'How To Escape Education's Death Valley and National Standards.'

Body, Mind and Spirit-education has be approached holistically.

Sir Ken Robinson: 'How to Escape Education's Death Valley'.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2013-05-10&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_image

National Standards
We are finding some schools and/or individual teachers use varying approaches and expectations around national standards. This is not a criticism of other schools but more about the reality of interpretation as there can be a reasonable level of teacher subjectivity going into decision making around national standards unless there are robust in-school and between schools moderation processes in place. I could talk on the issues around national standards at length but for now, let me say that used well, they provide a good 'snapshot' of where individual children are at in their learning at that particular point in time. The downside of course is that they can be an absolute nonsense if not used well.

On a cautionary note, we all (parents and teachers) have to be very careful not to place too much focus on the national standard outcomes that the child's confidence and self-belief is knocked as they get subtle or not so subtle messages that they are not up to standard! Learning is very developmental and as emphasised in the above link ('How to Escape Education's Death Valley'), a broader view of learning has to be embraced.

Often when a child is having difficulty with a concept or range of complex concepts, no amount of pressure or magic can be used to instantly transform that child to where we want him to be. 

After saying that, there are key concepts that all children need and thus we must quietly support and use professional expertise to boost the child's engagement, confidence and understanding. Sometimes considerable focus, expertise and work can go into helping a child but the 'penny doesn't drop' immediately. This can be for a number of reasons such as a processing issue or a readiness (developmental) reason. However all that work and energy is not wasted as the child is incrementally being supported to develop his skills. Probably the most important point I can make here, is that if you give children this support, be patient and encouraging, have high and realistic expectations, then success is guaranteed. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow but in due course the boys wil blossom. Sometimes, particularly with boys, you have to 'hang in there' with the encouragement as they can blossom late. As someone once said, boys are like popcorn, some pop earlier than others.

Yong Zhao  summed it all up as he described boys’ learning as like cooking popcorn—some pop early, some pop late. Our job is to retain and build their spirit.   (Chinese Education Professor working in the USA)

Amongst many other things, ERO in their draft report have said that teaching quality at Wellesley is high and the 'students are achieving highly'. I look forward to sharing more of this with you soon.

'Need a job? Invent it.'

‘Need a job? Invent it.’

An old boy recently sent me a New York Times article written by Thomas L. Friedman  entitled,  ‘Need a Job? Invent It.’ This provocative title deeply resonated with me as it is clearly apparent that the days of assuming our young people will transition from school or university into jobs has long gone. It’s tough out there and the ‘playing field’ has changed.

Friedman quotes an executive he interviewed as saying, “We can teach new hires the content, and we will have to because it continues to change, but we can’t teach them how to think-to ask the right questions-and to take initiative.”

People like Edward de Bono have always believed thinking and creativity are skills that can be taught and learnt! This is very evident to us as well and we believe the exponential change our children will face demands that these skills have the same focus and currency as the core skills of numeracy and literacy.

After saying that, we can’t underestimate the importance of the basic skills and these need to be fostered with rigour drawing on the best practice available. We need a school system that values questions above answers, creativity over fact regurgitation and excellence above mediocrity.

What is exciting, is that once this is recognised, across the board academic outcomes trend upwards. How do we know that?  Because this is the approach Wellesley has been taking for over ten years and through our data collecting over these years,  the trend is clear with our boys now consistently ‘punching above their weight’ in every quartile of natural ability and transition to college in excellent shape.

According to Friedman, Finland is one of the most innovative economies in the world and it is the only country where students leave high school ‘innovation-ready’. They learn concepts and creativity more than facts.”

Intelligence is not enough. Creativity, or the ability to think divergently, can be developed and improved. It’s a learnable process. 

Good questions to ask ourselves as educators are: How do we prepare our young people for a world beyond our imagination? How do we craft a student’s learning journey towards a job that has not yet been created?  What are these skills or dispositions and what is the journey we need to take children on to give them real learning power?

We believe they are a collection of attitudes and behaviours. Skills such as perseverance, flexibility, questioning, curiosity, creativity, abstract thinking, reflection, resilience and optimism.  I like Guy Claxton’s metaphor of a school as a mind gym v an assembly line. The concept of imagining the mind as a muscle you can build is appealing. This is not about getting rid of content but going deeper and providing a broader utility.

We want to prepare our children to become brave new explorers in this exciting fast paced world. The learning to learn skill set described so far are not new features of the Wellesley philosophy but we are forever honing and reflecting on the best way to facilitate them to our boys.

