Mindful Listening Leadership

This fall, I've been reading Shane Safir's The Listening Leader with a group of colleagues.  The subtitle reads "Creating the Conditions for Equitable School Transformation." 

The text captured my attention right away.  It speaks to my desire to grow a collaborative, dynamic community of adults in our school as a way to increase student achievement and support school culture.  One of my favorite phrases in the whole book is in the introduction, which explains that Listening Leaders are able to "unleash unrealized energy" in their team.

My experience is that educators have a great deal of energy for the areas of practice and experience where we feel successful and empowered.  Where we have a deep, in-the-gut feeling that something we are doing with, or for, our learners, is making a real difference.  Conversely, finding the energy to tackle the things before us where we are less connected and involved is much more stressful and less inspiring.

Safir argues that leaders who adopt a Listening Mindset are better able to transform culture and release this energy.  He suggests four specific strategies to accomplish this:

Slow Down

Listen before Making Decisions

                                             

Harness the Wisdom of the Group

Distribute Leadership

                                                 
By approaching change in this super-intentional, recursive, and thoughtful way, Listening Leadership becomes a powerful driver for change.

I understood what he was talking about as I read these early chapters.  Applying it to daily practice became another story.

I had an experience with some members of my team heading into the break that really tested my understanding of these principles.  We were working through a super challenging situation with one of our very complex students.  Emotions and fatigue were running high, the student was not responding to the interventions or strategies we had in place, and the team was discouraged.

I jumped in to look for ways to support everyone.  I got a referral into our district's Inclusion Support Team, brainstormed with our Student Services teacher for ways to change things up, grabbed a few new visual tools and tweaked the student's timetable and the EA Schedule.  I hurried to get everything into the team's hands so I could help stabilize things.  I dug into my toolkit, built from all of my years supporting unique students and their teams toward success.

It was a disaster.  The strategies, even the ones that had been wildly successful for numerous other students in the past, did not improve the situation.  This young man's Classroom Teacher and Education Assistants were still frustrated.  Now they were becoming angry.  I started to feel defensive.

Two things happened that shifted my stance from defensiveness to something more open.  To nudge me from the feeling I had to hurry, to find all of the answers and allow me to be ready and able to listen for the ideas, emotions, and other information, that were needed to find our way through this difficult period.

The first was a conversation with a courageous colleague who laid it all out for me.  She identified exactly how she was feeling as a result of some of the decisions that I had made, and shared some key information about the situation with this learner that I was unaware of.  While I didn't agree with everything she said, it was an open dialogue that re-framed my perspective, and helped to shift the direction things were taking.

The second was observing the way that our Inclusion Support team interacted with the student's teacher when they visited our site.  They asked a ton of questions, about the challenging situation, strengths and interests of the student, the rhythm of the classroom, the student's needs, the adults' needs.  Every single question was one I knew to be critically important.  In hindsight, I realized that some were questions I had already made up answers to without checking to see how accurate my assumptions were.

I have worked in the area of student support for many years.  I have lots of knowledge about how to support highly complex learners, how to individualize programs, how to create visual supports and structured routines.  And a lot of the time, I believe I know how to listen and work with my team.  In reflecting on how this situation got to be so complicated and stressful, I  realized that I had been focusing on the TOOLS, not the PEOPLE who needed to use them.

Thanks to the perspective afforded to me through slowing down long enough to really listen,  to share the leadership, to harness ideas from everyone involved, we headed into Christmas break in a much better place.  We have some new tools and routines ready to go for the new year, and resource people coming to help us implement them.  We had a productive team meeting before heading off, I feel like we've mended some of the strained relationships and I'm hoping my efforts to really listen to everyone have allowed me to tweak some of our other structures and routines moving forward, so that we really can slow down and be super intentional moving forward.

Safir argues that to really do this well, Mindful Listening needs to occur with a bias toward action.  In reading a little more of this text over the break, that piece has landed as a bit of a "New Year's Resolution" for me.  My action step is going to be focusing on his metaphor of "watering for deep roots."  Safir argues that "strategic listening [can] create the mental space that can lead to more thoughtful action."

I believe I know how to leverage some of these strategies with the "big picture" stuff-  I feel good about the work we did in creating a school vision statement, planning for PLCs, building our tiered support structures by reflecting on student data.  What I learned through this experience is that it's much harder to do when emotions are running high in a crisis situation.  The irony of that is this is that mindful listening has the potential to stabilize things much faster and more effectively than digging in and handing over tools without real consultation.

Fortunately, Safir has a suggestion in this regard, as well.  If I had followed the three steps of Mindful Listening, I would have created the space I needed to navigate things in a much different way.  Being strategic and aware in approaching collaboration-  whether it's for a whole-school initiative, or problem solving with only a few members of the team, it's important to:

1. Look in the mirror....reflect on your own role and interactions.
2. Step into the other person's shoes...no matter how different their perspective, the individual involved has life experiences, information, emotions that need to be considered in moving forward...begin with a bit of empathy.
3.  Step up onto the balcony....take on the stance of a neutral observer watching your interactions with others during the discussion

This situation was an important reminder that our whole team wants what's best for our students, and that the real power to support our learners lays in our collective wisdom.   After all, They're All Our Kids.  

Being Passionately Curious

I saw this on Twitter this morning, and I can't stop thinking about it.  When I went searching for the post so that I could take this screenshot, I saw other examples of it-  but this image with the wings captures my thinking better than any of the other "inspirational picture quote" versions I came across.

I love the vibrancy of this image.  I love that interwoven into this vibrancy is a diverse set of images that span a large cross-section of interests and abilities, thoughtfully interwoven and layered to create movement and energy.  Possibility. 

