Written by a group of recently retired school superintendents in Manitoba:

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL MANITOBANS

We, the undersigned, call on the Government of Manitoba to reconsider its intention to pursue the passage of Bill 64 – The Education Modernization Act for the purpose of allowing greater public dialogue on the advisability of the changes proposed therein.

Until March 15, 2021 the Manitoba education system was often the envy of other Canadian provinces, our American neighbours and our international friends, particularly those in the OECD countries. As Manitoba superintendents we took our role as educational leaders on the forefront of educational advancement seriously, enthusiastically embracing made-in-Manitoba solutions to social, economic and political challenges, and carrying them to all corners of the earth in leadership roles beyond Manitoba. We were often asked by our colleagues far and near, “how are your new initiatives possible?”

Our response inevitably included the facts that we worked in a non-partisan environment, where children and the public good were given primary consideration, and everyone – the government, the ministry, boards of trustees, superintendents, principals, teachers, and communities worked together on matters of common interest. We did not care where ideas came from or whose ideas they were – they were ideas to be shared and agreed upon. We celebrated and publicized each others’ initiatives and achievements as if they were our own, and we learned from each other. And we assumed that, if an idea had merit in pursuit of education for all, all would support it and each other. Not to be taken for granted any more.

As just a few examples of Manitoba leadership in education:

On Sustainability Education

Our Deputy Minister of the day, supported by all educational partners, took a Manitoba sustainability education agenda to the United Nations and worldwide, always acknowledging that this was a collective enterprise in development and implementation.

On Educational Response to Child Poverty

The Manitoba Association of School Trustees (MAST), now the Manitoba School Boards Association (MSBA), supported by the Manitoba Association of School Superintendents (MASS), initiated a Canada-wide discussion on the educational consequences of child poverty. This conversation, which is continuing to this day, has resulted in hundreds of school projects, and collaboration with the Social Planning Council, addressing the needs of poor children and families at the community school level.

Mental Health Education and Supports

MASS initiated a study and focus on the relationship between the mental health of students and their educational experiences addressing how schools might attend to mental health concerns, something which has proved to be prescient in light of the current pandemic. A first in North American education.

Social Justice Issues

The Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS), in support of Manitoba children, families, and teachers, took the lead, campaigning and advocating for gender rights and racial justice, and supported teachers working on other human rights and equality issues.

Inclusive Education and Accessibility

Originated by Manitoba parents, and supported by community organizations and the faculties of education, tremendous strides have been made in inclusivity and accessibility in school and other public places.

Indigenous Education

Manitoba is the home of the Manitoba First Nations School System (MFNSS), conceived by the Manitoba First Nations Resource Centre (MFNERC) in which over 10 First Nations combined their resources to enhance education for on-reserve children. It is another Manitoba first, the only one of its kind in Canada. It owes at least some of its success to the supportive efforts of MSBA, MASS, MTS, and Manitoba Education and the pioneering work of the Frontier School Division, also a Manitoba first, supported by governments of all stripes. One of the main features of Frontier is the partnership between over 10 First Nations and a public school system with elected trustees.

Accomplishments like this, of which there are too many to mention, are only possible where people trust each other, value and nurture their relationships and are not jealous of each others’ achievements –where they work together for something greater than themselves and their organizations. Not caring who was recognized, or who got the credit, made these educational advancements as provincial triumphs into local, national and international contributions to the education and well-being of our children, our communities and our world.

Among other inaccurate contentions, Bill 64 is based on false and divisive premises and promises – of quality (test scores vs poverty); participation (individual parents vs school boards); collegiality and professionalism (principals vs teachers); and, efficiency (extreme centralization vs local discretion). Nowhere in the world have the solutions being advocated ended in the results being proclaimed. And everywhere in the world, extreme centralization has led to standard formula-driven prescriptions – one size-fits-all answers – insensitive to local differences and impervious to local input. And nowhere in the world have they increased trust in government.

The loss is magnified, loss of confidence in government accompanied by a breakdown in mutually beneficial relationships among the guardians of public schools. And the loss of the collective “people” power which has resulted in a continuous improvement of a system considered among the best in the world.

Bill 64, now being implemented by government even before it passes, places the relationships which led to our working together for better schools everywhere at risk. In the process it jeopardizes public education itself. For the sake of all Manitobans, and the future of Manitoba education, some of its provisions must be reconsidered. We urge all Manitobans to inform

themselves, and to let our politicians know that we expect better from them than this divisive and destructive bill.

RECENTLY RETIRED SUPERINTENDENTS

Coralie Bryant Ray Derksen Brian Gouriluk Scott Kwaznitza Ross Metcalfe Vern Reimer Winston Smith John Wiens

Karen Crozier Catherine Fidierchuk John Janzen

Paul Cuthbert Cam Giavedoni Ken Klassen Lawrence Lussier Strini Reddy

Roy Seidler Don Wiebe

Bob Cesmystruck
Arnold Dysart
Don Hurton
Pauline Lafond-Bouchard Brett Lough

Paul Moreau Jean-Yves Rochon Jerry Storie
David Yeo

Dan Reagan Janet Schubert Dave Swanson

Literacy starts with listening and speaking

A couple of months ago I read an article by Richard Allington in the ASCD's Educational Leadership: October 2014 entitled "Reading Moves - What Not to Do". 
In one part of the article, he references "the need for literate conversations".

