Teachers Can Be Like Jazz Musicians

Last week I wrote about the exciting professional development and school design sessions I’ve had with Oregon Episcopal School (OES).  Two of the most generative moments of the OES faculty’s brainstorming and design thinking came from the sudden and creative invention of metaphors: OES is like a riverboat...and OES is like a jazz band.  With each metaphor, individual and collective imaginations clicked ON. For instance, with the jazz band metaphor, the idea developed that highly skilled teachers engaged in inquiry based learning are like jazz musicians.  Those teachers understand theory and practice in both pedagogy (music theory) and different subjects/disciplines (different instruments).  They harness their understanding of learning patterns to the vehicle of inquiry (innovation and invention).  They are at once: clear about the overall intentions of the particular investigation (the jazz theme), attuned to each individual student’s response (each member of the jazz ensemble), and skilled at leading all students to learn and to make new connections.  As the investigations develop and conclude, great teachers inspire and guide a rich and meaningful expressions of individual and collective learning (a jazz composition).

The jazz band metaphor resonated for me again on February 15 at The College School in Webster Groves (TCS) and The St. Michael School of Clayton (SMS) where Cadwell Collaborative hosted 32 teachers from two different Chicago schools, Union Church of Hinsdale Early Childhood Center and the Winnetka Community Nursery School.

To watch and listen to the teachers from TCS and SMS is very much like listening to a really fine jazz ensemble.  The language they use to describe what they are doing could be likened to a jazz players talking about playing jazz.  Phrases and words like: listen carefully to all the children to know where to go and what to support; use what you know and then go somewhere new; practice, practice, practice; be grounded and fly; be serious and have fun; wonder and experiment.

In the afternoon workshop the teachers' challenge was to outline a possible investigation using a “mapping” format borrowed from the current practice at SMS (a framework that SMS has developed over a five year period, one that derives from Grant Wiggins' work).  Though the task was concrete, the process was organic.  The teachers met in groups of four.  In three different 20 minute periods, each person met with three different trios.  So, with 32 teachers, there were 8 quartets playing at one time.  And over the three sessions each player got to play with 9 different partners.  The central objective was the same yet the ideas were many and diverse.  One teacher reflected, The mapping workshop helped me assemble and consider exciting ideas from other teachers.  Another said: It was great to hear other perspectives.  I’m leaving with so many inspiring and practical ideas!  

To collaborate and compose in this way as educators can open new doors and develop new skills, among the 21st century skills that we wish to instill also in our students.

Design Your School Beginning with the Faculty's Ideas??!!

To just about any faculty member I know, the following idea will come as a giant “DUH:”  when a school undertakes the design of a new facility, it should include the faculty in the design process.  Sadly, most boards and administrations do not.  These institutions miss a GIANT opportunity to stimulate design ideas AND, ironically, faculty development. I have worked with four schools in the last two years that have begun the design process with a series of meetings with the faculty and administration, together.  In each case, everyone has been excited by the prospect of a new building, and honored to be included in the critical programmatic phase of design.  However, in each case, the rubber met the road, not so much on building design issues, as on educational program design.

The hard questions that the faculty tackled had to do with reflections on past and current successes and problems.  In all cases this led to projections that built on current success, solved problems, and created room for evolution.  The answers and discoveries in these discussions have become essential to the schematic design of the buildings.

My most recent experience was (and is) with Oregon Episcopal School.  OES has begun the process of designing a new Lower School (early childhood through grade 5).  They started with three guided discussions with the faculty in large and small groups.

Their first meeting, involving the whole lower school faculty, was guided by a parent who has considerable professional experience (Nike) with Design Thinking.  Using the decorum and process of Design Thinking, in one 90 minute session, the faculty generated 20 poster boards covered with sticky note ideas.  The poster boards wall papered their meeting room.

The following week, I met with the faculty over two days, in four small groups, in 90 -120 minute sessions each day, to develop the ideas on the walls.  First of all, we revisited and elaborated on the most compelling ideas, in their individual opinions, that had come up through the Design Thinking.  Then, each faculty member chose one idea that he/she found “most concerning.”

