Progress in Action

I haven’t posted recently for a few reasons:

1. I’ve been super busy…
2. I’ve actually been working on a lot of things recently that have had to stay under the radar… UNTIL NOW

So I am happy to finally give some big updates on lots of projects I’ve been working on for over a year through COVID and all, and we’ve been making such great progress!!

First up, school update!

School

While I did start college in 2017 (4 years ago) I am not graduating this year. My time in New Zealand plus COVID made me shift things back, so I will now be graduating in May of 2022 with a Business Administration degree and Social Psychology certificate. In the mean time, I will be spending the summer and next two semesters continuing to coach gymnastics, conduct research in team dynamics, and work for the two non-profit organizations I’ve been with for almost 5 years – Trailblazers and Wish for WASH. Additionally, I am spending the summer writing my application for a Fulbright Fellowship to study education at grad school in Finland.

Trailblazers

Last I wrote about Trailblazers, the student driven magazine about transformative education that I co-founded four and a half years ago, I was just announcing our new partnership with UP for Learning and our search for a new production team. I’m excited to say that we now officially have an awesome team of 8 learners ranging from sophomore year of high school – freshman year of college and representing several different schools and states around the country!! We had our first team meeting in April and have been slowly making progress towards Issue 8 of our magazine which we hope to have published late June 2021. I’m excited for all of the new things that will come from this new team including more efficiency and long term sustainability internally and more diversity with the stories we share and hopefully an increase in how often we share as well! Additionally, for the first time ever Trailblazers Production Team members will be getting compensated for their work on the magazine which is super cool to see the organization grow in this way after 5 years! Anyone interested in connecting with Trailblazers can reach out to trailblazersedmagazine@gmail.com and/or follow us on Instagram and Twitter @TrailblazersEd

Wish for Wash

Similarly, I have also been working with the social impact organization Wish for WASH (W4W) for going on 5 years now and am excited to say that we have also seen lots of great progress this year! First off, with COVID we started making our design thinking workshops virtual. This involved a learning curve for sure, but now with almost a dozen virtual workshops under our belt, I would say we’ve gotten into a great flow. In fact, I foresee this shift to virtual facilitation for W4W having a longer lifespan than anticipated as it has allowed us to expand our audience reach drastically and make scheduling significantly simpler allowing us to facilitate more workshops per semester. We’ve also received great feedback on our virtual design jams with participants being particularly amazed and delighted by how interactive the workshop is despite being online.

On top of changing our mode of facilitation, this past semester we also began piloting our brand new design thinking process which I’m excited to finally talk about! CLAP stands for Connect, Learn, Apply, and Pitch.

We created this process for several reasons:

1. To place connection/empathy at the beginning of the design thinking process – connecting with your team, the topic, and your user before anything else from research to brainstorming happens.
2. To create a process with young learners as the users of our design tools, meaning tools needed to be very straight forward to use and graphically engaging.
3. To enhance the level of empathy developed in a short design jam workshop (under 4 hour challenge).

The third reason to me is what makes our design tools really differentiated from other processes and guidebooks. Empathy is the core of design thinking; the definition is literally, “human-centered problem solving,” and to be human-centered, one must first empathize with their user in order to problem solve together.

However, we observed during early design jams both in person and virtual that participants often struggled with connecting their brainstorming and final ideas back to their user’s specific needs when going through the whole process at such a rapid pace, especially as a newbee to design thinking. When working on a long term design challenge, a big part of the process is identifying your user group at large then doing lots of interviews and ethnography work in order to eventually narrow down your scope to focus on one particular user or a composite user that includes generalized needs and combines insights from several users. This level of empathy work takes a lot of time though – time that doesn’t exist in a two hour design jam. Furthermore, it can often be hard to have a live user present for a short design jam, so on top of minimal time, there is also the consideration of how do you empathize without having a live interaction with a person?

These challenges lead our design team to ask:

“How might we enhance the level of empathy developed in a short design jam?”

So we went through our own design challenge starting in the fall of 2019 in tandem with on boarding new team members and introducing them to design thinking. We did lots of research on different design thinking processes to make notes on things we liked, wished, and wondered about as we began work towards creating our own process. We did this as we continued to host design jams to gain feedback from participants about what they liked, wished, and wondered about the experience.

“I felt like the group text input on the brainstorming worked out well overall but was either a little confusing or a little hard to use for some – it would be great if you could figure out an easier method/tool for this!” – Teacher participant

“I attended all three DT jams. I love that the design jams moved from least stigmatizing to most stigmatizing and in the future I wonder if our school could make this a series of mini classes where students attend all sessions and really delve into building empathy within each topic. I loved the empathy maps and story building exercises of the intended user. It was a really easy framework for the students to understand without shying away from really understanding the user experience.” – Teacher participant

“I love things like this, and I am so happy I finally got involved, but would like to do even more! I also have a product idea, not for water conservation, but something I am trying to start for a business.” – Student participant

Over time we developed the idea of “personas.” We thought, “What if we took the three how might we statements we use for our short workshops [water, sanitation, and menstrual health], but made them into long term internal design jams. If we have 2-3 people on each team interact with at least 30 people each through interviews, surveys, activities, and ethnography sessions, then we could analyze the findings and create composite users which we then use in our workshops so that these ‘made up users’ weren’t actually so made up but instead based upon real stories of real people without needing them live at our workshops.”

