Pat Gere education, learning

Exploring the Decline of Canadian Education Quality

On June 21 CTV published What’s causing Canada’s education quality decline? Experts chime in. Aarjavee Raaj, the reporter, pointed out that Canada’s results on several international assessments have been declining since 2000. This is a short article about a major issue – education decline – but it includes a number of assumptions and suggestions that spotlight issues, and if we understand the issues can point to opportunities.

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First, although I agree that the quality of education in the public system in Canada is declining, test scores are only one indication. Equally, or more important, are the increase in violence in schools, the increase in teenage suicides, mental health and addiction issues, the burgeoning business of private tutoring by companies or individuals, declining numbers of those willing to enter the teaching profession, and the increase in the number of teachers whose working conditions have declined so that many leave well before retirement. To tackle one issue without looking at all the others is a ‘whack a mole’ approach with little chance of success. As John Richards, an expert on social policy and education and an author is quoted: “I don’t think there’s one silver bullet that will make Canada go back to where it was at the beginning of the century.”

“Go back to where it was …” Undoubtedly, Richards is referring to going back to the test scores and international ranking we once held but such language also subtly implies that we should go back to the way things were. There are many questions wrapped up in this innocuous statement. Are the international assessments the most important ones for determining education quality? Shouldn’t we be considering new approaches and new ways of assessing, given that we have a very different world and should have very different learning goals? Rather than return shouldn’t we focus on the present and move into the future.

Still, let’s examine the issue of quality from the perspective raised in this article – assessment by tests. One issue the article discusses is ‘summer learning loss’, suggesting that eliminating the long summer vacation may be a solution that would increase knowledge retention and test scores. Really? Summer learning loss was as much a factor in 2000 when scores were higher so it is unlikely to be the cause of the decline. Eliminating summer learning loss may be helpful to increase test scores but it will not uncover or address the underlying issue. (It would also require a major investment in infrastructure given that many public schools are not air conditioned and our summers have more heat and air quality warnings than before.)

In the article, another expert, Todd Cunningham, a clinical and school psychologist and an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) also suggests that there is evidence that students can maintain their learning over a long summer break if their families have the resources available to support them in maintaining this. This reinforces reconfiguring the school year but it ignores a more significant fact. Private tutoring is the way many children manage to do well in public school these days – if their families can afford it.

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Two of my three publicly schooled grandchildren are tutored which surprised me because both are intellectually capable of doing well. However, they weren’t thriving in school. Tutoring helped the oldest to graduate Grade 8 with honours. Finding a suitable, available tutor for the younger one has been a struggle but she now is being tutored weekly and her confidence and abilities are on the rise.

Even more surprising is that when I discussed tutoring with their parents, I found tutoring is the norm for many of their friends as well. A quick search of tutoring businesses demonstrates the pervasiveness of this trend. The current system of schooling is not serving anyone well and needs to be changed to increase the likelihood that students of parents who can’t afford tutoring have an even chance of success, that we are not widening the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ by the way we school.

On a brighter note, I have recently learned of two programs where test scores improved after a change in programme, changes made for reasons other than directly improving scores.

In the Yukon, several First Nations have their own school board. As Melissa Flynn, executive director of the First Nations School Board states In The Walrus article First Nations Are Rethinking Education in the Yukon and It’s Working: “Improving educational outcomes starts with embedding First Nations world views across subjects, incorporating First Nations language instruction, and inviting Elders into the classroom,” and “Instead of following a top-down hierarchy, the board’s organizational chart places students at the centre, surrounded by parents, teachers, support staff, and the broader community.” The result was reported in the Yukon News: “The board’s 2023/24 report also states that students’ standardized test results have improved by up to fourteen scores. “When Yukon First Nations learners see themselves reflected in the learning and see that their language and culture is being upheld, we find that their attendance and their satisfaction and happiness with school changes,” said Erin Pauls, the board’s director and land and language team lead.”

In Jason Buccheri’s Education Matters Podcast, Designed to Fail with Ira David Socol, Ira tells of a project he brought to a rural, Virginia middle school with socio-economic and diversity challenges. As is his modus operandi, he asked students what they wanted to change about their school. They wanted to change their cafeteria which was outdated, without natural light, dismal. With an architect for support, students decided they would build treehouses for their cafeteria. Yes treehouses, actually rolling treehouses. The entire school spent two weeks dedicated to the task and the results were what Ira described as magnificent. Now it happened that those two weeks were the weeks immediately before the big Virginia exams. This type of activity wouldn’t seem to have much to do with test scores but as Ira recounted, “For the first time in seventeen years the school passed the State Math Exam.” The students had spent two weeks immersed in math that mattered – to them. And it stuck. (This episode of the Education Matters is over two hours long but well worth the listen. You can find the rolling schoolhouses at the 2:00 hour mark.)

