Category: school reform

Schools are finding that something as simple as the timing of recess makes a difference in health and behavior of their students.   Rescheduling recess to play outside before they sit down to eat lunch has resulted in less food waste with higher consumptions of milk, fruit and vegetables and fewer behavior problems.

Children are calmer during lunch when they’ve had time to play first.  They slow down eating because they’re not trying to rush outside.  Nine years ago a school nurse in Scottsdale Arizona suggested the switch.  The school conducted a pilot study and discovered multiple benefits one being that when students returned to the classroom they were calmer.  Lunch served as a cool down time.  Since that pilot program 18 of the districts schools have adopted recess before lunch.  With many other schools across the country now doing the same.

Despite this common sense approach promoting healthier children many schools resist simple changes because doing so always creates logistical problems. Difficulties like children returning to hallways and classrooms to return coats and get lunches becomes excuses.   Many schools stay stuck in the status quo.  Even simple scheduling changes like recess and lunch can quickly become hot issues with staff. 

The word simple change is a contradiction because change is always an adjustment.  And depending on the personality or the resistance it can fall anywhere on the continuum from difficult to intolerable.

So how do any of us switch gears and accept change? 

To be successful in life we must be willing to evaluate ourselves and work to improve. That means dedicating time to align our work with our goals and our purpose. 

For schools this must be a constant.  Every school administrator and every teacher should accept that there are no sacred cows and approach new ideas with the mantra “we can make it work” instead of excuses.

It is possible to ignore stereotypes.  It is possible to accept the unconventional over the traditional.

The part of the brain that feeds us information on stereotypes and biases is linked with memory and goal planning. We recruit stereotypes and ideas and use this information as a way to make plans that are consistent with our goals.  When people and ideas don’t fit in with our preconceived notions we tend to ignore the contradictions until they become too dramatic to overlook.  When an exceptional situation gets our attention  we are confronted with changing  our thinking. 

This was demonstrated very dramatically last week when a dowdy looking Scottish woman named Susan Boyle captured both the attention and admiration of the world when she surprised an audience with her beautiful singing voice.

Susan’s voice was a contradiction to her appearance. The audience was prepared to dislike her based on her unattractiveness. What happened instead was a surprise and a pleasure when they heard her sing.  She made them feel good. It’s possible that the surprise and pleasure of her voice resulted in a rush of dopamine.

That same rush happens anytime we experience a novelty.  The Alliance College Ready Public School in Los Angeles is also a novelty.  In one of the most challenged and depressed urban districts in the county they have a 90% graduation rate.  These disadvantaged students complete  college prep courses and go onto universities despite being surrounded by a culture of violence.  

The school was also in the news when philanthropist Eli Broad donated six million dollars to their 11 schools.  He said the reason for the donation was because it’s time to take notice of the emerging leadership and excellence of charter schools.

In major cities all over the US charter schools are competing with public schools for students because they are demonstrating they are not resistant to fundamental changes.   Instead of just compensating students with learning differences, emotional issues, and  language and cultural barriers they are seeking methods to strengthen weak areas in learning.

Exceptional schools are schools that refuse to accept horrible outcomes year after year.  These schools have adapted interventions and developed evidence based teaching practices that respect their student’s weaknesses while finding new ways to improve. 

The Alliance College-Ready School is one of the 70 international school chains profiled on the School Chain Showcase.  This non-profit organization  (www.schoolchains.org) hopes to raise awareness by profiling successful school chains from around the world and showing the different ways they educate their students. 

On the website schools in Africa, Europe, America, and Asia demonstrate how it is possible to embrace a paradigm shift and create institutional changes.  These schools have looked at problems in a new way and found new possibilities.  Instead of being dumped into the failure category often associated with disadvantage and poverty they are embracing a whatever it takes belief and making systematic changes.

Visit the website – www.schoolchains.org to find ways and partners to improve education

Yesterday President Obama called for sweeping changes to American education.  One of the more controversial parts of his plan is to implement performance pay for teachers.  Obama laid down a challenge for teachers and public school systems demanding more accountability. 

