Is the metaphor a leader is like a parent valid?

Posted on April 13, 2015 by mwalker

I have been contemplating a leadership metaphor used by Simon Sinek on a recent Ted Talk:

“great leaders are like parents wanting to give their children (employees) opportunities to try and fail in safe ways and to discipline when necessary”.

I’m struck by the use of the term “discipline” in the metaphor when applied to leadership in a school. As a practicing principal is discipline synonymous with difficult staff conversations?

Recently in reviewing a series of whole day planning sessions with some of the key facilitators we discussed why a few teams did not seem make as much progress in using standardised data sets as other teams. We posed some questions around were the teams “on the bus” – e.g. use of evidence to inform decisions or where there other factors in play e.g. external factors or lack of teaching experience or too few opportunities for training and development. Of course it’s usually a combination of factors.

That’s not to say that people in other teams at times didn’t appeared to struggle with the use of evidence.

An example of one such struggle was where one team began discussing when to teach handwriting. Some teachers saw a natural connection between teaching handwriting when they were introducing sound symbol relationships. On the surface this sounds a logical connect however handwriting, which is basically motor patterning skills doesn’t necessarily relate to sound/ symbol concepts.

There’s a lot more to that discussion and the question I eventually posed was when are young people ready to learn handwriting and what evidence might you collect to make that determination?

In the end we agreed that modelling correct letter formation was a positive thing in a variety if contexts but to insist on children practicing these letter formations could lead to a general reluctance to learn through writing if correct letter formation became the intended or even unintended expectation.

This led the team to discuss the need to collect student samples to decide who might be ready for learning and practicing correct letter formation. From that discussion teachers then perceived that handwriting might need to be taught in groups at the stage of readiness not as a whole class lesson as was the previous practice. This discussion was essentially the start of an inquiry into a teacher problem of practice.

Is this team correction (the question I posed about the use of evidence) discipline? I’m not sure. Discipline is commonly defined as getting someone to follow the rules and there is some implication of punishment if you don’t.

Did all in the team agree (from the feedback, no) but a decision was reached and the team and children can move forward in consistent ways.

Perhaps if people don’t follow the team decision that provides for consistency then discipline is applied – usually a one on one conversation between leader and in this case teacher. But is it then about natural consequences of not following the decision (e.g. children becoming reluctant writers or being shunned by others in the team) or punishment (e.g. unsatisfactory performance review?).

I know that this discussion is a slight tangent to the leader creating a safe place for learning concept however this is the second time this whole discipline/punishment idea has been raised and applied to people in organisations who are “not on or subverting the bus”.

My wondering is how others view this whole discussion.

Posted in Assessment, school administration, Teaching | 1 Comment

Teaching Writing? (part 1)

Posted on April 8, 2015 by mwalker

I’m sitting on the back porch of a small lodge at the base of Mt Buller listening to the babbling sound of rushing water on the Delatite River. As I gaze up from this iPad I see many differing shades of green trees sprinkled with the odd yellow-leaved deciduous tree as it sheds it leaves. There is a small open fire about 50 metres away and the smoke gently wafts upwards in the still air.

I’m trying to describe a scene of a photo I’ve taken. You can be the judge of my description using the photo located at the bottom of the page.

The point of this post is to talk about a wondering I have about writing and in particular the writing we ask of our young people in schools. Student writing is one of the main improvement goals of our school and as such is in my thoughts over this mild Easter break.

When I hear teachers speak about student writing it’s often from the technical aspect “they need to improve their paragraphing” or “I’m tired of telling them to use capital letters in the correct places”. This may seem a criticism of teachers but it’s not intended to be one. Yes one needs technical accuracy to convey one’s messages.

Recently I participated in a teacher meeting talking about using the national test criteria for assessment (NAPLAN) to lead us forward in determining what to teach students next. This in many ways should thrill me for we have been implementing an evidenced based process for determining what students need to learn next over the past few years.

So what’s my wondering/s?

When I looked at the criteria it was very technical orientated (e.g. paragraphing, sentence structure). That’s the easy part, which I’m beginning to question.

What if writing is like painting where we use words to convey our emotions like painters use colours or images to express their thoughts.

Some may remember colour by number sheets (very technical or base level stuff) and please don’t think I’m discounting the technical skills in painting. But is that what we admire or seek to replicate in paintings?

I’m thinking not!

So what is my wondering?

