I’ve spent much of my career involved in what you might call progressive education, although that term itself is somewhat problematical. One of the depressing things about education is that some things (like PBL and student centered learning) seem to come back every 30 years or so.

Certainly,  I’ve worked in schools that have thought of themselves as innovative. I’ve experienced 1:1 laptop programs – at a time when they were relatively new and exciting. I’ve worked in schools that adopted flexible learning spaces, and collaborative practice. I’ve seen handheld devices before iPod touches. I’ve done this in a number of different schools, too, both in Australia and in England

I’m not bigging myself up here, just establishing some credentials. Because really, the point for this blog posting is actually all about the perils of working in such a school. You see, creating such a culture – where, firstly, the need for change is recognised, and then there is a culture that supports such change is incredibly difficult. Schools don’t move forward on their own. The school I’m currently working at sometimes feels like it’s stuck in a timewarp, and we’re back in the 1980s.

To begin such a change takes a special kind of principal: one that is highly enough respected by his or her peers that he or she can begin such a project (usually won through hard years working at traditional schools) and is still brave or determined enough that they are willing to take on such a risky project. Above all, such a person must have vision – an idea of what education should look like. It is not necessary to understand how such a vision might be created; that is the work of others.

So, armed with this vision, a principal must endeavour to make it a reality. The only way this can happen is through the staff employed at such a school. They must have the skill and expertise to turn the principal’s vision into reality, along with all the requisite changes that are necessary in transforming theory into practice.

But – and it’s a big but – it’s a double edged sword for principals and the staff they employ. Because they are challenging the status quo, they are surrounded by detractors, who wish to see them and their school fail. Added to that, often these schools struggle for survival, isolated as they are, and surrounded by hostile or ignorant communities. Education’s funny like that: because everyone went to school, many people feel qualified to speak about education with some kind of authority. By this rationale, everyone who’s ever been sick should be capable of performing open heart surgery.

And so, these schools are ultimately forced into either failing or changing their ways. The principal, generally frustrated at the lack of support from their own organisations or communities, leaves the school – or if they are lucky, are identified and recruited by a forward thinking community (yes, they exist). And so, the school is kind of half-born, and the principal is replaced by (usually) a more conservative principal, who generally (and often while still talking the talk, but not walking the walk) reshapes the school into a more traditional model. It’s easier to do that than actually try to carry though the vision. And so, once again, progressivism is thwarted by traditionalism, and schools retreat to become little more than institutions for maintaining the status quo.

Depressing, isn’t it?

So I was lucky enough to have a chance to speak to another person who is on my list of important people – a leading academic in citizenship education, who’s been heavily involved in the development of Discovering Democracy, as well as its evaluation. Let’s call him, for the sake of confidentiality, Professor Y. (I do feel like I’m in a bad James Bond rip-off with all these cheesy nicknames, but nevertheless…)

Unlike my previous informal conversation, my discussion with Professor Y was quite challenging. I had to navigate a tricky line of politeness, because he was involved in Discovering Democracy, and my argument is that Discovering Democracy is pretty ordinary. I broached the subject early on, and Professor Y agreed with me, generally, arguing that while the quality of the materials was high, the implementation left a lot to be desired, mostly because of the mismatch between funding for development of materials and funding for professional development for teachers. In addition, there were issues with the state-federal system nexus, and, in NSW especially, the problem with CCE being spread across History and Geography.

So far, not much new there. Something that Professor Y did say that I found interesting was that there really was very little difference caused by the Howard govt – apparently the finished model was quite similar to what was originally planned in the Keating administration. This is different to what a lot of critics say… He also suggested that CCE was a bit of a wait and see with regards to the National Curriculum – that is, announcements would be made shortly about it.

Anyway, we got to talking about my research project, and Professor Y warned me about taking too much on; he effectively argued that my evaluation of discovering democracy was a separate thesis project to my independent research project. He also urged me to consider what I wanted to do with my finished research – if I wanted to go further with it, then he recommended the evaluation of DD was a much better path; effectively, my IRP was limited in its generalisability.

