Last week’s post was the first to address the 10 Principles for Schools of Modern Learning which emphasized the importance of having a vision. The second principle basically states that having a vision is not enough, as you also need to actually follow or live the vision. In my mind, there are two questions that we need to be considering for "living" the vision. The first question to ask is, “Does our vision of schooling align to what we believe is the purpose of school?” and the second is, “How do we plan to follow the vision of our school?”
Principle #2: Modern Schools live a mission and a vision deeply informed by new context of learning.
In this principle, Will Richardson and Bruce Dixon allude to the importance of recognizing that schools need to help prepare young people for their future rather than our past. This “new context of learning” means that the traditional approach centered on the accumulation of knowledge, efficiency, and compliance is no longer as applicable to the needs of young people. Instead the purpose of schools needs to be preparing young people for life (see What is Your One Wish for this School Year? and How are you Celebrating Question Week?) . So what does a vision of preparing for life look like? Richardson & Dixon state that your “mission and vision should be built on what the school community believes about how children and adults learn most powerfully.” That means this vision would depend on the community in which we live and so, this brings me back to our strategic vision.
The strategic vision for Aurora, as mentioned last week, is very close to being ready to be officially rolled out. As a matter of fact, parents and community members are invited to a focus group this Monday, November 4, 2019, at the Aurora High School library in order to see and provide feedback on the six core competencies of this strategic vision. These competencies were identified as key characteristics that young people in Aurora should develop or possess and therefore point to the purpose of our school district as determined by the community. Once these competencies are finalized (notice I am purposely avoiding stating them just yet) the next step for us will be to consider how to achieve or develop them in our young people.
Once we have determined our purpose/vision for our schools the second question to ask is, “How do we plan to follow the vision of our school?” I shared my hope for this in an earlier post titled A New Narrative for Our Schools, so I will try not to be too redundant in this week’s thoughts. However, I will say that if we want young people to develop their “roots” and be questioners, problem solvers, collaborators, learners, empathetic, balanced, resilient, etc. we need to design environments which will provide the opportunities to nurture these skills. If this is the narrative we choose to follow, rather than one of “rigor or excellence” I believe we better set our students up for success as defined in our strategic vision. As a side note, I feel I need to provide the disclaimer that when I was principal of Aurora High I often mentioned if there was one word I would use to describe Aurora it was “excellence.” Excellence in academics, excellence in the arts, and excellence in athletics. In hindsight, these statements, though good intentioned, inadvertently contributed to undermining this new narrative. As a matter of fact, new research is pointing to students in high achieving schools (ones focused on excellence) are now being identified as a new at risk group. I can’t go back in time, so going forward instead of emphasizing “excellence” as the one word to describe our schools I would suggest we emphasize “opportunity” in this new narrative. If we ask ourselves, “What opportunities can we design in our classrooms which will allow young people to nurture their roots?” (a.k.a develop these skills) then we will make steps toward living the vision informed by this new context of learning.
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