Real live AKO

I talk a lot about the concept of ako (on #edchatnz is one example) and how it is essential in education that authentic learning should be between students and teachers and that the transmission of knowledge and skills has to be a two way street. I think that I do this in my classes to some extent.  However, even though I listen to students' ideas and take note, change or add to my "world view," use their ideas to teach the concepts to other students or get them to teach other students these concepts, I wanted to challenge myself further - I really wanted to give my students agency well as much as possible within NCEA.



Health education gives students quite a lot of scope and their teachers as well. I was challenged through reading a tweet about students teaching teachers and I thought to myself I have the perfect opportunity to do this - AS 91236 Take action to enhance an aspect of people’s well-being within the school or wider community (level 2, 5 credits). It was important for me to do this within my "normal" teaching as I have a lot of senior classes and want to try and make NCEA more viable for interesting, exciting and real learning. I believe strongly that we should fight the good fight within the system and that although students have to do NCEA we have to make it all about the learning.

Anyway, in this AS students have to do something to make peoples' well being improve.  As a PB4L school (first proper year) I felt that one way to reach all students and all staff was to create lesson plans for the form times linked to our key words of respect, resilience and motivation.  It was the students choice on what topic they wanted to do.  However, through ako (them teaching me what is important for them) and the strong mindedness of some of my students (which I love although it makes my life harder!!)  they had their own ideas!

The first group were adamant that they wanted to try and change the uniform so they didn't exactly teach the teachers but met with the BOT to discuss their ideas and the views of the students they had asked in their questionnaires.

The second person wanted to re-vamp our bullying form and that was great as so did I - so she did it in relation to the Ministry's new guidelines.  She came and taught our pastoral team how to use the new form and we fed back ideas to her.

Pastoral team

The second group did want to create lesson plans which was great but they wanted to do sexual identity and treating people who are different to us respectfully, which I think was also great but we are a very traditional style school and these PB4L lessons are delivered by the form teachers. Before teaching the teachers the students wrote the lesson plan, created pre and post questionnaire and resources.  As it was such a sensisitve subject The students also talked to the Guidance Counselor. They did great - explaining the lessons, talking about why it was important to do, answering questions etc.  I did have to after the session field a few comments from teachers especially about the video as it was graphic but it went well and so did the lessons.   It made students and teachers think - the most important thing

Love is all you need

Sexual identity lesson plans

The third group (well one girl) also wanted to complete lesson plans but was keen to look at drink driving and talking about how to resist getting into a car with a drunk driver.   This links to resilience.  She went through her lesson plan, discussed what she wanted them to do and why she chose that path and answered questions.

Resisting getting into a car with someone who has been drinking alcohol

 So, what have we learnt?

ME
1. I have learnt (well reinforced the idea) that although giving your students opportunities to lead and choose their own pathways is great, rewarding and how it should be, it is also hard work.  It was a stressful week for me - especially as a tough topic.  However, one of the most important topics there is

2. It is brilliant for students to come into the staffroom or meetings and be the expert - it is all about their peers so they should have a greater understanding then we do

STUDENT VOICE - a sample of students 

1. What did you feel about talking to the teachers/BOT?

ROBERT It was scary but once i got to know the board they are great people to talk and share ideas with.

KATIE It felt like we had control of the problem we were discussing and we felt like that teachers were finally listening to what us students what to say.
 BRIE It was okay but our turnout wasn't that great
 ELISE I felt pretty comfortable with talking to the BOT in our meeting and the teachers who’s classes we were surveying were very helpful in allowing us to take time out of their work schedule to do so
CORTNEY they were good 

2. Do you think they listened to you and followed your ideas?

 ROBERT Yes they did greatly and explain why they cant do our ideas and  explained why and give as a new idea to work on.

KATIE They listened to us and gave us ideas about what we were doing.

 BRIE  NO
ELISE The BOT listened to our presentation and ideas and they were very helpful in understanding where we were coming from, offering us compromises when they could not give us what we wanted. The only I had with speaking to them was that they continuously interrupted us when we were doing our presentation even though at the start we asked them to save all questions until we had finished our presentation.
CORTNEY YES

3. What advice would you  give other students doing this?

 ROBERT Prepare well and be confident towards the people you discus with. Work as a team and have a back up plan.

KATIE Don't be afraid to speak your mind and tell everyone what you think about what you are doing your topic on. And tell them how you actually feel.
 ELISE Choose people to work with who you know will get work done and not muck around leaving you to do it all because it would make your meeting with the BOT much easier for all of you and it would be easier for you all to pass your internals.
CORTNEY be confident, its not that scary
BRIE  pick a subject that is more likely to happen

4. Did you learn anything from this activity?

 ROBERT to be confident towards your group you speaking to and have a back up plan increase it doesn't work. be realistic.

