What is the purpose of school?

Often we are told that our business is to improve outcomes for learners- and to some degree this is true.

We are also told to fix the ills of society (teenage pregnancy, environmental destruction, financial woes, crime, racism, bullying,religious intolerance and hatred) and while schooling can't actually 'fix' these things it does have a part to play.

Usually these expectations come on schools when society is failing in some way or another or when a group wants to exploit schooling for some other agenda.

Our National Curriculum states:

Our vision is for young people:

• who will be creative, energetic, and enterprising
• who will seize the opportunities offered by new knowledge and technologies to secure a sustainable social, cultural, economic, and environmental future for our country
• who will work to create an Aotearoa New Zealand in which Māori and Pākehā recognise each other as full Treaty partners, and in which all cultures are valued for the contributions they bring
• who, in their school years, will continue to develop the values, knowledge, and competencies that will enable them to live full and satisfying lives
• who will be confident, connected, actively involved, and lifelong learners.

It is perhaps the last bullet point that is most compelling. If we as a nation are to succeed (and I don't just mean economically) we need individuals who are lifelong learners. Herein lies the challenge of schooling. How do we create/enable/encourage "confident, connected, actively involved, and lifelong learners".

I believe that Schlechty sums it up beautifully below:

The business of schools is to produce learning that is so compelling that students persist when
they experience difficulties and that is so challenging that students have a sense of
accomplishment, of satisfaction- indeed of delight, when they successfully accomplish the task
assigned (leaning)
so...
The job of the teacher is to make learning so compelling that young people find it more satisfying
to learn than to attend to any one of a score of competing possibilities”
Phil Schlechty in H Lynn Erickson “Concept based Curriculum and Instruction” pg viii 2002

So our challenge/ my challenge to schools is to unpack how we might make learning "so compelling" that all else falls aside. All inappropriate behaviour, all distractions, all texting....

Our challenge (and I understand that it is a big challenge) is to engage children and through exciting/ challenging/ motivational/difficult learning.

I believe we can achieve the vision in the New Zealand Curriculum rather than that which is dolled out in truck loads every time there is a problem in society (or an election). I also believe that this is a far more exciting challenge than any National Standard or Ministry imposed "3R" challenge.

Skillful Thinkers

I recently had the pleasure of attending a workshop by Edward de Bono in Belfast Northern Ireland. His presentation regarding "Thought full lesson design" really resonated with me. Two key aspects struck a note:

1. To ensure that we are fully aware and plan for the understandings that we want the children to develop in a rich context

2. To plan to develop skillful thinkers by the language we as teachers use in the lessons as well as the teaching strategies we teach the children.

It sounds so simple yet it is so critical. What are we trying to do if not to develop skillful thinkers?

Yet to do this a teacher needs to consider:

- the type of thinking that is required for the child to be successful

- replacing "I want you to think about..." with " I want you to consider or debate, or discuss, or analyse etc..."

- the understandings (and what this actually means) to be developed and then the process to achieve this- this goes well beyond rote knowledge and is based on a conceptual curriculum

That is we become more precise about the type of thinking we are asking to child to engage in.

At Windsor we staff have placed large copies of words to use in place of "think" on the wall to provide prompts to themselves and children. Just one small step but I believe a powerful one. In addition they have planned for the type of thinking that will be required in the lesson and they have continued with developing specific deep understandings of concept based curriculum in their Inquiry Modules.

Thank you Edward for complimenting our work and providing some very useful insights to develop our children's thinking!