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Posts Tagged ‘Yong Zhao’

26 Years, 26 Teachers, 26 Lessons

Posted in Change, SD45, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 6, 2022| 2 Comments »

I have been thinking about those educators who have influenced me.  And I started making a list. I didn’t want to just do my “favourite” teachers or colleagues but wanted to take a mix of some of the very best I have ever had as a teacher, or worked with, and try to articulate a simple lesson from them that I have tried to apply to my work.

I had about 70 people on my list, but decided to limit this post  to 26 teachers as I finish my 26th year in education.  And then focus on 26 simple lessons from the people I knew as an elementary and high school student, and it my professional stops in Richmond, Coquitlam and West Vancouver.

Here are some ideas I try to take and apply:

Rod Allen – If there is one person most responsible for the progressive curriculum and assessment in British Columbia it is Rod.  I got to know Rod when he worked at the Ministry of Education and learned from him as he would balance the demands of government and the goals of education.  Lesson – No matter the audience, hold to what you believe and people will respect you.

Carol Bourne – Carol was my grade 8 and 10 English teacher.  She got me to read fiction which was not something I had really done before and she had high expectations.  Lesson – A wry sense of humour can go a long way in a high school English classroom.

Pat Brown – Pat was my Socials 11, Western Civilization 12, and Literature 12 teacher.  He built relationships with his students that went beyond the classroom.  I remember sushi dinners and movie nights as a class.   Lesson – You can be completely prepared for a government final exam without ever practicing a government final exam.

Ann Caffrey – I have written before about Mrs. Caffrey (here).  She is a reminder of what a difference a teacher can have on a student’s trajectory.  Lesson – Using a grade 2 boy’s first AND middle name will really get their attention.

Alex Campbell – When Alex became the principal of my junior high in grade 10, it was a completely different school in 3 months.  He and the vice-principals changed the culture and tone almost immediately.  I would always remember this lesson of the impact of leadership. And how blessed I was that Alex came to work with me in West Vancouver for 3 years as Director of Instruction and Assistant Superintendent. Lesson – Principals have a huge impact on school culture.

George Couros – George is a bit of an edu-celebrity.  I like to think I knew him before he was such a star.  George’s first book The Innovators Mindset did a great job of taking all the little changes that we see happening in education and weave them together as part of a big change narrative.  His regular blogging is admirable and he is one of those people I will always read.  Lesson – Education needs storytellers.

Judy Duncan – Judy retired a year ago as the Principal at Rockridge Secondary.  Like at West Bay Elementary and many other stops before, she was loved.  She had that “it” that is hard to explain – a mix of grace, humour and relentlessness.  Lesson – Everyone wants to be part of a winning team.

Paul Eberhardt – I first met Paul about 30 years ago.  At the time Paul was already a well established basketball coach.  We ran programs at neighbouring schools.  He could have tried to recruit all our players to make his team better, but he took the view with me and others that if we all grow strong programs it is good for all of us.  And he was right! Lesson – A model of abundance is better than one of scarcity.

Dave Eberwein – The first person I hired as Superintendent was Dave.  He started as Assistant Superintendent on the same day I started as Superintendent.  Dave and I would challenge each other’s thinking, and we would always land in a better spot.  Having team members with complimentary skills is so important – a real reason why Dave and I worked so well together.  Now Superintendent in Saanich, Dave has a great blog worth following.  Lesson – When hard things are the right things to do you need to do them.

Michael Grice – Michael was appointed vice-principal at Riverside the day I was appointed principal.  He was a master of the timetable, and always took on hard tasks that were the right thing to do.  With his background as a music teacher, and his daily bow-ties, in some ways we couldn’t have been more different – but we just clicked.  Lesson: Sometimes the stars in the school don’t need to be in the limelight.  

Fred Harwood – Fred taught math at McRoberts during my time at the school as a teacher.  He was already well established.  The gesture I will always remember was that he traded courses with me in my first year, to give me a lower level math course to teach – giving me one less prep and him one more.  Few people would have done that.  Lesson:  Teachers are always learners.

Geoff Jopson – Geoff was superintendent just prior to me in West Vancouver.  We actually worked together for 14 months where it was known I would be assuming the role.  Since then, Geoff has continued to be involved in the community and a huge supporter of public education.  Lesson:  Always be advocating for a strong public education system.

Gary Kern – I first worked with Gary in Coquitlam when we were both administrators and then later in West Vancouver on the district leadership team.  Gary moved from public system, to private sector, back to public education and then to independent schools.   Most of us in education are averse to moving around, but it has given Gary such a more broad perspective on issues.  Lesson:  Career movement in education is healthy.