Thinking about those "literate conversations":  I wonder how much of the difficulty for struggling readers originates in a paucity of oral language prior to ever learning to read, and then throughout the years that they're developing as readers.  How much more difficult it must be to make meaning of text (really just oral language committed to a secondary, visual form) when a child hasn't had the opportunity to "decode" anything beyond a trivial level of meaning in the conversations they've heard from birth.  This lack of oral fluency, and listening "fluency" (if there is such a thing) must translate into difficulty with the written word, I'd think.
 

In the latter part of the article, the author advocates for "turn, pair and share".  Okay, fine, if the children are capable of doing so fluently, intelligently.  What if they simply haven't the facility to do this well?  Repetition without a means of development can't reasonably lead to significant growth.  This is where modelling - students having an opportunity to repeatedly hear two (or more) literate people have a discussion - might be significant, and damnably difficult to create in a one teacher environment.

There are 6 identified language arts (here in MB, anyway).  Reading is the one we virtually obsess over; writing the poor sister who gets attention when we notice that she's being neglected.  The other four starve, really.  There may be speaking and listening in school, but I have no sense that we work very hard at actually improving these skills in classrooms.  Viewing and representing, sure, when we think of them; and at that, my uninformed observation is that we feel almost "clever" by including them - "Look how progressive we are by having students draw, create posters, create other visuals, record their voices, etc."  Is reading really the most central of the visual arts?  I don't think so; that centre, in my view, is the speaking and listening that we evolved to do.  Perhaps that's what we should be focusing on first with our struggling, nascent readers in K, 1, 2.  Help them learn to speak and listen with verbally rich language first, then indulge them in reading.  And maybe that isn't even an "either-or" proposition, but rather a choice of emphasis about which needs must come first.

Averaging grades? Just stop.

There is simply no acceptable reason to average a student's grades earlier in a course with those received nearer the end.

Every student deserves multiple chances to demonstrate his or her learning.  This may be through two or more different assessments that assess the same outcome(s).  It may also take place using redos/retakes of the same assessment (the teacher may require acceptable evidence that the student has undertaken subsequent learning before the redo).  It's not always easy, but it might also involve providing the student with an alternative form of assessment - better yet, that alternative is suggested by the student.

In either case, how can a teacher justify averaging the student's earlier "on the way" evidence of learning with later evidence that the student has progressed?  No matter how you slice it, that's punishing the student for not learning fast enough.  Why would we care if it takes a student 2 weeks, 5 weeks or 15 weeks to learn something?  What matters is that they get there.

Let's address some practical issues that might get in the way:

• Most importantly perhaps, common "grade books" encourage or practically mandate averaging grades throughout a course.  So?  If the practice is wrong, it's wrong, and while these grade books may be a practical barrier, they're not insurmountable.  In an earlier post, I published a spreadsheet that we created and use instead of a traditional grade book.  We'll share with anyone who'd like to contact me.  In addition, though we didn't find any stand-alone software that didn't automatically average throughout a term, our division is moving to PowerSchool as our student management software next year, and we understand that the capability to sidestep this averaging is built in.  If it's not, we'll sidestep that and find another way.

• This leads to accepting the role of teachers' professional judgment in determining a student's grade.  If it's not by averaging, how do we determine a student's final standing for a particular outcome?  The answer is to trust to teachers' judgment.  This determination should be based on the most recent and most consistent demonstrations of student learning.  It should "triangulate" that data with the teacher's conversations with the student, and with observations of the student's learning outside of formal summative assessments (though these latter should be primary determinants).  There should be no "math" involved in determining a student's learning for an outcome.  In determining an overall grade for a course, these outcome by outcome judgments will be appropriately weighted and combined to give that overall grade, but that's the only occasion for using math in grading.
• Administrators, are you uncomfortable with relying on teachers' professional judgment?  We put teachers in charge of students and their learning every day.  If these teachers can't be trusted, then we need to take responsibility for that, work with them to improve, and/or find better teachers.  We also need to acknowledge that teachers influence grades, profoundly, every day in their teaching, and every time they create an assessment toward that grade.  Teachers can move grades 10, 20, 30% or more up or down simply by changing the assessments themselves. That's silly, but it's true, so let's not put teachers in a straightjacket, even if it's sometimes of their own making.
• Percentages - how does a teacher exercise that judgment to pick a number between 0 and 100 to characterize learning?  The answer is that they don't.  We use a simple 4 point scale (again, described in an earlier post, and based on the province's report cards).  3 if the outcome has been met as prescribed, and 4 if the student exceeds the outcome or is extraordinarily proficient.  2 if the student has a "basic" but not yet all the way there level of learning, and 1 if it's just somewhat acceptable.  0, or better, "not yet" is used as a placeholder only, not a grade to be averaged.  We only convert to a percentage twice in a semester, for the sake of the report cards, and then only by provincial mandate.  No reasonable person can say they can discern the difference between 76% and 78%, and let's stop pretending that we can.
• What is the role of a final exam or other form of final assessment?  Well, it's a great opportunity to give a student that one last chance to demonstrate learning, if we do as we should, and assess each outcome separately from every other.  Our senior math/sciences teacher gives the exam to students in pieces, one outcome per piece.  Students choose which outcomes will comprise their final exam  in advance, as they know where they stand at all times in their learning, and choose these outcomes based on those which can stand to be improved upon.  This way, students are not required to reassure the teacher that they have learned that which they have already amply demonstrated.  They get to focus on the learning that is most important at that point instead.  Also, the final exam/other has no set weight.  Why should it?  Suppose a student has struggled with trigonometry throughout the course, has a breakthrough and "gets" it, and proves that on the final exam.  It doesn't make sense that this should only count for 30 or 40% of the final grade.  The student has learned it, as surely as the student who got it right from the beginning, and should be credited fully with that learning.