I think I take issue with it just a little bit-  to me, being Passionately Curious is a special talent.  In fact, I believe the art of nurturing oneself, and others, toward being passionately curious is the most special talent of many educators.  It's what we do when we engage everyone in exploration and foster the sense of wonder the compels all of us to keep reflecting and learning even when the lesson is complete.

It's the bit of bird's nest that comes in after we've looked at habitats in science class.  It's the toppling, sticky-taped, toilet-roll-and-bent-straw ramp that shows up after we've talked about forces and gravity.  It's the outlandish-but-interesting connection that someone offers during lit circle that we keep talking about all week.  It's the Reggio Inspired primary program that has little ones building, creating, inventing.  It's inquiry, and maker-space, and innovation and problem-based learning. 

But it's not just for our kids.  It's for us, too.  It's finding ourselves in deep in the cupboard looking for solo cups or shimmering elastic thread because the perfect community building lesson dawned on us when we woke up at 3 in the morning still thinking about yesterday.

It's the gathering of 2-3 colleagues to plan a special activity, or outing, or buddy project because we're all excited about the same thing.  It's also the energy that builds after reflection on student work samples, or assessment data, and we begin moving forward as a school team in crafting an approach to help propel our leaners to the just-right next place.

I'm not the first person to be inspired by this notion.  A bit of a websearch around this idea landed me some pretty interesting websites to explore almost instantly-  check out the Passionately Curious Kindergarten, the work being done at UBC regarding Transformative Educational Leadership.  or even the goings-on at Science World.

It's such a fantastic time to be a BC Educator.  Embracing a competency-based approach with open-ended exploration is the very best way to be passionately curious students and adults.  Every day, I am blessed to wander throughout my building and hear the buzz of learners and teachers co-creating learning opportunities and exploring ideas together.  It's pretty special to be passionately curious as a community.  And it works. Our learners move forward together when we engage them in what they are curious about as individuals.  Good thing, because They're All Our Kids!

Becoming a Focus School: Literacy Interventions for Intermediate-aged Readers

My school was given a tremendous gift this fall.  We’ve become a Focus School.  That means we have been given extra counselling and Child and Youth Care support, and a half-time Literacy Coordinator.   We have such an opportunity to make a significant difference for our kids-  the means to provide additional resources and support where it’s needed the most.

To prepare for the year, I decided to do a bit of a literature review to see what it said about intermediate readers.  I was looking for a launch-point, some information about the best way to target these supports-  even with all this extra help, I have a hunch that we’ll still feel stretched - being strategic and deliberate will be the key to making this work.

After combing through about 20 research studies and articles that have been published in the last 10 years, my hunch about being strategic and deliberate was actually the reassuring piece that fell out the bottom.   There are definitely some key strategies and understandings that have been shown to make a HUGE difference in student achievement outcomes.  Some things that, time and again, helped intermediate students become strong, confident readers. 

What I DIDN’T see was a big list of stuff I’ve never heard of. 

What I DID see was that the implementation of tools and strategies has a much greater effect when they are chosen super carefully, used in a targeted  way, and tracked carefully so that teachers knew whether or not they were working, and what adjustments need to be made along the way.  

That makes sense.  In his research regarding teacher efficacy, John Hattie has learned that the impact of “[teacher efficacy (d=1.57)] is more than two times bigger than that of feedback (d=0.72), and almost three times bigger than the effect of classroom management (d=0.52). The message seems to be clear: together teachers can achieve more, especially if they collectively believe that they can do so!”[i]

Working collaboratively to make thoughtful, strategic, deliberate decisions, based on what we know about our learners and their needs, is the most powerful thing we can do to help our kids have success.

So what are the underlying principles to keep in mind when planning support for intermediate struggling readers?

Overwhelmingly, the research focused on a several key things:

         1.        A foundation of differentiated, flexible classroom structures that provide an entry-point for all learners.  Shelley Moore has a whole bunch of info and templates on her site that are useful in this regard.[ii]   Deshler et. al encourage us to “consider differentiated instruction by examining the demands placed on students”(2007)[iii].  Are we giving them a starting place they can manage?  Have we provided tools and opportunities that allow them to work independently towards success?

      

      2.       Intervention that happens outside of the classroom needs to be IN ADDITION TO, not instead of, classroom literacy learning.  A number of studies showed that struggling readers are exposed to significantly less print than their more successful peers. They need to read MORE OFTEN, and have MORE PRACTICE to move ahead.  When the team decides that Tier 2 or 3 supports are needed, they need to be super strategically scheduled so students are still part of key literacy learning in the classroom.

      3.      Interventions can’t be one-size-fits-all.  Every “reading group” shouldn’t be structured the same way.   While there are a number of areas that are consistently explored in the research, it is equally clear that, by the intermediate grades, struggling readers need an intense, strategic, focus on the areas they find the most difficult.  If they are word-spotters who can’t comprehend what they read, help them understand it.  If they chew over every vowel sound and phonetic pattern, explore that. 

4.      Intermediate learners are super-sensitive to their peers, and their perceptions of where they fit in with their peer group.  We need to honor them and listen to them.  Insisting they participate in a type of intervention that they are not comfortable with will almost always backfire.  Instead of being invested in the learning, they’ll be fine-tuning their radar for what is going on in their environment, or will be pre-occupied with the activities back in their classrooms.  Bass describes this as the “Discursive Identity Impact.”  She explains that “research has shown that while struggling readers may appear unmotivated or uninterested, this may not always be the case.  Discursive identity theory aids in the understanding of the intrinsic perceptions and motivations that drive outward actions of a middle school readers….by understanding how struggling readers view text, perceive themselves, and want others to perceive them, teachers can more likely respond to students’ needs.”[iv]

What are the areas of focus that have proven to be the most effective?

