Teachers Learning From Each Other

Last May, I wrote about "Homeschooling, Big Picture Learning and the Met," because I was excited to see some overlap between Big Picture Learning ideas and homeschooling. I wrote, "As public schools begin to offer more interesting educational opportunities for students, homeschoolers may want to take a closer look at their local schools. Perhaps there's some common ground that hasn't been explored, some mutually beneficial ideas we can share with each other.  Hopefully, those of us who feel we've learned a thing or two about education will feel inspired to ask, 'How can we work together to improve the educational alternatives for all the children in our communities?'"

If we were to aggregate all the experiences of home educators, teachers, mentors, coaches, and other types of youth leaders, imagine how much we would learn from each other. We have a wealth of experience from which to draw, but too often doors are closed and people are unwilling to subject themselves to public scrutiny. As a home educator, I certainly understand and respect the desire for privacy. I also recognize the risks of exposing ourselves to criticism—or worse—especially when our methods are unconventional. Yet, as scary as it may be to show others exactly how we do our jobs, I'm beginning to think it's perhaps the best way to illustrate a new way to learn. 

Minnesota New Country School

As a participant in the Deeper Learning MOOC (DLMOOC), I had a wonderful opportunity to take a virtual glimpse inside the Minnesota New Country School (a public charter school serving grades K–12).  It was enlightening for me to see how teachers were offering personalized learning experiences and taking student choices seriously within their school setting.

If you would like to see for yourself, watch "Deeper Learning Through Personalized Learning Plans," one of many Vimeo videos available from TeachingChannel.org.

This on-the-spot glimpse into the Minnesota New Country School shows how teachers and students use personalized learning plans for their projects. What I find especially interesting is how much overlap there is between the Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach and what I would describe as child-led learning, or "unschooling." Specifically:

1. Students are encouraged to choose their own projects, which increases their level of interest and sense of control.
2. Students select an adult advisor with whom they can establish a longterm (more than a single semester or year) connection, which leads to a greater sense of continuity, familiarity, mutual understanding and trust.
3. Students work at their own pace, uninterrupted by bells.
4. Adult mentors assist with planning and record-keeping. 

As you may have noticed if you've been reading this blog, I've always believed in involving kids in decisions about their learning. Even though I wouldn't allow my kids to avoid entire disciplines (math or writing, for example), I could still talk to them about why a particular subject was important enough to merit their consideration. I could also help them find ways to connect topics to their own interests. At a minimum, they could choose the specific topics within a general subject to be explored. They've always had a voice—a say in what they were doing—and a range of choices.

Along with seeing the similarities between child-led homeschooling and project-based learning, I noted some obvious differences:

1. Standards. Teachers in an accredited school must consistently evaluate the work being done by students in terms of mandated standards (state curriculum frameworks, Common Core—or whatever comes next). In contrast, even in "The 8 Strictest States for Homeschooling" (as of 2012), home educated students generally have more freedom to deviate from the norm than their schooled peers. 
2. Documentation. Students in a school prepare extensive formal documentation to demonstrate what they have learned; students in a home setting keep records but tend to rely more on dialog and informal assessments (with formal evaluations typically conducted once a year to satisfy state requirements).
3. Resources. I should probably state the obvious here: I envied the equipment and materials those students had at their school. Although homeschoolers have virtually unlimited access to an astounding variety of craft and science supplies sold by hundreds of vendors, there are still budgetary and practical limits to what makes sense in a home. A school, by comparison, can obtain large or expensive equipment and (potentially dangerous) lab materials. Overall, I think my kids did a great job of cobbling together what they needed for various projects, but how wonderful it would have been to have everything at our fingertips day after day! 

Our experiences don't have to be identical to be worth sharing. By observing the interactions between teachers and students at New Country School with an open mind, I have been able to evaluate what I do as a home educator from a different point of view. I have also gained a more optimistic outlook on how schools are striving to meet the needs of their students. Although a teacher in a classroom may be working with different constraints and resources than I am, I can still learn from watching how he or she teaches. Reciprocally, as I present the experiences I have had as a home educator, I hope I will help someone who is interested in exploring a different approach to teaching.

If you're a teacher, have you been willing to share your work openly with others? Tell me, what has that been like for you? In what ways have you been able to learn from your students and other teachers?

Writing for a Purpose—Not for the SAT

My kids are not pleased. My oldest took the SAT in 2005, the year the Writing Section was added. "This writing test is so stupid!" she complained, "Who writes like this in real life?" Her younger sister agreed, as she took the SAT a few years later and was equally frustrated by the arbitrariness of the scoring. My youngest, a senior in high school, just finished taking the SAT last year. He was as annoyed with the writing test as his sisters had been.