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Here is the issue Ira’s experiences raise – that of relying on ‘evidence’ to determine what to change in schooling.  Cunningham is quoted: “We’re trying to help shift the understanding and knowledge base that teachers have to be more in line with what the evidence (shows) are the best practices for literacy and numeracy.” One major concern is where does this evidence come from? Who is funding the research? Independent organizations, or individuals or companies with a stake in the outcome? (The influence of the education business on schooling requires its own research.) Then there is the fact that emphasizing evidence automatically eliminates what hasn’t yet been tried, what is possible, what could be created. Evidence also generally ignores that we aren’t educating widgets that come to us with similar characteristics. We are educating individual human beings with similarities but also the idiosyncrasies that are humanity’s strength.

This CTV article also states that “According to Cunningham, teachers are facing a different set of challenges in the classroom, and there needs to be more investment in the training and upgrading of their knowledge and skills, along with additional support.” Instead of re-educating teachers, why aren’t we investing in systems that would allow teachers to share what their experience says works and doesn’t work? Why do we believe the experts are anywhere but in the classrooms?

“I don’t think there’s one silver bullet that will make Canada go back to where it was at the beginning of the century,” he [Richards] said. Certainly, this is true. But going back to where we were, especially when looked at from the single perspective of assessed academic achievement is not a challenge worth pursuing. We must look beyond this education system that we believe is the only possibility. (We believe it’s the only possibility because it’s already here, because it’s so pervasive, and because it’s so ingrained with government and educational providers including teachers’ education.)

Today’s world is vastly different and ever changing. We desperately require an education system that can keep up, one created for these times. Individuals, organizations and schools have taken up the challenge. Join them in looking up and out at the possibilities.

Pat Gere education, learning, teaching

The last week of school and grading gets a failing grade

Assigned work and grading detracts from life-long learning.

It’s the second last Wednesday of the school year. My Grade 8 granddaughter is musing that tomorrow is the last day her teacher will accept assignments. “What about any work we do in the last week. How does it count?” Such a pertinent question! 

“How does it count?” When schooling is about doing what you’re told to do, in the way you’re told to do it, in order to be told how well you have done, in order to get a grade, it fails even if students get ‘A’s.

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Learning for the sake of learning; learning how to learn and discern, being engaged, being curious. These are the attributes humans need to thrive in today’s world. A thirst to learn, discern and act. A wonderment and a belief that we have a role to play in this world of ours.

Our curriculum-centred, teacher-directed, graded schooling does not encourage these attributes; in fact, it squashes them.

Several years ago, the parent of a second grade student named Meg engaged me, the principal of an independent K – 8 school, in a quick conversation on the sidewalk after morning drop-off and before rushing onto her job.  “I thought this school didn’t assign homework.”

She was correct. Our school did not assign students homework except if a student had a special need where a small amount of repetition at home would help, such as practicing math facts for 5 minutes in the car on the way to school. We did assign parents ‘homework’. We asked parents to read daily with their children. We asked them to spend time with their children doing something together that they both enjoyed like going for a bike ride, or something that needed doing like making a meal. Driving to an activity or watching a screen didn’t count!

Why was she asking? Meg’s mom explained that the previous night she had found a book about animals, a pencil and some papers where Meg had made notes – in Meg’s bed, where she had obviously fallen asleep while working. Why hadn’t she been told that Meg had an assignment due? She and her husband would have been happy to help her complete the work. I said I’d look into it for her.

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Well, it turns out there was no assignment, there was no homework. Meg had become interested in marsupials and had decided to do a project. School ended for the day but Meg wasn’t done so she took the book and her notes home. Meg didn’t ask her teacher; she just assumed that her exploration, her work, could continue at home. Why not?  Meg wanted to know more and didn’t see the need of waiting for school. This was her learning. Meg believed it could take place anywhere, whenever she had time, even in bed before falling asleep.

Schooling would do a much better job of educating youth if the system supported this type of learning – student-driven, curiosity-driven, I-can’t-wait-to-find-out driven!

Superintendents, principals, teachers, and most parents expect work to be assigned and assessed. As a result, the last weeks of school are often filled with entertainment designed to keep students quiet as teachers need time to receive work, mark it, write up report cards and have those reviewed. This is a systemic problem, the system encourages completion of assignments for the sake of getting a good mark rather than encouraging learning for learning’s sake.

