Message from the Head of Teaching and Learning

Never confuse challenges with obstacles

– Surrender to Serendipity

This year began a new professional journey for me as Head of Teaching and Learning K-12 at Kinross Wolaroi School. Of course, I am excited and buzzing about the personal professional challenges that such a privileged opportunity offers but I am also very aware of my responsibility in preparing our school community to meet head on, the future challenges of navigating an ever-changing educational landscape. Different schools will experience different challenges. A school’s demographic must shape the way in which it responds. Are the literacy and numeracy needs of every student the same across the state and will all students, irrespective of gender and culture, learn in the same way? Surely we should be guided by the needs of individual students and individual schools. As educators, our challenge is to predict future challenges in education and prevent them from becoming obstacles to which we bow; to be proactive and not reactive; to transform them into opportunities to grow. My new job title itself suggests that one who dares to teach must never cease to learn [1].

Perhaps the greatest educational challenge we face in the developed world is that of student engagement. Technology is advancing at an exponential rate meaning that the difference between our own childhood experiences and that of our children is far greater than the difference between our childhood experiences and those of our parents. I regularly have conversations with parents of students about why it is their children do not read as much as they read when they were children. Reading fluency underpins literacy and as an English teacher, I do everything in my power to bring texts alive to students in the classroom – indeed the importance of guided reading; reciprocal reading and whole school reading strategies should never be under estimated, but we cannot ignore that times have changed. At twelve years old, the only thing that really competed for my attention was the TV. There was only one in the house, there were only four channels and dad controlled the evening’s viewing anyway. A good book allowed me to ‘escape,’ when it was too dark to play outside with my friends. Today’s students are surrounded by more technological distractions than we could possibly have ever imagined or predicted: The seemingly infinite opportunities to watch any film, drama or documentary at any time on any device; the ability to socialise, not only with friends from school but friends and family on the other side of the world, from the comfort of your home; gaming. The latter has been an exploding industry; one that has caused much controversy, but the world of education has – albeit very slowly – started to rise to the challenge. We cannot avoid its lure - instead we must harness what makes it so seductive.

In the holidays, my eighteen-year-old daughter was playing Overwatch [2] with friends from New Zealand, Tasmania, America and the UK. I asked her what is it about this game that appeals to her and 30 million [3] other players, so much? Her first response, most obviously, it’s fun! But there is more to it than this.  Educators are now realising that if we are to compete for our students’ attention, we need to offer our students an experience that motivates them to become intrinsic learners because we cannot rely on the extrinsic motivation exploited by our predecessors decades ago. There are no guaranteed jobs or apprenticeships anymore. The future for which we are preparing them is too changeable for us to possibly predict. When my daughter explained why she loved the game so much, I felt a sense of smugness – to harness the qualities of the gaming industry into our teaching is not an insurmountable challenge. She listed everything that we all know makes for great lessons: immediate feedback; challenges that increase in mastery (so scaffolded learning then); Skill Ratings (so progress indicators); social connection (group work, collaboration and class discussion); player control (ergo student ownership of learning) and feeling safe and secure.

So, we must control the obstacles and transform them into challenges. The ‘demon’ of gaming technology is actually serendipitous –its popularity simply serves to remind us of the importance of encouraging our students to be intrinsic learners because the world that awaits them will not necessarily offer the extrinsic motivation that it once did. To encourage intrinsic learning – a love of learning – we, of course, also have to model a genuine love of learning ourselves and that means accepting that the role of the educator is not static. We must be brave enough to reflect our changing environment. Research-based Educational Theories have a shelf life and so we must continue to read contemporary research and consider its connection with our own practice. But most importantly, we must learn to read our students; our schools; our communities and be prepared to initiate change if the status quo no longer serves.

Just this week, I came across an article, which further reinforces our need to take on board John Dewey’s [4] mantra that ‘If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.’ Research projects conducted by Google have found the top characteristics of successful employees to be excellent at communicating; listening; empathy and collaboration; problem solving; critical thinking and to demonstrate emotional intelligence [5]. If we are to successfully prepare our students for the unpredictable future of business and technology, we cannot do what we have always done.

Caroline Dweck, in her theory of the ‘Growth Mindset’ claims that all abilities can be developed though dedication and hard work and that brains and talent are simply a starting point. Dweck says ‘This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.’ As teachers, it is our role to remind our students of the importance of making mistakes; learning and growing from ‘failure’.  Dweck continues to state that ‘If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort and keep on learning.’  How could anyone disagree? If we are to nurture this gift in our students, we must all take the time to nurture it in ourselves first – create a domino effect. 2018 will undoubtedly bring with it, both predictable and entirely surprising educational challenges. Intuition and empathy will be our greatest allies in learning to ‘love challenge’ and accept change. Bring it on!

1. Quote by John Cotton Dana – inscription on the Newark State College building - The New York Times Book Review, March 5, 1967, p. 55

2. Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer online first-person video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment.

3. Overwatch Surpasses 30 million players: https://www.polygon.com/2017/4/28/15478464/overwatch-player-base-30-million

4. John Dewey (1859 – 1952) – American philosopher.

5. https://www-washingtonpost-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/12/20/the-surprising-thing-google-learned-about-its-employees-and-what-it-means-for-todays-students/

Serena Lewis

Head of Teaching and Learning