The Power of Community to Create Change in Disadvantaged Schools

Foundations for Change in Secular Education

While this blog has focused largely on pedagogy in faith-based schools, I've been reminded recently that secular schools face similar challenges with students, and also in relation to teacher development, I think there is more common ground than we might imagine. Having started my teaching life as a non-Christian in secular government run education, I have spent many years helping to develop teachers and schools in both sectors. As such, I have been an insider to both. I often ponder what's the same and what is different? In this post, I want to concentrate on teacher and school development.

A Helpful Recent Case Study of School Transformation

Cessnock is a rural town in Australia about 112km from Sydney. I know this area well. As a child, I spent all of my school holidays with my maternal Grandparents in Cessnock. My Mother also grew up there, and fell in love with a smooth Scotsman who was working in the coal mines nearby. Her family owned and ran mixed businesses, essentially 'General Stores' or shops in the days before major supermarkets, department stores, huge shopping centres and online shopping. My mother's family were staunch Methodists and from the late 1890s until 1964 they ran General Stores in the area.

 

Above: One of my Grandparents' Stores (Closed in 1964)

My Mother and her brothers attended a government primary school at Kearsley, just two doors from their store in the town. Later they attended Cessnock High School. One of my uncles (my Mother's brother) eventually taught at Cessnock High for many years and was Science Master. In those days, it was a 'tough' school and achievements were mixed. Decades later, I was posted to the town in the 1990s as a curriculum consultant for the Hunter region for English and Literacy learning, and could see that there were many problems. It was a tough place to be a teacher.

So, how is education going in this once difficult place for teachers? Cessnock High has been dramatically transformed! The change in this particular school has been so significant, that the Department of Education in our State (New South Wales) has decided to adopt and 'role out' the Cessnock model to seek reform in all of the schools in the Hunter Region of NSW, and perhaps the whole state, if not the nation.

 

Above: Cessnock High School

The school where teachers once feared having to work due to student violence and indifference, has undergone an amazing transformation. A dedicated principal, some excellent teachers and new education methods, have led to some of the most improved NAPLAN scores in the country. NAPLAN is an international assessment program that assesses student performance on a common test covering reading, writing, language and numeracy. I sat on the national committee that oversaw these tests for 15 years and understand how difficult it was to affect change and improvement.

Surprisingly, Cessnock High now has some of the most improved NAPLAN scores in the country. Its year 12 results have improved by 50 per cent. The learning model they have adopted may well be rolled out across Australia. I find this extraordinary. In a school where violence amongst students was rife and school performance was so poor, there has been such an incredible transformation.

While the principal is clearly a great leader, he is reluctant to take too much credit. He explains the change in these words:

"We've been able to build a culture … where there are very few negative behaviours," he said. "The violence doesn't exist at all in our school anymore and school is a calm place." Of course, there is more to it than that!

 A Whole School Approach

The transformation in this school is remarkable. One of the keys reasons appears to be a whole of school approach using a model developed with Newcastle University staff that they label "Quality Teaching Rounds". 

 

Just what is this model? In essence, it is a structured learning model to improve classroom teaching and student results. It does this by creating small groups of teachers who take turns to observe and critique colleague's lesson against three criteria:

• Quality teaching: demonstrates a deep understanding of important knowledge and the best ways to communicate this to students.
• Quality learning environment: ensures the classroom environment is optimized so students can absorb knowledge and learn.
  
• Significance: effort is made to ensure lessons are relevant to students' lives and hold significance in order to boost engagement.

What have they found? In the words of the Principal, the "lessons are more engaging, the environment to learn is safer and the learning is more significant." As a result of the changes, the behaviour of students has changed dramatically allowing learning to blossom and as a result, academic achievement has risen markedly. I think our Christian schools can learn much from this, but how might it be slightly different?

So What's Different?

My definition of education in 'Pedagogy and Education for Life' is in short:

"Education is the whole of life of a community, and the experience of its members learning to live this life, from the standpoint of a specific goal."

There is no doubt that Cessnock High School has created a desire amongst parents, teachers and students to change community life, and in particular classroom behaviour and application to school and learning. One of the features of the 'Cessnock' approach is that teachers collaborate together, and even sit in on each other's lessons to offer feedback and advice. This is very helpful and shows that they are concerned not only for their own teaching, but that of others and even more importantly, the learning and welfare of their students. 

It would be wonderful if teachers could sit in each others classrooms at times to help one another reflect on how in the cut and thrust of each day, they are not only teaching their students, but are also shaping them for life. As I write this, I recall a colleague who taught next to me in a primary school in Sydney. His class was always out of control and he screamed constantly at the students, while they laughed and messed about. I coped by closing my door to shut out the chaos. But might I have been able to help him?