But how will we know how well students are doing if we don’t grade? How about keeping track of mastery? This is what we did in Meg’s school. We didn’t give grades. We did keep careful weekly records of what each student had been introduced to, was working on and had mastered. This was essential for us because our teaching was individualized even though we had classes of 25 to 30 students. It all worked because we relied on students’ natural desire to be challenged and we tailored our interactions to their interests, abilities and needs. We could say what a student could do well, what they were working on and what they were just being introduced to in any week of the year. We had no need to give them a grade to be able to discuss who they were as a learner and where they were on that journey.

Think about it. We don’t give toddlers marks for learning to walk or talk. We support each toddler where they are with encouragement, support and joint celebration of their accomplishments. We don’t compare or grade them and yet they all become accomplished walkers and talkers unless there is some disability and even then they are driven to achieve these skills in whatever way we can help make possible.

A non-graded schooling model based on students initiating their learning for inherent joy and accomplishment would lead to a much different learning culture than the one that is most common now. The last weeks of school would have as much learning value as all the other weeks of school. And, as Meg demonstrated, learning would more likely continue outside of school, in the evenings, on weekends, and even over the summer break.

Instead of learning only in and for school, youth should be groomed to learn for life. Then our education system would be much more likely to meet today’s ever changing needs. A thirst to learn, discern and act – here are some Canadian, Indigenous and international programs that are stepping into this possibility and some organizations and individuals who are encouraging it.

Pat Gere education, teaching

Student Angst: The Disconnect Between Classrooms and Student Needs  

(As I was preparing to post this article, the CBC published Jessica Wong’s article Teacher shortages persisted this school year. What’s being done to fill the gap for the next? The CBC article is broad ranging, as it should be, but clearly indicates that student angst plays a major role in teacher shortages.)

As the principal of a large preschool through Grade 8 independent school, I did not often have students brought to my office for disciplinary reasons. Our school worked diligently to meet the individual needs of our students at each stage of their development. With careful observation, freedom for teachers to choose appropriate responses, and joint problem solving, there were few disciplinary problems. But one boy, Paul, new to our school, was acting out in his preschool class of 3- to 6-year-olds. He was 4 ½ years of age but big for his age and easily mistaken for a 6-year-old. He was being aggressive towards the adults and just couldn’t settle to any activity. He was challenging and rough on the playground as well. His teacher, the other adults, his parents and I had talked about him and tried a number of different approaches and agreed that if he was having a particularly difficult time, he could be brought to my office and ‘hang out’ with me. He could work/play at a table in my office or come with me as I did my daily ‘walk-about’ the school and then return to his classroom when he was ready. This worked on several occasions but it so happened that one day, when his teacher brought him to my office, he stood just outside my door but wouldn’t come in. After some discussion with him, I finally said, “Just step in for a moment.” Well, that’s exactly what he did. He stepped over the threshold, paused and immediately stepped back outside. I had to laugh, and so did he. I stepped out and invited him to walk with me to see what we could see around the school. He came with me and eventually I dropped him back at his class.

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This was a turning point – for me! When Paul, stepped into and then immediately back out of my office, a light bulb went on. Paul was in the wrong class! By age and academically he should be with the 3- to 6-year-olds, the preschool group, but when I thought about it, he had many characteristics of an early elementary child. He was physically large for his age and well-coordinated. Outside he loved to play organized sports, not be in small, less organized groups that younger children prefer. And, as he demonstrated at my office door, he had the mindset of an elementary child with the play on words. Now his academic skills were not high and there were many things, including being able to read, that he couldn’t do as well as an elementary student but we could manage that whichever class he was in. So, after explaining this to his parents and then to Paul, ‘We think you’ll be happier in an elementary class. Would you like to give a try?” we moved him to a lower elementary class of 6- to 9-year-olds, Grades 1, 2 and 3.

And that was almost the end of Paul’s visits to me. His elementary teacher had conferred with his previous teacher and brought materials that he might need into her class and put them on the shelves for anyone to use, including Paul. Elementary children being pack animals who love to play and work together in groups, welcomed Paul into their midst.  With bigger kids to work and play with all day long, Paul was in his glory and deeply content. His new friends helped him when he needed their assistance. He worked hard to try to catch up and keep up. Now he only visited me in my office to show me a project he and his new friends wanted to share.

What happened? Paul had reached the developmental stage of an elementary child early and he needed learning and play environments that matched his advanced development even though he wasn’t academically ready. His developmental needs trumped his academic abilities and once his needs were met, his misbehaviour disappeared and he used his energies to become one of the gang in every sense, including academically.