The President wants to reward excellence.  It’s been a long time since the word excellence and public education have been spoken in the same sentence.  As predicted Union leaders reacted cautiously to the plan, while they welcome the vision they fear its implementation.  The question is: how will we know that our children are learning more?

Almost every school district in American has a mission statement posted somewhere.  Typically it will say to provide the right environment in which children can learn.  Few schools are bold enough to promise excellence.  Now think about any product seeking your consumer dollars.  All promise and some guarantee the greatest satisfaction and the best results when you buy theirs.  Education needs this type of challenge, the challenge of excellence.  

Einstein said we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.   The system under which education operates needs a new foundation.  It took a long time for the current system to develop its institutional practices and they are naturally resistant to let it go.  But schools must not cave into the resistors who see failure and difficulty with the new proposals. The resistors fear that if one thing is wrong how many others might also be wrong.  How much of this institutional establishment are we going to pick apart? 

Intellectual honesty must be a part on this discourse on change.  If schools are ever going to make real progress they must admit that some of their current practices are wrong.  Changing our thinking is the only hope for the future. 

Every pediatrician has this conversation over and over with parents about setting limits and consistently praising good behavior.  What these conversations really are about is manners.   Dr. Perry Klass said, “When you are in an exam room with a child who seems to have none, you begin to wonder what is going on at home, at school and questions of family dysfunction problems begin to cross your mind.”

Practicing good manners has a huge impact on people’s lives despite the fact that some people think manners are out of date. Are they?

Having good manners is akin to showing respect.  Respecting yourself as well as others is one ingredient to becoming a successful human being.   Schools are the epicenter of the manners debate.  Students without manners are seen as rude and this contributes to behavior problems. But few schools have the time or resources to teach manners in addition to their academic benchmarks.  So what’s the answer?

Continuity of practice, practice makes perfect and when anything is repeated enough it eventually becomes part of a new habit.   Schools can teach students good manners first by practicing good manners.  Manners are our public behavior and the first lesson is that there are other people whose feelings must be considered.  Learning this affects a child’s most basic moral development.

Schools can teach manners 101 every day by:

• Address a manners issue every morning as part of their daily messages
• Simple examples are reminders to students to use polite language, practice right of way when walking (road rules for your hallways), and examples of kindness

• Classroom teachers should display manners rules in the classroom and begin the day with reminders to practice. Teachers also demonstrate good manners when they maintain composure under pressure.

• Reward and recognize students who practice good manners. 

• Help students learn good table manners by periodically eating lunch with your students.  Give helpful reminders to students about how to eat properly.

Students who are loud, demanding and insistent show that no one has taken the time to teach them manners; their basic needs are not being met.  Remember children by definition are selfish.  It’s a parent’s job to teach them there are other people in the world and other people have feelings.  Unfortunately when parents fail schools are left to pick up the slack and civilize the behavior of children. 

Creative World Connection is dedicated to helping schools provide comprehensive character education for their students.  Any school that is seeking a dedicated program that is consistent, timely and successful can contact us to purchase material tailored to their school’s needs.   The advantage of being a CWC subscriber is that we are flexible in content and pricing.  Contact us today and mention this blog entry for special pricing on Series 1 and also on custom programs. 

Failure to thrive is a medical term used to describe children who have stunted development.  It’s unclear why but doctors know this affliction is not a result of malnutrition, infections or any other single physical process that science can identify.  What they do know is the condition is reversed when children are in a loving and nurturing environment. 

Children can be stunted physically if they are not given sufficient love and attention now imagine the effect a lack of this has on the learning process.   Our current education system is being stressed by enormous social and economic factors, some of which seem overwhelming.  The suggestion that a failure to thrive is now the responsibility of a school is not meant to criticize but to empower. 

Creating a sufficient loving environment should not be a challenge for a school but a requirement.  Every school should ask: what conditions are necessary for a student to learn?