There's more, of course, and we're all getting at it in our #sblchat's and other forums.  There are a ton of good resources for learning more, online and in print.

The bottom line is that I don't believe this is really open to debate.  If we are averaging students' grades and giving significant weight to early-on demonstrations that they haven't yet learned something, then we are at fault.  That's not how it works in the "real world", so let's just fix this practice, once and for all.  

I'm struggling...

• with the dichotomy between those (of us) who push for child-centred reform in education, based on children's interests and passions; and those (of us) who remind us constantly of the reality of difficult, disinterested students who seem to remain so despite the best efforts of those teachers.  A year of Twitter has led to a ton of growth, but also significant frustration with those (of us) who sometimes preach without having to practice.  Humility in the presentation of alternatives to traditional paradigms is needed to prevent a hardening of position when teachers try out new ways of doing things, only to encounter unacknowledged difficulties.  Suggesting that "this will solve all your problems", even if it's not stated explicitly, sets others up for failure when success is hard to come by.
• to reconcile the huge promise of new technologies with the realities of insufficient funds to provide equity between students, and to provide consistent access, training and so on.  Also, there is the seeming disappearance of students almost right into their devices during breaks, lunch, and any other downtime they have.  It sure feels like something human is being lost, even as I myself have experienced the potential of learning with others from around the world. I know there are answers, and have some faith that we'll get to a better place with this, but it's scary sometimes as we're going down this road.
• to understand how staff (and not only teachers) who are no longer in this business, this vocation to make a positive difference in the lives of our children can continue to occupy a position that others would so gladly embrace, if only they were only given the chance.  It isn't necessary to be actively toxic to hurt our kids: it only takes a lack of caring, not spending time with them or being available to them, not doing the unseen preparation, to cause harm.  To be sure, there are a majority that are absolutely wonderful, often (mostly?) unsung.  It's also true that life sometimes gets in the way, and we (administrators) need to support staff through those times until they are ready to resume a wholehearted dedication to the welfare and growth of our students.  But, some have chosen, consciously or perhaps even subconsciously, to see the education of children as a casual pursuit and effort, saving their best for the rest of their lives.  That's just not good enough, not for this vocation, not for our kids.
• and other things - perhaps another post.

We (I) know that struggle is a part of the bargain in caring.  It's a good thing.  But it's not an easy thing!

SBG / SBL Post 4 Course Outlines

Fundamental principles of backward design and outcome based assessment dictate that teachers, students and parents should all have a common understanding of the outcomes in a course.

To that end, teachers have been asked to follow a common template in delineating those outcomes, and how they will be assessed (both formatively and summatively).

That template is provided below, as well as a completed example.

SBG / SBL Post 3 A Markbook for SBG

This third post on SBG / SBL is one page from a spreadsheet we created to support real outcome/standards based assessment.

In the spreadsheet, each student has their own page.  The master sheet is where we have the formulas, of course, as well as being where teachers enter both the particular outcomes for the course, and assessments they use to gauge student learning.

Note that we acknowledge that not all outcomes should be weighted equally.  This weighting is decided upon by the teacher, consulting the course curriculum document(s), of course.

Most importantly, grades assigned both within the spreadsheet, and at the bottom of the sheet are based on the teacher's professional judgement.  At the bottom, these assignations emphasize most recent/most consistent demonstrations of learning, and may include consideration of a student's conversations with the teacher, and observations made by the teacher outside of summative assessments. (i.e. triangulation of the data)

I'm afraid you'll likely have to zoom in on the page in order to better see some of the detail.

Underneath the spreadsheet page, you'll find an admittedly rough guide for teachers to assign the provincially mandated percentage to the 4 point scale grade the spreadsheet calculates for the weighted outcomes.

It should also be noted that we will often engage in credit recovery for students who have a failing grade at the end of the course.  Yes, a final grade may be failing due to not completing assessments (a behaviour, not a reflection of learning), but we will work to remediate the behaviour (and the grade) even after the course is completed and reported upon.

