Changing Who Wins - Lessons from The Bully Project

This week I was fortunate to be told that Lee Hirsch, director of the film Bully and The Bully Project social campaign was going to speak at St. Clement's School as apart of their LincWell program. My motivation to go and see him speak was a combination of two interests; storytelling and education. I wanted to know how he was able to capture such a sensitive story with the permission of both the bullies, administration of the school and the victims. As an educator I wanted to see and hear his perspective of what the school and administration both thought they were doing to combat bullying and what they were actually accomplishing. I walked away from the evening with two take away thoughts.

• To have bullying both be addressed and stopped in schools, everyone needs to identify that they are not doing enough and that they can improve. This idea was shown in the movie in a variety of ways. The administration of the school being filmed, after watching the footage came out to say that they were not reaching their goals properly, but that they were looking for support to move forward. The parents of the child being bullied had to come out and say that they have a kid that needs their support to move forward and they may not know what that support looks like. The bystanders, both adults and students, needed to come forward and say that they don't know how to support and help. And also the bully and parents of the bully needed to say that they were not doing enough to teach their child the appropriate way that they should treat and respect others. All of these people needed to take responsibility to create a community goal and work together. By blaming one group or individual a sense of community is not formed and the buy-in from all groups may not be enough to cause change.


• Bullies are intrinsic winners, and until bullying is seen as loosing there is no motivation to change. This is what I walked out of the building thinking of and reflected on the rainy walk home. Mr. Hirsch described that while he was in the school $15 was stolen from a teachers purse. Within the hour police and administration were pulling kids out of classrooms and interviewing them until the thief was found. This large scale show of strength would indicate to the students that stealing is not wanted here, you will not be a winner if you steal. However, in the same school when a student was hit and called names by a bully, a simple handshake in the hall was the conclusion. The administration did not put direct discipline on to the offender or make it very obvious that if you bully someone, you are loosing something. If this is not shown through a consequence to the bully they come out as the winner of many things; confidence, fear from others, a sense of leadership.

Mr. Hirsch did state that he is not the one with the answers, but just trying to get others to have a conversation about it. His site for Project Bully has many resources, both free and available online for parents, students and educators to go through. He did indicate that he feels there is no magic combination that will improve everyone and every school, but as a community you need to first identify it as a problem and create a solution that is unique and reflects the needs and wants of the community. 

Looking ahead I know that I will be thinking of how to make my students feel acknowledged and give them the space to acknowledge the positive actions they are having on each other. Perhaps by giving them the time to show what it means to win in our community, those that are bullied or the bully may start to understand how to positively affect themselves and others. .

PD Reflection: Next Steps

After my latest Cohort 21 face to face meeting, I know that my next steps will be to explore the use of Doctopus as an organizational method on Google Drive. I am hoping to use this as a means to help differentiate the students by providing scaffolding to those that need it and challenges to those that are ready.

Earning their Learners Permit -> 13 year olds at the wheel

I have been very fortunate to have a designated period of time with my Grade 8 students focused on taking a pause and reflecting on their past two years of math. The background is it gives the girls time to review before their placement assessment completed at the end of January which has been used to help identify which level of math they should enter in Grade 9. This is because the middle school at BSS uses a reach a-head model that allows students to complete Grade 7, 8 and 9 math courses in their Grade 7/ 8 years and provides them the option of moving into Grade 10 or Grade 9 math in September. Over time this assessment has evolved to become a valuable check-in for both the girls and middle school teachers to see what concepts have stuck, which have become valuable and useful tools and which are needing a second tools. This pause has allowed the girls a chance to have the time without the pressure of grades or new material to seek improvements in their understanding and learn the importance of reviewing past ideas to see what improvements have occurred over time.

With this being my first year teaching Grade 8 at BSS I wanted to use this time to also implement some of my personalization goals stated in my previous post. I wanted my girls to use this time effectively, identifying what they need to review, use resources useful to them and see the result of their personal dedication to improving their understanding. I didn't want the review to be teacher directed or have students isolating themselves to complete pages and pages of questions.



My plan in a nutshell was to put the students in the driver seat while I sat as a driving instructor. I would be calmly aware of the danger that could happen at any moment with a new driver, but also the thrill of being there when someone finds that independence of directing a vehicle for the first time. But of course you don't give a new driver the keys right away and hit the highway, but let them practice on side roads and develop their personal driving style.

On the first days back after the holidays the girls collaboratively created "I Can" statements for all of the concepts they had learned over the past two years using a google doc. They did this by looking over all the old notes and assessments, digging deep and using the Bloom's Taxonomy of questions for math to guide their statements. This process allowed the girls to see all the things they had learned how to do which made a few of them say "I can't believe we learned all of this!". This was their start, going through and identifying concepts of confidence and areas of challenge.

