A culture of excellence: An evening with Ron Berger
Last night I had the privilege of attending the 'Evening with Ron Berger' hosted by Campsmount Academy and organised by the rather marvellous @Gwynap. I had heard of Ron, had read tweets about his book 'An Ethic of Excellence' and was aware that he was something of a PBL guru and was looking forward to the evening immensely.
I have been extremely fortunate to attend a number of events over the last few years that have featured speakers who made me think, who introduced me to new learning and teaching ideas and who have altered my practise. They have tended to be big ideas that work, that I play with and experiment with and find a place for in the collection of strategies that I have for teaching. I thought this would be one more big idea, one more strategy to add to the collection. I was wrong.
Ron Berger does not suggest that we all adopt a PBL strategy, or that we go for whole sale change. His ideas are far more important than that. He started by showing us the Austin's butterfly video: http://vimeo.com/38247060 (thank you @merlinjohn for the link) and explains that every child is an Austin and questioned why we settle for their first draft. So often teachers set work and children dutifully complete this work and teachers mark this work and return it to the children and then what? The answer is nothing. Children will have made mistakes and rather than encouraging them to try again, we just accept it. We underestimate what they are capable of and assume that they capable of less than they are. By adopting this approach, we effectively limit what they are capable of, we become the barrier to their potential. Powerful message #1 delivered - expect more. In addition to this is Berger's ideas about audience - what happens to the piece of work that a child works so hard on? The answer on most occasions is, again, nothing. There is no real audience, no context, no expectation. The work is seen by the child and by the teacher and yet when there is a real audience, when we raise the stakes, the quality of work we see improves. Powerful message #2 delivered - give children an audience that they can deliver to, who will appreciate their efforts and they will strive to achieve excellence. In order to achieve meaning and purpose we have to move beyond the walls of the classroom.
Ron then took us through a series of mindblowing examples of incredible projects created by real children, projects that I would never think could have been created by students. The quality far exceeded anything my students have produced which got me thinking I had to try to incorporate PBL at my school. The problem is my school tried that and it didn't go so well so I can't see people thinking PBL is the solution. How would we fit in the demands of the curriculum with projects? How do we quantify and measure success? My brain was excited and yet disappointed all at the same time. And then Ron addressed this whole point by saying that this isn't about embedding a new big idea (although of course PBL is great), it is about embedding a culture change, a shift in expectation. It is about expecting excellence from every student and helping them to get there. It is about taking away the barriers and the first drafts and letting them write 2, 3, 4, 5 drafts or as many drafts as it takes to feel proud of what they have achieved. To make them feel confident about exhibiting their work. It is about peer critique, teacher critique, using experts and models and immersing children in a culture of excellence. By letting children become great and sharing their work with an audience we help them to take pride in scholarship and success, we develop motivation and self worth and when we do this then we also achieve better exam outcomes. This is a win-win scenario for us and for children.
This got me thinking about where on earth to start. As I left Campsmount, I was lucky enough to have a quick chat with @jamieportman who reminded me of the power of twitter (without it, I wouldn't even know who Ron Berger is) but also the overwhelming feeling that you get from reading so many great ideas. Twitter gives you access to so many brilliant ideas that you can lose the action in the thinking. I want to use what I learned from Ron and others who have introduced me to his work so this blog is a way of focusing my ideas and making something of a public pledge. So here are the 4 actions I plan to take...
Step 1: Read the book properly.
I have read the brilliant summary by David Fawcett (@davidfawcett27) http://reflectionsofmyteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/PBL and now I need to do some reading for myself. Many of Ron's ideas were not entirely new to me because of the amazing work done by David and by Clare Docherty (@wclou) and many others who I have read about but potentially not referenced here and I had, without meaning to, used ideas about 'being kind, specific and helpful' in peer assessment work I have done this year with my AS students. Now I want to develop this further.
Step 2: Using these ideas in my classroom
I want to think about how I can use these ideas in my own teaching practise and will start by adapting an idea that Clare wrote about here http://wclou.edublogs.org/2013/04/27/when-learning-has-meaning/ (with her support!). The idea behind this is get students thinking about their studies on a deeper level, striving for excellence and bringing in parents, teachers, governors, friends, etc to provide an audience for their work. I think my students will find this very difficult but I also think it will make them better philosophers.
Step 3: Whole school benefit
I want to look at how I can use this in my AHT role and it is all a bit foggy at the moment but I think it could be an excellent foundation to build a literacy/numeracy strategy on (this could be a future post on its own)
Step 4: Get other people involved
Finally I am hoping to get the go ahead to participate in a CPD enquiry group based around developing excellence.
The ideas Ron delivered last night were not a 'fad' or a big strategy to use and forget, they are so much more than that. The idea of empowering every student to achieve beyond what they believe themselves to be capable of and to show to the world how incredible they are excites me. Berger said that we should work 'brilliantly and beautifully and with your whole heart, persevering until something is great' and I love this. However the best advice of the evening did not come from Ron but from a student on the student panel who told us that her primary school teachers had been nice to her and complimented her on her work but that this had not prepared her. She encouraged all teachers in the audience to never let students stop at a first draft and to be harsh on them. Students want to achieve excellence and teachers need to encourage and expect it.