The most important condition is every student must feel and know that their classroom is safe.  They are treated with respect and trust what their teacher will ask them to do.  At some level the student must believe that their teacher has their best interest at heart.  It is in this environment that students will want to do some work to please their teacher.  They are engaged and attending to the work.  This is a great first step in the process to change from schooling to learning.  

The second step is students will begin to realize that what they are learning is important, it’s relevant to their life and is useful.  They will begin to bring the community of learners into their quality world.  They trust those around them and work together for a common goal.  The momentum is contagious and learning can become fun.

The last step is students learn how to self evaluate their own work.  They decide to make it better.  At this phase students are learning for the sake of knowledge. 

All of this sounds slightly utopian and out of reach.  But remember it’s derived from the basic premise that children thrive in a loving environment.  Any environment that tells a child you matter, you are important, and you can master this is a place where a child can excel.

Schools need to move away from mediocre standards and models.   They can solve their own problems but only by changing their thinking. 

Einstein said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking which created them.”

Our best thinking got us here, we can change. 

Researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.  According to Malcolm Gladwell the author of “Outliners,” the emerging picture is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything. In study after study this number comes up again and again.

The experts claim there are no naturals that float effortlessly to the top. Once a person achieves a certain ability the one thing that truly distinguishes them is how hard they work.  The interesting thing about ten thousand hours is that it’s an enormous amount of time and it’s impossible to reach that number all by yourself.   You have to have encouragement and support and in most cases an extraordinary opportunity to give you a chance to put in those hours. 

KIPP schools are giving their students this extraordinary kind of support and opportunity.  In  KIPP schools students spend 50 to 60 percent more time learning than in traditional public schools.  Everyday students have ninety minutes of English and Math and one hour of science.  Every student in the school plays in the orchestra.  Nationally more than 90 percent of their middle school students go to college preparatory high schools and later to college. 

It sounds like these numbers could be exaggerated especially when you factor into this equation that almost all their students are low-income and African American or Latino.  But on closer examination you see what’s going on here.  Every student signs a contract to put learning first.  Most students begin their school day by getting up at 5:30.  In return for this effort students are rewarded with work that is meaningful.  The three qualities that make work satisfying autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward are part of the KIPP program. 

The KIPP philosophy closes the achievement gap.  It has been an accepted belief for too long by too many that disadvantaged children are not as smart as their more privileged counterparts.   And that educators are not doing a good enough job of teaching them.  When what really is responsible is having gaps in their learning. 

The real problem for students who aren’t achieving is there isn’t enough time for school.  Whatever gains are made during the school year are lost during the summer.  This cycle continues year after year.   Expanding the amount of time spend in school closes this gap.

What KIPP is doing is consistent with the number for excellence; it’s the practice and the time devoted to it that makes a difference.

Instead of talking about reducing class size, rewriting curricula, buying every student a new laptop and increasing funding  schools need to look at the amount of time students spend learning.  Summer vacation is considered a permanent  feature of school life.  The causes of Asian math superiority are obvious.  Students in those schools don’t have summer vacations. In the US the school year is on average 180 days, in South Korea it’s 220 days and in Japan 243 days.  Longer days and a shorter summer will help American students will catch up to our most successful competitors 

One of the biggest complaints I heard when working in a middle school was, “I shouldn’t have to teach that.”    Teachers were very frustrated and defensive about their efforts to engage apathetic students in the classroom.   What usually resulted was a mixture of coercion and discipline.   The coercion was to force students into a learning situation and the discipline was the result when they did not comply.

Most teachers will agree that about half of their secondary students make no consistent effort to learn.  Nowhere are there more frustrated people than the teachers in  classrooms who are attempting the impossible task of persuading large numbers of students to work in school.  

Dr. William Glasser author of Choice Theory in The Classroom, and Schools Without Failure says, “We are mistaken if we believe that discipline, dropouts and drugs are what is wrong with today’s schools.  Serious as they are, they are symptoms of a much larger underlying problem, which is that far too many capable students make little or no effort to learn.   Choice theory explains why this problem exists and how though learning teams we can begin to solve it.”