Perhaps the most striking example of this disconnect in education today is seen with adolescents. The apathy, anger, disrespect and violence evident in high school is the tip of the iceberg. The underlying truth is that high schools do not meet young people’s needs and now more than ever that matters. Without the discipline and expected respect of previous generations, high school students are acting out, as they have done in earlier times, but with greater frequency and at a more disturbing level.

All humans are born with drives to strive, explore, move, order, learn patterns, socialize and communicate. We use these extensively as we are growing up to become an adult adapted to the times we live in. These drives are with us throughout our lives but at different periods in our development these and other drives are more prominent.

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The preschool child must move. Sitting still for any length of time is difficult if not impossible. These children are refining their motor skills. They use their senses and movement to absorb what is around them. They learn through their activity. They love to repeat things over and over. Their sense of order is very strong and they are attentive to detail, to small things. All these tendencies support their absorption of the culture surrounding them, language being an obvious example. At this stage they have literal understanding – everything they experience is real. While they enjoy the company of other children the focus is on themselves and their own increasing capabilities. This is the age of “I can do it myself.”

Around age six, about the same time as physical changes occur like losing their baby teeth, there are changes in what interests and motivates children. The elementary-aged child no longer likes to repeat – “I’ve already done that.” Details are much less important to them, but they love large things and the want to understand how everything is organized. They are able to imagine entire worlds. This is the age of dinosaurs and space, past civilizations and impressive human accomplishments. They still need to move and create. Their interest in organization also shows up in socialization – not just the groups they now always want to be with and in, but what’s fair and what isn’t and what you do about this. Elementary-aged children generally are busy refining themselves and figuring out where and how to fit in rather than changing exponentially.

Adolescence, however, is a time of great transition and uncertainty. We all remember, none of us escaped. Our bodies changing, our emotions on edge. Where do we belong? Where are we going? Who are we supposed to be – and will anyone like us when we get there? 

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Much of the adolescent angst we see in high schools is a result of, or at least magnified by, the conditions high school places on youth. Ask an adolescent about their experience in school on any particular day and the most likely response will be about some extracurricular activity – a sport , a band or a drama, art or debate club. You have to press to find out what they are doing academically because academics have little to do with what they are biologically programmed for – who they are becoming and where they fit.

Adolescents need authentic experiences that introduce them to and prepare them for the real world. They crave authentic challenges, not sitting in a classroom walled off from the world they are driven to be part of. They crave making their own decisions, testing themselves. Generally, the closest they can come in school to an authentic challenge is the extracurricular activities where they have some agency.

Adolescents also need a mentor, someone, other than a parent, who is there for them. If a high school student belongs to a team or a club, that mentor is often the coach or teacher in charge. Sometimes the mentor is a subject teacher. But every adolescent should have someone who walks beside them through high school. Not a different person every year or for each subject but a true mentor for the entirety of the high school years. Ideally, small (<15), consistent mentor groups would meet regularly, at least weekly, so that an adolescent with a concern, or who the school is concerned about, has someone who they know and trust, and someone who knows them, to turn to with the challenges that inevitably accompany adolescence.

What if high school was organized around adolescents’ natural drive for maturity and agency in the adult world? It would be an entirely different high school. What if school at each developmental level used the characteristics of that age to advantage? What might we discover about the power of youth if we used their schooling to work with and for them rather than against their very natures? Here’s a peek.

Pat Gere education, learning, teaching

Valedictorian Censured – The Damaging Mismatch of High School Goals

The challenges of schooling in today’s world were front and centre at an Ottawa high school’s graduation ceremony. This time of year is filled with graduations, one of the few rites of passage we have in Western secular society, a time for graduates to celebrate their accomplishments and experiences, a time for schools to celebrate what they’ve been able to develop and pass on. In this high school though, the principal censured the valedictorian for her interpretation of what that experience included.

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The valedictorian included this statement in her remarks: “As a commitment to truth and reconciliation, I must acknowledge colonial and genocidal atrocities today, including the massacre of more than 17,000 Palestinian children in Gaza.”  The valedictorian said she felt this reflected her experience in school, the lived reality of many of her fellow graduates. She felt that she had connected the situation to the values of the school board and what she had learned throughout her four years at the school.

The principal felt that her statement caused harm and was uncomfortable enough with the situation to send out an email to parents stating that the speech “intentionally took focus away from the purpose of the event, celebrating the achievement of our graduating class.”

Hopefully the principal and the student have resolved the situation in a manner helpful to everyone.

For me, this unfortunate incident represents the challenge of schooling today. When we look at education as the successful completion of courses which represent specific bits of information and academic skills, we can miss the overall purpose – that of preparing young people for the world. This is a world they already live in, in spite of our attempts to protect them. When the school’s primary purpose is to transmit knowledge or skill, it is all too easy to lose sight of this more important goal.

