I am over the time wasted each year by schools ‘doing Christmas’ for the last two weeks of the school year. Yes, it’s that time of year again. A note comes home asking for some extra money for the craft activities needed for the Christmas theme. Now there may be a wonderful reason for this….it just takes a bit to convince me. I would want to ask the teacher:

• What is the purpose? The response will determine whether this is a teacher who really knows his/her stuff, or just another teacher trapped in the past of nice activities to finish the year with.
• How will this drive my child’s learning in ways that are powerful and future focused? Yes, I know it’s nice to do some really cool stuff just for fun too…
• What will they be doing/making? Is this something that reinforces our throw away society? Is it a nice paper Christmas tree with some glittery lights; maybe a fairy to put at the top of the tree; or some loops we can colour in then staple together to hang in the classroom…
• Will they be considering Christmas from multiple perspectives – different cultures, religions, and ways of celebrating? Giving instead of getting? Does that mean when other religious festivals are on the calendar they’ll do the same? As well as the Easter theme that is?

If a teacher focuses on a Christmas theme for two weeks it could look like this:

-’making and doing’, singing, dancing etc on a Christmas theme – 8 hours

-working out the item for the Christmas concert so it looks like the kids have come up with the idea – 2 hours

-the class relentlessly practising for the concert  - 3 hours

-liaising with the parents re costumes and props – 1 hour

-team or schoolwide practices for the concert – 2 hours

That’s 16 hours for Christmas each year, and I think that is a conservative estimate. This is just on the ‘celebrating’ aspect of Christmas.

Let’s just pretend that a classroom was ‘doing Christmas’  like it’s been done for generations. By the time a student finishes their first six years of schooling they could have had nearly 100 hours of ‘doing Christmas’.

Sorry, in most cases I don’t consider this deep and meaningful learning. It’s simply repeating education as we know it. I know there are some teachers and some schools that have moved beyond this. And I can also tell you that an awful lot haven’t. And that has got to change or schools will become irrelevant. Actually when I think about it ‘doing Christmas’ is just one symptom of the root cause. Too many teachers teach for the past not the future.

I was interested in finding out what was happening in all these schools. One process I use to do this is the web walk, a type of learning walk which involves looking through a site looking for key statements and ideas that provide information about the school:

• What does it stand for?
• What does it focus on?
• Is it an ongoing ‘story’ or just updated for marketing?
• What does it tell you about the benefits of attending the school?
• Does it mention learning (you’d be surprised the number of schools that don’t)?
• Is there any evidence of student voice?

My passion is leadership for the future so I was particularly interested to see whether there was any collaboration between staff, students, school and wider networks and whether the learning seemed to be future focused. So here is what I found…

Out of the 11 school sites I looked through 9 had up to date newsletters and term calendars. The sites had information about the structures of schooling – the buildings, the curriculum learning areas, the rules, the board of trustees…  I was hoping for more. I wanted to see the visiosn connect with ideas around key competencies, rich tasks and global projects. I wanted to see the odd glimmer of teachers being active inquirers. I wanted to see a glimpse into what might come next…

I see the challenge of schools for the future as articulating the processes of learning and collaborating with the world. While this may be happening in some of these schools, no evidence presented itself during my web walk. There is still a focus on students being involved as house leaders and school councillors. Nothing wrong with that (depending what the role involves and what is being achieved)….I just want the and… how have we moved on to really engage students in meaningful learning? Are they participants or observers? Give me examples of students having input into their learning and giving feedback to the school. 21st century learning was supposed to start 10 years ago. Have I missed it?

This comment led to me facilitating two World Cafe events at the learning@school conference. The people who came to these sessions were ones who had been listening to the hype of 21st century learning, teaching and leading for some time and who wanted to challenge themselves and others to move forward. The World Cafe format allowed time to slow down, engage in dialogue and leave with some personal and professional ideas for the future.

Some of the overheard discussions during these sessions included:

• Where is the expectation that things will change?
• Just because we can’t do it doesn’t mean we should stop others from doing it.
• I’m looking forward to being made redundant as a teacher.
• If you believe in it you prioritize time.
• I don’t think it’s written anywhere “Thou must do it alone.”
• Schools should be laboratories for life.

Many of the comments focused around the need for changes in teacher practice and increasing the role of students in their own learning. If we really want to transform education we need to start with teacher change, otherwise students will not have a greater say. For teacher practcie to transform across an organisation school leaders must be committed to the transformation and lead by example.

One World Cafe participant jotted his thoughts clearly on a post-it, as shown below. I liked the quirky idea of a post-it on an iphone and also the call to personal action. I don’t think it is suggesting we will get change by riding over top of people. We know we need to build trust and gain commitment. We also know we can’t go at the pace of the slowest.  The time for educational leaders to step up is now. We need to move beyond the rhetoric and start taking action. We could even involve students in the plan…

The Christchurch earthquakes have devastated a whole range of infrastructures regarded as vital components for a community to survive successfully. One of the key components of this infrastructure is our education system and, following the earthquakes, this has been seriously compromised. At the same time there are now new possibilities and opportunities.

In response to this a group of independent consultants, educators and business people have started networking to discuss a compelling vision for education in Christchurch. At the moment we have called ourselves the Shaking Up Christchurch Education Network.

The purpose of the network

As a group of independent educational leaders:

• To seek and present solutions for the delivery of education in a manner recognising the needs of future learners, initially in the eastern Christchurch suburbs, and eventually in all Christchurch area schools.
• To present realistic solutions that will improve educational outcomes for all children.

In achieving this purpose we consider the following factors to be key in influencing the establishment of schools and the ways they function: physical resources, teaching/teacher resources, technology advancement, school/campus design, leadership/governance, connecting with community, and fiscal capability.

There is a need to take action not just talk. Action is needed sooner rather than later.

Who are we?

The initial group that met:

Lois Christmas, Maureen Doherty, Cheryl Doig, David Duffy, Donna Frame, Gillian Heald, Ali Hughes, Carol Moffatt, Denis Pyatt, Chris Reece and Derek Wenmoth. Since then, some are focused more on supporting the current needs of education, while others are working to develop a longer term coherency to education in Christchurch. We see education as a key driver for the creation of a vibrant city which is economically strong, cares for its people and leads for the future.

We are not an exclusive group. We started because we saw a need and an opportunity to network beyond the group, to start the conversation and to develop an action plan. There are many others that are part of the network -you being one of them! This is about growing some ideas that are so compelling we create a new reality. Between us we have a deep knowledge of education, a passion for the city and a belief that leadership in education is crucial. We have started the conversation.

What is our plan?

Since this first meeting we have met with a number of key stakeholders, run an initial blue skies session and have developed a Concept Plan for discussion.

View the plan