The Middle of the Race

This weekend members of our cross-country team ran at the State Finals. Coach Winter asked me to address the team Friday, which I was happy to do. Among my many coaching experiences, I spent ten years coaching track and field. One of the things I always stressed to my athletes was running the middle of the race with a special intensity. Most runners can start with energy, and when the finish line is in sight, most can finish hard. Many, many races are won (and lost) in the middle.

 

As I told the kids, a great analogy is the school year. At the beginning of the year, everyone excitedly shops for the special school supplies that are going to keep them organized and on top of their classes. That special Trapper Keeper, the new laptop or tablet, the color coded notebooks and pens - all start to go by the wayside for many students when we enter the fourth or fifth week of school. Then, at the end of a grading period, every student puts on a frantic finish. They cram at the end of the goal or marking period, beg for extra credit, and try to squeeze every last point out of their teachers. Almost everyone starts well and finishes hard, it's the time in between that defines success.

 

As we reach the end of this year's first goal, it's a good reminder that we are entering the "middle" of this school year's "race". Now is the time for students to bear down, make an extra effort, and really become engaged in what is happening in each of their classes. Often, the race is won in the middle...

2020 Vision

Historically, predicting the future of education in America has been pretty simple. Looking into a crystal ball and predicting "more of the same" for the schooling of children in this country would have been a pretty safe, and pretty lucrative, way to make a living over time. Nevertheless, we are now in a time of unprecedented change in the way instruction is being delivered, and in the ways in which it will be delivered in the future. Detroit Country Day School will be a leading voice in shaping the best practices in the educational future of our country and the world.

 

During the 2012/2013 school year, DCDS began laying the groundwork for building a new Strategic Plan for all aspects of the school's future. We started with the surveying of faculty and staff, then students and parents, and finally kicked off Strategic Planning in the fall with back to school meetings that involved members of the Board of Trustees, our school administration, and all faculty and staff. Our goal is to create a vision and a plan for the execution of that vision that will carry us through the year 2020. The working vision statement is to "Be the globally recognized leader in innovative educational excellence", and various stakeholder groups of the school are working together to build the plan that will support that vision.

 

During a lunch meeting today, members of the board, our Headmaster, the leadership of each academic division of the school, and the teacher members of the Curriculum Leadership Council (CLC) met to discuss our plans and goals for the academic pillar of our school. The level of engagement demonstrated by our board, administration, faculty and staff has been tremendous in the planning process, and today was no exception. As we worked to build a vision of what our school will be in the year 2020 and beyond, it was immediately clear that the schools of tomorrow will not closely resemble the schools of yesterday. DCDS will be a leader in shaping the new future of education in the world.

 

More than ever in the history of the world, we must prepare our students to be global citizens. The world is more connected, or "flatter", than ever, and preparing students to be productive citizens of such a world presents unique challenges. We must prepare students to creatively solve problems which we cannot yet imagine. We must prepare students to not only use technology, but to build and create new technologies. We mustn't lose sight of our obligation to one another as humans, and to our planet, and sustainability of our resources - both human and otherwise, will be of critical importance. Our 2020 Vision is for a school that does all those things and more, without compromising the values and traditions that make Country Day unique.

 

The soothsayer looks into the future to see what will happen to us, the visionaries look into the future to shape it. At DCDS our goal is to build an innovative instructional environment that maintains traditional values. Traditional values and innovative instructional excellence will shape a new model for delivering instruction that will sustain our school, our nation and the world. That's having "20/20" vision...

Diversity, shmersity....we're all the same???

The first thing that struck me as really unique about Detroit Country Day School was the amazing diversity of the student population. On my first visit to the school I was fascinated not only by the many different cultures and ethnicities represented, but by the seamless integration of students of different religious and cultural backgrounds. Although we sometimes refer to ourselves as being in the protective "bubble" of DCDS, in reality our students have an opportunity to experience the world as it is outside the protective confines of our school - a melting pot of religions, cultures, ideas and world views. Given all of this, I was interested recently while meeting with a DCDS alum who told me that really all of our students have one thing in common.

While our school is sometimes thought of as the "athletics" school, the "arts" school, or as the "math and science" school, when I was having lunch with our art department and DCDS alum Jeremy Sasson ('03), he told us that really all of our kids are the same in one way - someone in their life cares deeply about their education, and cares enough to make sure they have access to Country Day. That idea really resonated with me, as I see the commitment our famlies make to this school. While our students come from different places, different economic circumstances, and different world views, the one thing they do have in common is that someone in their lives cared enough to support them attending this amazing school. Unfortunately, not all young people in our country or the world can say that they have an influence in their life willing to make that kind of commitment. Aside from their own drive and aptitude, and the resources of this school, perhaps the most important ingredient to the success of our students is the support they get that allows them to attend DCDS.