In summarizing the studies, the part I was most excited about was how recursive this list was.  The same few areas of focus cropped up for classroom learning, small group work, and individual supports.  What changed was the intensity and frequency of them. 

Repeatedly, the research indicated that the most impact for struggling readers came from supporting classroom teachers in creating deep, supportive, literature-rich, classroom environments.  Any intervention should add layers to what was already in place-  an individualized focus on specific areas of difficulty, not something totally different altogether, or a replacement for the stuff that is “too hard” in the classroom.

The research also repeated a few themes in terms of instructional focus:

• ·         Comprehension:  systematic and explicit instruction in flexible tools and metacognitive strategies to tackle print…strategic reading being key….
• ·         Time with High Success texts:  free, voluntary reading with books kids like, paired with corrective feedback and opportunities for reflection (oral and written)
• ·         Vocabulary knowledge:  making sure we build on prior knowledge and add layers before, during and after reading
• ·         Fluency:  comfort and “flow” with the written word
• ·         Working with words:  phoneme structures, syllabication, grammar (which is related to, but different from, a traditional spelling program)

I’ve plotted some of the more specific suggestions and strategies onto an RTI framework by way of a visual.

This is thoughtful, strategic work, for sure.  The good news, is that we’re charged with doing it together.  Beginning by making sure that classroom teachers have the tools and supports they need to effectively engage all readers in their classrooms will allow those of us in support roles to know when, how, and what, to add in support of our kids who struggle.

This is a super-optimistic bunch of research.  Over and over again, it confirms that we can make a significant difference for our kids.  There has been a lot of research done in the area of early intervention over the years.  What some of this research shows us is that significant gains can also be made by intermediate learners if we really get to know them and create lots of opportunity for them.  I can’t wait to see what this year brings.  After all, They’re All Our Kids!

---

[i] Hattie, Visible Learning (website), https://visible-learning.org/2018/03/collective-teacher-efficacy-hattie/

[ii] Moore, (blog), https://blogsomemoore.com/

[iii]Houghen (2015) “Evidence-Based Reading Instruction for Adolescents Grades 6-12,”  http://ceedar.education.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IC-13_FINAL_05-26-15.pdf

[iv] Bass (2015) “Reading Intervention Strategies for General Education Middle School Students: Providing a Space for Teachers to Share Effective Methods,” https://bit.ly/2O2X1EQ

If the visual is helpful to you, download it 

here:  Supporting Literacy Instruction for Intermediate-Aged Readers

Belonging is the Beginning

Belonging is the beginning.  That's the opening phrase for our school's first goal this year.  It continues as follows:

Belonging is the beginning.  Our goal is to create structures,  ceremonies, and learning environments that will set the stage for a culture that is accepting of all students and meets them where they are in their learning journey.  

Earlier this year, I collected some photos of learners participating in various opportunities around the school, as examples of community, places where kids were engaging and could belong.  These are lovely pictures, and genuine examples, but they fall short of providing deep opportunities for EVERYONE to belong.   Kids join in if they choose, but if you look closely at the pictures, you'll notice that many of our learners don't appear in ANY of them.

Since I took those photos, the staff has really come together to consider deeper, more deliberate and focused, initiatives to help our kids who most need to belong find a place in our learning community.  While we're only at the beginning of this journey, I'm really excited about how things are going.

One of our PLC groups has decided to focus on ways to forge connections with a number of our students who are living on reserve, and who are not finding success with their learning.  While we see many of these kids every day, they are not attending their classes, are not participating in the clubs and events around the school, are not successfully moving toward graduation.  They are not finding their way to us, so we need to go to them.  As a staff, we're going to take one or two of these learners under our wings, encourage them.  Support them.  Meet with them at least once a week, and listen to them.  

We're also going to reach out to their community.  We would like to explore hosting parent-teacher conferences at the Band hall, to help families who are not able to get into the school get to know us and for us to get to know them.  We're going to work with our elder to offer opportunities at school that are culturally relevant for these learners.  The counselor for Aboriginal Youth Mental Health now holds weekly office hours in our building.

Our course calendar for next year will have some changes.  While pairing wood shop with math didn't quite pan out as we hoped, we're optimistic that pairing foods with math next year will give our students a way to learn practical numeracy skills at the same time they learn to create family meals and culturally-based recipes.  This is not an intervention for our vulnerable students, but a super-exciting opportunity to be part of a cohort that approaches learning a different way,  based in First Peoples' Principles of Learning.  Our big dream is that it's the start of a new way to approach learning in our building as a whole.

The Aboriginal Education teacher at our school has been working with a local artist, and some time in the next year or so, we will have a beautiful carving hanging over our stage and multi-purpose room.  He hopes to create Aboriginal Student Council at our school, to help our Indigenous students have a larger voice.  A member of this student council will sit on the executive of our broader Student Council, alongside the grade reps and representative from the Queer-Straight Alliance.

Our Learning Leaders team is also seeking ways to enhance connection and belonging for our students.  We've been reading Martin Brokenleg's book "Reclaiming Youth At Risk," and are excited to be implementing a school-wide focus on the Circle of Courage.  As part of our weekly recognition gathering, we'll give "shout-outs" to students demonstrating belonging, independence, gratitude and mastery, creating a large visual display to acknowledge their contributions.  We'll teach lessons in all of our Humanities and English classes exploring these areas, with belonging being our first quadrant.

