They do not understand shallowness, because they do not experience depth.

How often do you catch yourself being frustrated with your students because they seem to focus more on the points of an assignment or the grade rather than the learning?  In most cases, it is not their fault as throughout their schooling they are often not put in situations to counter the strong message we give them about grades.  Jacqueline and Martin Brooks, in their book “The Case for Constructivist Classrooms”, point out “they do not understand shallowness, because they do not experience depth” when referring to why students struggle to construct an essential understanding of a subject.  Our students don’t experience depth because we have a tendency to come to their rescue once they begin to struggle, we over scaffold a lesson so they gain a clear understanding, we show them rather than allow them to discover a point just in case they don’t find it, and we lead them down the path we want them to travel to make sure they get to where we want them to go.  We send a message that it is the product, not the process that is important to us and then we wonder why they worry about the grade.  

The importance of the  “process” is exactly what Robert Kaplinsky addresses in his hilarious but thought provoking video on Productive Struggle.  In only six minutes, Kaplinsky shares a key ingredient to why our students need to experience depth.  Productive struggle is basically a more user friendly version of Vygotzky’s  Zone of Proximal Development, but Kaplinsky uses a powerful analogy to make his point.  He also mentions that when we put our students in situations that cause them to struggle there will be push back from students, other adults such as parents or our colleagues, and even ourselves (when we ask, why are we doing this to ourselves).  However, the keys are that the struggle the students experience  is productive rather than unproductive struggle and that we send the message that we are there to support the students in their learning.  It is a “teach a man to fish” sort of thing.  We can help our students to experience depth through productive struggle by promoting a student centered classroom through strategies such as problem based learning, competency based education, and other constructivist related activities that allow students to build upon their own understanding.  Up until a few days ago, I knew this was a good idea, but couldn’t say I was completely convinced.  

Recently, Jo Boaler and Sarah Kate Selling shared their research titled “Psychological Imprisonment or Intellectual Freedom?  A Longitudinal Study of Contrasting School Mathematics Approaches and Their Impact on Adult’s Lives”.  In short, they first describe research in which a traditional method of teaching mathematics was compared to a project based approach to teaching mathematics and how the students developed profoundly different relationships with mathematics knowledge that contributed towards the shaping of different identities as learners and users of mathematics.  Boaler and Selling then revisited the students from the study eight years later to look at the long term impacts of the traditional method of teaching vs. the one that promoted more productive struggle and what they found was very interesting.  In my mind they provided evidence of the power of productive struggle.  

This research is applied to math, but productive struggle can work across the curriculum. I would encourage you to try a group worthy task, create a problem based learning unit, or even develop a competency based education course.  Because I strongly believe, the more we put our students in situations which cause them to experience productive struggle, the more they will experience depth, and then the more they will come to realize shallowness.  

Here is a graphic summary of Boaler and Selling's research article:

Scenario	Traditional Pedagogy	Productive Struggle
Math Teacher Focus	Mastery of the content	Understanding of content along with to develop inquiring, problem solving, and responsible young adults
Pedagogy Taught while in school	Follow rules: rehearse content from the textbook , practice methods shown by the teacher, and use cues from the questions to know what to do	Freedom to Explore:  learned to ask questions, choose from different methods, adapt and apply methods, draw conclusions using mathematical evidence
Perception of Math in School	Uninteresting and unrelated	Positive including descriptions such as brilliant, ideal, and brave
Authority resides with...	the teacher and textbook	the students who demonstrated a strong sense of responsibility, agency, and authority along with an adaptive form of knowledge
Expertise developed	Routine Expertise	Adaptive Expertise
Mathematical Identity	submission to outside authorities with cannons of knowledge and list of content	Actively use, adapt, and apply knowledge to solve problems
Perceived usefulness of math learned in school after 8 years	None thought their school math helped them in life, although 75% reported liking math as adults	All those interviewed found the math learned was useful in their job and 100% reported enjoying math as adults
Use of school math in their jobs	Did not use school math and deferred to authorities to know if the math that was done was correct	Worked flexibly with math  with responsibility and agency

Cognitive Jiu Jitsu in the Classroom

I am a science teacher, always was and always will be, but today I am in a different role as the Curriculum Director of our district.  However, the more I learn about curriculum K-12 the more I realize how interwoven Biology is with learning.  I believe we, as educators, can take advantage of how the brain naturally processes information to perform a kind of "cognitive jiu jitsu" (a phrase coined by colleague @andrewsams) that helps all students become learners.