George Nakanishi – George was my grade 5 teacher at Woodward Elementary School.  And the teacher who introduced me to basketball.  His class was also a lot of fun.  Still today, I remember specifics of assignments we did in his class.  I loved getting to design my own island.  Lesson:  Let students bring their passions into their learning and give them choice.

Trish Nicholson – Trish is one of the best coaches I have known.  She has been recognized for her basketball and volleyball coaching and also been to multiple world championships and Paralympic games as a coach.  She is also always finding ways to get better as a coach.   Lesson:  Prepare for working with grade 8’s like you do when you work with Olympians.  

Mary O’Neill – Mary is another vice-principal I worked with at Riverside Secondary and she was later a principal at Charles Best. She put more hours into the work than anyone I have ever known.  I couldn’t believe how she had so much energy.  We were a good team, as she invested in situations that I didn’t have the patience for.    Lesson:  Kids need adults on their side.  

Doug Player – Doug was the long-time superintendent in West Vancouver, but I first met him as a student of his in the San Diego State University Master’s Program.  Doug always brought a different perspective to an issue than what was the common refrain.  Lesson:  Even high performing jurisdictions need to be looking for what is next.  

Rob Pope – Rob was an English teacher at Riverside Secondary, and teacher lead of the school newspaper The Eddy.  He also enjoyed the music of the 1960s which went a long way with me.   Lesson:  We need to give students voice, even if we don’t always agree with that they say.

Stuart Shanker – Stuart is one of Canada’s leading voices around self-regulation.  We have had the pleasure of having him in West Vancouver several times to work with our staff and parents.  My first post about Stuart from 2010 is one of the most read ever on my blog.  Lesson:  There is no such thing as bad kids.  

Dean Shareski – Dean has always been on the leading edge of technology in schools.  But what stands out is his commitment to humanize the work and be serious without being too serious.  Lesson:  More Joy.  

Doug Sheppard – Doug gave me “Satisfactory” in my teacher evaluation in 1996 (so now you know who to blame!).  I followed him to Coquitlam and now he is the Superintendent of Schools in Delta.  My clearest memories of Doug are as a phenomenal teacher that so many of us aspired to be.   Lesson:  A final exam does not need to be a traditional test.

Sue Simpson – Sue was the counselling department head at Riverside Secondary when I was there as  vice-principal and later principal. She was a keeper of the school’s history and kept many of us inline.   Lesson:  In the best schools the administrators and counsellors work as a tight team.  

Gail Sumanik – Gail was the first principal I worked with as a teacher at McRoberts.  She was a wonderfully caring principal and a great mentor.  From Barrie Bennett to Rick DuFour, she introduced me to learning outside my classroom.   Lesson:  Adult study groups build community.  

Don Taylor – Don was my grade 7 teacher and we then later we coached elementary basketball together. He spent much of his career as an elementary school principal keeping school fun.  He was awesome at hosting events – as a teacher and in the years since.  Lesson:  Keeping schools and communities connected is vitally important.

Ken Whitehead – Ken was my grade 6 teacher.  The truth is what I remember most was that he was an Olympic soccer player and loved Bruce Springsteen.  Well, that and he made learning fun.  It seems like such a small thing, but he got me to see a speech language pathologist for a lisp and I am forever grateful.  Lesson:  Look to make a difference for each child.  

Yong Zhao – Yong is a leading voice education across North America.  I have had the chance to work with him on various occasions over the last decade including having him as my doctoral advisor at the University of Kansas.   Lesson:  We need to take more chances in education and challenge the current model.

Happy Summer everyone!  Congratulations to all those involved in education – staff, students and parents for all that we have accomplished this year.

The Culture of Yes will slow down over the summer – maybe one or two posts but will be back strong in the fall as launch the 2022-23 school year.

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Lessons of an Adult Student

Posted in Professional Development, tagged , , , , on June 29, 2021| 11 Comments »

It had been a while since I had been a student. I finished my Masters degree in 1999 – that was last century! At the time, I had imagined continuing on immediately into my doctorate. I actually visited a school and did a lot of research on programs, but other things began to take priority and I moved on.

