During these challenging times there has been some interesting research coming out as students and teachers learn and work remotely.  It is being said that some things that are happening now will change how we do business forever, and that in the post-pandemic era we will never go back to some of pre-pandemic practices.  West Vancouver continues to take pride in being one of our world’s most innovative jurisdictions.

While remote learning is still fairly new, there is some exciting research around student learning that is leading to some permanent change in policy.  Based on the global research conducted around remote learning that teachers are able to have students perform at least 5% better when they teach in their pajamas we are making a change to our district dress code rules.  I am pleased to announce today that going forward, all teachers will be required to teach in pajamas – even when we return to in-person learning.  It is Sweden, and the work of Loof Lipra, that has shown us first some of this exciting research.  Pajama-Based Learning (more commonly referred to in the research as PBL) is being positively received around the world.  A quick search of “PBL” on Google will find you quotes like this:

Of course, there has been some long standing suspicions that teachers teaching in pajamas improved student achievement.  Many schools that had “Pajama Days”  saw those teachers who were active participants have their students score higher marks than the students of non-participants.  This quiet study which compared achievement results of teachers who participated versus those who did not participate has been a real sleeper that has finally come out from under the covers.

Now, on remote learning, with all our teachers at home teaching in their pajamas, the results are exceptionally powerful.  While the research is not clear as to the reasons for this surge in achievement, some of the speculation includes:

• teachers can spend more time planning lessons as they don’t have to think about what they are going to wear
• dressing for comfort puts teachers at ease and more able to convey information to students
• students feel “more at home” with teachers as a result of their casual dress
• when you wear pajamas you care less about what you eat, meaning you eat more and have more energy
• pajamas have some magical powers 

For those teachers who still want to maintain the formality of school, I hear you.  For most of my work I have adopted the “Zoom Meeting Casual” look – business on the top, time for bed on the bottom.  As the kids say, I am livin’ la vida jam-jam.

Of course there is still more research to do.  Questions like “Does switching from daytime to nighttime pajamas affect achievement gains?”  and “Do staff wearing matching pajamas lead to increased sense of community?”  There is also work to understand why wearing pajamas leads to improved achievement, but dressing in the close cousin of pajamas the yoga pant seems to have little effect.

While we look forward to the return to in-person learning, and we continue to do our work to “flatten the curve” it is exciting to see that we are already learning lessons that will forever change our education system.  We are not afraid to engage in acts of PDP (Public Displays of Pajamas).  So the innovation continues – Welcome to West Vancouver Schools – Where We Wear Our Pajamas So you Can Learn.  

Today’s announcement is the latest in the long line of innovative actions from our school district.  Here is the list of those from recent years:

In 2012 I launched my FLOG.

In 2013 I made the announcement of Quadrennial Round Schooling.

In 2014 we formalized our System of Student Power Rankings.

In 2015 we created our Rock, Paper, Scissors Academy.

In 2016 we introduced the Drone Homework Delivery System.

In 2017 we introduced the Donald J. Trump Elementary School of Winning.

In 2018 we announced the construction of Soak City Elementary.

In 2019 we went back to the 80’s with the launch of the Belvedere Learning Academy.

We know these are challenging times, but innovations just can’t stop. Happy April 1st.