This past weekend, I attended the British Columbia Schools Superintendent Association’s (BCSSA) conference in downtown Vancouver. There were many speakers focused on Pathways to Personalization: Shifting Practice and Traditions. The speakers included:
- Charles Leadbeater (Click here for his profile on TED)
- Larry Rosenstock (Click here for a video about his High Tech High)
- The Minister of Education, George Abbott (follow him at
@georgeabbottbc) - John Abbott (Click here for a selection of articles by John Abbott)
- Bruce Beairsto (Click here for some information on Bruce Beairsto)
There was a fair bit of content in this weekend’s conference, and I won’t share everything here. I do have some thoughts that I will be sharing with staff as soon as I can. Here are a few of the thoughts that I think are important.
Questions
The talks generated some questions for me, and I am not too sure I have the answers. Not all questions we ask of ourselves or our students should have a definite right-wrong answer. Leaving some room for ambiguity when asking some questions will help generate some dialogue between people. The questions that came to me were:
- What difference am I making in respect to teaching and learning?
- What is the difference between a student who is on-task and a student who is engaged in learning? Is there a difference?
- Why does British Columbia need an education movement? What are our issues? What should be our focus?
- How can we be innovative in education?
- How do we add value to the lives of children through our teaching?
- Where should learning take place?
- What is the nature of the relationship between students and teachers?
- What will public education look like in 10 years?
Balance Needed
We need to ensure that there is a healthy balance in the curriculum between content and fun. If all our days are only focused on filling the heads of children with content, we will not have a healthy school. If we only focus on games, students won’t progress. We need to strive to find a way of engaging the children in their learning, while providing them with a rich curriculum. Learning doesn’t always have to be fun, but it there is room for fun in learning.
Innovation
“You are one of the best school systems in the world. Why do you need to innovate in British Columbia?” ~ Charles Leadbeater.
We need to innovate because our learners are different now than they were 10 years ago. We have a more diverse student population, and they require educators to be adaptive and responsive to their needs. We need to be open and curious to ideas from others, and sometimes look to the past for new ideas. Personalized learning is not new, but we need to help it develop and grow to meet the needs of children today.
We need to all be working together. Many of the best innovations in our world today came from group discussions or collaboration. We can no longer have an us vs. them view of education.
Changing Culture
It may be safe to say that we are in the middle of a culture shift in public education. The current lack of progress on the teachers’ collective agreement and the new BC Education Plan may be indicators that we are in the middle of a change.
If we are changing, we will all need to be a part of the change process. This means students, teachers, support staff, parents, principals, vice-principals and everyone else who works with or in the school system have to do their part to help us be successful. Have you read the plan yet? What can you do to help?
What will the new culture in BC’s public schools look like? I am not sure, but I am looking forward to it.
One last thought as I sign off for today: “Good questions shouldn’t be answered. They should leave us to ponder.” ~ Bruce Beairsto
Take care.