of the strength of this is the openness with which it occurs.All teachers, the trainee teachers, the teacher aides all contribute a lot to ongoing reflections on an electronic forum. That strong reflection allows us to wander, to innovate, to try new ideas and then to reflect and refine on these ideas.

The data shows a lot, the feel in the classroom shows a lot more. The genuine joy the learners show in learning naturally with other students within a significant age difference. The genuine joyful but purposefully learning focused relationships between adults and students in the community. 

Our students aren't quiet nor are they always compliant. Sometimes they come to school carrying personal burdens or big questions from things they have witnessed. And sometimes that means a whole lot of other things have to be done to help them so they can focus on learning. They don't always wear their uniforms correctly or remember not to swear at school. Compared to compliant kids in a traditional setting some may not like what they see in our community because it doesn't fit into their image of how school should look. We've deliberately wandered far away from that.
But these learners are engaged. They can plan their own timetables every day, including writing specific goals for each period. They can hold each other accountable for whether they met those goals or not. They know where to go to, and who to go to, if they have problems. They have moved great distances over the course of the year. It may not be easy to define or to measure. But there is success. There is joy and laughter in the learning that is happening
They have control of their learning which emulates real life every day, and they can articulate how this learning ties back to the NZ curriculum. 

Four Years On

Just over 12 months ago we started this blog as a staff. The last 12 months has seen many exciting steps on our journey as a school. 

• We have said goodbye to some key foundation staff, but we have also welcomed other staff.
• We have moved into our brand new buildings, after three years in temporary and less than ideal physical conditions.
• We have continued to evolve our thinking and our practice.
• We are in the process of reviewing our curriculum delivery programme, as we have now been operating as a school for over three years.
• We've taken part in some exciting PLD.
• We've had visitors from throughout New Zealand.
• Our achievement results continue to grow, as does the understanding of and engagement with their learning from our learners.
• We've attempted to share our evolving thinking and practice with the world with this BLOG.

Here's some key statements staff have made over the last 12 months in various blog posts.

How can an (extremely) average student, of seemingly average intelligence, see the pitfalls of our current system; where highly intelligent, highly educated people cannot? (Because of the highly political use of education?)  I have absorbed so much in the past 4 years and I know where the changes need to be made. There is no one answer and there is no sombrero that will fit every head. Education needs to be a living organism that can grow, evolve and adapt to fit the nature of its environment. 

Fundamentally it is the parents responsibility to raise their children, but it is the teachers responsibility to know their learners, and to ensure everyone feels comfortable in their own space. When I say know your learners I don't mean just know their name. I mean know them. Look at them in the morning and from that one glance tell if something's wrong. Tell if they had breakfast that morning. Tell if they've been forced to come to school sick. Tell if they feel like they haven't been treated as an individual at home, and do your best to make sure every single individual feels respected at school.

They are the kids. You are the adult. We're all humans.

Our students thrive learning in this environment.  Learning and teaching at the same time. Teachers learning from students and vice versa.  Students sharing with parents. 

Why would we continue to imitate- and poorly because of our size- a secondary system that has dismally failed some of our most vulnerable learners for years? 

Why would we, when our kids live such whanau based lives, continue to segregate kids by year groups?

You require respect, but so do they. Don't treat them like they're the scum of the earth, because they're not. Respect them for who they are, respect them for what they could be, respect them as individuals, and they will do the same to you

Here I am sitting in this classroom of really engaged collaborative learners on a Monday morning and remembering how difficult Monday mornings used to be with them. 

Whats the difference? They have real control over their day. As teachers we have set up those systems and we are here to facilitate the learning and help the learners link that back to learning areas but they are definitely the ones in control. And so they should be. It’s their learning, and when they have control over it, true control, then maybe we really will see the life long learning that the NZ curriculum aspires to.

It's time for teachers the world over to throw off their ideas of subjects. It's time to stop trying to invent new ways to make the curriculum more engaging, and to turn everything upside down. Take ideas or themes that engage individual students and see what parts of the curriculum you can link them to. Have discussions as a staff on what the actual idea of school is in the 21st century. Is it to educate people into a job or career path? Or is it to help learners become better people?