In a world where we often focus on what makes us different, it's refreshing to search for those things we have in common. At least at DCDS, it's a great reminder that despite our superficial differences, a fundamental similarity is the belief in the power a quality education has to influence the course of lives.

Virtual Desktop

Years ago Detroit Country Day School was one of the first schools in the state and the nation to introduce a “1:1” laptop program that required every student to have a laptop to access the internet, to create original work, and to facilitate student use of proprietary software programs that were part of our curriculum. We are proud to announce that for the 2013-2014 school year, DCDS is again leading the way in technology innovation with the next iteration of that program, our new “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) program utilizing a virtual desktop will provide greater freedom of choice for students and families, give greater accessibility to DCDS email and file storage, and effectively transform a wide variety of devices into tools that can be used to facilitate student learning.

This school year, the DCDS technology committee studied our laptop program and a variety of options and developing technology delivery systems. A few themes emerged as important to our faculty, students and families – efficiency, cost effectiveness, flexibility, and access. Our technology committee has unanimously endorsed the virtual desktop concept that effectively allows almost any device that accesses the internet to have the full functionality of a high powered laptop by accessing our virtual desktop. The virtual desktop is in the form of an icon that will be installed on student devices. When clicked on, the virtual desktop opens, giving the student full access to all programs and online resources necessary for DCDS students. The virtual desktop includes the entire Microsoft Office suite of applications, various proprietary software used by our faculty in their courses, full online access via our wireless internet, allows for remote access of all DCDS files saved on our server by students, and is fully protected by our firewalls and security systems.

The virtual desktop allows students to truly “Bring Their Own Devices”. Students can choose the device and platform that best suits them. There is no need for the purchase of expensive software suites, as DCDS has purchased licensing for that software through our virtual desktop. During our trials, we tested various laptops and tablets. For example, we tested our current laptops, and new devices such as the Microsoft Surface tablet, the ipad and ipad mini, and the Google Chromebook. All performed seamlessly with the virtual desktop application, and the virtual desktop gives greater functionality to these devices. For example, although ipads do not support Flash video in normal configuration, when a user accesses our virtual desktop via an ipad, because they are using a platform provided by our servers, while in the virtual desktop application, ipad users can access Flash video. Students who have recently purchased a laptop or new device need not purchase anything else – the virtual desktop can be installed on those devices by our help desk.

The bottom line is that beginning with the 2013-2014 school year, students may choose the device or laptop that best fits their needs as a user. All devices will print on our network, and all of these devices will run the necessary programs needed for students at DCDS as long as the device is connected to the internet. The only requirements of the school are that devices have at least a 7” screen, and include a keyboard (either touch screen or actual). While tablets such as the Surface and the ipad and ipad mini are certainly usable with the virtual desktop, we encourage that students and families experience these devices before deciding on them as typing on these devices is definitely different than typing on a laptop keyboard. Once a device has been purchased, simply contact the DCDS help desk for an appointment to install the virtual desktop.

“BYOD” initiatives represent a real trend in technology use in businesses and universities. This approach allows DCDS families to customize their device choices and purchases based on what fits each student’s needs and each family’s financial circumstances. Effectively the virtual desktop has the capacity to turn an inexpensive device into a high powered laptop. Because the programs will be powered by our school’s servers, and storage will be cloud based provided by DCDS, device speed and storage capacity become less significant issues for school related uses. Students may have needs outside of school for various interests and activities, and those should be taken into account with any device purchase.

Please access the portal for information about the virtual desktop program, including devices we know will work seamlessly. If you have any questions regarding the virtual desktop BYOD program, please contact Network Engineer Matt Nelson at matt.nelson@dcds.edu, or me at Tim.Bearden@dcds.edu . We are very excited about this new era of the 1:1 student to device program at Detroit Country Day School, and believe it gives our students and families yet another advantage as a member of the DCDS family.

Twitter and Tweets...

Recently we have received reports from students regarding Twitter accounts that have been anonymously created, and used to publish disparaging and / or offensive "tweets" (online messages of 140 characters or fewer) relative to students and other members of the DCDS community.

 

If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, it is an online social media application that in some surveys is beginning to rival Facebook for popularity amongst teens. Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter , and LinkedIn (a kind of business version of Facebook) have exploded in popularity and variety in recent years. These platforms allow for amazing global connectivity, and offer varied and impressive for potential use in schools, business and social interaction. If you have any doubts as to whether the social media phenomenon is here to stay, this short video will be eye-opening.