We live in a complex world. Youth live in this complex world for which they will soon have responsibility. It’s a lot to ask of schools, to take on this complexity. Hey, it’s a lot to ask of youth, of everyone, but do we really have a choice? Taking a more comprehensive view that includes this complexity would change the way we school. High school adolescents are developmentally ready to be engaged in life. They need supports, yes, but they learn best by doing, by working on real problems that have significance for them. We could encourage youth to explore areas of interest, areas of importance to them, areas that make a real difference in the world now, and support them to do so; then figure out how these explorations meet or could incorporate the curriculum goals. (AI anyone?) Let’s celebrate this drive and use it instead of relegating it to the shadows.

Our schooling system is outmoded and focused on too limited a scope. The movement for change has started. Here are some examples. Let’s help everyone – the students, teachers, administrators and our world by embracing this change.

Pat Gere education, learning, teaching

The Benefits of Multi-Age Classrooms in Education

In my grandchildren’s public school, they’ve chosen to have combined Junior/Senior classes, each class having both 4- and 5-year-olds. Oh, to see this idea extended so that schools would have combined Grade 1 to 3 classes, Grade 4 to 6 classes and Grade 7 and 8 classes!

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While children change as they develop, it is widely agreed that within these three-year age ranges, children have similar physical, emotional, social and intellectual characteristics and needs. (3-year-olds also have the characteristics of the 4- and 5-year-olds, and, in developmental terms, Junior High should encompass 12- to 14-year-olds, Grades 7, 8 and 9). We can efficiently provide for the physical, emotional, social and intellectual needs within one class even with a three-year age range, if we choose that age-range to coincide with natural human development.

Let’s put aside the challenges of covering three grades of curriculum for the moment, and look at the advantages of multi-age classrooms.

Having students in a class for three years allows for a community to develop and to be passed on each year as only a third of the class graduates and is replaced by younger students. Two-thirds of a class remains to hold its mores and rituals. No need to start fresh each year. New students learn what is acceptable through observation, participation and role modeling.

In a three-age classroom there is a wider continuum of achievement. Where you fall in comparison with your age mates is not nearly so visible. Everyone is on a continuum, improving from where they are. Students can still tell you who best to go to for assistance with spelling or math or a computer glitch, and it’s not always an older student. There is more diversity and therefore more opportunity to be valued for being who you are and for what you are achieving. There is also more opportunity to move comfortably at your own pace through the curriculum so you aren’t left behind or ‘passed’ into a grade for which you’re not ready

In this multi-grade community, the teacher is not the only one who can help or direct. More experienced students can offer assistance if you’re having trouble, and may even give instruction. Everyone has more opportunity to offer and accept help, to get better at helping, and to reap the reward of having value. The old adage that one of the best ways to learn is to teach can be used to advantage.

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In a three-year class there is a continuum of community experience. You enter a new community in your first year and find your way. As a second-year, you are grounded in knowing you belong. As a third-year you are experienced and a leader but you also begin looking at the next transition. A three-year class gives students a variety of experiences in what community is, how to join one, how to maintain one, and how to welcome others in.

From the teacher’s perspective – imagine having a learning community that grows more stable each year because it doesn’t need to be created anew. As well, you know two-thirds of your students and their parents from day one and they know you. You can hit the ground running, adding weeks to the time you can devote to academic learning. You have only one-third the number of students to get to know, and more time and focus to be able to do that as the returning students are old hands who don’t need as much attention and, in fact, can assist the new ones in settling in. Having a very diverse class of abilities and needs means that you can offer students the opportunity to hone their skills and knowledge by assisting less advanced students, and provide less advanced students with one-on-one assistance all while celebrating the ability we have to be of assistance to one another.

Three-grade classrooms have enormous advantages in the academic realm as well if curriculum and instruction can be managed. How though? It isn’t using a system designed for a single grade and it’s not hiding behind a screen. For younger students, concrete, hands-on materials that teach as they are used can be arrayed around the classroom for students to choose and work with independently. (Why concrete and not screen-based? So many reasons including being able to clearly observe what a student is doing, using the hands to manipulate and explore as humans have always done to learn rather than just listening and seeing, and ease of sharing with others.) For older students concrete materials become less prevalent as project-based learning and independent, self-directed studying increases. In these classes, a teacher provides instruction in how to use the material or approach the project, observes carefully as students engage, and then offers support to the students who need it when they need it.