 

SBG / SBL Post 2 Presentation to parents

This second post is a PDF of a presentation prepared for parents, including our parent advisory council.

 It contains much of the same information as the flyer in Post 1, but with some more detail and, of course, a different format.


 

SBG / SBL Post 1 Mail out flyer on assessment

After a few #sbgchats and #sblchats, some folks have asked whether I'd share materials we use here at Ashern Central School. 

We're certainly more than willing to share, so rather than just doing so person by person by email, I'm posting PDF versions of some documents that we've used.

This first post is a flyer that was mailed out to parents prior to implmentation. It contains "the basics" of what we were planning.

Sunshine Blog - Musings

Happy New Year, Bonne annee tout le monde!

When Lori (@LoriEmilson) nominated me to do this today, I read her own sunshine blog post, and can totally agree about how easy it would be to procrastinate in responding.  Of course, the solution is to just get to it, so here goes:

The protocol for a sunshine post:

• Acknowledge the blogger who nominated you.
• Share 11 facts about myself.
• Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger created for me.
• Nominate 11 bloggers to respond to your questions.
• Post 11 questions for them.  

And now, 11 facts about myself (in no particular order):

• I do enjoy golf.  It was fun when I was bad and getting started.  It was fun when I got to be reasonably good at it some years ago.  And it's fun now, when I get fewer chances to play and am definitely seeing scores going in the wrong direction.  A golf course is a wonderful playground.
• I've been blessed with some opportunities to travel.  Six continents visited, and one to go (Antarctica).  Less of it in the past few years, with the principal's position sucking up so much time and energy, but it's all good, as they say.
• I tweeted a couple of days ago that I'm the luckiest guy in the world.  It's true, you know.  That's a decision, a frame of mind, an "attitude of gratitude", and I'm so lucky to have learned that from the people nearest and dearest to me.
• We have four budgies.  You wouldn't think anyone could so love a few little (relatively unresponsive) birds as my wife does, but how wonderful.
• I have "adopted" family in a lot of places: an adopted little sister in Japan; an adopted big sister in Cameroon; an adopted daughter (in the picture above) in France, and so on.  Barb and I couldn't have our own kids, but I've adopted all of the kids in my classes and now the whole school every year, even if they don't know it.
• I'd have bet big, big money I'd never have a Twitter account or a blog.  Glad I didn't bet that money!
• I'd also have bet that I'd never switch to Apple technology.  I'm still not convinced that it's all that in terms of usability, but the retina display on my too expensive MacBook - gosh, I love that!
• Like Lori E., I drink too much coffee.  Unlike Lori, I've no plans or desire to cut down on my "heavenly nectar of the gods".
• At the age of 40, I decided to learn to speak French.  After two stints of French immersion (in Quebec and in France), courses at l'Alliance Francaise and grade 11 French with our own school's French teacher (during my prep time that year), and endless hours on my own, I'd never have believed anything could be so hard.  And totally worth it.
• As an introvert, I'm so grateful for having found a profession that calls me out of myself and brings me into daily contact with wonderful people.  I treasure the quiet, re-energizing time that I have, but am very glad that it's not all of the time.
• Life's priorities should be simple: faith, family, work/vocation and then everything else, and in that order.  I've never heard a convincing reason why it should be otherwise.  But oh dear, I've got some work to do in getting that right!

My replies to the 11 questions that Lori posed.  Please forgive me if I've prattled on!:

1. It's cliche I know, but Christmas would be my favourite holiday.  There's so much that's wonderful about those two weeks (for students and teachers) - family gatherings, time to relax, the music, the food, the improved moods (of most, anyway).  It's just a happy time.  Mostly, of course, it commemorates the Incarnation of God, and that becomes more and more mind-blowing to me as I get older.  I heard a beautiful rendition of the song, "Mary, did you know" on Christmas eve.  Imagine, giving birth to God Himself!  
2. The professional book I'd recommend most right now, though there are so many good ones, is "Mindset" by Carol Dweck.  It's a relatively easy read, and could be shortened by not reading chapters not directly connected to education.  The ideas, and the research behind them re: growth and fixed mindset are simultaneously good common sense and really quite uncommon.  I've reflected a lot especially on the damage that undiluted "fixed mindset" praise can do to both children and adults.  Focusing on a growth mindset, and the tie-ins to a host of the other research such as that related to good descriptive feedback is so important to the work we do in schools.
3. My first teaching job was as a grades 7 - 12 science teacher in Lundar School 31 years ago.  It wasn't easy, but it was nice to have company as one of six first year teachers in that smallish school.  We all made a lot of mistakes, and we always had others around who were scrambling alongside one another to get ready for the next day and just survive that first year grind.
4. I won't say it's my favourite website, but I do like checking in on the comic strip Dilbert every day.  For a number of years we had a succession of weak leaders in the school, and I'd take consolation in laughing at the pointy-haired boss's all too familiar foibles.  It's even funnier now that I am the pointy-haired boss!
5. Not a fan of New Year's resolutions, but I am constantly striving to simply lead a better, more giving life.  A few years ago we had a young gal from France living with us.  That's her in the sunset photo of the frazil ice at Steep Rock.  As an exercise, I asked her to describe members of her family and ours with a single English word.  I was pleased when she used "wiseness" (wisdom) for me, but admit that I'd have preferred how she described my mom - "love".  That's what I aspire to; the actions that make up giving love to others.
6. Best teaching quality?  Jeepers, that might bespeak a lack of humility.  Nevertheless, I'd say that it's related to the concept of servant leadership.  I know that my job, especially now as principal, is to serve and support everyone else in the school, in big ways and small.  They are expressly not there to serve me or to follow me, except insofar as that following is earned.
7. I had a great lesson from students about 7 years ago on the subject of faith.  I was the teacher advisor for our school's social justice group, and we were putting on a Sunday evening concert called "Imagine" in the spring.  As of that Thursday morning, we'd sold something like 24 tickets, and I was ready to call it off; pushed for that, in fact.  Kailey Knapp, a student who was the group's real leader, insisted that it would all work out, that tickets would sell at the last minute, and that I just had to accept that.  All 200 tickets sold in the end, and the evening was a great, inspiring success.  I like to say, "Kailey's faith kicked my faith's butt", and it did.  I try to be more faithful now, even when it seems irrational.
8. Best trend in education?  I'd say it's the recognition that we need to put everything we're currently doing up for consideration.  There are, or at least should not be any sacred cows.
9. It's not a past trend that's disappeared yet, but I'm glad that we're coming to recognize that grades are the furthest thing from a motivator for our kids to learn, in the deep ways that matter.  Our grading practices need a lot of reform, and I'm so proud of our school community for the changes we've made, teachers and students, in leading the way here in Manitoba.
10. Movie or book?  Book, 19 times out of 20.  It's rare that any movie can do justice to a book that it's based on.  That doesn't make the movie a poor effort; they're simply fundamentally different and have different primary purposes.  I'd wager that people do a lot more thinking and reflecting after reading than from seeing a movie, but I'll grant that a good movie can be great entertainment.
11. The (first) retirement dream is an easy one.  I want to, feel a need to go and live in Cameroon for a year or two.  I've been there three times, have adopted family there, and feel a part of those communities.  Now to convince my wife that this isn't crazy!

Now, 11 questions for those I'm nominating:

1. If you could only leave your home province/state for one more trip, ever, where would you go?
2. If you had to pick up and leave your home province/state and go live somewhere else, where would that be?
3. When did you feel most proud of the work you do, and what made you feel that way?
4. When you were in school, what was your favourite subject, and why did it resonate with you?
5. What sport/activity do you think you're really pretty good at, and don't mind saying so?
6. What sport/activity do you wish you were much better at?
7. Favourite food to cook/bake/prepare (and if it's KD or something similar, be honest!).
8. Sunrise or sunset, and why?
9. Someone has come in and handed you $100 000 to invest in your school, or other place of work. How would you use it?
10. If you could speak one additional language fluently, it would be...
11. If you could play one, or one more musical instrument, it would be...

And those I'm nominating are:

Joanne Coote  @izzie65  

Krista Byers  @ms_kbyers

January Bain  @JanuaryBain

Shelly Wright  @wrightsroom

Phil Taylor  @ptaylorsjr

Erin Klein  @KleinErin

Angela Maiers  @AngelaMaiers

Miles MacFarlane  @milesmac

Derek Oldfield  @Mr_Oldfield

Joe Bower  @joe_bower

Jim Hoddinott  @HoddinottJames

To those I've nominated, please forgive me for doing so.  There really is no compulsion to respond, of course.

This was interesting, taking a little peak inside my own head, with a little help from my 9 year old nephew.   :)

Thanks Lori, and Dana Corr (@dcorr1).  

Tough decisions (and Nelson Mandela)

I've read a number of accounts of how many decisions a teacher makes in a day - hundreds? thousands?  No question, it's a lot.  You can't get them all right, and if you care, you lose some sleep when you get them wrong.

Now as a principal, it strikes me that the decisions are perhaps fewer (okay, I'm pretty sure they're fewer, simply by virtue of interacting with fewer people over shorter periods of time).  But they're tougher, and sometimes really tough.

Just in the last week or so:

• intervene with a long term staff member to address concerns?  This is someone for whom I have a great deal of respect, and I daresay I care about a lot.  Nevertheless, it's not doing the job if you give free passes.  So far it's not gone where I'd hoped, but it was still the right (and hard) thing to do.
• does a camping trip go ahead, after a staffer in the park where the trip is to take place let us know that moose hunting is going on in the park?  This trip has been planned for a long time, is important to the course goals and is in many ways a celebration of the learning to date.  Still... talk about a risk/reward scenario that will scare the heck out of you.  (The trip went ahead, and was a great success in the bitter cold.)
• press ahead with a whole school personnel development initiative that will cost up to $100 000, and which brings no guarantees of success?  No one else in the province is doing it, and we'll need to fundraise for the vast majority of the money.  Nonetheless, there is no realistic downside to the initiative; reservations are tied entirely to the cost, and so if it's good for us and our kids, we'll go ahead in faith.
• every day, knowing that single decisions on how to react to student misbehaviour can potentially end their school careers, with all that implies.  Further, it's not as simple as erring on the side of being less "strict".  Some students need that firm hand, and some need a hug (real or metaphorical), and they don't carry a sign to tell us which it is.  

