HTH212

PITP - The Dream School

I dream of a school like HTMCV, only better.

I dont like this question. What is my dream prison? I wish I felt better about this. This is an excerpt from my journal entry written when charged with writing about what I envision as my dream school. I realized later that that I was approaching this question from a students perspective. In fact, I was approaching from my perspective as a student. I challenged myself to look at some bright spots from my childhood surrounding learning. The experiences that immediately came to mind were experiences with my grandfather while make small home repairs around my Moms house, my Mom buying me a table saw and the experiences I had building with it, assembling my first bicycle while my father looked on, conversations with my father about space-time. Those experiences provided emotionally safe, intellectually challenging, and purposeful learning moments. There often involved my mind and hands at the same time. Learning in a safe, hands on environment and doing work that has purpose is a pretty good summary of what we try to achieve at HTMCV. I did not create this vision but because of the strength of my own connections to it, I feel invested in improving and refining it. There is a need for visionaries but also necessary are the people who believe in the vision. People, who for reasons deeply rooted, will devote themselves to the fulfillment of that vision. Today, I consider myself a part of that second group, courageously and proudly. In refining my own vision of a dream school, I had a conversation with a colleague and a student to about their ideal learning environments. If I could summarize the common ground between the three of us in a single sentence, it would be: I dream of a school like HTMCV, only better. The dream celebrates of the vision that has gotten the three of us where we are, but also challenges us to look for the areas to be improved. Nadia, my student this year, described her dream school like this: My dream school is a lot like High Tech Middle Chula Vista. It genuinely, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, feels like a community. Everyone knows everyone and works together. Of course bad things happen but I don't know how to explain it. For instance when I wake up in the morning I think to myself uggh I don't want to go to school but the moment I arrive I feel completely different. It feels like I'm home. Although this sounds unbelievably cheesy it is actually true. My dream school would have this and more. I cannot read this email without feeling like I am already in my dream school and at the same time, my dream will never completely fulfilled, my dream school will always be a bit out of reach.

I choose to teach here. Ive attached my wagon to this star and I feel a shared responsibility to help push the dream forward. I am already teaching in my dream school. I dont dream of a different place just a constant refining and revision of the current one.

Reality - do we learn responsibility or discover it?

My student Nadia, in her email to me about her dream school, shared that sometimes I feel like we have it really easy at High Tech and that we don't learn responsibility. That is a difficult sentence to unpack. Ideally, responsibility is something one feels because they are invested in the outcome. Ideally, it is something you discover at the same time you discover you care about some things more than others. My student Nadia is a performer and when reading her email I remember a rendition she did of a Beyonc song a year earlier at one of our talent shows. It was amazing. Did she discover responsibility while preparing this piece? When Nadia talks about learning responsibility, is she really saying that she is not feeling invested enough in what we are doing here to put her heart or soul into it? Are the consequences - either good or bad - not enough to push the boundaries of what she can do? Are we, as her teachers not asking her provocative questions? When she says we have it easy, does she mean we take it easy? My other conversation was with my colleague Jamie. He is the other 8th grade math and science teacher. One statement that really stuck in my mind was this: I want our students to like this place for the right reasons. I feel like sometimes students get the idea that this place is cool because there is not much homework and they can do whatever they want. I think Jamie too was talking about responsibility. Providing students with freedom provides opportunities to discover responsibility but it certainly isnt any guarantee. Teaching responsibility can be a tricky thing. As my colleague and critical friend Tara pointed out to me in an early review of this work: I believe that students develop less responsibility the more frequently they are given extrinsic rewards for the things they do... Perhaps we should think about why WE, as adults, act responsibly. What compels us to do so? And then determine if we're providing that same motivation to our students. What is responsibility? In Nadias email she followed her sentence about responsibility with this one. My dream school would help us get to our individual goals and give us amazing opportunities! I dont think that it is a coincidence that the idea of amazing opportunities followed closely on the heals of setting our own individual goals.

