Personal Learning Stories

flickr CC image via Enokson

As a former special education teacher, I have had numerous opportunities to develop individual education plans (IEP) for students. Like many things special education teachers do for their students, I was left wondering why writing IEP's wouldn't be a good idea for every student. The process of developing a learner profile that addresses learning strengths and challenges, and then the setting of goals to address both seems quite logical, doesn't it? I believe that every student has a story, and I think of that story as containing three main components: the student's past; the student's present and the student's future. In a more specific context for me as the teacher, these components translate into the story I need to learn about (past), the story I need to help write (present) and the story with the happy ending (future).

As I continued to write, and re-write IEP's every year, I realized that an effective plan wasn't just one to guide learning. For me, IEP's took on a life of their own, and I began to think of them as organic and fluid; it was necessary for the IEP's to change and evolve as the students they were written for changed and evolved. I realized that the IEP was really just a story about where the student came from, where the student is 'right now' and lastly, where the student wants to be someday as a result of the learning effort he/she makes.

To effectively support students, I believe that in the context of this personalized learning approach, we have to begin at kindergarten and, pedagogically speaking, consider education as a 13 year learning story. Every student's story would begin with the IEP renamed as the 'Personal Learning Story' in Kindergarten, and this document would be passed on with the student all the way to graduation detailing challenges, goals and most importantly, successes achieved along the way. Consider the assessment possibilities that could be aligned with this form of tangible documentation... a world of possibilities providing much more insight into the individual student than a 13 year compilation of letter grades or percentile rankings.

Above all in education, the student must feel a sense of empowerment and control over his/her learning. We all write the best stories about ourselves; our experiences, thoughts, feeling, actions and words. Let's consider allowing kids to be the authors of their own learning- let's give them the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the process. The result will be a tangibly increased sense of authenticity in our classrooms, and a renewed sense of responsibility for learning on behalf of students.

Perspective...

flickr CC image via LaPrimaDonna

No matter what I do or what situations I find myself in, I am realizing more and more over time that it's all about perspective.

I am many things: a teacher; father; husband; son; employee; leader, and no matter what role I'm playing, I have found it increasingly valuable and enlightening to seek perspective. I have mine, but it changes with the moods and experiences I have. Taking the deliberate time to reflect on my perspective, my 'meta-perspective' allows me to adjust as I gain clarity, objectivity and distance from the emotional side of my point of view, (the part that is seldom, if ever, non-biased.)

Reciprocally, taking the time to consider the perspectives of those around me, particularly those who are struggling emotionally with an issue, has allowed me to also gain clarity, objectivity and distance from the emotionality of their point of view; to take a rather clinical approach, if you will, toward understanding what they are thinking, feeling and experiencing, and how or why their actions may be correlated. My growing skill has proven to be invaluable.

Behind every confrontation, every misunderstanding and every flawed communication is a set of variables that set the stage... a story that leads in a quantum manner toward the trouble. Getting to that story and understanding those variables is the key to avoiding, or at least reducing the negative effect of the trouble. If we can make a sincere effort to understand where others are coming from, (even if we can't ever truly know how they feel, we can at least attempt to see what they see,) we can then retell their story in personal terms that allow us to adjust our reaction appropriately. Interpersonally speaking, to deal with the trouble at face value without knowing the story behind it is unproductive and usually leads to further symptomatic escalation... more confrontation, misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Do something smart... don't just put yourself in the shoes of those that challenge your patience, put yourself in their heads. Your response will be calm, objective, intelligent and appropriate... elements that, generally speaking, lead to improved relations.

Control...

flickr CC image via ms. Tea

Uncontrolled Thoughts on Control:

Students don't often fit very well into the assessment categories we have established. They develop at their own pace, reach milestones on their terms and hold a perspective that is theirs alone and impossible for us to decipher, yet when we are pressed to evaluate their progress, we do so in comparison to benchmark standards that we as educators have subjectively designated.

When educators prescribe standards of achievement that target a classic Gaussian Probability Distribution, or bell curve outcome, we are essentially rejecting the quantum possibilities that originate within the standard deviations that fall outside the curve.

Virtually any black swan event in history that I'm aware of originated outside the curve, so to speak. Genuinely earth shattering ideas don't often originate somewhere in the mean.

Perhaps in our quest for ultimate control over student outcomes, we have actually lost control... that is, any amount that may have been within our grasp in the realm of learning and its infinite possibilities.

Gender Equity?

The original post here was published on January 19, 2010. Much has changed since that day regarding the way we perceive gender and how that impacts people in schools. I have updated the post, and invite any and all feedback...

Today as I sat listening to Dr. Leonard Sax, author of "Why Gender Matters" and "Boys Adrift," I found myself reflecting on the issue of gender equality in schools. I struggle to understand what the term 'gender equity' should mean to education; what are the pedagogical implications of this term? Is our goal to preserve an educational environment that produces equal proportions of academically successful boys and girls, or should we be targeting an educational environment that promotes optimal academic performance of both boys and girls in a gender specific context without worrying so much which gender is 'in the lead'?