Preparing children for the future is not only our job, but our duty as teachers. Our school is determinedly focused on what is right for students learning, not what feels most comfortable for the teacher

May we as teachers too, create our own enchanting reality, expose our students’ beauty and intelligence and transform their lives with the gentlest of corrections.

Do we give our young people enough credit when it comes to their ability to learn?

I feel inspired everyday. The children in my class give me so much more than I could ever imagine. Love, acceptance, inspiration, drive, respect and more than anything, they like me for who I am, and I like them too.  I never really understood what being a teacher in a school like this really meant. Not only are we role models, we are Mum, Dad, a shoulder to cry on, tell secrets to and dream with. Our students really believe that they can be the best they can be and we really try to encourage them to reach far beyond what they believe they are capable of.

And take a look at it from another perspective, we can see that Education IS perturbation.

We welcome our students into our learning spaces and although they are quite happy to cruise along through life, we as teachers are the outside influence, we create all those activities and learning opportunities that force our students to challenge what they know, or think they know, and often times the learning is fun and exciting, and sometimes it is dramatic and highly pressured.

From our first notification of closure, to now, it’s been tumultuous at times and its been exhilarating at times, but whatever it is…I’m so glad I decided to go on the journey, what an adventure its been!

If we know that we learn best using multiple strategies and with different people at different times, why do we insist on putting 30 students together with one adult and creating a dependency on one person?

• How would it look if we had learners from multiple years together?
• How would it look if the learning was based primarily and significantly on learners inquiries and the teachers role was to facilitate the learning and help the learners focus on their next learning steps, on an individual basis?
• How would it look if we had multiple teachers working with larger groups of students sharing responsibilities for all learners as appropriate?
• How would it look if students had a real say in constructing their school day, week and year?

We developed our whole school- including our senior curriculum- very intentionally and unashamedly around what was best for our students and their learning. We fit the timetable and physical structure of classes around our student’s needs and best practice. The results are quite a different approach to learning in the Secondary School.

I won’t miss the individual classrooms with the teacher’s desk that was once a staple of a New Zealand education. I’m excited about continuing to team teach with other teachers; of being collaborative and cooperative in our planning and teaching; the sharing of ideas, practice, and passion for learning. It’s certainly not the ‘one size fits all’ approach I had going through school.

For us at TKAS helping our young people develop an understanding of their identity- past, present and future, the ability to be inclusive with all other people ( accept and have positive relationships with a range of people)  and doing things differently (being innovative) is the cornerstone to what we are doing (and are the three main points on our school logo).

I am trained as a Secondary teacher and the best PD I have ever done is teaching at Primary level. I can hear all you subject specialists throwing your hands up in disgust, but its true! 

Our school is not normal and for that I am eternally grateful. I have been exposed to a plethora of left field, educational tools and strategies that have challenged me in so many ways. 

Area schools have the advantage of being able to group years of students together. But in reality so does any school. It takes courage and it takes daring to buck a system! And it takes time to prove it's working to all those doubters who rely on what has been the way its done for so long.

If you are Interested in finding out more, have a read of the Blog entries or enter into a conversation with us on this blog or for an even deeper conversation register on this forum one of our staff is starting up and discuss some or all of the above with us.

Grass Roots Education Forum

Give your Learners True Control

It’s Monday morning 11am and I’m sitting in a classroom in a remote New Zealand village with 50 adolescents from Year 6-10 who are becoming some of the most engaged learners I have worked with in 27 years of teaching. They are all learning about different things and they have each planned their week and their day. I have just watched them all come back in from a morning learning break, no bell was rung, they just all wandered back in after their 30 minute break and got on with their learning. There were adults drifting around but not a single learner was asked to get on with anything. Within 3 minutes all learners were working. 

There is someone playing a guitar in the corner using a youtube clip as a teacher. There is a learner meeting with a teacher to plan how to explain his learning from his latest inquiry. There are a couple of sets of learners sprawled together on couches using Minecraft to map out the East Cape before a community learning trip around the area next term. There is someone sprawled on the floor completing a piece of highly intricate art. There is someone completing a video for their youtube channel. There is someone else taking some notes about proteins and carbohydrates. There are a group of learners poring over an iPad together interpreting a graph and writing some summary statements about it. There’s a small group of students out capturing some images from around the school on a camera.  And thats just a small sample. Each of them has their own planner for the week and for the day which they completed when they arrived at school and they hold themselves accountable for following this.