Part of the answer to my first wondering from a brief review of the literature on writing was that we must help students seek a wider audience and authentic purpose for writing. Much has been written about these two points for if the audience is just teachers then perhaps it’s just the technical skills we value and that our teachers are nearly facilitating editors (correcting and providing technical feedback) – again do not take this as a criticism of teachers for editing is a skill and we need technical feedback.

So yes writing as a habit (daily) and the use of writers notebooks to collect our thoughts (pre writing phase) are necessary, so is learning the technical skills, developing a wider audience and using differing authentic purposes necessary but are they sufficient?

My wondering is about non-writing teachers teaching writing. When I say non writing teachers again this may be seen as a criticism, it’s not that teachers don’t write but generally it’s job related procedural – lesson and curriculum plans and summative – student reports. Teachers job related writing audience is small and selective.

So when do teachers write – write for wider audiences – write every day (non job related) and publish. The answer I fear is seldom ( I’m not counting some forms of social media here e.g. texting). Yet we ask them to teach young people to write (to experience the anguish about using the right word or the rereading-rewriting phase trying to get their message to say what they want).

Last year a teacher charged with researching what are some of our young people’s blockers and enhancers for writing facilitated a workshop where she got teachers to write. She gave them a writer’s notebook and set some engaging challenges. It’s where I heard teachers say “I can’t write”, “I’m not a writer” but engage in the task and laugh and smile at other teachers attempts in what she perhaps unintentionally created – a writers community. That may seem a harsh reflection but are we as teachers all to willingly want to get into the right and wrong of writing (technical) but not want to wallow in the pit of uncomfortableness trying to find our writers voice.

I know some of my posts seem procedural but occasionally I do get to share some deeper feelings and I hope this one strikes a chord with others.

So what is my wondering – can teachers who do not engage as writers on a regular basis teach writing (you see it’s not the same as reading where we engage silently with our thoughts in safer places).

Thoughts?

IMG_3125

Posted in Creativity, Instruction, Teaching, writing | 1 Comment

Do we teach handwriting skills to young writers – OK – when and why?

Posted on March 24, 2015 by mwalker

image-20150112-23782-6m2r76

Recently I was in team meeting where teachers were discussing when to teach 5 year olds handwriting. It got me to thinking about why of my age and the old pen licences which we scrapped at least 10 years ago.

In fact our 2015 foundation year booklist has black, blue, red and green pens and grey lead pencils. Our students write using black or blue pens or grey lead pencils, revise using a green pen and edit or proofread in red. The colors help young people delineate the various stages of the writing process.

I typed in Google “teaching handwriting” and was flooded with newspaper articles from around the world with a variety of articles and an equally wide variety of opinions.

  • Lawmakers continue to fight to keep handwriting in the classroom, despite the growing power of the keyboard (Time)
  • Students’ handwriting remains the mark of learning (Sydney Morning Herald) 
  • Keyboard classes take over from handwriting lessons in Finland’s schools (The Age)
  • Teaching cursive handwriting is an outdated waste of time (the conversation) 

Some of the articles quoted conflicting research with no reference lists provided e.g. “handwriting improves brain development”. Other articles argued that students were losing their fluency and muscular strength to write 3 hr essays.

Clearly, at the very least, handwriting is about still learning motor patterns and developing muscle memory and strength in their fingers and wrists. AND last I looked we still wrote notes and lists so yes the need for handwriting remains.

Handwriting is also in our National Curriculum: e.g. Year 3 standard reads

Write using joined letters that are clearly formed and consistent in size

Although there are different versions of the handwriting style across Australia  in Victoria and Western Australia we use the modern Victorian cursive font.

Some teachers at the meetings were expressing a desire to link learning to write a letter with learning its sound-symbol relationship. While there is some link here I think we ended up agreeing that we should at least model the correct letter formation when we are teaching sound symbol relationships but that at this stage its not about explicitly teaching handwriting and having children practice the letter writing patterns.

Why you may ask?

Firstly we don’t want young writers to focus on having to write the correct pattern when for example drafting a recount of a life experience or narrative (even if its still at the emergent stage of writing – e.g. letter like shapes or drawings with a few letters below) as this shifts the focus to one of handwriting and not searching for meaning in words.