So that’s exactly what we did!

Fall of 2020 was all about brainstorming each team members’ Persona Research Plan. For this plan, each W4W design team member brainstormed three potential persona concepts (For example, one of our workshop topics is: “HMW de-stigmatize menstrual health?” For this topic, one member’s three persona concepts included: a middle school girl, a menstrual health and hygiene activist, and a transgender man who still experiences menstruation.) For each persona concept, designers also brainstormed 3-5 key research questions, method of interaction (interview, survey, specific activity, etc), a list of 15 people they might connect with relevant to the concept, and their next 3 steps to move forward with that concept. After developing these plans, the team worked together to give feedback and narrow so that each person went from 3 concepts to one focus concept; for some this was just picking one of their 3, for others this meant maybe merging two concepts together, and for others we came up with a totally new focus based on the discussion.

After plans were created, each designer spent 2-3 months interacting with users. Then we developed a Persona Template Tool for each designer to use as a way to analyze and connect insights to form one composite user that could be utilized in a design jam workshop.

This entire process was happening in tandem with the devolvement of our new CLAP process. So while we had a team doing user research to create these persona’s, we also had a team focused on the design and development of the process itself including questions like: “How do we visualize our process in a way that adds meaning through graphic design?” “What tools already exist in other processes that we want to build upon and what tools don’t yet exist that we want to create?” “What is our color scheme and icon character?” “How do we differentiate parts of the CLAP process and which tools should be a part of which sections?”

Starting Spring of 2021 we officially began piloting the CLAP process in our workshops with great feedback! Partners who had worked with us before and after the redesign said they loved our new look and the new tools we created. They thought it was easy to understand and really engaged their students while also doing a great job at introducing them to somewhat stigmatizing topics in a safe and open environment:

“[My daughter] talked about the period design jam for days. She (and I) had no idea about [the depth and breadth of menstrual health stigma] except for some of the ultra orthodox religions views. We are a very no nonsense household and it seems so crazy that concepts like [period-stigma] perpetuate. Hooray education and exposure!!”

By April of 2021 we were ready to start pushing the persona concepts from the research to graphics team in order to start piloting this fundamental new concept. There was a lot of back and forth about how to best present our user research to design jam participants in a way that would show depth without being overwhelming and how we would best facilitate the conversations around these personas.

In May we began our persona first test run – the template version. We realized during the process of creating these persona’s and our tools to facilitate the conversations, that perhaps a template version of these tools could also be useful if we want workshops where participants brainstorm the details of their user. Additionally, these templates could help us and others create future personas moving forward. So we tested out three new tools: Persona ID, Journey Map, and Influencing Factors. Additionally, we tested a new brainstorming tool: Digitype. And because apparently we were feeling really ambitious, we also had a new person step into the role of a workshop coach, and I personally took a stab at trying to be in the roles of both facilitator and coach during the same workshop so moving forward we can increase our max number of participants.

Despite all the new things being tested, our workshop ran on time and surprisingly smoothly and was an incredible first step towards increasing empathy and having final prototypes actually meet user needs! As a coach I noticed participants really engaging with the persona tools and starting to empathize more with their users, prototypes also started to be geared more towards user needs but I think there is still room to grow there. The teacher’s on the workshop were especially excited about the possibilities our new persona tools present:

“After each workshop we keep talking about how we love all of your graphics, and we really loved the new persona tools this time! We were actually sidebar texting during that section about how cool we thought those tools were for really working to understand a specific user as a team.”

Then this past weekend we finally were able to test out the full persona process including our composite users from those months of research and analyzing!!! We had small numbers for this workshop in partnership with the Museum of Design Atlanta, but the end results were astounding. I have been facilitating design thinking workshops for over 7 years now, and I honestly can’t remember ever seeing so many final prototypes so clearly related back to their users’ needs and problem statements. This was a huge success for us because that was always the goal of our persona project: To enhance the level of empathy developed in a short design jam workshop (under 4 hour challenge). In particular, we wanted participants to understand the idea of an “impact statement” to demonstrate how their prototype was meeting user needs and the participants in this weekend’s workshop really seemed to get it and there are few things more rewarding then watching that ah ha moment happen for young learners.

I now really can’t wait for June where we will be facilitating a design jam as part of the Atlanta Girl School Summer Institute! It will be our largest Zoom workshop yet and we will also be piloting our “DT Coaches Training” process to help others learn not only about design thinking but also how to implement design thinking concepts in their classroom.

It has been almost 2 years now since we first started ideating our own process, 3 years since we ran our first design jam, and 4 years since we first started envisioning and brainstorming on the topic of Wish for WASH running design jams. I’ve been with this team the entire time and it is truly incredible to see how far we’ve come. We are now even getting to a place where we can monetize this work, and while success to me doesn’t have much at all to do with money, it is a big benchmark to be able to demonstrate the value of the work we are doing, and that’s what makes this so exciting; we’re adding value to the community and being recognized for it in greater capacity.

It’s truly been a game changing year for Wish for WASH and I can’t wait to see where this social impact organization goes next. I feel like big things are coming and I’m excited to play a role in the process.