@cleansweep_ wrote a piece comparing two different learning scenarios with the same students. 

http://tkaslessons.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/throw-off-shackles-and-turn-curriculum.html

For many the second scenario might seem the ideal to work towards. For us it is the reality we see happening every day.

@ClaireAmosNZ                posted this morning about handing power over to the learners 

http://www.teachingandelearning.com/2014/06/hack-your-classroom-week-seven-handing.html?spref=tw

It was fabulous and has inspired me to write about how that is happening in our Middle Years at TKAS.

It didn't happen overnight, but it is happening now. Some of these students were extremely disengaged with learning at the beginning of the year. 

Slowly during Term 1 we set them up; learning muscles from Guy Claxton. We started introducing a simple inquiry process they could take ownership over and gradually led them to establishing the things they would really like to inquire into.( http://tkaslessons.blogspot.co.nz/2013/12/the-web-of-inquiry.html)

Our learners have three different inquiries happening on the run all the time: Flow inquiries are their opportunity to “inquire into the stuff you are interested in”, Zone inquires are their chance to “inquire into the stuff we think you need to understand about the world you live in”, Groove inquiries are a chance to explore the world outside of the classroom with a link to learning trips.” 

This is their entire learning programme. Its not something they do a period a day, or in the afternoons. This is their whole programme.

We set up the experimenting phase of their inquiries for zone and groove, they still have ownership over the other three stages. In their flow inquiries they have ownership of all four stages. The balance between flow, groove and zone inquiry learning is up to them and can differ from day to day and from learner to learner.

We meet with learners and help them reflect on the learning areas they have engaged with and what level their achievements are at. We use SOLO taxonomy within our school progressions to help clarify this learning with our learners. 

But we do all that from the basis of the learning they have completed, rather than setting out our expectations first. When some math or science or literacy learning has occurred out of their inquiry that needs facilitating to the next level we schedule a workshop with that student, and offer that workshop for other students to attend.

A statement Claire made in her blogpost about what stops true engagement rings so true:  

“It is the teachers need to maintain power and control in the classroom.” 

We have worked hard to give that power back to the kids. 

When our students who range in age from 10 through to 15 arrive at school they use technology to go to a google site and check any significant instructions for the day. If they have a required meeting with an adult, it will be listed there, so will any workshops that it might have been identified they need to attend. 

They then plan their day. Some of them still check this plan with an adult. About half of the community of 50 learners do not need to check their planning as they have been identified as completely self managing.

And then they get on with their learning. They might see an adult and request some assistance or meeting to clarify the next step of this inquiry.

Before they go to a midmorning and lunch break some music plays in the community and learners use this as their signal to stop learning and reflect on a school electronic forum about what they have done, what they have learnt, what their focus level has been and what they are going to focus their learning on in the next learning period. (They use their daily plan and review it through the day as necessary.)

Claire asks: “Why on earth would you bother to get to know your learners, if you weren't in a position to actually be responsive to their learning needs and their interests?”

We still teach, all the time. but we teach individuals and we are completely responsive to their individual needs. 

I agree Claire. Saying we know our learners and then continuing to teach them off our own long term plans developed from some curriculum documents and aiming for curriculum coverage is not engaging our learners. 

All educators need to be finding small and large ways to challenge the status quo. 

Do not accept that you are working in an environment that won’t allow this. Find small ways to challenge every day. 

And for those of us fortunate enough to be in environments where we are allowed to change the face of teaching keep going, and keep sharing.

Its hard, and its tempting to fall back to the ‘known’ when things don’t work - and they won’t always. 

Put yourself in the position where you are working with someone else who won’t let you accept the status quo and will pull you up when you want to drift back to what you've always done because its just easier.

Here I am sitting in this classroom of really engaged collaborative learners on a Monday morning and remembering how difficult Monday mornings used to be with them. 

Whats the difference? They have real control over their day. As teachers we have set up those systems and we are here to facilitate the learning and help the learners link that back to learning areas but they are definitely the ones in control. And so they should be. It’s their learning, and when they have control over it, true control, then maybe we really will see the life long learning that the NZ curriculum aspires to.