The opportunity re-emerged about five years ago in conversations with my friend and mentor Dr. Yong Zhao, who was then at the University of Oregon, now at the University of Kansas.  And all the sudden, by the fall of 2018, we had a cohort of 17 students ready to do a Doctorate in Education through a Vancouver cohort of the University of Kansas. My fellow classmate, Gerald Fussell (I guess it is Dr. Fussell now) recently wrote a very good summary of our experience HERE that is a great read for anyone looking to better understand the doctoral experience or maybe join the next cohort.  I won’t cover the same ground, but here are some of my student lessons from my experience:

Sometimes You Need to Start Over

I wrote about eighty pages of my dissertation over the Christmas break.  It was most of my first three chapters.  I knew it wasn’t great.  It felt like I was pasting together a bunch of different ideas and trying to make it coherent.  I needed someone’s opinion, so I sent it off to my advisor.  He got back to me quickly, and we set up a Zoom call.  His advice – don’t try to fix it, start over.  I had assumed he would give me a list of things to fix, and that would give me a good to-do list.  I was not so lucky.  Well, actually I was.  I had all the ideas, my paper just lacked voice or energy.  It was bland.  Not trying to fix it was the absolute best advice.  Two weeks later, 70 pages had become 50 pages and it was a completely different paper – one that was something I was proud to have written.  We always try to fix and edit papers, but sometimes we just need to start over.

Don’t Lose Your Voice

The biggest problem with that first draft I discarded is that I was trying to write how I thought it should be written and not in my voice.  I write a lot.  On this blog and elsewhere, I publish thousands of words each month. And I know I have a casual tone, but I thought I needed to abandon that for my doctorate.  My advisor told me just the opposite was true.  So, in version two, my dissertation read more like my blog posts with my voice coming through. At first it was excruciating not to write in my own voice, and then the words just flowed when I could “just write.”

Grades Don’t Matter as Long as They are Good

I know grades in grad school don’t matter.  And I have spent much of my 25-year teaching career trying to elevate the importance of learning, and decrease the obsession with grades.  But . . . when all of a sudden you are getting grades again, it is the first (and sometimes only) thing you look at.  I was guilty.  I appreciated ongoing feedback until I got my grade and then I was done.  As long as the grade matched the expectation I had, I was no longer interested in ongoing feedback, I was ready to move on.

Professors Want You to Succeed

Again, remember it has been a while since I have been in school.  I think I have been jaded by television and movie characters of college professors over the last two decades. Every professor I worked with really wanted all the students to do well.  None of them wanted a bell curve, or for some to succeed at the expense of others, they just wanted everyone to do well.  Professors challenged me, pushed me, and made me defend my positions.  Especially as I approached some key deadlines over the last six weeks, they went above and beyond to help me hit targets, so I could graduate now.  

Study What Interests You

It sounds simple that you should study what interests you, but I hear from many people that they are not  even interested in their research.  I knew early on what I wanted to study, and it was something I had been wondering since I started as superintendent more than a decade ago, just what do superintendents really do?   I know what I do, but it is that the same as everyone else?   As I began to collect my data, I became obsessed by it.  I had the good fortune of having 59 of 60 BC School Superintendents respond to my survey so I had a complete picture of the province.   If I am going to invest so much time into research and writing, it should be something I care about.  And full credit to every professor along the way in the program who allowed us to design papers and projects that had direct relevance to our work in our school districts.  

Enjoy Challenging and Being Challenged

Having people disagree about ideas was one of the best parts of the program.  I find we don’t debate ideas well in the school system.  We debate people most of the time. Of course, this is so true in the state of world politics and is true in education, that we struggle to take an issue with ideas and we decide if someone disagrees they must be a bad person.   I also find in education most staff are fairly like minded.  So even our disagreements are superficial.  In the program, professors challenged me about my ideas, my data and my future vision.  And they encouraged me to pushback.  I can’t remember another time in my life this has happened.  Even my dissertation defense was loud and tense but engaging and never felt personal.   It is a skill I need to continue to work on as challenging others and being challenged made me better.

Break It into Smaller Chunks

We have all given this advice as teachers to students.  Take a large project and divide it up into smaller parts so you are not overwhelmed.  And a doctorate works with this strategy as well.  There are obvious milestones along the way to work towards.  In addition to individual courses, there is the comprehensive exams, the proposal approval and ethics approval that all serve as useful smaller benchmarks.  I would hear a new term to me often used – ABD – All But Dissertation.  This describes students who finish all the course work but never finish the dissertation.  I see different percentages cited online, but it looks like up to a 1/3 of all doctoral students might fall into this category in some programs.  I know there are a lot of reasons for why this fact is true, but the act of dividing a seemingly overwhelming 100 page research project into small, manageable tasks with obvious small victories sure helped me along the way.  We definitely build up the mystique of the dissertation. 