 

 

Nevertheless, there are some inherent problems associated with social media. One of the issues facing schools is the problem of cyber-bullying. In our society it is becoming increasingly common for teens to hide behind the anonymity of their computer, table or phone and post unkind things about their peers. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not unique to teens, but it has caused a difficulty for schools as we try to maintain safe, nurturing environments for students. Cyber-bullying hurts in the same ways that other forms of bullying affect students, but has the added component of a very public platform.

 

We have a Pk-12 technology committee addressing proactive steps that we do and can take, and other steps that we might be able to take in the future to educate students, faculty, staff and parents regarding social media. In the meantime, we are requesting your assistance in speaking with your children regarding their online profiles and activities, and emphasizing to them appropriate online language, etiquette, and kindness to others. If you or your children have any information regarding online accounts set up anonymously for the purpose of bullying or other inappropriate behavior, we would appreciate your assistance in sharing that information with us so that we can work to eliminate such issues.

 

For more information on Twitter, and how it works, please visit the following link to an education.com article for parents that gives good information and suggestions : http://www.education.com/magazine/article/parents-guide-to-twitter .

Admission

My wife and I recently saw the new Tina Fey and Paul Rudd movie Admission. While this blog is certainly not intended for movie reviewing, it is an enjoyable, if not Oscar worthy, film. More pertinently, many parents, educators and students will see themselves or their institutions in certain scenes from the movie, which centers around a Princeton admissions officer's interaction with a student to whom she may have a personal connection.

As we are closing out a very successful college admissions cycle, which saw our students achieve the goals they set for themselves in terms of college opportunities, we have students choosing schedules for next school year. Central to their choices is concern over which scheduling decisions might have the most positive impact on their college admissions applications. Our College Counseling department has a great philosophy - "College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won". If students and parents approach scheduling with this philosophy in mind, it will be hard to misstep.

Like all things in life, a student's schedule should have balance. There should be challenges and opportunities to grow, areas of passion and interest, diversity in content, and a place to have fun. We are often asked whether it is better for a student to receive a "B" in an Honors or AP course or an "A" in a regular course. There is not a universal right answer to this question. Much depends on the student's schedule and personal goals. Nevertheless, the one answer that might fit all these situations is that the student should choose based on what he or she will learn and experience in the course - not an anticipated grade.

In the movie Admission one of the main characters is a high school student who is a voracious reader who receives "5's" on multiple AP tests without taking the course. He is a self-described didactic with incredible ability and insight, but a poor high school record. The debate over his admission plays out on screen, and while there is little doubt the young man has the ability to succeed anywhere, there is question over how he will adapt to an environment like Princeton. That is at the crux of every college decision - whether a university is the right match for an individual student's skills, preparation, personality, and career aspirations. Rarely is that decision made based on a course selection, but rather on the balance of a student's record.

College - A match to be made, not a prize to be won....

"Authentic" Assessments...

Historically educators have been very isolated. The nature of traditional school day schedules leaves little time for teachers to talk with one another about their practices and to learn from one another. In recent years, many schools have turned to what have been termed "Professional Learning Communities" (PLCs) to give teachers more opportunity to work collaboratively and develop strategies to impact student achievement. This practice has proven successful in many iterations, and in fact we employ it at Country Day. More recently schools have adopted the concept of professional "rounds" that is common in medical professions. In this concept, teachers make visits to one another's classrooms to learn how others implement curriculum, and to open collegial conversations. This practice gives teachers the kind of big picture look at their school which has historically been reserved for administrators who are often not teaching any longer. It is during my own "rounds" in our schools that I gain the greatest insights into what is happening in classrooms.

One of the educational buzz terms these days is "authentic" assessments. The concept is essentially that students be able to demonstrate application skills that require authentic uses of their knowledge as opposed to artificial assessments that require cold memorization and regurgitation of facts. In recent rounds at our Upper School, I have observed many wonderful examples of authentic assessments that engage students in high level critical thinking:

* In a recent visit to an English classroom I observed a faculty member using students' propensity for "tweeting" in tightly worded blurbs. He required students to find succinct "tweet" length statements that summarized key components of a complex piece of literature. This approach resulted in students using an economy of words for a good purpose, and put the assignment in a context that resonated with students and the way they often communicate. The instructor implicitly and explicitly made the point that sometimes an economy of word choice has real "authentic" usefulness, and students were forced to think clearly to meet the requirements.

