Twilight of Education (Kristen Stewart and Differentiated Learning)

People with a lot of uniqueness will struggle to have their needs met by a system designed for the average person.

Kristen Stewart, who played "Bella" of recent Twilight fame, blames her teachers for failing to meet her educational needs when she didn't fit into the education system. Her acting meant that she couldn't make classes regularly and needed personalised "packages" from her teachers to help her keep up her education.

Three things I want to mention about this.

One - This is differentiated learning, i.e. having a unique program of learning that is tailor made to the individual needs of the student.

Two - The workload of high school teachers is impossible if they are expected to provide individual packages for their 125 to 150 students (under a differentiated learning model)

Three - Teaching students how to teach themselves, and weaning them off of their dependence on the (current) education system as early as possible, seems like a good way to differentiate in a meaningful way. Developing learning power according to Guy Claxton, or building Key Competencies according to the New Zealand Curriculum.

For the full news article, visit: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10758053

Learning Knowledge vs. Learning to Learn (and the four R’s of a powerful learner)

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime - Chinese proverb

Educators can wear themselves out trying to cram all of the answers into the heads of their students before the final exam.  But what happens after the exam?  Will these same students be prepared enough to be fed (educationally speaking) for a lifetime?  As a teacher it is easy to focus on the fish, solving the immediate problem, and leaving the students to learn to fish almost by accident.  Some students have enough initiative to watch someone and then learn from their observation, but this is the exception, not the rule.  

We teachers need to consciously make an effort to teach our students how to learn powerfully for themselves.  This will empower our students so that they gain confidence and enjoyment from their self-driven learning success.  

As if personal happiness in our students wasn’t enough, there is also the very real potential to become active contributors in their families and communities as they become less of a drain on the communal resources.  Instead they will be able to produce solutions to their own problems and create enough surplus to share with others.

Following is a list and brief description of the four R’s of a powerful learner.  Educators should seek to model these four R’s and to actively teach them to their students.  These are not new, but I credit Guy Claxton for bringing them to my attention via his books and hearing him speak last week.  It’s great when someone is able to put into eloquent words what we struggle to communicate and even form in our own minds.

The Four R’s of a Powerful Learner
Resilient - emotional strength
Someone who is resilient is inquisitive and curious, they persist in trying to complete a task of master an idea, they are adventurous, and they are focused enough not to become distracted from completing things.

Resourceful - cognitive capability
Someone who is a resourceful learner is imaginative and creative, good at connecting ideas and noticing patterns, they seek to improve and refine ideas and skills, and they make good use of resources such as tools and materials.

Reflective - strategic awareness
A reflective learner is methodical, good at evaluating themselves and ideas honestly, they are self-aware enough to know their own strengths, and they can transfer ideas to new situations.

Relate - social sophistication
A learner who can relate will be collaborative in the learning process or in task completion, they are open minded about ideas and feedback, they are independent enough to back their own ideas, and they have a degree of empathy so that they can understand others.

What’s the Point of School (Part four) - Key Psychological Resources of Good Learners

From Guy Claxtons “What’s the Point of School, Rediscovering the Heart of Education” is a list of key resources that are basically common sense habits of mind that we’ve forgotten about or, for some reason, don’t focus on in our classrooms and when building education systems:

• Curiosity
• Resilience
• Balancing imagination and logic
• Being able to ask for help and take feedback without getting upset
• Being able to take a step back from a difficult situation

I intend to unpack the ideas and applications behind these concepts as I understand them, giving examples that I’ve noticed from students in my classroom or from my own learning experiences across various fields.

Curiosity - the desire to learn
If someone is interested in a wide range of topics, or can find something of interest within a new topic fairly easily, then they are more likely to experience a wide range of learning experiences.  This is because they will more easily engage with new material and new challenges through the desire to learn about these interesting things.  The more topics they engage with, the more learning will happen, and the more cross-topic links they will make, further enhancing their range of interests and learning experiences.  It is true that learning leads to better and more efficient learning.  This is why all learners are capable of great things.  Even those who are very slow to begin with can accelerate the learning process over years of dedicated persistence in actively learning.  Yesterday I wrote about learning within a sporting context and the idea of curiosity is relevant because that is how you find out what you want to know and what you need to know to accomplish a goal.  

Resilience - Sticking with it till you’ve got it
Clearly, someone will be a better learner if they try hard to understand something or if their curiosity is enough to keep them going when a concept seems to be taking a long time to master.  The same is true for technical skills, not just academic knowledge.  If you are learning how to vault a wall you must develop strength and technique.  Technique to master the most efficient way and strength to be able to perform the technique properly.  Both strength and technique take time to develop, likewise memorisation when learning vocabulary in an academic context.  If a learner is not resilient enough to be able to stick with the task over a long period of time, maybe even years, then they will not learn anything that is particularly difficult and time-consuming to learn.