Last night has left me feeling inspired and excited and hopefully will do the same for my students.
I have been extremely fortunate to attend a number of events over the last few years that have featured speakers who made me think, who introduced me to new learning and teaching ideas and who have altered my practise. They have tended to be big ideas that work, that I play with and experiment with and find a place for in the collection of strategies that I have for teaching. I thought this would be one more big idea, one more strategy to add to the collection. I was wrong.
Ron Berger does not suggest that we all adopt a PBL strategy, or that we go for whole sale change. His ideas are far more important than that. He started by showing us the Austin's butterfly video: http://vimeo.com/38247060 (thank you @merlinjohn for the link) and explains that every child is an Austin and questioned why we settle for their first draft. So often teachers set work and children dutifully complete this work and teachers mark this work and return it to the children and then what? The answer is nothing. Children will have made mistakes and rather than encouraging them to try again, we just accept it. We underestimate what they are capable of and assume that they capable of less than they are. By adopting this approach, we effectively limit what they are capable of, we become the barrier to their potential. Powerful message #1 delivered - expect more. In addition to this is Berger's ideas about audience - what happens to the piece of work that a child works so hard on? The answer on most occasions is, again, nothing. There is no real audience, no context, no expectation. The work is seen by the child and by the teacher and yet when there is a real audience, when we raise the stakes, the quality of work we see improves. Powerful message #2 delivered - give children an audience that they can deliver to, who will appreciate their efforts and they will strive to achieve excellence. In order to achieve meaning and purpose we have to move beyond the walls of the classroom.
Ron then took us through a series of mindblowing examples of incredible projects created by real children, projects that I would never think could have been created by students. The quality far exceeded anything my students have produced which got me thinking I had to try to incorporate PBL at my school. The problem is my school tried that and it didn't go so well so I can't see people thinking PBL is the solution. How would we fit in the demands of the curriculum with projects? How do we quantify and measure success? My brain was excited and yet disappointed all at the same time. And then Ron addressed this whole point by saying that this isn't about embedding a new big idea (although of course PBL is great), it is about embedding a culture change, a shift in expectation. It is about expecting excellence from every student and helping them to get there. It is about taking away the barriers and the first drafts and letting them write 2, 3, 4, 5 drafts or as many drafts as it takes to feel proud of what they have achieved. To make them feel confident about exhibiting their work. It is about peer critique, teacher critique, using experts and models and immersing children in a culture of excellence. By letting children become great and sharing their work with an audience we help them to take pride in scholarship and success, we develop motivation and self worth and when we do this then we also achieve better exam outcomes. This is a win-win scenario for us and for children.
This got me thinking about where on earth to start. As I left Campsmount, I was lucky enough to have a quick chat with @jamieportman who reminded me of the power of twitter (without it, I wouldn't even know who Ron Berger is) but also the overwhelming feeling that you get from reading so many great ideas. Twitter gives you access to so many brilliant ideas that you can lose the action in the thinking. I want to use what I learned from Ron and others who have introduced me to his work so this blog is a way of focusing my ideas and making something of a public pledge. So here are the 4 actions I plan to take...
Step 1: Read the book properly.
I have read the brilliant summary by David Fawcett (@davidfawcett27) http://reflectionsofmyteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/PBL and now I need to do some reading for myself. Many of Ron's ideas were not entirely new to me because of the amazing work done by David and by Clare Docherty (@wclou) and many others who I have read about but potentially not referenced here and I had, without meaning to, used ideas about 'being kind, specific and helpful' in peer assessment work I have done this year with my AS students. Now I want to develop this further.
Step 2: Using these ideas in my classroom
I want to think about how I can use these ideas in my own teaching practise and will start by adapting an idea that Clare wrote about here http://wclou.edublogs.org/2013/04/27/when-learning-has-meaning/ (with her support!). The idea behind this is get students thinking about their studies on a deeper level, striving for excellence and bringing in parents, teachers, governors, friends, etc to provide an audience for their work. I think my students will find this very difficult but I also think it will make them better philosophers.
Step 3: Whole school benefit
I want to look at how I can use this in my AHT role and it is all a bit foggy at the moment but I think it could be an excellent foundation to build a literacy/numeracy strategy on (this could be a future post on its own)
Step 4: Get other people involved
Finally I am hoping to get the go ahead to participate in a CPD enquiry group based around developing excellence.
The ideas Ron delivered last night were not a 'fad' or a big strategy to use and forget, they are so much more than that. The idea of empowering every student to achieve beyond what they believe themselves to be capable of and to show to the world how incredible they are excites me. Berger said that we should work 'brilliantly and beautifully and with your whole heart, persevering until something is great' and I love this. However the best advice of the evening did not come from Ron but from a student on the student panel who told us that her primary school teachers had been nice to her and complimented her on her work but that this had not prepared her. She encouraged all teachers in the audience to never let students stop at a first draft and to be harsh on them. Students want to achieve excellence and teachers need to encourage and expect it.
Last night has left me feeling inspired and excited and hopefully will do the same for my students.
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