As I was writing our blog post last week, I realized that the issues that we were discussing linked to an idea that was simply articulated a few months prior, but was now actually happening.
This week I see a similar pattern. In my 2nd blog post ever, I touched on how allowing ourselves time to honestly reflect leads to making improvements. I also questioned if our children are ever really given a chance to do that important work for themselves.
At Indi-ED, real reflection and monitoring their learning and themselves is a priority.
We make space for it daily when our students evaluate their own learning and grade themselves (with our guidance of course) academically and behaviorally.
We make space for it every month and a half when they reflect and prepare for their Showcase Evenings.
We make space for it as necessary when we discuss events, problems, outings or just when we do things well-we ask them to articulate ‘what went well’ (positives) and ‘what can we change to make it better’ (deltas).
And this week we really made space for it as our students had their first student-led conferences.
Here is what’s different. Instead of a traditional parent-teacher conference where students are asked to simply be bystanders and listen as teachers share their judgments or test scores. (Or in some cases like a few of our students shared about their previous schools, are asked to sit in the hallways and be disconnected altogether.) Our students LEAD the conference themselves.
Our students spent approximately 6+ hours this week preparing to share their academic and behavioral progress with their families.
A few things stood out to me.
1. The kids took it SERIOUSLY! Being that this is the first time, I prepared for some push back so we set the tone and discussed why we were doing things differently; the Why Bother?
Not to my surprise, they got it. They articulated what they’ve had in the past and how it didn’t make sense to them. They articulated the understanding of why it’s important for them to own it, to monitor themselves. And they got to work! They started by writing an invitation letter to their families to schedule their OWN meeting.
(The rough draft so please excuse the errors but enjoy some of the humor.)
Then we went into “Reflection Lockdown” (not really locked anywhere, just in their own spaces) and they poured through each of their notebooks, their folders, their journals, etc. and were on the hunt for things that made THEM proud, things THEY thought they did well on, things THEY want to improve on, etc. in ways that worked for them. Some with random piles, some with intentional organization, some standing, some laying, some listening to music, some in silence. We took breaks as needed. We shared our methods. But what it amounted to was everyone did what they needed and got it done!
After a few days, they had their notebooks flagged to discuss specific work with their families. They had lists of the work separated by what it was and why it was important so that their parents could take them home to recall or discuss. They had notes on each subject that articulated their progress as well as what they thought they could improve on. And they even evaluated their OWN behavior based on our values. Yes, 8 – 15 year olds reflected on their abilities to “use their mistakes to thrive” or to “be grateful always” or how they “collaborate and inspire” etc. and gave specific examples of how they have done them.
2. Another thing that struck me was how hard it was for me to stand back as a teacher. I consider myself pretty
good at letting kids figure things out for themselves with curriculum content and being able to balance the guidance vs. doing the hard work for them, but for that long of a time truthfully made me little uncomfortable.
As I reflect, I think it is because naturally I just want to help so as I walked around (correct, they weren’t just put into rooms by themselves for hours on end) I found myself having to force myself to just keep my mouth shut as I observed. Smiling or giving a thumbs up is all that I allowed myself for a majority of the time because I knew that the point of this is to give THEM the space to learn about THEMSELVES as learners.
And you know what? When we debriefed and chatted about how it felt to them, ALL of my (normally very collaborative) students said that they enjoyed it! They felt focused, they enjoyed being able to go back through their learning, they even said they enjoyed the alone time. But I guess that shouldn’t be shocking because if we’re honest about it as adults, isn’t that how/when we have our light bulb moments or breakthroughs?
The day of the conferences also provided two more insights as we sat back and watched our students take the lead.
3. The first is the amount of positive energy that came from most of our students. As I recall previous conferences for myself at other schools, I can recall the variety of responses I would get from students and parents alike and most of them came from an anxious place.
I believe this to be true because the focus is so often on negative and arbitrary topics (time on computer programs, test scores, grades, referrals/negative social interactions, etc.) that you wouldn’t expect anything different.
But if we really focus on the intention of what a conference should be, an opportunity to communicate progress, that shouldn’t be something to be feared but looked forward to.
4. Which leads me to the 2nd insight that struck me on the day of our conferences, this is not a teacher-parent-or student thing.
It’s a WE thing.
The kids had their chance to articulate their progress, so did we as teachers, and the parents had their time to voice themselves as well. That’s the balance. That’s the difference maker. We’re all a part of the puzzle like legs on a chair. If one piece doesn’t “show up” then the chair topples over. But if they’re all there supporting each other, then the job gets done and it can even be enjoyable in the process!
(I find it no coincidence that this song just came on, Rachel Platten, “Stand by You.”)
Will we make a few changes next time, sure. But if our parents walk away saying that they’re “blown away” or impressed by the fact that they look like their child has already become “a different child” in under 50 days together. Or our students walk out of their conferences smiling, fist pounding, and saying that “That felt good!” Then I think we’re on the right track.
Oh yeah, we did also continue our progress with algebra, (which we found out we needed to take few steps backwards to review negative numbers-which is ok here!), connected our learning to the real world, had more professionals join us to connect what we’re learning about in science, and got a few more lessons about human kindness.
Another heck of a week.
Moral of the story: WHEN IT’S REAL, THEY RISE!