Photo by P Gere

Some students are naturally curious and adventurous; they are easily directed and need only a little assistance. Other students may find it difficult to become engaged in an activity or need one-on-one assistance to gain confidence. The teacher is available since most of the class is working independently, and often it is helpful to both students if one helps another. In this type of class, the students become very independent. They know how the class is supposed to operate and will assist one another or a substitute teacher to make it so.

You may think this style of delivering curriculum would be a risky experiment to undertake with students whose learning will be irrevocably impacted if it isn’t successful. Fortunately, this system has been used and proven successful in high integrity Montessori education.

A word about the word – ‘Montessori’. There is no legal control over the use of the label Montessori. Anyone can call their program Montessori even if it bears no resemblance to the work of Dr. Maria Montessori. (This is one reason you may hear opposing concerns about Montessori – “Montessori is too rigid.” “Montessori doesn’t have enough structure.”) Accrediting organizations help with discernment.

High integrity Montessori programmes exist throughout the world, growing in number and influence in public systems but Montessori is not the only possibility for three-age classes. Other programs also leverage multi-year classes as do some Canadian public schools at the younger levels, as evidenced by my grandchildren’s kindergarten class.

The Killarney Public School program in Calgary has multi-grade classes as do the many Montessori public schools in the US. The Element High School in Ottawa, a non-profit but not public school, has multi-grade classes and the SparkNC programmes in North Carolina also have less emphasis of same age classes.

Mixed-age learning environments put the focus on students’ full development. Students can explore their place as valued individuals within a community while they cover curriculum: a two-for-one advantage, developing academically and socially at the same time.

Pat Gere education, learning

Using Flow Experiences for Effective Learning

By Pat Gere

Photo by P Gere
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We start out as toddlers determined to master walking and talking and feeding ourselves and dressing ourselves and so much more. We end up in high school learning things as a chore, preferring to be entertained. What happened?

Humans are born with the drive to learn and adapt to their surroundings; it’s our instinctual drive to survive. Most toddlers are surrounded by examples of family and friends talking, walking, eating, and I hope, cooking, reading, playing sports and board games. What they experience and notice, they mimic. And, if we give them the opportunity, what they mimic, they repeat until they master it. Not much deters them.

Photo by P Gere

You’ll notice what I omitted – screens and our ubiquitous phones! Toddlers absorb their use as well. We teach them early who, or what, is most important. A not so tidy, perhaps not so perfect human (them and us) or the screen, the consistent entertainer and gratifier. And later we wonder why adolescents don’t engage with us, or listen to us, or value our opinion. True that was never an adolescent strong suit but now ….

Then there’s school. In spite of the best efforts of educators, school is not set up to meet the needs of youth through their developmental stages. It’s definitely not set up to support each individual’s unique personality and learning style in the way we allow toddlers to follow their internal drives. There’s the soon-to-be morning adult who rises early and accomplishes most of their work by noon versus the soon-to-be ‘I need my coffee’ individual who has their greatest productivity after lunch. There’s the introvert and the extrovert; the mover and the shaker, and the ‘Let me think about that’ ponderer, etc., etc. It’s true we need to adapt to the ‘real’ world but each forced adaptation decreases our intrinsic motivation, our joy in the effort, our joy in ourselves.

Intrinsic motivation, also known as flow – I don’t think education leadership thinks enough about this. I don’t think we adults do. This is a powerful human characteristic that not only allows humanity to adapt to its place and time but fulfills us in doing so. It’s that fulfilment the motivates us. When we are focussed and in flow we feel deep contentment and joy, and when we’re very young that keeps us seeking these experiences, naturally without any direction from the adults around us and often in spite of them. It can also keep us motivated and achieving with a strong feeling of well-being, if we incorporate it into our lives as adults.

So, let’s look at this ‘flow’. Abraham Maslow called it “peak experience;” Dr. Montessori called it “spontaneous activity;” Dr. Csikszentmihalyi called it “flow.”  Flow is a time of deep immersion, total concentration, and it’s overwhelmingly moving; a peak-like experience where you feel completely involved, have momentum, are clear and focused, where you are working at the edge of your skills. You are doing the activity for the rewards inherent in the action, not for an external reward although a reward may result. It’s something you’ve chosen to do even though it takes effort. You’ve likely experienced flow in a sport or activity you love to do; if you’re fortunate, you experience it in your work. When students are in a state of flow they are focused on their activity; do not become tired but rather are gently energized; they are unaware of the passage of time; and they experience a strong feeling of well-being. Flow comes when they choose to be engaged in an activity that is challenging but within their grasp.