The next day, each session focused on teaching: tell us something about your teaching that has changed significantly...what was it that you learned that caused the change?  Then we asked, tell us one thing that you hope will never change.  Finally, we wondered together, considering both the change you have known and the stability you hope for, what do you imagine teaching at OES will look like 5 or 10 or 20 years from now?

From these meetings we discerned a “map” of ideas, or significant “drivers” for the schematic design.

• Ten Essential Ideas about Students, Teachers & Pedagogy
• Seven Essential Ideas about Program
• Ten Essential Ideas about Spaces
• Nine Essential Ideas about Design
• Nine Essential Concerns

Further reflection on the meetings distilled three compelling needs to be met in the design of the building, compelling for the Lower School, for the whole school and in the Portland community.

Somewhere along the way, a metaphor appeared: OES as a RIVERBOAT.  Throughout the sessions we had a lot of fun as we elaborated on the image.  By the end we had constructed quite a story, one that could become the unifying image for the educational program, the building design, and communication with parents and fund raising.

Hmmmm, all this...just by including the faculty!

Up Coming Green Schools Conference and Our Presentation

At 8:30 a.m. on February 24th, Cadwell Collaborative and two schools that we work with will collaborate on a presentation at the Green Schools Conference in West Palm Beach, FL.  Two Reggio inspired schools, La Scuola in Miami and The St. Michael School of Clayton in St. Louis, will share highlights of their year-long, whole school investigation: What is food? 

The presentation will offer participants a structure for this kind of investigation.  Those who attend will understand how to:

• design a year-long inquiry around one compelling question

• build curriculum maps to plan, reflect on and communicate learning goals

• use daily journals and blogs to track student work and project development

• create documentation that assesses students' skills and understanding

• guide student work in ways that engage students in the community

This is a story of how two very different schools followed similar paths with their students.  The story of their learning journeys and their collaboration make a compelling case that the 21st century skills of ecoliteracy, systems thinking, collaboration, creative problem solving, and youth engagement are critical and unifying themes of our time.  What comes through most clearly in the stories that these two schools tell is that students of all ages, when guided into meaningful, relevant explorations are excited and motivated to discover and learn more.  And, they are inspired to share what they've learned and to advocate for change.

If you are not aware of the Green Schools National Network, we recommend that you check it out.

If you are interested in designing curriculum based on critical themes of our time and 21st century skills, let us know.  We'd love to work with you.

Photography: A Few Thoughts on Why and How

Those of us who are drawn to the work of the educators and the children in Reggio Emilia, Italy are struck by the beauty that we see in the learning environments, in the work with materials, in the care for every detail of how experiences are presented to children and how wholehearted learning and joy are captured in photographs and other media.  If we are serious about acting on our inspiration from Italy, one thing that we might do is to consider what is involved in taking good, meaningful, beautiful photographs of children and of learning.  This takes time and learned skills.

I have loved taking photographs for most of my adult life.  I was fortunate to enroll in a photography course in college and I spent hours in a dark room with friends watching my photos come to life.  This course, with a beloved and excellent photographer, set the stage for me.  Photography became a vehicle to communicate what I was learning in a local elementary school while taking taking courses in education and sociology.  I loved being a photographer as a parent of small children and also as a young teacher, even before I knew about Reggio Emilia.  I realized the power of well composed photographs to tell stories.

Soon after I came home from the hospital about three weeks ago, I realized that I would be homebound.  I decided that I would shoot photographs every day and that I would choose one to represent each day.  Since I am limited to my Vermont home, these photos are taken from the inside looking out or they are of interiors of rooms. If family and friends are here, they become subjects.  In choosing my photo of the day, I am looking for strong compositions, interesting and good light, a new angle on a familiar subject, something of passing beauty that I do not want to forget.  I delete many of the photos that I take because they are not quite right in some way...too cluttered, not the right angle, too dark, for example.  Developing an eye for taking, selecting and displaying good photographs is a worthwhile pursuit.  In schools, students will be proud that their learning is documented.  Parents will be thrilled to see their children's learning in action.  All of us will be grateful that we have beautiful images to both represent and tell the stories of our learning journeys through the days, months and years of growth and change.