Our PATH to our North Star

I always love the start of new school year.  Buildings are shiny, we're all well-rested.  We've been thinking about ways to tweak our practice and collected some new resources we can't wait to try out.  I especially love energy that results from the reunions of educators gathering together to renew collaboration and get things started.

For me, the first "real" day of the school year is the Thursday afternoon of the first week of school.  As a District Principal, I'm still busy with the behind-the-scenes stuff the first couple of days while things get underway at the various sites.  But Thursday afternoon of that first week, at the first Learning Services meeting of the year, I get an opportunity to re-connect with the amazing group of educators that I work with, to share some of my summer learning, and update everyone on district directions for the year.

This year, it was also time to renew our vision statement for Learning Services.  With a new BC Re-Designed Curriculum to consider,  and our ongoing commitment to create the most inclusive classroom opportunities we can for the students we support, I really wanted to make sure we were starting the year in the same place.

Having been at a summer meeting that used a graphic artist to collect our thoughts, I had seen the benefit of a visual representation of our thinking, and wanted to try it with my team.  I have a number of colleagues who were trained in the PATH process a couple of years ago, and I knew this format to be a really exciting, positive way to visualize some goals and determine the initial action steps toward them.

If you're not familiar  PATHs, the North Star Paths, two masterful educators from Saanich School district near Victoria, BC, have put together some great resources to support things.  They're website is at:  www.northstarpaths.com.  This short video is a great overview of the PATH process.

 

We began our session by watching this clip to set the stage for everyone, then read Peter Reynold's story The North Star, to help everyone think about what their "North Star" is for working with the learners on their individual caseloads.   It's a great story for working with all ages, in considering thoughtful and personal goals.  

After that, we turned to our large page for setting goals and brainstormed what "Success for Our Students" would look like.  I'm super proud to be working with a group of people who kept such a clear focus on the whole-child.  We talked about everything, from academic success, to friendships, to self-regulation and self-advocacy.  

The list kept going, until we decided we'd better start turning this "technicolor dream" into some action steps, if we were going to help make it a reality for our learners.  I love this group.  We could have gone on celebrating successes all day long!

The next step was to define where we wanted our learners to be at by the end of the school year.  It's an ambitious list:

• to have strategies
• to be engaged, self-regulated learners
• to be connected
• to have good self-esteem
• to see possibilities

To decide where we were going, we next thought about "Now."  How are things for our students, what do we notice about them at this time of year?   This quickly brought us to a focus on relationships, and on collecting baseline information regarding our learners' strengths and lagging skills.  We also needed to decide who was along this journey with us.  This is the "enroll" stage. 

 

 The following step was to figure out what we needed to do by November, then by April, to help us reach our goal by the end of the year.  We agreed that knowing our learners super well, and fostering solid relationships with them and between them, was our greatest shot at helping them make significant progress this year.

 

We're going to word-smith our list of goals into a vision statement, and bring out our larger sheet again in November and April, to see how we're doing.  In the meantime, it feels to me like we've done a great job recognizing that regardless of where we work, or who we are supporting, They Are All Our Kids.

Correcting Course

Wow.  I knew things got a bit away from me at the end of the school year, but I didn't actually realize it had been this long since I'd posted a blog entry.   It's a fact of life in education.  We get going with the busy of our day-to-day roles, and the personal professional learning and reflection gets harder and harder to sustain.

So, how do we give ourselves permission to ebb and flow a little bit?  How do we keep moving forward as the to-do list whips by?  How do we sustain enthusiasm and commitment to our own learning when the fatigue of the onslaught of special events and year-end wrap-up tasks sets in?   And most importantly, how do we keep students at the center of our learning along the way?

At the BC CASE spring conference this year, I was introduced to a tool that I can't actually believe I hadn't encountered before.  Laura Tait, from the Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District, developed this Aboriginal Understandings Learning Progression rubric, which for me, is very honoring for educators, regardless of where they are on their personal journey.  While it was originally developed as a tool to support people with embedding indigenous beliefs and practices into teaching pedagogy, I believe it is just as valuable for other aspects of adult learning and professional development.

To consider new ways of approaching teaching and learning, and new ways of knowing, doing, and understanding the big ideas and core competencies of our new curriculum, the four levels of this rubric offer everyone a way in for everyone, and provide a structure for nurturing next steps.

