cc licensed flickr photo shared by Wagner T. Cassimiro “Aranha”
Last night, our school community did our first round of “Student Led” conferences. I was happy to sit in on a few of the sessions where students talked openly with their teachers, parents, and myself on their learning practices. Students were able to identify where they were strong, and where they needed to grow. This was not only with academics, but also with social aspects of school as well.
What amazed me about this process was that the students, many of them seeing great improvement, were often very hard on themselves. Their expectations had risen dramatically for their work and I kind of got the feeling that there is a reason for this; their expectations for themselves mattered. They were not doing things to impress their teacher, they were doing things because they wanted to get better.
We have seen a lot of change within our school over a period of time where we have become more student focused not only in our beliefs, but our practices. It is easier to do a parent-teacher interview where the parents come into the school, talk for fifteen minutes with the teacher, and then move on. A harder practice is working with the student to lead this conversation for not only the time before, but for the entire year, to ensure that they are successful. The kids were nervous yet proud of what they are doing.
It is also easier to give students awards at the end of the year, honouring only students that excel in certain areas, as a way of motivating them. It is harder to continuously recognize students for their contributions in meaningful conversations with them and more importantly have them engaged in the learning process. Finding out what they love and implementing into the classroom so that they are excited about their learning take a lot more work than teaching from the textbook because it follows the curriculum.
Hard teaching is the one where you look at your own practices and learn continuously alongside your students. Our staff have dedicated themselves to use technology to deepen learning outcomes and make meaningful connections both locally and globally. It is easy to just teach the way we have always taught, but it can be tough to decide that we are going to make ourselves vulnerable to our students and show that we don’t know everything, and learn together. Dedicating yourself as a a teacher to show you are a learner as well is a great way to role model for our students.
Giving a mark to a student (A, B, C, etc) at the end of a term can be easy. I remember as a student having those teachers that when you got your first mark on an essay, that is what you usually would get on every piece of work after. You had been ranked and officially sorted. Knowing your curriculum thoroughly, using the objectives and measuring a students learning based on these outcomes and then clearly explaining to parents and students where the child is at is hard teaching. The focus should not be on what we aren’t doing (just giving a grade), but always should be on what we are now doing to make learning more meaningful to students (reporting clearly on learning outcomes).
I have seen teachers continuously grow in their practice and dedicate themselves to doing the hard work that needs to be done to make schools more meaningful to students. I have also seen better (and more meaningful) learning from our students. Isn’t that what this is all about?
Thanks to all of my staff, and all of the teachers that do these things to make our schools truly student-focused.