You Get Out of It What You Want

There are no financial or professional incentives for those of us in the K-12 sector in British Columbia to finish our doctorate degrees.  In some jurisdictions, you need a doctorate to be a superintendent, or you get a pay bump with the added credential, this is not true in BC.  It was interesting for our professors in the program as they universally described our mindsets and engagement as completely different from many of their usual students.  We were there because we really wanted to learn, be challenged, work together, and were driven by intrinsic motivators.  When your motivators are your own, you get out of the doctorate what you want.  You don’t have to do all the readings, or participate in all the discussion boards, or revise a good paper into a great paper.   But you can.  And apparently, we did far more than “regular” students. The program balances the old world of letter grades and credentials, and the new world of personal bests and ongoing improvement.  

Conclusions

I was thrilled earlier this month to successfully defend my dissertation, How British Columbia School Superintendents Spend Their Time, and complete the doctorate process.  I had the sense of accomplishment that Gerald wrote of in his post. I have heard comments before like “a doctorate doesn’t make you smarter.”  I get it and that is true at face value.  But doing my doctorate has made me smarter – it has allowed me to look at issues differently, read papers I would never have read, connect with experts I never might have known, be exposed to new ideas and write, write, write.

My full dissertation is available HERE under the Research tab on my blog site.  Over the summer I am going to take some of my main findings and share them in short, more casually written, and hopefully user friendly posts that will create conversations.  

Next Week . . . . a look at the gender differences in the superintendency.  

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How Do BC School Superintendents Spend Their Time?

Posted in Change, Professional Development, SD45, tagged , , , , on September 12, 2020| 3 Comments »

Happy September!

There is a lot going on this fall in schools and I have no shortage of ideas to explore related to COVID and schooling, but as we head back to school I wanted to use my post this week to share my own learning plan as I also head back to school via Zoom at the University of Kansas. Hopefully later this fall I will complete my comprehensive exam and move to doctoral candidacy (regular visitors to my blog will see I have updated various tabs on my homepage with current content in preparation for my portfolio presentation).

The question that I am pursuing for my dissertation is really a simple one, just what occupies the time of British Columbia public school superintendents? It is a question that has interested me for a long time. I am entering my second decade as superintendent. And while I have a growth plan, receive regular feedback from the Board of Education, and have a job description that is covered by Board policy, the job does seem to be a bit what one makes of it. I followed two very successful longtime superintendents in West Vancouver, and all three of us have done the job very differently. In speaking with colleagues around British Columbia, it appears there are multiple ways to do the job well. I often hear stories of others describing the job, and while some parts sound familiar, others are inconsistent with how I spend my time. There must be some commonality and I am interested in just what is consistent among the 60 of us who hold this position in our province.  From spending time with our Board, to time in schools, to work in the community – just what is common?

And I think there is a wider interest in understanding what BC School Superintendents do. As my research has confirmed, we have one of the highest performing jurisdictions in the world and district leadership plays an important role in school success. And in our context, superintendents are hired by individuals boards who do so with complete autonomy. Understanding the similarities and differences in the work, helps to add to the story of learning success in British Columbia.  

And I like to think many others will be interested in this study. I am sure that I am not the only one of us in BC who wonders how their work compares to the work of their colleagues. Unpacking the impact of the superintendent’s gender, experience, and district size on the way he or she spends time will also be interesting. And it is a position with a high level of turnover (although not as much as many US areas), so for Boards who are responsible for hiring and educators who may aspire to the position better being able to articulate the daily activities of the superintendent will be useful.

I am basing my study on a 2011 study that asked a similar question in Virginia.  I will be surveying my 59 BC colleagues and following up with interviews.  Hopefully they will see the value and be able to carve out the time to assist.  I do think the information will be valuable for all of us.

I often get asked my I would go back to school.  There is no requirement for superintendents in BC to have a doctorate.  Hopefully you don’t think less of me if I tell you one of the reasons is so that I can be part of a re-creation of this iconic movie scene.  Have a great year everyone!

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Afternoon Passion

Posted in Change, Professional Development, SD45, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 10, 2016| 4 Comments »

Follow-your-Passion
It is hard to believe that one of the key tasks of January is to begin promoting our program offerings in our schools next September. This past month, our Board approved a series of new secondary school courses and programs. It is exciting to see a culture of innovation come to life in the program offerings that teachers, principals and schools are bringing forward – I absolutely love the passion-based offerings for students.

We have been offering academy programs for just over a decade.  It started with hockey and soccer.  For many years, students interested in a particular academy program would have to transfer to one of our high schools to participate.  We have changed this over time.

