Is School About Students?

"I don’t want our school to simply be a reflection of society... I want our school to shape society."

- Danny Steele

One of the most significant challenges for teachers of any grade level is to help school make sense for kids. This may just be one of society's greatest ironies - that a place designed to teach children really is not about them at all! 

A structured day with specific tasks is not a natural way of being for children - especially young children - and the content is not necessarily meaningful for every child either. Although our repertoire of teaching skills and strategies has expanded greatly over the decades, we still tend to teach as though children are small adults waiting impatiently to grow into full adulthood. In reality, children are more inclined to resist - consciously or subconsciously - what they don't know until they see a reason for learning something new. Especially when they are not yet developmentally ready for learning a particular skill, concept or strategy that we, as adults, believe they must!

Historically, children were taught the accumulated knowledge, traditions, skills, values and beliefs of their cultures at home until such time as society knit itself into tighter units where large clusters of children with common age ranges offered additional challenges. These new challenges included child care with the onset of the industrial age, as well as demands for learned people to assume governance and leadership roles in the sparse population bases establishing citizenship through colonization. With an eye to bringing youngsters together for learning - thus making it less expensive both in terms of costs and time - schools began to form in multiple ways throughout Europe and both North and South America. And with the development of schools came the need for management - schedules, timetables, groupings, instructors, what to teach. Few of these decisions were made from the perspective of the child - most were made to ensure effective school operation by the adults.

As time passed and research became a key component of education, many changes to organization, teaching strategies, scheduling and development of curricula took place.  Infinitesimally slowly sometimes, and not necessarily in keeping with societal changes but there have definitely been developments that have been positive for children - as well as some that have not been so positive.  And today, we are still struggling to balance between an archaic system designed for adults and a child-centered one that meets the needs of children. 

It is an epic struggle and as an early elementary school it is our fundamental work - trying to help children make sense of a 'school' not necessarily designed to meet their learning needs but rather the organizational needs of the adults.  Essentially, school are still designed in alignment with these early concepts of school - although our curricula have become saturated with much more than the early reading, writing and basic math students were expected to become proficient with in school.

“The world is more connected than ever, but the nature of its connections has changed in a fundamental way. Individuals are using global, digital platforms to learn, find work, showcase talent, build personal networks.  -McKinsey & Co. 

In a changing world, schools are beginning to seek ways to make greater sense for their students, to offer them reasons to attend rather than learn online, to create learning opportunities that will lead to future careers and options for living successfully, to generate interest and wonder and pique curiosities for living in a world that has increasingly become encased in multiple boxes - our homes, our schools, our places of work, our communities, and now our digital platforms. 

How can schools offer students a different way of understanding and making sense of an increasingly complex yet highly fragmented world? It is time, it seems, to re-think the bells, groupings, schedules, content-heavy curricula and confinement that has been the mainstay of school since formalized schools began to emerge almost two centuries ago.

"While we have this tendency to focus design on the classroom…it is so important that leaders are also looking intentionally at the design of the organization and its processes and systems for future learners."  - David Culberhouse

Educators know kids need to move so we are re-thinking the design of classrooms where students have flexible seating, options for standing or sitting or even lying down to work, think, create, innovate. Children need to be both outside and inside to make connections, ask questions, learn first hand of the integrated nature of the world. In a world where children need to be contained for safety reasons rather than allowed to run free in their neighbourhoods, we must find ways to bring physical literacy to them through play, music, action that is also contained - and because of this, we explore the world together in intentional ways through community walks, coulee visits, field trip experiences. Learning to create and make things using tools originally designed by ancient ancestors and consistently improved and perfected through generations is honoured in our Studio with Maker Space and Design Thinking opportunities - and choice is championed through our weekly Wonder Times. We bring music, drama and art together to perform and share our thoughts, beliefs and ideas. We group and re-group for literacy and math to problem solve and challenge each other's thinking as we learn and process and figure out reading, writing and mathematical thinking together. 

We are not at the end of the journey of evolving educational approaches - we are at the beginning of recognizing learning is not about how children mimic and act like adults but rather about how adults understand the complexities and subtleties of learning from a child's perspective.  It is only in this way that we invite, encourage and support each child to maximize multiple aspects of their learning capabilities.

A new entry point for students coming to school each day at EHS has been the introduction of our IGNITE time every morning for 30 minutes. IGNITE time starts as soon as children arrive for teaching and learning - it is a brief focusing time at the very beginning of their learning days where they get to choose how they are going to kick start their attitudes and mindsets towards learning. 

Students might choose reading, games, math, drawing, building, designing, music, active play to start their days - some make different choices every day while others are drawn to the same IGNITE activity daily. Teachers monitor but also engage students during this time - some are in SPARK or CALM while others are doing yoga in classes, pedaling on stationary bikes, writing or constructing in the hallways or the Hub, reading in the Learning Commons, hallways or a classroom cubby spot. Teachers might also be involved working 1-1 with a child on any particular day to strengthen a learning concept or strategy taught previously.  Each child's brain seeks different ways to engage in learning and thinking at all times, and IGNITE has proven to be a highly popular, engaging beginning for students.

The two most significant benefits we can see after almost two months in school is a decrease in late starts - children want to be here for the whole IGNITE time - and very smooth, quick transitions to learning tasks when IGNITE time ends - there is no complaining or whining or 'just a minute' - they know the activity will be there tomorrow should they still want to choose to stick with the same focus. IGNITE is reliable, engaging and effective to promote student thinking and learning.

So, is school about students? I do think we know it's time to shape the institution to reflect the children in the building and to get to know our learners as well as we know the curricula and the expectations from adults at the district and provincial levels. Huge work for sure! But also work we believe will benefit all students as school becomes more about who they are as learners rather than who the adults are that designed the building, the curricula or the classroom-based experiences.

Lorraine Kinsman

Principal