And this is where I've been thinking about Nelson Mandela.  I read his autobiography a couple of years ago, and he was quick to acknowledge his failings, and the difficulty he had in making hard decisions.  And how about that decision to come out of prison preaching reconciliation rather than retaliation?  Not  an awful lot of precedents for that, huh?  He changed the world, this man described by both his widow and himself as profoundly ordinary.  There's hope for all of us, and we need to accept that we all change the world, for better or worse, with every decision we make.

Marks don't matter

What follows is the "message from the principal" in our upcoming newsletter.  We need to work hard at trying to help our students and parents (and staff, if you're not "there" yet) to stop thinking of marks as a meaningful definition of student learning.

Here at Ashern Central, we've come a long way as staff in understanding that percentage grades are a silly construct.  We only report that way because of the provincial report cards, and then only four times a year.  Aside from that, we do use a 4 point scale for measuring student progress in learning outcomes; even there, though, we try to frame the discussion around the learning, and not the numbers attached to the summative assessments.

Marks don’t matter.

A strange sentiment to accompany the year’s first report cards, for sure.  Really though, marks don’t matter, not much anyway.  Learning matters, a lot, but marks are a terribly blunt instrument for measuring that learning.

So much of what students learn in a day, a week or a semester goes unmeasured by marks.  The most important things: personal responsibility; caring (for themselves and for others); determination and “grit”; self-confidence; leadership; and many others.  If you’re a student, aren’t these the things that you want for yourself?  If you’re a parent, isn’t this what you want for your child?  These are the things that matter, the things that last, that stay with us for a lifetime.

Yes, we have a responsibility to teach the academics, and yes, they matter too.  Perhaps not as much as we used to think they did, and certainly not if it’s just the learning of facts, in a world that offers us all the facts known to humankind in just a few key clicks.  Even then, though, a single percentage grade to represent that learning?  Really?

As a teacher, I watched students chase marks, and even the very best of them often didn’t care about what they learned.  “What do I have to do to get a 90?”  Not what can I learn, how can I grow, what will make me a better, more complete, more effective and happy human being.  We want our children to become life-long learners, but if grades motivate them now, where will the motivation come from when they aren’t receiving marks?

Our students need and deserve useful, descriptive feedback about their learning.  We know from research that verbal feedback is most effective, and that the relationship between teacher and student is key  to fostering student learning.  This is what we are working on, this is what matters.  Students and parents, when you speak with one another about how school is going, let’s focus on the learning, not on the marks. 

Marks don’t matter—people do.

It starts with the "3"

I received a request from a colleague about how to interpret the meaning of a "4" on Manitoba's 4 point scale for middle years report cards.  One of her teachers had suggested that it meant "above grade level".

What follows is the email I sent in response.  The bottom line is that in our school, we call "3" meeting the outcome (and we assess by outcome, not units or tasks).  The teacher and students need a strong understanding of those outcomes, and they need to know what "meeting" looks like.  With any luck, there are multiple possibilities for demonstrating it, but still...

More to follow about our journey toward outcome-based assessment (standards based grading) soon.
___________

What follows is the report card descriptors.  No mention of "grade-level" at all.

Academic Achievement of Provincial Expectations

4  Very good to excellent understanding and application of concepts and skills
3  Good understanding and application of concepts and skills
2  Basic understanding and application of concepts and skills
1  Limited understanding and application of concepts and skills; see teacher comments
ND  Does Not yet Demonstrate the required understanding and application of concepts and skills; see teacher comments

Like grade level, these descriptors are, in themselves, meaningless.  The conversation needs to change, and teachers need to accept that their interpretations of "good" and "basic" etc. are about as objective as grade level suppositions.  There simply is no objective standard.  That requires definition of the assessment, exemplars and so on, and curriculum documents (thankfully) don't contain those.

That's where it becomes incumbent upon teachers to have a solid understanding of the outcomes they're expecting from students, and what it "looks like" when students meet them.  At Ashern Central, we start from that point, and define meeting the outcome as a 3.  Further, never mind the percentage ranges on the report card, 3.0 = 80% when we convert subject grades to a percentage, which we only do for report cards.  No percentages at any other time, and a shame we have to do it for the report cards.

If 3 = meeting the outcome, does that mean that 4 = exceeding the outcome?  Simply, yes.  The form that takes will vary from course to course, outcome to outcome.  And, it's up to teacher and student to define what that looks/sounds like.