Isnt her sentence a good place to start discovering and understanding responsibility? You have a desire. If that desire is aligned with your complicated network of values and competing desires you may make a goal related to it. If that goal is carefully crafted it will be an individualized goal; that is it will represent something of value to you which is also achievable by you. Where then do we start the process of discovering what is important to us, setting individualized goals and taking regular inventory of how we have progressed or digressed from them.?

Changes - Who owns the pol?

Ive chosen to start with the way we as an organization think about and implement our Presentations of Learning. I sent some ideas I was thinking about to Rob Riordan, President of the HTH Graduate School of Education. Before responding to the questions that I asked for clarification on, he laid our what he believes to be the fundamental question for POLs. It is this: Who owns the POL? He had an answer as well the answer should always be, the student. A key element of how I would like us to think about POLs is to begin with that premise - that the POL belongs to the student. The student is responsible for the POL because the students own it. If we start with this premise we can look at structures that, as Rob put it in his email maximize student voice and choice, celebrates student work, AND get at our values and aspirations. POLs should provide students a safe place to reflect on how their work and accomplishments reflect their values. It should place a strong emphasis on creating individualized goals that reflect those values. And we, as an organization should help the student track their progress and growth. Specifically then, my goal is to help our organization create a set of design principles that: Start with the premise that the POL belongs to the student Sets as its goal the deepening of a students understanding about what responsibility is and what it means to act responsibly

The Steps - Running in place

The idea of helping our organization define a set of POL design principles is a maturation of my original idea of change. Originally, I thought of creating a common POL protocol and rubric. The feedback that I have gotten from my colleagues and the reflection I have done about what kind of change I am really trying to effect has lead to the adjustment of that original plan. So in addressing my initial steps it is necessary to add that many of these were in a direction I am no longer going. I have taken the following steps towards exploring the use of a common POL. I had a brief conversation with my director about the idea revisiting POLS and the idea of using a common protocol and rubric.

Where I would like to go next is to talk more with Nadia and Jamie. A question that I have for Nadia is: Does this change address your needs about learning responsibility? A question I have for Jamie is: If the POL is not going to be used as a tool to assess and hold students accountable for content knowledge, what are other methods of assessment can use so students, teachers and parents feel confident that we are holding students accountable for necessary content?

Ive created a short document describing the benefits, as I see them of using a Common POL. This short description of the benefits of a common POL might be used in an email to colleagues introducing the idea and asking for feedback in the form of a survey. Ive created survey questions that I might can use to get initial feedback from my colleagues about my idea. Ive sent my work to reviewers, my professor for this course, and to several people I consider mentors to receive feedback. Ive submitted the drafts of the documents do my director for her consideration.

Engagement and Growth

Engaging with colleagues and students has not been a challenge. Nadias email and the conversation I had with Jamie provides me with a vision and a direction. Presenting my work to colleagues for feedback and help has improved this work dramatically. Working with my reviewers Kara and Tara for several weeks has helped refine my thoughts and improve my writing. Submitting my work to Rob, Stacey and Melissa for review also helped me develop my thoughts. Robs feedback and especially his reservations pushed and refined my thinking in a way that I might not have been able to achieve otherwise. Sharing my work with people whose opinions I value has increased my investment in the final product. This is likely the first time in my teaching career that I have purposely looked for ways to effect positive organizational change outside the confines of my own classroom. The step itself is growth as a leader. It has not always been comfortable. I find myself thinking more about how people view me, my ideas and my motivations. It was difficult to turn away from my original ideas. It was difficult to hear Robs doubt and then have other colleagues echo those doubts. I handled it though and I have had a better experience because of reaching out for feedback and incorporating the feedback. I wonder if I will gravitate toward taking more opportunities like this in the future. I wonder if I can be okay with being new to this type of responsibility like I was to being new as a teacher. I wonder if I will ever be as passionate about improving our organization as I am about just becoming a great teacher.