We Are One Planet

Today, as part of my work with the Wellington International Leadership Program, I participated in a webinar hosted by the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment celebrating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

Planning for this anniversary was clearly intense with hundreds of people around the world organizing to speak out specifically around the need to take action in regards to climate change. And then the pandemic hit…

Guest speaker and founding Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes expressed his devastation and frustration about two years’ worth of work now being illegal to execute in most countries. But what was most inspiring to me, and my biggest take away from the event, was his hope, despite everything, for what this could mean in terms of how we think about global challenges in the future. Hayes’ said it would make up for all the lost work if we come out of this crisis realizing that global threats need global cooperation and collaborative solutions that actually eliminate threats worldwide, because if only some people, some states, or even some countries take action – if it’s only “some” – then there is always a threat of the issue coming back. “We are one planet,” Hayes’ exclaimed, and so we need to work together cross-culturally to make change happen. This goes for all global threats from pandemics to climate change.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t even remember that it was Earth Day this week before I signed up for the event, let alone know that it was the 50th anniversary. I support Earth Day, but it’s never been a holiday I go out of my way to figure out how I can get involved with. But there are other global threats that I more actively work to find solutions to, like access to education and safe water, sanitation, and hygiene options. That’s why this conversation around global cooperation was so powerful to me because it’s relevant beyond the scope of just Earth Day; there are dozens of global threats out there no matter how directly we notice them impacting our lives.

For obvious reasons, the threat of climate change was compared frequently with the threat of Covid19 on today’s webinar. All of the panelists discussed how the virus is impacting their daily operations now and how they expect it to impact the future. A key idea that came up throughout the session was that even with Covid19 until people saw their neighbors rushed to hospitals, they weren’t taking the threat seriously. So the webinar left me thinking: “How might we get people to take threats like climate change and other global sustainability goals seriously when it’s even harder for the average person to visualize the direct impact these threats have on the world and the individual?”

The answer is unclear. However, from experience, we know that when people are actively involved in the process of planning and creating change, they believe in it more and care about pulling society along with them. So really the question is, “How might we get the average person to actively engage in processes to overcome global threats?” This is still a lofty question, and there could be hours spent on unpacking the meaning of “average person” alone, but it’s encouraging to have heard from several social entrepreneurs today who seem to really be thinking about this question daily.

Furthermore, panelist Molly Morse with Mango Materials suggests that there is already a demand for solutions to some of these sustainability threats like climate change. The key for social entrepreneurs to keep in mind is targeting the right market; markets need to be focused and specific that way every user feels that the issue is truly relevant to them as an individual.

So my take away from Earth Day amidst the Covid19 crisis is that no matter your area of passion, global threats exist, demands for solutions exist, and people tackling the big questions to create solutions exist. Now we just need to put it all together by working in collaboration with each other across sectors, political affiliations, and borders in order for change to actually happen. We are one planet – let’s make it one worth living on.

Now Is The Time

Today I got to partake in a video meeting with some educators from across the US and it was really great just to hear everyone’s stories about how their schools are dealing with the current changes.

One of the most inspiring parts about the conversation was how optimistic people were in light of everything happening.

This is the greatest disruption to our education system since the great depression. Disruption means there will be long term changes to life as we know it.

There is no question that when we get through this crisis things will be different. Change is inevitable. So the question is, what do we want that change to look like? 

Is this pandemic going to scare us backwards in an effort to make things “easier” or are we going to be inspired to charge forwards into opportunity-filled new beginnings?

Moving to distance learning has lots of challenges. To face these challenges it’s a lot easier for teachers and students both to simply watch some pre-recorded lectures and then take some online multiple-choice tests or write a 5 paragraph essay than it is to try and create opportunities for group discussions and collaborative projects compatible to a virtual environment. And honestly, with all the other stressors in life right now, making one part of life “easy” is really tempting.

But when students are sitting at home on their couch, why are they going to choose to watch a 2-hour lecture on the Pythagorean theorem as opposed to watching Mean Girls on Netflix? What’s going to motivate learners to take multiple-choice quizzes about the French Revolution instead of BuzzFeed quizzes that tell you which Disney character you are? How are we going to convince learners to write essays on Hamlet instead of Instagram posts about missing their friends?

If school isn’t engaging than learners will find something else to do that is.

Traditional schooling is not engaging.

It’s never fun to be “talked at” for hours on end, but it’s especially not fun when you’re sitting at your desk at home all alone in your room and staring at a computer screen. It’s mentally exhausting. And we already know multiple-choices tests are not indicative of actual learning.

Now more than ever, it is essential for education to be learner-centered.

We should teach lessons that are competency-based because while we can’t proctor tests as effectively online we can have virtual presentations that assess actual understanding and mastery of knowledge.

We have to find ways to engage young learners through personalized, relevant, and contextualized lessons or they just won’t log in to class.

We must encourage learner agency as a tool for staying mentally healthy and motivated to learn, explore, and create even while stuck inside.

We have to understand that learning is open-walled because we don’t know how long we will be out of our traditional classroom so we need to convince entire families that the absence of a room doesn’t mean the absence of learning.

And most importantly, while physically we might be social distancing, we need to ensure that mentally we are remaining socially embedded because a learner without a community is lost and we have enough loss in the world right now.

 

The world is changing. Education has to change too. While it might be “easier”, in the sense of having less thought work to do, we can’t rely on traditional methods to teach learners while they are at home with myriad other factors vying for their attention. Kids have to want to “go” to school because, in a way like never before, it’s really easy for them to choose not to. There aren’t many consequences to convince them otherwise so we have to use other methods to keep kids learning.

