Follow us
Learning to Learn - Differently
  • Home
  • What's the Difference?
  • Forward Focused School Leadership
  • L2D2 Open Forum
  • Teaching and Learning
  • Resource Bank

What's the difference?

Thoughts on making a real difference in the lives of learners...

View all Blog Entries

Start Summer Early? You have got to be kidding! (V-Day +12)

4/13/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
Read any school website in any city, province or country and you will find something like: "We work in partnership with parents and extended families to maximize the learning experience of our students". Traditionally that has meant some combination of regular communication, encouraging parent volunteerism, an open door policy and numerous school community events.

Until the past month, it has never meant "parents we need your active help in teaching our kids". With its emphasis on remote and virtual learning, education in the age of pandemic has come to redefine the school, family partnership. All of a sudden we have been thrust into a new paradigm. Students stay home, teachers reach out, parents, extended family members, and caregivers help to deliver the goods. This is not what any of us signed up for. The greatest joy in teaching has alway been the daily face to face connection with students. Personal satisfaction coming not from laying on a curriculum, but rather from seeing, first hand, the growth in student knowledge, confidence and productivity that comes with careful and deliberate instruction, support and personal connection.

So how does that play out in the new virtual learning environment? For us it means, as much online face-time as possible. It means regular meetings, office hours, one on one time with a tutor, small group instruction in a virtual classroom. It also means, for the first time for everyone, that families can have a front-row seat in the learning process. No longer is the home school partnership defined by the limits of emails, phone calls, and occasional parent/teacher/tutor meetings. It has become a legitimate team effort in real time. Teachers delivering programme, and families providing emotional support, gauging when their child needs a break, or a snack, or simply to disengage from their screens. It's not the model that we are used to, and it has totally redefined, perhaps forever, how schools and families define their partnership.

The perennial question, "what did you do at school today?" has been flipped. No longer is it a dinner table conversation where an account of each child's day is prodded by strategic parental questions. These days it is found in an end of the day chat on Zoom, or Hangouts, or Meeting or whatever other platform teachers are using to connect with their students. For the first time in their careers, teachers haven't spent the day with their students,  but parents have.

This morning, a local education reporter commented that the current situation was too stressful for parents and teachers and that the government should simply declare that summer holidays should begin immediately and put this remote learning experience out of its misery.

There may come a time when that will happen, but to even pose it now only demonstrates a basic ignorance of what is actually happening in homes and school communities. The days have structure and focus, students are connected with their peers, and teachers, and tutors, in most cases, face to face every "school" day. Parents are engaged in student learning in a rare and positive way, not just task masters at homework time, but as partners in supporting and connecting with their child's school experience.

Is it perfect? No. Is it better than attending school? Well, much has been lost, but some interesting things have been gained that are bound to inform educational practice, and parenting, in the future. Anyone who thinks that our kids would be better off if we ended this experiment really has no idea what they are talking about!

Nobody asked for this. As a life-long educator, I have never seen anything like it. It has been an amazing revelation both as a teacher and as a parent. The years of lip service to the school/home relationship are over and a new reality has set in. It's still rough around the edges, but it is working.

So, thanks to all of the dedicated educators that I work with every day, and especially to my own children's teachers who strive to make every day a challenge that is manageable and often quite fun! But especially thanks to those families out there who, in the middle of a global pandemic, are working tirelessly to maintain a sense of normalcy in their child's lives.

​I cannot think of a better partnership.












1 Comment

Building Community in a virtual world: V-Day (+5)

4/5/2020

1 Comment

 
It's a quiet Sunday morning. Looking out the kitchen window I can see a hockey net set up on the patio, a pitch-back and baseball gloves in one corner of the yard, and horseshoes strewn in another. The playgrounds are closed, outdoor tennis and basketball courts are locked up or surrounded by caution tape and so we have been forced to create our own alternative outdoor activity option for ourselves and our two teenaged boys. In addition, we are lucky in North Vancouver, there are beautiful wilderness parks and trails and a broad selection of places to walk the dog, or go for a hike and still maintain responsible social distancing. The streets are quiet, rush hour is a thing of the past, most stores are shuttered and theatres and cinemas are dark. It is tough to maintain a sense of community when our biggest public duty is to avoid being too close to one another.