Above: My first school as a teacher

What might be different if used by Christian schools?

Central to the 'Cessnock Model' is the visitation of teachers to one another's classrooms. They do this to watch, learn from and help colleagues for example to:

• Use effective and sound methods,
• Maintain student attention,
• Offer feedback and support to students, and
  
• Use more engaging approaches to teach subject content etc.
  

But what might a Christian colleague also be looking for? Might they also use some extra lenses? For example:

• How does the content and learning relate to their lives;
• How does content (especially in the Humanities) relate to Christian views of the world;
• How might student non-engagement with content, teaching etc, reflect more than disinterest or boredom;
• How might some behaviour relate to life outside the classroom not just within it; and
  
• How do student responses at times offer windows into where students stand in terms of personal happiness, faith and trust in God.
  

A good way to test such an approach in Christian schools would be to consider first the approach being used by Cessnock, and reflect on how their school might benefit. Some questions might help:

First, what is the balance in classroom and school life between promoting success in school learning and growth as people, citizens and ultimately, children of God. How is the school different to public schools, and what is common?

Second, staff might consider how the approach could be implemented in a way not only to make them better students, but also to help shape our student's as God's children who develop a whole of life understanding of how their faith should shape all of life.

I will continue to ponder how Christian Schools might respond to this new work. I hope you will too. I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on the topic which I might revisit later.

 

Identifying Something Special in Every Student?

 

The title of this post is the first of 20 statements, or imperatives for successful teaching, from 'Pedagogy and Education for Life'. I'm revisiting it as I believe it's VERY important.

Let me first ask a question. Do we believe there is something commendable in every child we teach? In the first week of first term in any school year, this might not be surprising, but if you're well into the year and you still haven't recognised something it's a problem.  It might just be that we don't know them at all. I'd hope that after 4-6 weeks we would know every child's name (more difficult for secondary teachers), and a little about their personality, the things they're good at, the areas where they struggle, and even their closest friendship group. But in the first 2 months we should know much more about all students.

Some children hide in the background of classroom life. It's easy to quietly withdraw, keep a low profile, look out the window, and count the minutes till recess, lunch and home time. This presents a problem for every teacher, for we must get to know our students, including their strengths, weaknesses, hopes, fears and life challenges.

Across my teaching career, I observed children who could be disinterested, under-performing and at times difficult in one class, who suddenly blossomed in a different class. "Why is this so"? Or at times, do we see children in our classrooms who we assume haven't as much to offer?

 

Above: My students in 1978

God loves and seeks us all, has no favourites; nor should we have them in our classrooms. I taught in three different elementary schools across all age ranges. In many ways, it was my third school where this lesson became even clearer to me. I was the sole teacher and head of a small school. While it had two buildings, two classrooms (one in each building), a small library, a staff room and office, I was the only teacher as well as 'Head' of the school, the person who ran the 'Tuck Shop' each week etc. I had 26 children across seven grades. That is, Kindergarten (5 year olds) to Grade 6 in the same room. The school was situated in a small town with just 430 people.

So why am I stressing the imperative to know our students? Because, all students need to understand they are known, valued in some way, and seen as capable of doing new things. Perhaps this is obvious to some, but how is it achieved in the busy life of the classroom? Let me tackle this from three angles.

a) Every child needs to feel valued, and seen as able to do things

An important ingredient for any child's success is the realization they can be successful at something. It took me until 4th grade to realize that I was good at a few things. I enjoyed Kindergarten and learnt to read and write. But by grade 3, I spent most of the day looking out the window and thinking about the fun I'd have when I got home. I managed to learn to read, write and so on, but I was pretty naughty and easily distracted. But, in grade 4 a new teacher invested some time in me. He could see my problems, including a tough home background and my previous disruptive behaviour, but he was prepared to invest in me, even in a class of 41 students across two grades (see below). I'm 4th from the left in the back row.

Mr Campbell had the sense to channel what he saw as potential in me, in a way that would motivate. I became the garbage monitor, milk monitor, duster cleaner etc to try to keep me out of trouble (to little effect at first). This was against a backdrop of the Principal who saw me as a 'drop kick'. He simply caned me every time I messed up, which was often the case in his eyes in grades 3 to 5 Grade. But even as my behaviour improved, he found excuses to cane me. Once when he saw me looking out the window during a lesson, as he walked along the verandah past my classroom. He caned me twice!

