Failure to Launch

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paxson_woelber/5434541912

I didn't take a lot of big risks as a child.  I was shy and my mother was happy to let me sit back; she was disabled and couldn't run after us.  She adored being a mum and doing everything for us.  I remember being scared about learning to swim, playing with children I didn't know and catching a bus by myself into town.

All that changed when tragically, I had to stand on my own two feet.  I became a risk taker. I had to. I couldn't wait for someone else to do it for me.  I couldn't wait for someone else to lead me gently by the hand.

My husband to be took it to another level; he was happy to kayak over water falls or leap out of an aeroplane.  I white water rafted and took a kayak course (not my thing but I had a go).  I went from the initially scary arena of publicly speaking in a classroom to speaking in front of a hall full of people.

Having my own children brought home to me how much I needed to demonstrate risk taking: I tried things I had never dared do: luging, roller coasters, water skiing, leaping from a high jumping rock. I wanted my children to be risk takers.  I wanted them to give things a go.

The New Zealand Curriculum document has a similar vision for our young people:

Ministry of Education, New Zealand Curriculum, Crown 2007, page 8.

Being enterprising, seizing opportunities, developing life competencies, being confident, connected and actively involved, are all features of risk takers.  And as actions speak louder than words, it is up to us to model these attributes.  Teachers, like parents, need to role model risk taking.

It's something I think about a lot as I watch the widening digital divide and the polarities between traditional schooling and "modern learning" pedagogy.  Take the news article from AGS in the Herald last week:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11446451

The reporter misses the point about "bean bag lessons".  It's not about the furniture; it's about being lifelong learners and owning the learning; having a growth mindset and always telling myself that I can still do better, that I can't be complacent with the traditional. That regurgitation type assessment is not going to equip our children to come up with the creative solutions our ever-changing world needs.  Sure, our education system works for some, but other news articles in our media remind us that we haven't got it right for everyone.

And it is about me.  Everyone counts.  I first heard the term "imposter syndrome" a few years ago when I laughed when it was suggested that I could hold the workshop on "teaching as inquiry" for our cluster principals.  I didn't think I was good enough. But I took the risk and took the step.

Educamp Hawkes Bay brought this to forefront to me.  At educampnz, a group of New Zealand educators, who aren't complacent with accepting the traditional "winners and losers" model of education, join together to share and explore new ideas.  Just being there is the first step; they are there in their own time and they share without financial recompense. Often it means long travel and a tank of petrol.

The content is determined by those who take the risk to stand up in front of their fellow to share ideas. Workshop timetables are determined by the audience of teacher learners. Presenters present the workshops with little warning.  They are just happy to share and discuss.

You still meet people in the group who are "first timers" and feel nervous.  I hear the words, "Oh, I'd have nothing to offer." Yet others embrace them into the flock and remind them that there are no celebrity presenters, that we are all learners together.  

New faces appear on the Twitter feed and are followed by the old hands. Risk is encouraged!

And some of the content is about taking risk and trying something new.  Nick Mason (@fuse711) and Troy Duckworth (@tewakatroy) talk about developing learner agency and pedagogy in their collaborative working practice at Russell Street in Palmerston North.  They have gone much further than "beanbag lessons".

Sometimes it's about changing up something traditional to make it fit better with today's learners, as with Jo Makinson's Literacy Evolution (@JoMakinson).

Phil Jones (@MrPhilJones) leads discussion about the place of 3d printers - using today's tools today. 

So come on folks, have a go. Don't wait for the help sheet.  Don't wait for the directions. Take the first step.  The view will be worth it!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7330/9965262403_3195ffde1c_z.jpg

(Modern) Learning Environments

"She (was) a Mod" - but not today.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hartman
045/4089843022/

I'll be honest. It's taken me a while to explore this topic, for two reasons:

I took it literally. I was in an existing, older environment, with no power over changing "how we do things here."

The term grates on me. It's another bit of jargon. It's fashionable. It's a trendy term to throw around. Sorry Stephen Heppell, Mark Osborne and others who have been part of this conversation for ages. It wasn't in my "to do" pile.

I fell into the trap. 

Modern Learning Environments are not about the age of the school, the amount of glass, the trendy green, geometric, vinyl ottomans or the orange, corduroy bean bags. It's about how kids want to learn. Actually, about how each of us want to learn, including me.

A light goes on. I start to take notice. The twitter stream starts to ripple with how teachers in traditional schools are recreating their classrooms.

from "Teaching the Teacher"

Anne Keneally uses her efellow year to explore modern learning environments and I send out a challenge in our school for teachers to get their students to redesign the classrooms. Not much changes.

It is not that simple when you have a long tradition of classroom layout in your heads - even for the students. It's about deep and meaningful inquiry into how we like to learn. Without that, we fall into recreating traditional models or being mesmerised by the furniture catalogues and all that lime coloured vinyl - which our budget won't cover. Sigh. But it's not about the trappings. 