About four years ago, we began to talk about the idea of “one district, three campuses”.  This is based on the principle that students should be able to attend their local secondary school with their friends, but have access to programs for part of their schedule at another site.  It has not been a simple move.  There have been logistics to overcome – calendars had to be aligned so high schools all had the same professional development days.  Timetables also had to be coordinated.  In our case, we now have timetables at each of our high schools where the blocks in the morning rotate and the afternoon blocks are fixed.  So students have the same last period class each day.  This allows us to bring together students from multiple sites each day in the afternoon.

Our school schedules are built so students can complete core areas in the morning, and if interested, pursue specialty programming in the afternoon.

This coming year we now have 10 different academy-style programs open to students from all schools.  We continue to be strong with sports – offering academy programming in soccer, hockey, basketball, baseball, rugby, field hockey, and tennis.  We have also now added mechatronics robotics and dance for next year.  The majority of these programs occur in the afternoon, with some classes before school and on weekends.  In addition to these programs we have several courses that are open to students from all schools – YELL (an entrepreneurship program that runs after school and partners students with business leaders in the community, FAST (First Aid Swim Training, where students earn credentialing towards becoming a lifeguard) and a District Honour Choir (that practices in the evening and performs locally and beyond).  In Art West 45 students can attend their own high school one day and every other day participate in a program that allows those passionate about arts to get extended time in this area.  It is the same principle for ACE-IT Carpentry where students attend the program every other day working towards their Level 1 carpentry credential.

In all we are now at about 15 and growing in the number of options we have available that allow students to pursue their passions as part of their school program – coming together with students from across the district who share these interests.

There is wonderful value in students attending their local school but we also need to find creative ways for students to pursue their passions.  Five years ago none of the programs existed that would allow students from a variety of schools to attend.  Now they are part of our culture.  A culture where talented teachers share their passions with students who are thirsty to pursue these areas.

I am not sure that what we are doing is transforming our system.  I can hear my friend Yong Zhao in my ear that we are maximizing the current system and not changing the system.    We are continuing to find ways for students to pursue their passions which is all part of building a system that is relevent, connected and engaging for our learners.

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My “Top 3” Lists for 2015

Posted in Change, SD45, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 26, 2015| 15 Comments »

Top 3Welcome to my final blog post of 2015 and my annual tradition of my Top 3 Lists for the year.

Previous Top 3 lists for  2014 (here) 2013 (here) 2012 (here), 2011 (here) and 2010 (here).

Hopefully there is a link or a video that connects with you and starts a discussion.  I am finding I am having fewer interesting discussion online – hopefully something here might help.

Top 3 “Culture of Yes” Blog Posts which have generated the most traffic this year:

1. The Learning Commons Mindset

2. How Was School Today?

3. Will School Sports Disappear?

Top 3 Learning opportunities  I went to:

  1. CONNECT 2015 – I am usually not a fan of large conference events, but this one has a good mix of sessions are great opportunities to network across the country.  I see they have Chris Hatfield as a keynote for 2016.
  2. IGNITE West Vancouver – Sean Nosek hosted our first Ignite session in West Vancouver.  It was a great way to learn with colleagues in a relaxed environment.  Who knew pro-d at the bar could have so much value.
  3. C21 Superintendent’s Academy – A group of about 25 superintendents from across the country have monthly conference calls meet in-person a couple of times a year.  We helped put together the Shifting Minds (pdf) paper earlier in the year.

Top 3 Education Books I Read That Influenced My Thinking:

  1.  Innovator’s Mindset by George Couros
  2. Beyond Measure by Vicki Abeles (and the movie is also excellent!)
  3. Creative Schools by Ken Robinson

Top 3 Speakers I Saw And Remembered Their Messages Days or Weeks Later:

  1. Yong Zhao – I saw him speak several times in 2015, and even if I heard some of the same jokes a few times – he said something that stuck with me each time.
  2. Wab  Kinew – I got to see Wab in the spring, and I am really looking forward to having him as our opening day speaker in West Vancouver this coming August.
  3. Will Richardson – Will’s TEDx Video (see my next list below) proved again that he is one of the best out there at making the urgent case for change in our education system.

Top 3 TEDx WestVancouverED 2015 Videos:

  1.  Collaboration . . . It’s Starts with Competition by Allison McNeil

 

2.  The Future of Education is Ready by Lane Merrifield

 

3.   The Surprising Truth About Learning in School by Will Richardson

 

Top 3 Technology Influences I Saw in Schools This Year:

  1.  FreshGrade – It is a monster in British Columbia and likely it will be across Canada soon.
  2. Google Classroom – If you don’t think people in your district use it – you are wrong.  They are just not telling you.
  3. Coding – Each year it gains momentum and Hour of Code is part of most schools now.