I was really excited to be exposed to this rubric first at a BC CASE conference.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the group, it is the "BC Council for Administrators in Special Education."    Don't worry.  We're getting ready to look at our name, and our mandate, in the coming year-  for some time, CASE has been exploring the ideals of inclusive education and differentiated learning.  For me, seeing this rubric for the first time at a "special education" conference illuminated just how far we've come.   No where on this tool does it suggest a "special deal for special teachers,"  or suggest that some of us will be fully on the journey, while others will have an adapted or modified way in.  But even more importantly,  it includes an inherent assumption that we are engaging in the work.

For me, this rubric is a triple-play.

1.  It's a way for me to start thinking about indigenous understandings, and where and how they fit into the work that I do.  I'm not currently in a classroom role, but I do work with teachers and students all the time in developing IEP goals and in supporting inclusive classroom environments.  While I believe I am at the developing stage in terms of knowledge, I am only at the awareness stage of learning how to embed aboriginal content and cultural understandings in the work I do with students and teachers.   That's a hard thing for me to say.  After being on the First Nations' Liaison Committee in our district for almost 5 years, it should have occurred to me long before now that this wasn't just the domain of classroom teachers and our First Nations' team in the district.  At the same time, I'm excited to think about possibilities.

2.  It's a tool I can use when working with school teams and learning services teachers this coming year.  We've had a few years to start practicing deep differentiation, and to encourage and support a more inclusive approach to working with ALL students, and I think using this rubric, and the metaphor of approaching the water, boarding the canoe, raising the paddle, and journeying into deeper waters, can help us further discussion with respect to our own practice.  We know that our colleagues are in different places in terms of their beliefs and skills in working with diverse groups of students.  What language can we develop around this metaphor to support teacher beliefs, knowledge and skills, and how can this approach support our day-to-day work?

3.  It's a way to give myself permission to move forward with my own learning in my own pace and time.  All four bits of the journey are critical for a successful voyage.  I actually do a fair amount of paddling with our scout group, and we have kayaks as a family-  but they get used a lot more in fair weather than they do over the winter.  Some of the trips are for an afternoon, others for a week or so.  I know that I'll get out on the water when I can.  I certainly anticipate and appreciate each outing as it comes.  I learn new skills and gather information about routes and paddling skills in between the big events.  Which has left me thinking that it's ok if I go deeper with exploring new ideas and engaging in professional reading and blogging more at some times of the year than others.  I actually tried to write a post about this rubric a couple of times when I first saw it, but couldn't quite connect the dots into something coherent enough to put out there for others to see.  I'm ok with that now.  I'm rested, and excited about getting started on the stack of books I've amassed over the last couple of months-  and I know I will be ready for the new year and the learning that comes with it, at the end of the summer.

I might stock-pile a few draft posts though.  I've certainly learned how easily time can get away from me, and creating a bit of a structure to keep me moving forward may help me paddle toward deeper waters more often.

It's important for me to keep thinking about the skills and knowledge I need to work with students.   After all, THEY ARE ALL OUR KIDS....

Why being a Scouter makes me a better educator...

So in our house, it's all-scouts, all-the-time.  My two teens are off hiking, caving or paddling most every weekend.  I've been involved with their scout group for several years, but in the past year or so, I've been a lot more active as a leader.  When I started down this path, I had this idea that, because I'd been an educator for more than 20 years, I had skills to offer the kids and group, and would be able to help.  Having worked with children with unique needs for many years, I felt I could easily offer support in terms of providing inclusive opportunities for everyone. 

All of that proved to be true.  I do feel like I have contributed to the life of our troop.  I often take what I learned at school to scouts.  But more recently, I've been struck by the ways I can take scouts back to school.

Here are my top 5:

1.  When it comes to learning, it's about being TOGETHER, not about being in the same place.

We have a new program, called The Canadian Path, that's turning the program into a more formal continuum.  Starting in September, youth from ages 5-17 will be on the same 9 level continuum for camping skills, paddling skills, etc....they'll step in at the place most appropriate for them, and move to whatever's next.  But we've always done this as scouts.  You can't get your axe permit until you have your knife permit.  You don't go on overnight wilderness hikes until you've had some practice packing gear and going to camp.  You paddle 3-5 km trips when you're younger, and go on the 40 km portages after you're a bit more seasoned.

