Unconditional teaching- be ready when a student chooses you...

flickr CC image via RachelLovesToLaugh

 "The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for." - Bob Marley

I've spent a considerable amount of time during my career working with kids from at-risk environments. I say from at-risk environments purposely as opposed to kids at-risk because in the vast majority of cases, these children have had absolutely no part in putting themselves at-risk... they haven't chosen to be that way. Risk in the social-emotional, behavioral, economic, mental or any other all fall in the domain of the adult. Sadly, but undeniably, when adults are experiencing risk, the environment that results will affect the kids exposed to it.

I have met and worked with hundreds of resilient kids who have found ways to endure, and overcome these risk environments. The overwhelming majority have done this by seeking and depending on responsible adults to support their effort. Regarding the most overwhelming problems facing kids today, I would go out on a limb and say that it would take the rarest of individuals who could overcome them alone. We have to be ready when a child chooses one of us as the responsible adult he thinks will be able to help.

Often, the at-risk environments these kids experience include situational violence that can be hard to displace; even when they aren't directly threatened by it. In school, whether through their actions, feelings or words, these kids will typically be perceived as the more violent variety, and this is off-putting to many who work with them. However, besides the generalized violence we see in these kids, what if there was a deliberate purpose to their presentation?

I believe that many of the most adversarial kids in school are the ones that need our help the most, and they're also the ones who have developed an ingenious strategy to filter the proverbial wheat from the chafe, so to speak. Kids who know pain, know how to wield pain... so that's what they do. They do this because they want to determine, very simply, who will take it and still be there the next day to do it all over again- they do it to find out which teachers believe they are worth suffering for.

We are always hardest on those who we're closest to because we feel safe that they will stick with us. We know that their unconditional love is displayed through a lack of judgment, acceptance of our faults and through a willingness to share our pain holding hands together toward a better future.

Next time a student is making your day miserable, ask yourself why because it just may be that you're the one he wants to believe he's worth suffering for.

Is Testing Education's Red Herring?

flickr CC image via timparkinson

I'm blown away by the volume of Twitter posts addressing the issue of testing in education. An inordinate amount of time and energy is being spent on the controversy, and I'm of the opinion that this is taking us away from the real task of getting on with creating effective strategies addressing the assessment challenge, and also from other educational issues that have been pushed aside by the volume of debate over testing. Before you get all riled up about the title of this post, hear me out just a bit.

• I'm all for improving the manner in which we assess and evaluate students... we should never, never stop doing this.
• There are undoubtedly strong arguments favouring alternatives to high-stakes, one shot win or lose forms of summative assessment.
• We must evaluate students if we are to call ourselves professionals. To do so is responsible, necessary and important professional work.

I worry that the frenetic pace with which teachers around the world are slamming traditional forms of assessment is taking away from the real work of suggesting viable alternatives, and I don't mean alternatives that are so far removed from conventional wisdom that they don't have a chance in you know where of becoming common practice. There are logistical problems... how do we ensure that all kids are assessed fairly and comprehensively to establish appropriate educational transition plans, and to ensure that every one of them feels supported and enabled to approach their dreams without prejudice? This is no small task. I hear a lot of statements about what is wrong with the state of assessment in education, but beyond the regular "ban multiple choice exams" rhetoric, (perhaps there are viable alternatives,) I don't hear many really solid solutions to the problem... just bandwagon-jumping complaints addressing the inadequacy and inappropriateness of conventional testing methods.

Like it or not, education can't happen for free, and as long as taxpayers are paying government to provide an education system, there will be requirements for government to be accountable to them for their investment. This is not inherently bad really, is it? In turn, why shouldn't the education system be expected to be accountable for its investment in learning? It's not whether we should be accountable for what we do in education, but rather how we'll be accountable, that we should be discussing intelligently and openly. Whether students, parents, teachers or government, we should all be targeting the same outcomes surrounding and supporting student success... why not do this collaboratively in their best interests?

Cardinal rule  number one when making decisions affecting how we support kids- ask whether the decision is in their best interest to the exclusion of any other variable. If the answer is yes, you're likely on the right track, and I refuse to believe there is as agenda out there that intentionally damages kids... no matter the group, we need to default to a perspective that assumes people are doing the best they can for kids with the knowledge and experience they represent, and if that's not enough, we need to talk rationally about why, and where to go next.