To elicit flow in students requires a learning environment that allows for individual choice and provides activities that speak to the developmental characteristics of the students it serves.  These activities can and should have curriculum embedded. The activities must be available so students can make the choice that engages them in the moment. An environment that elicits flow also requires a temporal component. There must be long stretches of time when students who are engaged are not interrupted, since interruption often decreases or interrupts the state of flow.

Making a Parts of a Tree booklet – Photo by P Gere

In this type of learning environment, the adult acts as a concierge, suggesting and introducing activities to a student that are likely to create a state of flow. This means finding the activities that are just right for the student, challenging but within their reach whether in terms of physical or intellectual ability. This means introducing an activity but not insisting that it be done. This means carefully observing a student to see what engages them and when best to introduce something new and what that might be.

Now one challenge to working with flow is that it might easily be confused with being entertained, especially if a classroom uses screens; and that is another whole topic. Succinctly though, flow requires that an individual direct the experience rather than be directed by something external whether programme, game or person. Flow is gratification that takes time and effort, definitely different from most video games or scrolling TikTok. And flow results in a deep sense of well-being and quiet energy that continues even when the activity comes to an end.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

We can create learning environments that leverage this powerful human gift of flow. High-quality Montessori programs have been based on flow or spontaneous activity for over a century. The newer, learner-centered programs are also firmly grounded in flow.

Educating our youth using flow will not only make learning more efficient and joyful but create a habit, a hankering for flow in the adults they become. Surely our lives and our world be a better place if there was more flow.

Responses

  1. patriciagarneau1954 Avatar
    patriciagarneau1954

    Does your activity have to involve a challenge in order to experiece flow?  Can you experience flow being a Montessori teacher in a classroom or does it only apply to certain kinds of activity? Pat💖Sent from my Galaxy

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    1. Pat Gere Avatar
      Pat Gere

      My understanding is that challenge is necessary for flow. Any kind of activity can create flow – teaching, writing, painting, playing golf, building something.

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Pat Gere education

The Structural Violence of Schools

By Pat Gere

Dave McGinn’s Globe and Mail opinion piece published May 11, “Study warns violence in Ontario schools is at ‘crisis levels’ for teachers and education workers,” is dire. The article discusses studies done on violence in Ontario schools, particularly a new report by researchers from the University of Ottawa released last month – ‘Running on Fumes: Violence, Austerity, and Institutional Neglect in Ontario Schools.’  Violence in schools is continuing to increase and the study outlines a number of causes: underfunding, overcrowded classrooms, increasing student needs, lack of supports, as well as food insecurity.

Professor Bruckert, a criminology professor and one of the study’s authors is quoted: “It‘s really important not to see this as bad kids or demonize kids. This is truly structural violence. This is institutional violence. This is a failure to respond to needs that ends up being enacted like violence,” Prof. Bruckert says.

I want to focus here on the role of the institution, the role of its structure.

Our current education system was developed with the premise that you had to reward or coerce learners to get them to apply themselves. Most of us clearly remember the impact of grades and as late as the 1980’s corporal punishment was still administered in schools in Canada and remains a ‘motivator’ in many parts of the world to this day.

The carrot and stick are necessary when the system requires learners to follow directions, follow schedules, eat when you’re told to, read when you’re told to, write or do math when you’re told to, learn particular information when you’re told to, or put something interesting down even if you’re not finished with it. Strict discipline was and is necessary for an educational method that goes against the natural inclinations of children and youth, and in fact, against the inclinations of humans in general.

Today we have the same education system but we don’t use punishments. I’m not suggesting that we should punish, but without the ability to enforce strict discipline this system of education is doomed. One indication is the violence we see growing in schools. Students acting out, confronting authority without significant consequences, failing to learn or to thrive, and impacting the learning of classmates.

Imagine yourself following the routine of a Grade 6’er. You’re sitting in a large class for long periods, studying subjects that don’t have immediate relevance. There’s one teacher to manage everyone and it’s easy to hide, ignore, needle, confront or outright refuse an instruction. If you have difficulty in a subject, you’ll still be moved ahead from grade to grade without the support to manage the higher-level work, thus placing you in situations where you cannot possibly succeed. After being in school from 9 AM to 3:30PM, you are sent home with more work to do. If your parents have time or financial resources they can try to assist you or get you a tutor. You still must work overtime in order to succeed.

Even as an adult, could you manage this day after day? Would you be willing to? Could you be successful in this type of environment? Could you learn? Would you be willing to supervise much less try to teach in this environment?

One response to managing without using punishments has been to increase the entertainment quotient of what is being offered. Find the most engaging video. Find the most enticing online game. But this approach has its own challenges. It is not an efficient way to learn as the entertainment is primary, the educational concept secondary. It doesn’t support creativity, compassion for others, or agency, the willingness and desire to act. And given that today’s youth spend most of their time being entertained, including through social media, it is hard to compete.