But a big change occurred when an aquarium with tropical fish was purchased by the school and placed in my classroom. My teacher put me in charge of it. He handed me a book on tropical fish and asked me to study it. He later asked me to give a presentation to the class on raising tropical fish. It was a success, and the fish and I both flourished.

The challenge for all teachers is that some students will present as disinterested, difficult and annoying (as I was), while others will take the front seats, smile, look engaged and answer all the questions. Being able to identify the gifts and abilities of all students is our greatest challenge, and much more important than seeing their weaknesses and problems.

Years later, after I'd become a teacher, I recall a day while on playground duty at a small Primary school in my home city that had an impact on me. I was standing next to the Principal who would come out from time to time to watch our students. The boys were playing cricket and a new boy broke a cricket bat. The Principal called him over and said "how did that happen?" The boy replied "I don't know Sir", I just missed the ball and hit the pitch. To which the principal replied, "I'm watching you son, I can remember your older brother breaking a cricket bat when he attended this school too." A colleague nearby whispered in my ear, "and I bet he's never forgotten it." How easily children are labelled. At that moment I thought, I was that kid once, and this principal was like my old principal in primary school who had caned me over 40 times before Grade 5.

A fundamental mark of a good teacher is the intent to look for the good in students, and to seek to identify their abilities and potential, not just their weaknesses and failures.

b) Teachers need to gain the trust of their students and in the process, seek to identify gifts in unusual places.

In 'Pedagogy and Education for Life' I share a vignette about a student name Chanda who I taught while living in the US as a visiting scholar at Indiana University some 40 years ago. As part of my research, I team taught with a relatively new teacher who was keen to have me working with her. I met a student named Chanda almost immediately. She was a larger than life boisterous student who made her presence known; but often not in the right way. 

Chanda rarely did her work. In fact, after being in her class for 6 months, I couldn't recall her completing any task. Often, she didn't even start them. One morning as usual, the children raced down the corridors having left the buses that brought them from the Trailer Courts that most lived in. Chanda burst through the door, and threw her bag onto her desk. It bounced off, fell open and at my feet, and a bundle of writing dropped out. I was helping to pick them up and she quickly grabbed them off me. I said, "Hey, that looks like writing!" She quickly replied, "It's nothin Sir, just some music I did at home." As I held one piece, I saw it was in the form of a song. I asked could I read some. As I took one, she said, "Sir, you won't like it." I pleaded, "let me read some, PLEASE?" After saying no three times, she reluctantly agreed, and said "just a couple". There must have been 30 works in the bag. I quickly realized she was writing music, which was in effect poetry.

None of her writing had been revealed previously to her teacher or me. It's difficult at times to gain the trust of our students so that we are in a position to identify special gifts. Chanda was a difficult student from a troubled background. She didn't enjoy school subjects, but had hidden potential. You can read a bit more about Chanda and see one of her songs/poems in "Pedagogy and Education for Life" (Ch 2, pp 25-27).

c) Students need to know their teachers know them, and in some way 'gets them'.

This statement might sound like waffle, but in reality all relationships only succeed when both parties understand the other. Mr Campbell was the first teacher who 'knew' me. He could see beyond the grubby and sometimes difficult poor kid, to a child with potential. Even the extreme introvert in a classroom can be understood. But it requires patience and close observation of the child in class, as well as their behaviour and interests outside the classroom. The latter is difficult, but nonetheless there are ways to read the signs that disclose what makes each child tick. In particular, what they like, dislike and feel passionate about. As a young teacher, I coached many of the school sporting teams and spent much of lunchtime in the playground talking to students, playing paddle tennis with other teachers (and some students). In essence, I was observing and getting to know them in different contexts. This was easy at my One Teacher School, but a little harder with classes of 35+ as I had in my early years of teaching in large city schools.

Teacher expectations matter. The school principal who caned me so many times in my early primary school years had no idea who I really was. I say that even though my sister had been at the school before me and was well-loved. Her sporting skill and a beautiful singing voice made her a stand out. Mr Whitaker saw little good in me, and had no idea who I really was. But Mr Campbell took the time to get to know what made me tick. My interests, my hidden abilities and what switched me on as a learner, weren't that obvious. As a result, I often withdrew and gazed out the window. Dreaming up ideas for what I'd do after school. Projects to start, cubby houses to build, boats to build and bushland to explore near my home. 

Working hard to engage every student is a challenge for all of us. It might well be that it's only across many years of schooling that each of us experience teachers who see something special in us. One such teacher will make a difference. Mr Campbell was mine. Who might you change and help to shape? Perhaps a kid like me, or Chanda?