*Today, January 17, 2022 roughly 12 years after this post was written, much has changed in how we perceive and approach gender issues in schools. Gender equity now includes a myriad of gender identities beyond the gender binary perspective we were relatively locked into back then. Regarding "equity" in schools, we are now responsible to recognize and ensure all people are represented with a requisite and consistent degree of respect and acceptance.

It's not a mystery that boys and girls are different. Gender differences are obviously very prominent within the human race. Generally speaking, boys and girls think, speak and act differently... in my opinion this is a reality worthy of celebration. A diverse environment that combines both the male and female perspectives seems to me to be one that would lead to some really good creative and integrative thinking. In the education system however, I'm not sure that we celebrate gender differences.

*We certainly did not; not even when we basically recognized gender binary as the only norm. Today we recognize that there are multiple representations of gender among the people we share our time and space with in schools every day.

The pull toward the mean in education is an omnipresent reality. This  principle seems to overshadow how we look at the achievement of boys and girls exclusive of each other; we judge them both by the same criteria... we target an achievement curve based on a curriculum that doesn't delineate between the achievement of boys compared to girls; we teach and judge boys and girls on the same criteria. I think we may be doing a disservice to both as a result. What if educators were to know more about how boys and girls learn differently, and understand that because of this, they also need to be assessed differently? Would this new awareness lead to improved practise and more vibrant teaching?

*Updating my perspective on the above, I believe that people learn differently... no matter what they identify as, no matter what their pronouns are, all need to be understood on their terms so we can work most effectively in support of their learning needs.

Something Dr. Sax said this morning is resonating with me. He said "if you understand gender differences, you can then break down gender stereotypes." I believe teachers need to be more aware of the differences between boys and girls, how they learn and how they should be assessed. This 'understanding of gender differences' would serve not only to break down gender stereotypes, but also to facilitate the diverse, creative and integrative learning environment I believe we should be moving toward. Perhaps we should be less attuned to the gaps between performance based on non-gender specific outcomes, and more concerned about teaching in a gender specific context that recognizes and celebrates the nuances of the male and female perspectives. We should be taking measures and making adjustments to accommodate both boys and girls in school, and then observe how these efforts alter the achievement gap between them.

*In today's terms, the above should read... Perhaps we should be less attuned to the gaps between performance based on non-gender specific outcomes, and more concerned about teaching in a gender specific context that recognizes and celebrates the nuances of all gender perspectives. We should be taking measures and making adjustments to accommodate everyone in school, and then observe how these efforts alter the achievement gaps between them.

Black Swans...

The "Black Swan"  by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is one of the most thought provoking and brilliant books I have ever read. Taleb uses the term 'black swan' to describe a highly unpredictable event that, having occurred, is treated as if it was highly predictable. Often we will say about this sort of occurence that "we saw that one coming," or "it was bound to happen sooner or later." We seem to have an intense need to justify, predict and control everything that happens in our chaotic world. If contemporary, western society was to make a summative statement intended to describe our point of view within the realm of science, our scientific raison d'etre, I believe the statement would read something like, "control; that is our science."

 Random Thoughts on Randomness:

• The perpetual urgency we feel to understand, rationalize, analyze and manipulate our world may very-well be the element of our consciousness that is preventing us from truly and deeply understanding our world.
• Re. the "order" of our world... what if disorder is actually the natural order and our compulsion toward control and manipulation of everything is what drives us further and further away from this naturally occurring "disordered" state?
• Releasing our compulsion toward controlling everything may very well create an environment where we are open to possibilities previously considered impossible.
• Transformation is possible, however, change that transforms is impossible when we operate in a context of right and wrong... true intellect is the willingess to admit that we know little, and that we have everything to learn. The space between right and wrong, and perhaps even more importantly, the space beyond right and wrong contain the undiscovered truths I'm interested in finding.
• Assuming the world exists in a random and disordered state, positing that this is actually the natural order of our world elicits a cosmic irony.

I'm a teacher, and my intent with this post is to initiate a dialogue exploring the spectrum from randomness to order.

Traditional educational models include many practices designed to control outcomes of the teaching and learning continuum. This is our 'order.' Every day I'm confronted with the responsibility and necessity to evaluate student progress. This may very well be the ultimate challenge for teachers. We continually ask ourselves what our students know, and how they can prove it to us so we may make a statement about what they have achieved; how much knowledge they have absorbed. All of this is juxtapositioned against the standards we have established for this knowledge; our curriculum. By doing so we're essentially establishing control over what students learn, how they learn it and how they display their learning. What if this particular form of order and control process is the wrong way to do it? What would be the alternative? I don't have the answers to either of these questions, but perhaps you do...