Balancing imagination and logic - creativity and practical purposes
To learn new things we need to be able to think outside the square using our imagination and creative talents.  To apply concepts we must also be able to think creatively.  In physics we learn about many different equations.  The easier questions tell us which equation to use and the harder ones expect us to work out which two or three or more equations are appropriate to use.  This ‘working out process’ is the creative application of the knowledge of equations.  If we jump to the field of art and design we can see a wide range of imagination and creativity, but until we consider the practical purpose it is a fairly empty skill to be able to ‘draw a pretty picture’.  Good art considers the audience and tries to communicate using ideas and images that the audience will understand. Design can’t just produce the latest trendy architecture, it also has to consider the practical side of structure and purpose.  

Going hand in hand with creativity and practicality is impulsiveness and planning.  If we try and understand creativity we will see that there is something “out of the blue” and impulsive about it.  Too much impulsiveness leads to recklessness and abandon, ignoring the real needs of the people and plans around us.  At the same time, we can focus on practical issues so much that we lose the ability to meet the needs of warmth and emotion that make us human.  If you consider for a moment, that warmth and emotion is linked quite strongly to creativity and humanity.  This is what separates us from the animals, and makes the human being something special.

Being able to ask for help and take feedback without getting upset
There are two parts to this.  Firstly, being humble enough to ask for help when you know (or even just suspect) that you need it will get you out of a hole that is caused by pride and fear of being seen to be a failure.  This is the curse of young people who are pushed ahead in class or year level when they are not yet developed enough in character to admit when they are wrong or need help.  There is the high stake of having to maintain your perceived “smarts” to justify your position in the advanced group and so any weakness or lack of knowledge is not something that you want to admit.  The reality is that you will move forward so much better if you can share your weakness and your struggle so that others who have been there, or are there, can support you to higher development.

Secondly, we can see that you must be able to remain calm or even happy when receiving correction.  It’s not a problem for most of us to receive positive feedback without getting upset but if the criticism is negative it can be cutting to our ego.  Too often we have a misplaced self-confidence that we feel we can be more than we are just by telling ourselves that we are.  It is hard to grow from this position because we don’t have a true picture of the foundation to build upon.  You can’t grow tomato plants if you pretend there is enough nutrient in the concrete which you plant it in.  If we have a realistic view of ourselves and our need for outside input to enhance our current condition, then we will be more likely to apply advice joyfully, knowing that we are improving.  If we think we are more than we are, or are trying to maintain a facade while knowing the truth about ourselves, we will reject that which will grow us.

Being able to take a step back from a difficult situation
When you are upset, or have dealt with just one too many criticisms of your work, especially when they are coming from yourself or someone close to you, it is of enormous advantage if you can take a deep breath and sort of “reset” your emotional state.  If we let our emotions get on top of us we are more likely to miss the breakthrough that comes from persistence and worrying away at a difficult problem.  If we get angry at someone telling us we are wrong, even when we know or suspect they are right, we will have a hard time taking their advice because of stubbornness and pride.  Sadly, that person giving us advice will also be less likely to give us feedback in the future because of the angry response which conditions them to keep away.

It is useful to be able to look at yourself and assess your emotional state.  This way you can learn what triggers you and when you need to take a mental step back to breathe.  Taking rest when you need it is one of the hardest things to learn, especially when you have a test the next day and you have a set amount of material to get through.  Sometimes it will be more beneficial to your test results to just stop there.  It is also worth noting that in the bigger picture, and what Guy Claxton is getting at in his entire book, is the reality that the test doesn’t really matter.  What matters is your personal development and ability to cope with life.

Life is hard and all of the above attributes build towards a good learner and a good liver.  You can’t have as much fun, happiness, joy, and even love in your life without these skills.  I hope they will help you.

What’s the Point of School (Part Three) - Stress and Escapism

Guy Claxton highlights the problem of stress and escapism in our students.  In a nutshell, the pressure to achieve academically, without being given the support and resources to actually reach those expectations, is causing a great deal of stress in our students.  They turn instead to other sources to bring about the feeling of success and happiness that they crave.

Some negative sources of these substitutes could be: excessive television, excessive internet, drugs and alcohol, bad relationships and sex, bullying, other antisocial behaviour.  Some positive sources of these substitutes could be sporting pursuits, subjects at school that are perceived as less academic because of their creative aspects, good relationships, joining campaign groups.

The young people who have some guidance tend towards the positive substitutes and those with little guidance tend towards the negative.

What is really needed is a total overhaul of the education and assessment system.  Instead of refurbishing something that has rotten foundations, we need to start from scratch, breaking down the old system piece by piece so that we can see the details of the full picture of destruction that we’ve carefully avoided looking at for so long.