I was a little put out.

Nevertheless, it does bear some thought. I am going to discuss some of these issues with Rick at our next meeting…

I stumbled across this article while doing research – thought that it was, while quite brief, very useful. The article is by a history teacher and writer called Tristan Ewins. It was published in Agora 41 (3), and is entitled ‘Re-invigorating Civics and Ctizenship Education.’

Basically, Ewins sets out everything that was wrong with the implementation of Discovering Democracy. He writes, ‘the original blueprint for civics education espoused by the Howard Government may seem somewhat conservative and ‘uncritically celebratory…’ To be honest, I couldn’t put it better myself. However, this criticism is only the starting point for Ewins. Next, he points out the difficulty of finding space in the curriculum: ‘Civics and citizenship has, nevertheless, struggled to find a space in a crowded curriculum.’ A little later, he points out, ‘Also the institutions and processes model largely incorporated in the Discovering Democracy kit is in itself insufficient to meet a broader and more progressive civics and citizenship agenda.

And in addition to that, the actual curriculum limits the effectiveness of CCE, due to it being taught at the same time as SOSE: ‘Unfortunately, as things currently stand, SOSE attempts far too much with too little time available, combining the study of history, geography and society. This effectively crowds out the critical study of society.’

It’s like this guys been reading my mail.

However, where the article gets really good is when Ewins starts to explore ways that he would, in his terms, ‘reinvigorate’ the CCE curriculum. Personally, I think that it’s much more of a complete rewrite. Anyway, Ewins makes a number of points, which I’ve included below (only the most salient for my purposes):

1. ‘Critical analysis of how identity and social relations are constructed and contested… including a consideration of whether said social relations are just.’

2. ‘Critical analysis of how citizens organise to pursue their interests…’

3. ‘Development of an orientation towards active citizenship, including individual and collective social action… Students would be encouraged to involve themselves in active citizenship…’

Pretty impressive stuff. Certainly a very valuable article; I feel really reaffirmed about everything that I’ve been doing so far.

Thank you, Tristan Ewins.

During the ITSC conference in Sydney, I was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of that rarest superhero out there – Maths Man. Normally an ordinary man, he rapidly changes into a protractor-wielding, multiplying hero, who can divide numbers faster than a speeding bullet!

Check him out here, but don’t ask me for his identity – it’s top secret:http://mathsmantv.wordpress.com/

My personal favourite is when he helps out in the office.

Seriously, though, what a brilliant idea for keeping kids excited about Mathematics. All it takes is a few teachers thinking outside the box, and with a bit of energy and a willingness to dress up in ridiculous costumes. Sure beats the heck out of the traditional maths classroom, I bet. Congratulations to the staff at OLOR Kellyville.

What’s next? His trusty sidekick – Calculator Girl?

Ha!

You’ve got to hand it to Apple – whatever else you say about them, they know how to put on a good show! I recently attended ITSC2010 (that’s the innovative technology in schools conference) at Kambala Girl’s School, Rose Bay, in my capacity as an Apple Distinguished Educator. I was there (along with the Apple staff) to help facilitate the learning and exploration that took place.

I say exploration because that was the emphasis for this conference – unlike other conferences (and, I believe, previous ITSCS), the focus was less on learning to play with iPhoto or Garageband or anything else, and more on considering what learning in a classroom in 2010 should look like, as opposed to what it does look like.

Apple came to play, though: for example, they handed out 150+ macbooks and ipod touches at the conference, set up a server hosting a wikipage and basically suggested to the delegates: imagine, if we can do this much in 2 days, what could you do in a year?

I had a number of interesting discussions with teachers: some are miles ahead already – James Humberstone and Bruce Fuda, in particular (fellow ADEs) were simply fantastic – the quality of some of the work they were doing just amazed me. On the other end of the spectrum, there were people there – ICT coordinators, principals, school leaders who were still wrestling with the concept of what a wiki is or how it could be used in a classroom. Often, these people had already moved towards 1:1 laptop programs, as well.