Learning should be hard fun where there is engagement, passion and purpose.

 

Confidence is Everything!

Clearly the early experiences of children have a profound impact on their future learning.

Parents and teachers have to walk a very fine line making sure what they place value on is achievable and relevant at that time for the learner. Boys for example, can take longer than girls to gain mastery over the early language links and their fine motor coordination which impacts on their presentation skills. However with appropriate support and advice, these skills can be steadily built without shutting down their thinking, risk taking and all round self-belief.

Generally boys thrive in an up-beat environment with lots of engaging hands-on experiences. They love to create and work across different media moving seamlessly from materials to PC to pen and pencils. Boys and girls have marked differences in their learning styles but what all children clearly require is an education that fits their needs underpinned by the philosophy of promoting quiet confidence. 

“Raising Boys” author, Steve Biddulph recommends that the best way to build confidence is to ensure we provide opportunities for boys to do practical ‘useful things’. We need to give our children lots of chances to experience their capabilities structuring the tasks appropriately so they ‘stretch’ the individual but are achievable.

Motivation is significantly higher if they can see the rationale behind a task. Boys like girls need to feel valued and loved but boys tend to respond better in a learning environment that is clear and explicit in its expectations. Often boys who lack confidence can act tough to cover up their anxiety if this structure is not in place. Fundamentally, like all children, boys want to know they are valued and they quickly see through people who ‘talk the talk’ but don’t ‘walk the talk’.

There is no doubt that raising boys can be a challenge for many parents. It appears to me that adults who do best raising boys have significant understanding and appreciation of ‘what makes boys tick’ and books like Bilddulph’s ‘Raising Boys’ add to this understanding.

 Warren Owen

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Recently a member of my extended family shared this poem with me. I remember as a young man in my early twenties reading Gibran’s work and somewhere at home I have his poetry book, ‘The Prophet’.

As educators and parents, the poem ‘On Children’ challenges us to reflect on how we deal with our children. Gibran suggests through the poem, that a child's parents should not be controlling toward their child; rather, they should give their children the opportunity to succeed on their own.

It is so normal and natural to model and impart your own values, thoughts and ideas to your children. In fact it would be impossible not to as children will end up ‘doing what we do rather than what we say’ as modelling is so very powerful. If we curse and swear around home, no end of cajoling our children not to swear will ‘wash’. They will of course speak to their friends with the same ‘lingo’ used around home.

As parents it is so tempting to step in at every turn to try and influence your child’s decisions. A classic example of this comes around the time of making decisions about which subjects to choose at secondary school. Many parents will try and influence their children’s thinking based on their own dreams and hopes for their offspring. Parents often see the pitfalls and limitations of certain courses and actively try and steer their children in the direction of what they think will be best in the end.

I remember being guilty of this myself. My son had just finished his science degree and was thinking about doing post graduate studies in micro biology. Knowing that the ‘risk /  future financial reward’ factor here was not as good as many other post graduate routes, I suggested he do a parallel degree in law saying if science jobs were not available, maybe he could use a law degree within the science industry. He saw straight through me and said, “Dad, I’m not in this for the money, I’m passionate about science.”

Yes, I was worried about his financial security. I didn’t push it, as deep down I knew he should follow his own dreams, not be influenced by the fear of his father. Isn’t it so true in life that we know what is right deep down in our hearts but fear of future security can sometimes get in the way of really ‘chasing our dreams’.

Serious problems can arise when a child’s abilities or interests are out of sync with his/her parents’ dreams and aspirations for him/her. If the parents by deed or implication put pressure on their child it can impact very negatively and be extremely counter-productive, often ‘shutting down’ the child’s self- belief.

Getting back to Gibran’s poem, the central point I take from it is to allow children to be individuals. In fact, foster and celebrate this individuality. In this way children will be more likely to blossom and realise their potential. If we do want to influence them, and of course we do, then maybe we should all aim to follow the wise monkey’s words: ‘Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil’. In this way, our children will see good people modelling good ethics and values. It is so important we allow our children to be comfortable in ‘their own skin’, and support them with their aspirations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys

We are not going be around forever and we must help prepare them for being on their own, making their own decisions. It is their journey and the best thing we can do is be supportive of their dreams but also ensure they are ready to take the responsibility for their decisions as well. Part of all this is having high expectations of our children pitched at their personal best level and appropriate to their age and stage. A central part of supporting our children to be in a position to achieve their aspirations is to ensure they have the skills and values such as persistence, resilience, optimism and creativity. Life can be tough and we will be doing them a disservice unless we prepare our children accordingly.

---