The word modern though, does conjure up a particular look. But how long will "modern" be modern?  I've seen a traditional classroom stuffed full of modern furniture that was showcased as a modern learning environment. I've seen an older block with walls punched out to make open spaces and one end furnished with old, donated, comfy sofas. Another modern learning environment.

We really need to delve into how we like to learn. We need that other modern gem, "student agency." We need learner voice and I'm a learner too, so why not start with me?

I liked school. I liked collaborating at school. I didn't think much of any of my classrooms; cold, rattly, grafittied, wooden chairs that ate your tights. 

For individual work, I preferred to wait till I got home. One of my favourite places was spread out on the floor with books all around me. I wanted space and I wanted it on my own. When I was reading I stayed in my small bedroom or tucked myself into a sunny corner of our sun porch, another private, enclosed space.

Hmmm. 

My own kids begged me to be allowed to come home to study, especially in their senior years, nearing exam time. The school was too rigid in its timetable, the teachers were boring, they were reviewing stuff they already knew, other kids were mucking around...it all sounded very familiar. I have to say I was torn between meeting their needs and being a school leader who couldn't condone truancy! 

So let's look at that middle word: "learning". That's the key. Where do we learn best, as opposed to "do school"? Where you learn might not be where I learn. Whether extrovert or introvert we have different needs and at different times. And how do we learn?

I love to discuss things to clarify my own thinking; I read and I write to reflect. I like listening to other experts in their fields - but I want to choose to listen to them and I can't be under stress to take it in. I need to be well fed and watered, warm but not too warm and be able to at least, for a time, shut out any worries in my life. I like to be in an ordered environment; my room has to be tidy wherever I am. Sometimes I want background noise and sometimes I need silence. I want time to consider.

And does "environment" mean a building? I've talked about the spaces I like. But how else do I learn? 

I love my digital devices. I love that they allow me to connect, converse, collaborate anywhere I want to: on the sofa, in my car, in the doctor's waiting room...I love that I can talk with someone in Singapore or Orlando. I love that the only barrier about time is that I need to sleep sometimes when people are working elsewhere in the world. I love that I can replay or rewind that learning if I can't be there. I love that I can learn anywhere anytime. I love the word ubiquitous. It rolls off the tongue.

So now I'm watching how you want to learn. If you choose to play Minecraft, could that be a learning environment for you? Why am I spoiling it if I call it a learning environment? Is learning only a school activity that has been prescribed in a curriculum document or examination prerequisite? Of course not! 

Gone are the days when a school leader told me that it was unsuitable to call a game at school a game. It needed to be called a "learning activity". Oh dear. That sort of says that fun is not allowed.

We know better. We acknowledge that learning happens through play: life lessons like collaboration, creative thinking, problem solving, give and take, communication, disappointment, resilience, all take place in the sandpit. Hang on - these are pretty important tools that a citizen needs in their kete. 

And what of the teacher? How does that role fit in to a real learning environment?

I think of the teachers who have had the biggest influence on me:

• My form 2 teacher who allowed a small group,of us to write our plays. We were fully immersed and presented them to real parent audiences.
• The junior high teacher who let us explore the imaginary back worlds of novels like "The Sword in the Stone" about Merlin and Arthur.
• My mother who always supported learning by attending every interview; who filled a chest of drawers with cuttings and project material.
• My friend Sara who showed me that every four year old's "why" question was important and who could discuss why clouds were pink at sunset and why the sky was blue. Our kids were allowed to paint their faces and dig huge mud holes in her backyard.

The adults were there for the children: making sure they were safe, picking up the pieces, refereeing disagreements, scaffolding understanding, modelling good practice, making sure there were available resources, watching that the children ate and dressed warmly.

So if we learn through play, by being in comfortable, flexible spaces, or even uncomfortable outdoor risk-taking environments, face to face or virtually, in the real world or in worlds we have created online, let's get on with it. We are individuals and don't go out into the world known as boxed sets: "class of 2014."

It's time for real conversations about learning and the learning environments that have always worked. Forget the modern. Learning is not schooling. And modern becomes "how we do it around here" too quickly. And that's the point.

Acknowledgements

• Anne Keneally and her edtalks
• Stephanie Thompson and her blog Teaching the Teacher - especially this post: http://traintheteacher.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/how-ditching-the-desks-turned-my-classroom-into-a-21st-century-learning-space/
• http://edtalks.org/channel/modern-learning-environments and Mark Osborne
• Inviting your school community onto the modern learning practice (MLP) waka
• Neil Fraser and Karla Hull from Ngatea School
• Karyn Gray from Te Karaka Area School
• Marnel Van der Spuy for her thoughts as an efellow looking at MLE for juniors

Other Links:

7 Learning Zones http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2015/03/do-you-know-about-these-7-learning.html