So how might we convince learners to want to “go” to school?

I propose that one answer is that schools need to be learner-centered. And maybe, just maybe, the greater impacts of learner-centered education will be so evident that we’ll be encouraged to continue teaching in a learner-centered paradigm even when we get to go back to our school buildings. So if you’re not already doing it, now is the time for learner-centered education. Now is the time to make sure we are being competency-based, teaching personalized, relevant, and contextualized lessons, encouraging learner agency, embracing open-walled learning environments, and remaining socially embedded even while distant.

There is no question that when we get through this crisis things will be different. Change is inevitable. So the question is, what do we want that change to look like? 

Student Gov’t: Beyond Dance Committees

Having only been in the New Zealand education system for barely a month, I must say the most impressive thing I’ve noticed is just how much student feedback is valued.

Granted I can’t assume my experience at this one particular university is true for all of New Zealand, just as I can’t assume my singular experience in the American university system is consistent throughout the country. However, in my experience, the student voice at my host university, Victoria University of Wellington, is incredible!

Since the beginning, I have been receiving emails from the student government asking for our feedback before we even started classes, we heard from almost every representative during orientation, and once classes did start I learned about an entire system they’ve established for class representatives. Every class on campus has 1-3 student reps that serve as the liaison between the students in the class, the lecturer, and the student government by helping to provide feedback on the course. I volunteered to be class rep for my international management course because I was curious about what the experience would be like (since we don’t have this role at GT) and also because I saw it as a good way to get to know my professor better (especially now that I”m a junior and am very aware of how soon I will need people to write me rec letters).

As a class rep, I have played a significant role in any changes that happen in this course both by my professor and the student government team. Just today I was asked by the student government team to help review change approval request from mine and other professors in regards to everything that is having to be adjusted for an online learning environment.

It was crazy to realize that every proposal gets reviewed by the student government and also to know how transparent they are about the role of students in the process. I know my home university has a student government and sometimes I hear about their involvement with big decisions, but I don’t get the sense it is nearly as known about or as integral to operations as it’s been here. Nor do I think it’s as simple to join student government at home, versus here it was as easy as just volunteering in class one day to agree to make a class Facebook page, have my contact info shared, and be willing to provide feedback on the course.

Furthermore, it was really crazy to think I personally actually get a say in if I think changes affecting assignments, due dates, and weight towards final grades were reasonable. I’ve never gotten this kind of voice in a class before.

And even before the virus became a global pandemic, my professor had been discussing with me to establish a time mid-trimester to meet up and discuss the course progress and any feedback from the students and also had consulted me when debating on pushing back an assignment due date.

Ever since the pandemic has become an issue in Wellington, the student government has been doing even more very evident work. Everything from calling to check on students still living on campus to writing petitions to local government on behalf of students about grievances in regards to certain policies that were being put in place by the university administration in efforts to mitigate the effects of the virus.

Like I mentioned before, I’ve only been here for a month, and yet I’ve seen the student government so involved in every aspect of university life here. Again, I’m sure the current global situation is somewhat impacting how I’m observing student government here. Considering there is so much affecting students right now, it makes sense the student government is particularly involved at this time. However, even just the fact that the role of “class reps” exists leads me to believe the student government is always highly involved here and student voice is particularly valued more than I’ve noticed at other schools.

I think this role of class rep is a great concept and I’d love to see more universities and even k-12 schools implement similar systems of capturing more direct student voice in regards to the actual academics that happen in learning environments. So often I find that student governments just play a role in things like planning committees for dances, giving tours, and maybe helps with the process of giving feedback on potential new hires. Or even worse, sometimes student governments are merely a status symbol and the representatives don’t do anything beyond giving a platform speech, then it’s a popularity contest for who gets to put “student representative” on their college activity list – because why care about who you’re voting for when you know they won’t do anything? That’s how most students at my high school viewed the student council. Even in schools with more involved student governments, rarely do I find that students have a role in decisions around the actual academics part of schooling such as reviewing course syllabi, giving input on courses for future years, or being consulted about changing class structures mid-semester.

I like the role of a class rep also because it creates an easy way to provide teachers with verbal feedback. End of the year surveys are great for capturing large amounts of data, but they hardly capture the specific little pieces of feedback that are just hard to describe with multiple-choice options. And it makes a huge difference when a supervisor says “here’s what feedback we think is important based on student answers to this survey,” versus actually hearing the feedback from a student directly. Good or bad, I know feedback is more impactful when coming directly from the user.

Being here in NZ this past month has really made me reconsider what I imagine as adequate student voice representation in schools. How might we expand the role students play in decisions being made on campus?

Short Term Communication

If there is one thing that has become blatantly obvious with our current situation, it is the importance of good communication. Good communication meaning frequent and clear communication.

Sometimes it’s more important to just say something than to try and wait until you have everything figured out. People just want to know that they’re being thought about and that their needs are being considered in the discussion of big decisions.

When there isn’t communication, that’s when people panic, get fearful, and then rumors start. And that’s how things only get worse.