What I have repeatedly seen when the focus shifts to “perfect motor patterns” is young writers slowing down and losing meaning or interest as the process becomes laborious. This point was stressed in many education texts including the Tasmanian Education Departments sites:

If very young children are forced to hold a writing tool with the correct grasp before they are developmentally able to do so, their interest and motivation to engage in the writing process can be impaired.

https://www.education.tas.gov.au/documentcentre/Documents/Handwriting.pdf

Secondly it’s generally accepted that when we start to teach handwriting we do so with a sequence of letters or small groups of letters that have a similar characteristics (e.g. these letter have the same anti clockwise movement:  c, d, a, s, o).

Why – so that the students can use their metacognitive processes to observe and remember motor patterns or similarities of movement in handwriting? A child’s task is to learn efficient movements not to copy model shapes.

So when do you start to teach handwriting – well my point here we need to collect evidence that the child is ready by such as observing their physical dexterity, eye hand coordination or fine motor skills even their efforts to copy on their own.

My own experience here as a prep or foundation level teacher was that I found young writers at different stages of readiness therefore most of my handwriting instruction was done in smaller groups for most of the year. It wasn’t till well into year 1 that we did some practice sessions as a whole class and that changed again when we started to teach connecting letters around year 2 and 3 as the standard suggests.

Posted in Assessment, Instruction, Teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 5 Comments

The pendulum conundrum of strategic planning.

Posted on March 3, 2015 by mwalker

Over the past 18 months we as a school having been reviewing our performance as a school through the student, teacher and parent lenses. There was lots to celebrate which we have. However human nature is a curious things for we seek the road to improvement – not necessarily enjoying the change journey to achieve it.

At the start of the school year the staff took a day to unpack the improvement road (called a 4 year strategic plan) and what it means to them as teachers in classrooms and art studios on a daily, weekly and yearly basis.

We tested our current knowledge of the “plan” through fun quizes and cloze sheets, we talked in pairs about some values (explicit and implicit) and we walked through some classrooms to spot how teachers and students were unpacking our values through norms and expectations.

After a short water break we then talked about the twins tensions of sustainability and improvement.

pendulum_swing___winter_2011_by_geekylass-d3aznsh

For many years as a Principal I have participated in these reviews and improvement plans and have seen the improvement targets swing over the ensuing 8-10 years from maths them to reading then to spelling then to…. you get the point we eventually get back to maths.

Sometimes the pendulum swings because student results drop, or many teachers leave and the ‘corporate’ knowledge that was developed has been diluted or lost. Sometimes its a political inspired (local or national) policy of the month where we all need performance development accreditation or computers in classroom or student health issues are so apparent we need  constant revisions of analyphaxis, asthma, diabetes, anxiety and depression, autism spectrum and the list goes on… Don’t get me wrong on the last point student health is important and always gets a go.

But you see my point here – how does teacher expect to teach the lot retaining instructional skills and curriculum knowledge across so huge a set of expectations. I have asked this question a few times particularly upon my return from our sister school. You see many schools in China are funded in much the same way as us here in Victoria – they chose to have teachers specialise in a subject discipline (e.g. Maths or English) – employ more teachers – have more classes per week and students in larger classes.

We haven’t gone down that path of teacher specialisation BUT what we have done for the first time in our strategic thinking is to spend time, energy and resources building ways to sustain the corporate knowledge and teacher skill needed to avoid large-scale pendulum swings.

It does mean our improvement targets are more specific and often target groups within our school and not large-scale “reform”. An example of this is our Maths target is for Years 4-6 only around the concept of “partitioning” (fractions, decimals, ratios etc.).

We have trailed over several years an approach to spelling that is consistent with our inquiry pedagogy, Words their Way. Our target is to embed this approach across all our classrooms in focused workshops that have a similar structure. It’s not new work its strengthening work.

We have had lots of success with student reading over many years although we do note a recent slight flat line result in our more advanced students. We have invested in our team leaders working with a former colleague who has a great knowledge and passion in this area and spend time clarifying our practices in teaching comprehension, correcting any dilution in the model and building new knowledge from the advances in research in this area. The team leaders can then sustain the ‘corporate’ knowledge and teacher skill in the teams).

Speaking of China one of our long-standing areas of work was to develop Asian Literacy. We have had a little stop go approach over the last few years and perhaps its about supporting our teachers show how easy they can support this work in their classrooms (adjust not different). There was a real excitement around this work as we talked in pairs about our own experiences in Asia. This will be the subject of a new post, as will our work in student writing.

The point I think I’m making here is to avoid the pendulum swing in strategic planning and spend a decent percentage of your time and energy on sustaining your key innovations as well as target new learning.