So, you can imagine their collective reaction when they heard the recent announcement:

"The SAT Writing Section will no longer be required."

"Seriously?" they asked. "Why did they ever add it in the first place?" 

Good question. Why had it taken nine long years for the College Board to realize that a high-stakes, time-pressured, standardized test is a terrible way to assess writing skills? In what other situation would anyone be asked to prepare a handwritten (no pens or typing allowed), five-paragraph essay in under 25 minutes—with no access to reference materials, no time for review or revisions—and perfect on the first try?  Such a contrived scenario goes against everything I have tried to teach my kids about writing as a way to learn and communicate. 

Ask any writer. Writing isn't about getting points; it's about discovering your voice and articulating your thoughts in a clear, compelling way. A first draft of prose hastily cobbled together might be interesting—it might even be grammatically correct—but it doesn't really tell you much about the writer. Competent writers need to care enough about their writing to persevere during the iterative process of investigation, discovery, drafting and revision. A writer without any mettle probably isn't going to be much of a writer, no matter how impressive her initial draft of a five-paragraph essay might seem. 

When it comes to writing with a purpose and caring enough about your writing to keep working at it, William Zinsser (On Writing Well, Writing to Learn, and others) is an extraordinary mentor. Zinsser truly understands the connection between thinking and writing, and how the two reinforce each other.

"Writing is how we think our way into a discipline, organize our thoughts about it and generate new ideas" (p. 202, Writing to Learn).

By clarifying our thoughts in writing, we come to understand them better. That's why I've recently asked a group of homeschooled high school students to create and maintain their own blogs. Their feelings about the assignment are mixed: some are enthusiastic, others are dreading it. In an effort to encourage and inspire them, I've asked them to examine other blogs of their own choosing to determine what qualities they might like to emulate—or avoid. What purpose would they like their blogs to serve?

I've also provided them with a set of blogging resources—a small collection of videos, articles and brief tutorials to help them get started.

My next step is to work with the students to define the criteria they'll use to evaluate the design and content of their blogs (most likely, we'll create a variation of this Rubric for Evaluating Student Blogs by Karen Franker). I'll be asking them to comment on each other's blogs, too.

Yes, I've heard that "Blogging Is Dead" (from Fast Company), so there's a chance these students will abandon their blogs not long after they begin them. And, certainly, one could argue that there are too many bloggers out there already (as Jeff Goins acknowledges in "Bad Writing Is Essential to Good Blogging"—the 100+ comments in response to his post are interesting).  But honestly? I'm not expecting my students to achieve fame or fortune as bloggers.

People blog for many different reasons, often quite personal ones, and my students can decide for themselves what they want to learn about through their writing. They can pick and choose what they want to release to the public. Of one thing I'm sure: their blogs will be a more meaningful assessment of their writing skills than the dreaded SAT Writing Section ever was.

Self-Assessments: "How Am I Doing?"

Every year at the New Hampshire Homeschooling Coalition Spring Workshop, a handful of experienced homeschooling parents, serving as panelists, answer questions about homeschooling. The workshop typically begins with an overview of the NH Home Education law (RSA 193-A). Panelists are then asked about their personal experiences. Why did they choose to homeschool? How did they get started? Where do they find educational resources? How do they connect with other homeschoolers?

At some point in the middle of the workshop, there's one question that's always asked:

"What are your goals and how do you know you’re accomplishing enough?"

While (as a panelist), I realized this question was about educational goals, I couldn't answer without stating the obvious: my highest priority as a parent was my children's well-being. I wanted them to have fond memories of our time together, so I focused on how they learned—I adamantly refused to use a system of rewards and punishments to manipulate, coerce, or shame them into reaching academic milestones. If my kids didn't feel loved and respected and valued for who they were, no amount of accomplishment would ever make up for it.

If I'm honest, though, I have to admit: knowing whether we were accomplishing enough wasn't easy. Most of the time, I went through an informal process of trial and error. When my kids seemed bored, I tried to help them find more challenging work to do. If they were frustrated or stuck, I encouraged them to slow down and take things one step at a time. "Assessment" was generally something that happened dynamically and continuously as I had regular conversations with my children about how they were doing, what interested them, and where they were struggling.

More formally, I could see my kids were making progress when I helped them assemble their annual portfolios at the end of the year. Their portfolios included a written summary of the major milestones in their lives, photos, samples of work, programs from performances, and other evidence of what they'd done during the year. It was always obvious that they had accomplished much, but was it "enough"? How much was enough? That was difficult for me to evaluate without comparing what my kids had done to what other kids the same age were doing.

All of which leads me to these questions: What can an educator reasonably expect from a student? What should students—or lifelong learners—expect from themselves?