The lessons are part of one other exciting piece.  Last week, I was lucky enough to participate in FNESC's session on the revised English First People's 10-12 curriculum. It was my first exposure to these courses.  They are literature-rich, built around First People's Principles of Learning, and arranged thematically.  It's as if the unit on Belonging was especially created just for us.  It arrived in my hands at the just the right time.  These lessons will provide a beautiful launch pad for our work with the Circle of Courage, and will hopefully inspire some of our students to sign up for the other English First People's courses being offered next year.  (The final draft of the guide will be available online by the end of April, 2018).

This is one of those rare magical times when everyone seems to be moving alongside one another in a common purpose.  We've taken some deliberate, focused steps together, and I truly believe it has grown from an intrinsic understanding that belonging really is the beginning. We didn't start from the notion that it was "time to work on goal #1."  We have a collective awareness that what we're doing isn't enough for some of our kids, and a deep desire to figure out how to change things.  It stems from the belief that EVERYONE deserves to have a place they feel successful and part of in our school.  I'm proud to be part of this team.  We understand that they're all our kids.

Grappling with Giftedness

I've only worked with a handful of truly gifted students in all my years as an educator.They stand out.  I remember something wonderful and exceptional about each of them.

The first was a young man in my grade three class during my first full year as a teacher.  We were working on our "Wild Animals of Canada" unit....I was super excited about the animal track prints we were making on our giant story boards-  the kids were all pumped up about painting their stories onto their maps and creating tales that showed how the various animals in their chosen region interacted.  We were all busy drawing ponds and forest trails. A parent helper was helping us to carve florist sponges into stamps for making tracks.    My young naturalist approached me, with a hand painted map that could have been produced by the National Geographic,  to ask if it was important to label the 14 varieties of vole in the Northern Boreal region of Saskatchewan with their Latin names.

Next came my wonderful historian.  During his grade four year, he was struggling, often being sent to work where he "wasn't causing a disturbance." (His words).  I was his support teacher at that time. We decided it would be good for him to have an independent project to work on for the days that the classroom wasn't a good fit.  Over the next four months, he spent many of his afternoons working on a scale model of the Parthenon.  Out of toothpicks.  It was fantastic, and, although my math wasn't as good as his was,  I'm pretty sure was accurate.

Another student who stands out was a young man whom I first met when he was in first grade.  I had an "enrichment" group at that time, and he came along for the period of time we were working on PowerPoint.  It was pretty new, cutting-edge stuff at that time, and adding motion paths and animations was pretty exciting.  I quickly moved him from the primary group to the intermediate one.  To this day, I've not seen a PowerPoint quite that masterfully created.  He had icons dancing all over the place, interesting facts about space peppered in.  He finished it after only a couple of sessions, which was great, because then I had all kinds of help showing the other kids stuff I had no idea about.  That was fun to experience, but the deeper learning for me came many years later-  I next crossed paths with him in his grade 7 year, while working at the high school. Where he explained to me that he'd been riding his bike between buildings every day for a full semester, and was there to write his Math 10 Provincial exam.

While I have worked with many other gifted students over the years, these three stand out for me, because, with each one, I learned something tremendously important about how to meet the needs of gifted students.  Each one illuminated something critical about the ways that gifted learners are significantly different from the other bright, talented students I have met over the years.

1.  My naturalist taught me that being gifted isn't necessarily about being the best at everything.  Or really at anything.  He was a pretty average guy in math, and his writing was pretty messy and disorganized.  He seemed happy enough to work along at the pace of the rest of the class most of the time, and he worked pretty quietly and with apparent engagement most of the time.  His parents reported he enjoyed school, although they worried a little that he didn't seem to have any good friends.   I had to really talk with him to find out what he was passionate about.  Voles weren't high on my Top 10, but he could chat about them for hours. 

I'm sorry to say that the fact that he was successful and content was enough for me most of the time.  It was my first year teaching, and I really had no idea what the options were.  I tried to engage him in conversation about the things he liked, to stock books in our classroom library that were at a higher reading level and would engage him with respect to his topics of choice, to let him go off on his own exploration every once in a while if he expressed that he was bored or finished early and wanted something to do.  He did ok that year, but if I were to get another shot at it, I'd hook him up with a resource person in the community, or excused him from some of our more straightforward projects to really explore the stuff that excited him. 


2.  My historian taught me that sometimes, it's all about process.  (And that with gifted kids, it's rarely about product.)  He did make a fantastic model of the Parthenon.  It just wasn't the whole Parthenon.  That's because his exploration took him on a lot of bird walks.  I'd pop into the area he was working and hear tons of details about Aquaducts.  Or birds.  Or the number of soldiers in Athens vs. Rome.  Or about the way that the ancient Egyptians (yes, Egyptians) made bread.  For this young man, one question led to a thousand others.  And they were all equally exciting and distracting.  He just loved learning about the antiquities.  He couldn't get enough of it.  He also loved the math.  The endless calculations and re-calculations, adjustments for this little extra bit of height, or wondering if Roman's had created green space around their buildings that needed to be considered.

There was never a time when I walked in to find him doing nothing, but there were many times where it didn't look like any progress had been made on "the project" at all.    I'm so grateful that I was usually popping in between other things and didn't have too much time to "redirect" him.  He often reminded me that it was his project, and I had promised it could be self-directed.  He was self-directing himself all over the place, and he loved every minute of it.  After a few weeks, I settled into this rhythm of having him share his discoveries with me, rather than pulling out our criteria sheet and project plan.  I loved hearing the excitement and pride in his voice when he figured out a new angle or discovered some interesting new facts.  His class was completely enraptured when he finally felt ready to present his project to them.  He answered every question confidently.  But that wasn't the best part.  The best part was that his mornings also became a lot more successful, and that his peers started to seek him out on the playground because they found the nice guy who was fun to play with under the troublemaker.  Grade four ended in a much better place than it had started.