Two people have helped me come to this realization: Dr. James Zull and Simon Sinek.  Sinek gives an example of one way to take advantage of how the brain works in "Start with Why".  He emphasis the power of tapping into the primitive limbic cortex of the brain, which focus on feelings, over the more analytical cerebral cortex of the brain.  Starting with "why", Sinek points out, builds more buy in because people can relate to the call to action more than can be expressed by starting with "what".  This makes sense because as Zull points out in his book "The Art of Changing the Brain"  the brain basically wants two things: to be safe and to be happy and as a result, "no outside influence can cause a brain to learn. It will decide on its own.". Thus, Zull goes on, "One important rule for helping people to learn is to help the learner feel she is in control".  This is where the cognitive jui jitsu come into play in schools.

Educators can help students become better learners by first allowing students to make connections to the "why" over the "what" and this can only happen naturally by not telling the learners what to think, but instead listening to why they think.  We can then try to put them in situations and ask questions that allow them to see the natural patterns and them to make connections to whatever it is they are learning about.  Teaching then becomes less about handing down knowledge and more of an "Art" of putting the learners in the right situations.  The key is the learners make the connections for themselves and are "in control of their learning" not the educators telling the learners what connections to make.  This will lead to that intrinsic motivation we are all looking for in learners.  The brain likes to be in control and the first thing it sees with rewards and punishments (extrinsic motivation) is loss of control.  As Zull astutely points out, "the brain has evolved to detect and resist exactly this type of thing for over five million years.  It is not going to give in now.".   As a result, we educators need to spend less time trying to tell our students what to think and spend more of our time taking advantage of this natural tendency for our learner's brains to be in control while helping them to make the connections.  Its making connection to the "why" over the "what".  However, cognitive jiu jitsu isn't all about  "feelings" either, but rather redirecting the learner's brain and taking advantage of the mental momentum by putting it in situations that lead to seeing the patterns and making connections through a balance in the "analytical" part of our brain as well.

The more "analytical" part of our brain is the cerebral coretex and it could generically be divided into four parts that can be described as working in a cycle.  The back of the brain (sensory cortex) is designed to collect senses from the world, those signals are then integrated into the brain (back integrative cortex) to develop a meaning of the signal, the front part of the brain (front integrative cortex) which analyzes the info and makes plans, then leads to the motor cortex in the brain which directs the body to carry out the plans.  Zull points out the natural pattern in the brain's anatomy  mirrors how we learn.

Brain's Pattern: 
 Sensory Intake-> Creation of Meaning -> Assembly of Information->  Action

Learning Cycle:  
Taking in Concrete Info-> Analyzing/Pattern Recognition ->Developing Plan of Action->Writing/Speaking

As educators we need to allow our learner's brain to go through this natural process .  The trick is to either ask them the right questions or put them in the situations (sensory intake) that starts the process and then get out of the way as they run through the cycle in order to analyze what just happened. As soon as we tell them what happened the process is short circuited.  Too much structure (all lecture) isolates the back of the brain and too much ambiguity (open class without support) isolates the front of the brain.  This balance between the intake of knowledge and use of knowledge is the cognitive jiu jitsu educators must complete in order to allow learners to naturally see the pattern and make the connections that keep them in the zone of proximal development.

Adopting a Greenhouse Philosophy for Schools

My teacher friends thought I was crazy to essentially tear up my continuing contract, after 15 years as a science teacher, in order to work for a lower per diem rate as an administrator.  However, at that time I began to feel isolated and frustrated in the classroom.  I knew that there was great student learning going on in many of my colleagues classrooms as well as my own, but thanks to the current structure of schools that good work was taking place in pockets.  Teachers need to be able to work together to learn from each other and share their successes and failures.  Reflection on practice is essential, but you can’t be as effective alone.  At that time our school district was just beginning to learn about Professional Learning Communities, which emphasizes collaboration, but the push for accountability through testing and political pressures on education stunted the growth of collaboration within our PLCs. I felt if I made the move to administration I would be able to support teachers doing good work while doing my best to shield them from the outside pressures.  I strongly felt a change to the system was needed, and that an achievement gap between students of high vs. low socio-economic status was partially present because of the dysfunctional learning environments created by the factory model of public education.  