Dont Limit Yourself

Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do.

We've just returned home from four days at a school camp.

We took our entire Middle Years learning Community away. There were 45+ kids ranging from Years 6-10, two teachers and three teacher aides, and a couple of parents.

Our youngest Year 6 is still 9 years old. Our oldest Year 10 has already turned 15. These learners learn together in a home room in a shared learning hub all day every week Monday through Thursday. (On Fridays they combine with the Year 11-13 students and our full immersion students for whole day option classes called Inspire.)

We have come back to school as a true community, a whānau, a family.

We have watched 15 year olds interacting positively with 10 year olds and accepting help from them. We have watched 12 years olds interact with 10 year olds and 15 year olds at the same time.

Sure there were disagreements and fall outs at times. Isn't there in any family?

And that's what we are. Our own family of sorts. We are a learning community. We don't use the word class or classroom. We are a community together. We will support each other and help each other. Care for each other and provoke each other. And most importantly for a school learning community we will learn with and from each other, recognising the value every learner brings for us all- be they 9 or 15. Our learners experiences and lives will be richer because of the range of ages and experiences we have in our community. Being in a learning community is mirroring real life, in a way only having 15 year olds or only having 9 year olds in a classroom just cannot do.

When we were setting TKAS up as an area school to cater for Year 1-13 back in 2010 one of the biggest concerns was having young students interacting with older students. Our biggest response was why? Why would we set up zones where younger or older students couldn't go, or separate playground areas? Why would we try and emulate a secondary system that we did not have the numbers to do, and actually didn't believe served our specific learners, of perhaps many learners at all, in the way we believed schooling should be serving them? Our learners interact with a range of different ages in their whānau, and on marae. Why should schooling be different?

Schooling is the only time where we segregate students into narrow groups based on when they were born. Why do we do this? It is not preparing them for real life. In my real life some of my closest friends and colleagues are of a completely different generation to me, not by 1 or 2 years but some of them by decades- both younger and older. Why then, do we insist on what Sir Ken Robinson refers to as the "conveyor belt of education," where learners are put with students who have similar birth dates and restricted to learning with those people.

"We still educate children by batches: we put them through the system by age group. Why do we do that? Why is there this assumption that the most important thing kids have in common is how old they are. It's like the most important thing about them is their date of manufacture. Well I know kids that are much better than other kids at different disciplines; or at different times of the day; or better in smaller groups than in large groups; or sometimes they want to be on their own. If you are interested in the model of learning, you don’t start from this production line mentality.” Sir Ken Robinson

I'm so fortunate to have had the opportunity to teach and lead in a school that is both an area school and a new school. We were not bound by historic and traditional systems but were able to set the school up taking into account thinking of people like Sir Ken Robinson.

Area schools have an opportunity, and perhaps a moral obligation, to reduce this dependence and reliance on a system that is outdated and one that has out-used it's usefulness.

Kids learn naturally together in all ages outside of school. When we restrict this inside school we cut them off from so many learning opportunities.

Area schools have the advantage of being able to group years of students together. But in reality so does any school. It takes courage and it takes daring to buck a s system! And it takes time to prove it's working to all those doubters who rely on what has been the way its done for so long.

Do you have the courage to support  this in your educational setting?

This year at Te Karaka Area school we have four learning communities.

Year 1-5 of 60 students with 3- 4 teachers in the pod at any time.

Year 6-10 of 50 students with 2 teachers in the pod at any time.

Year 11-13 of 50 students with 3 teachers in the pod at any time

Full immersion of 25 Year 1-10 with 2 teachers in the pod at any time.

If you are interested in how we are making this work get in touch with us at any time.

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, you can achieve.” Mary Kay Ash

Alone We Can Do So Little. Together We Can Do So Much.

Most great learning happens in groups. Collaboration is the stuff of growth.

-Sir Ken Robinson Ph.D. 

Yesterday I sat in a staff reflection at the end of the first week and a teacher reflected, “I am in love with team teaching. Every teacher in New Zealand should find ways to do it and give the kids of New Zealand this incredible opportunity for accessing learning at a completely different level than we can do by ourselves in single classrooms.”