3.  My mathematician taught me about the importance of carefully crafted opportunities.  That, for gifted learners, these opportunities need to be fostered, and sustained.  While it was wonderful for the other boys to explore areas of personal interest, and to be given opportunities to explore "instead of" rather than simply being provided "more of"  -  for our truly exceptional learners, this isn't going to sustain them forever.  When I worked with this young man, I created opportunity by bumping him up to a group of older learners.  This worked for a bit of an enrichment opportunity in first grade, but my learning about how to really support him didn't come until much later, when I saw the opportunities others crafted for him.

The middle school did the heavy lifting that made a real difference.  They connected not only with the math department at the high school to allow him to work on advanced math, but also with the physics teacher, who put him in touch with NASA, where he could really talk with someone at his level.  He ran through all of the offerings in the secondary school math and science departments when he was in 10th grade, and had begun college-level work.

I asked his mom about that one day, wondered if he was missing opportunities to connect with same-age peers by being so connected with the college already.  (That's a worry we'd often had at the school level, as we saw so many gifted students struggle with friendships, often demonstrating an immaturity in their interactions with others).  His mom wondered why I had that concern.  She asked me a couple of questions about how I chose my friends, and I countered with the usual-  people I have things in common with, people who are fun to spend time with.  She asked how many of us are the same age.  Before I had a chance to stumble out a response to that, she gently pointed out that I had described "intellectual peers."  She wasn't worried about how old his buddies were.  She was worried that he had friends who "got him,"  Friends he could engage in stimulating conversation with and feel at home.   That had been really hard for him over the years, and was actually getting easier now that he wasn't trying to find them all in his classes at school.


There is some scary research out there regarding gifted learners.  Truly gifted kids often struggle with anxiety and depression, and find connecting with peers really difficult.  Lots of gifted kids are twice-exceptional-  they also have learning disabilities, or autism, or attentional challenges.  Often, they struggle with relating with peers, finding it difficult to sustain friendships, or to relate to their teachers.  Too often, we hear the word "gifted," and assume this means school should be easy for them, that if they're not succeeding it must be laziness or lack of engagement.

Gifted learners have special learning needs.  They need our support, our encouragement, and our time, as much as any other learner with challenges.   It's up to us to keep listening, keep exploring, keep planning, to keep creating vehicles to engage and sustain their learning.  The good news is that, if were providing differentiated, open-ended learning opportunities for everyone, our gifted students will help us create these opportunities for themselves.   And we don't have to do it alone.  Reaching out to community resource people and other institutions will help us.  We're in it together.  After all, "They're all our kids!"

Resources and Links for Gifted Learners:

Toolkit for High-End Differentiation  (Lannie Kenevsky, SFU 2013)

Possibilities for Learning:  Planning For and With Highly Able Learners

Bright vs Gifted Learners (chart)

Links for Parents 

The Dark Side of Being A Gifted Kid (Calgary Herald, Feb. 2015)

Understanding Intellectual Disabilities

As always, we have lots of new faces in our school this fall.  New learners have arrived at our doors from all over the province and country.  And some of these learners have additional needs that will require adult support and thoughtful planning.

In order to provide the best support we can for these new students, we've been talking lots about what we can do to get to know them and to really understand what they need.  Over the course of these discussions, I've been reminded about how profoundly different it is to provide support for a student with a learning disability than it is to provide support for a student with a more global intellectual impairment.

While both students can struggle with understanding new concepts and "hanging on" to new learning, there are very distinctive reasons for these challenges, and we are only able to provide them with the supports and structures they need if we deeply understand these differences, and why they matter.

 The term Learning Disabilities refers "to a number of disorders which may affect the acquisition, organization, retention, understanding or use of verbal or nonverbal information. These disorders affect learning in individuals who otherwise demonstrate at least average abilities essential for thinking and/or reasoning."(http://www.ldac-acta.ca).

Our learners who have been diagnosed with a learning disability will have an aspect of their learning which is more challenging- perhaps math calculation, or reading fluency, for example, but will have other areas of relative strength, which can help them to develop strategies and to employ tools, to make their challenges less impactful.  Individuals with a learning disability have average or above-average intelligence.  Where we successfully assist these students to learn compensatory skills (work-arounds), they find success with all aspects of the curriculum, heading off to the world of post-secondary education and  work to enjoy life independently and with few barriers.

Often, the tools that are the most successful for these learners are the tools that benefit all learners.  It's not about finding things that are weird or different....it's about providing access to things that EVERYONE benefits from using.  That's the beauty of a differentiated classroom community.

Examples include digital options such as word prediction, speech-to-text and text-to-speech tools, summarizing or hi-lighting tools  (aren't we lucky that between Google Read and Write, Google Chrome and the App Store that many of these things are available free or nearly free for our kids to access!).  Who doesn't want to lay on their bed with a cup of tea and an iPod recording an essay that's easily emailed to the computer for editing...but that's for another post.

The term Intellectual Disability is quite different.  It is "characterized by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills." (http://aaidd.org).

Intellectual disabilities are sometimes described as cognitive impairments.  They generally fall into two categories:
Mild Intellectual Disability and Profound Intellectual Disabilities.

Diagnostically speaking, average intelligence is defined as having an IQ (Intelligence Quotient) score of 100.    Individuals with Mild Intellectual Disabilities will have IQ scores less than 70, individuals with Profound Intellectual Disabilities will have IQ scores that fall below 55.

It is easy to see that someone with a profound intellectual disability needs additional help.  These are individuals with such significant communicative and adaptive challenges that it is clear someone is needed to provide support for them on an ongoing basis.