Top 3 Signs That Have Nothing To Do With Technology (mostly) That Show Schools are REALLY Changing:

  1. new curriculum in British Columbia with a focus on big ideas
  2. all the value being placed on core competencies for students
  3. the changes in student reporting

Top 3 Pop Culture Phrases That Get Used Too Much in Education:

  1.  This ain’t my first rodeo
  2.  Go down the rabbit hole
  3. Anything 2.0 or 3.0 or 4.0 or . . . .

Thanks everyone for continuing to read and engage with me through my blog.  It continues to be a great place to work through ideas and connect to some of the most passionate people I know.  I have struggled to get a tweet from Dean Shareski out of my mind – he said something like, blogging is like jazz – it is not for everyone but will have a loyal following.  I did think that blogging was going to be for everyone but I was wrong.  There seem to be fewer people in education writing today than even a year ago.  I am not sure why.  That is probably a good blog post for the new year 🙂

Happy New Year – I look forward to learning together in 2016!

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Linking Creativity to Entrepreneurship

Posted in Change, SD45, tagged , , , , on May 26, 2015| 1 Comment »

Entrepreneurship1

You won’t find a lot of people suggesting we need fewer opportunities for creativity in our schools. That said, often people are slow to make the link that efforts around entrepreneurship are really creativity initiatives.  Discussions around improving student learning often focus on core academic areas, and yes, these are important, but we need more than that.

I have been very taken by discussions about entrepreneurship.  I know I held a traditional view of entrepreneurship, that the area of study was really about creating people for the world of business.  And yes, this is important, our schools are about so much more around the skills and qualities we want and the citizenship we want to foster.  My views around entrepreneurship have shifted.  I am persuaded by Yong Zhao, for example, who argues, “Bold entrepreneurs, bright new ideas and world-class colleges and universities . . . are what every country needs and more importantly, what the whole world needs to succeed.”  Zhao and others link closely the notion of creativity with entrepreneurship.  And it makes good sense.

Over the last couple of years, we have introduced three specific new opportunities that link young people to entrepreneurial opportunities:

Early Entrepreneurs:   In this program, participating classrooms each get a $100 micro-loan as startup capital, and asked them to raise funds for charity. Rather than running typical fundraisers such as asking for pledges, these classes used the money to start their own small businesses such as building bird houses to sell at a local market, selling green smoothies on Fridays, and creating family friendly events. These students were using their own creativity and imagination to turn our initial $100 loan into thousands of dollars for charity link to other established programs.  There is a great story of this at work at Lions Bay and their loan that turned into almost $1800 raised for building a school in Kenya through Free the Children.

Entrepreneurship – Ignite Your Passion:  We offer a number of programs for grade 6 and 7 students after school hours taught by secondary school teachers that allow these young learners to explore their passions in areas often not covered in-depth at the elementary grades.  One of the very successful offerings has been entrepreneurship.  As the course outline describes, “This course will empower the next generation to explore their interests in business, leadership and innovation. Students will have the opportunity to engage in topics such as leadership, communication, marketing, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship; culminating with developing their own business. Entrepreneurship students will gain real-world, leadership, and public speaking skills plus a confidence to take risks while exploring their interests and passions.”  One day I was there, I learned about Free Kicks – a soccer camp that was being run by a grade 7 student at Gleneagles Elementary School for younger learners at the school.  It was an amazing example of real world leadership at work.

YELL (Young Entrepreneurship Leadership Launchpad):   I have said in a number of venues, that the future of schooling looks like YELL.  It is real world experience for our high school students that does not just simulate real-life but is real-life. The program is “a hands-on, experiential accelerator for high school students interested in gaining knowledge and developing experience in all areas of business and entrepreneurship. In addition, YELL helps students interact with others across the school system with like-minded individuals, helps to build a community based framework to enhance innovation and provides a learning and development structure to foster innovation and advancement for future generations.”  The program is offered for students in grades 11 and 12.  It started in West Vancouver two years ago, spread to Coquitlam and Richmond this year, and is looking to grow to other school districts in BC and beyond over the next few years.

From Early Entrepreneurs with students as young as kindergarten, to Ignite offerings at the end of elementary school to YELL with our passionate senior students we are being far more explicit around entrepreneurial skills.  These on top of already established programs in these areas that continue to thrive.

It is not just about building business leaders but about the crucial skills we are seeing in these programs – we see our students gain confidence, collaborate and solve problem together and grow as leaders.   The types of skills we need to be highlighting for our students as they enter a world that is changing so quickly.

To come back to Yong Zhao, as we move forward, “We will need a lot more entrepreneurs and creative talents to develop new industries, new products and services and new solutions to the many challenges facing humanity.”

