Learning Communities

I mentioned in class on Thursday that I feel the strongest part of the new program has been the experience of being put in a cohort. I would add that the expanded student teaching experience has been invaluable, and its value also cannot be overstated, but I want to focus on our cohort as a Learning Community and expand on that idea.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, the University Learning Centre has run a Learning Community program for first year students for the past five years. The aim of this program is to connect students to each other, and by doing so connect them more deeply to the themes that connect their various classes. From an administration standpoint, the draw is that it reduces attrition rates, which in the College of Arts and Science, usually hover in the 25% range. 

Working with Learning Communities, I have seen first hand how effective they can be in engaging students in their education. I feel like as part of this cohort, I have had the opportunity to be a student in a kind of learning community, and that experience has been spectacular. I think back on my years as a student in the College of Arts and Science where it was not uncommon to have classes with a few hundred other students in the first few years. Even as class sizes shrunk in third and fourth year, the chance to create a community with engaged students was often curtailed by students simply not showing up on a regular basis, and students only having one or two common classes.

In a cohort where we have at least three common classes and a shared student teaching experience, the opportunities to engage as a community have been plentiful. We have organically created a community in which we share best practices and unique insights. We also share our growing pains and, most importantly for me, we share common values. The most pleasant surprise for me coming into the College of Education is how much I enjoy and respect my classmates. For what its worth I think the College would be doing secondary Teacher Candidates a great disservice by not offering them the cohort experience. This, as much as anything else, has helped shape and support me as an aspiring educator. 

We talk a lot about pedagogy and theory. We no that Dewey contends that "education is a social process" and that Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development is proximal because it can only be realized in a social setting. We have read numerous articles on the value of connecting students to one another in order to connect them more deeply to their learning. I have experienced this kind of connection; the trick now is fostering it in the classroom.

Heavy Lifting

Editor's Note: I promise my next posting will not contain any sports metaphors

Today was a good day at my partner school.

In period five I sit in with the Grade 12 International Baccalaureate (IB) students in their Theory of Knowledge (ToK) class. This class is at the core of IB, and serves to tie the various other subjects of the programme together. Many students hate this class. 

Over the last few weeks, tension has been growing as students grapple with the concept of ToK. Today, as students worked on one of their major term projects, the tension boiled over. One student on the verge of a breakdown confided to me that she hated the class because it "made her question everything I know." As I tried for the rest of the period to talk this student and her supporters through the problem, I couldn't help but think that this is really education at its best. 

Of the Ministry of Education's Cross Curricular Competencies, one stands out to me: "Think and Learn Critically". This is listed last among the "Goals to Develop Thinking", and rightly so. This is one of the hardest concepts to teach at any age, and one of the hardest to learn. It is also, I believe, among the most valuable skills one can develop in education.

Because it is hard, many students learn to dislike thinking and learning critically. Appleman warns of this in her chapter on Deconstruction. I experienced this very phenomenon today. I am not a seasoned teacher, and I often struggle with situations where students rebel against the curriculum. Despite my reservations about my abilities, I tried to respond to the insurrection I faced today.

What I told the students is that ToK, like critical thinking (one could argue that ToK is simply a deep form of critical thinking), is supposed to be hard. I compare it to lifting weights. You go to the gym and you put some heavy iron on the bar and you struggle with it. After your first workout your muscles ache for days and you find yourself hampered in movement. You go back and you repeat your workout with similar results. You get frustrated after the first few weeks because despite your strenuous efforts, the weights you can lift aren't going up very fast, if at all. You muscles are sore, and they don't show any signs of growth. Your frustration makes you want to quit. However, after a few weeks you start to notice the weight going up. Your muscles aren't as sore as they were at the start and they recover more quickly. After a few months your muscles start to bulge and you are lifting heavier weights than you ever though possible. More importantly, everything else becomes easier: you can translate your success in the weight room into success on any field you choose.

The point is, the most valuable kind of learning is not supposed to be easy. To risk cliché, if it were easy it wouldn't be worth doing. 

I believe this kind of learning is achievable in the ELA curriculum. When Gallagher and Appleman write their chapters on "Reading the World", it is this kind of skill they are aiming to apply. This way of thinking is the top of the mountain in Bloom's Taxonomy; this skill is the hottest of HoT skills. However, it is only the dedicated, savvy teacher that can get her students to embrace this very difficult way of learning. The benefit, as Appleman and Gallagher point out, is an ability to read the "difficult text" that is their daily lives.

The situation in ToK class today resolved itself rather well. I think students left our dialogue with an appreciation, if not an adoration of ToK skills. If that appreciation did not come today, it will come in the future. All that time spent pushing intellectual iron will pay off come game time. 

Expressing Impressions of Oppression

Appleman begins her penultimate chapter with the following quote:

Perhaps the biggest misconceptions about the use of literary theory with secondary students is that it is most appropriate for college-bound or AP students... In fact, kids on the margins seem to be savvier about theory. Many of them have been reading the world and its inequities for a very long time. (p. 112)

I think about this quote often when I'm in the classroom. Because I am in mostly "gifted" classrooms, I often don't see a broad range of socio-economic backgrounds in the classroom, as unfortunate as this reality is. I do, however, see a range of different races and religions.

I think about how this quote applies to how teachers teach. Another unfortunate reality of our world is that most teachers in schools are members of majority groups. The teachers I work with are both white Christian males. This certainly plays a role in how they approach their classrooms.

A perfect example of this is a World Religions class that I sit in on. The instructor, one of the aforementioned men, is tasked with sensitive subject matter. In the units he created on First Nations and Jewish religion, he approached the topic with reverence. He was also quick to curb any inappropriate comments made, often out of genuine ignorance, by the students. However, for the unit on Christianity, the instructor approached the subject matter with irreverent humour. As a well-read Christian who attended a Christian school, this instructor felt comfortable making light of his own beliefs, while the beliefs of other groups were not treated with any hint of comedy.

This same situation plays itself out for many teachers. Teachers, being for the most part sensitive and well educated, are aware of the difficulties of using certain critical approaches in classrooms where students have experienced "the world and its inequities." Often for these reasons teachers shy away from asking deep questions in classrooms or in subject areas where students may have experienced oppression or marginalization. Yet, as Appleman suggests, it is often these students who can benefit the most from this kind of questioning.

I am not suggesting any concrete answers or solutions here. I think this is a difficult situation for teachers. But I do think, as Appleman does, that asking deep questions is essential. In gifted education, it is the central focus of the program. It is important then that educators be able to ask these deep questions in all classrooms. This is difficult. It requires a great deal of courage, and even larger amounts of sensitivity and humility.