Some examples:

in gr. 7 Math:  The outcome is to determine mean, median, mode and range. 
3 = the student successfully calculates these values from a set of numbers (perfectly?, or 9 times out of 10? - there's the subjectivity of the teacher's definition of "meeting")
4 = the student completes an independent project to collect and collate meaningful data, and then calculate these values, or...
the student goes on to learn about standard deviation, and show a basic understanding of its meaning, or...
the student successfully tutors a peer, finding ways to explain these concepts meaningfully by deconstructing the steps in new ways, or with new examples.

in gr. 5 Social Studies:  The outcome is to describe daily life in early French and British settlements in Atlantic Canada
3 = the student provides descriptions that provide a level of detail prescribed by the teacher (in whatever way, not just tests)
4 = a comparison and contrast of these descriptions, or...
the creation of a performance, artwork, ??? that represents these lives, or...
an analysis (appropriate for gr. 5, of course) of why these lives were different.  Simply, working higher up Bloom's taxonomy in answering the question.

And so on.  Lots and lots of possibilities.

What is a 2?  Again, we try to keep it simple.  It's when the student "gets it", but isn't quite there in meeting the expectation(s) for a 3.

a 1?  It's when a student is really barely there.  Again, as always, a subjective professional judgment.  1 is the threshold, where the teacher believes that the student has a cursory understanding or demonstration of the skill, but only that, no more.

So, it all starts with defining the "3".  4 is an extension of that in some fashion; 2 and 1 lower levels of demonstrating the learning expected for a 3.  We kid ourselves if we thing teachers are ever going to have extensive rubrics for all of the outcomes, exemplars and so on.  It's much more reasonable to ask just for the definition of 3, and work from there.

Hope that helps.  We need to push teachers, and ourselves, to embrace the complexity and professional thinking that goes into assessing grades.  At the same time, we need to keep all of this in its place, and to remember that it's about pushing a learning agenda, not a grade-grubbing agenda, and that's about formative and not summative assessment.

Don't sweat the small stuff??

"Don't sweat the small stuff - and it's all small stuff."

Certainly catchy, and more than just an element of truth to it.  I could get into a discussion of the stuff I consider anything but small; another post, perhaps.

No, this is about my belief that a lot of small things matter, and are worth "sweating".

• A smile is a small thing.  But a person's face is transformed by a smile.  Smiles invite people in, foster the development of relationships and bonds.  Last spring I asked a teacher to smile more, and her "vibe" is entirely different when she does.  I'm so grateful that she's taken this to heart.
• Graffiti and other small forms of damage are small things in public spaces.  Yet, left in place, they're open invitations to add more.  They signal a mood of lawlessness, and a lack of caring by school staff.  In the mid 90s, Rudy Giuliani announced an anti-graffiti task force; together with other initiatives, it dramatically lowered the crime rate in New York City.  It's worth reading about.
• Spelling mistakes, poor font selection; bad posture, weak grammar.  How many job applicants have failed to get an interview, or to be considered for a position, because of one of these "small" things?
• Please and thank you.  Will anyone seriously suggest these little words don't matter?
• Being in the room to welcome students to class.  No direct link to the learning to follow, but it can be a powerful opportunity to get to know kids, and form relationships with them.  A few minutes that can matter hugely.

A touch (school-appropriate, of course), an open door, cleaning up after yourself, pretending not to see or hear something (once in a while).  There are so many little things that, ultimately, add up in ways we might not appreciate in the moment.

What do you think are the small things worth sweating?

Too much of a good thing

I followed a link on Twitter to a blog written by someone I take to be a relatively young teacher.  In her latest post, she is lamenting that while she finds Twitter and other online sources of PD to be really valuable, they often also leave her with a feeling of inadequacy.  My own experience on Twitter is that there are a lot of posters who, without likely meaning to, suggest that there is something wrong with others who are not sufficiently "progressive", who haven't yet gotten with the program.  As this young lady says, no grades (ever) and no worksheets (ever) "may" be a desirable state of affairs, but they're not realities in her world at this point.  It's worth remembering that there are a lot of people who have had "the" answer before, and they've been wrong.

I wrote the following comment after her post, and thought to myself that maybe this was my newest post for this blog:

Hi Rachel.

You bet it's tough to do the job that you're doing. It's completely natural to feel the way that you're feeling now, and you'll probably feel like that from time to time, even often. On some of my best days, right after the students left after the last class, I'd slump for a moment with my head on my counter, feeling like I might not have the energy to get up. To say that teaching is enervating and exhausting at the same time is not an oxymoron.

I'm relatively new to Twitter, and only a week into blogging, and can relate to that feeling of inadequacy. I've been a principal now for 4 years, after 26 years of teaching. Still, after what most would describe as a very successful career, I often feel like I just can't do enough, or do it well enough. Many of those you're likely following have been out of the classroom for a while, sometimes a long while, and are forgetting the realities of the classroom - I know that I am. It's easy to present the latest and greatest ideas, and to give off a vibe of, "come on, there's nothing to it" or that you must not care if you're not on board. Remember that they almost surely mean the best, but that may not come through in posts and comments.

Are you trying, in the time you have available, to get better, to learn and to grow? Your blog, what I saw in your work to redesign your classroom learning environment, suggests that you certainly are. You won't get it all right, at least I hope not, because the best learning comes from getting it wrong, then refining, revising or just trying something different until you get it right. But it's not easy, and it doesn't always feel good.