It can be much more difficult to recognize that someone with a mild intellectual disability needs us.  Individuals with mild intellectual disabilities may be slower to acquire new skills and concepts, may find communicating with others or caring for their own personal needs difficult, or may have very short attention spans and be very concrete and literal.  At the same time, they may be quite comfortable in conversation with peers and adults, be able to navigate their school day without someone to help them work their way between environments in the school, and be quite keen to participate in class activities.

What happens sometimes, is that these students are perceived as disorganized, or distractible, or disengaged.  It may be that a student with an intellectual impairment participates in class and seems very interested in the conversation, but is not able to produce assignments without significant adult support.  Perhaps he or she is able to answer the straightforward questions, but becomes overwhelmed and lost when asked to be more reflective or inferential in his or her response.

For me, the most critical thing we can do to support these learners is to always be mindful of the difference between "can't," and "won't."   It is more difficult for learners with an intellectual disability to understand figurative or metaphoric language.  These are students who not be able to process multiple step directions, or to keep track of all of the dates/timelines/bits and pieces that we require of most students in a classroom.  If we're not really careful, it can be easy to think of them as dis-engaged or, (I cringe even typing it), lazy, without remembering all of the very real reasons they may actually be unable to do more without assistance.

These are learners who will have a gap socially with other students.  They will not understand the banter of peer interactions,  or the consequences of some of their choices, in the same way as their same-age peers.   They may be self-conscious about this, or may just become confused and frustrated.   They are definitely more prone to succumbing to peer pressure, it's harder for them to "see things coming."

Often, learners with intellectual impairments require more than differentiated environments or adaptations to their curriculum.  They need specific modifications to the content or expectations with respect to their learning.  They will simply not be able to cope with all of the material that is explored by their peers.


 
There are some specific things we can do as educators to support this group of vulnerable learners:





1.Support their language skills.  Advance load the vocabulary instruction, and carefully scaffold reading comprehension tasks.  Take time to answer their questions and help them make sense of what they are hearing or reading.  Know that they may not be able to understand or work with the same volume or complexity of material that their peers may explore.
 

2.  Make math manageable.  Basic facts such as arithmetic, time, and measurement will make more sense to students with intellectual impairments.  Problem solving and reasoning tasks will be really tough.  Use visuals, concrete examples, manipulative tools.

3.  Understand that this learner will have a short attention span.  It's not that this learner doesn't want to focus.  He or she actually CAN'T for too long.  Prompts, decreased distractions and starting with the easier bits of the task will help.

4. Directly teach "tricks" to remember things:  little rhymes for rote lists, repeating information orally to oneself, remembering bits of info in clusters, creating little pictures and diagrams.

5.  Help with the transfer of knowledge.  Learning something in English class won't necessarily mean the student can do it in Social Studies.  Wherever possible, teach with meaningful context, point out connections, remind students they learned something in another environment that can help them here. These students will learn new skills and information in little bits.  They need us to break things down, and to help "chain" the bits together. 

6.  Structure opportunities to practice social skills.  These are often learners who won't "get" the interactions of their peers or notice body language.   Coach them.  Encourage them.

(Adapted from https://www.education.com/slideshow/areas-difficulty-children-mild/language-skills/)


For me, though, the most important thing of all is missing off of this list.   Learners with mild intellectual disabilities deserve all of the success, engagement and connection with their school communities that other students experience.  Regardless of the size of their steps, or of whether they are working adaptations or modifications to their curriculum, this group of learners deserve to be working alongside their peers, and their individual learning needs to be acknowledged and celebrated.

After all, THEY ARE ALL OUR KIDS!

Grappling with Meaningful Inclusion

This has been an interesting spring for me.


I am someone who advocates for ALL students to be welcomed and included in learning environments across the district.  I define myself as an inclusion advocate, engaging in problem-solving and planning conversations all the time.  I visit classrooms and teach model lessons to help classroom teachers envision ways to differentiate and provide multiple points of entry so that all students in their learning community participate in meaningful ways.



This year, I was challenged with supporting a couple of school teams who were really struggling provide a meaningful school experience for two learners who are on the autism spectrum, are non-verbal, and who have significant challenges with self-regulation.  Not regular challenges with self-regulation. The kind of challenges that led to two adults working with each of these children at all times, and programs that had evolved to the point where these children were essentially isolated in a separate space with those adults for the bulk of the day.


This was really hard for the dedicated, empathetic, creative teams working with them.  Each and every person- and I do mean everyone - classroom teachers, learning support teachers, education assistants, administrators, parents, itinerant specialists and outside consultants - supporting these children wanted more for them.  Success timetables with opportunities to learn and grow alongside peers had been developed for most every environment, indoor and out, for these students.  The speech-language pathologists had developed high and low-tech communication devices for them, there was a clear and workable structure for a visual schedule and transitions.


We just couldn't get there.  These learners are incredibly complex, and we learned, over time, that their significant sensory needs currently impair their capacity to be safe and successful in typical learning environments.  Even in the spaces that had been set up for them in their home schools, they were exposed to bells, announcements, lighting, noises, large groups of moving children, and even "funny smells" from hot lunch and cooking programs.  We just couldn't get the recipe right for them.

After many, many, parent meetings and conversations with the teams at both home schools, we decided we needed to do something different.  We needed a place where we could focus on these students' needs, and systematically build in interventions and opportunities, especially tailored for them to build capacity with the skills they needed to be successful in their home school environments. We needed a facility that provided opportunity for practicing learning behaviours in a classroom, for up-regulating (our sensory room), down-regulating (our quiet room), and easy access to the washroom.    We needed to be able to work through the challenging moments that would be needed in a way that allowed these students to scream, to cry, to sleep, to explore, to succeed, in a respectful, open way, while keeping everyone, both students and adults, safe while this practice happens.