KATIE To not be scared about talking to different people about your problems and to speak up for what you want people to know and think about.

BRIE  take more responsibility in doing m wok

ELISE  I learnt that you can actually make a significant change within a school if you are a student with a school project.
CORTNEY - no

5. Anything to add?

ROBERT nope :)
KATIE Understand what other people are saying and to get there point on the topic listen to what ours options are. 
CORTNEY no

TEACHER VOICE

·          Plus – great for them and us

·         Minus – none

·         Interesting – fosters communication, models the idea that we are all learners, encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning

       Seemed to be a little awkward ---for both!?

·         Need to get/canvas the students' perspective?

·         Maybe a more "neutral" area should be considered?

·         Good but it scares the crap out of the students!

·         I really enjoyed the students coming into the staff room teaching us. It would have taken them so much courage and confidence to get up and do that! I couldn't even imagine doing that at my school when I was a student! I think it made it more relevant because they had put it all together themselves.
     Overall- awesome!!!

  fine with me

Guy Claxton and the "slow, gradual but relentless" approach

I was very lucky to have a pretty much private audience with Guy Claxton with about 20 other teachers at Sacred Heart in Hamilton last night.  If you get a chance to hear him talk - do so.

http://www.buildinglearningpower.co.uk/

As teachers, of course, we want students who are academically successful but we also want students who have the skill set to be able to live successfully in our every changing, at top speed, world.  What Guy said was that we should have both - oh yes we should!!

What he said really resonated with me - especially as all of my teaching has been about the education "plus" and is very often non-measurable.  When teaching PSHE (personal, social and health education) in the UK the Principal at my first school asked me why should we teach it as we can't "easily" measure it - not without hard evidence? His beliefs were that if we can't measure it and the Government don't ask us to we shouldn't teach it.  Later he also asked me if working class kids should be taught Sociology - but that is a different story.

Subjects like PSHE are hard to measure - you have to try and measure attitudinal beliefs and attitudes which is not easy but do-able. Do you measure the amount of pregnancies/STIs/Drug mis-use - straight away or within 5 years?   However, if measuring attitudinal change it might just be a very small change that happens at the time and then grows later on.

My other roles in schools and as an advisory teacher have also been pretty "wishywashy" (according to some people - my previous Head included) but I don't care as I totally agree with Guy who talks about the importance of pro-social values and that "education is a moral enterprise of what we want our young people to be like."

"Wishywashy" doesn't mean that the subject can't be rigorous at the same time.  Health education, here in NZ especially, is not just about condoms and cannabis (although some of it is) it is about critical thinking and the WHY, the big picture and how we as individuals affect others and society, and vice versa.

My other role as a Dean and as the Pastoral Team coordinator is also more about the plus side of education. Especially with working closely with young people and their families dealing with any issues that were affecting them and therefore, generally, affecting their learning.  Restorative practice fits in really well here as I had some students who basically ran their own restorative meetings - they needed a place and a general outline on how to deal with their differences.

Health, including the Friends programme, is also all about how to be resilient, how to make decisions and how to deal with issues if you or people you know have any.  This to me is all the "plus" side of education and very vital. However, even now at my current school, which is 100% better than my previous ones, they are not seen as "that" important - by where they sit in the importance of them at school.  The Deans have a major role in the school but the Deans nor SLT are not automatically trained in RP when they join the team. We can talk the talk but not walk the walk.

Guy also made me think about whole school policies especially in relation to change.  I must admit that I feel frustrated about the pace of change at school but Guy reminded us that our approach may have to be "slow, gradual but relentless."

When dealing with change I have always believed in fighting from the inside and you can still do the best for your students from within the reactionary education system.  Guy said that sometimes If u hav 2 "park ur learning power" coz if u have to play the game u got to play it.   This has been my attitude throughout my own education and for my students but Achievement Standards can be pretty flexible. Frustrating but true.

My challenges from Guy's talk
1. Use PB4L to teach pro-social skills and reflectiveness to help with understanding learning
2. Think about how to measure Health and the "plus" side of education
3. With past students ask them questions about the attitudes and values etc some years down the line?
4. We have to talk as a school about academic success and key competencies - much more
5. We have to, have to create a school vision that is for everyone is our community and make sure that our community understands that Education plus is the only way to have truly successful students
6.  Finally as a personal thing I have to be aware that patience is needed but keep going

Some top tweets
Teachers r like sport s coaches but we r mind coaches do we want healthy ss with gr8 Hauora?

Teach ss to question what they read/hear. We hv to teach the ungoogable stuff in our classes

If u hav 2 "park ur learning power" coz if u have to play the game u got to play it. Need to change this

Got to re-educate the parents that we can have great results and have ss who have gr8 key competencies