This is particularly concerning, because all the evidence points towards the fact that laptop programs only unlock the benefits for students if they are considered as a means – not an end. And not a complete solution, either. Personally, too many educators (and principals) are caught up in a game where it’s a race to see who’s got the most machines per student. Crazy stuff when it leads to poorly designed learning, and poorly supported technology.

No, much better to start of small, and develop an idea of pedagogy that supports teaching and learning with the laptops. In this example, a wiki page kind of becomes a students digital exercise book – but so much more powerful, because students can have realtime feedback, and also finally have a place to store the videos, keynotes, films, podcasts etc etc that they make, as well as the more common written work.

ITSC2010 was all about moving towards this concept; although there are a lot of schools that are miles down that path, I think there are even more schools that are being left behind – I heard some truly horrifying stories about what’s allowed on the DET-issued laptops.

Long way to go to bridge this digital divide.

I had the opportunity to speak with Paul Vittles today, about my research project and plans for future work. Paul is the Chairman of the Australia and New Zealand RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), link here.

The reason I was speaking to Paul was that I wanted some funding to set up the app and website for the online eCitizens community, and the RSA runs a ‘Passion, Proposal, Progress’ program that provides worthy causes with funds to make it happen.

As I was talking to Paul, and he was providing me with advice on making my project less vague and more of a reality, I realized that my research and project needed to be a little more tightly defined. This was also mentioned by Nina Burridge (my co-supervisor). At the end of the day, I need something that I can look at, evaluate and say, this is what I’ve done. I also wanted my work to continue on, after the research period.

So, this is what I am suggesting:

Firstly, I would continue reading in an effort to do two things: firstly, define what active citizenship is, and how this might be best formulated into an educative program, and secondly, to understand and generalise principles from exemplar citizenship activities, and incorporate them

This would require an initial study and analyis of data. So, I think I will probably use a qualitative approach, interviewing students and teachers from 3 local schools (2 primary, 1 secondary) about their thoughts regarding citizenship education. I would specifically choose the students I would interview, as well as the teachers. The interviews would probably be semi-structured.

Having interviewed these stakeholders, I would then endeavour to develop a program that would encourage active citizenship. My methodology here would probably be a action research project, and my materials might be Freirean, at least to start with, in inspiration. That is, I would ‘get to know’ the students, looking for the contradictions, and use these contradictions to create generative themes. These would be codified, and then we would decodify these together to learn. Or something like that. The actual process will need more detail before I finish.

Finally, I would evaluate this action research project (which would probably take place with Years 5 – 8), over the course of a week, during school holidays, and publish the finished product on the eCitizens website. I’d also develop an app for students to use, as well.

This would constitute my portfolio for my Ed D.

Pretty excited about this, but I will speak about it to Rick this week.

As you know, I’m undertaking a certificate course in Theology to allow me to continue teaching Relgious Education. I thought I’d share with you my latest reflection from my cluster group meeting:

For my presentation for this week, I decided to take to heart Cardinal Hulme’s comments about spirituality, and consider how I think that I communicate with God. (Hulme, 1997). I also wanted to continue exploring the ideas of spirituality raised in Dorr’s work, especially the part where he speaks about Jesus and inspiration (Dorr, 1996).
I agree with Hulme’s suggestion that the Spiritual Life is for everybody; I think that, even in a world that claims to be profoundly secular and rational, there is still a need that is not fulfilled by secular things; Dorr calls these people ‘searchers’, which I think is an excellent term – they are searching for meaning, and often find it through a variety of different forms of spirituality, including New Age practices and Eastern mythologies. Equally, I think that some forms of organised religion and prayer seem to have lost much of the relevance for these ‘searchers.’ They are not finding meaning in this way, so they look elsewhere.
I believe that, when he suggests that we play and pray, Hulme is challenging us to find ways of merging the spiritual side of our lives with our material sides. In doing this, we must overcome the common practice today of separating religion from the real world; this in turn encourages us to act. Church must become more than a place to visit once a week, and is then dispensed with; instead, it must become a way of life.
This is precisely what I believe Jesus was encouraging us to do. Whatever else he was, Jesus was active in demonstrating His faith. He did not simply sit around; instead he travelled around Jerusalem and its environs. He healed vast numbers of people (Matthew 4:23) and he taught people about their lives (Matthew 7:28). Jesus did not retreat from life or separate his faith from his work (although, as necessary, he did spend time alone to communicate with God(Luke 4:1)); in essence, his faith was his work.