Glasser suggests that creating learning teams in the classroom engages more students and eliminates the type of competition that leads many students to frustration and failure.   Moving to working together in small learning teams motivates almost all students for the following reasons:

1. Students can gain a sense of belonging by working together in learning teams of two to five.  The teacher selects teams so that they are made up of a range of low, middle and high achievers.
2. Belonging provides the initial motivation for students to work, and as they achieve academic success, students who had nor worked previously begin to sense that knowledge is power and will want to work harder.
3. The stronger students find it need fulfilling to help the weaker ones.  They  find power and friendship that are part of a high performing team.
4. The weaker students find it need fulfilling to contribute as much as they can to the team effort because now their contribution matters.  When they worked alone a little effort got them nowhere.
5. Students need not depend only on the teacher.  Their own creativity and other members frees them from dependence from the teacher and gives them both power and freedom.

Many teachers will be tempted to reject this model simply because it is in conflict with the traditional picture that exists in their heads.   Even a system that is flawed continues to be supported because it takes a shift in perspective to embrace change.   In essence teaching is just structuring the way you want to learn.  To achieve the end in mind a teacher must create the best environment in which students can excel.

How much sunlight do you eat every day?  The caloric sun content of your food is based on where your food is on the food chain.  If you are eating mostly whole foods with no processing you are consuming sunlight, which through the process of photosynthesis allows for plants to grow and absorb nutrients from the soil.

Most Americans have a diet sadly lacking in sunlight, the average American diet consists of one half pound of meat per day, corn, soy and sugar which are consumed as ingredients in highly processed food products.  This low nutrient high calorie diet contributes to the growing health care problems in the US. 

Almost fifty years ago President John F Kennedy created a national initiative to improve the physical fitness of American children.  The president’s council on physical fitness was implemented.  He elevated the importance of physical education making it a requirement in schools.  Today American children are lacking in a high sunlight diet.  The center for disease control estimates that one in three children born in 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes.  What’s needed right now is a new initiative to improve the diets and overall health of children.  

The same commitment to fitness can be applied to a commitment to nutrition or “edible education” as Alice Water’s author of the slow food movement phrased it.    Changing the food culture must begin with our children, and it must begin in school.

Schools can make lunch part of the curriculum, based on the premise that eating well is a critically important life skill.   Every primary school student should be taught the basics of growing and cooking food, and then enjoying shared meals.  The only way to change the current food culture from the meat, corn and soy based chicken nuggets and fries to one of fresh vegetables and fruit is give children the right lessons about food.  These lessons can only be learned if children are allowed to grow, cook and taste what’s being taught. 

This thinking presents a radical change in the status quo.  In the last thirty years Americans have been seduced into eating food that’s fast and easy with little concern given to how it was produced and the health benefits it gives.  It is no coincidence that as spending on health care went from five percent to sixteen percent of national income that spending on food has fallen from eighteen percent to less than ten percent of household income.  Cheap food prices have taken the idea of quality food off the national agenda.  Unfortunately we cannot expect to reform health care without confronting the public health disaster that is the modern American diet.

Every school in American right now has an opportunity to set a new standard, to begin it’s own initiative in educating children who will be healthy consumers demanding and expecting more from the food they eat.   Once schools plant their own seeds of change they can lobby their local districts to do the same.    ”Be the change you want to see,” and begin now. 

Americans look to their doctors to be healthy.   A doctor’s advice is considered gospel, you’ll often hear “my doctor said.”   The irony of this is that the greatest advances in public health did not come from individual doctoring but rather in increasing awareness about health practices and sanitation.   That awareness is responsible for increasing life expectancy in the United States because information is more powerful than any single doctors visit. 