I strongly believe schools should not be compared to a factory because the goal of a school is not to produce identical minimal standard products such as those which factories are designed to produce.  Schools should also not be compared to a business because schools are not in the “business” of educating students.  Schools are not a profit seeking organization with the ability to bring in more revenue if individual students learn more or if more individuals learn.  A better metaphor for schools is that they should be looked at as a greenhouse.  In a greenhouse individual organisms are nurtured in an optimal environment with special attention given to specific needs.  Some organisms need more water, some need more nutrients, others need more light, but none thrive in darkness.  In a greenhouse the organisms are nurtured with the goal for them to leave the greenhouse with strong roots which allow them to anchor into the new environment and contribute to the benefit of all outside of the greenhouse.  

As you can see, 15 years of teaching Biology can not easily be ignored, so I would like to propose that the Greenhouse metaphor can further be applied to the student as an  individual.  If student quantitative outputs such as test scores on the PISA or any other high stakes assessment is the only measure of a student’s success it would be like measuring the health of a plant based solely on the fruit or flowers it produces.  In reality, the health of a plant (i.e. the children’s education) is also determined by looking at the plant as a whole including what is under the surface and therefore the roots of the plant play an important role as well.  

The roots of the plant are akin to the students’ qualitative outcomes found under the surface.  Unlike the student outputs, student outcomes are not easily measured because they are more qualitative in nature:  study skills, creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, problem solving, perseverance, courage, empathy and compassion are some of the skills that make up the students “roots”.  Schools that function as a greenhouse are committed to focusing on nurturing the “roots” of the students and by default, when these qualitative skills are nurtured the quantitative outputs (test scores) will fall into place.  Ultimately the success of any school, like a greenhouse, will be measured by how healthy, how strong, and how “deeply rooted” the students are that leave the school.  The school that acts as a greenhouse closes the achievement gap and educates all students by using time as the variable for success not curriculum and minimizes student backgrounds such as socioeconomics.  

As a principal of a school run as a greenhouse, I made decision based on three main questions.  How will this decision impact student learning?  Does this decision support teacher growth? Will this decision promote school improvement?  Time, money, and energy were budgeted according to these three questions and if I could not answer in the affirmative for one of the three then my decision was easy...the answer was “no”.  This approach to school leadership also meant that our focus was not on our students’ test scores (flowers/fruit of the plant), but rather on students’ ability to complete tasks such as working together to solve problems (roots of the plant).  All of the staff needed to be on board and “nurturing our students’ roots” became the new mantra of our school. Teachers embraced this new focus because it is what they believed in from the beginning.  The difference was there was a system that was being put in place to support that belief and as a result the school community embraced and valued the greenhouse philosophy.

Can Playing and Learning be Synonymous?

So, I am in the middle of reading "Free to Learn" by Peter Gray in which he shares his view on the importance of play when it comes to learning.  There have been a few statements in the book that I would debate when it comes to schools, but there are a number of interesting views as well.

Dr. Gray points out that those who have studied and written about play have identified five characteristics of play:  1-Play is self-chosen and self-directed, 2-In play the means are more valued than the ends, 3-Play does have structure and rules that emanate from the minds of the players, 4-Play is imaginative and non-literal, and 5-Play involves an active, alert, but non-stressed frame of mind.  As I read his words I started to find myself substituting the word "learning" for "play".  (This, by the way, is Gray's basic point in the book.)

If LEARNING IN SCHOOL was..
1. self-chosen and self-directed, it would be something students would want to do rather than feel obligated to do.  They would find liberty in their pursuit of learning and share the same feeling of "Yes, this is what I want to do right now."