Next, a diagnostic. The girls have been using diagnostics throughout the year before any new unit to help them see what they already know, take a guess at ideas and also check their past understanding. They know that diagnostics are for their own learning and used to help show them where they are coming from and also what we are moving towards. And then the review began!

Students came into class with personal goals. They were not waiting for me to tell them what we would be reviewing, but driving the questioning themselves, guided by their personal reflections and diagnostic. As their driving instructor I provided them with a framework to use that focused on concept understanding rather than question completion. They used this framework and graphic organizers found by clicking on the flowchart to help guide their review time and ensure their understanding. Through this process they have shared what they have learned with their peers by creating a group glossary of important terms with urls that help explain ideas further, a list of valuable online resources to help review and understand concepts, creating screencasts on ipads and also designing their own review package of great questions.

At the end of our time, they will take the check in to see their improvement. As their teacher I know that the main outcome that won't be shown by the results is the ownership the girls now have over their learning. They are not waiting for me to tell them step-by-step how to parallel park, but seeing their peers, websites, analytical skills and also their own creative methods to find answers to questions, and generate new questions to help them move forward.

By having my girls learn these 21st Century Skills when not learning new concepts or with a calculated grade at the end gave them the time and comfort to take the wheel and cruise their first solo test drive. I don't know if this was done during an assessed unit they would have accepted the independence as readily.

Moving forward I am eager to see how these skills and confidence will transfer into our next unit. Will they be able to identify when they properly understand a concept, find that multiple explanations are important? In the end I do wish that they see me as not the driver of their learning, but just along for the sometimes scary but exciting journey.

Helping students find their way in the dark - Personalized Learning Reflection

As I have stated in my previous posts, I am beginning the process to create a personalized learning environment in my classroom. I felt that over the holidays I would think about how I was going to do this, but unfortunately food, family and the amazing outdoors were too good to pass over and I started into my first week back with the same ideas and challenges that were infront of me in December.

Luckily for me that week back was filled with the ISOMA math conference and a two day math department PD session working with Carmel Schettino. Even though neither of these days were focused on personalized learning classrooms, they did allow me to reflect and consider the benefits of a problem based learning classroom and how this pedagogy  could be integrated into the structure that I am hoping to put in place.

An "Ah-Ha" moment came when Carmel showed us a video clip (shown below) of Andrew Wiles, the mathematician who proved Fermat's Last Theorem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPRnUPH8sME

As you watch the video, Mr. Wiles describes the challenge of working through this great problem as if walking around a mansion in the dark. When hearing this I pictured my students and their experience with math as a similar process. It is no wonder that they prefer a structured classroom where they can identify what they are learning and have the teacher do direct instruction so that they can never feel lost in the dark. However, with current research and the goal for 21st century learning skills in the classroom, direct instruction is no longer wanted. This change to a personalized classroom is encouraging students to gain the skills of perseverance, collaboration and intrinsic motivation. However these skills are not natural to all students and this transition can prove to be more challenging for some than others.

One of the other teachers in the group stated that Andrew Wiles is being paid and is choosing to move through the dark while our students don't have that choice nor the skills to do so. This was my lightbulb moment and generated a question that may direct my work over the next few months. That question is "What tools do my students need to be able to begin to move through the dark on their own and how do I give them those tools without guding their way?".

I have now started to look at providing my students with various reflective graphic organizers and suggested maps to help them identify their needs, strengths and what first steps they need to do when faced with a dark room. I have decided to continue to use the Green, Blue and Black levels in my class so that students have the ability to self-select the level of speed and scaffolding they will require to move through the dark. As a class we have already begun creating lists of various online resources that they are able to use to help become more independent learners as well as identify the specific skills and math concepts they have learned so far this year that are now in their toolbox.

By taking the time to ensure that my students understand themselves, their point in understanding and showing them where they can go for clarification other than the teacher, I am hoping that the transition to a personalized classroom will be more like walking through a dark mansion with each of them having a small candle to help them make the choice in which direction to take their next step.

My next step is to find an online tool that will work well for my students to start creating a map of their skills and concepts. By showing how they are connected to each other, I feel that they will be able to see math as the interconnected web that is necessary to see when working through problems. I am hoping that this tool will allow them to show concept connections, imbed links to websites of interest as well as examples of problems that make the connections between concepts.

If you have any mind mapping software that is free and have some or all of the characteristics above it would be great to hear your suggestions.