Tragically right now in American’s public schools health awareness is at risk.  Currently there is no dedicated funding for comprehensive sex education in our schools.  Schools have become hostage to political and religious ideology about what’s best for all children. The abstinence only curriculum guarantees that our youth will not learn reproductive information that could potentially not just save their lives but also determine the direction of their lives. 

Today one in four American teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. Nearly half of black teenage girls have at least one sexually transmitted infection.  The Center for Disease Control and Prevention also reported in the study that for the first time in fifteen years the rate of teenage pregnancy has significantly increased.    The United States has high rates of unintended pregnancy, abortion, and STD’s.   And what is our answer to reverse this situation?

Federal funding to schools limits and denies information in our sex education programs.  Abstinence only programs ignore the fundamental precept that sex is powerful in our lives and that it does have consequences.   Education is not taking this problem seriously enough.  Much of what is learned in school is not just learned for the present moment it’s learned to take students through a lifetime of choices.  It’s learned to give children information on how to base decisions.  Decisions about sexual activity happen at all stages of life not just during the teen years. 

What can educators do to improve this situation? 

Become a powerful and compassionate voice for change in your school.  First recognize that all parents fear the possibility of their children having a sexual life, and their greatest desire is that their children delay sexual activity until later into young adulthood.  Often these fears and desires keep parents acting in the most proactive way by demanding a comprehensive program.  The principles of abstinence programs do give a voice to the importance of relationships and communication but they totally lack the substance of information to help children make informed decisions and avoid the consequences.  

Teachers have the ability to engage with parents on the most personal and intimate level.  They both have a child’s best interest at heart.   Teachers can begin a dialogue with parents especially those at the middle school level when students are first given reproductive information.  

So what’s a good way to start?

Approach this taboo subject by bringing awareness to parents about the minefield of influence their children will navigate.  Teens have this perception of being immune of being invulnerable.  Many don’t know what risks they face; they can’t make decisions in the dark because they aren’t properly prepared to make them.   Myths about pregnancy continue like urban legends.  Some girls believe that drinking or douching with coke with prevent a pregnancy.   This type of thinking is a disaster waiting to happen. 

If parents see their child’s teacher and their child’s school as a partner in the future of their children perhaps they will trust educators to make decisions on what’s best for all children instead of politicians.   

What are you resisting?  Is it a change in curriculum?  A change in staffing? A new assessment?

Whatever it is, your resistance is you being swept away by your own thinking and fears.  When you look at the formidable wall of resistance it’s easy to rely on your default tactics.  A default tactic is your personal position and when your emotions run high you subconsciously revert to one of these.  It could be the use of power to get your way, manipulation of others, applying the force of your reasoning to build a wall, ignoring what you don’t want, making a deal to get support for your position or killing the messenger.

Unfortunately all these tactics do is to sometimes create a win for you that turns out not to worth the cost. 

So how do you approach resistance without caving into your own fears?  First it’s important to recognize that all resistance is a natural part of change.   Before you can move beyond what is fearful you first have to recognize it.  Have a dialogue with yourself about what you are afraid of, is it failure, is it the adjustment of something new, or is it just moving out of your comfort zone?

Once you have clarified your feelings maintain a clear focus on the changes ahead.  Ask questions about the proposed changes, respect the other point of view, and remember that in a school everyone should have a shared mission and goals.   Keep in mind both a long and a short view of the changes to come.  Think about your present position and work and imagine how the changes will impact the future.  What is the desired future outcome; can you see the possibility of this?  And have patience, nothing happens successfully for any organization without the quality of perseverance which requires you not to quit or lose heart when things seem not to be working. 

Change can be a dynamic time, a time to embrace new ideas and to explore your own inquiry into your schools values and vision.  As you do this you will be able to embrace the commitment to continuous improvement.  No learning community can successfully survive without a commitment to the discipline of self-assessment and self-improvement. 

The best part about surviving these changes and shifts in your professional life is the ability to adapt to be flexible will become part of your personal relationships.  One side will constantly benefit the other.  You will find yourself being a better teacher and enriching all the other roles you have outside of the classroom.