Teaching is not, ever, something done perfectly. As you stated, there are those who should not be doing it, for whatever reasons. The rest of us, though, are doing the greatest work in the world, and will have a damnably tough time seeing it and feeling it on a daily basis. One of my favourite quotes sums up how I see this profession as a way to express my faith in the eventual positive influence we have on the future, through our kids: 
“Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be, stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway.” – Robert Henri

Take care of yourself. :)

Foster Parents

My wife and I have been foster parents for the past four and a half months.  There's a bit of a story behind it, but we took in one of our students when a placement for him turned out terribly, and he was placed in a hotel, as too many are.

This young man has FASD and ADHD.  He was fortunate, previously, to have been placed at birth with a foster family who cared for and loved him until his needs became too great for them to handle.  He's a good kid, just turned 18, and knows right from wrong (taught at home) better than he knows the times tables and reading he learned at school.

That's not a slight on the schools he attended.  Rather, it's a testament to the love he received throughout his life, as troubled as it has been not only with the conditions mentioned, but with a number of other health issues.  His foster parents did so much more than feed and clothe him, and send him to school when the time came.  They held and coddled him, were there through all of his surgeries, prayed with and for him.  He was corrected when he was wrong, and praised when he was right.

It turns out that he has a special talent for music, and he received the violin lessons and other lessons that have turned him into a fine musician.  He has a sense of self worth that exceeds what others with his conditions might have had, from this and his other accomplishments.  Last year, he had the confidence to give a presentation to the student body about FASD, and to make the case that it would not keep him from living a life full of worth.  I was, and am very proud of him.

Foster parents, at least around here, are sometimes lightly regarded.  I've heard others intimate that foster parents are in it for the money (it's not that much), and that the level of care provided might just be less than is true in "real" families.  That is so wrong.  This is not an easy job, and that's because it's not a job.  It's a vocation, a calling I think.  After less than half a year, we're played out.  Our boy is moving out into a group home tomorrow, and we wouldn't have been able to go on doing this much longer.  We love him, yet...

It must be a real challenge to take children in regularly, to love and nurture them, and then to have to let them go.  For the foster parents who may rarely, or even never see these children again - my goodness, I just can't imagine how hard that is.  I so admire your willingness to go through that, all of it.  May God bless you for this loving work that you do.

Trusting teachers

As a principal, I really think that teachers don't get enough respect.

The story goes...  The new principal is in the school a couple of weeks before the start of the new year.  As she is moving around the school, meeting the teachers who are starting to come in and prepare, she notices that the supply room is being left open.  The teachers are walking into the room, and coming back out, sometimes with armloads of supplies - paper, pens, rulers, markers, staplers and so on.  When no one is around, she goes into the room and sees that, sure enough, there is no sign-out sheet for these supplies.  Well, this is troubling, but she knows enough not to try to change the situation without learning more.
Wondering who she can talk with, she sees the old janitor down the hall.  She goes over to him, points to the open supply room, and asks, "Are the teachers really just allowed to go into the supply room and help themselves without anyone checking?"  The janitor smiles and replies, "Well, we do trust them with the children, ma'am."

Are teachers trusted to work within the realistic constraints of our school budgets and their own budget areas?

Are teachers trusted to access all of the information we have about the students they work and learn with every day?

Are teachers trusted to try out new ways of engaging students, even if it moves outside the boundaries of any of the traditional models of teaching and learning we're familiar with?

Are teachers trusted with access to the best technology we have, including the social media sites that we might be afraid will distract them from the rest of their work?

If not, how do we reconcile this with the fact that, "we do trust them with the children"?

Overcoming Humility

It's been an interesting past week.

On Monday, a group from Lakeshore S.D. attended a George Couros presentation.  There's a lot to say about that, but one thing that resonated was the assertion that we have a responsibility to share what we know/have/can do, and not just to consume.

This applies online as well as "in the world".  George used the example of posting on Twitter, and not just lurking.

I've thought a lot about this, and have committed to blogging as a part of my personal learning plan for this year.  In the same way as we want our students to write as well as to read, to learn actively and not just passively, we as educators need to incorporate action into our own learning.

I participated in my first Twitter chat last week, #sbgchat.  Not sure that I'm in love with the fast flow of info, encouraging superficiality, but it was nice to make connections with some others, and to be able to offer to share what we've learned at Ashern Central School about standards based grading (or outcome based assessment, as we refer to it).  Tonight, I emailed a few of those contacts with some information and attachments to help spread the word about this practice.

There was also a happenstance professional growth meeting with one of the teachers in the school today.  She happened to be in the building when I was, so we discussed her plan for the year.  She too (as many do) has a lot to offer others, and I encouraged her to "put it out there" through Twitter, and/or blogging or by other means.  She's considering making this the focus of her plan for the year.

It's not easy to accept that one has much to offer others.  Pride may be the root sin of the seven deadly ones, but a false humility is no great virtue.  I owe a lot to all of the others that have contributed to my own learning, and perhaps a way to pay that back is to pass it along as opportunities present themselves.