And I agreed and then I just kept the meeting going. But I shouldn't have. I should have stopped then and there and done something momentous. 

Because I nearly cried when I heard that. It’s all been worth it. The sweat, the tears, the joys, the debates, the cajoling and the facilitating. After three years of planning and working towards it, we are in our new school buildings and teachers are finally able to truly work together in learning communities with large groups of students of mixed ages. 

I became convinced of the merits and advantages of team teaching many years ago- way before the advent of MLE (Modern Learning Environments). When I started team teaching in 2002 we literally cut a hole between two classrooms with a chainsaw one night so that we had a shared space. There were no beanbags and very little technology. We created individual timetables on papers and fought a lot of big and little suspicions about why we were doing it, from people who were terrified that the change might be forced upon them.

What you gain as a teacher working in a larger space with other teachers and larger numbers of students is comprehensive. It is the best professional learning I’ve ever done, and continue to do. And it makes you a much better teacher. You have to think about, and discuss everything you do. It is tiring, it is exhausting and sometimes you just want to shut yourself in your own room and do your own thing. But the benefits for those kids you have the privilege of learning with and responsibility for are extreme. I’ve always said my teaching became exponentially better the first year I started team teaching, and I truly believe that. It has continued to become exponentially better every opportunity I’ve had to team teach in the last 12 years.

To see that vision for team teaching come alive across a whole school- not just a primary school but a school encompassing Year 1-13, and to see groups of mixed ages learning together successfully is truly exciting. To see their learning truly focussed on an integrated inquiry focused curriculum instead of focused on separate learning areas right through to Year 13 is true life long learning.

It’s exciting and mostly unchartered territory and its no longer just the territory of new schools in major cities which tend to be in higher socio economic areas.

We've done it while working with these kids for the last three years. We didn’t have the privilege of a years planning and thinking time without our students on board. We started with our kids three years ago in run down temporary buildings. We had a full roll from Day 1- none of the opportunities building a year group at a time gives some new schools to really refine their practice a year at a time. 

Our kids aren’t necessarily the most well prepared for school. Some come having rarely seen a book. Most don't have internet at home, and many battle a lot of social demons on their path to adulthood.

But they deserve this stuff as much as any young person in a privileged big new city school in Auckland or Tauranga or Wellington.

In fact this is imperative for them. We are here to help them make a real difference to what the rest of their lives can be. And by working together in teams of teachers with groups of students I passionately believe we’ve got a much better chance of doing that.

Why would we continue to imitate- and poorly because of our size- a secondary system that has dismally failed some of our most vulnerable learners for years? 

Why would we, when our kids live such whanau based lives, continue to segregate kids by year groups?

Our young people have adapted over three years to a very different schooling system. The benefits of time and the energy of a small bunch of committed and caring educators who have worked tirelessly against some back breaking physical conditions at times have helped, but our kids are the ones who have adapted the most despite their initial suspicions and misgivings at something that was so different from their understanding of what school should “look like.”

Now we are in our very own purpose built MLE they are thriving, but only because that vision for learning started three years ago, way before we moved into the flash buildings or new “modern” furniture.

Change is scary for everyone. I think its probably much scarier for adults than for young people. But I say to the teachers out there, still convincing themselves that THEY need their own classroom and THEIR own control, who is it all about? Who is the future for? And if you are still doing the same thing you were doing in a classroom even 10 years ago- even if it was excellent practice then- is it really serving the young people trusting in you the best?

Ive heard it said before- the way our classrooms have operated for years doesn't just need tweaking, it needs to be completely overhauled. Don’t use the excuses that you don’t have the property, or the flash stuff, or the leadership team is against it. Three or four teacher heads in a classroom with 60-75 kids is going to move each kid so much further than one head focused on 25 kids. And teachers need to let go of a fair bit of the ego that is present in many single cell classrooms to achieve that. 

And it is our most vulnerable learners that need this the most.

Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.

-Helen Keller

Who Are Schools For?

Want to be Queen or King of your own little kingdom?
Have total control over 30 young people every day?
Have complete domination over what happens in the four walls of your classroom when the door is closed?

Be a teacher. Or at least that's how it used to be.

