“The world will not be run by geniuses, but rather by people you can
count on.’
Michael Fullan
“Deep learning...is learning that merges life from day
one (babies onward)…looks at the world from many perspectives, cuts across the
disciplines (after all, we live in a trans-disciplinary world not a
mono-disciplinary one), learning that is relevant to real world interests,
needs and challenges of our students, is (inter) active and which concentrates on
developing the capabilities that count not only for today but for a sustainable
future.” Michael Fullan
One of the most fundamentally true things I
know as an educator, mother, grandmother and human being is that the world is
changing faster than I can often fathom – growing up in a world where colour
television was the greatest phenomenon of my childhood, to living in a world
where instant communication, social media and google searches govern most of
our days work and entertainment, I have had the privilege to see first hand
change happens and does not ‘go away’.
It has truly been a privilege to see the world come closer together,
communication paths multiply enormously, innovation and invention make our
lives easier and yet more complex simultaneously. It has also made me realize
the work I do every day as a educator, mother, grandmother and human being
cannot parallel, echo or even resemble the work I did as a student and a young
teacher in schools scant decades past.
It would be morally, ethically and
emotionally cruel to prepare the children I work with today to live in the
world I have already left behind, even just five years ago...
As a
leader, I am acutely aware it is my responsibility to ensure the students whose
learning happens on my watch are moving forward rather than staying static or
slipping behind in understanding and managing the complexities of the world in
which they live. In fact, I spend a great deal of time vested in ‘reading
forward’ – looking for evidence of new living parameters students will need to
comprehend to live successfully in the coming decades of the 21st
century.
I am not a futurist, but I read
the work of educational and business futurists – the ones who are excellent at
analyzing trends and offering strategies for moving forward. I believe this is
a critically important part of my role in school leadership.
And attending the “Learning and the Brain”
Conference in San Francisco in February/17 only served to cement for me the
need to understand learning as constantly evolving change – what Fullan calls
the ‘endless cycle of learning in action’ – the need to recognize learning is
much more than building the essential competencies of literacy and numeracy. From a young age students need to develop other competencies that
will equip them to “negotiate the social, cultural, economic, vocational and
environmental challenges of the mid-21st century successfully and
productively” (Fullan, et. al., 2014).
There are many competencies students will
need to move into their new world that we can begin developing with them from infancy. In
research and educational circles these are sometimes referred to as ‘the six
Cs’ of learning – occasionally some researchers will just focus on two or
three, while others will double the number of attributes necessary to foster
student independence and thinking.
For the purposes of our K-4 environment, I
prefer to focus on six key competencies – and once again, return to Fullan’s
work for definitions. Parents reading
through this list will (I hope) be able to recognize where and when these
competencies are already being fostered in our school and why the work we do
with peace education, design thinking, maker spaces, literacy, numeracy, inquiry, place-based learning, and problem solving looks and sounds the way it does – and why it is
so different from the way teaching looked and sounded just a few short years
ago.
The
21st century learning skills and competencies fostered deliberately
at Eric Harvie School include:
Ø Character (students build tenacity, resilience, honesty, reliability
in their work)
Ø Citizenship (thinking globally to consider diverse issues and values
from alternative perspectives; solve complex problems that impact both human
and environmental sustainability
Ø Collaboration (be able to work interdependently with teams, being
able to problem solve and make decisions together, learning from and
contributing to, the learning of others)
Ø Communication (fluent with reading, writing, speaking, digital
communication strategies to present ideas, question and collaborate)
Ø Creativity (asking questions to generate novel ideas, pursue ideas
into practice, use design thinking to persist, imaginative, courageous to
question the status quo)
Ø Critical Thinking (evaluate information and arguments, see patterns
and connections, construct new knowledge and apply in the real world, persevere,
question, reflect)
These six qualities are championed and
honoured in our school. Sometimes the
work is messy, sometimes it is brilliant and other times efforts fall flat with
everyone and need to be re-examined, re-designed, attempted again - or sometimes even discarded. Our work lies in the processes
– how do we uncover new information, support each other and learn we can make a
difference from the very beginning?
This is what the world of education needs to foster today in school-based learning environments – strategies to definitely build literacy and numeracy
skills, but also endless opportunities to foster problem solving, character
development, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication.
When you notice these skills developing in your children, encourage them to
expand their horizons – engage them in new thinking and new adventures, both
physical and digital.
Maybe even get them enrolled in the first
School Maker Faire!
Next blog entry let’s explore the nature of
play and how that fosters the six Cs as well JJ
Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
No comments:
Post a Comment