* In a visit to an AP Government classroom I observed a teacher using an interactive website to teach students re-districting. Each student brought their mobile device to class, logged into the site, and was given a complex set of instructions to re-district a hypothetical geographic area to benefit their hypothetical political party. The game was played as a competition, and students applied skills they had learned in class to an authentic exercise.

* In a recent visit to a 4th grade classroom, I observed students constructing a tee pee out of raw materials in a way similar to characters in a story they read had done. This exercise gave the students a real understanding of the complexity of the task.

"Authentic" assessments require students to use that which they have learned in real and meaningful ways. Sometimes parents, teachers, and even students, feel that assessments have to be stapled, multi-page "events" in order to give an accurate perception of student knowledge. The truth is that sometimes that approach is appropriate, and other times not. If we're being honest with ourselves, the tests that we "crammed" for and successfully passed by regurgitating information often did not result in lasting understanding of content. On the other hand, circumstances that required the application of knowledge to new and unfamiliar problems stay with us because the assessment is itself a learning experience.

As we continue our work towards a more exploratory, project based program of curriculum and instruction, part of our task will be to develop authentic ways to assess student learning. Putting that theory into practice, instructional rounds allow teachers to develop their own skills by analyzing the approaches of others and comparing and contrasting them to their own.

Pep Talk from Kid President

All of us can use a pep talk every now and then, and I think we can all agree that pep talks from kids can be special - this one is no exception. One of our teachers / directors sent me this great video - hope you enjoy., and watch all the way to the end!

 

Not cool Robert Frost....

Winds of Change, School in the Mirror

One of the most distinctive features of independent schools should be the ability to change, and to lead education into new and exciting frontiers. One might ask why, then, that so many independent schools operate in much the same way they did thirty, forty, or even more years ago. Public school education changes at a rate roughly equivalent to the time it takes to turn a lump of coal into a diamond - an issue that is often not the fault of the educators who are at the mercy of bureaucracies that do not impact independent schools. The reasons behind independent schools not changing are more complex - partly human nature, partly the limitations that success sometimes put on our imaginations.

I read recently that married people weigh on average about 15 percent more than their single counterparts of the same age. Speculation of the author was that marriage and its familiarity breeds complacency. The same might be said of schools that experience some success and establish familiar patterns. The familiarity of those patterns, and the comfort of that past success can dangerously obscure visions of positive change. A few years ago, author Jim Collins famously wrote that " Good is the enemy of great...". So often that truism can be applied to schools which rely on past successes to the extent that they become barriers to positive, meaningful improvement.

In order to change, the overweight married couple needs to first look in a mirror to recognize that they may have let heir bodies go a little bit. A few more cookies at Christmas, a few too many fast food meals, and too few hours in the gym, and complacency begets an unflattering result. The same is true of schools - we must constantly subject ourselves to honest looks in the mirror. Self- reflection distinguishes good schools from great. 

At Country Day we are going through a virtual fun house of mirrors right now, examining our school from many angles. We are undergoing a curriculum alignment we have called " Five in, Five out" designed to vertically and horizontally align our curriculum by identifying five essential skills a student needs to be successful to begin a course or grade level content area, and five essential skills students should possess on exit from a course or grade level. In this way we are connecting our whole school curriculum, pk-12. In addition we are going through a peer evaluation by the Independent School Association of Central States (ISACS) which has caused us to look at all of our practices, and which will result in a peer report that evaluates our school. We have just closed an engagement survey of our faculty and staff to identify strengths and opportunities in our school community, and are in the process of developing our new teacher evaluation model. In short, we are putting every aspect of our school in front of the mirror, and examining for flaws. Most of our bodies could not hold up to that level of scrutiny...

DCDS intends to continue to be a leader not only in the independent school world, but in a continuous effort to be at the cutting edge of educational best practice. That kind of commitment requires constant self- reflection, and visionary approaches to stave off complacency. We are up to the challenge - just takes a little looking in the mirror...

Wigwams, Occam's Razor, and Things We Learn from Kindergarten

Last week I visited a wigwam made by 4th graders, and a tinker toy village, before later visiting a Theory of Knowledge classroom of Upper School students try to stump one another on the topic of Occam's Razor in a review competition. In my dual role as Upper School Head, and PK - 12 Chief Academic officer, I get the pleasure of visiting classrooms across the learning spectrum. The opportunity to see where kids start, and to what heights they grow, and to see it in the same day is a powerful way to develop a picture of a school's curriculum coming to life. As students progress through grade levels and content areas, and mature to more sophisticated concepts, a truism is that levels of student engagement often drop considerably. Crawling in and out of a wigwam can seem like a lot more fun that logarithms, slope, or Puritan literature. It's a good reminder to all of us that some of the principles of elementary education can apply to keeping student engagment levels high at the upper grades.