Posted in Instruction, Leadership, school, Teaching, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Speaking at the Monday School Assembly: A Principal’s Message.

Posted on March 2, 2015 by mwalker

First of all I should say I’m invited by our year 6 leaders who run the weekly assembly to speak.

I’m allotted about 5-6 minutes in a busy 25 minute program that has students singing the national anthem, reciting the welcome to country and acknowledgement of the traditional owners of the land, performing dances and songs including the school song, having other teachers present awards e.g. Arts or Mandarin awards and a few messages about upcoming events for the week.

At the first few assemblies I speak about some of our school values and what that means to a person at EPS:

  • friendliness: a simple smile or hello to someone goes a long way to buildings a sense of belonging and we can all do it – so we practice it a few times at assembly.
  • respect, responsibility: and how we might demonstrate these: rubbish in the bin, wearing a hat, being on time for lessons

This year I varied the message a little on what it means to be a student. How the word is 2,000 years old and has Roman origins and implies studious – diligence – perseverance and that these are the keys to success.

I spoke about students in different countries and how they might demonstrate these values or assets and in a few weeks time  I’m introducing two new awards: a good student award (someone who demonstrates this assets) and a local citizenship award (sponsored by some local business). Each award comes with a small prize. The citizenship has a light lunch for 2 at a local cafe. The good student award comes with a small token from either our sister school in China (small wooden combs. book marks) or from travels where I have visited other schools in Asian countries like Singapore, Hong Kong or India.

I speak about these tokens talking about the history behind them and how they symbolise studentship. In this way I can contribute to our intercultural studies as well as promote studiousness.

In sharing this I’m wondering how others approach the weekly school assembly and what they do. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

 

Posted in school, school administration | 1 Comment

Chinese New Year at EPS

Posted on February 16, 2015 by mwalker

lion dance

 

This morning at assembly we had the traditional “lion dance” to celebrate Chinese New Year. Its also the 3rd assembly for the new school year and one could tell from the wide eyed 4-5 year old prep students they were just amazed.

I saw various photos being printed on the photocopier this morning so I gathered lots of students were learning about this Chinese festival in their classrooms.

Posted in China, Chinese Language | 2 Comments

Growth mindsets and school wide learning cultures – a perfect mix!

Posted on December 8, 2014 by mwalker

I’ve written before on growth mindsets and this year teachers were keen to include young people developing growth mindsets as a key principle in the new strategic plan. A few teachers are now mentioning this to some parents who have expressed some concerns about their children. Hence I thought it useful to include this new talk by Carol Dweck.

I’m currently reading Shirley Clarke’s new book on Outstanding Formative Assessment: Culture and Practice as I wanted some tips on how to suggest to staff they might go about working on more formative assessment.

Product Details

In Ch 2 “The spirit of formative assessment in the learning culture of the school and classroom” she talks about the ideal learning culture have 3 main aspects:

  • developing growth mindsets
  • integrating meta-cognition strategies
  • mixed ability learning

“It is important to know that with varying amounts of time, effort, practice and input we could all reach a given level of proficiency. The less genetically predisposed we are, the more practice and effort required. Even those for whom a subject or skill comes naturally have to practice for hours a day to reach expert status or very high levels of skill.”

I would add at least one more aspect that of relationships. Without trustworthy relationships between teacher, students and their peers then risk taking is problematic to say the least.

What would others add I wonder?

Posted in Assessment, Instruction, Teaching | 1 Comment

An Indigenous Experience!

Posted on December 7, 2014 by mwalker

IMG_3054

Last month we had a visit from some students who live in a remote indigenous community in Western Australia. The visit was organised by one of our former teachers, Nicole. The students were a little overawed initially by the size of our school (600 students) when compared to their school of 22.

Some shared things were consistent with our students when they talked about their love of sport (football), who they followed (West Coast Eagles) and others different (fishing for food). A great cultural experience for us all.

Posted in Community, school | 1 Comment

Provoking student interest in learning

Posted on December 2, 2014 by mwalker

IMG_3017IMG_3019
 photo[78]I say again I’m in a fortunate role as principal to see some amazing products and processes of learning and I’m guilty of not sharing these as often as I should. So here goes:

  • the first two photos show an 11-year-old student’s investigation into the scientific understandings behind whirlpools. Students were encouraged to inquire into a scientific wondering of their own choosing and then share this with the class. I saw some amazing exhibitions of student wondering.
  • the bottom photo is three-year 2 students inquiring into the history of the school. They were interviewing me about the time the school was turned into a hospital in the 1940’s and when the red tractor appeared at school. Neither of these events was in my time as principal but I have read up on them and duly answered their questions. We then got into a free wheeling discussion about when the first computers were at school and when was our school orchard first planted and why. Their passion about their school’s history was really evident.