2.  motivated by means more than the ends,it would be intrinsically motivated (curiosity/passion) rather than extrinsically motivated (grades/GPA).  Students would enjoy learning the subject and would have little focus or care about the test.  If the only goal of "playing" a game is to win at all cost then cheating will be rampant (Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France comes to mind), but if there is joy in "playing" the game the outcome is secondary.  Similarly, if the only (or main) goal of learning in school is the good grade at all cost than cheating will be rampant, but if the learning is synonymous with "play" cheating would be pointless.

3.  set up through a structure and rules that emanated from the minds of the students (players) then students would have the freedom to decide how they would learn and how they would be judged to be successful or not.  The "rule" for adults (teachers) would be to allow the students to develop their own thinking rather than the thinking of the adults.  Adults would be sure to listen to the kids in order to choose a situation or ask the next question for them to make connections which would allow students to build THEIR own thinking. At the same time, it is not a free-for-all because just like all players must agree to the rules of the game/play and work together in order to follow/enforce them in order to enjoy the fun, students and teachers must work together to do the same if learning and play are to be interchangeable.

4. imaginative and non-literal, then the structure of the classroom would allow for more creativity by not forcing ONE answer on a student and give students the freedom to explore and invent new ways of solving a problem or understanding a concept that works for them. When a student learns how to ride a bike we don't lecture them on how to ride a bike or require that they know all the parts of the bike before riding it. Nor do we get on the bike and show them how to ride it just because they have never done it before. Instead we allow the students to try it out and figure it out with our support as needed. Learning in school should work the same way.

5. allowed to take place in a non-stressed frame of mind for the students, then the students would be more able to relax in order to problem solve, develop creative solutions, and effectively communicate because there would be little to no fear of failure. Just as Dr. Gray points out in this book, Shawn Achor points out in the Happiness Advantage, that positive emotions broaden our perceptions and range of thought and as a result we are able to learn, solve problems, be more creative, and "see" someones view (empathy) more effectively under a low stress frame of mind. Formative assessments, such as having a check-in or conversation with a student, are assessments FOR understanding that allow for students to learn in a low stress environment. This is contrary to the high stakes testing or pressure from too many summative assessments (assessments OF learning) that often take place in a classroom. In this low stress environment learning can take place more effectively because the student's mind is more alert and active in this safe environment.

Upon further reflection, I am not sure that play and learning can't be synonyms when thinking about schools.  Each of these characteristics of play can be characteristics of learning as well.  They are only limited by the boundaries that are artificially set by the system we currently have in place in schools.  However, that same system was created/developed by us and can be changed/evolved by us as well.

2017 Resolution?

I hesitate to say that my New Year's Resolution for 2017 is to force myself to post my thoughts and ideas on this blog because I, like many of us, don't do so well on maintaining my resolutions.  As a result, I won't commit to the term resolution, but will instead make it a goal to post weekly thoughts on what I am reading, working on in school, or what I have seen taking place in education.  This is really a way to help me move what is processing in the back of my mind to the front of my mind, but part of the value is also getting feedback and comments about those thoughts and ideas as well.  As a result, if for some odd reason you are still reading this blog, feel free to provide feedback or comments (preferably constructive or thought provoking)  :)

Actually, the timing to revisit this blog didn't really come about due to the calendar, but rather from my reaction of reading George Couros' book "Innovator's Mindset" and visiting his blog page at  George Couros: Principal of Change .   I don't have the book in front of me now, but this is something to think about when referencing other texts in the future on this site, but to paraphrase, he emphasized the importance of getting your thoughts not only down on "paper" for reflection, but out to others for feedback.

George also discussed electronic portfolios in the classroom and their value of showing student learning.  I spent 15 years in the classroom as a Biology and Chemistry teacher, but never used portfolios.  As a result, I couldn't speak to the value of these as a resource.  Now, as an Assistant Superintendent, I no longer have the ability to try this out in the classroom, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to investigate.  What I came up with was experimenting with my own electronic portfolio.  My  learner's portfolio can be found at mrobertolearnersportfolio, so feel free to check it out.  By experimenting with this portfolio, I hope to have a better understanding of the value as well as the pitfalls of an electronic portfolio.  Ultimately, if it proves to be valuable I hope to have other teachers do the same for their own evaluation purposes and potentially for those of their students.