Finally, here is the slidedeck for my latest presentation, “Why we need entrepreneurial kids”:

(If you receive this by email you may need to open the website to view the slides)

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My “Top 3” List for 2014

Posted in Change, SD45, Technology, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 29, 2014| 17 Comments »

top3

Welcome to my final blog post of 2014, and what has become an annual tradition — My “Top 3″ lists for the year. Previous Top 3 lists for 2013 (here) 2012 (here), 2011 (here) and 2010 (here). Hopefully, you will find a link or video or some other information you may not have seen over the past 12 months. The “Top 3” is more about starting discussions and sharing than ranking and sorting.

Top 3 “Culture of Yes” Blog Posts which have generated the most traffic this year:

1.  Teacher

2.  Trying to Understand the Fencing Phenomenon

3.  Taking Back Halloween

Top 3 “Culture of Yes” Blog Posts I have started and really want to finish:

1.  How and Why High School Sports are Dying

2.  What Schools Can Learn from the Transformation in Public Libraries

3.  Early Academic Specialization

Top 3 regularly used Edu words that show you are from BC:

1.  “networks” like the Network of Inquiry and Innovation

2.  “competencies” like the Core Competencies that are part of the draft curriculum

3.  “principles” like the First Peoples Principles of Learning

Top 3 TEDx Videos from WestVancouverED (that you may not have seen):

1.  Getting Beyond “No” – Judy Halbert

2.  The Creative Destruction of Education – Punit Dhillon

3.  The Power of ummmm . . .  – Kath Murdoch

Top 3 Education Stories people will be talking about in BC in 2015:

1.  Communicating Student Learning, — or what most people call report cards, will continue to be a growing topic with more BC districts looking for alternatives, particularly at the pre-Grade 8 level

2.  The Graduation Program DRAFT curriculum was posted for K-9 and despite being very different from past models, was met with general support. There will likely be far more debate on this as the focus shifts to Grades 10 to 12, and the traditional schooling model of senior grades is challenged.

3.  Aboriginal Education — What separates the changes in education in BC from most other jurisdictions in the world is that BC is embracing Aboriginal principles in its changes. The First Peoples Principles of Learning (PDF) are reflected in so much of the current BC work.

Top 3 BC Superintendent Bloggers I didn’t tell you about last year:

1.  Monica Pamer – Superintendent of Schools, Richmond

2.  Kevin Kaardal – Superintendent of Schools, Burnaby

3.  Mark Thiessen – Superintendent of Schools, Cariboo Chilcotin

Top 3 Thinkers from outside British Columbia who are currently influencing work in BC:

1.  Yong Zhao (you will likely hear much more about him in 2015)

2.  Dean Shareski (you won’t see him as a keynote at a big conference, but he is connected to the powerful digital network in BC)

3.  Stuart Shanker (Mr. Self-Reg himself)

Top 3 Videos that have a link between school, sports and overcoming adversity:

1.E360 – Catching Kayla, is one of the most powerful stories I have ever seen

2.  High School Basketball Player Passes Ball  (okay, so it is from 2013, but I didn’t see it until this year)

3.  One handed player gets a shot at college basketball

Top 3 Things I am going to stop doing because they seem hypocritical:

1.  Sitting in on a session of 500 people for professional development, and listening to someone speak about the need for personalization

2.  Accepting comments that suggest there is some debate whether technology is part of the future for modern learners

3.   Giving my kids ‘high-fives’ when they get a happy-face sticker on their worksheets (okay, that doesn’t really happen now)

Top 3 Non-education people I started following on Twitter:

1.  Stephen Colbert

2.  Chris Rock

3.  Tweet of God

Top 3 BCers I started following on Twitter:

1.  Paul Bae /You Suck Sir  — if you follow him on Twitter, do yourself a favour and subscribe to his blog!

2.  Keith Baldrey —  he gets Twitter and the mix of professional / personal and serious / funny

3.  Roberto Luongo — I know he is not really from BC anymore, but he is one of the few athletes I follow

Top 3 Things I learned from my blog this year:

1.  The digital community is an incredibly caring community that will rally around people they barely know

2.  Commenting is down but reading is up

3.  I’m getting more comfortable and more at ease with being more personal

Thanks to everyone who continue with me on this journey and the many new people who have engaged with me this year. I continue to love the opportunity blogging gives me to work out ideas, challenge ideas and serve as a living portfolio. I look forward to another great year together in 2015.