Today it's not, or it shouldn't be, about the teacher having control or about the teacher being comfortable. And it certainly shouldn't be about change in pedagogy and practice happening at the rate the teacher is ready for.

What should it be about?

It should most definitely be about the learners.

If we know that, without doubt,every child learns at a different rate and in a different order than each other, then how are we possibly meeting their needs by teaching them all the same thing, in the same way at the same time?

If we know that we learn from a range of other people- old, young, similar, different to us, then how are we meeting our learners needs by putting them in a classroom with only people of a very similar age?

If we know that we learn best when the learning is relevant to ourselves, why is so much of what happens in schools "just in case" learning?

If we know that we learn best using multiple strategies and with different people at different times, why do we insist on putting 30 students together with one adult and creating a dependency on one person?

How would it look if we had learners from multiple years together?

How would it look if the learning was based primarily and significantly on learners inquiries and the teachers role was to facilitate the learning and help the learners focus on their next learning steps, on an individual basis?

How would it look if we had multiple teachers working with larger groups of students sharing responsibilities for all learners as appropriate?

How would it look if students had a real say in constructing their school day, week and year?

At Te Karaka Area School these are all things we are doing.

Teams of teachers work together to plan and meet the learning needs of a group of multi-year students.
Learning has been de-privatised. Teachers don't own a classroom at TKAS. Learning spaces are multi functional and continually being re arranged. They are for learning, not for teachers to claim ownership of. There are no four walls to an individual classroom that can be closed off to give a teacher unlimited control and power.
Furniture and spaces are flexible, students constantly rearrange furniture to suit the purpose of what they are doing.
Technology is used to support learning anywhere, any place.

It's not about waiting for teachers to be ready. It's not about teachers needing control over their own space.  It's about learners, what they need, and how to empower and support them to get there.

Want to see a community with 50-60 students ranging in ages over five chronological years all learning together?
Want to see how students, even those with limited literacy skills, can take real ownership of their school day and week through constructing their own learning and timetables?
Want to see what it looks like when 60 students in a community are all inquiring into different things?
Want to see teachers truly collaborating and taking collective responsibility of student learning?

Take some time out and come and see TKAS for yourself.
Or enter into an online discussion with us about why and how we think this is the best possible way for our young people to be learning.

A Real World Web of Inquiry

I cannot remember another time in my adult life when I've learnt as much and as fast as I have in the last little while.My learning might not have been miraculous or world changing for other people, but it has been for me.

1. I learnt to read a map.

One of our TKAS colleagues has been travelling around Europe for the last few months and it's been really interesting hearing him reflect on the places he's gone, the things he has learnt, and how he thinks he will apply that back at school in the classroom.
After he spent the day at the Louvre a few weeks ago, Jono had an inspiration about a web of inquiry.

Read about it here:   The Web Of Inquiry

Experiment, Engage, Explore, Explain

I've been teaching using an inquiry philosophy and a lot of different processes for many years now but was immediately struck by the simplicity of this web. And we quickly agreed we would base our learning programmes in our middle  years learning community at TKAS around this web in 2014.

Over the last fortnight I met up with Jono and we have done some travelling together. I don't read maps well and he knew that. In fact I read them really badly. I was quite happy to rely on him to do all the map reading. But as we started walking around a strange city I started getting the questions: "Do you know where we are now? Work out where in the map we are?"

Now to be honest I didn't really want to know. I didn't really see much purpose to learning my way around a city I would be in for six days. And I know I can't read maps! I've got through nearly 50 years without it, why start now?

So I made a half hearted attempt to answer and was quite happy really to just follow his directions. But over the next couple of days every couple of corners he continued experimenting with the same questions, talking about landmarks, planning where to go next and slowly and irresistibly I was drawn in. I was actually engaged. I actually sincerely started wanting to know how to do this and believing in myself that I could. The encouragement from someone else and the belief that I could actually learn this helped. From there came true exploration. I was willing to ask questions and truly learn, and I enjoyed it and I got satisfaction from it. I was learning for myself, not to please someone else.

I'm still not great. And when left to myself I did get lost, but that's because I managed to get myself completely off the map. But by then I had learnt enough skills and pointers to gradually get myself back on the map.And later I could look at the map and explain where I went wrong, a positive step in not making the same error next time.