At the same time though, if you are going to communicate, make sure the message is clear. If a decision is made, be clear that the decision will stand or be clear that there is even a chance the decision may have to change, and note what could happen that might create the need for the decision to change. The worst thing is to be told a decision and then a week later get new communication that entirely conflicts with the original message and the message doesn’t even acknowledge the discrepancy. This just makes people mad and causes immediate backlash.

While I am aware of the importance of frequent and clear communication, I’ve realized these past few weeks that not everyone is. I understand that everyone is stressed and working hard to make quick decisions right now, but sometimes it seems as if people just don’t understand how important communication is in order to keep communities together. And I’ve noticed this both with people I depend on for communication and people I work with to communicate to others.

This made me wonder, in school, we spend a lot of time on long term communication methods – mostly with writing papers though also with presentations. We work a lot on adequate preparation, research, and formatting in order to create compelling arguments. How often though do we spend time on short term communication best practices, like communication via email, text, or even social media messages?

In a world where technology is becoming increasingly used in team dynamics, it seems to me like having practice and proficiency in these short term communication tools may be just as important as knowing how to write a well-researched essay. We use these communication tools every day and using them properly is an essential part of successful teams, successful community support, and successful organizations.

When I went to college, one of the most frequent compliments I got from professors was, “Wow, you really know how to write a professional email. Thank you.” And what I realized is, the reason professors were so impressed with this skill is because many students don’t have it. The thing is, they still don’t learn it in college… Sure professors may comment in their syllabus about wanting well-written emails and there is probably an “academic success” workshop or two on the subject, but with something as important as communication, isn’t that worth being taught in the classroom to ensure everyone learns the skill? Furthermore, I personally think this skill should be intentionally taught in high school to maximize time for growth and development with this competency.

If we want to receive frequent and clear communication, then we need to remember to teach it.

School and Wellbeing

I’ve been in New Zealand for three weeks now and just finished up my second week of classes. I had originally planned on writing today about the observations I’ve made about NZ education during these first two weeks – now that I’ve gone to all of my classes at least twice; however, plans change when there’s a pandemic. 

I woke up this morning to lots of emails that all essentially said: The coronavirus is getting worse so we’re shutting down campus, moving classes online, and canceling study abroad programs, therefore, everyone needs to return home to the US as quickly as possible.

Honestly one of the worst ways to wake up.

I cried. I got mad. I went to class – because why get behind?

Now I’m trying to be patient, calm, and distract myself from checking for new emails every 30 seconds.

Crazy enough it wasn’t until talking to a barista at lunch that I realized that it wasn’t the virus itself that made me sad or mad or even scared.

I was sad because I’ve been waiting for years to study in New Zealand and now I finally get here and things are going well and I’m being told to come home. Then I got mad because I realized the situation here is actually far safer than traveling through multiple airports and returning to Atlanta where there have been far more reported cases of the virus then the 4 contained cases in a different part of New Zealand from where I’m studying. (I’ve already written several emails to different people hoping to be allowed to stay since New Zealand is not the average country at the moment.) Then I got concerned with how it’s going to affect my education.

I started wondering if I have to go back to the states will I be able to keep taking my NZ classes online; how will I be able to attend tutorials which count towards my overall average? I wondered, will this push my graduation back another semester? I wondered how my financial aid will be impacted – will I lose a full semester of funding from being here for these few weeks? Will my airfare home get covered? Will I be able to re-enroll in the fall even though I was supposed to be in NZ until November? Will school even be back in August or will classes still be online or will they just officially cancel classes? If my university decides they don’t think it’s better for me to stay here, can I stay anyway, or will my visa get terminated, or will classes then not transfer?

I say all of these questions in the past tense, but I suppose I’m still wondering them I’m just trying not to focus on them as much at the moment.

Right now I’m just thinking about how crazy it is to have such a strong feeling of knowing history is being made. These next coming days in front of us will be in history textbooks.

And furthermore, I’m thinking how it’s equally crazy that in this time of world crisis, my thoughts immediately think about how my schooling will be impacted over thinking about my actual health… Have I really become that drilled into the system? And it’s not just me. I’ve made friends with other exchange students here from all over the US and they’re starting to receive similar emails requesting study abroad students to come home. They too are wondering the same questions centered around how this will impact us getting our degrees.

I didn’t cry this morning because I was scared that the virus has reached a point that requires schools shutting down and students going home. I cried because of all the questions above making me immediately think about how stressful this situation is going to make my education. And I wasn’t alone… WHY???

Why do students think first about education over health?

Is this because our generation is still young and naive and therefore, doesn’t have the same sense of worry? Is it because the situation isn’t as bad here so we aren’t thinking about the implications as intensely? Is it because every professor keeps reminding us that this is not actually the most deadly disease currently being transmitted? Or could it be because our education system focuses on schooling above wellbeing so that’s what we’ve learned to focus on too?

Honestly, it’s probably a bit of all of the above, but it’s the last question that worries me the most. When I think about my k-12 schooling, I know that individual teachers might say “put your health first and we’ll be here for you,” but I’m not sure how much I really saw this mentality in action systematically.  Whether it be mental or physical illnesses, you never really got a break from school. I remember a kid who had a serious concussion during the year that was denied from exempting exams, despite still attaining the necessary A average in the class, but it was because their illness caused them to miss too many days of school. I remember kids leaving early, or for days, due to therapy, but they had to pick up packets of strenuous homework before they left. I remember being sick myself and wanting to skype into classes so I wouldn’t have to deal with the make-up work and the amount of catch up you have to play from just missing a few days for being sick.  – Granted, I acknowledge my own bias because I’m aware of how personally I can be overly anxious about this kind of thing, but I know I’m not the only one that stresses time off from being sick.

