School is back in session. As a parent, I know that with the pressures of making lunches; having clothes ready for the morning; coordinating showers; and even determining who's driving whom to school, it is not surprising that even after a week you feel a bit out of the academic loop in terms of what is actually happening in your child's class. (Forget about asking your daughter or son, or you'll think that the day was spent in limbo!) That is why it is critically important to both reach out to your child's teacher and to take every advantage of communication and conversation opportunities being offered by their school.
Our parents are pros at keeping in touch. Last week, the day before school started, we had a Welcome Back Barbeque which saw over 350 students, staff, and family members descend upon our campus to check out classrooms, meet this year's teachers, connect with old friends and alleviate some of the inevitable anxiety that comes with the first day of school.

This week is Curriculum Night. Parents are invited to learn a bit about the new provincial curriculum and how to log in to our Atlas Curriculum Map to see what their children are studying. They spend time meeting with classroom teachers, resource personnel and tutors and, hopefully, come away with a greater understanding of what the first term is going to look like for their child. Most schools have similar starts to their academic year and they are great opportunities to make that first connection and put a face to a name for both parents and educators.

But even with this kind of outreach, there are five key things that parents and schools should be certain to do to keep the lines of communication open:

1. Keep in Touch: Classroom teachers and administrators have to engage in regular outreach through blogs, group emails, newsletters, or classroom websites. There are lots of great vehicles to make this happen without a tremendous amount of extra time and effort. Parents, for their part, should be certain to contact the school if they have a question or concern. The worst thing that you can do is to let things go unasked, or problems to fester until they come tumbling out at a parent/teacher conference months into the school year.

2. Keep the doors open: Given the pace of daily life, not every parent has the luxury of being able to drop around the school on a regular basis. But, every parent should know that they can if they choose too. We often spend lots of time and effort as schools to convince parents to trust us with their child, we should spend no less time welcoming them to visit to see the work in progress. Whether it is a formal Open House or merely an informal Open Door policy, parents should be seen as valued and welcome partners in the learning process.

3. Listen: Too many of us are on permanent "send". We can get so caught up in explaining ourselves (either in person or more likely by email) that we often neglect to really hear what the other person is saying. Perception is reality and our responsibility as educators is to listen and address those perceptions, not try to win a debate.

4. Face to Face is always best: Email is the best and worst form of communication between home and school. It is best when it is used to send out straightforward information or answer a specific question (Is tomorrow a Free Dress Day?). It is worst when trying to raise a concern about a child's behaviour, academic struggles, lack of a healthy lunch, in fact anything that puts either parent or teacher on the defensive. If it is important, parents should drop in, or arrange a meeting. Teachers should always telephone or arrange for the parent to come in. Too many educators and parents get addicted to building a paper trail through rapid fire email exchanges. It never ends well!

5. Agree to Disagree: There are occasionally going to be "unresolvable" issues between home and school. Rather than look for capitulation or saying things that you think that other party wants to hear to make the problem go away, it is better to simply say: "I guess that we can't agree on this." A respectful expression of disagreement clears the air and sets out a straightforward choice for parents - either they can live with it or not. It is the grey area of uncertainly that is often at the root of home/school challenges.

Let's face it, there are always going to be bumps along the path of parent/school communications. But a proactive, positive and respectful approach to talking to one another is always going to pay dividends for children. And, after all, that's what it is all about!

It's the third week of August and our boys are enjoying a week with their grandparents as my wife and I scramble to get our respective schools ready for the start of another academic year. The summer seems so long when you are contemplating it in June, but it definitely rockets by until all of those weeks that you had to get things done have dwindled down to a few action-packed days. The late August sprint sees us finalizing classes, assigning tutors, responding to last minute admissions requests, and making sure that the school is physically ready for the arrival of our students.

We need to be as ready as we can be, because we know that the first week of school will undoubtedly be a tough one. Staff know it, parents know it and every student knows it. At KGMS/Maplewood it can sometimes be more challenging than elsewhere because coming into the building is a new cohort of students, (usually representing about a quarter of the school's population), many of whom have not been very happy with school. They are great kids, with wonderful potential, it's just that they are hurting.

They are hurting because, for a myriad of reasons, they have become convinced that they can't learn; that they are not as capable as their friends; and, that school is a negative place for them.  For them, school is a place that is filled with frustration and failure. They have suffered under the misapprehension that they are incapable because they have done their best, and have come up short. They are often articulate, creative and highly interested and motivated students, and when they "fail" it is interpreted by teachers (and even sometimes by their own parents) as being a product of their own lack of persistence, effort and grit. How many report cards have you read that say "Work harder and you will succeed"; or, "Not working up to ability"; or, "Needs to make a greater effort" ? But I watch these kids, who have more grit than anyone that I have ever known, beat themselves up because they believe that they just can't do it.