2. I also learnt to set up and administer an online forum.

Jono talked to me at length about the possibilities and advantages of using an online forum more than 6 months ago and I didn't really see the advantage over what we were currently using.
But as we started planning for the next year ahead- both for our classes, and for school wide events and information, Jono kept exposing the possibilities of a forum.

So about 6weeks ago we started experimenting with setting one up. Over the next few weeks I experimented every now and then, trying out different things. Gradually I became more and more interested in what they could do, and how powerful they could be. I was engaged. From there exploration happened quite naturally. Looking up how to do something, asking Jono to show me some things and linking back to experimenting at times.

 Two very different learning experiences with a common thread that has actually changed significantly the way I am going to approach inquiry in the classroom.

I always thought engagement had to come first, but how much engagement do we get that is true engagement as opposed to learning something to please someone else?
I had to experiment before I could get true authentic engagement. And I would suggest adding expose in there as well. Sometimes experiment might be difficult but we can expose our learners to the possibilities in something in order to engage them.

The fact is I've had these two powerful learning experiences and we haven't actually been talking about Jonos web of inquiry at all, it just occurred naturally. But when we were chatting about the highlights of the last couple of weeks before I left yesterday, and I started thinking about why this learning had been powerful we both realised how closely it aligned to his web of inquiry.
I was already fully committed to using it as the base of our teaching this year. Now I am truly excited by the possibilities.

Reflection- A Powerful Tool

Whether something goes right or something goes wrong.....reflect on it and learn from it.

I've always been a strong believer in the power of reflection for empowering our learning. This morning I experienced first hand the power of reflection in a real life learning situation.

I'm travelling at the moment. I'm not an experienced traveller, and for me, that makes me not a very confident traveller. And I got completely lost while in transit. I was in a foreign country, I couldn't understand the signs or the people, the airport was huge and I had become separated from the person I was travelling with. It was early and none of the information desks were manned.
And I quickly became overwhelmed and panicked. Everything I should have done went out the window for a little while. I just shut down and couldn't think or operate. 
After quite a while, I settled my thinking enough to work out a plan and pretty soon all was okay. I figured out a place to go to and we met back up. The story might have ended there, with me feeling like I'd really mucked up and feeling embarrassed and pretty small.

But the powerful thing was that maybe an hour later, when I'd calmed down enough to have a rational conversation, the person I was travelling with asked me some questions that made me reflect, not just on my actions but my reactions. Just a few  powerful questions, that made me reflect on what had happened and what I could learn from it.

After that incident but without that conversation I would be feeling even less confident as a traveller now. But because of that reflective conversation facilitated by a couple of well worded questions, I've learnt from it in a positive way and probably have even gained in confidence in my ability to handle a similar situation in the future.

How often do kids feel overwhelmed  like this in our classrooms and we don't even realise it?

How often do we have good intentions to reflect with students in our classes but it gets dropped off the end because we run out of time? How  well do we develop and use the right questions to help our students reflect on their experiences and learn from them?

I've always known reflection was really important in a classroom. This morning I realised how much reflection is important for real learning, and I also realised reflections can be even more powerful if completed collaboratively. And that to make an honest reflection you need  to have trust in the person facilitating the reflection.

We need to teach everyone- teachers and students- to question other students in ways that will make them confront their own actions and reactions.

"Learning to learn, or the development of learning power, is getting better at knowing when, how and what to do when you don't know what to do' It is about unpacking, understanding, constructing a response to a situation or problem. Reflection is also about developing, building upon, and in some cases, changing existing behaviour and practice."  Guy Claxton


Without that reflective conversation this morning I could easily face the same situation and do something similar. Now I'm pretty sure I won't because someone took the time to have a collaborative and reflective conversation with me about my actions and my reactions.

How do we ensure we do this for our students both after their moments of clarity and/or their moments of overwhelming panic? How do we ensure we give them every opportunity to reflect about not just their actions but their reactions as well? And ultimately to learn from them?

Something to think about as we start preparing for the new school year. I am now thinking about how I can make our classroom reflections more collaborative and honest. And I'm  going to remember to focus reflections as much on reactions as on actions. And the implications from these reflections for further learning.