So, what about school? School is the ultimate community builder. When Spring Break ended, our sons, after sitting around for two weeks, were dying to reconnect with their friends and their teachers. By contrast Rheanne and I had spent the previous three weeks in constant communication with our peers as we worked at putting together virtual learning plans and structures for our respective schools. For us, the compulsory "staycation" became more of a "workation" and, as last week began, all of us who had been exploring platforms, building teaching and learning sites, and ramping up our own technical skills, held our collective breaths as our teachers and tutors came back online and we began the headlong rush towards an April 1st launch of our virtual learning programmes.

V-Day was on us in a flash, and right on schedule, miraculously, wonderfully, our students reappeared in our lives. To be honest we didn't know what to expect. Like us, they had been cooped up in their homes for over two weeks where your community shrinks to four walls and is made up of you and your nuclear family. It was a great reunion, lots of laughs and smiling faces (with maybe a few tears offline) as we began to adjust to this new definition of community. No fist bumps and corridor banter, no fort building and shooting baskets together on the playground, no walking to the corner at lunch to find some unhealthy snack but still, it was there. The sense of community and belonging hadn't been broken by weeks of self-isolation, it had been strengthened. And, on the strength of that community, the process of teaching and learning began anew. It wasn't the same, but it wasn't all that different either. There was the give and take, the laughter, the light of understanding, and the quiet asking for help - in other words - school was back in session.

So, even though we only have our first week under our belts,  here are two take-aways for me from the past five days.

1. Community means everything. I realized that I had taken for granted the power of networks and mutual support systems. My spring break was spent leaning on our network of school Heads from the lower mainland and across the country for their insight and support; our KGMS Board met regularly through Zoom to discuss issues and offer ideas; and, I especially profited from the energy, creativity and dedication of our school leadership team - four remarkable women who collectively reinvented our programme and refocused our financial and business plan and gave us the power to move forward to support our kids.

Last week I had told everyone that we would have to treat this week like it was the beginning of the school year. We would have to establish new routines and expectations, redevelop our "classroom" protocols, and get our students back into the swing of learning. I was totally wrong. Our students came roaring back, happy to have the structures of school returned to their lives, over the moon to reconnect with friends, tutors and teachers, and excited to get back to the business of learning.
Our staff was equally thrilled to see their kids, to touch base with colleagues and to have something to take their attention away from the dire news that seemed to constantly fill the airwaves. They have been amazing, retooling their programmes, adjusting their teaching and tutoring styles, mastering new communication platforms and doing what they love, working with students. 

I had worried that our school community might be broken, it has grown stronger in adversity.

2. Common cause strengthens family. Our boys, although frustrated that they have been cut off from their friends and that many of their favourite pursuits (baseball, basketball, dance, theatre, etc.) have been cancelled, have still remained resilient. They have set up their home offices, and have thrown themselves into this new world with determination (if not enthusiasm!). They too have enjoyed the chance to reconnect with their larger school community. And, if Rheanne and I used to spend half our time talking about school, and kids and programme challenges, now it seems like we devote about 150% of the day doing it! Having said that, I get the better of that deal as she is the most creative and talented educator that I know. And, there is always something new for me to learn.

Finally, one added benefit of no practices, swim classes, or evening meetings is that there are more games nights, family puzzles have re-emerged on our dining room table, we have resurrected nightly family dinners and discovered, thanks to virtual school quiet hour, the pleasure of having lunch together most days.

On Friday after school we had a staff virtual "Happy Hour". Over sixty of us (relegated to postage stamp sized windows on our respective computer screens) raised a glass together, talked over one another, were serenaded by our music teacher, and shared war stories about the week just passed. In other words, it was business as usual.

If this is what turns out to be the "new normal" for a while, I think that we are going to be okay.





1 Comment
    Picture

    Author

    Dr. Jim Christopher is recently retired Head of Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School and Maplewood Alternative High School in North Vancouver. A parent, author and long-time teacher, and educational administrator across Canada, he has been actively involved in the drive to differentiate learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    September 2019
    April 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012

    Categories

    All
    Education
    Homework
    Independent Schools
    Learning Disabilities

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.