And now we have this virus that is causing schools to move to online and I just wonder, especially now – how do we remain aware of wellbeing in our education system?

Should we even be having classes still? I can really argue both ways.

Part of me immediately thinks, “Of course! It’s the middle of the semester and we’ve already done half the work it seems silly to stop doing school work now if we’re not actually sick. It would make me more annoyed to have to not count any of this semesters’ work and start over and get pushed back a semester, plus school can be a good distraction sometimes.”

However, on the other hand, I think about all the students who typically rely on school for food, housing, work-study, etc. The students having to all of a sudden rapidly relocate. The international students worrying about family members overseas. I think about the teachers now working from home and having to balance between watching their own kids since schools are closed while also trying to change their lesson plans to be compatible with online learning. Not to mention I can only imagine all of the challenges involved with being in an area that’s actually infected. And when I think about all of these challenges I seriously wonder if students and teachers are mentally healthy enough to be also worrying about tests and projects and watching online lectures right now.

There’s no “right” answer, everything has pros and cons. And I know everyone is trying the best they can to make appropriate decisions in this time of great uncertainty, but I  can’t stop wondering about this balance between school and wellbeing and how this current volatile situation could be a chance to reconsider our actions towards wellbeing during the typical school year.

Science tells us there are good stressors and bad stressors – stressors that motivate us to work harder and grow as scholars and those that hinder us and decrease our mental and physical capacity. How might we make sure school isn’t a bad stressor? It doesn’t need to be, but oftentimes I find that it is.

Personally, I’m trying really hard right now to not be overwhelmed with the thought of being forced to leave my exchange program early and all that entails. I don’t think I like the fact that I’m more concerned with my education than my health at the moment but at least it’s led me to interesting observations that are also serving as good distractions. And I wonder, how are we going to learn from this pandemic about the balance between school and wellbeing, and how are we going to utilize what we learn once it’s under control? 

 

 

 

With that, happy Friday the 13th… and almost Pi Day! Hope this weekend isn’t my last here in New Zealand.

iNACOL Recap/Takeaways

Last week involved dozens of hours of learning and networking with thought leaders around the country working towards transforming the education system. While I reflected each night of the conference, I also decided this week to put together a presentation of some of the biggest trends and takeaways I noticed from the conference. The intent of this presentation is so that I can share highlights from the conference with the rest of the Trailblazers Production Team since I was the only member able to attend; however, I thought I would also share it publically if anyone else was curious about the happenings at iNACOl (at least from the sessions I attended).

iNACOL Day 1: Questions to Ponder

Being able to attend events like iNACOL Symposium (as of today now known as Aurora Institute) really means a lot to me because it’s an opportunity to dive deep into the world of k-12 education – a world which I’ve been somewhat disconnected from since entering undergrad. It’s been amusing to me to see all of the surprised faces when people learn I’m a young learner that chose to attend this conference; my number one asked question of the day is, “So why are you here? Is it for a class or something…?” Yet to me what is surprising is the lack of young learners in attendance, especially since this particular conference has no registration fee for k-12 students. I have always said that my personal motivation in this field is driven by the belief that young learners should be at the forefront of education transformation. Students are the primary users of school, and every good design project will say you have to start with the users to talk with them, empathize with them, and build with them in order to actually create something that meets user needs and therefore will last.

Anyway, despite the lack of young learners, we had some great conversations today! I felt like my day was divided by three main conversations so I’ll focus my reflection on those three areas: professional development, research on online learning, and whole child development.

 

Professional Development:

In the realm of professional development, we mainly just discussed a lot of interesting questions several of us are having in regards to what effective PD looks like in innovative k-12 environments. Personally, I’m interested in the question, “How might we re-design teach training from the very beginning (i.e. undergrad teacher education)?” because if re-design teacher education then it should make the onboarding process for new teachers entering innovative learning environments much smoother. We didn’t really discuss this question in-depth today, but I enjoyed having the opportunity to work on framing this question since I have recently realized that it is a reoccurring theme in my pondering. We did however talk a lot about, “HMW measure/insure the impact of professional development on teacher growth?” I found this question particularly interesting because a lot of discussions in education have been focused around competency-based learning and how to measure/assess this style of learning. And theoretically, I see no reason why these same methodologies couldn’t be used to measure/assess teacher learning and growth. Why don’t we always practice what we preach? If we truly believe that teachers are learners too, doesn’t it make sense to provide them with frequent and specific feedback on their work? Some teachers might not yet be comfortable with the idea of receiving constant feedback on their work, but we can’t improve as individuals, schools, or larger communities without feedback. As one of our table group members said “It’s a wonderful place, your comfort zone, but nothing grows there.”