Therefore, surely this is what we must be attempting to do as well, as Christians. If we are to merge the secular with the spiritual (as Hulme does when he plays and prays at the same time) then our lives must, in some sense, become a lived-out prayer; the things we do must, in some way, become an exercise in the deepening understanding of our relationship with God. The Australian Poet, A.D. Hope, wrote something similar to this, in his poem, ‘Australia.’

Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,
This might seem a strange concept, but I think it’s also a very old one; there’s something of homage and thanksgiving to God in this idea that everything we do, we offer up to God. This makes me think of cathedrals being built as symbols of thanksgiving to God, or when rappers collect Grammy awards, the first person they thank is God. So, whether we build things, or care for people or teach children, that becomes a merging of the secular world (our work) and our spiritual world (a demonstration of God’s love for us, and everyone.)
I’m reminded of the verse in Matthew, where Jesus says, ‘For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.’ (Matthew 18:20) Thus, when we gather together for work, as an example, if it is done right, we offer up prayers in God’s name by doing the work. The two are not separate; the work is a form of prayer itself.
I think that some lines from the prayer of Oscar Romero fit well here. He says,

‘We may never see the end results, but that is the difference

between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own’
References:
Dorr, D. (1996) Divine Energy: God Beyond Us, Within Us, Among Us, Liguori Publications.
Hope, A.D. Australia. Accessed at http://www.convictcreations.com/culture/poetry.htm#aus
Hulme, B (1997). Basil in Blunderland, London.
Romero, Oscar A. Prayer, Xaverian Mission Newsletter, accessed at http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:XzOlB7U0bogJ:www.cccm.ca/documents/APrayerbyArchbish

I had one of those lessons that you remember for a long time, today. It was with my Year 11 Religion and Catholic Studies class. We’d moved into the second unit of work, where we examine ‘The Christian View of the World’ or something similar, and this was the second lesson in a group – we’d spent the first lesson looking at what other people might think of as a ‘perfect world.’

Anyway, in this lesson, students were working in pairs to create a movie (warning – Apple plug – using iMovie) about their ideas of the perfect world. We’d prepped them pretty well; they had brainstormed, discussed ideas with small groups and the class and then created a storyboard for their movie, and then they had about 70 minutes to put together their finished movie.

The kids were deeply engaged in what they were learning. From the moment I told them to get started, the students were involved in finding the images, adding the music they wanted, playing around with the transitions and all kinds of other things that are associated with developing a movie. It’s a very simple task, but they loved every minute of it.

Just goes to show the power of technology in engaging learners; I’ve no doubt that the skills they were learning (in this case, related to iMovie) will be of use to them both in employment and other avenues of their life.

Bit of a worry that they had so little experience using laptops, though…

I attended my first MirandaMod very early one morning this week. (Very early because the conference was face-to-face in England, which meant it went live here at 3:30am in the morning.) It was a fascinating discussion on a number of different levels. Firstly, because I got to play with some excellent new tools for online learning and collaboration. Let’s get them out of the way first:

Mindmeister – allows for online collaboration on mindmaps and things. Free!

Flashmeeting – allows for online meeting spaces.

The actual content of the mod was excellent, too. There were a number of speakers, including:

• Dawn Hallybone
  Games in classrooms: enhancing the curriculum and engaging learners and
• Caroline Pelletier
  Institute of Education, London
  Games and Learning: what’s the connection?

Both of these presenters spoke at length about the challenges facing people in education when presented with a generation who’ve grown up with digital gaming as a norm, but also the possibilities about gaming and education.

I won’t paraphrase their discussion, but I would recommend you looking at the mindmap which is here.

Fascinating stuff.

I’ll post my own thoughts soon.