In their book, Change Leadership, Tony Wagner, Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey (et al.) define the three Rs as, "Rigor, Relevance and Respect." Today, in a professional development session, we read part of chapter two of this book and I found it very interesting and encouraging.
Rigor
First, the authors addressed "rigor" a word that is regularly trumpeted in school circles and often vilified as well. Their definition and views of rigor rang true with my own:
"Rigor is about what students are able to do as a result of a lesson. Rigor implies holding students responsible for meeting certain objective, qualitative standards and measuring progress regularly... We do take a strong stance, however, on what rigor is not: rigor is not simply about students being given more or harder work."
I know teachers who ignore rigor and I know others who simply pile on more work and additional assignments and point to all the "work" as demonstrating something useful. Both are misguided.
Relevance
Second is the issue of "relevance". This one was most discussed today. Although we were all amiable and respectful and open to learning from each other, you could definitely see "camps" forming on this topic.
On one side are those who more often take what I call the "suck it up and do it" stance. These teachers err on the side of less explanation (maybe they can't explain relevance or don't feel they have time?) and remind students that there are things in life that "you just have to do". How often they have to communicate this to students concerns me. If it's daily, weekly or even monthly, then there needs to be some reassessment of teaching. Surely the majority of their academic content doesn't fit into the category of lacking any real-life application?
The other camp was the "everything must have relevance" camp. I find myself sitting around the campfire with these folks most often. While I can appreciate that endeavors of a strictly academic nature can be worthwhile—for those who want to become immersed in a particular subject—they don't need to be taught universally. Skills and the use of them should be the universal focus. Usually, the topics that are exclusively academic are only useful for theoretical discussion. There's nothing wrong with theoretical discussion, but do we really want to spend our limited time with all students pursuing something that will be soon forgotten by everyone except those few who embrace the topic? Of course, many could argue that students soon forget a lot of topics that actually have relevance. This may be true, but maybe that's somewhat of a reflection of our lack in helping them see relevance?
Here is one of the comments from the authors:
"...it is increasingly clear that many of today’s students do not retain knowledge or master skills that appear to have little or no relevance to their lives."
I would expand this comment replacing "students" with "humans". Humans are designed to learn, but to learn when we need information. We are often presented with excessive amounts of information that we either ignore or soon discard if it doesn't continue to be of benefit to us. Why should students be asked to operate counter to the very way they are designed? Sure, a few of us are information collectors and love to keep lots of random tidbits of information in our brains at our ready access. I want these people on my team in trivia contests, but does that mean they have better skills and are better equipped to succeed in life?
Relationships
One quote I really liked from the book was:
"Students attending urban, suburban, or rural high schools; students who struggle academically; and students who take advanced courses all say the one thing that makes the greatest difference in their learning is the quality of their relationships with their teachers."
So, basically, all students indicate the importance of relationships to their academic success. This wasn't a huge "aha" for anyone in our group. One of the things we do really well at our school is relationships. Students, for the most part, know we care. Sometimes we fall into the trap of enabling, and we have to guard against that, but our teachers do care...a lot...about our students. If they didn't, they'd leave and go find positions in schools with many fewer challenges.
Linking Them All
For me one of the best sections was about linking the three Rs together. This was very helpful to our PM team as we continue to refine our ever-evolving program. Here's an overview:
"The 3 R’s are an attempt to create a systemic framework for discussions of good teaching, and a framework that can produce a more complex, comprehensive understanding of instructional practice. Each concept is dependent on the other two for the entire system to work. Many of us have known rigorous teachers who were so caught up in their material that they were unable either to explain its practical application or to connect personally with most students—and so their lessons left many in the class confused or indifferent. Similarly, there are teachers who excel at making a curriculum more relevant with interesting projects and hands-on work, but the skills students are expected to master may be unclear or well below what they are capable of doing and need to know. Finally, some teachers seek to instill a positive self-image in students through caring relationships, but if they have not taught students real skills, this self-esteem quickly evaporates at the next level of education or the first job interview. Rigor, as a concept, is a starting point for educators to translate the demand for all students to master new skills into new classroom practices. Relevance and relationships help us begin to understand what is required to motivate all students to want to master these new skills."
Take some time to read Change Leadership. It will undoubtedly help any group interested in creating "irresistible" educational programs and experiences.
Reference: Wagner, Tony; Kegan, Robert; Lahey, Lisa Laskow; Lemons, Richard W.; Garnier, Jude; Helsing, Deborah; Howell, Annie; Rasmussen, Harriette Thurber (2009-10-08). Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools (Jossey-Bass Education) (Kindle Locations 1434-1440). Wiley Publishing. Kindle Edition.
No comments:
Post a Comment