There are other ways to educate. They can be difficult for us to consider because the current institution is so pervasive. It’s hard to imagine there is anything else …  but there is.

There are education models that take as their basis our natural human tendencies to move, explore, orient, organize, communicate, and connect. All humans are born with these tendencies. You’ve seen them in young children. The infant reaching for a coloured object or surprised by rolling over; a young child attempting to crawl, mimicking speech, taking that first step. We are hard-wired to explore and master our world and we can use this to create learning environments based on these innate characteristics rather than on external carrots and sticks, or entertainment.

This type of education model is often referred to as learner-centered and it’s a growing movement. One type of learner-centered education that has been around for a long time, spread globally, and has research to support its efficacy, and the one I know best, is Montessori. Let me describe it briefly to give you an idea of what else is possible.

In a Montessori classroom, a series of activities covering all aspects of the curriculum are arraigned on shelves accessible to the learners. The activities are specifically designed to appeal to the characteristics of that age and provide for movement, exploration, precision, and increasing competency. In a Montessori environment the adult acts as a guide, introducing an individual learner or a small group of learners to an activity that the guide believes will be of interest. The guide demonstrates how to use the activity but leaves the learners free to interact with it themselves. By observing the learner’s activity, the guide can gauge the learner’s interest, focus, and growing understanding of the underlying concept. What is right for one learner won’t be the right choice for another so in a Montessori classroom, learners are busy with many different activities. Learners work independently, driven by their innate human characteristics rather than by external rewards or punishments. The goal of the guide is finding the right intersection of the knowledge or skill to be learned and an individual’s need and passion. When a learner is engaged in this way, they are very focused, learn easily, persevere, don’t tire, are energized and feel good about themselves, a state described by Dr. Csikszentmihalyi as flow. There really is no downside. When you feel accomplished and satisfied, you are willing to contribute rather than disrupt, to help rather than hinder.

Montessori is one example of a learner-centered ecosystem. There are others and it’s past time to seriously consider a revolution in the institution of education. For our children’s sake, and for the world’s.

Pat Gere Uncategorized

Active Hope for Education: Creating a Better Future

Fortified by tea and a desire to get on with my day, I open the national and local websites daily. Political, ecological and financial crises vie with homelessness, drug use, petty crime and senseless acts of violence. I’m tempted to catastrophize or simply turn away but I really don’t do well with hopelessness. Who does? Instead, I’ve chosen the strategy recommended in Active Hope, by Joanna Marcy and Chris Johnstone, of choosing something I can do, no matter how likely it is to succeed. Following the news with action, however small and uncertain, lightens my steps and my heart. For me, that action is related to education and to partnering with others to understand what role education can play in creating a better future.

Humans have a long developmental period, from birth to age 18 or even 24, longer than any other organism on earth. This allows humans to adapt to surrounding conditions rather than rely on instinct alone. I’ve been on a pedagogical journey for over fifty years. I am certain that the way we educate is just as important as curriculum; that how children and youth interact with the world, one another and society as they grow and develop is deeply connected to who they will be as adults and the world they will create. 

Our current child rearing norm is for children to be in institutional care (childcare or school) from a very young age, for at least thirty hours a week for most weeks of the year. What an amazing opportunity!

What if we stepped back from the systems we have and considered the situation anew? Who do we know children and youth to be? How do they naturally develop? What do we think the world will need from them as adults? . . . I wonder what pedagogy would arise?

Here’s what we have: Children segregated by age, with a change of classmates and teacher each year. A teacher giving lessons, preferably very entertaining ones. A culture of conformity, of doing tasks at a time dictated by the teacher (math time, spelling period). A detailed, year-by-year curriculum that a student moves along regardless of mastery. Testing to demonstrate the effectiveness of the teachers and schools as well as the academic level of the students.

This paradigm can reward conformity; value being best and undervalue doing your best; undermine the perseverance that comes seeing failure as a natural part of learning; encourage individual success over offering and accepting assistance. Teachers do their best to support students individually and to develop cooperation and exploration, but they are hampered by a system that was designed to do neither.

Maybe what we envision will be similar to what we have now but maybe not. There are different pedagogies and innovations in use now that may point a way forward. Perhaps there are possibilities that haven’t yet been dreamt. As difficult as it is to look beyond the current pedagogy, I believe it is possible and that is my active hope.

The website Convening Education Change is this hope materialized, an opportunity to challenge our thinking, share what is being done, and offer opportunities for dialogue and action.

If this resonates with you I hope you’ll drop by and join the conversation.