They say you make your own luck – I say in this case when you provoke students interests and let they have some say in what they learn then you get the sort of experiences I’m describing.

Posted in curriculum, differentiation, Instruction, Teaching, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Student feedback to teachers – just ask them we did!

Posted on December 1, 2014 by mwalker

photo[77]

We were working with Kath Murdoch this afternoon on using our student feedback to adjust the 2015 curriculum plans.

Our students provided the followed recommendations to teachers which I thought were worth sharing:

  • less teacher talk: which we are thinking about making this a class challenge: How can we give you the student more opportunities to just get on with it AND make sure you have the instructions you need? (Personal note that this is a universal challenge for teachers)
  • More hands on: they just crave opportunities to make and create.
  • Clarify what “progress” means: students don’t seem to understand the role of activating prior knowledge and that learning is evidenced by growth from that base line (this may mean we have to also vary the way we collect this prior knowledge)
  • Continue the learning assets (e.g. self managers): students understand and can articulate these as they give a framework they use to improve and set goals – maybe include these in the letters students write to their new 2015 teachers.
  • Maintain the excursions as they love them for the powerful information and shared experience they provide.
  • Keep connecting to the community: they enjoy learning from experts in the community and perhaps build a list of them they can use during their i-time.
  • Get into it at the start of the school year: don’t spend too much time revising stuff and get into the new topic quickly.
  • i-time is a huge success: they love to have time to find out things on their passions and interests.

Not bad feedback for teachers. Worth asking your students?

Posted in Feedback, Instruction, school, teacher efficacy, Teaching | 2 Comments

A teacher letter to parents

Posted on November 25, 2014 by mwalker

Recently a young teacher sent a blog link to our staff email distribution list to read. The link went viral as I think it hit a spot with teachers about one of their frustrations.

Apparently some schools have published the post in their newsletter. While I think publishing the post is an overkill as many parents I believe “get it” it’s still worth a read.

Posted in parenting | 1 Comment

The Power of Ummmmmm!

Posted on November 25, 2014 by mwalker

 

This is a video of Kath Murdoch, an educator we have a long association with at EPS, taken in at a Ted X talk in Canada recently. Her presentation features young people from my school.

I must say hearing them “wonder” something made me feel proud. It’s something to my teachers do in classrooms. Kath has worked with us to trial some i-time over the past 18 months. I-time is a space in the curriculum where young people get to explore their questions and wonderings.

I hear you all say – how can fit that in into a curriculum that is already crowded?  Well young people have to make a plan or a proposal for their investigation and find the asset they are wanting to work on (e.g. self managers) so the skills and attributes are there still its just that they get to explore their wonderings – guess what – it’s often a wondering about a recent inquiry topic – not always.

I just wanted to add that during a recent school review parents and teachers alike have changed one of our school values to ……..curiosity.

Posted in Teaching, Uncategorized, Video Clips | 1 Comment

Ice Bucket Challenge

Posted on October 21, 2014 by mwalker

Recently the students at my school set the school leaders a challenge. If they walked more than 6000 laps during the school walkathon and collected their sponsors money we had to do the ice bucket challenge.

Well they walked 9000 laps and collected over $12,000 some of which is being donated to the motor neurone cause. A great effort and a funny result. Well the students thought so!

Posted in school, Video Clips | 1 Comment

terra-cotta warriors

Posted on October 3, 2014 by mwalker

I stumbled upon this short clip on the Terra-Cotta Warriors yesterday which I think gives a great short overview on this natural wonder I visited last year. It’s worth a view for those interested in history.

Posted in China, history, Video Clips | 1 Comment

Medical miracles

Posted on September 29, 2014 by mwalker

 

image

I have met Tony a few times most recently at a dinner at my golf club where we spoke casually about a number of things but I must say I felt proud of him when he was featured on TV show recently for his upcoming facial reconstruction work on a little Turkish boy here in Melbourne.

image

 

 

Posted in disability, Family, Uncategorized | 1 Comment