All of our groups have a range of ages,

usually spanning 3-4 years, and kids join us at any point, so the troop is always a mix of raw beginners and seasoned experts.  While we sometimes offer more challenging opportunities to the older kids, we usually go off with everyone, and just make sure that there's support where it's needed.  Experienced paddlers share canoes with beginners.  Everyone learns to light a fire, every year, and the older kids offer more tips and tricks to the newer ones, and get more and more independent.

It's amazing to me that both of my children have been able to pack for a wilderness adventure on their own since they were 11.  We didn't even own backpacks or outdoor sleeping bags when they started.  This weekend, they're caving and rock climbing on the Juan de Fuca trail.

2.  Everybody's in!


Heading out canoeing one weekend, we had gear and boats piled at the shoreline, and we were helping kids find partners and get started, when one of our scouts slipped on some seaweed and went down hard.  He's a young man with some unique needs, and one of the things that occasionally
happens when he's frustrated is that his language is pretty colorful and un-scouting-like.  The outburst on this particular day definitely drew the attention of a few of the adults standing around.

Before any of us could respond, one of the older scouts went over to him, said "I bet that hurt.  C'mon, you're with me,"  and started walking over to the canoe.  Within two minutes, the two of them had shoved off from shore and were laughing at a shared joke while they waited for everyone to load up.  I know this young man has the support of an educational assistant at school, but at scouts, he's one of us.  The kids don't have big talks about what to do when he's having a rough day, or wait for an adult to intervene.  Although the adults do step in to lend a hand from time to time,  the kids most often support him as a matter-of-course, because he's their friend and they know what to do.

3.  Service and Leadership are two sides of the same coin.

Scouting is all about service-  to yourself, to others, to your community.  When we fund raise, we share the proceeds amongst everyone, and learn that the hard work results in really neat opportunities that we wouldn't have other ways.   As the kids move through the program, they do linking activities with kids in the younger sections, and older youth often volunteer as leaders' helpers.   Many of our 15-18 year old Venturers come every week to beaver, cub and scout meetings, just because they love helping the younger kids.  We pick up litter, clean shorelines, remove invasive species, plant trees.

This sense of service really struck me the first day I spent 8 hours (really, 8, blistering hot hours) picking up garbage along the side of the highway with 13-16 year olds who were joking and chattering away the whole time they worked.  Not one complaint from anyone.  It didn't need to be a flashy job.  But it mattered that they felt like they were making a difference. 

4.  Persistence persists, even without our advice....

Two weeks ago, I was at the Klondike Derby in Sooke.  This is an event with 10 stations where each patrol of 6 kids (the ones in my group were aged 11-14) pull around a cart that's loaded with ropes, axes, first aid gear, a compass, etc.  The stations have them lashing ladders to climb trees, swinging on zip-lines partly of their own making, creating shelters, and responding to mock emergency situations.

We were out there for hours and hours, sometimes "winging it" with things we only knew a little bit about how to do.  Adults were bystanders-  if I offered advice or suggestions, they lost points.  Sometimes it was easy to keep quiet.  When we hit our 20th minute of a couple of kids suspended between two trees with no idea how to get the platform with the rest of their group across, biting my tongue was excruciating.  We timed out on that one, but I heard them chatter as the next group arrived and was having more success....we'll have it next year, and we weren't the least bit discouraged as we headed to the next stop.

5. Relationships bridge the gap between trepidation and success.

I've always been proud of the relationships that I build with colleagues, students, and their families.  The connections that I've made at school will stay with me for the rest of my life.  As a scouter, I feel these connections from a different perspective.  At scouts, I'm surrounded by people with skill sets dramatically different from my own.  When we're heading off in canoes or on a big hike, I might have a red shirt like the other adults-  but I'm as much of a learner as the kids.

Before heading to camp  with my kids, I had bits and pieces of outdoor experiences, but I'd never packed a canoe for an overnight trip, or lit a fire with only flint and steel.  The last time I did an orienteering course, I was 12 years old.  It feels different forging relationships with people in an environment when I lacked confidence in my skills, and often need to ask for help or advice.  I find I'm scanning the environment to learn what I can, and I'm proud of the fact after each event I feel a little bit more competent.


It took a little while to find my "scouting legs,"  but I quickly grew to realize that we have each others' backs.  It's understood that we have different things to bring to the table, and my connection to these people isn't because of our respective skills as Scouters  but because of the support and friendship we offer to one another.  We're a family.  We take care of each other, accept that we're all good (and struggle) with different things, and move forward together.

At scouts, we all benefit because They're All Our Kids.