Thus Bridges was born.

Over spring break, we relocated some of the Learning Service offices to vacate a four-pack of learning spaces that were ideally arranged for this type of supportive environment.  We ordered equipment, found a teacher, enlisted the help of some education assistants who already knew the children from their previous environments, and got things going.

Right after the break, these two students began to attend this new centre.  It feels like the successes are building.  The team of adults has worked tirelessly to create a warm environment.  The classroom is full of literature, and displays of student work (I love the sensory-friendly bulletin board of actual artifacts they created on a recent nature walk).  They have bean bag chairs and soft lighting, they have a kitchen table to gather at for meals and snacks,  and they have a lot of fun creating special events for their class. (My favorite so far was May the 4th Be With You - Star Wars t-shirts and alphabet, an awesome quote from Yoda on the door).


I'm not going to pretend we haven't had difficult days.  Of course we have.  When you're supporting learners as complex as these young people, you will always have things to work out and wonder about.  But overall, the families are thrilled their children are able to be at school all week, to learn alongside a peer, to participate in field trips, and to have the time and space they need to have their individual needs supported along the way.
But that's not really what this post is about.  This post is about the gnawing niggle in my stomach that I've had since the moment Bridges opened it's doors.  I'm awfully proud of the work being done in there.  I can't even believe how fantastic the team of adults is -  taking every moment in stride, continually reflecting on next steps, or considering antecedents or triggers for the challenging moments that erupt on a daily basis.


So if Bridges is successful, why can't I just relax and celebrate?
It's because I struggle, every day, with how this matches with my beliefs about inclusion.  If I believe that teachers need to teach for ALL, that classrooms need to provide multiple points of entry for ALL, that They're ALL our Kids, how can I be ok with having two students leave their home schools, their neighborhood schools, every day, to attend this off-site environment?


After attending the BC CASE conference last month, and being lucky enough to listen to several educators whom I have immense respect for, I've landed on a couple of thoughts that are helping. 



1.  It's about having a PURPOSE within the PLACE.  (Thanks, again, Shelley Moore).  You're right.  Students need to have something meaningful to DO in the place they are learning.  We need to create meaningful opportunities for them in the learning environments they encounter.  Because of the challenges these young learners currently experience, we couldn't do that in their previous environment.  They are not yet able to regulate in a safe enough way to be with other children in a busy, or even a quiet, space.  This led to dangerous situations, sometimes resulting in injury, in their previous settings.


Bridges is a PLACE that meets them where they are at, giving them opportunity to practice being self-regulated learners in an environment that has all of the additional supports and tools, and access to specialists, they require if we are going to help them to develop these skills. Their PURPOSE is building the skills they need to Bridge (pun totally intended) back to their home schools when ready.


2. It's about COMMUNITY.  It's not enough to say we're doing "Social Inclusion" by allowing them to warm a seat at a table somewhere within a room full of others.  (Thank you, Pat Mirenda.)These children deserve an opportunity to develop friendships and connections with peers.  Things were very difficult for them in a larger school environment.  They were too overwhelmed to connect with peers, or "big buddies."    Their whole experience was structured around the adults setting up opportunities for them to interact in safe ways-  which meant there was most often an adult "buffer" between them and other learners.  Now they take turns with activities in their new classroom. They sit together to eat their meals.  They go on weekly field trips to the library, daily walks on the nature bath.  They get Star Wars day.

3.  It's about the WHOLE CHILD.  If we're really wanting meaningful opportunities for our children, we need to provide meaningful learning opportunities (#1), to fostering a sense of belonging in a social community (#2).  And we need them to feel a sense of self-worth, of success, in their experience.  (Thank you, Jennifer Katz.)  While they're at Bridges, these learners interact with one another, with the adults in their classroom, with older students who visit and read or do art projects with them, with their community on field trips.  There is enough space and time to notice each little success and celebrate it.  There is enough space and time to sit and wait for them to think about next steps, to process decisions, to "plunk down" on the path and work something out for 10 minutes, if that's what they need.   Every day, every task, gives us a chance to learn more about these children, and to adjust and scaffold what's next.  Their environment allows us to pace things in a way that honors and respects their highly individualized journeys.


So, now I have three suggestions or thoughts I can offer when challenged to describe Bridges as an inclusive place. I am proud of Bridges because I see how supportive and successful it is being for these learners.


I'm glad that the gnawing niggle in my belly remains, though.  This environment was created as an INTERVENTION for some children who really needed another way to approach their learning.  It's not a "new school."


We need to always be mindful of our end goal - self-regulated learners who have developed the skills and capacities to return to find a purpose within a place back with their peers in their neighbourhood schools.  That is the purpose of this place.  The moment we move away from that, and become complacent, or accept this type of intervention as a "necessity," without looking ahead, we've missed the point.  We have a moral obligation to provide meaningful opportunities every day for every learner, in the most inclusive way possible.  This intervention, like all intervention, needs to be goal-focused and time-limited. 


Bridges is an inclusive environment for learners who were isolated in their previous settings. These learners experience opportunities that allow for that challenge, support, community and celebration in their daily school experience.  It allows for wrap-around support to care for our most vulnerable students.  But it is an intervention.  It's not a "program."  It's definitely not a "school."  As long as we remember that, we'll remember that They Are All Our Kids.

Improving Student Outcomes through Case Study Inquiry

Last year, I facilitated a Case Study Inquiry project with teams from several different schools in the district.