For these students, repeated failure has cemented a sense of fatalism in place. Unlike the student who is often highly praised for mediocre work, (a common occurrence given the inflation of marks and the deflation of evaluative language - does anyone get less than a SUPER!!!! written on their work anymore?), these students get firmly convinced that they are incapable of completing what appear the simplest tasks for their peers to do. Their self-esteem plummets, and they become convinced that no matter how much they persevere, they will surely fail.

So where is the balance? Years ago I had the privilege of teaching alongside William Watson Purkey Jr.(Self Concept and School Achievement, 1970) at the University of Connecticut. Bill Purkey (University of North Carolina) and my friend John Novak (Brock University) wrote Inviting School Success in 1984. Their work in invitational education struck the right note between empty praise, and potentially limiting criticism. They saw invitational education as a general framework for thinking and acting about what is believed to be worthwhile in schools. It centred on five basic principles: (1) students are able, valuable, and responsible, and should be treated accordingly; (2) educating should be a collaborative, cooperative activity; (3) the process is the product in the making; (4) people possess untapped potential in all areas of worthwhile human endeavor; and (5) this potential can best be realized by places, policies, programs, and processes specifically designed to invite development, and by people who are intentionally inviting with themselves and others personally and professionally.

Purkey once told me "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly - the first time". The secret is to see learning as a continuum rather than a series of isolated successfully or unsuccessfully completed tasks. Learning is a work in progress. It is a developmental process that can easily be derailed as soon as we adults put a value judgement on it (e.g. "good work", A+, C-, etc.). Finite assessments, no matter how well intentioned or justified, stop the learning process and lead to not only fixed mindsets in our students about their ability and potential, but also in our own professional judgements about them as learners.
 
So the real question is: "Who sets students up to see success as an unattainable goal"? Is is the parent who thinks that her or his struggling child can do nothing right? Is it the learning environment in which the student receives so much discouragement that she or he is convinced that every test will be a disaster; every assignment an F-; every speech a clunker; and, every team tryout, an early cut? Or is it us educators who are so quick and easy with both our praise and our critical judgements? It is easy to avoid inflating an ego, and encouraging a work ethic; but, it is even easier to crush the spirit of a learner and prejudge their perseverance based upon our vague perception of how well they "should" do. Unfortunately, in the final analysis, all too often it is us, as teachers and administrators, who place these limits on growth.

So what should we do? To begin with, we have to undo the damage that years of failure have caused. We have to create new pathways to achievement; celebrate each small success; open students' eyes to the fact that no-one is perfect and that everyone has her or his own individual path to follow. We are lucky in our school. We have a dedicated faculty and staff who are so numerous that is almost impossible for a student to fall between the cracks. For most students, we are a way station between a frustrating beginning to their school careers, and a much more balanced and satisfying end. Our goal is to make them understand that their journey is a personal one and that the route that they follow will be uniquely theirs. 

Will every one of our students reach their full potential? Who knows! Our job, as with every great teacher in thousands of schools across this continent, is to open their minds to the possibilities. To have that positive outlet that says: "if I have the will, and the perseverance, there is definitely a way".

None of our students, nor us, should ever accept that there are limits to growth.

​Yesterday, British Columbia lumbered out of the past and, reflecting the more flexible and inquiry-based design of the new curriculum, put the myth of the necessity of standardized provincial examinations quietly to rest. For our high school students, this was welcome news. High stakes, recall based testing are perhaps the most difficult for students with learning challenges, and are the least indicative of their actual knowledge and abilities. However, in spite of the rightness of the decision, there will still be a chorus of voices decrying the inevitable "decline" in standards resulting from the move. A few years ago, the Globe and Mail ran an opinion piece entitled. Exams will stop grade inflation! The author, a product of the old "departmental" examinations which ended in Ontario in the late 1960s, decried the decline in standards that was his perceived outcome of the end of these rigorous tests of student "knowledge". He stated:

With no external standards, it is impossible to compare the marks of students in different schools, and universities are flying blind when it comes to admissions. The result is that many woefully-unprepared students gain university admittance only to flunk out by Christmas or to see their first-year marks drop by more than 10 per cent. Not only is this hard on the students financially, it also crushes their spirits. 

Now, before I go further, I must confess that Departmental Exams were abolished in Ontario when I was in Grade 11 . Two years later when I was accepted at the University of Toronto, there was no "objective" measure of my level of achievement, they simply had to believe my school. Two undergraduate, and two post-graduate degrees later I thought that I was safe, until I was "outed" in the Globe as a charter member of that slacker cohort who skated on into university without my appropriate baptism by fire.

We have come a long way in educating students in the more than four decades that have passed since I graduated from high school. Today's learners exhibit higher level thinking and problem-solving skills than my peers ever did, they are masters at sifting through a variety of data and viewpoints (not just memorizing the approved textbook), and they are risk takers and innovative thinkers. Our assessment techniques are varied and reflect the strengths and skills of our students. Exams are still a part of the mix, but just a part.