Let's stop bandwagon-jumping and get talking about alternatives that have hope; alternatives that are viable enough to satisfy the testing gods on high because their effectiveness is undeniable. Let's be smarter than the problem. Let's do our homework, and instead of illuminating the problem, let's illuminate some solutions.

The intangibility of change...

 

There is a sort of natural selection process inherent in a paradigm shift. At the brink of change, people need to see for themselves that prior understanding and perspectives don't serve the purpose they once did. People need to implicitly feel that what has worked in the past is not working anymore, and before this happens no amount of coercion, convincing, ordering, whining or manipulating will make a paradigm... shift.

Change surrounds us within contemporary education... and as usual, it's whipping us all up into a frenzy. Everyone has an opinion, and many aren't shy to share theirs. Many claim to have a better way, a better program or a better philosophy... and their focus appears often to want to sell these to the rest of us as if they can will or force a paradigm to shift. I don't think this is possible if a shift is expected to be embraced and sustainable. I learned a long time ago that I can't change people... people need to experience the need for change on their own terms; it has to be a visceral process for them. So why do we insist on "changing" others if we understand change must come from within; it has to be intrinsically motivated. I think we need to change our attitude toward change.

We seem to perceive change in teaching and learning as a variable. I'm more inclined to view change as a constant. This is my perspective... how I function as a change agent on my terms. I don't believe that 'change' should be considered a means to an end, or an end to a means. I contextualize change in a different frame. I view change simply as the process all educators should embrace; the process of improvement, not toward an end, but rather as a perpetual process. We seem to want to target the 'preferred' or 'optimal' teaching and learning environment as if once attained, we're good to go. There is no preferred educational environment because there is always room to improve. Through meta-reflection and ongoing analysis of what teachers do and how they do it, change (improvement) would become a habit as opposed to a process that many perceive is imposed upon them, and that they have no ownership or investment in. When 'change' in education is reduced to a process imposed by others to improve the state of what we do, what we have is not a culture of change but rather a process of change.

If we were to cast a model of the 'perfect school', what would it look like anyway? Would we be happy with this model forever? Likely not... things change and evolve naturally; why fight this tendency? The Tao Teh Ching written by Lao Tzu, to me is a book essentially about change, and I read it daily. Written more than 2000 years ago, the timeless wisdom it contains is difficult to refute. I appreciate the perspective of Lao Tzu on the usefulness of intangibility, and change is certainly an intangible entity... or at least it should be...

Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.
We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.
Thus, while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful.

Let's embrace the intangible nature of change and stop trying to control so much of what we do to the point of impossibility. Own change as a cultural element; make it what you do everyday as opposed to a process you initiate when all of a sudden what you used to do, doesn't work anymore. Welcome change as a natural state of improvement; go with it, don't fight it.

Go easy on people, and hard on improving ideas...

Iconoclast:
n
One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.

 flickr photo via NASA Goddard Photo and Video

I think we perceive the value and purpose of debate all wrong. Our tendency to take a polarized view (aka disagreement) between two sides of a concept and argue opposite sides until one "wins" the debate is perhaps less effective in today's world than it has been in the simpler, more black and white world of the past (at least from our perspective... I'm sure the world to contemporaries in history was every bit as complex to them as ours is to us today.)

In virtually every element of our human lives, decisions need to be made... politics, business, education, family, relationships... humans have been blessed with the ability to think rationally, (or perhaps cursed depending on your perspective.) This being said, so much energy and emotional investment is dedicated to the decision itself, that the nuances of the idea or concept being argued often get lost in the shuffle. This is not good. We get hung up on 'winning' our precious debate, and ultimately deny our rational thinking abilities in favor of power and control over our opponent in the debate. Nothing good comes from this phenomena in relation to the advancement of the idea or concept we should be focusing less subjectively on.

Opinions are opinions and should be stated as such; we're all entitled to them. A wise person will never argue opinions. Conversely, facts are also facts, and when stated with support, can be argued very effectively. Not all facts are opinions, and not all opinions are facts, but some of both are the other... this is where it gets convoluted. It's the grey area between opinions and facts that breeds dissension in a debate resulting in an adversarial environment; one that seldom leads to a good decision.