Chris Kennedy

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Some PISA Thinking

Posted in Assessment, Personalized Learning, Technology, tagged , on December 8, 2013| 28 Comments »

pisa

“It is what it is.” That was my first reaction to the PISA 2012 results released last week (Full Canadian Results).  PISA (The Programme for International Student Assessment) is designed to provide indicators of the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students across the world (please see here for more backgrounder information on PISA).  While the assessment tool does measure a limited set of skills, there is much PISA doesn’t measure. And, true, PISA continues to tilt toward 20th century over 21st century skills, but it is still  the world’s best, widely used assessment tool on how we are doing in education and on providing guidance for education improvement.

Although much attention is given to the ranking part of the tests, as Yong Zhao points out, even those at the top are wondering about their success:

While the East Asian systems may enjoy being at the top of international tests, they are not happy at all with the outcomes of their education. They have recognized the damages of their education for a long time and have taken actions to reform their systems. Recently, the Chinese government again issued orders to lessen student academic burden by reducing standardized tests and written homework in primary schools. The Singaporeans have been working on reforming its curriculum and examination systems. The Koreans are working on implementing a “free semester” for the secondary students. Eastern Asian parents are willing and working hard to spend their life’s savings finding spots outside these “best” education systems. Thus international schools, schools that follow the less successful Western education model, have been in high demand and continue to grow in East Asia. Tens of thousands of Chinese and Korean parents send their children to study in Australia, the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. It is no exaggeration to say that the majority of the parents in China would send their children to an American school instead of keeping them in the “best performing” Chinese system, if they had the choice.

But, if one does want to buy into the assessment, we need to do more than use the results to search for our flaws or accentuate our ideologies.  It has been disappointing and discouraging to see some of the commentary in British Columbia, and across the country in response to the results.  I suspect most who have commented (for example) on the need to “focus on the basics” to raise scores haven’t looked at the problem-solving questions that PISA asks (not very back-to-basics questions).

So, while acknowledging the limits of using the nation “rankings”,  let me share some of the insights I have gleaned from my first look at the results and some stories you may have not seen:

1)  British Columbia was the highest performing English-speaking jurisdiction in the world

British Columbia is not only the highest performing province in Canada, but ahead of all other English-speaking participating nations including Australia, United States, United Kingdom, and New Zealand (to name a few).  If you look at countries in general, Canada would be first in this category.

2)  British Columbia was the highest performing multicultural jurisdiction in the world

One characteristic that other countries at the top of the charts do not share with British Columbia and Canada is its diversity.  In language and cultural diversity, BC and Canada stand out as the highest performing on the assessments.

3)  British Columbia was the highest-performing province in Canada in science and reading and second to Quebec in Math

British Columbia has typically been among the strongest performing provinces in each area (typically with Alberta, Ontario and Quebec).  The most recent results show BC was first in science, ahead of Alberta and Ontario.  Reading on, the same three provinces performed at the top level in Canada, and again, all near the top of the International charts. In math, Quebec led the way with BC, Alberta and Ontario following.  It is worth noting, of those who completed the digital math assessment, BC was the highest performing province (more on digital below).

4)  There was both excellence and equity in British Columbia’s results

The difference between the high and low achievers in BC (those between the 90th and 10th percentile) is lower than in all of Canada, and the OECD, in all three disciplines. The gap is also lower than that in Finland (often cited for its high level of achievement and equity) in both Reading and Science.

5)  British Columbia’s results have been steady for the last decade

In absolute terms, since 2006, British Columbia’s results have been fairly steady. It is true that in Mathematics in particular, in relative terms BC (and all of Canada) has declined — in part due to more countries participating, and also because of the improvements in several Asian countries.

And then beyond these headlines, there is other interesting data:

There is a lot to analyze and much more that will come out from the OECD over the next year.  One piece of information that was particularly interesting in the first report was how much less the gender gap was in reading when the test was completed on a computer.  For those using print reading, the BC gap in scores (in favour of girls) was 26 points, but when completed digitally, the gap was only 14 points.  Across Canada there was similar data indicating a shrinking of the gender gap when the reading was digital.  This is incredibly interesting given the increase in digital print we currently encounter — and just one of the many pieces of data that is worth taking the time to better understand.

It is also a given that there are many ways in which our system can improve, and those who make the case for more services, new programs and innovative approaches are right. And, yes, socio-economics and issues like poverty matter. It is also true that BC has an amazing education system.  It is interesting to see what a more positive view the British seem to have of our results in Canada — having such a quality teaching force in BC is our huge advantage.

Now, let’s get past the rankings part and focus on the learning part — what we can learn from others about how we can improve the experiences for our students both locally and globally.  And, let’s not spend our time thinking about how we can get better at the tests, but instead focus our attention and system on how it can help our kids for their world today and for tomorrow.

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