Blogger Doug Johnson posted recently on maintaining student engagement levels. He created Everything I Know about Engagement I Learned in Kindergarten:

 

In kindergarten we get:

1. Show and tell. You got to do something or bring something and then tell others about it. Secondary skill attainment measurement needs to be less about testing and more about show and tell performance-based assessment. Oh, and listening to other students is a lot more involving than listening to the old person in the room.

2. Choices. As a little kid you often got to choose - your library book, your reading buddy, your activity, the subject of your drawing. People tend to choose things that interest them and interesting things are engaging. How often do we let older students choose?

3. Play. Elementary teachers can make a game out of almost anything - and make just about every task feel like play. The older we get, the less we get to play and more we have to work. Just why is that? Gamification is a fancy term for putting play back into the curriculum. Look it up.

4. Naps. Most adolescents I know are tired - and not because they've been up all night texting. (Well, maybe that's part of it.) We've long known that teens do better when school starts later in the morning. Tired people have a tough time staying engaged.

5. To go outside. The best learning takes place in the "real world" not in the classroom. Whether it is studying bugs and leaves in first grade, marching with the band in junior high, or doing service learning as seniors, we all are more interested when it is the real world with which we are dealing.

6. Colors. A blank sheet of construction paper and some crayolas have always let young learners be creative. Creativity is inherently engaging. What's the high school classroom's equivilant to scissors and paste?

7. To do it together. Reading groups. Play groups. Science groups. It's better with other kids. Social learners are engaged learners.

8. Reading for enjoyment. Our elementary teachers and librarians want us to practice reading so much they let us read what we like! Do our secondary teachers want us to write so much, know so much, experiment so much, and solve problems so much that we get to do it for enjoyment?

9. Learning that's important. Nobody needs to convince a little kid that learning to read, to add and subtract, or to know about firemen is important. And that you should pay attention when being taught these things. Calculus, world history, the Romantic poets, the atomic structure of non-metals, not so much. If you can't convince me what you are teaching should be important to me, teach something that is.

10. Care. OK, this should have been the first one. I really believe a lot little kids are engaged because they know someone cares that they are. Yeah, the littles are cute and cuddly and all that, but the gangly, awkward, homely teens need to know adults care too. When someone else is paying attention to you, you pay more attention yourself.

 

All teachers, at all levels, have a responsibility to develop engaging lessons that make classroom learning relevant. It's a legitimate question for students to ask what relevance content will have to them beyond school. In an engaging classroom that follows the rules of kindergarten, that questions is rarely asked because the answers are obvious. This challenge grows with the sophistication of material, but these rules of kindergarten are great reminders for parents and teachers alike that learning can, and should be, stimulating, engaging, and fun.

Never Work Harder Than Your Students

In Never Work Harder than Your Students, author Robyn Jackson defines a master teacher as one who follows seven principles:

 

1.       Start where your students are.

2.       Know where your students are going.

3.       Expect to get your students to their goal.

4.       Support your students along the way.

5.       Use frequent and thoughtful feedback to help you and your students get better.

6.       Focus on quality rather than quantity.

7.       Never work harder than your students.

 

To the last point, Jackson argues that teachers commonly do all the work in planning and delivering lessons, assessing the lessons, and dictating the learning (Jackson, p.172).  Jackson further argues that swinging to a completely “student centered” classroom is not the answer to this problem, but rather suggests that the classroom should be a community that should establish a balance between the roles of teacher and student in the learning process. It’s an interesting proposition to consider how much of the responsibility in the learning process falls on the shoulders of the classroom teacher. Teachers who lecture exclusively, or provide the questions or the variables a student must answer to solve complex problems may be shouldering more of the load than necessary or appropriate. Teaching students to ask the right questions is a critical element of the journey.

 

I once evaluated an English teacher who assigned two portions to every assessment. For part I, he required students to write questions for the test that they thought would force one another to think at complex / application levels. He then graded students on their questions for part I of their assessment grade. Part II of their grade was completing an assessment made up of entirely student written questions from Part I. I’ve always thought it was a brilliant model – one of the most important skills a student can learn, is what questions to ask. I’d be willing to bet that each of you can remember times when you or someone you knew studied long hours for an assessment and did poorly because you didn’t study the material that the teacher thought was important enough to be on the assessment. Conversely, you can probably think of times when you studied the right material for a relatively short time, and did much better than students who studied longer, but studied non-critical material. Cultivating the skill of asking questions is critical, and the questions students ask will reveal much about their understanding of content.