This post may seem inherently ironic. Here I am suggesting that iconoclastic thinking is hazardous if we intend to move ideas forward diplomatically and thoughtfully because it assumes that traditional or popular ideas or institutions are all bad, and I'm positing rather iconoclastically that traditional polarized debate is all bad, and we should radically change the way we come to decisions. I'm actually not, though. What I propose is a model of debate and decision making that involves dissonance to be sure, but also a presupposition that it is the dissonance within the argument that must be resolved, not defeated.

Dissonance is a word that connotes the unresolved or inharmonious. What if both sides of a debate focused on the resolution of the dissonant concept not by attempting to strengthen their respective positions, but rather by choosing to make their effort strengthening the positions of their opponent? I'm talking about an integrative process whereby each side of the debate looks at the positions of the other side, and  ultimately chooses to discuss each stance that would be acceptable to their side; what they could live with... a process where the dissonant nature of the argument would start to move toward the middle as opposed to the outer reaches. Unlike a battle that one side must win, and one must lose, this model suggests that it is the concept or idea that's being discussed that must win the day, or perhaps be discarded for a better one.

These are some of the thoughts I had while reading Roger Martin. For more on what he calls integrative thinking, I suggest you pick up a copy of The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking.

"I need another note..."

Those of us who are privileged to work in schools need to be aware of  how the slightest act can lead to a massive realization on behalf of one of our disciples... we need to take this element very seriously. I have many stories of exceptional teachers who knew this implicitly.

My career has provided the opportunity to witness some pretty incredible people working very effectively with kids that not too many would be successful with. During my eight years working exclusively with kids from at-risk environments in a congregated special education context, (in Alberta the Department of Education designates these kids under code 42- those manifesting severe emotional/behavioral difficulties... I just coded them as needing someone to believe in them,) I was dumbfounded at the levels of resiliency these kids displayed, and profoundly saddened at the same time as a result of being forced to know what they were overcoming on some days just to make it to school at all. I took the long way home many days during those eight years. At the same time, I was repeatedly encouraged by my exposure to levels of with-it-ness in my colleagues that were off the charts when dealing with these kids' stories.

One such story popped into my thoughts today as I was writing about a colleague in another post- We need schools where "everybody knows your name." Dan McDonald taught in our Behavior Program for ninth and tenth grade kids. One day as Dan tells the story, a young girl arrived at school in a particular state of anxiety. She was pregnant, and the world was weighing heavily on her... that much was obvious. Never judgemental, Dan and his support staff watched her closely that afternoon, looking for any clue that may help tell her story that day. In the gentle conversations that ensued it became apparent that the girl was at her wits end with life in general, and she was planning to get loaded that Friday night... to drink and smoke her sorrows away. As the day wore on, and the staff became increasingly convinced that this young girl was serious, Dan came up with the best 'think-on-your-feet' plan he could; he told the girl she wasn't going to do that.

The response was painfully predictable... "yes I am!", the girl said. Dan reiterated, "no you're not," and she responded, "what the hell are you going to do about it?" Without really knowing what he was going to do if he was being totally honest, Dan blurted out the first thing that came to his mind; he said to one of the support staff members, "Ethel, what are we going to do about it?" Her response was equally off-the-cuff... "write her a note," she said. So Dan did just that; he wrote her a note indicating all of those reasons why she should not go get loaded as she seemed so intent to do that particular Friday night. She took the note, left for the weekend, and they didn't give it another thought beyond adding it to the generalized concern they felt for their students every Friday night.

Flash-forward about a year...
The girl in question had left the school to care for her newborn baby, and as often happened, one day she came back to the school to visit with her child. Dan and his staff never turned these kids away when this happened; it was as if they had a homing instinct that brought them back, and it was important that they were accepted and welcomed. This visit was a bit different, however. They were talking and holding the baby, getting caught-up with the goings-on of the last year or so in the young girl's life, but the conversation went on for much longer than was usually the case. An hour or so after she arrived, when most of what was usually talked about had already been talked about, Dan sensed there may be something else this girl needed, so he asked exactly that... "not that we are rushing you away or anything, but is there something else you need today, because we really should get back to our lessons for the day." The girl started crying and simply said, "yes, I need another note."

Never underestimate the power of small, seemingly insignificant acts of caring... you might be the only one in a young person's life who took the time to perform them.