Is there some grade inflation without the great leveller of standardized exams? Of course there is. Does it matter? Not really. Grades have become a debased currency. Everyone knows it.  So what about the vast majority of post-secondary institutions? How can they protect themselves against the hordes of "unprepared" students who are pounding at their gates? To begin with, let's remember that it is not the job of high schools to do admissions screening for post-secondary institutions. They have a much broader and more meaningful mandate. It is up to the universities and colleges to identify students who are a good fit with their programmes and services. Complaining that the current high school grading system isn't working for them, is a cop-out and one that sometimes masks the fact that universities over-enrol with an expectation that a certain percentage of students will fail and drop out. The institutions complain, but it is the students who suffer. There are better ways to try to predict student success. That is why innovative institutions ask for portfolios, conduct student interviews, check references and move beyond numbers in their admissions processes. It takes time, and effort, and it is more than worth it, but so far these schools are the exceptions, not the rule.

Let's face it. We all know what exams really are. They are not particularly accurate ways to demonstrate knowledge or skills, they are hurdles to be jumped. In the second decade of the 21st century, we know that standardized exams are just a simple screening device. Those who are good at them, get through; and, those who have a different learning style or skill set, don't.

So this week, the province turned a big corner. Student anxiety will go down and teacher creativity will ramp up as they scramble to develop new strategies to keep students engaged without the looming stick of the "provincials" over their heads. My only lament in this whole process, is the timing of the Ministry announcement. Today there are thousands of students across the province waking up to the knowledge that they will be the last cohort to have to face provincial exams. Not the most helpful news when you are trying to gear yourself up to write.

Couldn't they just have waited until July to let us know?

One century ago, in April 1916, my grandfather was fighting in the trenches of Belgium. He was adept at applying the 20th century skills that he had learned in school and life to the situation that he faced both in Europe and upon his return to Canada after the war. Now, let's fast forward a half-century to my days in high school in the 60s. This was the age of television in the classroom, human spaceflight, the ARPA-net, microprocessors, hand-held calculators, audio-cassettes and Star Trek on TV. To what extent do you think that the 20th century skills that were cutting edge in 1916 were still front and centre in our daily lives 50 years later? Jump another 50 years to today and look back at those schools without computers or internet access or Smartboards or hand-held video communications devices? How is it that my contemporaries and all of our 20th century trained teachers are able to cope in the present without having learned 21st century skills in school? The reality is that the basic competencies that we all need have not changed significantly at all.

Here are five things that we need to remember about our current fascination with 21st Century Skills:

1. Most of them date from the 19th Century. When we set aside technology (which changes daily), what are the skills that we are advocating for? Literacy (print and digital); numeracy; effective oral and written communications; collaboration and teamwork; creative problem-solving; social thinking; ethical values and behaviour etc. are all attributes that my grandfather would have been quite skilled at a century ago. 

2. Learners don't have to adjust to change, teachers do. Our students live in the "now", educators are constantly playing catch-up. No-one would take their child to a doctor who hadn't updated her skills and kept up with current research since leaving medical school ten years ago; but how often do we send our child to a teacher who hasn't kept up to date? For most of our students, 21st century skills is a meaningless term given the fact that they have lived their whole lives in the 21st century. This is the "new" normal.

3. Schools (and universities) are the last bastion of the "knowledge is power" philosophy. In an information-rich age, access is power and the ability to find, sort and analyze information is a far more adaptable and useful sphere of knowledge than being able to recite the lineage of the British monarchy back to the Norman Conquest. In too many classrooms, the use of the power of technology is an updated version of the filmstrip projector/cassette player era of my teaching career. It is just an updated tool to teach "content".

4. Schools spend way too much time in the Cognitive Sphere. Almost five years ago, the National Research Council identified a host of interpersonal (conflict resolution, leadership, collaboration, empathy, etc.) and intrapersonal skills (perseverance, adaptability, integrity, initiative, etc.) that have "measurable benefits for multiple areas of life and therefore are critical for all students". These "soft" skills are developed intuitively by the best teachers but not as systematically as they should be.

5. People a century from now will laugh at you. So get over yourself!

There is a growing body of research that tries to put all of this together. The Ontario Ministry of Education recently released a discussion paper on 21st century competencies.

http://www.edugains.ca/resources21CL/About21stCentury/21CL_21stCenturyCompetencies.pdf

They take the concept of competencies beyond that of the simple mastery of "skills":

A skill is seen as the ability to perform tasks and solve problems, while a competency is seen as the ability to apply learning outcomes adequately in a defined context (education, work, personal or professional development). A competency is not limited to cognitive elements (involving the use of theory, concepts, or tacit knowledge; it also encompasses functional aspects (involving technical skills) as well as interpersonal attributes (social or organizational skills) and ethical values.

​My grandfather would have felt right at home!



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