In an ideal learning situation, the person in the teaching role identifies where the person in the learning role is in their understanding.  The teacher will then begin to build from there, gently pushing the learner to challenge them self by encouraging them to step just outside their comfort zone.  With the support to overcome challenges like this, gradually increasing in intensity over months and years, the learner will develop confidence in their ability to deal with difficult situations.  With support from someone who is good at teaching them self, the learner will develop a tool box of strategies for promoting their own learning and overcoming of challenges by them self.  This sort of learning is not limited to the academic field, but also to the learning of technical skills (in a sporting context for instance).

The limits to such learning is only time.  For some people, they may take a lot longer to learn the same lessons as the average person, but this does not matter because such a style of learning leads to greatly accelerated learning if it is persistently practiced over many years.  You can see where the current system, which forces learning of individuals into a time frame that will at best suit 50 percent of students, is not going to be workable for too many people.  To it’s credit, the NZ education system has a standards based system in which students are not meant to sit an assessment until they have reached the required standard to pass.  Teachers are meant to know when their students are ready to sit the assessment and allow them to sit internal assessments, or enter into external exams at the end of the year, with the knowledge that they will definitely pass.  In practise, teachers are still under pressure to teach a set body of knowledge in a set period of time, and they are somehow expected to focus on key learning competencies while meeting the learning needs of 25 to 30 students with unique learning needs.  Along with the requirements for University entrance guiding things, and the many other pressures of life and education, it is impossible to expect teachers to be able to do this.  The same system which puts pressure on students, but fails to give them the resources to succeed, also puts pressure on teachers with similar limitations.

This has turned into a longer post than I would like, so I’ll finish there for now.  The key thing to remember, when you find yourself in a learning or teaching situation, is that you can’t rush good learning and you can’t expect people to learn rocket science if they haven’t mastered the basics.

What’s The Point Of School (Part Two)

From the preface:
“[quoting Winston Churchill] “The only time my education was interrupted was while I was at school.”

The purpose of education is to prepare young people for the future.  Schools should be helping young people to develop the capacities they will need to thrive.  What they need, and want, is the confidence to talk to strangers, to try things out, to handle tricky situations, to stand up for themselves, to ask for help, to think new thoughts.”

My thoughts
I’m not sure if Winston Churchill was making a deliberate commentary on the education system when he said this, but sadly it seems accurate.  Instead of being educated according to the noble purpose presented above, students learn to stop asking questions that will develop themselves as people.  Their focus is instead upon passing assessments and meeting requirements for literacy standards that have little bearing upon the real world due to their formulaic and predictable nature.  The real world is not so neat and tidy and real people need to be able to cope with the unexpected.

I would frame the situation as such:
We should be aiming for personal development and character building, developing an understanding of the base principles of learning, rather than focusing on such narrow measures of academic ability as exam results.

I have three concepts upon which I would build my ideal education system.  Creativity, discipline, and altruism.  I have written about these things on my parkour blog in the context of parkour.

What's The Point Of School, by Guy Claxton

From the back cover: "With their emphasis on regurgitated knowledge and stressful exams, today's schools are actually doing more harm than good... ...Guy Claxton proves that education's first priority should be to create enthusiastic learners who can thrive in our complicated and dynamic world..."

I was drawn to this book by the title, as I am not one to blindly follow the system.  I like to question the status-quo, especially when systems appear to be failing at accomplishing the purpose they were designed for.  Also, it is sometimes useful to look at the reason for a thing's existence in order to understand its structure.

The education system is meant to be a learning tool for young (and not so young) people to go into and then come out the other side with some more skills and ability to live their lives.  The government wants productive and happy members of society and the education system is one tool they use to accomplish this end.

Guy Claxton argues that the system is no longer serving these purposes because, amongst other things, it has become more about preparing students to pass exams so that statistics can look better for schools and the government.  In the process, almost every sound principle of natural learning that we take into the system is compromised in order to get us to fit into the artificial learning process.  It reminds me of the Pharisees who had a very detailed system of law, rules, and regulations for worship and did it very well, while at the same time they were missing the point of worship entirely.

Even thought he argues that exams have no real bearing on whether someone will have a happy and successful life, Claxton shows that the educational system is pretty bad at it's own game.  Students cannot pass exams that they have been inadequately prepared for, yet we push out students to achieve extreme goals without giving them the resources to meet those goals.  A result of this is a generation of young people who do not enjoy learning and who seek every alternative they can find that will give them the feelings of success they crave.

There is so much more to say on this, but I'll save it for another time as I'm putting together a few quotes and comments arising from my reading of this book so far.  I'll post snippets as they develop.