Learning Services teachers partnered with classroom teachers to focus on an individual student they were concerned about, developing a deep understanding of that student's needs and exploring some learning tools and strategies to support that student in moving forward.

A team of us are getting reading to present this work at the Learning Forward Conference in Vancouver next month, so we've been reviewing and reflecting on our journey.  Personally, I've been thinking about my role as an educational leader, and thinking about ways to support teams in continued exploration, in finding ways for last year's learning to sustain itself,   How can I help professional development conversations from last year to become sustained pedagogical practice in the future?

Without exception, the most successful teams shared two key elements:

1.  GENUINELY KNOWING THE STUDENT.
Not just as data, but as a learner, as a person, as a member of the classroom and community.

2.  REAL COLLABORATION.
Regular, open, focused, goal-oriented, data-supported collaboration.



The evolution of the individual teams was really interesting to watch.  When we did our initial introductions in the fall, I asked everyone about their students, so that we could figure out what tools and strategies might be helpful to explore for them.  I was told things like:

• He's stubborn but likable.
• She doesn't attend, isn't connected to other students, won't accept help.
• She has VERY ingrained habits, no initiative for academics.
• He is constantly negotiating, shutting down and not trying.

When we checked back in at the end of May, the same students were described in this way:

• He's attentive, kind, empathetic and gentle.  Always seeking connections (with peers).
• She is developing the courage to take risks, is an independent and active learner.
• Visual spatial skills are a strength, she is proud of her attendance and math skills.
• He's creative and has a good sense of humor.  He has lots of oral knowledge and self esteem is happening.  He has his own identity and accepts his autism.

At no point during the year did I ask people to move to a strengths-based lens.  People were not asked to look for strengths, or to "focus on the positive."  I didn't point out that focusing on deficits or challenges made it harder to help these learners.  A strength-based approach just grew.  And was celebrated.

What was responsible for this shift?  How did these teams grow to know their learners so deeply, and move them so far over the course of a school year?  

I believe it was learning how to collaborate meaningfully and regularly.  Each time we got together as a larger learning community, people were asked to provide an update on their focus student.  They were asked to identify areas where their student was having success, and areas where lagging skills were still of concern.  There was a team of us facilitating the large-group sessions, we divided up the questions and focused on areas we thought would be of value to the teams.

At first, it was difficult.  Much of the feedback focused on work habits, attitude toward learning, and learners' challenges.  Undoubtedly this was partly due to the first session happening fairly early in the year, but we could also tell that people had chosen their focus students because they really were seeking some new ideas and strategies.  These were hard kids to figure out.   If they hadn't been, they wouldn't have been chosen for the project.

The team of four (myself, our SET BC District Partner, our Technology Teaching and Learning Resource Teacher, and the SET BC Consultant), poured over the information we'd been given, and determined that the best place to start was with some whole-class tools for instruction.  We needed to help the teams have a way to include their focus student, along with everyone else, into the instruction and lessons.  For this second gathering, we focused on whole-class lessons with Kurzweil, using Google tools and online math resources, and a few flexible iPad apps.  

Next was some more data collection, to see which of these tools had landed, and which ones needed more support or adjustment.  After a survey of participants, we worked to narrow the questions more specifically, visited some classrooms, and tweaked our suggestions/supports in a more individual way for the teams.  We also spent some time considering big ideas and core competencies, and borrowed heavily from Shelley Moore's website resources (blogsomemoore.com).  

We talked lots about "All, Some and Few" as a planning framework, considering the importance of EVERY learner in the room being part of every lesson.  Not in an adapted, or a sit-with-an-EA at the back kind of way, but in a "we-picked-a-starting-point-everyone-can-launch-from" kind of way.  

By our May wrap-up, people requested some specific instruction with more of the Chrome tools and extensions, and were excited to share the progress made by their focus students.  We weren't fishing for questions or guessing at which strategies to share.  The teams came with specific questions to support the learning and collaboration that was already occurring.

Do I believe these four sessions were magical opportunities for collaboration?  No way.  But I do believe that bringing people together over time encouraged them to talk in-between the sessions. There was no way to respond to the surveys and questions without talking to their colleague.  Specific questions in terms of identifying strengths, lagging skills, and questions around what teaching strategies and resources would support them,  encouraged teams to work together to encourage next steps. Folks wanted to have things to celebrate when they got together with the large group.  No one wants to be the team that's got nothing to celebrate.   The only way to show forward movement and success was to work together to create it.

Like most change processes, we hit an implementation dip.  When we got together in January, there was more than one team who weren't sure what they were going to share.  A couple of the students had started off well, but had slipped into old patterns, or non-attendance or frustrations.   But this was a collection of highly professional, dedicated, empathetic educators who weren't stepping away from a challenge.  The teams dug in and worked together to make sure they had some news to celebrate for our April gathering.  They poured over student assignments, reflections & observations to find the spark or connection with their learner.  They looked for new ways to reach their focus students and engage them.

It worked.  Regular, focused conversation about the students and their successes let us focus on the lagging skills in a proactive strength-based way.   All of the students in the project had successful experiences in their classrooms.  The teams noticed that the whole class benefited from the strategies being explored.  Teaching for "all" as a way to include the case study students meant teaching for "all" in the classroom as a whole.  

As for my original question: How can I help professional development conversations from last year to become sustained pedagogical practice in the future?   I have a plan.  I'll keep going.  I'll keep getting to  know teachers and learners.  I'll keep offering support and strategies where I can.  I'll keep seeking ways to provide educators with opportunities for ongoing, sustained, focused collaboration.  And I'll remember the lessons learned from this project.  These learners, and their teachers, have so much to be proud of. This learning community truly understood THEY ARE ALL OUR KIDS.