 

 

Research on Online Learning:

Moving on into the day, we discussed a lot about education research specifically within the context of online and blended learning. Today I learned that I don’t know very much about online or blended learning. I’ve taken a few online courses in the past, and I had mixed opinions about them, but that’s about my extent of knowledge in this area of education. I never realized how many different kinds of online learning systems that exist until today but apparently there are over eight based on what came up in our discussions. I don’t have a particular interest in this topic, but today was really the pre-conference day for iNACOL and since I was going to be here anyway, I decided to participate in a session and the only free session was about online and blended learning, thus that’s what I participated in. To be honest, I felt like there was a lot of information that went over my head. The session was designed based on past feedback from online teachers who requested more sessions specific to online/virtual/blended education; thus there were a lot of experts in the room talking about a lot of specific elements of research and practice.

While I didn’t have a lot of take aways today specific to online learning, I did appreciate the general focus on new education practices needing to be grounded in research. A big thing being pushed was that every change should be backed by research, and I think that’s an important idea because it proves people aren’t creating change just for the sake of it. There is a lot of thought and evidence behind decisions which helps make a very convincing case for change that goes beyond just, “Well the old system clearly doesn’t work.”

Something I also heard a lot of today was the idea of “researcher or practitioner.” This came up because our presenters were wanting to bridge this gap, noting that researchers really want to hear from practitioners what kind of research is actually needed in the field that way when research is conducted it can be of real use in the field. However, I wasn’t a big fan of the idea that we have to either be a researcher or a practitioner. Maybe it’s just the reality that we all tend to be one or the other, but I’d imagine it would be more interesting if we all did a little of both. I don’t see why k-12 practitioners can’t also be researchers. Sure timing might be challenging, but if a school could have adult learners both researching and practicing innovative teaching methods I can only imagine the sort of interesting insights that would come about.

 

 

Whole Child Development:

Finally, the end of my night included a great opening keynote given by Dr. Brooke Stafford-Brizar with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The keynote was all about education needing to be whole child-focused which means focusing on 6 key aspects: physical health, mental health, social-emotional development, identity development, academic development, and cognitive development. One of my favorite things she said was, “When we’re most vulnerable is when learning takes place.” I was fortunate to have an overall pretty great high school experience with very supportive peers and mentors, but I also am very aware that this is not the case for many k-12 students. Dr. Stafford-Brizar showed word clouds about studies showing when students and teachers alike were asked to pick a word that comes to mind when they think of school they thought of things like stressed, frustrated, and overwhelmed. We know all too well that mental health is an extreme problem in education today, but we have to intentionally design time, space, and culture focused on supporting mental health in order for these issues to change. Dr. Stafford-Brizar made an analogy I loved and will probably now unintentionally butcher: “We don’t expect calculus to be learned in a morning meeting or an advisory session; we intentionally design class lessons to teach these skills. So why do we expect mental health to be learned without intentionally designing for it to be taught to students?” My big wonder though is how do we actually do this in practice? Dr. Stafford-Brizar suggests starting with the adults and making sure their mental health is addressed so that it permeates into the student body. But culture change is anything but easy. So how might we create a culture that’s comfortable with being uncomfortable and vulnerable? Starting with the adults seems like a great idea, but what does that really mean and look like in the start? There is no switch that will all of a sudden make everyone totally open to talking about personal struggles at school. I’ve seen examples of schools that do a really great job with mental health, but I still don’t feel like I have a good concept on how they got started. Or in some cases, I know that the school was founded with mental health as a key principle to the mission so there wasn’t the same cultural shift that has to happen in a preexisting environment trying to become more aware of mental health needs.

So overall I would describe day 1 as a day of thought provoking questions. I didn’t have any mind blowing, game changing takeaways, but sometimes it’s okay to just take away lots of questions because every question is an opportunity to learn.

 

 

Pictures from today:

Brave Ballet Boys

I had to write a blog post about the #boysdancetoo movement storming social media this weekend. I’m a little late to this conversation and probably won’t provide any new insight on the topic, though perhaps there’s a chance I’ll bring attention to this issue to a new audience, and that chance was enough to get me writing.

Friday on Good Morning America co-host Lara Spencer laughed at Prince George for taking ballet classes which inspired dancers and other members of the arts community around the country to use this as an opportunity to voice the struggle of boys in dance.

It’s appalling to think in today’s society we still have people laughing at boys in dance or any arts programs. I don’t think Spencer even realized what she was implying by laughing at the idea of a boy in ballet class – she’s just been raised in a world that associates dancing with girls and thus the idea of anything else seemed funny to her and lots of others. It’s important to remember that not all bullies realize they’re bullying; sometimes the reason things hurt so bad is that the other person fundamentally doesn’t understand why they’re wrong.

I’ve been highly involved in the arts all my life and have guy friends and family members in the arts as well; so I am constantly hearing how hard it is for boys to participate in dance, theater, or even just a visual arts class at school, and it’s ridiculous. Ridiculous to think boys can’t do anything girls can do and visa a versa.

To participate in the arts takes discipline, persistence, vulnerability, craftsmanship, courage – what human would we not want to exhibit these traits? And yet boys around the world get bullied every day for showcasing their talents. I’ve witnessed first hand how demoralizing it can be for young boys to be told they are less of a man for following their passions, and it breaks my heart when more often than acceptable these boys drop the arts just to get away from the taunting.

Why does this bullying still persist? Because society continues to promote these ideas with every laugh and snide comment made towards boys in the arts.

In the past few days since this news report was aired, there has been a myriad of post on social media about inspiring male dancers and all the influential male figures who once took dance lessons as kids and how toxic this broadcast was to all young ploys starting a career in the arts. But what makes me most sad is that unless you already follow members of the arts community, you probably will never hear all the inspiring comments being made. So all those people around the country agreeing and laughing alongside of this broadcast will just continue to elongate this negative cycle of criticism, shaming, and bullying.

And it always comes back to the kids. Kids who listen and mimic what they hear. We need to spread positive rhetoric about boys in the arts, showcase their talents, and let the bullies know just how wrong they are. Boys in the arts are some of the bravest and strongest men I know.

This was especially evident when in response to the broadcast a few big-name dancers and choreographers gathered in NYC Monday morning to have a ballet class on the streets of Time Square in front of Good Morning America. There were hundreds on the streets – boys and girls alike – dancing down the pavement to show just how strong and connected of a community the dance world is. There were also comments made at this event about how this ballet class was not fueled by hatred; they were dancing to forgive and to take advantage of the opportunity to bring attention to the issue of boys in the arts being bullied.

I’m not a ballet dancer, so instead of dancing, I’m writing about this story because it truly is an issue that should present a challenge to our school systems. HMW encourage boys in the arts in our schools?

New Read, New Perspective

I’m only two chapters into Whatever it Takes by Paul Tough, and I’m already so intrigued by this story on education, poverty, and trying to change the life of kids living in Harlem.

Geoffrey Canada grew up in poverty in Harlem and successfully climbed to middle-class status and feels utterly grateful for how he got to where he is today. Thus, Canada began working to help other Harlem kids catch up on their academics, but after spending years working in an after-school program he started to become frustrated with just how many kids were still slipping through the cracks. Whatever it Takes details the journey Canada took to start the Harlem Children’s Zone with the goal being, “to transform every aspect of the environment that poor children were growing up in; to change the way their families raised them and the way their schools taught them as well as the character of the neighborhood that surrounded them” (Tough 19). This new approach Canada believed had the potential to change the way Americans viewed poverty and change the lives of poor children by the masses so they could “grow into fully functioning participants in mainstream American middle-class life” (Tough 4).

So why are poor people poor? Chapter two of Whatever it Takes presents a lot of research from different perspectives that attempt to answer this question. Honestly, it was fascinating to read about completely conflicting ideas society has concluded about poverty. Is it all about money, or what else might be a part of this story? Does government aid help or hinder? What resources are most key to success? How do parenting styles affect child development?

These various researchers did seem to agree on a few things: intelligence is highly valued in today’s society, intelligence and socioeconomic status are correlated, children intelligence is correlated with the intelligence levels of their parents, there are distinct parenting style differences between the middle class and poor.

The most interesting area of consideration to me was the concept of different parenting styles and the developmental effects they have on kids.

In particular, I enjoyed reading about Annette Lareau, sociologist and author of Unequal Childhoods, who was discussed as an example of someone focusing on the assets of all types of parenting; rather than looking at parenting styles with a conclusion of “this way is better.” Lareau’s theory is that middle-class parents treat kids like, “apprentice adult,” meaning that they are invited into conversations almost as equals and are encouraged to “ask questions and challenge assumptions and negotiate rules” (Tough 49). Additionally, middle-class children have very busy schedules with activities that the entire family will get involved in. Meanwhile, poor families had very different parenting styles. Children in poor families learn to entertain themselves in creative ways due to participating in far fewer extracurriculars, and kids learn to treat adults with respect; in Lareau’s study, she observed “much less freedom to talk back, question authority, or haggle over rules and consequences” in poor households (Tough 49).

Lareau concludes that the middle-class parenting style emphasis individualism at the expense of developing the family group which is developed more so in a poor family.

I fear my summarizing is far oversimplifying all of this information, but what really interested me in all of this is how recently I have observed the notion and stigma of “entitlement” becoming more common. Yet, Lareau seems to believe the middle-class parenting style is both creating this sense of entitlement while also developing the individual and skills that are currently preferred by modern American culture in the workplace: learning how to question, challenge, negotiate, multitask, and represent ones’ self.

So I guess my question is: Have we gone too far?

In my head I visualize the idea of skills gained from parenting styles as a parabola; for so long we have valued in the workplace the skills associated with middle-class parenting styles, thus my theory is, these parental tendencies were enhanced in an attempt to enhance the skills being developed by new generations of kids entering the workforce. However, like all things, you can almost always have too much. Have we too strongly favored the middle-class parenting values and now one of the outcomes – entitlement – has reached a tipping point where the parenting style is, in fact, creating undesirable outcomes?

Do we perhaps need to put a greater emphasis on fostering good family relations and respect as is found to be more commonly fostered in poor families? How do we do this? How is this cultural norm that is so deeply in rooted in our modern American culture shifted to be better balanced?

I don’t even know the true magnitude of this supposed entitlement problem I am proposing, but from my experience working with children in gymnastics, I know children behavior and belief of being “deserving” has seemed to have grown significantly in the past few years even. Meanwhile, families seem to almost always be “unique” or “broken” or “untraditional” or whatever you want to call it that boils down to the idea that families spend less time together. Seems like there could be a greater correlation there and that was just really fascinating to me.

I truly appreciate when required learning is fascinating enough to feel like you’re just learning because you want to be, and that’s so far what the entire summer program I’m on has felt like, so I am especially grateful and excited for the future learning to come in the next 6 weeks.